Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Vanessa Ronksley: Hello friends!  I am really excited about all the fun that we’re going to be sharing today on the TriDot podcast.  Joining us for this conversation is pro triathlete and coach Elizabeth James.  Elizabeth is a USAT Level II and IRONMAN U certified coach, who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot, from a beginner, to top agegrouper, to a professional triathlete.  She is a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014.  Elizabeth, welcome back to the show!

Elizabeth James:  Thank you so much Vanessa!  It is just always great to be here, looking forward to today.

Vanessa:  We also have with us today Coach Matt Sommer. Matt has a Masters of Science in Exercise Physiology, he is the Fitness Director at the Alamance Country Club in Burlington, North Carolina, and he has over twelve different certifications, including USA Triathlon Level I coach and Ironman University certified coach.  His first triathlon race was in 2007, where he claims that he barely made it out of the pool, and at this point in time he is a highly competitive racer at all distances.  Matt joined TriDot as an athlete and coach in 2018, and guides his athletes with this philosophy:  Passion, Purpose, Progress.  Thanks for joining us Matt!

Matt Sommer:  Thanks for having me Vanessa, I’m excited to be on the TriDot podcast, and I look forward to sharing some great tips with you guys today.

Vanessa: And finally, Kurt Madden is here on the podcast as well.  Kurt is a pioneer of the sport of triathlon, and a tentime Kona finisher.  He has three topten overall finishes at the Ironman World Championships, and he is a four-time Ironman All World Athlete, ranked age group.  And as if 140.6 miles isn’t enough, he is also a twotime Ultraman World Championship winner, and in 2019 he was inducted into the Ultraman World Championships Hall of Fame.  Kurt is an Ironman certified, USAT certified, and TriDot Master Coach based in San Diego, California.  Kurt, thanks for coming on the podcast with us today!

Kurt Madden:  Vanessa, it is so great to be back on this podcast, and I think today we’re going to have fun before we go fast before we can go far.

Vanessa: Ah, I love that!  Perfect, I can’t wait!  Well, I’m Vanessa, the Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm!  As always, we’ll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with our cooldown.

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Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Vanessa: One of my favorite things about posting on the I AM TriDot Facebook page is that someone will likely post a meme in the comments.  These memes always bring a smile to my face, and they actually make me laugh out loud. Kurt, Elizabeth, Matt, what is your favorite tri meme you’ve seen floating around the internet?

Kurt: You know, there are so many great ones out there Vanessa, and as I continue to look at the ones that really warm my heart, the one that stood out to me – maybe you haven’t seen it, but I’ll describe it to you – try to imagine a small little pool that you put a couple toddlers in, so it’s plastic, but inside this thing is a gorilla, and he’s running around inside this little tub.  I’m thinking that’s almost like a triathlete before they actually get into the water. It would never happen logistically, but how cool would it be to have your own little pool? You could do your little warmup in there, get all that water into your suit. Maybe sink-downs would be difficult, because it’s going to be about six inches deep.  But when I see that gorilla running around, I’m thinking that would just lighten people up, it would warm their hearts, and it would be something to really get them acclimated to say, “Hey, I’m ready, it's go time.  I’m ready for a great swim.”  That was the meme that brought laughter and joy to me, and I think other readers. Take a look at that one, I think that’s something you might want to really cherish and send to others.

Vanessa: I’m thinking maybe you could be hired to wear a gorilla suit in transition time before a race and bring that smile to everyone’s faces.

Kurt: Yeah, anything, you know I’m in at least once.

Vanessa: Okay, that sounds good.  What about you, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: The one that comes to mind for me, this picture has been used in a whole bunch of memes, but it’s the baby holding his fist up, like all victorious, and it says something like, “Went to the bike shop for a patch kit, came home with helmet, two pairs of socks, and the coolest multitool.”  There are two places that are super dangerous for me to go – maybe three if you could the grocery store after a long training day – but the two places I was thinking were Target and the bike shop.  I have to force myself to stick to the list, otherwise you end up walking out of that bike shop with a much larger bill than you were expecting.  There’s just so many things there.

Vanessa:  I one hundred percent agree with you on all of those things, and what comes to mind, especially for the grocery store, I’ll go in – let’s just say it’s the dead of winter, so I’m wearing this massive sleeping bag puffy coat and I have no bags or anything because I don’t like using plastic bags – I come out, and I’ve literally stuffed four tetra-packs of almond milk in my pockets, I have bananas coming out of my hood.  I hundred percent get what you’re saying, I will post that picture to the Facebook TriDot page.

Elizabeth: Yes, we must do this.

Vanessa: Yeah, it’s really funny.  But I agree with you, the grocery store is a dangerous place.

Elizabeth:  I feel like that picture is going to become its own meme, like triathletes after a long training day.

Matt: It’s like that one of John Mayfield sitting there at camp that went around for a little while, where people were putting things on him, yeah.

Vanessa: Yeah, absolutely.  Matt, what about you?

Matt:  I love that baby, the same one you’re talking about, Elizabeth.  It’s not the one I picked, but there’s one out of that same baby gripping the fist and it says, “Three people in my age group. Podium, baby!”  I love that one, where it’s just like you know.  I knew that one was there.  But the one that I love, and I think people can relate to this, is a guy swimming and it says, “If you’re swimming in the lane next to me, the answer is YES, we ARE racing.”

Elizabeth: Yes, for sure!

Matt:  I mean, who can’t relate to that?  You’re on the track, you’re on the bike, you’re out on the water, it’s like if somebody comes up, you have to race now, let’s go!

Vanessa: Yeah, I hundred percent agree with that one as well, that’s amazing.  I also feel like there’s way too many to choose from, but my favorite has to be the leg day memes, and my alltime favorite is the one with SpongeBob SquarePants where he’s pointing and moving his leg like a bodybuilder, and it just cracks me up every time.  The other one, I’m going to give two just because I have to, the other one that gets me going is the one with Ned Stark from Game of Thrones, and it says, “One does not simply retrieve things from the floor after leg day,” which you know falling in the tri meme would be replaced with, “One does not simply retrieve things from the floor after Big Gear workout day.”

Elizabeth: Yes indeed!

