The Rich Roll Podcast - Winter Fitness & The Canon Of Consistency With Chris Hauth

Episode Date: January 11, 2019

Making his latest appearance in our ongoing Coach’s Corner series is none other than Chris Hauth, one of the world’s most respected endurance and ultra-endurance coaches. A sub-9 hour Ironman, Chris (@AIMPCoach) is a former professional triathlete, Age Group Ironman World Champion, and 2-time Olympic Swimmer. In 2006, Chris won the Ironman Coeur D’Alene and went on to be the first American amateur & 4th overall American at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. When he’s not training and racing, Chris hosts the Weekly Word Podcast and runs AIMP Coaching, mentoring a wide spectrum of athletes ranging from elite professionals — including Ironman and Western States top finishers, Ultraman winners and Olympic Trials qualifiers — to first time half-marathoners. Whether you are an elite athlete or just starting out, Chris knows how to get the best out of athletes the right way. A long-time friend and mentor as much as a coach, I have been under Chris’ tutelage since 2008, during which time he deftly guided me through three Ultraman World Championships (’08, ’09 & ’11), EPIC5 in 2010 and the Ötillö Swimrun World Championships in 2017, an event we raced together as a team. I could have never achieved the level of athletic success I have enjoyed without Chris’ deft counsel, so it is with pleasure that I share more of his wisdom with you today. Today's discussion centers around maintaining fitness engagement during the cold winter months, when the halo effect of your New Year's resolutions have faded and inspiration tends to wane. We cover a wide variety of topics, including: * setting proper goals; * creating enthusiasm for your yearly resolutions; * maintaining connection with your fitness when motivation fails; * how self-care can provide clarity, reflection and intention; * why this is the season for functional strength work; and * the importance of connecting with self and nature through physical activity 2019 is now. Who you want to be come summer begins today. So let's get after it. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. If so (and you're new to the show), check out Chris' previous appearances in episodes 21, 256, 297, 309, 313, 329 and 377. For the visually inclined, you can watch our entire conversation on YouTube here: bit.ly/chrishauth415 and the podcast is now available on Spotify. Enjoyed! Rich

We're able to give so much more if we take care of ourselves on a daily basis. We want to be able to hear what our body's telling us. It's just there's so much static every day in our lives that it's hard to hear it. And getting a chance to work out can sort of reset the operating system once a day. operating system once a day. Don't let anybody rob you of your joy and journey in nature, training and doing this every day. That's self-care. That's very protected time every day. You deserve that. That's Chris Houth. And this is another edition of Coach's Corner on the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Got a great show for you here today.

My guest making his latest and an ongoing series of appearances on the show, I think this is like his seventh or eighth time on the podcast, is none other than two-time Olympian, former professional triathlete, Ironman champion, age group Ironman world champion, and one of the world's most respected endurance and ultra endurance coaches, who also just so happens

to be my coach and good friend, Chris Howth. Got a great conversation with him coming up in a couple of few, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially

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or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Chris House. So this is Chris's first appearance in the show in quite a while, and I thought it would be great and appropriate for him to come on the podcast in early January to just help us connect with our fitness goals, keep us enthusiastic about them during these colder winter months. So,

of course, we talk about New Year's resolutions and goal setting, how to be consistent and stay on the path. We talk about self-care and how training can provide clarity, reflection, and intention during the winter. And we talk about feeling connected to yourself and nature through physical activity. So 2019 is here. This is happening, people. So whether you're super engaged with your goals heading into the new year or whether you've already fallen off track, fallen off the wagon, I think it would be good and appropriate and helpful to check in with the wagon. I think it would be good and appropriate and helpful to check in with the

coach. So this is me and Chris Houth in our first edition of Coach's Corner of 2019. Good to see you, my man. Good to see you. It's been a while. Yep, it always is. But, you know, coming down here and seeing you and this was a trip coming up here. Wow. Yeah, so we're recording this on November 27th. It's not going to air until January, but you're here literally a week after the Woolsey fire. Yeah.

So you came up Malibu Canyon. And wow, seeing not only where the flames were, but also the reddish, pinkish fire retardant on the hillside, that is already impactful. And then, you know, melted fences and things like that. It's pretty intense coming up here. Super intense. The firefighters and first responders did an unbelievable job of ensuring that the fire did not jump that road. We live just east of that, about two miles as the crow flies. So we were very lucky and spared, and the wind was not blowing in our direction.

But just on the east side of Malibu Canyon Road, it's a lunar landscape. of Malibu Canyon Road. It's just a lunar landscape. Yeah, it's pretty impactful coming up here and you realize how quickly that could have moved or did move and how we're not safe anywhere. I mean, I live in Marin County where you know how tight the streets are and how overgrown it is and man.

Yeah, it's intense. We evacuated Friday morning morning i woke up early the power went out at like 6 a.m and then the cell service went out and that's freaky you know and so i got in my car and drove down the street to that corner down the way and you could see fires on the ridge line and it was moving super quick and i was like okay we're getting out of here by the time we got down downtown, it had already reached the beach, it was moving at like the rate of like, they said like eight football fields a minute

or something like that. And just devastation in its path. And I've been going up on some of the trails around here to just kind of check out like what it looks like. And it's amazing like if you go instead of turning right onto my street if you've gone north to the very end of las virginas road there's a trailhead there and there's a huge nature preserve you i mean you could run an ultra marathon in there there's just tons of land that's protected and it's completely

just blackened yeah and you but I heard renewal happens pretty quickly. Do you see anything already? Or we haven't had any rains down here. There was one rain. It rained for a couple hours the other night. I've heard that as well. I think we need a little bit more time. And there's going to be some more rain coming this weekend.

So we'll see. I mean, the next fear now is mudslides and all of that. Oh, of course. Everybody's sort of bracing for that. Of course, yeah. And I've got friends who have lost their homes and plenty of friends displaced. A lot of friends still displaced because power is not returned. And when you go to certain communities further north along the coast, particularly like Point

Dume and the hillside above Zuma, where Malibu High School is, they got it really bad there. Just so many houses are gone. It's crazy. It's crazy. Let me ask you this. When you evacuated, did you get orders or did you guys sort of just decide? So what happened was a lot of neighborhoods around here,

the surrounding neighborhoods, were under mandatory evacuation. And because we had no cell service or anything like that, like I didn't know, I went down to the firehouse down the hill here. There's a little neighborhood firehouse to just find out what the status was. And he said that we weren't under mandatory evacuation at that time. We left anyway, but they invoked that, like, I don't know, the next morning or something like that. And what was interesting was that I wanted to remind them, hey, we have a swimming pool and we actually have hookups for the hoses. They know that because they come here and we have to clear our land every year and, you know, we're friendly with the guys down there.

