IM 70.3 World Championship - Knowing You Belong

With less than two weeks until the 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championship, there's a lot of nervous energy going around. This 70.3 "World" Championship event is a bit unique in that the majority of the participants will not be international athletes but instead, representing USA. Certainly this is understandable as we are still in a global pandemic and each country has different guidelines, rules and regulations for travel and quarantine. When an event is in your home country, it makes it a bit easier to travel to. 

Although there was still a qualification process for every participant in this event, I've encountered many athletes who feel less deserving of qualifying because of the greater number of slots available at North America 70.3 events. 

At Trimarni, we will have over 20 athletes participating in this event (including me, Karel and our assistant coach Joe). We ordered team shirts and tanks, we have team events planned and we are super excited to share this experience with our athletes. When several of our athletes received a "roll down" slot or a Women for Tri slot, it was as if they felt they didn't belong at the event because they didn't "earn" it outright - let's say by placing in the top 5 of their respective age group. Some athletes received a slot after what they would describe as a "horrible" race whereas others received a slot several months later, and felt too embarrassed to take the slot. But for each reason to not take the slot, we encouraged our athletes to accept their slot to the 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championship in St. George, Utah on September 18th. 

If you are an athlete who feels as if you don't belong at a World Championship event or any other event, especially due to unique circumstances, it's important to know that you belong. 

You worked hard to get to a higher level in your sport. 
You made the time to improve your skills and technique. 
You put in the many hours of training. 

And you were in the right place at the right time. Sure, it could be a bit from a bit of luck or based on chance but being in the right place at the right time is not just a matter of proximity. If you aren't prepared, it doesn't matter what situation you find yourself in. 

You belong and don't let anyone convince you otherwise. 

As an athlete, believing in yourself is important. Without confidence, it's easy to look for reasons why you don't belong or excuses as to why you will fail. 

You belong. To perform to your full abilities on race day, list the reasons why you belong. For example, you hired a sport dietitian to work on your nutrition. You put in extra time to work on your skills. You are mentally strong. You have worked really hard to get to where you are today. 

Remind yourself that you may make mistakes, things may not go as planned, you will have obstacles to overcome and you may struggle. These things don't happen to athletes because they don't belong. Ever athlete has setbacks and struggles before and on race day. 

Rise up to the level of your nearest competition instead of feeling intimated by others. Don't waste your precious energy by making comparisons, worrying about how you think others will think of/about you or doubting your abilities because you feel you don't belong. 

Don't feel the need to seek social approval from others. Avoid the tendency to throw out excuses before you give yourself an opportunity to test your abilities. Believe in yourself. Trust your training. Race for yourself. Celebrate this special opportunity. 

You belong. 

TriWeek: Race Day Worries

With the taper-induced phantom pains and niggles and lethargy behind, you may find yourself with a bit of self-doubt, worry and anxiety with only a few nights of sleep before your triathlon race.

While it's perfectly normal to feel some stress, nerves and pressure before an important event, use that powerful energy to fire you up so it brings out the best version of yourself on race day.

Because lack of self-belief and worry can have a disastrous effect on your race day performance, here are a few tips to improve your confidence for race day:

1. Stop worrying about the uncontrollables - If you find yourself emotionally stressed out in the week or two before a big event, there's a good chance that you are dealing with a roller coaster of emotions dealing with the "what ifs". Worrying about things that are out of your control, like the weather or competition, is self sabotaging. Turn those negative thoughts into something positive so that those thoughts do not paint a bad mental picture and drain your energy before the race.
2. Stop focusing on the outcome - Too much mental energy on paces, speed. times or results can leave you emotionally drained, worried and anxious. It can also keep you from making good decisions, in the moment. Remove any extra pressure on what needs to happen as an end result and focus on the process of delivering yourself to the finish line. Remind yourself of all the tools that you have gained over the season and that a great race day performance is all about being in the moment and dealing with obstacles as they come about.
3. List your mantras - Every athlete will have low moments in a race - lots of them. There will be voices in your head that will try to convince you to slow down and maybe even quit when the going gets tough. How will you challenge these voices? What will help you take your focus off your self-doubts and refocus your mind to get you to a positive state of flow? By repeating a powerful statement to yourself over and over again in your mind, you'll find yourself pushing through these low moments and getting through the low moments of racing.
4. Reflect on your journey - Look at your individual journey to see how far you've come. Don't compare yourself with anyone else. Remember that time when you couldn't do what you can do now? Or when you completed that tough workout that you didn't think was possible? What obstacles did you have to overcome to get to the start line? Focus on the highlighted moments instead of dwelling on what should have or could have been.
5. Mental preparation - Picture yourself at various points during the race and work through all types of scenarios - the good and the bad. Look at course maps, videos and pictures to help you put images to places on the course. And don't forget to visualize yourself crossing the finish line.
6. Focus on what you can control - Take care of yourself. Don't worry about anyone else. Focus on what you can control such as your gear and equipment, your sleep, nutrition and hydration as well as your thoughts. Surround yourself with energy givers, not energy suckers and avoid forums/media that cause self-doubt, worry or stress.
7. Have fun - Remind yourself that this is just a hobby. Your self-worth and athletic worthiness is not determined by one race. Enjoy being on the roller coaster of emotions as it's your body's way of preparing you for action. Make sure to remind yourself why you signed up for this event and how special it will be to cross that finish line. Don't let your nerves and worries suck the fun out of racing. Focus on what you can control, trust your training, visualize success, mentally prepare yourself and don't forget to have fun.

Embrace sport scariness

Sports are awesome because they resemble life. 

In both life and in sport, there are rules, ethic codes, regulations and laws.
In both life and sport, the things that come easy are often most enjoyable and fun but when there's a struggle, it's easy to lose motivation and to lose confidence.
In both life and sport, we need to work hard, stay committed and remain focused. We also need a bit of luck.
And in both life and in sport, we need a "team" to help us succeed.

And in life and sport, both can be extremely awesome and a little bit scary.

Despite how scary sport can be, people from around the world, of all different fitness levels and backgrounds embrace the scariness of sport because it resembles life. Many people recognize that life is extremely hard so why not do something fun with your body that scares you?

I've always believed that one of the best things about sport is having countless opportunities to embrace scary situations and then work to overcome them. Kinda like stretching a comfort zone. But with sport scariness, it's all about placing yourself into a situation that gives you a little fear and doing what was once very uncomfortable. Through this process, an athlete can gain strength, confidence and courage by each experience that is scary.  

This is why I love a group training camp. Later today, we will have 16 athletes from all over the US joining us for an amazing 4.5 day camp experience that will require each of them to work through scary but fun situations in swim/bike/run. For some athletes, this may not sound like fun but for our campers, they signed up for this camp in order to improve. Every camper will learn that he/she is capable of handling discomfort in the face of a scary situation. Once the camper learns that he/she has the ability to handle the scary situation, it will no longer be something that is feared but instead, the athlete will gain confidence that he/she can conquer it the next time.

If you find that you are constantly pushing away the things that scare you, this strategy may provide you with temporary comfort but it's only short term. The long term result will be more fear anytime you are asked to do something that scares you. 

We look forward to helping our campers face their fears, stretch their comfort zone and show each athlete that they have strengths that they never knew existed.

Weekend workouts - Building confidence for race day

Confidence as an athlete is having a strong belief in your ability to achieve your athletic goals. Confidence keeps you focused, motivated, focused and positive, even when obstacles are in your way or setbacks occur. Confidence keeps you excited to embrace challenging and pressure situations/workouts as you remain emotionally in control.

Confident athletes think differently about workouts, obstacles and uncomfortable situations. Confident thinking is key for athletic success. For many athletes, negative and doubtful thinking influences performance, ultimately sabotaging your potential to improve and to perform to your ability. Whether it's low self esteem, self doubt or fear of failure, it's important to explore your inner doubter that is keeping you from thinking positively in order to build your confidence. 