Vanessa:  Well, let’s throw this one out to the I AM TriDot Facebook community, please post your favorite tri meme in the comments of our warmup question post.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

Vanessa: You know you’re a triathlete or a cyclist when you will talk to pretty much anyone about your bike, and when that bike is a Dimond bike, there is a lot to talk about.  My Dimond Marquise is nothing less than a masterpiece.  Every detail has been carefully engineered and crafted by the team at Dimond Bikes.  I had a very special custom paint job designed to commemorate several strong women in my life, and riding it brings a massive smile to my face.  The bikes are industry-leading, aerodynamic machines, and look awesome.  But even beyond that, Dimond as a brand knows how to take care of their athletes, and with five different tri bike models as well as road, gravel, and mountain bikes, your next bike should absolutely be a Dimond.  TriDot and Dimond are a dynamite race-day onetwo punch.  Dimond provides you with the Ferrari of bikes, and TriDot Training develops your engine, so we are excited to partner with Dimond on some really cool offers.  If you are new to TriDot, we are offering six months of the Mark Allen Edition of TriDot with the purchase of a Dimond.  If you are already a TriDot athlete, we are offering TriDot store credit with your new bike.  Head to dimondbikes.com for all the info, and to dream up your very own bike.

It may or may not surprise you, but at one of the schools I used to teach at I became the self-proclaimed Captain of Team Fun, we had Tshirts and buttons made.  At this particular school there was a higher than typical level of stress, so the hope was to create a team-like atmosphere for the staff by organizing things with the hope of strengthening our connections at work.  It totally worked, and taught me that creating fun just makes everything better.  As triathletes we spend a lot of time during the week in the pool, on the bike trainer, at the track, and somethings these sessions are long.  But I think with a little creativity and some planning, there are many ways that we can make these sessions more fun, and even something to look forward to.  So the four of us are here today to share with y’all some of our favorite tri training tips.  But before we get to the fun tips, Matt, Kurt, and Elizabeth, let’s kick off the show with a quick story from a race or a training session that involved some serious fun.  Let’s start with you, Matt.

Matt:  I think, as triathletes, we all know that our idea of fun is different from the general population.  We can start there.  But one of my favorite races – people are always like, “That’s fun?” – is American TripleT in Ohio.  It’s four races over three days.  You start with a super-sprint on Friday night, you do an Olympic Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m., another Olympic Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., and then you finish with a half-Ironman on Sunday at 7:00 a.m.  That weekend is full of so much camaraderie, fellowship, fun, and encouragement.  I know that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but I never miss it, it’s one of the best weekends out there.  By the second or third race on Saturday, you’re just kind of in the trenches together. You’re out there encouraging, motivating, supporting one another.  And by the time you get to Sunday morning, you see how tired everybody is in their eyes, you see the bodies, and it’s just the grit, the tenacity to finish that race. It's like Band of Brothers by the time you’re done.  At the end of the day, it is Fun with a capital F, and I would highly recommend that to anybody to get out there and do.  A different level of fun, but it’s fun, a definite must-do.

Vanessa: That sounds like an amazing time. I think I might have to put that on my list of todo races, that sounds great.  What about you Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: Well, this was an easy answer for me. As soon as you posted this question I had my answer in mind.  This would be relay races with the pro squad at training camp in St. George last year. This was in the pool, so for me to say anything about a swim session being fun is one thing, so you know there was extra-special camaraderie and enjoyment in this.  I bring this up to show that, yes, professional triathletes are incredibly dedicated to their training and their improvement performance, but there is still so much joy and camaraderie in the training for them too. Thankfully, in this training camp environment, there were different legs of the relays where people were doing different strokes, and you could use different pieces of equipment.  And I’m going up against strong swimmers like Lauren Brandon, T.O. [Tim O’Donnell], Dede Griesbauer, and I need fins just to have a fighting chance, but gosh, it was so much fun.  I felt like I was back in grade school, as we’re on the pool deck screaming for people to go, and people are doing butterfly, then we’ve got people jumping in with fins and jumping off the blocks.  It was fun, chaotic, just so energetic, and to me that is always going to stick out as a training session that was just so enjoyable.

Vanessa:  It sounds extremely enjoyable, because I’m sitting here and I have shivers all up and down my arms. I feel like you just immersed me in that entire experience. Yeah, I can imagine that was pretty amazing.  How about you, Kurt?

Kurt: Well, I don’t know if I can top that, E.J., but I’m going to dig deep into my history book here and see if I can pull something out.  Actually, if I try to narrow it down, and I think our audience can appreciate it, it was here in San Diego.  I had the pleasure of having Andé Wegner, her great boyfriend Rick, Jason Verbracken or “Verbie”, and another TriDot athlete, Christina Bremer.  So we’re kicking it around and it’s like, “So guys, would you like to do a little training?”  That’s all you had to say.  They’re like, “I’m in, Coach, what are you thinking?”  “Let’s just go out and have fun!”  You can imagine, with this audience I picked, I’m like, “How do I match up with these guys?” But I said, “It’s going to be fun, let’s just go out for a bike ride for a couple hours, and we’ll see how it goes”  They’re like, “Cool!”  So we start off on a nice, easy flat section here in San Diego down at Mission Bay.  We’re just warming up and cruising along, and I notice we’re going like 20, then 22, then 24, something like 230 watts, and Jason Verbracken is already way, way ahead. Then he almost comes to a stop and is like, “Where are you guys?”  I’m like, “Jason, this is the warmup.”  He goes, “Yes, this is the warmup!”  And right then I knew this was going to be fun.  So we warmed up for about an hour and I figured we’d go up to a place called Mt. Soledad.  Now, it’s not like Mt. Everest to 30,000 feet, it is only about maybe 2,000 or 2,500 feet at the most.  However it’s about a 20minute climb, and there’s a couple sections that are 12% grade.  So at the bottom, trying to be a nice guy and keep it fun I’m like, “Guys, just take it easy, that small chainring can be your best friend.” They said, “Coach, we got it, we’re cool!”  I think we were together for maybe 400 yards, then it just literally blew up.  “There goes Verbie, Verbie’s going up.”  Andé’s like, “Uh uh, it’s not working that way, I’m chasing you down!”  I’m looking at my wattage going, “I’m pushing 250, 260, I’ve got another 22 minutes, there’s no way,” and I backed off.  So the long and the short of it, we actually made it to the top of the mountain.  From this viewpoint, when you get up there, on a clear day you can see 360°.You can see 75 miles, you can see the snow peaks, you can see Catalina Island.  We get up there, and then it’s picture time.  I’ve never had this happen before.  Someone was there, there’s a monument, and they said, “Did you ride your bikes to the top?”  Yeah, we actually did!  We rode to the very top, and we didn’t need oxygen!

