Emotionally fulfilling workouts

As a life-long athlete, I crave competition. I love showing up to a race with the desire to give my best and leave it all out on the race course. But with the temporary removal of "race day" competitions for the uknown future, I continue to seek opportunities to release my competitive spirit. Some workouts are intense. I find myself smiling (or perhaps it's a cringe) through the pain of a challenging workout that leaves me drenched in sweat and completely drained and empty. These workouts are so hard and the suffering is so intense that it actually cleanses my soul. It's a sick type of pleasure that feeds my inner athlete.

Having said that, the passion I feel for the sport of triathlon and being part of this incredible triathlon community provides a sense of belonging, purpose, opportunity for growth and pursuit of victory - all without an actual race day start and finish line. Fortunantly, within every workout, I can still give myself a proverbial start and finish line.

My intense training sessions are now supported by workouts that bring me peace, calm and joy. The feeling of being alive, free, healthy and safe - without feeling pressure to "perform." I feel a sense of accomplishment simply by keeping my heart rate low, stopping to smell the roses (or talk with farm animals), marveling at the beauty of the mountains and releasing the stress of what's happening in the world by staying completely present to the current moment.

While it may look as if I sometimes lose perspective on what it means to be an athlete (I probably stop to take pictures of nature and say hi to animals far too often), it's actually the opposite.

What we (athletes) are going through right now is really hard. It’s challenging in ways that we could not have planned for. We are all struggling with fear, anxiety, changing moods (ups and downs) and worry. This isn’t easy. This is hard. Really really hard. Not one of us - you, me or anyone out there - is expected to have all the answers as to how you are supposed to feel, function and act during this time.

While it's good to feed your body and mind with challenging workouts, a key ingredient to thrive during this time of uncertainty is to commit yourself to several weekly emotionally fulfilling workouts. These workouts help give life rich meaning, soulful purpose and ecstatic joy. Whereas you may be used to thinking of workouts as something that must be endured and not enjoyed, now is the time to make workotus pleasurable, soul-fulfilling and emotionally satisfying.

If you are struggling with how to train during a time of cancelled races and living with a pendulum of emotions, I encourage you to include workouts into your weekly training that can serve as a healthy way to unload stress, process deep emotions and emerge more balanced and self-aware. Look at your surroundings, stop when it feels right (without guilt or self-judgement) and be creative with your use of "me time." It's ok (and necessary) to continue to push your physical limits but make space in your training for these necessary emotionally fulfilling training sessions.

Should you train by distance or time?

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At the end of 2019, you probably saw a lot of "year in review" stats floating around social media from your fitness-fanatic friends. While a great way to celebrate all that your body has accomplished over the course of a year, it's not uncommon to hear things like “I only need 50 more miles to make it to 5000 miles of biking for the year, I need to run 8.37 more miles to reach my yearly goal or I didn't reach my swimming goals."

Not too long ago, GPS watches didn't exist. The website MapMyRide.com (or run) didnt exist until around in 2005. Unless you measured a distance by a bike computer, ran around a track (or marked course) or drove a specific distance in your car, there was no easy way to know your running miles. To track your workouts, you kept a written log in a journal. There was no Strava or Training Peaks to  accumulate your swim, bike or run total distance.  In many ways, life was actually a lot more simple without all of these gadgets. You start a workout, go by feel and finish by time. And there was no social comparison to validate your athletic worthiness. 

Today, people obsessively analyze over data. While data can be beneficial (when used properly), it can often lead to injuries, burnout and body image issues. Are you guilty of running back and forth by the front of your house just to make sure your run distance had two zeros at the end? Do you get anxious if you can't complete a given number of miles for the day/week? Whether it's swimming, biking or running, it's easy to obsess over even numbers - something in you tells you that you just have to get to x-miles to feel satisfied and accomplished.

As an athlete, you may be tied to training by distance for you believe that completing a certain number of miles (either over the course of several months or within one workout or week) will help you feel more physically prepared. Or, maybe you are using certain metrics to give you confidence in your abilities to complete a certain distance on race day. It's not uncommon for athletes to believe that completing a set number of miles/distance is the only way to prepare for a long distance event. At Trimarni, we prescribe all of our workouts by time for our athletes. As for me and Karel, we never go by miles when we train. Here's why.

More enjoyable workouts
When it comes to training, in my opinion (athlete/coach), completing a structured workout as planned is much more enjoyable when you can do what you need to get done, in a certain allotted amount of time, and then go on with the rest of your day. There's no chasing an outcome but focusing on the present moment. Even if you have a general idea of how much distance you will be covering within the workout, the focus is on the workout itself - not the outcome.

