Taking the Right Advice with CTS Coaches Anne Tisdell and Ryne Anderson #225

Coaches Anne Tisdell and Ryne Anderson discuss how to take the right advice from your friends and training partners through the lens of how we take our own training and racing and translate it to athletes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Trail and Ultra Runners.
What is going on?
Welcome to another episode ofthe CoopCast.
As always, I am your humblehost, Coach Jason Coop, and this
episode of the podcast issomething that is going to be
pertinent to everybody now thatwe are in the racing season, and
it's centered around this topicof how do you go out and find

(00:32):
and solicit advice from peoplewho have done the same races as
you and who might be doingsimilar training to you.
As coaches, we have to managethis all the time, because most
of us coaches, we do a lot ofthe same races that our athletes
end up doing, and so we wantedto use a little bit of that
experience as a lens to lookthrough, to impart on how we

(00:56):
actually translate our owntraining and racing experience
to our athletes and where wemight actually not translate
that racing experience.
So on the podcast today I havetwo of our crack coaches.
Welcome to the podcast repeatoffender.
Ryan Anderson, who is currentlytraining for the notorious Hard
Rock 100 and new to the podcastbut certainly not new to

(01:19):
coaching, is one of our stellarcoaches.
And Tisdale, who is just off ofa fantastic finish at the
Cocodona 250.
And we run through it all.
We are experienced athletes aswell as experienced coaches in
the sport, and how do we takeour own personal experiences and
either translate those to ourathletes or choose to not

(01:41):
translate to those athletes?
And what I hope that you canglean throughout the course of
this conversation is how you canprovide a little bit of a
filter for yourself as you aresoliciting information, counsel
and things that can help youprepare for the races that you
are preparing for this summer.
All right, with that out of theway.
I am getting right out of theway.

(02:01):
Here's my podcast with coachesRyan Anderson and Tisdell, all
about how we translate our owntraining and racing over to our
athletes and where that mightactually not be as applicable.
And Ryan, welcome to thepodcast.
And have you been on before?

(02:22):
I am searching my memory.
I don't think so right.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
No, first time.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, first time, ryan's a multi-time offender, so
he's kind of used to the gig.
So we're going to talk todayabout how to translate our own
personal experiences into what'sfunctional for athletes.
And then what I hope that theaudience can kind of take away
from this is now that we're kindof in the racing season and
everybody's like searching foradvice and the far corners of

(02:50):
the internet whether that befrom their friends or the Reddit
forums or Twitter or Instagramor whatever.
Hopefully some of these lessonsthat we actually use as coaches
can be translated to theaudience while they're trying to
like navigate the same thing ofhow to actually glean
information from people who havetrained or who are training for
the same events, and then whatinformation to take, what

(03:13):
information to potentially throwaway and what kind of like
caveats to put out on it.
And the reason I first off, thereason I wanted to do this with
you two cause you guys aretraining for and have trained
for, a kind of a prolific seriesof events, and I could probably
apply that same description toto myself.
We've got a wealth of eventexperience personal event
experience, kind of in our grouptoday that we're going to be

(03:35):
discussing this with um, but wealso have to, in a very
pragmatic way, taper that ortailor that, what we learned
from those races individually,into a professional setting
where we are professionallyadvising athletes on some of the
events that we have actuallytrained for.
And that's a different level ofscrutiny than a friend or a

(03:59):
colleague or a training partnerhas to have when they're just
saying, oh well, when I did theLeadville trial 100, this is
what happened, that's fine.
Nobody's like trying to impartwisdom with like ill intent or
anything like that.
But there's a different kind ofburden of proof, so to speak,
with people who are professionalcoaches when they take what
they have done personally andthen try to glean some

(04:20):
information from that onto their, onto their athletes.
So with that as a bit of abackdrop, I want to set the
table a little bit more, and wenever do this as coaches.
It's going to be kind of weirdbecause we try to downplay our
own personal experiences.
But this is a podcast where Ithink we have to actually bring
it to the forefront.
So, anne, we're going to startwith you.
Can you try to?

(04:41):
I just mentioned that you havekind of a prolific list of
events that you have done.
Can you kind of bring to theforefront and try to encapsulate
that in a couple of, you know,just a couple of minutes, all
the events that you havepersonally, personally trained
for and completed or tried orwhatever?

Speaker 2 (04:59):
yeah, all right.
So there's been all like thelittle stuff, but let's focus on
the more exciting one.
So last week, cocodona 250.
I'll just start with that onebecause it was the most recent.
That's my third 200 miler.
So back in 2019, my husband andI did Tahoe 200 together and
then last year did Moab 240,solo.

(05:20):
Cocodona just last week, solo.
In addition to that, one of myfavorite races in the whole
world is URA 100.
So I've been to the race threetimes, finished it twice,
dropped, with my husband oncewhen he had some medical issues.
So we got the 200s, we've gotURA.
What else is there?
Been out to canyons?

(05:40):
What have I done?
A total.
other end of the spectrum,florida Keys 100, being a polar
opposite, of everything that Ijust described, the big ones, I
think those kind of fall towardsthe top of the list for me.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, first off, congratulations on Cocodona.
We're talking off air.
You look great out there allday.
It was really fun to personallysee you out there, although in
a slightly limited capacity.
I want to kind of bring up thebreadth here just to paint this
for the listeners.
Again, you've got mountainousstuff, you've got flat stuff,
hot stuff, cold stuff, thingswhere you've done really well

(06:14):
and podiumed and raced well andyou can be super proud of those
performances, and then alsotimes where you've dropped like
you've kind of got the wholerainbow of like performance
context to go into this.
Is there anything else you wantto add to that?
Just in terms of your sheerrace resume that like sticks out
, jumps off of the paper for you.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
I'll just add maybe the two things that are coming
up, one of which I'mparticularly excited about.
So there's you, ray, again thisyear, just continuing the trend
of doing a hard race andthinking, wow, I'm never going
to do this again, and thenfinding myself signing up for it
again.
And then next year, big oneArizona Monster 300.
So new race, I'm excited to beone of the first to get to try

(06:56):
it.
And if 250 was good, then 300should surely be better, right?
That's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Oh my God, I had an inquiry from our website,
somebody asking about coachingfor that specific race, so it's
taken the world by storm.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh it's exciting.
I can't wait.
It's just one more day, right?
Just one more day, Just onemore day.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, just one more day on top of it all.
All right, all right, ryan,you're up.
You've got a hard rock comingup this year.
You're currently training forthat, but why don't you go back
a little bit before you go tothe present and just kind of
give the listeners a sense ofyour resume which you can bring
to the table here?

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, I started my hard rock qualifier journey in
2017 with Big Born as my first100 miler, and then did
Grindstone in Virginia two yearslater and then did the bear
last year, and I've also did thePenhody 100 down in Alabama,
down here in the South, twice,and then I have had some

(07:55):
experience in the San Juan,still in San Juan, solstice, 50
mile or twice, and then just asmattering of local ultras here
in the Southeast that I like torevisit year after year.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
And currently I already mentioned this you're
training for the Hard Rock 100.
It's always an apex event foranybody who gets in it,
especially the first year.
I think it's worth.
I think it's also worthpointing out where you live.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, so I live in Knoxville, tennessee, sea level.
Yeah, we're a thousand feet,hey, we got a thousand, and in
town there are not a lot ofhills or long climbs to speak of
.
But I am fortunate to live inbetween frozen head and the
smokies, so I can't go get themountainous terrain, the three
thousand to four thousand footclimbs and desc.