Vanessa: That sounds like a lot of fun.  I think that we need to get you onto this little bit of a tool.  I’ve come across it for biking with my kids, it’s called a TowWhee.  It’s like a bungee cord almost, you hook it around your seat post and then you stretch the cord and hook it around the handlebars of your kid’s bike.  So you actually get to tow them up the hills, so that you don’t have to disrupt the complete flow of your ride.  I think Verbie needs to have some TowWhees so that he can pull everybody up those hills.

I do think it’s time for us to dive into all the ways that make tri training fun, so Matt, can you kick us off with Tri Training Fun Tip #1?

Matt: Happy to!  I think we’re going to see a very common theme amongst all these tips that we’re going to supply.  We all know triathlon’s an individual sport, but at the end of the day it involves people. I think all of us already in our stories have all revolved around people and camaraderie and surrounding ourselves with friends and family, and I think that’s what makes it memorable, despite it being an individual sport.  So the first tip I got is a little game I like to play with my buddies when we’re out on group training, it’s called “Catch Me If You Can”.  You can apply it to swim, bike, and run.  I like to do it out on the bike with my group of friends. When we’re out on the bike on the weekend, we all have our training program.  After we’re warmed up and we get going, we’ll pick a segment where we are riding in a pace line, and basically the person at the back has to sprint all the way up to the front.  Once they make it to the front, the person at the back now has to sprint all the way back up to the front.  It’s a great way to get some high intensity in there, and if the groups feeling a little bit spicy that day, the person at the back is going to have a pretty hard time, especially if everybody’s pushing some wattage.  You can have a lot of fun with this.  You can say, “Hey, we’re going to do this for 15 minutes.” Or you can say, “We’re going to do it for five, where each person gets five turns.” Just make it what you want.  Same principle, you can also do it in the pool if you have a group of people in the pool.  I like that strategy from a coaching side, because it teaches you to get up close and comfortable with people like you would when you’re racing. You have feet in your face, you have hands on your toes.  You can also do it on the track, it’s a great way to develop some top-end speed, to get out there with people and apply the same principle, where you’ve got to play leap frog from the back to the front and just keep working your way around. You might do it for a quarter mile, half mile, do it for mile repeats, it depends on what group you’re with. That’s just one way I like to incorporate fun into training.

Vanessa: That is a fabulous tip, I can’t wait to try that.  I just need to find some friends to do that with.  Maybe I’ll just gather the people that are in my lane and be like, “Hey, do you want to play ‘Catch Me If You Can’?”  Sounds like a lot of fun.  Hey Kurt, can you give us Tri Training Fun Tip #2?

Kurt: You know, I think I’ll be able to pull that off, since we’re on #2.  In a way, I think the key word that Matt hit on is “camaraderie”.  When you think about fun, you can have fun by yourself, but it’s actually more enjoyable in a group setting.  You can do it with a training partner or family, whatever the case might be. I want to really, really encourage everyone that is listening to this podcast to really reevaluate fun and sign up for some type of yoga class. There’s a wide variety of yoga classes, and I can tell you my short story.  As I’m swimming in a place here in San Diego, a friend reached out to me multiple times like, “This would really be beneficial.”  I’m like, “Yeah, I get it.”  I was kind of in denial, it’s like, “Why would I do that?”  Because I would be swimming, biking, and running. Finally, about a year ago after Ironman Arizona I said, “Okay, I’m going to go for it.”  Well, I show up the first time ,and it was the Vikram, the hot yoga, and he warned me, he said, “Bring the mat, bring towels and everything.” So I show up, and right away told the instructor, “Come over here.  Off the record, I don’t need to be on the podium, and I’m not here to be in the first row.”  She says, “Don’t worry, I got you, we’re going to keep it fun.”  So I was literally in the back, the steam is going, it’s 105° and I had the brick. She said, “You can hold onto the wall,” and oh my dear, I felt a little bit like I was out of my element.  I just made it through the warmup, and I was almost going to do a back handspring.  I was like, “Oh my gosh, I made it through the warmup, I’ve only got 40 minutes to go.”  Then I made it through the first one, and then all of a sudden it’s like, “You know, if I do this again and again, it’s going to get easier.”  Fast tracking, as I continued to do it I said, “You know what, this is exactly what I need.” And this is why: you’re very focused, you have no distractions, you can’t walk out of the room, you can’t grab your phone, you’ve got to watch what you’re doing, your balance, your posture, your spirit, the breathing.  And the hotness – I’m thinking this is a nobrainer for Kona, I’m in here twice, three times a week just to get acclimated to the heat.  Then I started bringing a few of my athletes in.  It’s so funny, this is very much a sanctuary environment where you cannot talk.  They don’t have the music on, the disco ball isn’t going in the center of the room. He just looks over to me and gives me the signal with his little finger like, “You got this?”  I’m like, “Yeah, I’m just about dying, but do you got this?” And he’s like, “Yeah, cool.”  Then as I continued on, I could see the benefits, and then I shared this with a lot of my athletes, and one it was so funny because, “You know Coach, I think I signed up for the wrong one.  I signed up for one that was called ‘relaxing’.  It was almost in the dark, and what happened is they started the session and I could hear people snoring.”  I said, “Time out!  Maybe you need to go to a different class!”  Then recently Brandi Ramirez showed up, one of my athletes and coaches, and she’s got an extensive background in yoga.  We did a class together, and it was so funny – there were 15 people in there, and I think that instructor on this day, she called me out directly, not with reinforcing feedback, but very direct feedback just to me about moving my foot, moving my hips.  But at the end of the day, when you walk out of there, it’s like, “That’s exactly what the doctor ordered.”  There’s no regrets, it was fun.  So if you’re looking for something to kind of go a little bit different direction, not doing your strength training, yoga is a game changer.

Vanessa:  I agree with you, especially that Vikram yoga. There’s something really methodical about doing the same poses for the same length of time and the same order, and it’s such a great way to decompress.  And it IS fun.  It might feel tortuous at the time, but it’s fun once you’ve gone through it a few times. Yeah, that’s a great tip, thank you E.J., Tri Training Fun Tip #3!