For example, a few weeks ago Karel and I had the exact same long run workout. We started off on the same route, did the exact same workout and Karel’s workout lasted 1:29.07 and my run was 1:37.07. Even though we did the same workout, it's obvious we differ in speed, ability and experience. So why would I go out and run 13 miles when Karel "only" runs 12 miles. Or should Karel run 14 miles just so he can run the same time as me? These are all things to consider with time vs. distance based training. When our assistant coach Joe rides for 3 hours in Jacksonville, FL, he can easily cover 60+ miles. For us in Greenville, we are lucky to get in 50 miles (so.many.hills). Training by time - with a specific workout focus to adhere to - removes a lot of pressure and expectation that can suck the fun out of training.

You are on your own journey
Ten running miles, 20 biking miles or 3000 swimming yards. To complete this distance, every athlete will require a different amount of time. But increase the intensity and you may cover a little more distance. On a day when you are tired or asked to run easy, you may cover a little less distance. If the workout is more skill focused, it may take you a bitl longer. If it's an easy day, you have the liberty to go easy. Focus on the getting through the minutes you have assigned. Try to focus on successfully accomplishing what's planned for you without comparing yourself to others or feeling like you always need to do more.

Be respectful of your body
Your workout should be based on your ability to complete a given workout within a time that makes sense for you (work/family/fitness), in your current fitness journey. Every individual handles training stress differently. There are many different ways to achieve similar physiological outcomes. And at some point, there will be little return on your training investment if miles is the only marker of a successful workout. Remind yourself that no one workout stands alone. When your training adds up and you bring fatigue to future training sessions, your fitness carries over. There are easy workouts and hard workouts. Don't worry if you don't cover the proverbial 20 mile run while training for a marathon, a 3 hour run when training for an Ironman or a 112 mile bike ride. Many injuries (and burnout) occur from the ongoing need to chase miles at any cost. Don't compare your pace to anyone else (or a past version of yourself).

New perspective
When a workout is assigned by distance, a few things can happen. You may look for the easiest (or quickest) way to accomplish the distance instead of selecting a terrain or course that works on your weaknesses. You may feel judged by others seeing your stats and feeling like you are "too slow." You may end up going too hard or you speed up to try to get in the assigned distance when you are crunched for time. Not worrying about the distance completed can bring less pressure to the workout, which means that you give your best but also listen to your body.  By going by time, you bring a new perspective to your training, you gain confidence from consistent training (less risk for injury/burnout) and you have more joy for what you get to do with your amazing body. 

Because most athletes associate miles to their longest weekly workouts, here's how we do "long workouts" at Trimarni coaching for our Ironman athletes. As a reminder, feeling prepared for a long distance event is so much more than just checking off workouts. Not only do you need to arrive healthy, motivated and injury free to experience success on race day but you also need to have a well planned nutrition strategy, a good understanding of how to manage the given terrain/conditions and great mental fortitude. 

• Swimming: Instead of putting all the focus on distance, we schedule workouts between 45-90 minutes and always focus on frequency swimming - 4-5 times per week. We also include specificity in every workout, strength work (towel, band, agility paddles, tech paddles) and speed within endurance sets. We don't believe in long, slow continuous swimming (ex. 3-4 x 1000's) but instead, swimming well (ex. lots of 25s-100's with short rest to build endurance).
• Biking: We always go by time and the miles are never the focus. There is structure in every long ride (intervals) that we prescribe and we feel the sweet spot duration for Ironman biking volume is between 4-5 hours - with intensity and running off the bike. Rarely do we have athletes riding longer than 5.5-6 hours. We also have our athletes biking a lot, with ~50% of weekly training volume coming from the bike. This biking frequency makes for great overall fitness gains. 
• Run: We never have our athletes run over 2 hours. Most of our Ironman athletes will run for 1:45-2 hours as their longest run. But, we also do a lot of two a day runs, back to back to back run workouts (ex. Fri PM, Sat off the bike, Sat PM, Sun AM), brick runs, strength-based runs (hills and weight vest treadmill walking) and progressive runs. We also really enforce good form running - helping our athletes learn how to run efficiently well. There is little to no physiological benefit from the added work that the body has to endure when running more than 2.5 hours. Most often, form suffers and the risk for an overuse injury increases. Plus, after 2.5 hours of running, your body needs a tremendous amount of time to recover. In the sport of long distance triathlon, it's not about being fast but being great at not slowing down. What preceeds the run greatly impacts how well (or not well) you will run off the bike. 

My new book Athlete to Triathlete will be released on 1/28! There's still time to place your pre-order: Athlete to Triathlete

Bouncing back from a bad workout

Most of the time, workouts put us into a good mood. We feel much better after the workout is complete, then compared to when we started.  But what if the workout doesn't go as planned and suddenly you find yourself grumpy from the workout that didn't go so well?

