Archive for the 'Triathlon Psychology Topics' Category

Tri Talk Triathlon Podcast, Episode 56 Transcript and Blog

Monday, December 31st, 2007

The audio for this podcast can be found here.

How scheduling a duathlon in 2008 will make you a better triathlete, assessing 2007 and setting goals for 2008, and qualities of great athletes. All that, today on Tri Talk.


Welcome to Tri Talk, your podcast source for triathlon tips, training, news and more. I want to wish you a happy new year, and may your 2008 race season be your best ever. A special welcome to new listeners in Texas and Egypt. To listeners in Texas, we couldn’t help but point out the upcoming “Frost yer Fanny” duathlon and hope you do well in that event. And, we just had to say hello to the 1 consistent and loyal listener that keeps popping up on the download stats from Cairo, Egypt. . My goal at Tri Talk is to help you swim, bike, and run faster, to meet your personal triathlon goals. Whether you are an elite or amateur triathlete, we cover sprint distance to Ironman distance. Filling in for David Warden, I’m your host, Eric Schwartz, and this is Tri Talk Episode 56.

My name is Eric Schwartz, and I’m hosting Tri Talk for the second time while David takes a break for the holidays. Today on Tri Talk we’re going to perform a little twist on how to swim, bike, and run faster, and find out how to run, bike, and run faster. Not that swimming isn’t important! But, for those of you who are looking to add some motivation into your cycling and running, I’ll be giving a primer on racing duathlons. Then I’ll tell you how 60 minutes of brain power will make you faster in 2008 as you assess your 2007 season and set goals for 2008. Finally, I’ll discuss qualities of great athletes. Implementing these behaviors will make you faster.

If you missed episode 55, you have no idea who I am. I’m Eric Schwartz. I live in Boulder, Colorado and I raced tris and dus for 15 years. I came from a running background and picked up triathlons and duathlons while I was in college at Indiana University. After two second place finishes at the Duathlon Nationals Championships, I finally won the event in 2004. That same year I finished 8th at Ironman Wisconsin. Running was my strength and in 3 of my 4 Ironman marathons I ran under 3 hours. I also was a Category 2 cyclist. I’ve been coaching for 8 years as a member of Joe Friel’s Ultrafit and now as a member of TrainingBible Coaching. I also run the website Duathlon.com, which covers daily triathlon and duathlon news and race results. If you have questions for me you can reach me via email at Eric.Boulder@gmail.com or for coaching services you can check out my coaching website at Enduranceone.com.

You can also send in your questions or comments to david@tri-talk.com, Or, for even faster results, and leveraging the vast knowledge of Tri Talk listeners, consider posting your question on the Tri Talk forums. While you are on the forums, unless you have listened to all available episodes of Tri Talk, all the way back to episode 18, the other Tri Talk listeners will all be faster than you. With so many new listeners in the last few months, make sure you get caught up by getting all the available classic episodes from tri-talk.com


Let’s get onto the good stuff!

As someone who raced a lot of duathlons, I’m going to give a short primer on duathlons and how to train for them, which should also help your triathlon racing. Even if you never do a duathlon you’ll like some of these workouts. I would guess that roughly 50% of multisport athletes have done at least one duathlon. Most are of a run/bike/run format. 5k/30k/5k, or similar, is the most common distance. Most people are looking at a 1.5 to 2.5 hour race. The Powerman duathlons, held across the world, are something close to 10k/60k/10k. Powerman Zofingen, in Switzerland, is the most famous duathlon of all. It is a 10k run, 150k bike, and 30k run - 6 miles, 93 mile bike, and 18 mile run. For those of you that like the Ironman distance events you should strongly consider this event. Everyone I know who has done this event has absolutely loved it. It’s hard - probably harder than an Ironman - and the community puts on a great race and it’s a great racing atmosphere. It is one of the premier multisport events in the world. You can find out more about it at www.Powerman.org.