Elizabeth: We’re going to keep on this theme of training partners and camaraderie, because I whole-heartedly agree with that. I think the tip that I would give is that you do not have to be at the same intensity level to get together with training partners or friends.  I particularly love swim sessions, track sessions, bike trainer/treadmill sets where you can work together or you can work in proximity to other athletes, even if you have a completely different session, or you’re working at a different intensity level.  Just having that camaraderie, that accountability of somebody else there, can make a world of difference.  I will often go and plan to meet other people at the pool, and we might have a completely different training session, but just knowing that there’s somebody else in the lane next to you, and thinking back to Matt’s meme, “Yes, we ARE racing,” it still elevates your performance.  Even if you’re not necessarily racing them in the lane, if they’re next to you, you can bet you’re bringing your A game, because they’re watching what you’re doing, too.  So I would just say it doesn’t have to be the same session or the same intensity to get together with others, and have that help elevate your performance and the fun, social aspect of the sport. To tack on to that, what’s so great is that technology enables us to be together with training partners from across the world.  So even if you do not have a training partner nearby, we have a fantastic community of athletes within the I AM TriDot Facebook group.  There are the I AM TriDot group rides every Saturday morning, and now on Tuesday mornings too, so you can ride with training partners from across the globe.  You can do your own session, but you can have that experience and you can chat with others as you’re getting your training done, too.  I know for me, I’ve joined in on a couple of those sessions, and I just always walk away with a sense of appreciation, not only for what my body can do, but just the community of athletes that we have around us.

Matt: You know, just to chime in on that E.J., one of the things you said is that great TriDot community.  It doesn’t matter if I’m on Zwift doing my own training ride on a Tuesday morning, or whether it’s a Thursday morning or Saturday morning when you get that “ride on!” from somebody when you’re on Zwift. When it’s in the middle of a 2x16 threshold, it’s so encouraging, it’s like, “Wow, pressure’s on!  Somebody’s watching me!”  Even not knowing it, it’s such a good feeling to be able to wake up and give somebody that “ride on”, not knowing where they are in their set.  I love that part of the TriDot community. It’s so encouraging.

Vanessa:  Yes, I agree with both of you on that one. The TriDot community is what actually made me stick with the program to begin with in the first place, feeling that camaraderie and being a part of something and knowing that you’re all working individually, but also towards the same type of goal is really inspiring. I love that so much.

I’m going to bring you Tri Training Fun Tip #4.If you want to infuse some fun into your swim assessment, this is a really fun thing that just happened totally randomly about a month ago.  I was in the pool, and there was this guy swimming in the fast lane next to me.  He looked really fast, like really, really fast. So I thought I would just talk to him and see if he could encourage me to get me going on my CSS test.  He was really fast and I basically said, “I’m just going to try and hang on to his feet while he’s doing his probably Zone 2 effort,” while I was doing my 400meter CSS test.  I just tried to keep up with him, and it was really fun.  It was a really great way to try and motivate myself to feel like I was racing, and I ended up knocking about 15 seconds off of my 400meter time just by trying to keep up with this guy.  Well, lo and behold, the next month, which just happened a couple of days ago, the same guy was in the pool.  So I chatted with him again and I said, “Would you mind pacing me for my CSS test?”  And he was like, “No, I don’t want to.”  But then I told him how fast I swam and he was like, “Yeah, I can do that,” because I’m just an average swimmer.  So he hung on the back of my feet, and he just kept pushing me a little bit, and I thought that because in the last month I’ve not been able to hit my Zone 4 for the entire month, because it was way faster than my last Zone 4 pace, I thought I wasn’t going to knock off any more seconds to this time.  But you know what, in the last 50 meters he came up right beside me, and he was pushing me.  I’m super competitive, so when someone comes up beside you it’s just like that meme, “Yeah, we’re racing!”  So I ended up knocking another three seconds off my 400meter time.  It was so much fun!  We were high-fiving each other in the pool.  I don’t even know this guy’s name, it’s just some random guy at the pool.  It was really a great way for me to recognize that we have so much more in us than we think we do, and people can bring that out when we look or search for it.  Just talk to the people next to you in the pool. If you’re doing an assessment, maybe see if they might be able to help you reach a new personal best, because there’s nothing greater than that feeling.  That’s my Tri Training Fun Tip #4.  Let’s move on to Matt for Tri Training Fun Tip #5.

Matt: This one’s pretty easy, and again it has to do with people.  Don’t get out there and race by yourself.  Sign up for a relay.  Get out there with some friends, get out there with family, get out there with training partners.  Just pick one of the disciplines, and go out and throw down, let it rip.  If you’re going to be the swim, or the bike, or the run, whichever leg you are, it’s an opportunity for you to just redline it and let it go, and not have to worry about, “Can I run off the bike?”  Or, “How fast do I have to get out of my wetsuit?” You’re one-and-done, and then you can sit there and support, encourage, and really push on your friends that are out there.  You can do it with training buddies, you can do it with family.  If you’ve got kids, this is a great way to introduce your kids to the sport, to get them out there, to encourage them, to model healthy behavior. It’s a good way to get spouses engaged as well, or to get your parents involved as well.  I’ve seen it done a lot of different ways, but I think it’s a lot of fun to get out there, participate in a relay.  It’s a little bit different from your traditional, you doing the entire event yourself.  Just another way to change things up a bit.

Vanessa:  I think we should actually throw that out there as a challenge, that everyone who is listening to the podcast should actually sign up for a relay race at some point this season, because that sounds like a ton of fun.  It’s definitely something that I’m going to try and find a partner for a race this season. That sounds great, and you can use that session as a training session too, and let her rip.

Matt: One other thing I would say to that as a challenge: don’t just sign up at a relay, but volunteer at a race.  Get out there this year.  I challenge every single triathlete in I AM TriDot to get out there and volunteer this year.  Give back to the sport, because that’s another way to have a lot of fun.  Don’t race that day, just get out there and volunteer, encourage, be at an aid station, be out there at a turn, be out there in the medical tent.  Do whatever your gift is, but be out there and give back to the sport, because our race directors need volunteers.  Without race directors, we don’t have racing.  Get out there and volunteer.  I challenge every one of you.  I do that with my athletes, I challenge them to volunteer.

Kurt: I’m going to chime in on that, because I think this is an important little segment, that Matt really hit on something that is key.  If I try to create the context, go to the Ironman last October 2022.  It was an extremely hot day, in fact two hot days with a day gap.  The women’s race went first, and I was racing that day.  You can imagine, fewer aid stations on the bike, fewer aid stations on the run.  You see Andrew Harley at Mile 3 or 4 saying, “Coach, you got it!  Stick with it!”  You’re going up Palani Drive, and lo and behold, working an aid station is Jan Frodeno.  He wasn’t there to sing autographs, he wanted to race really bad.  But that showed a lot of heart, a great role model. People were in conflict, “Should I stop and get a selfie?  Should I get an autograph?  Can you sign it on my shoulder?”  E.J., you know that hill very well, you want to get over it, or just be grateful.  It kind of puts all of this in check, that to give back and get on the other side of the coin.  I just wanted to share that, I think Matt’s spot on, if everyone did that in the TriDot community, that would be huge.