But in case they forgot, I just wanted, you know, we're going to leave the gate open so you guys can access that water if you need it. And I said, how's it looking? And this is like 6.30 a.m. on Friday, the day of the fire beginning. And he said, well, it was super windy too. He's like, look, it's picked Trankus as its line. It's going all the way to the beach. There's no doubt about it, but you're going to be fine. And he was pretty chill about it. Wow. And he was exactly right. Like these guys know. Oh, yeah.

You know, they have so much experience at spotting this and understanding how these fires. I mean, they're like organic, you know, entities. And they study that. Yeah. So my business partner, Greg, his company is way out in Thousand Oaks. And Thursday, because that's where the first fire started in Thousand Oaks. And like Thursday midday, he was with Jack Nosko, who is a kind of a legend around here. Local firefighter does a big group like century ride every year. And Jack, there was a fire way off in the distance north of Thousand Oaks. And Jack apparently told Greg, you guys got to get out of here. It's coming directly here.

And it was so far away. Greg's like, come on. There's no way. And he's like, no, I'm serious. And he knew exactly the path that that fire was going to take like that experience of fighting fires for you know the breadth of your career like they just have an ability to it's amazing those guys were all amazing absolutely amazing and then when you decided we're out of here like how does that work what you chose or not knowing i mean we didn't you know we didn't panic it wasn't a panic because it wasn't right there,

but it was serious enough. Like, hey, you know, the right thing to do is to leave. And we didn't bring, I mean, we brought our computers and that was it. I ended up coming back on Saturday afternoon when it was under mandatory evacuation and the cops had the roads blocked off, but I showed them my ID and they said,

you can go in, but you're at your risk. So I came to the house and the only thing we did was we took all the photographs and photo albums and packed them into the containers that we have and just locked those because we couldn't bring all that stuff downtown to where we were staying, but they would be relatively safer versus being in the house should something happen.

But it was super eerie to be here on Saturday because there was nobody here. The winds had died down. The sky was orange, you know, and just ash was falling everywhere. And you could hear a pin drop, and it was bizarre. It was really weird. Wow. So we got really lucky. Well, I'm glad you guys are okay.

And the rebuilding, hopefully, in this community goes well. Yeah. Well, that's the thing that has been kind of profound about this experience is seeing the community come together. And you hear about this when you talk to people that were in Manhattan during 9-11, how the community kind of congeals to support each other. And that's certainly been the case in this community. Yeah, purpose, right? Yeah. But so many people displaced and even people that want to rebuild their homes, there isn't necessarily places for them to rent or stay in the meantime, because we now are in a housing shortage. So it's going to be interesting to see how that impacts

the community long term. I would imagine there's going to be some fracturing. And there's also, you know, then rates, you know, rental rates go up because it's an opportunistic situation. And that's kind of like the downside of the whole thing. So you guys have a lot ahead of you still. Yeah. But anyway, man, this is not what we're going to talk about. Sorry. Sorry. I get distracted. Yeah, well, we're going to talk about new year, new you, how endurance can improve your life, no matter where you sit on the fitness spectrum. But before we kind of get into that, I haven't even sat with you in person to talk to you about doing Otillo this year. Yeah, yeah. Otillo. You know, I was with somebody who is Swedish and I did my best Swedish.

Otillo. I think I was like, Otillo. I was like, that's good, right? He's like, no. He just like laughed at me. Yeah, yeah. I don't even attempt it, especially when I was in Sweden the second time just now.

And I just, I came across as a good American. Right. Otillo. Right. Well, they appreciate the effort, I think. Yeah, yeah American. Right. Oh, till oh. Right. Well, they appreciate the effort. Yeah. So it was a little bit different this year. It was completely different.

Like I've said to a variety of people who have asked me about it, they keep, it was like swimming in a swimming pool compared to us. Like if you would have put lane lines between the islands, it would have been that smooth. Wow. And then we actually had to put on sunscreen. It was that sunny. Oh, my gosh. And just powerful sun and not necessarily warm, but warm for Sweden in September. And then zero currents.

Like, remember we had that one island that we went from one island to the other and the water was shooting on those rocks between the two islands and it looked like a flume, like at an amusement park. And that wasn't even there this year. I was even telling my partner, Frank, at the time, I was like, okay, and over this next hill, we're going to see this really cool flume, and it's really cool current, and it's probably going to be pretty cold in there. Nothing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We should say for, if somebody's listening, who's brand new, Otillo is this swim run race, the swim run world championships that takes place in the,

uh, the archipelago off the coast of Stockholm every year at 75 kilometers. And you swim and run across how many islands? 26. 26 islands, 52 transitions, something like that. Chris and I did it together the year prior, and we had just epic weather conditions, pouring rain, sideways wind, white caps, crazy surf, the whole thing. And every aspect that you can imagine was the opposite was the opposite this year from no wind to no swells to no chop to to warm temperatures versus us like the the aid stations people were wearing t-shirts this year instead of full right foul weather gear off of a sailboat like in our year unbelievable yeah um

did you get hot in the wetsuit then did you have strip it off? We stripped a lot more than we did just the top down a lot more. Unzipping and caps off a lot more. It got pretty hot out there. Yeah. And what did you do differently? Like conditions aside, like from the first experience, which we did, what did you learn that you applied this time that you think benefited you? What benefited me and my partner, partner was definitely more trail running, definitely more sort of jumping, bouldering up in Tahoe, more rock to rock, tighter turns, tighter terrain. I definitely changed expectations. Remember us with our paddles?

Our aid station times or cutoff times? I got rid of all those. Yeah. Just because I was like- Was it like our original plan was we were going to go like nine hours or something? No, I think we wanted to go closer to 930. So I had those times on those same paddles this year again, and I was looking at them before the race going,

all right, it was a lot easier year. So we did go an hour faster, but we walked more than we did the year before because my partner started getting calf cramps really bad. He couldn't run and also had some GI issues. So, you know, it was an hour faster, but that's how easy the conditions were this year. And the winners went over an hour and 15 minutes faster. I mean, they broke eight hours by a lot. Right. I mean, and that record will probably stand for a while given the conditions. Unbelievable. Again, you could fully swim, and you could see over a good 15, 20 yards underwater where your competitors were.

I mean, like I said, a swimming pool and you full stroke, no problem. Right. Were there the jellyfish this year? No jellyfish. Really? Nothing. I remember there were just like thousands and thousands everywhere you looked. I think washed them up, but no, it was quite, it was quite, I mean, to say easy is sort of disrespectful and it's still an endurance event, But compared to the adventure we went on, it was completely different. Like I thought they put on an event in Croatia, also Island to Island, Hvar, I think it's called. And going by the website of that, it's like we did it there. Right.

So it was a completely different feel, tropical, warmer, smoother, easier in that respect because you're not as fatigued on all the rocks. They weren't as wet. We didn't slip as much. Even the spectators were at such ease and not even in awe of us like last year. Oh, they're having fun. Yeah. We did it. They were in awe of us.

