If you do some research on endurance training you are bound to come across statements about how training needs to reflect the demands of the upcoming race. A fancy word for this idea is specificity. Wow, five syllables. A mouthful. Use it and you will sound authoritative. Oh, another twenty five cent word!

“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m not ready.”
“I’m too old.”
“I’m too fat.”

These are just some of the thoughts people experience that interfere with taking on a challenge. The challenge can be just about anything. A new job. A final exam. A new relationship. Having children. Running a marathon. Even hiring a coach to help you prepare for that triathlon you have been thinking about.

I have decided to post more about your training and less about mine. Or perhaps that will turn out to be more posts overall. We’ll see. My initial goal for today was the coach/athlete relationship, but right off the bat I wanted to deal with the imposter syndrome, and that brought me around to the chimp brain construct. I will start there, and eventually arrive at my goal in a later post.

It’s great to see triathlon return to Hawaii in full force. Sunday’s Na Wahine is the latest in what I hope will be a long string of events. I wish all of the participants good luck, and remember to keep it fun. And, if you want help preparing for your next race, drop me a line.

My dear wife just forwarded me an advertisement for Form swim goggles, the ones that display metrics like time and distance in a heads up display. When she does this I take it as permission to buy. Not bad, since these goggles cost plenty. The only reason I don't already have them is they do not offer corrective lenses. Now that I swim exclusively open water their value would be questionable because they get pace data from the Garmin watch, and stroke by stroke pace data is wildly inaccurate.

As I was writing this I realized I did not want it to be a “woe is me” story. I confess I do slip into that mindset occasionally. Who wouldn’t? Then I decided not to make it an advice piece about rising above adversity. There is already plenty of that out there. So, my focus here is more like plain, unembellished news. You can blame me if you fall asleep reading this.

In my previous post I wrote in general about my goal of raising my FTP. Here I will lay out in more detail what my plan to do this looks like, and why.

First I must apologize for the length of this post. As it is, I tried to simplify what is not a simple process. I will further justify my verbosity by pointing out that this is the same level of planning that I, as a coach, will put into any of my athletes’ training plans. It starts with a framework. Then the fun begins as we tailor it to fit real life.

My first A race of the year is done, and my second does not take place until November. How to train in a gap like this can be tricky. More than anything it results in a coach’s favorite expression – it depends. But what does it depend on?

First and foremost, how to train during such a long inter-race gap depends on the athlete. Does their aerobic engine need more development? Does their muscular endurance need improvement? Are they at risk of burning out after that last build period? 

My heart just wasn’t in it, literally and figuratively. If you have been following this blog since last December, you know that the first half of this year has been an exploration into what is going on with my heart. What I know so far is that I have a type of arrhythmia known as Premature Atrial Contractions (PACs). The good news is that this type of arrhythmia is not dangerous. I can continue to be active and not worry about having a heart attack. There are other types of arrhythmias that can trigger a fatal heart attack or cause blood clots which go on to cause serious or fatal results.

The last big training weekend is behind me. In a way it was a reflection of how the season has been going. Good weather, a strong, successful workout, accompanied by my wife Pattie. We even celebrated with lunch at Haleiwa Joe’s and picked up a half dozen Snow Puffies to take home. All in all a very satisfying day.