It's Been my observation that the greatest athletes in the world find their motivation in their training. It's been my experience that the happiest days in my life on the most basic level, are when I'm consistently working towards a goal in a routine that I'm proud of. Kind of like steadily adding money to your savings account, the security of the routine and its regularity satisfies some type of productivity meter in our minds.

The problem with likening training with money is that only money is black and white. Yet they share the same need for consistency to satisfy our egos, calm our insecurities, and accomplish our goals. That's where the difficulty of being a professional athlete lies, though I think it applies to other fields as well. You have to think of your action as black and white, you do or do not take action. The inconsistency of the action causes people to confuse the routine. All days are not created equal in training. Some days easy, some days harder than others, some days you do nothing at all. Yet the desire for our goal burns with the same intensity each day. If you go to sleep thinking about your goal, and wake up thinking about it you may know what I mean. If your goal scares you a little and you think it may not be possible, but you'll be damned if you don't try, you may know what I mean. The will to work, sacrifice, and persevere does not change, but what the day calls for does. Some say they have trouble with motivation, to lose weight, to train, to study, to eat healthier. This is almost always the case, but when you want something bad enough it's a different problem. You have too much motivation, the willingness to sacrifice overrides the logic of what needs to be done. (An after thought but a prime example of this is attempting to lose weight but not eating breakfast, very counter productive to your metabolism and overall calorie burning, but not always logical to some) We all remember our elementary school teachers telling us if we work really really hard at something we can accomplish it. Sometimes working really really hard includes being patient, and doing nothing. What did he just say you're thinking? Did he say you can be working really hard by doing nothing? Yes, some days doing nothing is easy, even unnecessary but we do it anyway, the recent holidays are a great example. Others, the more important days, when nothing is exactly what we need, it's harder to come by. Fatigue, ego, and desire cloud the innate ability we have to know when rest is necessary.  Yawning more than usual? Stairs always suck, but is today worse than you remember? Lack of appetite? If you track your resting heart rate, is it much higher than you remember it being? These are all things that, at this time of the year it's time to familiarize yourself with, because not recognizing them can lead to problems when the season is in it's most important phase.


If you're thinking, "holy cow, this guy is nuts let me get some of that motivation, because the last thing I wan't to do is go out and exercise right now," bare with me. If not enough motivation is your problem problem, you're probably not seeking out hidden blogs like mine. If you did find yourself here with a lack of motivation, I can sympathize. With the beginning of any plan towards a goal behavior change is the first of many process goals towards the outcome goal you've set for yourself.  Remember all you have control of is the process, the outcome is the anticipated result of the process. This time of year people make goals or resolutions and attack them full force. I love that! I think everyone should have a goal and attack it!

I recently read a great quote that articulates this "The trouble with not having a goal is you can run up and down the field, and never score." With the way society makes competition a choice, rather than a necessity to survive, I think we have a natural pent up need for reaching goals. They're different for everyone, and change with your expertise, personality, and environment, but without a goal you're basically running around like a chicken with it's head cut off aimlessly seeking. I think they're very hard to avoid, they come some what naturally even if in the simplest form, but the simple goals teach us, and give us the ability to make bigger goals. Okay enough of that tangent my point is like I said above, sometimes you have to fight your own desire to work... once you've made the goal. 

Each year I hear people complaining about the influx of people in the gym the two weeks after January 1st. It does eventually quiet down to its normal capacity but a few hang on, why the low return rate? My thought is that people attack it too hard their first two weeks, they are sore after the first day, but their motivation is high so they solider on. The second day they feel great about persevering, and are happy with their fatigue. Similar outline for the rest of their attempt at a behavior change until finally fatigue clouds logic and routine and they break the progress they made in developing a routine. With trained athletes fatigue is familiar, it's associated with improvement. With new goal setters fatigue is a sign that's something's not quite right, but also about progress if seriously new to the exercise world it's a CONSTANT reminder MEGA SORENESS aka DOMS. In my experience I get a good build up of fatigue after about 3 weeks of training, then mentally and physically I need to back off, even though sometimes my mind tells me I need MORE (Who want's to take a week off of deposits to the savings account). It would makes sense that a new exerciser might need this every two weeks right? So that time period makes sense to me.