Vanessa: That speaks to TriDot as an entire community itself.  Is there any other sport out there where a professional would volunteer at an amateur’s race, just from the greatness of their heart?  I don’t know if I can name another sport where that would happen. I’m just feeling all the feels for triathlon right now, this is really fun.  Thank you so much for bringing all of these great things to the table. Kurt, let’s just head on to Tri Training Fun Tip #6.

Kurt: Are we on #6 already? Goodness!  This one, some people might enjoy, and some people might say, “You know, there is no way at all.”  This is called a No Technology Day.  I’m going to repeat that, this is a No Technology Day.  I’ve been back in the early part of the sport, when we really didn’t have everything that we have today.  It was like, “No, we’re going to do three things: we’re going to swim, bike, and run, and something called RPE [rated perceived exertion].”  It was old school.  Today it is completely flipped around, I think I’ve got every device you can imagine, like a lot of our listeners.  I want to challenge everyone, like Matt said, to think about a notechnology day.  I can give you a few examples of that.  How cool would it be if you actually just did a swim without bringing your watch?  Just get in the pool and just flat-out swim, or do an open-water swim.  Or what if you were in Kona, to simply say, “I’m there with E.J. and Matt and Vanessa, we’re just going to go to the turnaround buoy and back, and along the way, we’re going to see all kinds of fish, we might even see some dolphins. We’re not going to get our splits, and we’re going to finish on that beach sand.”  Was that fun?  It was actually fun!  You don’t have to worry about Garmin, you don’t have to worry about, “I think the satellites are off, and my pacing’s off, and I thought that was a great swim but now all of a sudden it’s in my head.”  All this cortisol and bad stuff is coming into my brain versus I was out there to get endorphins and serotonin and dopamine.  I know I had that same experience at Honu, which is up in Waikoloa. I’m out there with Heather DeKalb and two of her athletes, we’re just doing a casual warmup swim, we weren’t taking time, and 30 minutes into it they both stop and say, “Coach!  I could do this all day long!  The water’s 80°, I can see fish, let’s just keep swimming!” I’d never heard that from an athlete before, versus, “Are we almost done?”  Same thing on the bike, just go ride your bike like a kid.  We need to be kids again and keep things very simple, versus, “I’m not hitting my wattage, and something’s not syncing correctly, I’m losing my mind.”  Just go out and have fun, just do it that way.  On the run, same thing, have a nowatch day versus, “I’ve got to watch my power, I’ve got to watch my splits.”  Challenge yourself to get two or three friends, then go out and do a trail run, do something completely different, off the grid a little bit.  I can tell you, looking back on my career in triathlons and trail running, the thing I remember as the most fun is running a single track in Colorado, at eight to nine thousand feet, when you don’t hear a sound. You’re running on a single-track with ferns, these big aspen trees, these 14,000foot peaks around you, and I’m like, “It does not get any better.”  At the end of the day I got a great workout, and be connected in nature. I wasn’t so fixated on, “I’ve got to get back, I’ve got to download all my data, and then I’ve got to upload…”No.  It’s a notechnology day.  So again, I’m going to challenge our listeners, go for it.

Vanessa:  I really appreciate that, because what you’re saying in terms of the reasoning why we engage in training in the first place is a lot of time for stress reduction, to get the positive hormones flowing.  When we connect with nature, that is one of the best ways that we can reduce our cortisol and increase our endorphins and dopamine.  I think that’s a really wonderful point to make.  Get rid of the technology and be present with where you are, and enjoy the nature.  That is a fabulous tip.  E.J., let’s go with Tri Training Fun Tip #7.

Elizabeth: Well, we are going to continue to just throw the challenges out there to our listeners, because I’ve got another one here.  They’ve got no excuses living up to some of these challenges we’re throwing out now. I would challenge them to mentor a new triathlete.  This goes hand-in-hand with what Matt and Kurt were saying about volunteering in the sport.  Mentoring somebody that is entering the sport is so important too, not only for the growth of the sport, but creating that community and supporting others.  It’s so fun, because you cannot help but just love the enthusiasm of somebody new getting into the sport.  It rubs off on you, all of these new experiences that they’re having for the first time.  For me, this is also just a great reminder of the finer details of this complicated sport that we love so much.  It makes you reflect on how much you’ve learned in your time in the sport, things like changing a bike tire, cleaning your bike chain, setting up your transition spot, figuring up your carbohydrate intake.  Things that seem second-nature now, but you had to learn along the way, and you can pass that information and knowledge along to somebody else.  It’s so fun for the person that is doing that, and so helpful for that new athlete that is just getting started in the sport.  It has this amazing ripple effect.  I think back to the woman that was so instrumental in mentoring me, and taking me out for those initial bike rides.  I think back on it now and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I wonder if we were even going 12 miles an hour,” as she’s sitting there on her fancy aero-bike saying, “It’s okay, let’s stop and change a tire just because you know you’re going to need to this someday again.”  Yeah, that would be my challenge, mentor a new triathlete. It’s good for the whole of the sport, and talk about increasing your fun as their enthusiasm rubs off.

Matt:  I love that, Elizabeth.  Everybody was a beginner once, and I think it’s important to remember that.  We all didn’t wake up fast, it took time, and I think reminding people of that, that you’ve got to take baby steps, I love that idea.  I think that’s tremendous.

Vanessa:  I agree, I think that’s a fabulous idea. I’m totally going to do a 180 and include a tip that does not include some form of camaraderie.  I’m bringing you Tri Training Fun Tip #8, and I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love food.  Something that makes training more fun is getting to plan out what I’m going to eat before those training sessions, and during those long training sessions.  I think that’s a really important thing to make fun.  You can try out new products, you can try to make your own recipes to keep things fresh.  I’m currently testing out the Maurten gels, which I know a lot of people have a seriously negative aversion to, but I think they’re really great, and so far they’ve been really great for me.  But if you’re into making your own healthy snacks, one of my favorite resources is actually the NoMeat Athlete Cookbook, and one of my favorite recipes – for long bike rides you literally need one of these cookies in your back pocket – is called the Calorie Bomb cookie.  If you make it to the specifications to the recipe, they have like a thousand calories in them, and they’re so good, all completely wholesome ingredients, allnatural, wonderful things.  The second one that I really like is the chocolate and black bean Happy Bars.  Just from the name alone, how can you eat one and not have a smile plastered on your face? You can find both of these recipes on their website, nomeatathlete.com. It’s a bonus and a win for everyone when you get to eat delicious food.