This was sort of like, oh, it's a beautiful. They were barbecuing. They were in awe of us. This was sort of like, oh, it's a beautiful. They were barbecuing. There was a barbecuing stops and beer drinking stops. And that not for the participants, but for the spectators. The locals.

Was the pig swim flat too? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It was, again, I wouldn't say disappointing because that's the wrong word for it, but it was such the opposite experience that what we had and how that unfolded and us shaking our heads in amazement so many times at the top of those cliffs. I mean,

that's going to be the lasting memory of Attillo for me always. Of course. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't change a thing. I would have preferred when I was there that it had been the tropical conditions. But in retrospect, I'm perfectly happy that it was the challenge that it was. Yeah, but still amazingly organized. Those guys, Michael and Mats, do such a good job. And a variety of different people there this year organized a little bit differently. We took buses to it instead of a ferry. They took buses to the hotel. And then in the morning at like 4.30, we took a ferry to the start versus being where we

were. Right, right. So you had to wake up much earlier then. We did have to wake up much earlier, but imagine your night from the race night when you did it with me and the shutters were- Oh, it was terrible. I didn't sleep at all you couldn't sleep because the whole place was shaking right it was like an old hotel and these wooden shutters would keep banging on the windows and doors and you know that was all night and the wind howling well this year a there was no wind but we're also in a super modern nice hotel right completely anything that could be opposite happened opposite yeah were there other american teams there yeah a lot of uh similar ones a couple of similar ones the texas team and andy who runs the all the america's swim run was there again and um yeah so a variety

of different teams a couple of ours Lars there? Lars was not there. He was doing the one that he was organizing with Lance and Simon. Right, right, right. So he was busy for that. And he was going to do a race, SOS it's called, on the East Coast, up in the Northeast. But he couldn't last minute, so he was not there, unfortunately. Well, it's cool to see Swim Run kind of getting a foothold in the u.s with what you know lars is doing and that organization there's more and more races and

then of course as you just mentioned we saw lance and simon whitfield did that race this year um so it's cool and i think it speaks to uh this this uh this need or desire that a lot of people have to extend their fitness journey and experience beyond the local 5K or the kind of races that we've grown accustomed to, to these more outdoors, nature-based adventure challenges. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it tugs deeply at the spirit and soul of a

lot of people. I think Americans in general, since we're a very adventurous folk, but I think in all aspects of everybody around the world of liking these outdoor adventures and something that really challenges them, puts them on the far edge of what they deem as possible, a little bit of fear, a little bit of respect for it, and therefore that motivating them to take on these adventures. And I think it taps into something very deep within us. Like I was saying to you earlier,

when you look at an REI poster or a Patagonia catalog and you just see the campsites and the fire and these beautiful mountains in the background. And there's something that tugs at you that just wants to be outdoors, that wants to live in this adventurous way. And I think that's just part of who we are from our evolution, right? Being outdoors and living on planes and being aerobically active every day. It's in our DNA. And as I said last time on this podcast, I believe in that very deeply. Born to run. Yeah, it is born to run, but also that spirit of adventure and however we take that on is part of who we are. Yeah. So we're seeing the explosion of the ultra running community.

I mean, there's so many races now and some of them just get crazier and crazier and crazier, like pushing the envelope of, of what a human being is capable of doing. But at the same time, you see challenges like Spartan race and the, all the obstacle course racing. Spartan Race and all the obstacle course racing. It's more accessible to weekend warrior type people. Challenges that people can wrap their heads around that are adventure based, that get people out of their comfort zone, but are different and unique

and really bring the natural environment into the authentic experience of the event itself. Yeah, and I think it's also important to recognize there that the organizers, besides looking to make it sustainable financially, you want something where it's not always this once a year event, right? The hardest thing for an Ironman

or those type of distances, you can't do them more than two or three times a year. And if these athletes, which I call them all athletes, are in an urban environment and to put something out there that they can do multiple times a year, even once a month, that's a value because it keeps them exercising.

It keeps them engaged in being healthy and fit and self-care. So in the athletes that you coach, are you seeing more and more of them veering towards these types of... Yeah, more and more adventures, more and more curiosity to what else they can do, more and more realizing a potential that's beyond the Ironman or a 70.3. And not all of them take on this adventure right away. They might be starting with a 10K and they're doing it in a very methodical way, right? And of course, there's many of them that I say,

well, let's just throw something out there like we did with you and just do it. You learn so much about yourself on that journey, on that path. But again, you learn so much about yourself on that journey, on that path. But again, it has to be something scary and that you respect that keeps you engaged in the journey, right? And not looking for an outcome, not looking for a result, not looking for something to validate the ego of a result, but more, this is what I truly enjoy every single day or

every other day. However, we create that plan. But like I was saying to others earlier as well, is that that daily check-in with yourself is so important, right? That you spend some time with yourself, 45 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour and a half a day. Over a week, that adds up to seven, eight hours where you are truly within yourself, your own breathing, your own heart rate, feeling your body move, elevated heart rate, aerobic activity.

It awakens so much within us that you are only positively, there's only a positive outcome from that. More creative, more patient, more energetic, more. I mean, there's only a positive outcome from that. More creative, more patient, more energetic, more, I mean, there's so many studies and so much science has already verified this, but I think it also touches into something deeper that we want to be able to hear what our body's telling us. It's just, there's so much static every day in our lives that it's hard to hear it. And getting a chance to work out,

no matter what environment it is, I mean, of course, there's treadmills and trainers too. Closing your eyes on a trainer and having to ride, time goes by very slow, as we know. But again, your ability to practice that every day makes five minutes go to 10 minutes, go to 20 minutes, go to 60 minutes real quickly. And there's a lot of reflection and time in there where you can sort of reset the operating system

once a day. Yeah, time becomes very malleable in endurance training. I just know that at the beginning of a season, a two-hour bike ride just feels like forever. And then by the end of the season, that eight-hour bike ride feels like shorter than the two-hour. It's weird. Your relationship with time bends. And it's like, oh, I've been going six hours. I only have two hours more.

That's like a movie. That's no big deal. I notice it most swimming, like open water swimming. At the beginning of the season, you're swimming for 10 minutes and it feels like, oh, that must be 30 minutes. And you look down, it's eight. But then the more you do it, the more you actually get in tune with the true timing of your body. And I think the same thing happens running and cycling as well.