If you have an aversion to racing duathlons I’m going to give you a good reason to do one - the World Championships. It’s easier to qualify for the World Championships as a duathlete. There are 18 spots per age group, and if you qualify and get the chance to go to the World Championships you should jump on the opportunity. Both the Triathlon and Duathlon World Championships are great events, especially when they are held outside of the United States. Nothing against my home country, but as anyone who has raced in Europe knows, races get more community involvement and it’s a racing atmosphere you won’t forget. Other than Ironman Hawaii, my most memorable racing experiences have been outside the United States. In 1997 I did the Duathlon World Championships in Gernica, Spain, and I’ll never forget it. It was a small town outside of Bilboa. Phil Ligget did the race announcing, and it seemed as if everyone in town came out to watch. They thought we were all heroes, and anytime we walked through the town square we got mobbed. They asked for our autographs and wanted to take pictures of us with their kids. They were great people and it was a lot of fun. Just about any race I’ve done in Europe has been great. The 2008 Duathlon World Championships are in Rimini, Italy in September. US athletes can find the complete list of qualifiers at www.usatriathlon.org. For US athletes there are five qualifiers in 2008. The first takes place February 24 in Phoenix, and other races take place in Tulsa, Minnesota, Sarasota, and Orange County, California. If you’d like to race in Italy next September, this is your chance. It’s not as hard to qualify as most people think.

How best to prepare for duathlons? If you’re training for sprint or Olympic distance triathlons then there isn’t much that you need to change as you’ll already be working on your speed. I would suggest adding a few run/bike/run workouts. Most people think duathlons are harder because the first run is tougher to recover from than a swim would be, even if intensity feels the same. Because of this the second run will feel harder. Run/bike/run workouts will help with your second run speed. The workouts can be short or long. I find that most triathletes really like the shorter version of these workouts and I’ll even include them during winter training when weather is bad to help mix things up. Here are two examples:

This one is more of a base period workout:

25 minute run ending with 15 minutes in zone 3 - I’m using Joe Friel heart rate zones as described in the Triathlete’s Training bible

45 minute bike. Start and end with 15 minutes in zone 3 - the final effort can drift into zone 4.

Follow with a 20 minute run with the first 12 minutes at zone 3-4.

The second workout is more intense.

25 minute run with a 10 minute warmup, then 2X5 minutes in zone 5, 2 minute recoveries.

40 minute bike. Start immediately with 2X5 minutes in zone 5, 2 minute recoveries. End with 15 minutes at zone 4.

Follow with a 15 minute run with 3X3 minutes at zone 5+, with 2 minute recoveries.

You can make many variations of these workouts and you could make them as short as 45 minutes and still get in a good workout.

The zone 3 workouts are less intense and can be done more often. Be careful with the higher intensity workouts. Even if it feels easy to recover from them, you can run into long-term trouble if you stack too many high intensity workouts into one week.

How should you pace yourself a duathlon?

If your running a race that is a 5k/30k/5k event, your first run should be 30 to 80 seconds within what you could do an open 5k running race. A very fit athlete would go for the shorter end of that spectrum, and an athlete that lacks running endurance fitness should shoot for the higher end of the range. I would say runners in the 18 to 20 minute 5k range would be about 40-45 seconds off of their 5k racing time. You can run faster and do okay, but the problem is that the 10-15 seconds you gain will cost you more on the bike and the second run. If you’re second run time is within 30-60 seconds of your opening run you’ve done very well. For an event that starts and ends with 10k runs your first 10k should be 1 to 2.5 minutes within what you would do for a open 10k race. If you end with another 10k you’ll probably find it to be one of the most challenging runs you can do. Your fitness, hydration, and caloric intake will have a big impact on how well you hold up. If you can do this second run within 2 minutes of your first run you’ll have done better than 95% of the field. For most athletes a 3-4 minute differential is a reasonable goal.

That’s my crash course guide to training and racing duathlons. If they fit into your schedule strongly consider the Duathlon World Championships or Powerman Zofingen. You won’t regret it.