Matt: That sounds up my alley, that thousand-calorie thing!  Yeah, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night and coming downstairs hungry, and I could have a Clif Bar in one hand and a bagel in the other hand, and back up to bad.  So I need that Calorie Bomb.

Vanessa: Yeah, it’s so good.  I’ll actually send it to you, they’re really delicious and easy.  You just dump everything in a bowl, mix it and bake, and it’s fabulous.  I’ll send that to you.  E.J., can you share with us Tri Training Fun Tip #9?

Elizabeth:  I would say for Tip #9 would be to travel. I know that at first we hear the word travel and it’s like, “Ah, it’s not within the budget.”  But it doesn’t have to be an extravagant trip.  This can maybe be just 30 minutes of a drive somewhere a little different from where you’ve been before.  It could be to a nearby state park.  If it is in the budget for extravagant travel or a little further distance, that’s fantastic too, but there’s just something about exploring new places on the bike, or going for a run in a new location.  We talked about that connection with nature before, and this is a great opportunity for that.  You are just immersed in a new place, you’re taking everything in, it's a new adventure.  That sense of adventure is very exciting, and you just have a real appreciation for the new routes.  I find that some of my favorite memories on a bike or run are from exploring new places. I distinctly remember, I was still a very new cyclist, but my family went to Hawaii for my parents’ wedding anniversary, and I didn’t bring a bike.  I wasn’t that into triathlon at the time, but was starting to get more into it.  So I went to a bike shop, rented a commuter bike with flat pedals, and I ended up on this beautiful West Maui loop, it’s like 80 miles, and to this day that is one of my favorite memories of just going out, exploring, have no timeline.  You talk about no technology, I had only a little bit of an idea where I was going, but had no idea what my wattage was, or what my heart rate was. I was just out there exploring a new place, and had such gratitude for what my fitness was able to allow me to do that day, and soak it in.  So I’d say travel, adventure, go somewhere new, soak it up, find some new roads.

Vanessa:  I really love that idea of traveling.  And maybe you’re not even traveling with the intention of a race with a destination, but I find that one of the best things that you can do when you’re out and about, just like you said with your bike ride, is you actually get to see way more of the area that you’re in when you go and explore on a running path.  You might not know the path that you’re going and you just say, “I’m going to turn left, because this looks like a really cool street.”  Then you might come up along this really great little café, or a little park that you wouldn’t have discovered if you hadn’t been on your two feet or on your bike.  It’s a really great way to immerse yourself in the community aspect of where you’re actually visiting.  I think that’s absolutely a wonderful idea, thank you for sharing that.  Kurt, let’s go with Tri Training Fun Tip #10.

Kurt: You know, E.J. is making this really easy, because my next tip is kind of connected to the travel.  Now, you can travel a short distance or a little bit further, but it’s called a brick weekend.  I know in a lot of our training sessions it’s kind of planned that way, but this one might be a little bit more adventurous and fun, getting together with a couple people to say, “Let’s find a ride that we can do together.” It might be more of a tour, it can be 50 miles, 75 or 100 miles.  Then if there’s a half marathon or a 5K the next day – you probably wouldn’t do it by yourself, but if you can talk a couple people into doing it – then the bar is not raised, it’s actually kind of lowered. It’s like, “Let’s just go and have fun.” In February out in Palm Springs, where we had our Pool School, they’ve got an event called “The Brick”.  On Saturday they have the Tour de Palm Springs, which has a 50miler, 75miler, and 100miler.  Then the next day they have the Palm Desert half marathon.  I did it a few years ago where I’m out there riding, I hook up with this guy at Mile 15, and the long and the short of it is it’s Jason McFall.  We rode from that point to the very end, and he’s bound and determined to pull. Finally, at about mile 70 I said, “Jason, I think I got a little bit left in my legs.  I know I’m a lot older than you, but let me pull a little bit.” We were cruising along, everything was fine until the last driveway, and we made the right-hand turn into the driveway. I didn’t realize there was water coming down, and Coach Madden hit the deck really hard.  Boom.  The next day my son ran the half marathon, and it was epic.  It was a dad/lad thing, and I can appreciate that.  So brick weekends, getting out of your element, going to something new.  It’s fun, it’s exciting, and exhilarating.

Vanessa: That does sound all of things, thank you very much for sharing those wonderful stories.  I love them so much.  Matt, let’s go with you for Tri Training Fun Tip #11.

Matt: I’m going to change gears.  We’re going to get away from traveling, and I’m actually going to take us to the gym for this one.  My background is strength and conditioning.  That’s what I do for my full-time job, and I think one of the missing links that a lot of athletes don’t do enough of is their strength training. It’s injury prevention, but a lot of times they don’t know what to do, don’t know how to do it.  So a fun workout that I like to incorporate, I call it the “deck of cards” workout.  You basically can take any deck of cards that you want, and you pick each suit: hearts might be burpees, diamonds could be pushups, clubs could be squats, and let’s say spades is running. You flip a card over, and whatever the card is, you do that many repetitions of whatever it is.  So if you flip over an ace of hearts, you got twenty burpees. If you flip over a king of diamonds, you get twenty pushups.  You see how the game works, you just got to do whatever you flip over.  You can take that to a next level.  You want to go to the pool with that deck of cards?  Assign a different stroke to each suit, have a lot of fun there.  Backstroke, butterfly, fly, you see where I’m going.  You can even take that out onto the track, where if you flip the cards over, it could be Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3, Zone 4 for a certain amount of time corresponding to the number that’s on the card. All different ways to have a little bit of fun with a deck of cards.  So next time you show up to a group training session, bring the cards.  Don’t bring the poker chips, just bring the cards.

Vanessa:  I think this should be how teenagers play with cards.  Wouldn’t that be great, if this was the goto game that teenagers would play with the cards? Instead of just sitting around, have the cards be reflective of some kind of physical activity.  That would be amazing, I love that.  We should push that out to the general public as well, not just the triathlon community.