Well, to that point of, you know, being born to move our bodies in a certain way, I mean, you know, what I always feel and say is that I don't feel like I'm myself unless I'm doing these things. You know, then I feel whole, I feel complete, I feel like I'm the best version of who I am when I return from a workout and you feel invigorated and you feel present and focused and capable, all of those things. I think it does run very, very deep into our DNA and who we are as human beings. And we're able to give so much more if we take care of ourselves on a daily basis. And it sounds selfish in some ways, oh, my workout or my exercise, but your energy, your patience, your vitality towards work, towards family,

towards community, all that changes when you yourself have gotten in your time every day. Yeah, so you've been an athlete your entire life. Since you were a young boy, you went from Olympic swimmer right into professional triathlete, right into high-ranking amateur endurance athlete, coach, all of this sort of thing. Have you ever taken a break? I have. I've been injured. What is the longest break you've ever taken? Probably about six weeks.

Yeah, okay. Six to eight weeks. Must have been torturous for you. Yes, it was. But on the other hand, I mean, it's hard to look back at it now. It was more torturous then, but now I reflect back and go, oh, it was the greatest thing that could have happened at the time because I needed relationships that needed mending or something to be done in the house where I was available for my children more. It just resets again. And you realize what you need to focus your priorities on. Yeah.

You must have people that look at you strangely though and think you're just some kind of alien being because you're always out there. Well, they talk about that lately, this fitness age versus your true age. There was just an article the other day. Just reading about that the other day too. And it talks about how many years you've been training

to sort of make it your fitness age. And in some cases it makes you older because of the wear and tear on your body and the stress. And then they also have this other theory on fitness age, making you younger because you're healthier and so forth. So I'm not sure which category I truly fall into because, yeah, I have been doing this at a high level all my life. But the part there that I try to tell people as much as I can is because I've done it through all phases

of my life, there is a way I can help you navigate how to do this. And whether it's a 10K, 5K, 100 mile run, Ironman, Ultraman, whatever the adventure is, there's a way to navigate it through our busy lives. You're still growing in your career. There's still some career learning or education you wanna take on. There's family, there's community, there's church, there's Little League, there's all those things, right? But you can still satisfy that personal interest of endurance

athletics. And that is, we reset the expectations a little bit, right? You're not going to win an Ironman, right? You might, but again, we will know once we're digging our heels into the training. And then secondly, it's the timeline. If in three years we want to do an Ironman, that's different than if we want to do one in three months. Of course the training is going to be different. And so my value that I try to give to the athletes as much as I can is help them navigate their day, their life, their priorities,

their career in order to still do this. Right. So this will come out in mid-January. So people are going to be listening to this and in a state of engagement with their New Year's resolutions, but also three weeks into the new year, that's when people start to already fall off their big ambitious goals that they've set for themselves at the end of December. So for people that are in North America or in the Northern Hemisphere, I should say, we're in the thick of winter. This is a challenging time to stay engaged and active with your fitness. So what is the counsel that you give the athletes that you work with about this period of time, this time of year? Well, usually, since it's coming out after the holidays, usually I give them focus on post-holidays, right? Where I'd say, let's kick out of the holidays in some way where we're somewhat connected to fitness.

We're not at ideal fitness, but we're somewhat connected to it. But when we're talking January, that's when we start approaching, we're in 2019, we're in the new year. And hopefully we have found a goal of something that excites you, where you close your eyes at night and it motivates you. You feel good, excited.

You can envision yourself doing it and being alive and having fun and smiling and really being passionate about it. And then it's a question of how are we building that long-term roadmap towards that? It doesn't mean that we have to attack this this weekend with long workouts. It's about getting consistent, about doing a little bit something every day. And how are we on the path towards achieving that outcome? And we have to enjoy it. I mean, sure, sitting in a basement on a treadmill is not that much fun in January, right?

Or in February or in March in many places. But if it's something where you still can close your eyes and see value in doing it because you're excited about the outcome and therefore can enjoy this journey better, you know, training time, like I was saying earlier, not only is it self-care time, but a lot of people look forward to it, to catch up on books on tape or audible or something like that, to listen to their podcasts, to reflect on their day, to think about their intentions for the day. It's a very unique time that you have to yourself every day. And you can basically take all your New Year's resolutions and get them done in that 45

to 90 minutes a day, right? Or 30 minutes a day. Reflection, intentions, future goals, health. What am I going to cook for dinner? How am I going to have breakfast tomorrow? What am I going to do this weekend? How am I going to plan my kids? All that can be done when we spend some time. Multitasking. Exactly. But that's part of it.

Like, you know, from when you go out trail running, after about 20, 30 minutes, your mind starts freeing up and things start, the portal opens, right? Not only to our unconscious self and some bigger thoughts and some real meaningful thoughts, but also some real clear things about you that you were maybe tossing around ideas with or trying to figure out. It all just starts becoming a lot more clear. Yeah, you get out of your own way. I think when you're intently focusing on solving a problem, solving a problem, solving a problem, and you're banging your head against the wall and you can't see your wayoring you in the present to allow your unconscious mind to take hold.

And I just find that I return from those sessions with a certain clarity that I can't get otherwise, and then the solution appears. it's almost like this bizarre equation that doesn't make logical sense where i'm more productive i'm more focused when i'm actively engaged in my training because i can problem solve at a higher level yep you go out for a run and come back and your answers are somehow there right the other thing you learn to trust that oh absolutely yeah and and some of your best creative ideas come from that and problem solving. The biggest thing with that though, is that it's remembering it, right? You stop and like, write it down or make like a voice memo or something. And even those sound funny afterwards when you listen to yourself panting. I didn't think I was that out of breath. But the other thing with January and February too, for us Northern Hemisphere athletes is be creative in how we get the heart rate up, right? I always say to my athletes, and I've said

this too on the podcast here, the heart doesn't know what it's doing. It could be doing jumping jacks, skate skiing, snowshoeing, riding its bike, running, whatever it is. And if you're getting your heart rate up a little bit every day or every other day, it depends on what we're getting ready for, use the environment and the terrain to your advantage to have fun with it, right? There's so many different adventures, things we can do in the winter from trail running and muddy and rainy days and the gear is awesome these days to snowshoeing and skate skiing and downhill skiing and hiking. I mean, use the season and the environment to help you stay connected, motivated to then when the weather does turn and you can truly do the activity that you're getting the

event ready for, then you'll be plenty fit to quickly shift the body around. Yeah. I had Killian Jornet in here recently and he's like the ultimate example of that. I mean, that guy just basically skis in the winter. He's not running, he's not running year round. Like I asked him, why are you able to maintain your like primacy? Like in a world of ultra runners

where you see people have one or two great seasons and then be unable to match that ever again, he's consistently at the top. And I was like, what do you attribute that to? And he's like, because I do a million different things. He keeps it interesting and he stays engaged with his fitness, but it changes based on the season

and the terrain that he's in. And he's not running year round. And their diet changes based off the season as well, right? As well as from a longevity standpoint, allowing yourself not to take everything so single-mindedly focused also helps you along that journey. So maybe, and I don't know him, it's because he can turn that off for a couple months a year and not worry about the outcome and the result as much and just listen to his body, I think that is a huge benefit.