Seeing that we will all have a bad workout, here are a few tips to help bounce back from an "off" training day.

Nutrition
Look into your diet. Long hours without eating, not using sport nutrition products properly, dehydration, low blood sugar, overeating, undereating, consuming food too close to bed, too much fiber/fat too close to your workout, or poorly planned meals will affect your energy and how your body performs. 

Nutrient timing
Did you not time your nutrition well with your workout? Address what sport nutrition products are not working for you. What did you eat in the 2-4 hours before the workout. Generally, it is recommended to reduce fat/fiber before a workout  to help with digestion and be sure to drink water to promote digestion/absorption of nutrients before and during the workout. Many times, athletes under-fuel before/during workouts so it is important to recognize the importance of timing your nutrition with your workout.

Sleep
If there is one area in your life to blame for feeling off, it is not getting enough restful sleep. Try to create an exercise/training schedule that allows for a restful night of sleep most days a week. For many people, 7-9 hours is the magic number - which may mean going to bed earlier. 

Mobility and strength training
It's common for athletes to skimp on strength training and mobility to squeeze in more cardio. Remember, your body needs time to wake up and to get the blood flowing so it can perform to its capabilities. And a strong body is a resilient body. Factor in 15 minutes before your workout to properly warm-up and include strength training into your weekly routine at least three times per week. 

Mindset
If your mind is filled with thoughts and to-do's before you workout, try to bring yourself into a positive state of mind before working out. Many times, we allow stress, emotions and negative thoughts to take over and it's difficult to stay focused and present during the workout. 

Don't be all or nothing 
Whether you are having a hard time with motivation or struggling with fatigue, give yourself permission to adjust the workout. If you aren't feeling good by 20 minutes into the workout, just call it a day. If you planned to run and you are just too tired, just walk. If your workout called for intervals, reduce the intensity or duration. Some of the most successful race performances come after modifications with training. No training plan should be set in stone. 

Keep it fun
Remind yourself that you train because you love it and it's something that you choose to do. If you are putting too much pressure on yourself with expectations of how you think the workout should go, you may find yourself frustrated or disappointed.  Don't worry about pace, time, HR, speed, etc. Just enjoy your time with your body and mind. 

Recovery
Just because you complete a workout, this doesn't mean that you are gaining fitness. During the recovery process, adaptation takes place. This is where the true fitness gains are made. With the right mix of training stress, fatigue and recovery, the body can adapt. Recovery is everything that happens between two workouts. Give yourself an opportunity to recover in order to adapt.

Don't let a bad workout affect you mentally. Think back to all your great workouts and remember that fitness improvements are not linear.  Focus on one day at a time. It's the accumulation of workouts that allows for fitness gains - don't worry about one off day. 

Feeling off track?

Whether it's traveling, life stressors or multiple events occurring in a short time period, it's easy to feel off track with your diet and workout routine. 

A common tendency for athletes is to see the next "normal" day of life as an opportunity to get back on track. 

With an intense desire to "be really good" until life feels normal again, there's nothing wrong with this, right? 

Well, it's a problem if your "normal" lifestyle habits are so extreme that you can not function well in life when you feel a loss of control over every situation relating to your diet and workout regime. 

For athletes who don't feel safe with their thoughts, choices or feelings when they can not control normal life situations, getting back on track may require an extremely disciplined and restrictive style of eating and going a bit longer and harder with training for the next 48-72 hours, all in an effort to regain control over what didn't go as planned.

This is not only risky for your health but it can cause a roller coaster of emotions too.

The important thing to remember is that we don't have to control every situation to feel and to be "on track".
You can't make up for what happened in the past and you can't control the future, so why not focus on the present?

Give yourself 4-5 days to slowly get yourself back to lifestyle habits that are healthy and productive to your goals.
No need to go to the extreme as being too fixated on "healthy" habits can actually be unhealthy.

As athletes, we already live a very extreme lifestyle and with so many daily decisions and responsibilities, it can be exhausting to feel the need to control everything.

You know that life is going to happen and you will need to travel to work, you will be invited to a party with a smorgasbord of food that you normally don't eat and you are going to miss workouts because life is stressful and busy. 

Rather than letting yourself feel insecure when life is out of your control, perhaps it is time to focus on how you can feel more calm, at ease or at peace with your choices when you find yourself deviating from your "normal" routine.

Remember that anytime you feel off, getting back on track should be focused on you functioning well in life rather than trying to fix what you couldn't control, because it wasn't exactly like you wanted it to be. 

What to do when your workout doesn't workout

Karel and I have always been active....although I think we had our priorities different when it came to bike riding. Since when did it become uncool to ride your bike without a stuffed animal?

