Pot Pie?

So I just scanned the headlines on the CNN website. At first read I thought one said,"Police find pot pies in Bieber limo" and I thought, like, chicken pot pies? Who cares? Then I realized it said "pot pipes" and then I thought, who cares?

Is this pre-pubescent celeb, someone who I couldn't even pick out of a police line up really worth all that attention? Now, I'm not going to take it upon myself to determine whom the public should pay attention to. That would be far too much effort. (Although many people seem buy into the fact that they need to have some say (or a lot of say) in the lives of others... that’s another article all together.

But I want to do something a little unexpected. I want to relate this Bieber headline to my observations in the athletic world.  Specifically, the idea that too much too soon never seems to end up well.  It's unfortunate that Bieber seems to be struggling.  My impression is that too much fame/attention too soon in life is taking a toll on the kid.

Though as I alluded to earlier, I don't pay much attention to him and don't really prefer his music but somehow, through some kind of streaming power of mass media osmosis, I somehow gather that he is spiraling. Well, on with my point.  I want to address the concept of the “too much too soon” scenario.

When we get excited about something it’s easy to become consumed with it. For example, this can be illustrated by the initial excitement one feels about doing a triathlon. In 20 plus years of coaching, I have seen folks, discover triathlon on Sunday, decide that they actually want to do one on Monday, and then by Wednesday, after hours on the internet, they are signed up for an event.

This is not always a bad thing. Finding inspiration is always cool. Taking initiative and signing up is certainly a good thing.  But in this case, I’m talking about someone who has very little training background and to often they sign up a long distance race like a 70.3 or even the old 140.whatever…

As a coach, I encourage new athletes to get into the sport by setting their sites on doing a sprint distance event. Maybe an Olympic distance event is reasonable and further one that is geographically close by. Logistics are easier and there is sometimes a chance to become familiar with the course by training on it occasionally.

The process or road you take to reach your goal matters.  I want to drive this point across to my athletes.  As I stated, too much too soon is not good.  There is a training principle that is essential to consider and adhere to and that is the principle of progression.

In order to have an effective training program, we need to have the element of progression. We need controlled progressions in the frequency, intensity and the duration of our training sessions. However, the progression that many athletes take, if plotted on a graph would have way too steep a curve – I’m talking about an angle that require a rope to climb if it were a hill.

Progressing to quickly is a sure path to overtraining and injury. It often results in sitting on the couch day after day with ice on your knees, bummed out, and probably eating on some chicken pot pie – ugh, and a grim story that is. Having to take time off means you will not be progressing and you will certainly not be getting any closer to your goals. 

So, take a smart approach and take that initial excitement and plan to spread it out over a few seasons. See how much you can get out of very limited doses of training.  Finish each initial training session with the feeling that you could do more. Hire a coach to help you – hire me for that matter!

Finally, let’s just wish our young celebrity friend the best and hope he pulls it together.  And if you haven’t picked up this, I don’t like pot pie. It’s the only known food that I won’t eat.  

Coach Dave

How Do You Approach Your Workout?

This is part of a list that I recently sent out to my athletes. I was addressing my adult swimmers on my masters swim team who I coach. I guess it can apply to walking through the door of a workout at the gym, any athletic practice or even work too...

1 When you walk through the pool doors, I hope you say the words “thank you” to yourself. I hope that you are grateful that you have the ability to exercise and further that you have a place to share the experience with fellow swimmers.

2 Words spoken at practice must be of a positive nature about yourself, your teammates and towards the swimming or exercise tasks that you are presented with. Greet and pursue these challenges with a willing attitude and have some fun with it. (We do well at this in my opinion...)

You've heard it before, probably, but how many of us actually practice and exercise a good attitude day in and day out? Exercising attitude, a good positive one is just like exercise, if you don't do it regularly, deliberately and thoughtfully you my not be giving it your best shot!

Coach Dave

Memorial Day Notes...

I hope that all of you enjoyed a long weekend. I certainly did.

While enjoying a trail run through the woods near my house yesterday,
I got to thinking....

I took time to absorb the reason for why I (and many others) had this
particular day off.

It's a single day where can to take time, be it a minute or the whole
day (although I certainly don't believe that we need to limit it to
that one single day)
to think about and hopefully honor those people who have given their
lives so that we can do whatever we chose to do yesterday.

Hopefully you got to spend time with family, loved ones and friends.
You got to listen to music, eat good food, talk about anything you
chose to discuss or just sat and watched children play.
Even if you ended up working, I hope that somewhere you still
realized that to do whatever you did, that it was a pretty good deal.
We know life from a particularly priveliged perspective. (That's my
opinion anyway - as is this whole note.)

That fact that we have the freedom to relax, rest, work or whatever
was on our schedule is really something to be thankful for. In our
country, we have so many choices and we have
so much leeway to do whatever we want is truly amazing. It is so
amazing that it is easily overlooked. But not overlooking the
obvious, is a great exercise. It requires one to step back, take a
moment,
analyze the situation and then realize the given fact.

In the US we have a system and people who devote themselves to
securing our existence in the world. That system and those people
who enable us to dream up and then actually pursue those
opportunities deserve
honor and recognition.

What I think is also important is that for every memorial, with its
list of countless names of those who sacrificed their lives, there
are the family, loved ones, friends and neighbors who miss
their soldier on that day and every day. These folks all push on
through live having to replace the physical presence and interaction
only with memories.