(08:44):
It just takes a little bit ofdriving.
It's cramming for lack of abetter word on the weekend to
get in that vert.
Specific terrain, specific typeof terrain Perfect.
But yes, coming from sea levelpresents a challenge, but
frankly, that's how it is formost people doing that race.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, I did not know that you did the San Juan
Solstice twice doing that race?
Yep, I did not know that youdid the San Juan Solstice twice.
That's new information to me.
Very hard race.
I'm doing that in a four week.
Four weeks, five weeks.
It's coming up pretty quick.
I should know that that mightgive you an indication of how
ill prepared I am at the presenttime.
Okay, so I'll go next, I'llplay.
I'll play ball of the similarbreadth of races that I've done,

(09:25):
both short and long, startingwith, I guess in my backyard,
the Pikes Peak Marathon I wasn'teven thinking about mentioning
this Both the Pikes PeakMarathon and the Pikes Peak
Ascent.
That I had done for yearsbefore I started getting into
ultra running.
Then you transition over to theultra style, the ultra side of
things, and I've done everyanything from the bad water one

(09:48):
35, obviously hot, you know,flat in the desert to the hard
rock 100, to tour de Jean, toCoca Dona, to Western States.
I have one finish at WesternStates and that'll probably be
my only finish at that prolificrace.
I'm a multi-time finisher atthe Leadville Trail 100.
I'm trying to get 10 eventually.
My schedule will kind of allowme to.

(10:11):
But a lot of my racing has kindof been I was going to use the
word stuck, but it's beenlimited to the Rocky Mountains.
I would say I don't have thatmuch experience out on the East
Coast, a little bit out on theWest Coast and then in the
Pacific Northwest, but that that, I would say, would be very
limited.
My home base is ColoradoSprings, colorado.
You know altitude.

(10:31):
We've got great trails here.
They're very unheralded but Ithink a world-class trail system
which I think lends itselfreally well to training, for
training, for both mountainousevents and flat events.
So I've been able to leveragethat kind of home training
environment a tremendous amount,irrespective of what I was
actually, what I was actuallypersonally personally training
for Um, let's see.

(10:53):
Is there anything else I shouldmention?
I can open it up to you guys.
You guys can ask a question.
What else should I mention onmy own person?

Speaker 3 (10:59):
The self-support.
In Rome you gave Nolan's 14.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Oh yeah, that's right , yeah, I have.
Well, okay, so that actuallyprompts my, prompts, my memory a
little bit.
I do have, oh my God, three nowfailed attempts at the Nolan's
14, ranging from the Nolan's 12,which is the furthest I've
gotten to the Nolan's two.
So big range of failures rightthere.
One of them, the one in themiddle, was actually an attempt
with one of our own coachingstaff, john Fitzgerald.

(11:29):
But that actually prompts me tothink that I've also been
really bad in races.
I've dropped out of my fairshare of hundreds.
The Wasatch 100 I've droppedout of, as well as a Javelina I
dropped out of one year.
So a much flatter kind ofeasier type of race I dropped
out of hard rock one year.
So I've kind of run the gamutof where I've been pretty good

(11:50):
or really good in some races andI've been really bad and DNF
for a whole variety of reasons,including DNFs, that that I
probably shouldn't have taken.
I probably should have justsucked it up and continued
forward and in hindsight, sodefinitely the whole range of
things, as they say Okay.
So with that as a little bit ofa backdrop, I think the first

(12:13):
thing that I want to discussmore globally, and we're going
to try to leave the specificsout for right now, but just
globally is what you take fromthe training process
specifically we're going toleave racing as a separate deal
but the training processspecifically that you then can
impart to your athletes.

(12:34):
So we just mentioned.
One of the things that I want tobring to the forefront is not
only do we have what I wouldcall a robust amount of
experience of ourselves racingin these events, as the results
would be an indicator of, we'vealso been successful and
unsuccessful in the trainingside of things.
Right, because training is thelitmus test for the race itself.

(12:54):
It's not always the perfectcorollary, but it's a pretty
it's a pretty darn good onewhere, if the race results are
good, you can probably count onthe training actually being good
in concert with that.
And the opposite would also betrue where the race results are
typically poor.
Usually you miss kind of likesomething, kind of something in
training, and so we've made allthose mistakes personally.
Let's go over that piece of itfirst, and I think that one

(13:23):
thing I kind of want to likeclear up before each of us
discuss this training componentof it is where do you get your
training from Do you do ityourself, do you have a coach
manager training, and then gointo what pieces of that
training process can youactually impart on on your
athletes?
We're going to go around Robinstyle and we're going to start
with you again, so you get firstcrack at this question.

(13:43):
So how do you organize yourtraining, first as a coach, and
then what pieces of thattraining process can you, or do
you then translate down intoyour athletes when they're going
through something that might berelatable?

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Sure.
So I'd say the way that I havehistorically treated my training
is basically what I do for myathletes.
I use Training Peaks, I uselike the same methodology, the
same long range plan, break itdown into a week by week plan.
That's how I've historicallydone things for myself.
I haven't had a coach.
Personally.
Would I love to have one.
Yeah, that's actually a goal ofmine, maybe in the next year or

(14:18):
so, but it's always beenself-managed to date.
Now I'll say this so one of thebiggest lessons I've learned
about my own training is that itjust it doesn't have to be
perfect.
It should have an appropriateamount of volume, it should be
consistent, it should includerace specific training as much

(14:38):
as possible, but it doesn't haveto be absolutely perfect.
Especially in times of yourlife where things are just
really busy or stressful andyou've got other stuff going on,
you can get creative, and thatis also something that I do with
my athletes too.
So the last eight months inparticular, I'd say life stress

(14:59):
has been much higher than usual,and this is something I see in
a ton of my athletes too,whether it's work or kids or
illness or whatever and I'verealized that during those times
the level of perfection canscale down, as long as you're
just getting the basics done.
So that's where I say, allright, we need to do this stuff

(15:19):
this week, and as long as youget this stuff done, we kind of
don't care how it happens.
So here's the perfect plan.
Let's mess it up.
As long as you get this stuffdone, we kind of don't care how
it happens.
So here's the perfect plan.
Let's mess it up as much as weneed, but let's try to at least
achieve these like keymilestones.
And that's something that I'dsay.
90% of my athletes are goingthrough some sort of like busy
period or stressful period atsome point in our relationship

(15:43):
together, and that's something Ican definitely translate to
them this idea of you've got todo the minimum and it should
really be consistent and youshould really do some race
specific stuff, but it doesn'thave to be absolutely perfect.
No, it doesn't.
So that's my starting point.
Would I ever take my own exacttraining plan and give it to an

(16:03):
athlete, even if it was for theexact same race and the exact
same timeline and they live downthe street from me?
No, because we are two totallydifferent people with different
jobs and different lives anddifferent backgrounds.
So I will never like, in termsof things I don't translate,
it's the training plan.
It's the number of intervalsI'm doing.