One of the best parts about sharing an active lifestyle with someone else is seeing each other grow in a sport (or with fitness). We all have great workouts now and then but not always are they shared with others.

The other day, Karel had an "off" day on the bike. We did a swim+ bike workout and although he had an amazing workout in the pool, he just had no power in legs on the bike. Rather than try to push through it, I continued on with the workout as planned and Karel did his own thing which involved soft pedaling and a little drafting off my wheel. We all have those days when we feel a little "off" but knowing how to handle those days may be different for all of us. Since Karel and I coach ourselves, it is easy to modify workouts on a whim although making smart choices as athletes is not always easy (hence why it is important to have a coach, even if it is your significant other as we all need someone to tell us when to "rest" and not push through).

So what should you do if your workout is just not working out? Here are a few of my tips as to how to bounce back from an "off" day.

Nutrition
If you are having a nutrition-related "off" day, identify what went wrong. Generally, going long hours without eating, overeating a large portion (or late at night), eating a large amount of processed food or skimping on balanced meals can contribute to feel "off". Certainly, this is why it is so important to address the daily diet when it comes to performance/fitness as food is our fuel.

Sport Nutrition
If you are having a sport-nutrition-related "off" day, address what foods/products are not working for you. Maybe it is the intensity/duration or workout or maybe a food isn't sitting right. Generally, it is recommended to reduce fat/fiber before a workout  to help with digestion and be sure to drink water to promote digestion/absorption of nutrients before and during the workout. Many times, athletes under-fuel during workouts so it is important to recognize the importance of sport nutrition before, during and after workouts when your body is under the most training stress.

Sleep
If there is one area in your life to blame for feeling tired while working out, it is not getting enough restful sleep. Although exercise is important on a daily basis, one should never skimp on sleep just to workout early in the morning (or late at night). Try to create an exercise/training schedule that allows for a restful night of sleep most days a week. For many people, 7-8 hours is the magic number which may mean going to bed a little earlier or cutting a workout short a little in order to get to work on time in the morning.

Stretching/flexibility/strength training
Although stretching and strength training can certainly enhance workouts by encouraging strong muscles to move in their full range of motion, strength training should only enhance your cardio routine. Be sure to allow adequate rest after strength training so that you are not sabotaging good form while training during cardio. Also, make time for stretching post workout and include a dynamic warm-up before working out. Many times, the body just needs to wake up and get the blood flowing so before counting yourself out of a workout, be sure to actively warm-up.

Pump yourself up
A good song, a good quote, a call from a friend/family member. There are many ways to turn an "off" day into a great day. Try to see if you can bring yourself into a positive state of mind before working out as many times we can allow stress, emotions and thoughts to keep us from working out when we all know that we are always one workout away from a great mood.

Modifying workouts
I have a suggestion to everyone in that all you have to do is think small when working out. Whether you are having a hard time getting motivation, nervous about your training workout or feeling tired, just tell yourself that all you have to do is workout/exercise for 10 minutes. If you can at least get yourself started, more often than not you will find yourself working out longer than planned. If you aren't feeling it by 20 minutes, just call it a day or if anything, just go for a walk. Lastly, we all need to know how to make progress with fitness. Many times, saying "I can't" will keep you in the same place. To move yourself forward, how about modifying your workout. If you planned to run, just walk. If your workout called for intervals, reduce the intensity. Make progress, don't aim for perfection.

Keep it fun
Don't forget your goals or reasons for working out. I love to train for triathlons but I really love to exercise. I just love using and moving my body so anytime I am not "feeling it" (which is not that often thanks to a balanced training plan with quality workouts), I just feel grateful that I am moving my body.

Forget the gadgets
Ever see a kid running with a garmin while playing tag? Sometimes you just have to have fun and that means going by perceived exertion. It may be helpful to have gadgets with you to reflect on the workout but don't worry about pace, time, HR, speed, etc. Just enjoy your time out with your body.

Rest and recovery
A massage can be a beautiful thing. Karel and I get massages 2-3 times  a month as part of our pre-hab. It is very important to me that with all the work I do with my body, that I keep it as healthy as possible with recovery and sometimes I can't do that alone. We have amazing sport massage therapists in our life which are worth the money. Other methods of recovery include trigger point, foam rolling, compression, espon salt, compex, sport legs, arnica cream and simple rest and relaxation with a clear mind.

I hope you find these tips helpful. Don't let an "off" day ruin your week. Be appreciative of the progress you have made and keep your eyes on where you are heading. If you are having trouble getting the motivation you need to get started, send me an email. I have pre-built run/tri plans available if you need something to help you stay consistent or we can discuss your missing link in your diet/fitness routine.

Happy training/exercising.