One of the best confidence boosters is preparation. While training and checking off workouts counts as preparation, athletic readiness also includes the technical, tactical, gear, nutrition, equipment and mental aspects of your sport. Thus, putting in the time only to train will not make you as prepared for your upcoming event compared to putting time into every aspect of training. Imagine arriving to your upcoming event thinking "I am as prepared as I can be!" - now that is confidence speaking! 

Athletes often make the mistake thinking that completing workouts provides athletic readiness but what is missing is the ability to learn and to grow from the failed and subpar workouts, which are needed in order to succeed. How an athlete responds to situations is just as important, if not more important, than building confidence from perfectly executing a workout and nailing the metrics in perfect environmental conditions. 

Most athletes would agree that confidence comes from success. When you are succeeding, you feel validated that your hard work is paying off. When a setback occurs, you feel defeated and question your abilities. Although success encourages you to continue to train hard and to put in the work, success as an athlete is much more than just training and racing. If you are constantly chasing great workouts and beating yourself up for the days when you don't excel, you will never experience true success. Little victories, like showing up for a workout on a busy day or when you are exhausted, or finishing a workout despite your legs/arm feeling like they can't move a minute longer, are the winning moments that build confidence. Improvements build confidence. Overcoming adversity builds confidence. Small victories in training accumulate so that every day, you can move closer to your big goals.

If you constantly find yourself thinking negatively or expecting yourself to achieve your high expectations  in training and on race day, reduce the negative and pressure cooker thinking and replace it with positive self talk and process driven, in the moment thinking. Understanding that adversity increases your belief that you can respond positively to difficult, uncomfortable and tough situations, I encourage you to not fear adversity, especially when a setback occurs during those "why now" moments. 

--------------------------------------------

Saturday morning was our last "long" ride before we compete in Haines City 70.3 this coming weekend. Karel and I are anxious to shake off some rust and go through the motions and emotions of endurance racing as we kick start our upcoming endurance triathlon race season. Although Haines City is not a key race for us and we won't be prescribing to a normal taper for this race, we will adjust our training this week in order to execute to the best of our abilities for this strategically planned race. As you may (or may not know), St. George 70.3 is in 4 weeks and that is a very important race for me. This race has been on my to-do list for many years as I love difficult race courses. Due to the challenging course, it is a race that I would like to place overall female amateur. The course suits me very well so I will gather confidence and take some risks here at Haines City as it is a stepping stone in my developmental plan for St. George, before I continue on with the rest of the season of training and racing. 

Our Saturday ride was a little eventful as Karel's rear bottle cage got unhinged from his saddle after our first interval. This broke our momentum during our ride and it turned into a frustrating situation as that cage held Karel's two other bottles. We both stopped and tried to assess the situation and instead of calling it a day due to the obstacle, we continued on riding to finish off our intervals and then we would pick up the cage on the way home.

For some reason, Karel and I both felt off on the bikes. The bumps on the road felt bumpier than before, it was hard to feel comfortable and it was just one of those rides where we both felt blah. BUT, we continued on with the workout. 

Bike workout:

WU: ~45 minutes
MS: 3 x 20 minutes at half IM effort as
(5 min <65 5="" min="" rpm="">95 rpm, 5 min <65 5="" min="" rpm="">95 rpm)
6 min EZ in between

Then:
1 x 20 minute half IM effort (choice cadence)

Total: 2:55, 50.6 miles, 3547 feet elevation gained

Off the bike, it was time to run. Our run was very effort specific and we performed it on the rolling terrain outside of our neighborhood. We have been doing more effort specific runs and I really enjoy them because they go by fast as you are constantly thinking about what you are doing and what is next. Of course, our hilly terrain makes it nearly impossible to go by pace when we run so the effort specific workouts are more practical for our training. Although I can't keep up with Karel, we did out and backs on a stretch of road (with two turns and two u-turns) so it was nice to see each other throughout the set. I always get a boost of confidence when I see Karel running.