(16:23):
It's the amount of volume thatI'm doing each week.
It's the training plan.
It's the number of intervalsI'm doing, it's the amount of
volume that I'm doing each week.
It's the structure of thosethings.
But what I can translate is thelife experience and the race
experience and that sort ofthing.
A pause there.
Does that make sense so far?

Speaker 1 (16:36):
So here's what I'm taking from that.
It's the general themes, notthe specificity side of things.
So the general themes of I knowwhat it's like to be busy, I
know what it's like to haveimperfections in your training
program, I know what it's liketo have life stress, and here
it's almost like an empathetictranslation right.
So here's how we're going totake all of these you know,
moles and flaws and hairs andwrinkles in the in the life and

(16:59):
training process and makesomething really productive
about it.
And it's not and I think,deliberately not.
I'm glad you brought that pieceof it out.
I did this super amazingspecific workout for the
Cocodona 250.
And then.
So therefore this athlete isgoing to get either that exact
same thing or some sort of like.
You know, close, very closevariation of that.

(17:23):
As you were speaking, that'swhat kind of came to the
forefront of my mind is thatthese general experiences are
relatable but the specific onesare not.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
I totally agree with that.
I would say the only thingsthat are more specific that I do
translate to my athletes arethey're probably just the
nuances of, like this raceexperience.
So, for example, wow, Irealized at high altitude it
gets really hard to eat thesecertain things.
Yes, I'm going to share thatwith you.
And then let's talk about yournutrition plan and let's talk

(17:56):
about what you're practicing andwhat you're planning to use.
Or, on the other end of thespectrum, florida Keys, it's
really freaking hot and it getsreally hard to eat these kinds
of things.
So let's talk about that andhow it applies to you too,
because there are certain thingslike that are probably going to
apply to every single athletethat's in that race.
But when it comes to myself andmy mind and my body and exactly

(18:17):
what it did every day to getready for this thing, it's
probably going to look prettydifferent from what this athlete
and that athlete and their mindand their body and their
history are going to do to getready for that thing okay, I'm
going to put a pin in thatspecific piece because I'm going
to bring up another question toboth you and ryan, because I
think that there's going to be atheme that that emerges from

(18:38):
this that we can discuss ascoaches.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
but, ryan, let's move on to you.
How would you like, how wouldyou describe this component of?
First off, how do you organizeyour own training right, being a
coach, being a professional inthe, in the space, and then what
pieces of that process are youthen translate?
Translating into your athletesthat are training for similar
events?

Speaker 3 (18:59):
So I'm coached by fellow CTS coach Darcy Murphy.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Shout out to.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Darcy, she's one of the best.
Yeah, shout out, darcy, she isone of the best and it's a good
personality match.
She knows when to push back andwhen to be empathetic.
On the theme of Anne and beingtime crunched we are all time
crunched and there can be amoment for all of us when we
make excuses and let thosespiral rather than sucking it up

(19:28):
and getting it done, whetherit's waking up early and being
more stern with ourselves.
I think that's a general themeof learning this balance of when
to be empathetic and when to godrill sergeant on yourself and
then, broadly speaking, identifythe specifics as best you can

(19:50):
for your event and if you'relimited by geography, extreme
weather, we have to put in thesenon-negotiables within the long
range plan of okay, racing ataltitude, have to get out there
early, that's pretty simple andformulating a plan around that
and doing it on the front end.
So I know, hey, we'readdressing these things and I

(20:15):
know I'm preparing for them.
So I'm not going to freak outand get anxious and try to cram
for the tests and get stuck inthe weeds with little things
that I'm nervous about.
At the last minute.
I've identified thosesignificant demands, what I'm
least confident about, and I'maddressing those so, as the race
gets closer, I'm feeling moreand more confident rather than

(20:36):
more and more anxious.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Okay, I want to bring up one specific point that Anne
really brought to my attentionjust a second ago, one specific
point that Anne really broughtto my attention just a second
ago, and this is what happenswhen you're working with
athletes that are doing theexact same races as you have
done.
And I'm going to back this up alittle bit and bring in another

(21:01):
one of the features I guessthat he gets requested of the
coaches when he's navigating howto pair up an incoming athlete
with a new coach is the athletesvery often request that they
have a coach that has done therace that they are training for.
And if they've got a few raceson the calendar, hey, I want a
coach that's done this and this.

(21:22):
And we've always had a pushpull with that request, right,
and the push is that, yeah, thecoach has experience doing that
themselves, and so there's alittle bit of a.
It's not an appeal to authority, but maybe it's an appeal to
having actually done the race.
It gives them some street cred,right, in doing it.

(21:43):
I've done Tour de Jeanne.
Somebody comes in, they want acoach that's done Tour de Jeanne
because they feel that's somesort of prerequisite to coach
for the event is not, becausethey feel that's some sort of
like prerequisite to coach forthe event.
So, on the match piece of it,it's nice to have right, because
it gives the athlete animmediate sense of security that
they know the coach has beenthrough what they're about to go
through right and that'smeaningful in the coach athlete

(22:04):
relationship.
I'm not I'm not denying thatthe buy-in is actually
meaningful in the entirety ofthe process, but it's certainly
not, it's certainly not a, it'scertainly not a necessity.
So I want to answer this.
I want to go over this reallyspecific question because I know
we've all had it when you'vebeen working with an athlete
that is training for a race thatyou have done and they ask you

(22:27):
what you did for it, but yourprescription to that athlete is
different.
So you know I've done the hardrock 100 and I have just had
this happen a few weeks ago.
That's why my brain was kind ofprompted to this as well.
My athlete asked me hey, whatdid you do six weeks beforehand,
whatever the timeframe waseight weeks beforehand.
And I said, well, because youcan see it on Strava, I did this

(22:48):
and this, but you were doingthat and that.
Because of this context.
Right, there's this discrepancybetween this is what I did and
this is what you did, and eventhough I had a really successful
blueprint on this, you're doingthis because of what kind of
whatever reasons that we're justgoing to kind of go through now
.
So, ron, I'm going to ping itback to you what have you done
in that situation where you'recoaching an athlete for a race

(23:09):
that you have trained for andthey've asked this question hey,
what did you do?

Speaker 3 (23:12):
and there's just there's a discrepancy between
what you're prescribing and whatthat and what you have actually
done, or what darcy has kind ofprescribed for yourself I would
say, maybe when someone livesclose to the race and I also
live close to that race and Ieither did the smaller event
leading up to it Okay, so takePenn Hody 100, for example, you

(23:35):
can do, there's a 50 miler onthe course in September and
there's a 50K on the course inFebruary.
And I've did that 50K inFebruary.
And maybe I haven't encouragedan athlete like, hey, this is a
non-negotiable go, do this raceto get an idea of the course.
And like, well, why wouldn't Ido that if I have the
opportunity to do it?
And it's like, well, maybe that50K in February for a race that

(23:58):
is, how many months is that?
Nine months out doesn't fitwithin your training right now.
So we're not going to forcethat.
That can be an example.
Or oh, okay, it's this race inthe beginning of October.
There, it's this race in thebeginning of October.
There's a chance it could behot, but it could be cold.
I did heat training to be safe.
But I'm not advocating for youto do that because of X, y, z,
well, why not?