Elizabeth: I’m seeing this as a future YouTube segment as well, like flip the deck of cards, all the coaches.  Next coach retreat, I think Matt Sommer is going to lead us –

Matt: That’d be fun!  Happy to!

Vanessa: E.J., could you hit us up with Tri Training Fun Tip #12?

Elizabeth: I’m going to go back just a little bit to when Kurt was talking about some trail running, and use that as Tip #12 here.  Just shake it up.  Do something a little bit different.  Whether that’s doing a trail run instead of a track session or just a run on pavement. Or getting offroad on the bike, and maybe doing some gravel riding.  Or if your skills are warranting some single-track mountain biking, then more power to you.  I know it’s not there for me, but if it’s there for you, then all the better on that, too.  There’s just the opportunity here to do something a little bit different, but still within the sport.  I know that there are a number of athletes especially up further north, where in the winter months they will do some cross-country skiing, and that is excellent cross-training.  They’re giving their mind and body a little break from just your typical swim, bike, run, but talk about a great strength workout and some aerobic conditioning, they are certainly benefiting from the cross-country skiing that they’re doing. Same thing with taking the gravel bike out.  Yeah, it’s a heavier bike you’re not going to go as fast – ooh, there’s another opportunity to not worry so much about what technology is saying.  I feel like this maybe encompasses a couple of those other tips, where we’re just shaking it up and maybe not paying as much attention to what the numbers are for our paces or wattages.  I can tell you that for me, running on the trails is so freeing, because I know there’s no way I’m going to hit the same paces on the trails that I would be at the track.  It’s just not going to happen with the different terrain.  I’ve got to watch my footing, and there are some crazy climbs, don’t fall off this ledge.  It’s just something that engages your brain in a different way, but still gives you a really good training benefit, and I find that’s just really beneficial.  So I would say make it fun by shaking things up.

Vanessa: That’s a really great tip.  I love that idea very much.  I sometimes feel like, when I’m deviating from my training plan, that I’m not getting a benefit.  But it’s so important to deviate from that training plan sometimes, and just go out and have fun and try something new, and you’re going to be strengthening different parts of your body as you’re doing that, so I think that’s really valuable and a good lesson to keep in the mind for when you want to do those things with your friends or family, to get that extra training in there.

Matt:  I love that, because one of the biggest concerns I get with athletes when they’re traveling is, “How am I going to fit my training in?”  And I’m like, “Listen, you’re on vacation.  Go have fun!”  If you want to go out and do a family hike, or you want to go ride beach cruisers on the beach, just go to it.  Don’t worry about your training.  Your training session should be a source of stress release, not a source of stress. So go have fun, relax, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, just be active, rejuvenate, and come back ready to play ball then.  Everybody needs that little bit of relaxation, so just changing it up is great.

Vanessa: This is the last Tri Training Fun Tip that I’m going to be giving to you, and I think I talked a little bit about it already, but one of the things that makes training more fun is engaging on the I AM TriDot Facebook page.  This community is a massive number of triathletes who love the sport and who want to be part of a community and share their experiences with others.  I feel like building a training community is something that keeps us all motivated and connected with people who are like-minded, and we all have this common interest as well.  There’s no one who understands a triathlete better than a triathlete, especially on those hard days.  I think that it’s a wonderful community, and it’s really fun, and it’s something that we can all do to uplift other people in the sport.  It’s okay to share these things that have not gone well for you, it’s okay to share the really wonderful things that you’ve done as well, and it does make training more fun.  I think I have to mention that posting a jump photo after you nail a session is just incredible, and you get so much love from the community.  So I’m going to throw out another challenge to all the listeners today to (a) join the I AM TriDot Facebook page, and also to do a jump photo and post it.  You’ve just done a really great session, so why not celebrate that?  It’s a really fun way to celebrate is to actually just throw yourself in the air, in whatever position you want or can.  I think that’s some way to enhance the fun in the sport after a really hard or motivating training session that you’ve had.  All right, Kurt, can you give us Tri Training Fun Tip #14?

Kurt: Number 14, I think I have one more in my little bag of tricks.  It’s really incredible what we have done with our TriDot Pool Schools.  I’m on this podcast with Matt and E.J., and we were kind of the guinea pigs at the point of conception to start the Pool School, and I can remember that weekend vividly.  We build a community, we’re together, we learn, we grow, we feel vulnerable, we’re trying these new things, and at the end of the day it’s like, “Oh my goodness!”  Now we look at the number of Pool Schools that are literally flourishing throughout the U.S., and now we’ve got one in the U.K..  I know as an instructor that I get super excited about going into a Pool School to get prepped, to get poised, to do all the logistics.  It’s kind of neat, the first day everyone is kind of stand-offish. You can pick up on the vibe a little bit, they’re like, “Well, I’m not too sure, I don’t know anybody.”  And I’m just trying to loosen them up like, “Hey, gimme five.  How you doing, where you from?”  And they’re telling me, “Oh I’ve got this, I don’t really need this school.”  I’m like, “Oh, okay.  Very good, but you might want to hang around, because it’s going to get better.”  Then you’ve got the other one that says, “I’m really overwhelmed.  In fact, I feel like I’m going to vomit right now.  I don’t think I’m on the right airplane.”  I’m like, “No, relax.  Let’s go baby steps.  We’re going to be just fine.”  Going through that, the teaching, the learning, the checking for understanding, the improvement, the casual dinners, then you do the drum roll.  The second day it ramps up like, “I love swimming!” And you build community.  Every single Pool School I’ve been at, I see all of these.  Then you get into that Grade 11, Grade 12, you do the little final, and it is so invigorating to see that scoreboard, to see everyone’s “scholarship” up there, the “honor roll” if you will.  I know that there’s a winwin for the swimmers to the coaches, it’s a double win. The relationships, the time, it’s the experience, and that’s what we’re going to remember years from now.  It’s not about, “Hey, I improved my swim assessment by ten seconds,” or, “I got a hundred, a unicorn on my TrainX.”  That’s great, but I think going to a Pool School can be so much fun, because you get out of your element.  I know for me, every one I’ve done, I leave on Sunday exhausted, fulfilled, and gratified, but it just propels me into that next week on, “Man, I am really, really engaged.”  To the point like, “I am super motivated to train.”  So I want to encourage everyone, it’s kind of like a bike fit or anything, it’s really important to do.  For me, really the challenge is like, every year, I’m going to go in as a student. It’s great to do that, you’ve got people like Mark Allen or Michellie Jones, or Matt or E.J., we’re going to do it together, and I think that’s something that we look at as a great resource to have. And on race day, you’ve got that inner confidence.  You don’t need to say anything, but in your head you're like, “I’ve got this.  I’m not going to tell anyone, but when that gun goes off, it’s ‘man on’, or it’s ‘girl on’.” That’s going to be fun, enjoyable, and it’s a great return on your investment.