Well, when you do turn the switch on, that it's there with all its energy and all its focus when needed. Yeah, it requires a certain level of confidence. I mean, I think most people get neurotic about it and they're like, well, if I'm not doing that, then I'm falling behind, I'm falling behind. Yeah, well, there is no falling behind

as a master's athlete, right? I mean, we only have our own path and that's why comparing to others robs the joy of it, right? If we're stuck always looking at what we want to achieve or a past self of what we have achieved, you're never going to enjoy it. Yes, January is going to end and you're going to quit that gym membership. Yeah. You learn that, I mean, both having had competitive swimming careers, you learn that quickly in the pool. Like, I just don't even worry about what the pace clock says.

No, especially now during the holidays. Because it's so hard to not measure yourself against, you know, those years and years and years where you could hit those certain intervals no problem. And especially now during the holidays, all the kids come home from college and stuff like that. A 12-year-old goes. And quickly you get moved down four lanes because you're like, you're too slow. Oh, man. Right. What do you think is the biggest mistake that most masters or amateur athletes make around this time of year?

Well, it's the thinking that you have to keep this perfect string of workouts going, right? If you get 80% of your week done, if you get three, four days together, strung together, done well, and you miss a day, that's fine, right? We're all not going to be 100% on any of this. I'm never 100% on any of this, let alone most of my athletes. Life gets in the way, right? We all went pro in something other than this master's sports. And so not judging ourselves, not worrying too much about missing a day,

because the next day you're going to come back more motivated, more focused, as well as fresher and more recovered and feel better doing it. So don't look for perfection, look for steady, it. So don't look for perfection. Look for steady, gradual progress. Consistency. Yeah. Because especially as masters athletes, as I like to call us, especially as swimmers, we remember how we used to be. Right. And we have this image when we take on an event, whether it's an Ironman, whether it's a swimming race, whether it's a running race, how we used to be and how, when we had a lot of time and no kids and not a career that demands a lot of us and so forth. Oh, that's what it felt like. That's how I felt. And that's how the rhythm of the training went. Well, that was 20 years ago, buddy.

Like you forget and you have to adjust those expectations. And that's why I always say, we can take on any endurance event. We just have to adjust the expectations. However you wanna achieve it, we can achieve it. But let's work around what the expectations are. For the endurance athlete out there, how important is the strength work, like time in the gym, this time of year? Well, besides that,

I will always say it's individual to the person. Strength work is quite important. The beauty of strength work that fits really well in with the seasons of endurance training and endurance athletics is that this is a great time of year when the rain is here, the snow is here, the cold temperatures to work on those things. It's again, taking advantage of the environment we're in. Spending the next 12 weeks, 16 weeks on strength and mobility, especially mobility more than strength. And mobility ties in stability work,

what I call chassis integrity, core stability, things like that. So that then come the spring, we can put a bigger load on the body when it's time. But yeah, I'm a big believer in strength work, not for everybody, because what's are the best use of our limited time, right? So some people, we do just need to run, right? We just need to get them moving and running, or walking in some cases. Others, we're better off spending that strength time

if they're in the more temperate climate on the bike, right? We can do hill repeats on the bike at a low cadence and really work those leg muscles, very similar to squats, but you're doing a very sports specific. Do you have a specific mobility slash strength slash core workout that you recommend people?

Yeah, no, I sort of fudge them all together from a variety of different people that I've worked with, things that I've liked, plans that I've applied and see how they work. That's the fun part, right? For me, even now at this time of year, I'm going through some different strength work and versions of strength work that I will then in two, three weeks hand on to my athletes. Like some of that kettleball stuff? Yeah. Kettleball. A lot of- Kettlebell. I did it again. I had Mike Mahler in here. Yeah, I know. I got like crucified because I had Mike Mahler in here. He's like an expert in kettlebells and I was calling him kettleballs.

Yes. Kettlebells, medicine balls, dumbbells. I like all that because, again, we want to manage the load. And kettlebells, because they're so versatile, allow you to do a lot of that work. And guess what? For $30 on Amazon, for $50 on Amazon, you can get a lot of that work. And guess what? For 30 bucks on Amazon, for 50 bucks on Amazon, you can get a pretty good set and do most of this stuff in the comfort of your home, 30 minutes. And you are getting huge benefits from that strength work. Single leg lunges and squats

and explosive jumps and so forth from a leg standpoint, core work, and all kinds of crossover work that you can do with kettlebells that works really, really well. Yeah. How many of your athletes are working on self-styled challenges that they just came up with themselves? Curated, as I call them, curated challenges. How would you call them? I call them, you can curate your own.

You know, you got to go with the buzzwords these days. As the kids call it curated challenges. Is that what you call them? I call them, you can curate your own. You know, you got to go with the buzzwords these days. As the kids call it, merch. I learned just the other day. Your kids watch YouTube. You're not getting swag. You're getting merch from them. Sorry. Curate their own adventures.

I would say about 40% of them. It's gone way up. They've done a variety of Ironmans. They've done a few organized longer events. And now they're more looking for adventures that they sort of can put together, not in their backyard, but within two, three, four, five hours of driving. And again, a lot in California or even here in North America, there's adventures to be found anywhere. So yeah, it's happening a lot more. Just people exploring even their area and their neighborhoods and their parks within two, three, four hours, right? We have Yosemite here. We have John Muir Trail. We have

the Pacific Northwest. We have desert. We have mountains. I mean, there's so much to be done there. I keep looking at events around the world and then I realize we've got some epic stuff just around here. What's one of the cooler, either sanctioned races or curated experiences that you've come across that are new and different? Well, now you caught me unprepared for an answer.

There's a variety of them. Well, the one that I was telling you about earlier is really cool that Ricky Gates is doing. I think that's his name in San Francisco, running every city street in San Francisco on consecutive days. And he's a Solomon runner. So he's a very, very good ultra trail runner, but yeah, he's running every single street in San Francisco. And I think it's like close to 400 miles and 65,000 feet of elevation gain or elevation change maybe. Just in the city of San Francisco.

Just in the city of San Francisco. Traversing every street. Every street. But trying not to overlap. Exactly. Otherwise he's just out there for more and more miles, just doing it every day, waking up and yeah. Yep. And he did it through the smoke just now with all the fires from the paradise, the campfire. And so those are things that are really cool. I mean, just think of that, doing that in your own hometown or just getting to know your own area that well, where you see the diversity, the culture of your city, of your town, corners that you never realized existed, right? That's what I love about outdoor adventures.