Brick run workout: 10 min build to half ironman (HIM) effort

2 min endurance effort

5 min at HIM effort 

2 min endurance 

4 min at HIM

2 min enduranace

3 min at HIM

2 min endurance
5 min HIM effort, build to strong
EZ cool down jog

Total: 46:24, 5.88 miles, 381 feet elevation gained

On Sunday, our athlete Thomas, who is training for his first IM in September (Chatty) joined us for our long run. If you may have noticed, our long runs are very specific and only but a few times do we sprinkle in a run where we simply just run. The long runs are always based on time and pace is rarely, if ever, a focus. I hardly ever run on flat terrain so my focus when I run is always on my form vs what is on my Garmin. To be honest, when I finish a run, I have no idea how far I go because I do my warm-up, then do my pre and main set and then I cool down. When my main set is over, I simply need to get home and that is my cool down. This approach provides a lot more fun to running for it keeps me engaged on what I am doing in the moment vs having to chase prescribed miles or paces to hit.

This run was very specific to the location where we were running so it is a bit hard to explain but I will try to do my best.

We left from our house and ran an easy 23 minutes/2.63 miles to the location of our main set. Which for the locals, we started our main set on Pine Forest Road, which is a .66 mile stretch of road that connects to Little Texas and has 127 feet of climbing. At the bottom of the road, off Old Buncome, there is a park with a sidewalk trail around a park (and public bathrooms).

Now that you understand the location (park with a ~.3 mile loop trail around it and a .66 mile uphill road), I can explain the main set:

MS: 4x's:
~4-5 minutes (or 2 full loops) around the park
Climb to the top of the hill steady/strong with the last 20-30 seconds very strong
Then run down the hill but still keeping a steady effort w/ good form
Then back into another 2 loops or 4-5 minutes around the park to start the next round.

No breaks throughout this entire set. Four rounds total.

The climb took me about 5:30 to complete and another 5 minutes to run down and then we ran about 4.5 minutes around the park so each interval lasted about 15 minutes. Thomas finished each climb about 10 seconds ahead of me but we ran the downhill and park section and almost 1/2 each climb together. It was awesome to have him for motivation to not give up.
Did I mention we had no breaks in between those 4 rounds?

I actually gained a lot of confidence in this workout, thanks to seeing Karel looking so strong and having Thomas as my rabbit/running buddy. I was also super impressed with how my legs were able to run well after the main set, especially on our rolling terrain back home. Although this workout was very challenging, I was so proud of my body for staying so strong throughout the entire set.

After over 7.5 miles of our main set, we had another few miles to get home which gave Thomas and I 1:50 total running, 13.4 miles and almost 1200 feet of climbing. Karel, the speedster, had about a mile more on us since he finished the set before us and ran a little extra and also covered a little more in the park loop during those 4-5 minutes. 

And to finish off the weekend training, a 4000 yard swim on Sunday afternoon. As usual, it's always hard to get to the pool but we always feel better when it's over.

WU: 400

Pre set: snorkel and fins
1 x 200
2 x 150
2 x 100
2 x 50
All with 10-15 sec rest (building effort as the duration decreases)

MS:
500 buoy - smooth
6 x 75's at 90%, strong w/ 15 sec rest
300 buoy - smooth
10 x 50's at 90% strong w/ 10 sec rest
300 buoy - smooth
12 x 25's at 90% strong w/ 5 sec rest
300 buoy - smooth
100 strong

Another great week + weekend of training behind me and now to keep myself in good health this race week as I go into my first half ironman distance event in my 11th season of endurance triathlon racing. 

Thank you body!

Build confidence, skip the excuses

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

-George Washington Carver

 

 

Saturday morning brick:

2:45 trainer ride

1 hour warm-up (including 20 min of 1 min single leg drills each leg, then both together, etc.)