Before we continue, have you found your performance has reached a roadblock? Is what used to take weeks to see improvement, now taking months, or even longer? Or, are you worried that you’re implanting the wrong technique into your training, cementing inefficient muscle memory and improper form that can take significant time to correct?

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to analyze your swimming or running technique in an objective way, and to be able to record and see your technique progress? TrainingBible Coaching is excited to announce the availability of Quick Scout, the perfect tool for the individual athlete or coach looking to provide visual feedback for those who want to master proper technique. With QuikScout, break down athletic movement frame-by-frame for immediate review and analysis. For the individual athlete, have your form analyzed with lines, planes, angles and compare the performance to perfect form, or compared to your own previous performance to see your progress. For the coach with remote athletes, there is no other way to fill that missing piece of visual feedback into your athlete’s training. Or, cut the coach out of the picture and analyze your own athletic technique frame-by-frame against professional athletes, or against yourself to track progress.

Visit www.tri-talk.com for more information on how you can take advantage of this new technology as an athlete or coach.

Moving on..

Since the New Year is just starting I thought I’d do a little segment on goal setting and self-assessment. I did this in my last couple years of racing and it made a big difference.

Think back to your previous season. If you didn’t reach your goals, what prevented you from doing so? Was it poor planning, overracing, overtraining, or were your goals too lofty? Just as you should complete a written evaluation of each race, you should do a written evaluation of your season to find out what held you back. There’s no sense in making a mistake more than once

Three areas you should include in your self-evaluation are training, racing, and injuries.

Training Plan

This is an obvious topic but very few people get it right. Do you really know how to get fast? Do you follow a plan that allows you to be at your fastest? If the answer to either of those questions is no, then you need to make adjustments right now. Simply logging miles without a plan won’t get you there. Either on your own, or with the help of a coach, develop a training program that works for you and stick to it.

Racing Strategy

One could write a book about racing strategy, but a key aspect that I stress with every athlete I coach is pacing. If you don’t know how to pace yourself in a race then you absolutely will not reach your potential. Note that almost every running world record has been set with even or negative (the second half is faster than the first half) splits, but most athletes don’t race that way.

Treating Injuries

Have injuries affected your success in the last couple years? If so, and if the injuries are related, do your best to figure out why it’s happening and how you can prevent it. If you haven’t been working with an expert, find one. For many injuries a doctor is not going to be the best person to see. Many times injuries are related to inflexibility and strength. If that’s the case then you have to make those areas a priority for 2008.

Those are some things to think about when assessing last year’s performance. I’ll quickly go through an evaluation I did several years ago.

Sample Evaluation

I determined four obstacles that were affecting my performance . The year I did this evaluation, and made adjustments, was a breakthrough season for me.

1 – Injuries - I was prone to lower leg injuries that affected my training, primarily my Achilles and that really hindered my run training. I made it a priority to get regular massages in an attempt to prevent those injuries.

2 – Cycling – Cycling was a weakness for me. I looked back through my training logs at the periods when I was at my best and I realized that my best racing was always setup by several consecutive weeks of five hour rides. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this for short distance racing. After making this discovery I altered my schedule to include long rides and it yielded great results.

3 – Weight - at 5’11” and 158 pounds I was not overweight but I carried a few extra pounds. Losing just five pounds made a considerable difference in my performance, especially running

4 – Diet - I used get two to three illnesses per year that interrupted my training. Improving my diet made me less vulnerable to getting sick, greatly improved my recoveries, and it helped me lose those five pounds. This change made such a big difference for me.

You could probably come up with a similar list in 30 minutes and it would be invaluable to your 2008 racing season.

Once you’ve done this set your goals for 2008. I’d suggest picking just 3 goals. Examples might be qualifying for Ironman Hawaii, doing a 30 minute trial with an average wattage of 220 or better, or running a 20 minute 5k. For each of your goals right down 3 sub-goals that you know you need to accomplish to reach your goals - it could be losing weight, finding faster training partners, running a certain amount of miles, or maybe hiring a coach. Finally, put your gaols in a place where you can see them on a daily basis. I’d be willing to bet, on average, that those of you that accept this challenge have a more successful season than those that don’t.