I believe that we owe it to our fallen soldiers to remember them and
enjoy the day and realize how good we have it.

Be well all and always be thankful for what you have!

Coach Dave

SKILLS Training...

I recently attended a really great strength and conditioning program here in Baltimore that was put on by Perform Better. Some of my very favorite speakers were presenting. Lee Burton, Mike Boyle, Todd Durkin and Alwyn Cosgrove. These guys are leaders in the industry and it's always great to learn something new and just get out and see a mass of other trainers. The one thing that all great presenters seem to have is an acronym.

So, the very next morning, while I was driving to coach swim practice, I thought, "I want an acronym...!" I started rifling through words and in within a few the word skills came to me. What could I do with this group of letters....? Hmmm, well the coffee must have kicked in at that moment and I came up with the following.

S-K-I-L-L-S....

S- for swimming, that is what I was going to coach but since I work with athletes from different sports, "S" can stand for sports.

K- Nobody was able to guess this. Kid. Be a kid, we all need to be a kid again. Maybe a part of me never stopped being a kid. Kids usually just jump into things like trying a new athletic move, exercise or sport technique without hesitation. Luckily they have not yet become self-conscious and do not bother worrying about how they look even if they don't do it right the first few times. This is a beautiful thing.

I- Intensity! We need to have a fun intensity about what we do and we need an intensity component in our training!

L- Love, hopefully we love what we do, simple as that. I tell all my athletes that I don't care if they are the worst in the world at their chosen sport or activity. If they love to do it, that is as good a reason to continue as any. In fact, I'd rather see someone do a sport that the suck at if they love it rather than listen to people say they just do it because they are good at it....

L- Laugh, in my opinion we need to laugh freely. Most importantly, we need to be able to laugh at ourselves. It is a sign of strength if we can laugh at ourselves. I don't like it when people take themselves too seriously.

S- So long. Find a completion point and say so long to your session. Mission complete, congratulations, be happy with your achievement, time for evaluation when we have completed our training or season. Now it's time to move on and say so long and put our experience in storage bank and build on it for future endeavors.

Hope you enjoy this. It's always great to have SKILLS!

Be good,

Coach Dave

Time of Year

Holy Cow! Time flies by and before you know it, you have not posted on your blog... Well, what are you gonna do...? Get back at it I guess. It's an exciting time of year. May is a great month. The days are getting longer, outdoor seasons in swimming, triathlon and of course motocross are getting under way. I have a number of triathletes racing tomorrow in what I think is truly a "mid-atlantic classic" triathlon. The Columbia Tri is a great race. Did my first one in like 1989 - which to many athletes I know is so long ago it doesn't register for them. That's ok, after all, it was last century.

I remember the sport when things like lace locks for running shoes were cutting edge. Disc wheels were out there but about 1 in every, what 75 bikes had them. I think back and I love the time when it was more rough edge, with not so many refined gadgets. A good bike, running shoes, of course your Speedo which I always felt comfortable in since my background was swimming. It's just what you were so used to seeing people in.

Sure you always had those people who where 100% into the culture of "being a triathlete" as they were the racing. Now though, just coming back from the expo at Columbia, where I had the opportunity to catch up with some old friends, I just feel a bit at odds when I see those certain athletes who reeeaaaalllly like to be noticed as a triathlete. You know what I mean, that slick racing bike on top of their car, running shoes, sport sunglasses, you can spot them a mile away. Their stand out attire is usually accompanied by multiple stickers on the windows of their car indicating the races they have done, complete with the distances spelled out. If it's not, swim 2.4, bike 112 etc etc, it's 70.3 or something like that. Then the products stickers. They look like support vehicles for a pro stage race. My question is, what are they saying? Do they just want to let people around them know, "hey if my car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, I "me" can get myself to civilization no matter what separates me, be it water, a road to bike on or maybe just sub 7 minute per mile foot travel...?" (Actually, I used to love to think about it that way.)

I know, I'm not going to get on people who proudly display the badges of their physical conquests and the products and races they love to use and do. When it all comes down to it, I do love the idea of people getting out there, pushing their limits mentally and physically. I just want for each and every one of them to feel unique in their triathlon pursuit(s) and enjoy the discovery of what they are made of as they embark on every multi-sport challenge. That is the meaning of cool in my opinion. Way cooler than any product or sticker or killer equipment they can purchase.

So, I hope everyone has a great race, safe race and feels like at least at one moment that they are not sure if they can make it, or can maintain their pace, or struggles with maintaining the high output of stroke tempo, wattage output or stride frequency, but then for some reason or another, finds the strength and reaches down deep and comes through for him or herself and finds that personal victory.

Have fun! Coach Dave

H1N1 is No#1

Oh yeah, I am just getting over swine flu. What a bummer. Just glad that I didn't seem to give it to anyone else... we'll see though. Great trip to Southern California with RacerX Virtual Trainer. Traveled with Tim who runs that show. No, he didn't get it but the minute I came back east I felt it hit. So Cal is always a cool time. We were in Temecula which is ground zero for pretty much all motocross activity. Some cool video of the trip, the athletes, trainers, managers we met with are coming out soon. Hope all of my athletes stay healthy! Coach Dave

Cool Link!

Well, sometimes I spend time writing here on my blog and sometimes my words get picked up elsewhere...

Please check out my one of my favorite sites for some good words this week.

www.racerxvt.com

Coach Dave