Vanessa:  I think that’s a really great point to make, especially when you have a cohesive experience that everyone kind of picks each other and lifts each other up towards the end.  I would be very surprised if that energy and all of that enthusiasm and positivity did not spill over to other aspects of those participants’ lives when they go home.  That’s why we do this sport, is that we want to create a better portion of our lives. So giving us that opportunity to participate in something where you feel so positive, and you feel so important, and you feel so accomplished, that’s going to affect every aspect of your life, and that’s a wonderful thing.  Matt, can you deliver the last Tri Training Fun Tip?  It’s #15, and I think that you’re the perfect one to close us off here.

Matt: I’d love to.  I’ve actually got a really good one here, and I’m going to throw a curve ball.  We actually didn’t talk about this one beforehand, this is just coming from flying from the seat of my pants.  We all know that the training is fun, but when you can’t train you’re not having fun. So learn to recover and take a day off. Enhance recovery.  If you want to have fun, you’ve got to train.  So my big thing on this one, and I challenge my athletes all the time, is to incorporate recovery techniques into your dayto-day training.  Learn to listen to the body when it whispers so it doesn’t have to yell.  I’ve said that many, many times.  Learn to love your foam roller.  Learn to love your massage gun.  Learn to appreciate other modalities out there such as dry needling, acupuncture, massage therapy, Normatecs.  I can’t stress enough how important it is to embrace recovery with as much zeal as you do your training efforts.  I think if we all can step back and learn to appreciate the recovery, then we can have fun training.  Because when you’re injured, you’re not having fun.  I’ve been there and done that, and it’s miserable.  It takes the joy out of it, it takes you down a notch or two.  So if we can keep it fun, we keep it healthy, and I think that’s really important to remember.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Vanessa: Welcome to the cooldown, y’all!  I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! Today’s Coach Cooldown Tip is going to be most excellent.  Julie McPhilomy is joining me today, and she is one of TriDot’s newest coaches.  She began coaching with TriDot in 2022, and she is excited to help people reach their goals and cross those finish lines. Julie is a well-seasoned athlete herself.  She has run countless half-marathons, twelve marathons, she is a three-time 70.3 finisher, and a two-time full-distance finisher, and she is no stranger to the TriDot platform, as she has been using it since 2016.  On the coaching side of things, Julie specializes in coaching athletes who are new to the sport, those ready to cross their first short-course finish line, and intermediate long-course athletes.  She has a soft spot for the 40plus female crowd, because this is when she started triathlon herself.  Julie’s line of work as a flight attendant comes along with a nontraditional schedule, and part of her knowledge base is working with athletes who have complicated work hours, but still want to fit all the training in.  A fun fact about Julie is that for one of those marathons mentioned above, she actually ran the original course in Athens. Welcome to the show, Julie!  Tell us about this pretty amazing experience that you had!

Julie McPhilomy:  Hey, thanks Vanessa!  Thanks for having me!  Yeah, that was such a cool event!  I started running marathons back in 2007, and I met this great group of people, and we dubbed ourselves the Turtles.  One of the guys that was in our group actually is Greek and his family had a place there, so he said, “Hey, would you guys want to come run that original course?” So we all did, I believe it was eight of us that went.  We ran the original course, and then spent the rest of the time in Greece with his family, traveling around, and it was just the best race-cation ever!

Vanessa:  No kidding, that sounds phenomenal!  Not only to run the original race course, but to have your personal tour guide in a new country with someone’s family, that sounds absolutely incredible.

Julie: Yeah, it was so much fun!  His family didn’t speak English either, so it was very interesting getting around, but somehow every meal we made it work, and had conversation despite us not speaking Greek and them not speaking English. It was kind of fun.

Vanessa: That is super fun.  So what tip do you have for us today?

Julie:  My tip is run the mile that you’re in.  What I mean by that is to be present on what’s going on, be present in the moment.  Because as we know, especially in the full distance, in a marathon or full-distance Ironman, it can be very overwhelming.  The big picture is very overwhelming.  If you focus on the mile you’re actually in and be present, you can fix things, you can refocus if something is going on.  But also know that that mile is behind you, and a new one is coming.  Don’t look too far ahead, just look at that next one, and that next one, and like anything, it’ll just start ticking down.  Because you’ll be making a hundred decisions throughout the day, and if you stay focused on that mile you’re in, it becomes less overwhelming.  I think it’s something that you can practice in training so super easy because we have long training days, so practice that in training and it’ll transfer over to race day.

Vanessa: That’s excellent advice.  I think being present is something we can work on in all aspects of our life.  You have a lot of experience with long-distance races, so was there a particular instance when this practice of being present became apparent to you?

Julie: Yeah, in my first Ironman I definitely had a dark spot on the bike.  I remember thinking, “Gosh, I’m only 70 miles in, and what am I going to do?” It started to become, “I don’t want to do this.”  I remembered that mantra of “just run the mile that you’re in.”  I came back to myself, I took some more nutrition, tried to up my energy level a little bit, and next thing I know I’m climbing up a hill, catching a bunch of people, and I forgot all about it.  I just moved on, and that was the end of the dark spot. That was very, very apparent to me that I needed to keep doing that throughout the entire race.

Vanessa: Yeah, I think one of the tricks too that I like to use when I’m in that spot where my mind is telling me to stop, and I know that I want to, but I also know that I can’t stop, is to think about something that I’m actually doing.  Like if it were on the bike for example, I start counting in my head the number of pedal strokes that I have, or maybe focus on a particular part of the pedal stroke like dropping my heels, or contracting a specific muscle group. That flip in the mind from “I don’t want to do this anymore” to thinking about something that you’re actually physically doing, I find, is actually very helpful in switching that mindset.  Like you said, you forget about the prior thoughts that you had about stopping or how much pain you’re in or whatever, and you focus on what you’re doing physically, right now in this moment.  It is very helpful to push past that.

Julie:  Absolutely, I think that is a perfect way of looking at it, to focus on something in that moment.  Then once you get past whatever you’re feeling, it’s behind you.  Move on, keep moving to the next one.  That was a perfect way of looking at it.

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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