Doing 3-4 P90x videos your first day exercising and hitting it hard works for some people. They can recover and be alright continuing on happily in their fatigue and progress. Just like athletes with natural talent these people probably have a genetic ability to recover, who knows the sub 2 hr marathoner could be a couch potato with no motivation. That's a topic for another blog, though. For the vast majority of people, the behavior change has to happen BEFORE they can "lose 30 pounds in 3 weeks with these simple and easy steps, just call to find out how!" (picture that in a late night television commercial voice). Behavior change, developing a routine happens slowly and patiently. It's okay if you're an impatient person who can't stand in line for more than 5 min, what's important is being patient where it counts. If you've mentally developed a goal well enough you should realize that it's WORTH the wait. Work on your process goals frequently and consistently with little worry about intensity for 2 maybe even 3 weeks before you unleash the furious motivation that you've built up. Just like I've mentioned earlier for trained athletes, know you can do more, but check your ego, and chill out. Gain confidence that you have the ability to do more, it's a good feeling to have that control!

Okay now we're on the same page, you've made the behavior change and you're ready to challenge yourself. Say after a few weeks of killing it and feeling great about your new found intensity in your new found routine, it's important to be able to recognize what the day calls for. It's something a coach can't do for you, but something they can predict from experience. We are complex systems that interact, with an unimaginable amount of possible outcomes. It's important to listen to what your body is telling you, and not persevere though the signs that you question. Recently I mentioned to my coach something that makes a lot of sense that I hadn't totally bought into because I hadn't checked my ego at the door. I'll post the entire thing here in a few, but basically, unless you're at the highest level, the activity probably accounts for 10-30% of your potential. The rest is mostly from your consistent application of exercise and rest. Don't get me wrong 30% is huge, especially in a race against time and when you're competing in a 4.5 or more hour race. Don't let that de-motivate you, some people draw heaps of motivation from a complex plan that involves thing they don't think anyone else is doing that's fine, like I said we are complex systems that can react many many ways to every little thing, if that's what works for you, why change. I just hope you also gain confidence in the fact that a missed day is an increase in the rest side of the equation (Rest X Recovery^2=steps towards goal, not just muscle adaptation) and any activity is a consistent deposit into the goal savings account. If you're like me sometimes it's hard not to make a withdrawal from that account every so often just to see the fruits of your labor. Like I've said before, be confident that you have more and be sure not to overdraft.


Sometimes I write these blogs from recent thoughts during workouts, or when I haven't fully convinced myself of something that I know I need to adapt to. I've written about this topic before and I was trying to convince myself fully of it before, but I feel that I have a good understanding of the importance of this topic now after I got to see the fruits of my labor.  I raced the traditional 5 mile turkey trot last week and had a pleasant surprise with not only a P.R. but a P.R. that felt great.  I ran 5:47 pace on a fairly hilly course, with some tough conditions. That's not quite important, but as a reference, I haven't run under 6 min pace for more than 20 seconds since Iowa's Best Damn Tri (check out the race report if you haven't).  So you can imagine my surprise when I had this result! Something I wrote about the race afterwards "It's tough to regress to slower workload, and pace, and expect better results." An ah-ha moment! Even though the slower paces weren't "Nothing" like I mentioned above, they were much much slower than I was doing this time the previous year, and also much much slower than my motivation would have had me run. Mentally, I think this is what holding yourself back a bit during training allows you to do, Surprise Yourself.  I often feel best after races where my expectations are non-existant or very low. Surprising myself is a welcome.... well surprise. It's good to have some idea of what you're capable of, and don't reach for things that you're clearly not ready for. But at the same time don't let your imagination, or your willingness to try falter because you haven't done something before. I think I'm trying to teach and convince, myself this mostly here, but who wouldn't benefit from a lesson like that? It's something that's slowly being realized in my training, and racing, and life.  I see it not only in this one instance, but at IBDT where I just had to try, and in so many other situations Tri related, and otherwise. 