What are the qualities of a great athlete? I’m not talking about just elite athletes, but athletes of all levels.

I’ll go over some of the qualities that I think most good athletes have. As you’re planning for the new year you might think about which of these characteristics you could apply to your training. This my unscientific list, and they aren’t in any particular order.

1. Good genetics. This is an important one, but it’s not worth spending much time on because you can’t control it.

I know of a top Ironman athlete who started out as a very mediocre athlete. He never wanted to have a V02 max test because he thought if he was tested and had a low number it might limit what he thought was possible. So he never was tested and he went on to become a great Ironman athlete. The point of that story is to not let any test convince you that you can’t be great. If you’ve been tested and have high numbers, use it as motivation. If you’ve been tested and had low numbers, you should absolutely forget about them.

2. Consistency of training. The total number of miles you’ve run and bike, and the number of yards you swam, combined with the number of years you’ve been racing, has a great impact on your success. If your new to racing that means you can look forward to a great improvement. If you’ve been racing a long time then you surely know the benefits of consistency. If you’ve been racing for several years, but you’ve been inconsistent, make every effort to be be consistent in your training from week to week, month to month, and year to year. A lot of great athletes didn’t start out as great athletes. They made small incremental gains over several years and now they make it look easy.

3. Willingness to experiment and push yourself. This involves more risk but it can pay great dividends. Here are a few things I did that made a difference to me - as a collegiate runner, when I was only running, I increased my run volume from 60 miles/week to 80 miles/ week and it a made a big difference. When I was working on my swimming one winter I was in the pool nearly every day for a month and soon after I was swimming faster than ever. If you’re training for an Ironman it could involve doing some very heavy cycling blocks during base training. It could be as simple as getting a power meter to gain more knowledge about your cycling. If you’ve been stagnant for awhile some significant changes could yield better results. I’d only caution that before you do something that will significantly increases your training volume or intensity, talk it over with an expert in the field to make sure it has some validity and you are applying the change correctly.

4. Your peer group. If you train with great athletes, or athletes that are better than you, you’re a lot more likely to improve. There were a few times in my career when I wasn’t around better athletes that pushed me, and I stagnated. Fortunately, most of the time I trained with better athletes that inspired me to get faster. Surround yourself with successful people and you’re more likely to find success yourself. Your peer group also includes your support - family, friends, coaches, medical professionals, and mechanics, just to name a few. These people play a crucial role in your athletic career. Surround yourself with the best.

5. Diet. The older you get the more important it becomes. I’d guess that sometime around 30 years old, give or take a few years, is when our body will stop putting up with poor eating habits. It makes a difference. Of all the national or world caliber athletes I know, almost all of them realized they had to eat well if they were going to be great.

6. Mental outlook - do you believe you are good and that you can get better? If so, you’ve increased your chance of success. Can you focus when necessary? Can you correctly execute your race plan? Do you have other stresses in your life that take energy away from your training? All of these things have a significant impact on your racing

7. Ability to stay healthy. If you can stay healthy you can be consistent with your training.

8. Passion - do you love what you’re doing? It’s hard to be successful if you don’t.

Those are 8 things I think are very important to athletic success. As you’re looking ahead to 2008 think about this list when planning your season.

That’s all for episode 56. It’s been a pleasure being your host for the last 2 episodes and I’d like to thank David for giving me the opportunity. I can tell you that it’s no easy task composing a podcast and now that I’ve done it I’m even more impressed with the work David does. He’ll be back in 2 weeks with episode 57. You can contact me at Eric.Boulder@gmail.com or EnduranceOne.com. Happy new year and all the best in your training and racing in 2008.

Posted in All Episode Transcripts, Triathlon Psychology Topics, Episode 56 | 1 Comment »

Tri Talk Triathlon Podcast, Episode 53 Transcript and Blog

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

The audio for this podcast can be found here.