That truly fits that, right? Where you find something, well, I can't afford a $700, $800 Ironman, right? Escape from Alcatraz this year is $750. No way. Yeah. Really? You were just showing me a picture from a long time ago doing it. It must have been $150 then. Oh, at most. It's $750 and it's lottery based to get in. So a lot of people can't afford all that, right? in. So, so a lot of people can't afford all that, right? The gear, the Garmin watches, all that,

you put all that together, it becomes too much. It becomes overwhelming in a lot of ways. And so there it's like, let's figure something out together. Like, where do you live? What can we do to make something exciting, cool, unique, adventurous for you. And then train for it and get excited about it and connect with your community with it and or raise funds for charity or something like that where you're directly impacting your hometown, your community, and showing others, even just your friends, even just two or three people. Yeah, I'm driving two hours to go to this beautiful state park because it's worth discovering. Yeah. I like that. Just making it accessible, but also exciting and different and new, allowing people to take ownership of their community in a unique way. Absolutely. There's an endurance adventure awaiting anywhere, right? I mean, sure, we have people swimming around Great Britain, but we also have people swimming across huge lakes or there's adventures happening all around us all the time.

And that's the beauty of social media, but it's also the beauty of people becoming more and more curious of what their potential is. And they find out that the new normal puts the potential even further out there. Yeah. I think also it's not about the longest that you can go or the craziest or, you know, it's about being the best version of who you are within the confines of whatever that challenge is. I mean, a four mile, a 5k can be as hard as a hundred miler if you put the time into it. And I'm always encouraging people to just let go a little bit of like, oh, it's gotta be the craziest thing

everyone's ever heard of. Yeah, we've created really high expectations in our community of what makes it cool, but it doesn't need to be like that, right? You getting fit and healthy and self-care and focusing inwards and outwards a little bit every day and understanding your environment around you better, that's all positive.

And trust me, the outcomes, even if you do that local 10K, even if you do that local half-trail marathon, are always positive. I've never heard anybody say, man, I shouldn't have done that. That was a waste of my time. Exactly.

I mean, the devastation alone, like they canceled the North face races two weeks ago because of the fires and the smoke, right? We had seven, 800 or 2000 people. Cause there's all kinds of distances in Marin County scrambling to find something to get out there and do, right? Because they were fit, they were ready. And, you know, they worked hard to get to this point. And so again, off they went. I know people, speaking of your question

before, they just created their own race. They ran it a week later. They all got together. You know, the beauty of social media this past weekend, there were 30, 40, 50 people in groups running the course, right? We don't need it for a finish line or put our results on a website. We're fit. We want to do it. It was beautiful weather this past week.

Right, so they just waited a week until the smoke cleared. And they still fulfilled their intention, right? Because goals become really black and white. I must finish like this. But their intention was to do this event, right? To finish it, to be out in nature, in the woods, in Marin, the headlands, it's gorgeous. And they fulfilled their intention. It's very important to have that closure. their intention. It's very important to have that closure. Yeah. You've evolved a lot. You're like so much more open and broad-minded than when we first met. So I'm curious and it's great. It's beautiful to see. I got an email about this the other day from an athlete that I answered his question on my podcast. And he's like, it's so weird to hear an Olympic swimmer and intense elite athlete

talk about all this, you know, deep emotional self-care, higher consciousness, best version of ourselves, right? And not so focused on the German super hardcore Olympian hard ass empathy, all that stuff. Yeah. it's- What is that? What do you attribute that to? I think I had, well, I know a few things. Of course, being knocked silly on my bottom through divorce and resetting priorities, right? We all go through life shifting events and sometimes they have a big impact on us right

and um to this day i can attribute it to it was the first time in my life not sort of the world flowing in the path that i wanted to somebody else took that path away from me not in a negative way not saying um anybody's. It was just because I was no longer in control and it reset my, recalibrated my entire world and being more appreciative and understanding sort of more that there's more to the world than just me. To put it bluntly, right? Like quite honestly, I grew up as an athlete. Everything always went my way. So I was pretty self-centered. Right. And throw in there that German heritage. Exactly. The preciseness. The joke was always, people would say to me,

I mean, this is years and years ago, like, hey, I'm thinking of hiring Chris. And I'm like, all right, well, don't hire him if you want to pat on the back or somebody who's going to be a cheerleader because he's not that guy. He know? He'll write the plan for you. The plan will be amazing. He will hold you accountable. But if you need emotional support, like no. You got to hire somebody else. That's a second person.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and so, and a lot of that also became aware to me running ultra runs and trails. I mean, that really- The humility that comes with that. The humility and that there is no time, right? And that you just get lost in the woods. And I had a lot of time out there where I was like,

this is my church. You know, I run out here in this beautiful nature created by some higher power. It is absolutely gorgeous. I feel so connected to life, the environment, nature, myself, everything, all beings and so forth, love, the whole thing. And realizing there is no, whether I get first, fifth, 25th, nobody can take away the experience I'm having right now in nature. Feeling this fit, feeling this alive. And that's what I tell a lot of my athletes to this day. Don't let anybody rob you of your joy and journey in nature, training and doing this every day. That's self

care. That's very protected time every day. You deserve that. Not only will others benefit from it, but also that's your precious, precious time. And don't let anything rob you of that opportunity every day to go inside yourself and exhale. Yeah, that's the experience that I want everybody to have. Exactly. You know, it's a sense of feeling connected to yourself, of feeling alive, of being connected to nature and your environment in a way that,

I don't know any other way to achieve that other than to be actively engaged with my body in that way. I mean, meditation, a variety of other ways to alter your mind, whether it's ayahuasca or immersion tanks, there's so many ways these days. But one of the ways for me is training out in nature, immersing myself truly in nature or just daily. You know, not always am I running in the woods

and it's this idyllic scene. Trust me, I'm on a treadmill every now and then too. But at least closing my eyes and resetting myself and saying, listening to my body, hearing that heart rate and that heavy breathing and just going, okay, there we go. I'm back to the true setting, my evolutionary self. Yeah. Even just for 30 seconds a day, because it takes a while to reset that every day, right? To finally have the mind clear and get to a point where it's like, all right, there we go. And everybody, I know everybody has experienced some sort of reset

before and whether you take a long shower and you come out invigorated or it's exercise or it's meditation or it's just a great night's sleep, or sitting somewhere on a rock overlooking something, or the beach. There's so many ways every day that we have an opportunity to sort of take a deep breath, reset, and find ourselves and say, all right, well, I got this. That, like you said, we can connect that to as many people as possible.