Midnight Madness

I wrote this in the wee hours of the morning after waking up, hopefully you follow what I'm trying to say! 

Last night I woke up mid thought, thinking about information for a test I had been studying for all weekend. Naturally when I couldn't fall back asleep my thoughts drifted to more important topics. What I needed to do to accomplish my goals for the season, and how to do it. What went well last season, and how can I improve on that, or re-implement the strategies that worked? I think these are extremely important parts of the early season, going back to your notes or results and continuing proven methods. Granted they will have to change a little bit (pace, rest, nutrition, etc.) but the basic aspects of the plan obviously worked. Why change it until its stopped working? I think I've said this before but, it's not very often that trying to make a good thing better works out in my favor. 

This brings me to a really important point for people trying to make the most out of their season. Start a training log! Write race reports! I know when I start to look back to the success parts of the last year, and the not so successful parts, the only way I'll know is by reading my log.  What kind of swim workouts was I doing when I hit that really fast swim split? What kind of nutrition did I do at that race again? Some people think they can just go off of memory for these things but I promise you, most people get he coulda woulda shoulda blues after races. How many times after a race have you said oh I could have gone faster here here or here, whether it was hours days or a week afterwords. Maybe because our brains want us to forget the pain, or we can only take in so much during a high intensity event like a race. The reality is, hindsight is 20/20, but whether you could have gone faster is irrelevant, what you do in the moment is what's important  That's why you make an objective memory, a race report, a training log. To help you remember, track, and realize what works and what doesn't. Going back and looking at your race splits, while similar, doesn't count! Feel data is important, the little details are important!  Pre-race routine, dinner, items you wish you had in transition, pre-race sleep patterns etc. things you might not remember after an intense day at the office. 

If you're not tracking your training, obviously I recommend it. Training peaks is a great tool that I use. The old tried and true college ruled notebook is good if that floats your boat. There are other more formatted log options as well. Find one that works for you, that you're able to get into a routine and consistently use. The more information, the better. Some info that I think is essential is: feel data - do you feel like you're getting better in the water, how does your stride feel while you run, smoother? If you have an off day how was your sleep - have a bad day? How was your sleep the nights prior, this can help you realize how to manage it prior to race day to avoid off race days. Life stress on off days is a similar thing to note, that can sometimes throw you off your game. Don't take it to heart, it's not that you're getting less fit, stressful weeks are stressful weeks. Most times  un-avoidable, though we sometimes forget we do have lives outside of triathlon! Soreness- note any lingering soreness and its possible causes, this has helped me target specific pre-hab recovery techniques and stretches for common aches and pains. Diet- did you have a busy day and miss a meal, did you have to eat McDonald's because you were low on time? This stuff can sometimes make a difference and keep you from dewlling on a bad workout. 

Race recaps are another hugely important tool in my eyes. I've always written something out after a race, whether its to let my coach know or to organize my thoughts, I think it's definitely helpful. As I was thinking about how to make the improvements that I want to make this season, and develop reasonable goals. I find myself wanting to read my race reports to see where I can make improvements. That will definitely be on the to do list as I ramp up my training and realize where I need to put my focus. 

Another thing. they can help you with motivation. I'm not sure about you but when a world champion lays out a piece of advice I try to take it and use it as best I can. When I read this write up from coach Liz after her interview with Craig Alexander (you may have heard of him) it cemented my thoughts on how important training logs are. They are our source of motivation and efficacy. Where else would we logically derive our confidence from, if not from our training? Hopefully you're not trying to pull from outside sources like the wind won't be as bad today or, the field isn't as stacked. Although if you are, keeping logs might help you bring some of that confidence out from the inside instead, in my experience that's the strongest place to race from.