(24:18):
And then, of course, you haveto have a reason for it.
Those are two immediateexamples I can think of.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
I've got one and I'm going to let you ruminate in
your head to kind of come upwith an example.
So so I have one finish at thebad water 135.
And the most common questionthat I get out of all of my
coaching experience in anyformat by a long shot, is what
should my longest long run be?
Before race X?

(24:44):
That is like universally themost asked question that I, that
I, that I get year round, andit's been that way for over a
decade, that I get year round,and it's been that way for over
a decade.
And so, true to form, wheneverI have athletes that ask me what
my log, that I'm trading forthe Battlewater 135, and they
ask me what my longest long runbefore that race was, and it is
exactly 63 miles, and I canremember the exact route that I

(25:10):
did from my home in ColoradoSprings to tally up 63 miles.
Why was it?
63 miles is just the way thisloop worked out and it was about
what I wanted to do and thingslike that.
The longest long run that I giveany other athletes improbable,
that it would be exactly 63miles and the way that I back
into the answer is with theirprevious training.
So a long run of whatever we'retrying to prescribe has to fall

(25:33):
in line with the volume thatthey are doing at the time and
the volume that they can buildup to in advance of the race.
There's no magic prerequisite.
That is exactly 63 miles that Ihappen to prescribe, that I
happen to prescribe for myself,it's just it.
But the philosophy is exactlythe same.
I did a 63 mile long runexactly because that duration of

(25:58):
long run falled in line withwhat my training could support
at the time.
So the strategy aligned, butthe outcome of what the exact
number was is completelydifferent based on the situation
.
So that's how I kind of likeback into the explanation, when
these like discrepancies, youknow exist, and I could go

(26:19):
through any other race that Ihave done that I'm also coaching
an athlete, for I will get thatquestion what is my longest
long run?
What is?
The athlete will ask me what ismy longest long run going to be?
What did you do for yourlongest long run in advance of
that race?
And sometimes they're close,but many times they're like 50%

(26:42):
different, you know, and in thiscase, like a 40 mile long run
would be completely appropriate.
Completely appropriate for anathlete doing the bad water 135.
And I did a 63 mile long runand those are two very different
.
That's 33% different, right?
Just doing the math.
They're doing the rough mathoff the top of my head.
So I guess my point is is thethe exact prescription when you

(27:03):
look at it on paper could bewildly different from one person
to the next and, in this case,from me to another athlete, but
the strategy of how you get tothat can actually be remarkably
similar because we're stillfollowing the same kind of rules
and laws and strategies ofperiodization and training,
design and stuff like that.
So it's an important componentto remember as we're going

(27:25):
through all of this.
Okay, so, and you've I've teedyou up what's the example that
you that's coming to theforefront of your brain right
now, in terms of when you havetrained for an event and an
athlete is training for the sameevent and the prescription is
different.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
I just think this is such a funny question because I
think of everyone in such a silo, like every single one of my
athletes is in a complete siloand, yes, the principles of
their training are the same.
But I could focus, so I mightgo do a training peaks review
for athlete one and then athletetwo right after this, and
they're training for exactly thesame race and I'm not even

(28:03):
thinking about well, thisperson's doing this.
Why am I having this person dothis, which is totally different
?
Why does this person have 10hours a week of training?
Why does this person have well,should I be tweaking what
athlete A is doing so it'scloser to athlete B?
Like the thought doesn't evencross my mind, because it's
exactly what you said.
Like the principles and thefoundation of what we're doing

(28:25):
exist across all athletes andthat includes myself but the
athletes and their schedules andtheir histories and their
capabilities and what their bodycan handle, it's just so
different that there's no worldwhere I'm going to say, well, I
did this and man, I did a reallygood job, so you should
probably do this too.
It just the thought doesn'teven occur to me now.

(28:45):
On the flip side, occasionallythere are things that all like
really mess up, and then I canuse that to tell my athletes All
right, I did this really badlyfor the Florida Keys.
I've got someone doing it thisupcoming weekend, so I'm telling
him, like, don't do thesethings, because I really messed
this up.
I think that's a perfectlyappropriate thing to do.

(29:06):
Or for Tahoe 200 back in theday, just on a whim, my husband
and I were like hey, we shouldgo out to the Tahoe course and
do a marathon a day for fourdays in a row and it's basically
like doing half of the race.
And now I work for CTS and Irealized this is called a
training camp, like this is areal thing.
And this is something I shouldbe prescribing to my athletes.

(29:28):
So every once in a while thereare those little moments of
genius, like little things thatare incredibly effective where,
yes, this is totally appropriateto apply to my athlete.
Or I really screw it up and Iuse that to influence my
athletes training or theireducation, but otherwise, like,
everyone is operating in acomplete silo, because they're

(29:48):
just different human beings andhuman bodies who just happen to
be moving up and down at thesame rate or the same distance
at the same time.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
I've used that silo description a lot with the
athletes that I work with.
I'm kind of in a little bit of aunique position where I have
several really prolific athletesthat everybody wants to follow
and emulate on Strava right oremulate their Strava, and a lot
of them are training for thesame or very similar races.

(30:19):
And they will ask me I'm kind oftaking this out of the original
context of the of thediscussion, but I think the
message point will translateover They'll sit, they'll look
and say oh well, you know eliteathlete X, y, z who's training
for CCC or whatever.
They had this patterning goinginto this race and I'm training
for CCC, you know they kind ofexpect a similar patterning

(30:40):
going into it.
And I always kind of go back tothe theme that we mentioned
earlier is that the strategygenerally has like a 90%
alignment.
I don't know how else to youknow encapsulate a percentage on
that, but I think.
But I think that's a prettygood description, the overall
strategy.
Like if we put a long rangetraining plan up for a similar
time duration athlete, that'sgoing to match up pretty darn

(31:03):
close.
But the specifics of it's a sixhour long run and two by 30
minutes, steady states andthings like that.
That's where you're going to seekind of like the most amount of
variation or like the densityof the training right, so how
much they can handle in a acuteperiod of time, five day period
of time or something like thatjust because the better athletes
are going to have more capacityto handle, you know, like, like

(31:24):
higher workloads.
But it does put the spotlight toyour point and it does put a
much more, a much brighterspotlight on on trying to silo
the athletes off as much aspossible and then reinforce that
this is specific to them,because we have this really neat
social application, in mainlyStrava, that people use to just

(31:44):
they use it for everything,right, they use it to, you know,
satiate their own ego.
They use it as a training tool,they use it to see what other
people are doing, to kind oflike glean ideas from.
And there are there, there areabsolutely a lot of bright spots
to doing that.
You know I learned things about, you know, certain people's
training programs that Iwouldn't normally have access to
if we didn't have that, if wedidn't have that like

(32:06):
transparency on the scene.
But there are a lot.
There are 10 times or a hundredtimes maybe more pitfalls
associated with with thatstrategy than than anything else
.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
You know what One of my biggest I'll call it a theme,
but also a lesson for the lastseveral months has been in this.
So this started right beforeMoab 240 last year when I was
trying to figure out like whatmy outcome goal would be, what
my process goals would be and mygoals would be and my number.
I said number one goal was mindmy own business, and I think
this applies to training.