To eat or not to eat? The impact of food intake in proximity to the start of exercise. A conversation with the medical coordinator of the 70.3 Ironman World Championships, and sports psychology take 2. All that, today on Tri Talk.

Welcome to Tri Talk your podcast source for triathlon tips, training, news and more. New listeners since episode 52 come from New Zealand and Colorado. In New Zealand, I hope you enjoy the Stroke and Stride sprint-distance series that has just kicked off, and in Colorado, where the climate is not as nice as New Zealand this time of the year, I hope you are taking my advise on recovery from the last episode and not doing anything. My goal at Tri Talk is to help you swim, bike, and run faster, to meet your personal triathlon goals. Whether you are an elite or amateur triathlete, we cover sprint distance to Ironman distance. I’m your host, David Warden, and this is Tri Talk episode 53.

That was Seismic Anomaly with Afterburner. This fine piece of music and all the great music on Tri Talk can be found at http://www.podsafeaudio.com/. This episode was scheduled to be the third and final part of our series on periodization. That series will actually conclude in episode 54 because I will be wrapping up that subject with a conversation with the father of modern periodization, Dr. Tudor Bompa, who has agreed to an interview next week. We are so lucky to able to have the opportunity to hear from this giant in endurance sports, the man who really condensed all the knowledge and brought periodization to athletes all over the world.

This episode is sponsored by PowerTri.com. Are you looking for a little extra pizazz in your swim workouts this season? Pump up the volume and Make Your Swim Rock! with Finis’ all new SwiMP3 version 2. This little underwater MP3 player provides an incredible audio experience, now with 256MB of storage so you no longer have to decide between Metallica and Celine Dion, load them both up and take them to the pool with you! The Finis SwiMP3 retails for $199 but is on sale now at PowerTri.com for $179. Plus for a limited time for Tri Talk listeners, use discount code SWIMP3, and get an additional $30 off and the first 20 customers will also get a FREE pair of Finis Swim Goggles! That’s just $149 for the SwiMP3 player plus a free pair of goggles. Plus, you’ll qualify for Free Ground Shipping. This makes the perfect Christmas gift for your favorite triathlete in your life (or for yourself). Hurry! This offer expires Dec 25. Visit PowerTri.com today!

Let’s get onto the good stuff! Have you ever found yourself nearing the middle of a workout, and suddenly you just feel flat? Your energy drops, you feel fatigued, and start to count the minutes until the workout is over? Maybe the same workout the previous week, you felt great, full of energy and able to meet the intensities you had planned for the workout. And we’re not talking about a 2-hour workout where it is normal to start to feel fatigue at the end, but a workout where you began to feel crappy just 15-20 minutes in.

While there are many factors that could have created that fatigued state so early in a workout, including sleep and recovery, there is another potential overlooked cause. How soon before your workout you last ate. I’m guessing that many of you are thinking that particular type of fatigue would be caused by eating too far in advance of a workout, and that eating close to the workout would ensure you had enough energy. The following results might surprise you.

Dave Costill, one of the leading sports physiologists, published a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology that looked at the effects of a feeding 45 minutes prior to exercise. This study took 6 trained males, with a VO2max ranging from 53-65, indicating a good level of fitness for all the test subjects. On two separate occasions, the men performed a 90-minute running trial.

On the first run trial, the men took in 75 grams of glucose, or about 300 calories, 45 minutes prior to exercise. What happened in that 45 minutes is what you might have expected to happen. Blood glucose spiked by 38% in that 48 minutes. When I first read this I thought “Sweet! Does this mean if I plan my meals and workout right, I can go into a workout with my blood sugar at its peak? But, just 15 minutes into the workout, the athletes blood glucose dropped by 300% to just a fraction of what it was even before the athletes took in the glucose 45-minutes before exercise. Over the next 60 minutes, the athletes’ blood glucose did begin to climb again, but it never even reached the level it was at prior to the workout. In fact, several of the test subjects couldn’t even finish the 90-minute time trial because they felt exhausted at 75 minutes.