Main set: 

3 x 15 min Z3 upper w/ 5 min EZ (cadence 90+ rpm)

10 min EZ

2 x 5 min Z4 low w/ 3 min EZ (cadence 90+rpm)

Cool down

 

30 min (3.5 miles) treadmill 'brick' run

15 min warm-up (last 5 minutes picked up the pace a little)

Rest/straddle treadmill for 1 minute

Main set:

5 x 2 minutes (90 sec at half IM race pace, 30 sec at olympic distance race pace) w/ 1 min rest/straddle treadmill

Cool down walk

 

Sunday long run (treadmill):

10.5 miles/1:25

Dynamic stretching warm-up
30 min warm-up (stretched out every 8-10 minutes)
Main set 3x's:
5 min @ half marathon race pace (+20 sec slower)
5 x 1 min @ Olympic distance race pace w/ 20 sec rest in between
1 min straddle treadmill, repeat 2 more times.
Cool down

 

 

It's too cold
I don't have time
I'm too slow
I'm too tired
It won't work
I can't do it
I am not strong enough
I am not smart enough

 

If there is one thing that motivates me every morning to train smart it would be my triathlon goals. My season is laid out well in advance so that I can prep and peak at appropriate times and minimize chances of burnout.

But if there was one thing that keeps me enjoying exercising when I'm not training for triathlons, it would be how great I feel when I workout (and after).

 

One thing that I encourage athletes and fitness enthusiasts to remember is that training for a race is not required to be healthy. You can be healthy and not be training for a triathlon, an Ironman, a bike race or a 5K. Although training may improve health, if not done carefully, training can be very damaging on the body, can interfere with balance in life (work/family/etc.), can increase risk for disease/illness and can increase risk for injury.

 

But no matter if you are training for a race or just exercising for health, it's important to understand the difference between building confidence and having a no excuses mentality when it comes to reaching your fitness goals. 

 

I find that it requires a lot of energy to make excuses. First, there's the thought of what you should be doing. Then there's the thought of why you can't do it, why you don't want to do it, why you don't have time to do it or why it can't be done. Then there's the energy to convince yourself that the reason for not doing whatever you should be doing is good enough to keep you from doing it. But then in the back of your mind, you feel guilty, upset or frustrated that you have convinced yourself that you can't do what you should do.

 

I've said "I can't" many times in my life. In career, education and in sport, I am not afraid of admitting that "I can't" is part of my vocabulary.

But when it comes to my goals, whether career, education of sport, I refuse to give up and I don't like to waste my energy on excuses.

Typically, my use of "I can't" out of my mouth comes from a lack of confidence at the task ahead. I have no problem putting in the work when the work needs to be done but often times, I doubt myself, my skills and my ability to succeed and that's when I need support to keep me positive.

Everyday we are faced with choices and for many, diet and exercise and other life choices are viewed as chores. Something that "has" to be done. But when it comes to making things happen because you have a goal for yourself, you have to make the choice to get it done. Sure, motivation may be higher at certain times than others but just think of all the energy you are making on excuses and perhaps it's time that you spend a little more energy on how you can make things happen.

 

One of the best ways to stop (or reduce) excuses is to work on confidence. Confidence that what you are doing is moving you closer to your goals. (even if you think that you should be doing more or something differently - if you are aiming for perfection you will not be able to recognize progress).

 

Confidence is the feeling that you are unstoppable, even if you have to change the plan at times (but never change the goal).

Confidence is knowing that you can still move closer to your goals as long as you try. And even if you think you could be doing more or better, you don't let that black or white mentality keep you from succeeding.

When you focus your energy on why you can't do something, your mind will give you plenty of reasons why you can't do it. But if are confident that something is better than nothing, you will be amazed how making a little effort, every day, will move you toward your goals. On the contrary, giving yourself reasons why you can't make things happen will not give you the results you want (even at crunch-time when you feel the pressure and motivation to make things happen that should have happened weeks or months prior)

 

Sit down with yourself and create a plan. Life, nutrition, exercise - whatever it is that you are struggling with when it comes to motivation, dedication, discipline or enthusiasm.

Create a plan that is realistic and practical and allows for progress. Your plan is YOUR plan and is helpful only for you and your goals at this time in your life.

If you feel you are too busy, too cold or too tired, close your eyes and visualize yourself reaching your goal.

Now put that vision into your life and dedicate passion, hard work and commitment to your life in order to create the momentum that will help you move closer to your goals.

 

No more excuses.

You CAN succeed.