(32:39):
It applies to racing.
Now, if you are trying to becompetitive, if you're trying to
get a podium spot like, you'reprobably gonna have to pay
attention to those around you aswell, but generally for 95 of
us, being just minding your ownbusiness is a good way to go
about it.
Now, with that said, I loveStrava, I love giving people
kudos.
I just think that's super fun.

(33:00):
But you just can't get caughtup in that.
I just need to put blinders onto everyone around me, whether I
am in a race or focusing on mytraining, because I need to mind
my own business and the more Ido that I find the less injury
prone I am, the better I feelabout my training, the better I
execute my own plans and justfeel like the outcomes have been

(33:23):
stronger just by focusing onthat one thing like mind your
own business.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
You're creating your own silo, as you being a
self-coached athlete, right?
So it's the same strategy ofsiloing out, like your
individual athletes, for whatthey individually need.
You're just applying that samething to yourself and using this
framework, which I think isreally cool.
I'm going to steal it from youat some point.
I'll give you credit for itlater.
The royalty checks will be inthe mail but using this

(33:50):
framework of minding your ownbusiness, which I think is which
I think a lot, I think it willresonate with a lot of people.
Ryan, do you want to tack ontothat at all?

Speaker 3 (33:56):
No, she summed it up perfectly, just funny anecdote.
My rule for myself is I don'tfollow people that make me feel
bad about my own training.
If I've got a really fastfriend, I don't follow them.
For let's see that I'm likedamn, like we used to be the
same level and then now we'renot, or he's really crushing it

(34:17):
and on the roads, or vice versa,just like I don't if I'm seeing
what they're doing.
It makes me feel bad.
Unfollow, sorry, you tailoryour.
Strava feed in order to helpyour ego not intentionally, not
to hurt, it fair enough fairenough, it's been interesting,
okay.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
So let's get a little bit more specific.
Now we're going to talk aboutthe races, right, and the reason
I think that this is reallypertinent is, unlike the
training for races and I getthis all the time Like athletes
come in, I get this inquiry onmy web on like on my website a
lot.
I was following athlete X Y Zthat's training for this race.

(35:01):
I am now training for that race.
Should I follow that exact samepatterning?
And they're kind of like tryingto coach themselves,
essentially using the blueprintof other athletes who have
trained for those races, to toget a better fix, to get a
better fix on the trainingprocess.
And that happens all the time.
But there's an even morespecific component of this that

(35:22):
doesn't have that lens oftransparency, and that's the,
the races themselves, and that'sbecause they're such unique and
of one experiences, like if yougo and do the Wasatch 100, or
if you go do the San Juansolstice, that process shows up
in one single file on Strava, orone single instance of the
entirety of the, of the entiretyof the journey, not weeks and

(35:45):
months and things like that youcan kind of like glean patterns
from.
So it's a much different.
It's a much differentproposition of what do you
actually translate from yourracing experience over to your
athletes, because it's thatunique property adds this kind
of adds this dimension to itthat they're not they have,
they're going to have one a lotof times.

(36:07):
Like Ryan, you're doing thehard rock 100, right, you might
only get one shot at this,unless you want to wait another
decade to get into the race.
Right, you might get one shot.
And so the thirst is to try toaccumulate as much of other
people's experiences as possibleand see if you can somehow
apply a filter to thoseexperiences to glean something

(36:28):
kind of like relevant for you.
So I'm going to kind of ask thisof you guys in your
professional capacity as coachesyou've got athletes that are
training for the same races thatyou have done.
When it comes down to race time, you're going through the race
plan and things like that.
Can you in any way encapsulatethis filter that you have to

(36:49):
apply to counseling yourathletes who are going into
these races that you have donewith?
This blend of this is what Iexperienced here, versus trying
to generalize it to what theymay or may not experience.
And, ryan, we're going to startwith you, and I want to leave
this with.
This is a really tricky, like areally tricky question because

(37:10):
it's based off of a singleinstance of a race and even if
you have 10 years experience, orsomething like that, doing that
race, it still is a singular ormaybe a few time experience for
the athlete and it just bringsa level of complexity to the
whole thing.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
I think one thing I have to be really mindful of is
that technical and runnable isrelative.
I may define a certain sectionas oh, this is really runnable,
because my strengths aredownhill running and I enjoyed
that section and I hit it in thedaytime without a headlamp and
I can't.
I have to be mindful to knowwhere that athlete is at.

(37:44):
If they are a good downhillrunner, if they have confidence
in that, are they going to bemaybe further behind and be at
it with their headlamp?
And if I I'm, if we're going tothe race plan and I keep saying
like, oh yeah, this section issuper runnable, and then they
get there and it's not runnableto them, like what the hell,
what is this council I havereceived?
I mean, like that's not a funthing to be surprised by at some

(38:06):
point in a race.
So I think that is one thing.
Um, yes, you experience that ina race, you see it firsthand,
you experience it.
But again, zoom out ineverybody's perspective and
their skill level and whenthey're going to hit the race,
if they're having a crew or not.
Having a crew, that dictatesthe race plan and how things are

(38:26):
going to flow.
As well, are they going to havea pacer or not have a pacer,
things of that nature, dan.
You want to tack on to that.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
I would say the things that I can and should be
sharing are factual anddescriptive and the things that
I should not be sharing withthem are emotional or personal.
So, kind of to Ryan's point,like in this section of the race
, I was throwing up off the sideof the trailer, I was crying

(38:53):
because it was so rough.
Like anything that is justbased in my feelings that's not
relevant to that person, becausethey might be feeling
completely different in thatpart of the race.
But if it is a matter of youare at high altitude and so this
is how you need to adjust yournutrition, because that's a fact
, that's something we talk about.
Or this section of the race hasgolf ball sized rocks all over

(39:17):
the trail for one to two milesat a 20% grade climb.
Like I can share that.
That's not me saying, oh, it'sso crappy and rocky and annoying
and just try to get through it.
I'm not trying to attach anyemotion to the race description
or like what I'm preparing themfor, but I can certainly tell
them, like the facts, this iswhat you're going to encounter.

(39:38):
You might feel this way in thisplace and if you do, here's
what we're going to do to likemitigate that, um, but I think
the more I can pull my ownpersonal like feelings out of it
, the better, but the more I candescribe like what they're
going to encounter, without likeplanting any ideas in their
head about how fun or not fun orlike nice it's going to be.