That's it. That's it. So with this evolution that you've been on, how has that impacted your downstream, how you interact with and coach your athletes? What has changed in how you create programs and communicate with your athletes versus perhaps what you might've done five or 10 years ago? Well, five or 10 years ago was more outcome-based. I can help you achieve X qualifier or this time or this result. And now it's more about the process, the journey. I want to get you out there doing it. I want to help you achieve not only what you're curious about,

but also help you navigate through it all so that you can stay in some sort of balance, right? We have family, we have work, we have our own self-care. If we can take those three and somewhat keep all those balls juggled in the air at the same time, then we're really getting to that version of ourselves that we're really happy with. Maybe not the best version of ourselves, but a pretty good outcome of that. And there's going to be times where,

of course, work and professional life takes a bigger balance, bigger share of the balance, right? It doesn't mean we stop training. It doesn't mean we stop exercising. It just means we have less hours available or we pick and choose our windows when we train a lot more strategically, or there's times where family and career take on a bigger role. And so, you know, navigating through that, that's what I work. I want to work with my athletes most on, right. And they're open to that growth and they're open to that, um, exploration in the meantime, a lot of my newer athletes who are, who say, you know what, I want to figure this

out and I want to work with you in order to figure this out. Do you ever come across like a clone of a younger version of you? Who's like, I don't want to hear about that. I'm just, I'm here to qualify for Kona. Just give me the plan. I do. I do come across those, but the beauty is there. They actually sort of get it too. They might not like fully embrace it, but they get that this is about balancing and longevity. If great, you make it to Kona this year, but if you do this wrong, I can already tell them, you know, I've been where you've been in your late twenties, early thirties, Kona is everything. And you're going to be done in two years because you can't keep burning that

match the way you are. Right. Right. Whereas if you care about doing this for many years and really want to get to the top of Kona, which you're not going to do in your first year or your second year. We have to do this in balance early on. And then you've got a couple of years to really hit your potential there. And that they do get. And I would have even in back of my day understood that somewhat if somebody told me that. In working with the group of athletes that you've worked with, what is the consistent challenge that kind of comes up across the board or complaint or barrier that people are confronted with that you have to help them through? This is an easy one. The hardest part of being a coach is communication. The athlete's willingness to

communicate with me of all things. Because the more I'm armed with their communication, the better of a plan we can write together, right? Because it is we write it together. You give me your limiters, you give me your challenges, your schedules, your stresses, and I can work a plan around that. And then you say, well, this doesn't work on, I have a soccer game on Saturday and my daughter does this on Sunday. I'm like, all right, well, let's get up at 5am, get those two hours done there. And then in the afternoon, stresses off your table, you're unstressed about joining the soccer game or going to the gymnastics meet or doing this because we got it done, but you're going to have to go to bed, you know, before 1am on Saturday. So there's a give and take. So managing that. And then the other aspect

of communication of how they're feeling, what they're observing, like being vulnerable to this guy on the other end, right? And we know it from being coached all our lives, right? We were coached as young kids. A lot of people have been coached before. And it's one of my questions when I ask athletes, have you been coached before? Because knowing how to be coached, to open yourself up, to allow yourself to be coached is very, very different than just receiving a plan, right? We had the luck and the joy actually of coaches

who were on deck and can see us every day, our mood, our impatience, our crankiness, our fatigue, right? Our body weight, all that. When it's though, all those things are indicators. This guy might be going a bit over the edge or he might need a recovery week or well, they didn't have recovery weeks.

There was no such thing as that. But you learn to communicate feel. Exactly. And you're so in touch with your body that you develop this language for expressing where you're at. And I think that's new and different for people that are coming into it later in life. Exactly. And I think that's new and different for people that

are coming into it later in life. And you see that in the logs, right? Like the way that people communicate with you and they're like, well, I hit these power numbers, but I missed this. It's like, yeah, I already see that from the data. I want to know like, you know. How it felt. What did you do versus, how did it feel versus last week? This is your heart rates are a little off. What's going on here? Are there other stresses in your life? Did you have dinner last night? You should have been able to crush these intervals.

Why did you feel like that, right? Oh yeah, I skipped dinner. I worked late and came home family time. And next thing I know, I had maybe only a bar, right? Well, of course, now we're getting into, now it all makes sense. Now I can actually coach that athlete and let them know, don't be so hard on yourself on how that workout went. Look, it's very clear here on why it didn't work that way. And then their confidence is boosted, of course, because now it all makes sense. And four weeks from now, they're completely upset about their training, right?

Because they don't understand why it's going so bad. But we haven't broken into everything that they can fix very easily to be successful with this. Yeah, and I think for people that are listening to this who don't have the benefit of working with someone like yourself, you can develop this on your own, whether you're journaling it in pen and paper or uploading your workout data to one of these portals like Training Peaks, you can start to write out on a daily basis, you know, connect with yourself. How did you feel? How did you eat? How did you sleep? And you start to get a roadmap or a picture of where you're at that can help you avoid mistakes as they come up as the more you learn about yourself and how you function. And it's another great way of how athletics bleeds into the rest of our days. If you learn how to journal your athletic self,

right, your daily workouts and how you felt, do you know how easy it is to journal about, because you have practice with it. Five minutes of every day, how did it feel? What did I observe? How did I recover? Any other inputs? How did I feel versus last week? And quickly, you just get very good at observing

during the workout what you're going to note later on in the log. And the same thing works with journals in general. How much value do you put into all of these new sort of biomarker devices like the Oura Ring and heart rate variability? I mean, we can track so much more than we could even a couple of years ago. Do all those additional inputs play into how you coach athletes or no? I still trust their gut the most and what they observe.

The best athletes that I have, and not because of results, but because we work together very well, are the ones that can truly figure out, they know when they're getting sick before they're gonna get sick, right? I got an email this morning. I feel a little off. I think I might be getting sick.

What should I do tomorrow? Should I take off or should I go on feel? And I said, well, knowing you and how long you've been at this with me, you feeling it already is a good sign. I trust that. So let's back off the intensity tomorrow, go by feel only, maybe not take off. And if it's still tracking worse, we'll know you're going to get sick. Right. But again, being in tune with your body is part of that whole self-care, right? Not only from a growth perspective of our own personality, soul, and higher self, but also being in tune every day with hearing what your body is telling you is important, right? Because you know, then if you're getting sick, you know, if something's off, they say, I was just reading the other day, oh,

Sapiens, that Harami book, fascinating stuff, those books. I'm on the podcast. Oh, okay. And he was saying that how, you know, when you get really sick, like a cancer type of sickness, it needs to travel through the mind before you feel it and before you go to the doctor, right? But again, our practice, and I thought, made me think of it, our practice of daily checking into our, with our body and our breathing and how we're feeling, and we have enough data of doing it every day for many years on end, you'll track that stuff even earlier.

Well, you become like an intuitive superhero. Exactly. You know, we've talked about this before, but a perfect example of that is, you know, when we were kids and we were swimming in high school or college, you know, I could tell you with absolute precision every time

my hand hit the wall what that 100 repeat was. Was it a 58? Was it a 52? Was it a 101? Like, you would know because you're so connected. And that just comes with a lot of reps and a lot of experience. But the more that you invest your not just physical energy, but your mental energy in paying attention to those things, and the journaling certainly helps, you develop that capacity that does spill over in the other areas of your life. Oh, for sure. And I like how you said that intuitively, because again, being in tune with our body in harmony, there's so many other benefits that stream from that, right? And knowing that we want to get in tune once a day makes a huge difference down the road. It's an investment in ourselves.