(40:02):
I think that's my approach.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
I think the factual piece of it is really pertinent.
I'm reminded of this thedescription that coach AJW sends
out every year for the WesternStates 100.
It's a you know five or sixparagraph 2000 word type of deal
and the theme of it, or one ofthe themes of it, is is very
factual.
He could certainly talk aboutthe many times that he's puked
at XYZ point or had an epic bonkor you know when so-and-so

(40:28):
passed him.
You know over here like allthose kind of like personal
stories, but it's very much.
There's a descent.
It's 2000 feet.
At the very bottom you'll finda river.
You know if it's full, you knowif it's full, use the water
here, like all those differentlike like it's almost like
geographic inflection pointsthat aren't going to change from

(40:50):
year to year unless they changethe course or the water
conditions are different orthings like that.
And then also kind of likerelative to the to to the climbs
, to to the climbs and thedescents, I take a very similar
approaches to to you guys.
I almost tried not to get intothe race flow itself, though and
this is where I might deviatefrom you guys a little bit is I
really try to.
I'll use the word silo offagain because we use it a few

(41:11):
times.
I really try to silo off theathlete's individual race
experience as best I can, basedon what I know about their
training and their experiences,and try to describe the race
flow as I would if I hadn't hadeyes on the ground or boots on
the ground, so to speak.
What the individual or theexperiential parts of the race

(41:33):
that I actually do emphasize arethe things that you aren't
going to find in the race manual.
So, for example, for Tour deGente, absolutely have your crew
use the Alsta Valley as a baseof operations.
That doesn't have anything todo with the race itself.
You have people coming over andsupporting you.
Stay in Alistair.

(41:53):
It's centrally located.
It's an hour drive to anywhere,any of the aid station or any
of the life bases that youactually want to get to.
It's well-resourced.
You can come back at any timeof night, not really disturb
anybody.
Like I said, that's justsomething that is universal,
right Across the entirety ofanybody who's actually doing
that race, whether it's going totake them 70 hours or the

(42:14):
entirety of all six days.
If they have crew out there,that's something they can use.
The same thing could be saidfor the western states, 100.
The railies at the corner offorest hill road and I think
it's i-80 is a common rallyingpoint for all of the crews out
there to like resupply with foodand ice and sandwiches for the
day and all those other thingsthat it's not going to change

(42:37):
whether you're whether they'resupporting somebody at the very
front of the pack or the verymiddle of the pack or the or the
back of the pack.
So when I'm like going over alllike the pre-race stuff, I tend
to focus on those like externalthings.
A bighorn would be a reallyactually, ryan, you've got this
experience right when your crewgoes back into Bighorn, there is
no cell phone service at allever, and that's a thing that

(43:00):
you, that's a piece ofexperience that you get from
actually having been out on thecourse.
Once you leave the town I'mblanking on the name right now,
ryan, help me out Sheridan.
Yeah, once you leave SheridanWyoming and go up and over the
pass, it's nothing, it's nothing.
You're not going to have accessto any sort of information at
all for the entirety of the race.

(43:20):
It's those, it's.
I think it's those types ofthings, those types of
experiences that I've had out ofraces personally that I try to
translate on onto athletes.
It's not like the race flowthing itself.
So there's a little bit atleast, what I do.
There's a little bit of thistheme that ann mentioned where
you're trying to keep it factual, but I also try to.
I won't say I do this 100 ofthe time, but I try as much as

(43:42):
possible to try to stay out ofthe actual mile one to mile 50
or mile one to mile 100,whatever race flow, and keep it
to the things is otherwisespecified that you you know
you're only going to know unlessyou actually get the.
You know you get on the groundthere.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yeah, and the logistics of lodging the best
place to stay.
Okay, it says you can go tothis aid station, but you don't
want to go there because it'sgoing to be a quick drive for
your crew.
The road is really rough.
Learning those things are keyand in some cases race manuals
are pretty good and giving youthose caveats or warnings, but
other times they're not, and youlearn that the hard way and we

(44:19):
can relay that information soour athletes and their crew do
not have to learn it the hardway.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
And I think the translatable point for the
athletes that are listening isif you're trying to glean race
information from other peoplethat have done the race is, if
you're trying to glean raceinformation from other people
that have done the race, focuson those factual areas, whether
they're within the race itselfor the logistics surrounding the
race for the crew and supportpeople and things like that.
Focus on those areas versus wasit hot at this section or is

(44:46):
this section runnable, orwhatever, because those are all
going to be in the eye of thebeholder and also they change so
much year to year.
I mean, even we'll use Bighornas an example, right, it does
have a pretty prototypical muddysection, right.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
That can start early or late.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, exactly, and it could be like slightly muddy or
ridiculously muddy, and Ipersonally have been.
I've raced that race and I'vepaced on that race as well and
seen kind of both ends of the ofthe muddy spectrum.
But trying to ask somebody whohas done that race previous
years how muddy it actually is,the variability is going to be

(45:29):
much more on that individual'sinterpretation of that as well
as the race day conditions, andthat's not something that, even
if they're all trying to helpout, but it's hard for that
individual to actually translatethat to what's actually gonna,
what's actually gonna, uh, go onon the ground there.
So we've gotta like we've gotto be really kind of like really
mindful of it.

(45:50):
So in that example, what?

Speaker 3 (45:50):
you take out fact, it is going to be really kind of
like, really mindful of it.
So in that example, what youtake out fact, it is going to be
muddy at some point.
Be prepared.
Yeah, exactly, I was training.
Run in the mud, know what shoeworks, what sock, etc.
It's going to be muddy, beprepared.
Yep, you will find out theseverity and when it starts and
when it ends on your own.
Have fun.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
I mean pretty much.
I mean pretty much.
I mean you've got to reasonablyprepare them for that piece
because it is so significant.
Getting any more granular thanit's going to be muddy, I think,
is a little bit of a.
It's kind of a little bit of afool's errand, especially if
we're putting ourselves in theposition of it's another athlete
trying to translate thatinformation to the, to their

(46:30):
friend or their training partneror some random acquaintance.
What the information is goingto be on the ground.
Because that's really theorientation that I have for this
particular podcast is peopleare out there, they're trying to
glean information from anynumber of different sources,
from the race organization, fromfriends and family, people who
have done the race before, andhow to actually kind of apply

(46:52):
the filter.
I think the right way to applythe filter is more coarse versus
fine-tuned, right If they'regetting really specific and you
know it's six inches in thissection and two inches in this
section and really sloppy mud inthis other section.
Just okay, it's muddy, likethat's the translatable point,
not the specificity ofeverything.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
You know what else I do, so in conversations with
athletes, I try to keep itfactual and individual.
But then I also have this listof what if scenarios that I give
to all athletes before they'redoing races like this,
especially the longer races.
And it's a really long list andit has things like what if I
get nauseous?
What if I lose the ability toeat solid foods?