But once you're there, it's, I mean, like we said earlier, six to seven to eight hours a week of practicing that, that's 45 minutes of training a day. Like just think if you're doing, you know, something longer and you're doing 10, 12, 16, 20 hours a week, if you use the majority of that time to re-sync with yourself and be in harmony, you will know so much more about yourself in order to, again, put close this episode of Coach's Corner down. But like, I want you to just imagine it's late January, it's dark, it's cold, it's wet. You set that goal at the end of December, but your enthusiasm is starting to wane.

What are the key, most important things that people can kind of latch on to, hang their hat on to carry them into the spring months well you've heard this from me many times before but there's a little there's some more tricks to it in the meantime and that is just doing something a little something every day right consistency and don't beat yourself up if it's only 30 minutes that's plenty to get the heart rate going but let's say you're on a treadmill, right? Or on a trainer, bike trainer, where you put your bike on a resistance trainer. Like things that I say to my athletes is, you know what, let's say you have the TV on. Every time there's a commercial, that's when you run harder.

You run it two miles an hour faster. And then when your show comes back on, back to easy, right? Use everything in your environment to your advantage to keep you motivated, to keep it fun. Save that TV show that you want to watch on Netflix for being on the trainer. Or save that song or that music or that podcast or your podcast for when you're on the treadmill, right? And you're stuck in the dark times or in a gym with a billion people and you don't really want to interact right now. You just want to exhale. You've had a long day. Save that for then to listen to that music or that new CD or CD. CD, yeah. How old are you?

Exactly. Or a podcast, right? And so again, use those things to your advantage to get you out there every day. The other thing that I use, and my athletes know this, is I put out an index card when I go through hard times every night and I put it right by my coffee in the morning so that that index card has my workouts for the day on it.

And just seeing that index card there with a few intentions, I mean, it's not big, you know, it's a small little index card has my workouts for the day on it. And just seeing that index card there with a few intentions, I mean, it's not big, you know, it's a small little index card. Lying there and seeing it first thing in the morning when I'm tired and sleepy and walking, turn on the water, you know, already, okay, well, that I can do, right? It's just that index card. I have to put that in a box at the end of the day.

At some point today, I want to get that done. I like that. Another little trick that I use is to prepare for the following day's workout the evening before by doing simple things like, okay, it's a run. So I'll pull out the shorts and the socks and like kind of get everything ready and organized to make it as easy as possible to begin that workout the next day and i think just the simple act of organizing that creates an emotional investment that makes it harder for you the next day to not do it or have it with you like you have it in your car with you at all times but i also like to do the you know the podcasts are really intriguing right because you see what the topics are and you know, the podcasts are really intriguing, right? Because you see what the topics are and you load them the night before and you look forward to hearing.

You create your playlist. Exactly. And you look forward, oh, I'm curious as to what this guy has to say or what she is contributing. Right. I like this one. This one's only 30 minutes though. So I got to make sure I have, I know what's going to follow that. So I don't have to stop. Yeah. Well, but we all also know once that initial momentum happens, you're out the door, you're going, right? No, I mean, not that,

but like I don't wanna have to stop my workout to hit play on the next thing. Like I want it all cued, so it'll just flow. For sure, for sure. Yeah, get in a little something every day. Don't try to string together too many days perfectly in a row. Just look at yourself big picture.

A lot of times I also say, where do you want to be on January 31st? Nothing crazy, not something for June yet. How do I want to feel January 31st? How do I want to feel February 28th or whatever it will be this year? So give yourself short-term outcomes that you say, okay, that I can achieve. I just need to be a little bit better at the end of January than I was at the end of December, right? And then you're making progress so that you can set the marker for next month out there of this is what I want to achieve, right? You can chart it. There's a lot of ways to keep you excited about the next week. But if you have short-term goals that you feel good about achieving, it'll just create momentum once again.

Always good advice, my friend. Yeah. Been at this for a long time. Yeah. It's not rocket science. It's common sense stuff. Yeah. But it's important to remind ourselves that there are ways of approaching these things to make it easier versus harder. And reward yourself, right? Like a lot of times I hear, I talk about nature, take a week off, go hiking in the snow, do something completely different, right? Like use your fitness early on to do something. You know what? A month ago, I wouldn't have been

able to do this, but now I feel pretty good about doing it. Right. Cool. All right, man. Well, until the next Coach's Corner. Yeah. Until then, thank you for your wisdom, my friend, as always, and your counsel, and for everything that you've done for me. Without you, I would not be sitting here doing this. Yeah, well, you've done a lot for me too.

For all of that, and for people that are new to Chris, he's pretty easy to find on the internet, at AIMPcoaching.com, at AIMPcoach on Twitter, and the Weekly Word podcast. How's that going? It's going well. I dive deep into that. I keep thinking people are going

to get tired of hearing just me talk yeah i don't know how you do that but they're good it's a steady stream of listeners and now i have a newsletter a weekly word newsletter that has my favorite workouts in it some nutrition tips um some cool races that's good so you just sign up on your website for that and that that works great because people get a short tidbit. And it's only once a month. I don't have the time to do it weekly. But that's exactly what you were asking before, a cool new race I came across

or a great adventure that one of my athletes just completed. One of them right now is in Antarctica. Really? He's finishing the four deserts. And the final desert right now, since Sunday, he's been in Antarctica. Really? He's finishing the four deserts and the final desert right now, he's in, he's since Sunday, he's been in Antarctica. Wow. I mean, that's super cool. I mean, that's where you're just like, what am I doing? Yeah. That's amazing. Cool, man. All right, man. Until next time. Peace. Thanks, Chris.

Well, I really hope you guys enjoyed that. I love that guy. It goes without saying, but I'll say it again. I really would not be here without his guidance, his friendship, his mentorship, his coaching. So I love you, Chris. You're welcome on the show anytime. To learn more about him, check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. You can share your thoughts about this conversation with Chris directly at AIMPcoach on Twitter and visit AIMPcoaching.com. Sign up for his newsletter and check out his podcast, The Weekly Word.

If you'd like to support the work we do here on the podcast, just share it with your friends and on social media. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on YouTube, on Google Podcasts. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you can support the show on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on the show today, Jason Camiolo for production, audio engineering,

show notes, interstitial music, all kinds of behind the scenes production and post-production. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing the show and for editing it and for graphics which also is the work of Jessica Miranda so thank you Jessica DK David Kahn for advertiser relationships and theme music as always by Anna Lemma thanks for the love you guys see you back here next week with an unbelievable conversation with Johan Hari you're in for a treat with that one I'm telling

you guys until then get out there get get connected with yourself, with nature, with your body, with your emotional being, with your spiritual self, and other positive like-minded individuals. Until then, peace, plants, namaste. Thank you.