(47:31):
What if this happens?
What if I get the worstblisters I've ever had in the
world?
And what I'll do is after Ihave my own race experience and
I realize, wow, man, that was ahigh altitude race and I got
this splitting headache up theback of my neck at this point.
Maybe that's something I shouldadd to those what if scenarios.
And I'm not going to plant theseed for this person and say you

(47:51):
know, this happened to me, soit might happen to you, but I'm
going to give them that list of25 potential scenarios that they
could run into in a 100-milerace, and that's going to be one
of them.
So then they've thought aboutit and then they've come up with
what their plan of action wouldbe if that happened.
So if it does happen, okay,they've got a plan, and if it

(48:12):
doesn't happen.
I haven't like planted the seedthat well.
This happened to me, so it'sprobably going to happen to you,
but it's kind of a sneaky wayto at least get them thinking
about all of these potentialthings that could occur during
the course of their race.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
It ends up being like you can't predict the
unpredictable right, but you'vegot to have a reasonable toolkit
for when those things do, whenshit actually does hit the fan,
you know.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Ryan, how do you help your athletes navigate that
unpredictable piece of it?
And, by the way, thisunpredictable piece, that is the
root of the most commonquestion that I get how long
should my longest long run be?
Because inevitably there's abig gap between that longest
long run and the actual race.
And I think that the that, thattrying to satiate that gap,

(48:59):
leads to that very question andit's the same theme as you just
mentioned like what happens?
What if I encounter thesethings?
That, uh, that a I haven'tencountered before gotten
nauseous, gotten blisters andthings like that but B are very
difficult to predict if they'reactually going to happen.
So they're all wrapped up inthe same theme and I think the
navigation tools that you canuse, both in advance and

(49:20):
actually during when thosethings happen, are kind of
remarkably similar.
So, ryan, I'll ping it over toyou Like how do you help your
athletes kind of be armored upfor those types of things?

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Go through the what if scenarios, like Ann says, and
try to find moments in theirtraining that it has happened.
And then did you handle itsuccessfully?
Great, we're going to repeatthat process.
You did to handle it, solve theproblem, or you did not.
So now let's learn from it andwhat are you going to do

(49:51):
differently the next time?
Or the feet situation, thestomach situation?
Well, if it does happen, let'shave this first aid kit, so to
speak, this backup plan of theshoes and socks and the drop bag
, some Tums or this food thatyou know always sets really well
with you of go through thewhat-if scenarios.

(50:13):
If you have solved them intraining, fantastic, repeat that
success.
If not, let's keep discussingit and figure out what your
mental flow chart is going to beto go and try to solve that
issue yeah, so I I keep itreally simple.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
So the two most common things are foot problems
and stomach problems.
You know there's a whole listof other things.
You can have vision problems,you can get off course things
like that, but I kind of startwith those because they're you
can kind of come up with someconcrete thing, really easy,
concrete things to do.
So I teach people how to tapetheir feet, use some kinesiology
tape and some tincture ofbenzoin to stick it on, and I'll

(50:52):
do a little zoom call to showthem how to like pre-cut the
patches and stuff like that.
And you know, some of that isfunctional but a lot of it is
psychological.
It's like now I have somethingthat I know I can do, that I've
at least practiced one or twotimes before that if I have to
do it in a race, granted, it's adifferent spot on my foot, it's
different.
Whatever, I've at least gotsome kind of resource there.
So that's what I do on the footthing and on the stomach thing,

(51:16):
although there's a, once again,a myriad of wives tales out
there on how to fix a sourstomach.
Right, you want to stand onyour head and you know ginger
beer and suck on a candy and allthese other kinds of things.
Slow down and cool off, juststart, just start there.
We know that actually worksright.
You reduce your intensity andyou can reduce your core
temperature and you canredistribute some of the blood

(51:37):
flow to to your gastrointestinalsystem.
Start with that, and then anyof the other stuff that you hear
at the aid stations or somebodythat's running next to you you
know, tells you to try.
Then you can deploy those kindsof things, but just start with
slowing down.
Slowing down and cooling off andthen the final thing I kind of
like armor up my athletes ismore of an attitude, and I take
this from.

(51:57):
It's not my conjuring, it'ssomebody that I've worked with
for years.
It's this former Navy SEAL thatI've done a number of projects
with that.
A lot of some people in theaudience will recognize who it
is.
It's Harold Zendel, otherwiseknown as German, and he's been
around the scene for a long timeand whenever we've been out on
projects and stuff goes southwhich is inevitably the case
with these events he wouldalways just look at me and goes

(52:19):
there's always a solution, coop,let's just find it.
There's always a solution.
And so I think that attitudelike armoring athletes up.
With that attitude of there'salways a solution, you just have
to find it is really empowering.
It doesn't matter how bad yourfeet get or how bad your brain
gets or how bad your stomachgets or whatever kind of like

(52:40):
ails you.
There's always a solution outthere.
You just got to find it and youcan actively work towards
whatever that solution is, evenif it's just guessing.
You know, there's nothing,there's nothing wrong with that
in in many cases, because thereare any different number of kind
of permutations of how thesethings arise and you can't be
you can't be completely preparedfor all of them, but you can be

(53:02):
completely prepared to activelytry to find a solution because
it is actually out there.
So there's always a solution.
So I kind of start with thosethree, those three things, two
things that are super tangiblefeet, stomach, easy solutions.
And the last one is it kind ofcovers everything else all at
the same time.
Right, I don't try to get toogranular of what if this, what
if that, because you can playthat game how many, like an

(53:25):
infinite number of times, right,I try to have one thing that
encompasses it all and that isalways try to find a solution.
There's always a solution outthere.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Well, maybe the conversation is when because we
all have that free race check in, where we're talking about the
outcome goals, the process goals, the fine tuning, like the last
things we need to talk aboutMaybe part of that conversation
also needs to be like all right,here's the plan.
We just talked about all of this.
Let's assume something's goingto go wrong.
Like, how are you going to dealwith that mentally?

(53:55):
What is going to be the mantraor the trigger that you're using
to like, keep you mentallystrong when something goes wrong
?
And then the second question isif something goes wrong or when
it goes wrong, are you willingto use every minute that the
race is giving you to try to fixthis and try to stay in the
race?
And for some people the answeris no, because there's a time

(54:17):
goal.
But for those especially moretowards the mid and the back of
the pack, I really try toencourage them.
Like, you paid for this manyminutes of running, so you
better use every single minutethat you are given, like use the
resources, use the time andjust see what you can fix.
And I would rather you run outof time trying to fix problems

(54:37):
versus giving up on them beforeyou've been trying to solve them
.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah, there's a lot of what I would call like
mid-pack people that have a lotof time to spare to finish a
race, and some of them withintheir own goal setting framework
.
It's absolutely important tothem to finish, no matter what.
So they were aiming for a24-hour buckle at the Western
States 100.
They're not going to get thatand it's absolutely important

(55:03):
for them to finish under a30-hour cutoff.
Some athletes it's not a partof their goal orientation.
They kind of want to go time X,y, z or bust right 25 hours or
bust, and if I run into a spotwhere I have to fix all these
problems, they're just notinterested in, you know, staying
out there for 30 hours whenthey were expecting a 20 hour
day or kind of kind of somethinglike that.

(55:24):
And I do think that some ofthat is in the eye of the
beholder and we're not going toadjudicate.
You know, the merits of DNFingversus not DNFing or sticking it
out during this.
But I do think it's aworthwhile conversation to have,
either with your coach, yoursupport system or even just
internally.
For if you are faced with that,what are you going to do?

(55:44):
Because the last thing you wantto have happen is make the
wrong decision under duress,which can happen very frequently
because you don't have time toprocess what this framework is
that you should have processedbeforehand.
When you're not under that sameamount of duress, it's not easy

(56:05):
, but it's a lot easier to comeup with that framework when
you're sitting down in youroffice or you're just on a
normal run.
What if this actually happens?
Do I want to finish?
Do I want to suck it up or not?
That's a way easier thing towork through in advance than
when you're sitting at the aidstation puking your guts out and
you haven't slept for 35 hoursand you're trying to discern

(56:26):
what is valuable to you and whatis within your value set and
relevant relative to do I needto actually finish this race or
not.
That's a hard thing to actuallycome up with in real time for a
lot of individuals.
So I think the learning lessonwith that is figuring, figure it
out in advance.
You're you're much morewell-resourced to do that in
advance versus when you'retrying to do it in real time.

(56:47):
Okay, I'm going to open it upfor last thoughts, ryan.
When you're trying to do it inreal time Okay, I'm going to
open it up for last thoughts.
Ryan, you get to go first.
Any last thoughts for theathletes out there that are
entering the racing season.
They're trying to glean as muchinformation as possible from
all of the different sources ofinformation that they can get it
from Strava, friends, coaches,people who just the peanut
gallery out there that tellsthem that they should be doing

(57:09):
things.
Is there anything you want toimpart on the listeners on how
to navigate this wild landscapeas they're getting ready for
races?

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Listen to it all, but be selective in what you maybe
attach to.
May attach is not the rightword, but listen, be a listen,
take it in.
Take your buddy's funnyanecdote about the mud at
Bighorn it started at mile 30for him that year or any sort of
thing.
Take it in, but never getattached to one specific thing

(57:41):
that's like oh, that's probablygoing to happen to me, so I
should be prepared.
Or they made up a bunch of timeon this part of the course, or
whatever it may be.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Perfect, and you want to opine on that as well.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, I'd say two things.
So similar train of thought toRyan allow yourself to be
inspired by other people, butdon't allow yourself to be
pressured by what other peopleare doing or what other people
are saying.
And then also, I feel like thisis a sport that is equally
problem solving and physical.

(58:12):
So you know, maybe you're notthe best athlete in the world,
but if you're a really goodproblem solver, that's going to
make up for a lot when it comesto race day.
So know that.
And if that is a weakness ofyours, if you're an extremely
talented athlete but notnecessarily a strong problem
solver, that's probablysomething that you also want to
be working on.
So, I think, be inspired bypeople, don't be pressured by

(58:35):
people.
And then remember that problemsolving is a big part of the
game, so make sure that's partof your skill set as well.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
I like that.
I like that a lot.
I'll play ball here on this oneas well.
I think that one of the hardestskills to develop as a coach is
taking a big set of informationand making it individual and
specific for one person.
That's ultimately why we areall in business.

(59:00):
We have this big set ofinformation that we have from
physiology and experience andpractice and things like that,
and we're trying to distill that, all of that information that's
in textbooks and classes andcourses and experiences that we
have in continuing educationcourses and things like that.
And we're trying to distillthat, all of that information
that's in textbooks and classesand courses and experiences that
we have in continuing educationcourses and things like that.
We're trying to distill it downto a individual for a situation
.
Right, that's the skillset.

(59:20):
That is hard.
That's hard.
That's what we work ondeveloping as professionals.
So, realizing that's a hardskillset and pinging off a
little bit of Ryan's themeno-transcript for what's going

(01:00:01):
to be specific to you and, atthe end of the day, default to
the themes that are more generalversus specific, and I think
you've got a good pathway totake almost anything and have it
be relatable and functional toyou, if you kind of take that
sequential process of things,this was fun.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
Yeah, this was fun you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Thanks for coming on, and can we invite you back and
put you on the spot, since thisis your first time?
We didn't scare you off.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
I would love to.
I'm hoping that next time I'llbe at greater than like 60%
brain capacity, because I thinkI'm still not quite there from
Cocodona, but I would love tocome back this is fun.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
What day did you Share with the listeners?
Yeah, how many days out are you?

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Can't even do that, can't even do that math.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Early morning, Friday 2 am.
Friday is when I finish.
So Saturday, Sunday, Monday,what day is it?

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
It's.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Tuesday Four days out .
That was four days ago.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Yeah, these big long races, they skew your sense of
time and calendar right, becausethey occupy so much, like so
much of it, and then it's offsetfrom like a normal work week.
So then you're like what day isit, and everything, but I'm
actually I uh really impressedwith your intellectual faculty
right now and, to zell likehaving been once again, I'm

(01:01:18):
going to translate my personalexperience onto you and the
exact opposite manner that youknow we've all talked about.
I know, after trudeau and aftercoca-dona, myself intellectual
pile of mush for at least a week, at least a week, probably two
weeks.
So you got it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
You got something going on well, I'll tell you, I
went to bed, so finished therace at two, went to bed at four
, woke up at 6 30 and was likeall right, I guess, seize the
day, here we go check my emailsI don't know what I said in
response to those emails, but Ilike cleared out my inbox and I
should probably go back andcheck your athletes listening to

(01:01:57):
this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
now have context to whatever counsel you were giving
them at the time and whatever.
Yeah, exactly, treat it with alittle bit of suspect 200 mile
drunk text or something.
I think that we should, afterthese things, we should put it
like you know, the legaldisclaimers that you see at the
end of a lot of your athletes'emails.
We should like, we shouldcustomize that based on if we're

(01:02:20):
coming from an event, orsomething like this Like take
this advice with a grain of salt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
All right, guys, thanks forcoming on the podcast.
We're gonna both of you guysback.
That's racing season.
I'm sure there's lots of otheranecdotes and stories and things
that we can impart on listenersfrom both our experiences but
also the experiences that wehave our athletes.
So, once again, appreciate youguys.
All right, folks, there youhave it.

(01:02:45):
There you go.
Much thanks to coaches and Ryanfor coming on the podcast today,
and I just can't tell you guyshow impressed I am with and not
only are finished for Kokedona,but coming onto the podcast
today and being as articulate asshe is you would.
She doesn't really kind of skipa beat and you would have never
have known that she went throughall the sleep deprivation and

(01:03:06):
pain and agony and suffering andall those things that you go
through when you do a 250 milerace that you did just a mere
few days ago before recordingthis podcast.
So shout out to Ann for comingon the podcast today and opining
on this extremely importantaspect that I think a lot of
athletes are facing in front ofthem right now, as we are
entering the racing season.

(01:03:28):
All right, if you enjoyed thispodcast, please share it with
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(01:03:48):
I appreciate the heck out ofeach and every one of the
listeners out there and, asalways, we will see you out on
the trails.