Now, the same group of athletes did the same test over a week later. This time their last meal was several hours prior to the run test. Their blood glucose levels were the same 45 minutes before the trial, and those levels stayed the same until they began to exercise. To compare from the previous week, the blood glucose levels of the athletes in the second week were 40% lower than they were the previous week at the moment they began to exercise. They did not experience the spike in blood glucose that had had the week before. As they began to exercise at the same intensity as the previous week, the subjects blood glucose began to rise steadily through the first 75 minutes by 26%, while the week before with the pre-exercise meal the athletes had had their blood glucose cut in half at 75 minutes.

Your probably thinking that this doesn’t make sense. The athletes who ate 45-minutes before had a decrease in blood glucose after 15 minutes of exercise, and the athletes who did not eat had an increase through the first 75 minutes. How can that be?

The answer is insulin. Just like a diabetic who has to understand the impact of their diet and the timing of their diet, the same thing applies to an athlete. Carbohydrates digested in that 45-minute window, when the body is at rest, stimulates insulin secretion, which causes the muscles to use an enormous amount of glycogen when exercise starts, leading to a dramatic decrease in available blood glucose leading to hypoglycemia and early fatigue.

Now, does this mean that you should not take in glucose or carbs during exercise? Not at all. This same study showed that insulin levels did not increase when the glucose was taken in during exercise, and in fact it steadily increased the glucose in the blood when taken in during exercise.

You might also recall in an earlier episode of Tri Talk, we discussed the impact of taking in food 30 minutes before exercise to your heart rate. I won’t go into detail since we have already covered this, but as a review, taking in a large meal 30 minutes prior to exercise increases the HR by 10 beats. When running at the same speed, the HR is 10 beats higher then when running 3 hours after eating.

It seems on the surface that a worse-case scenario for an athletes would be to take in a large glucose meal 30 minutes prior to exercise. If you use HR to measure your intensity, you could be robbing yourself of 10 full beats of intensity, and then you might start to feel like you are going to crash 15 minutes into the workout.

Now, this does mean that these effects are universal. There are some athletes who genuinely seem to have a high tolerance both at a hormonal and digestive level, and who eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and it seems to have no effect. But if you have the choice, it seems the best thing to do is not try and eliminate eating about an hour before exercise.

This is easier said then done. The reality is that we are triatheltes as well as husbands or wives, parents, and we have to make a living. It is not always possible to plan our meals and eating so perfectly around training. So let offer a couple of alternatives to meticulous meal planning and timing.

First, if you can, eat something during your exercise, even right at the beginning. This also depends on your tolerance for certain foods, but if you are accustomed to grabbing a bagel when you first wake up, and then getting ready for your run, consider eating the bagel over your first half mile.

Second, although not explicit in the study we jut reviewed, it is implied that eating foods with a low glycemic index would not result in the same type of insulin spike that something like glucose would. There are lots of foods, even carbs, that have a much lower impact on blood glucose and insulin levels. These low glycemic index foods include apple sauce, barley, peaches and most nuts. A list of these foods can be found on page 244 of the Triathlete’s Training Bible. Proteins of course have very little effect on insulin. These are the types of foods that you can take in within that 45-minute window that might have less of an effect on your insulin, and therefore blood glucose depletion.

My title for the podcast “To eat or not to eat” is really a misleading title. Of course you have to eat. But it was catchy. The key is to understand the timing of when, and what you eat. So, if you have been feeling curiously fatigued in your workouts, consider this small change to your diet and training regimen.

By the way, as I read this study, at the very bottom it stated that the study was made possible by a grant from the National Dairy Council. I am not joking. This should not in any way erode the legitimacy of this study. In fact, not only did Dave Costill participate, but so did uber-physiologist Edward Coyle. Since milk is actually a low glycemic index food, maybe the National Dairy council wanted to get the word out on drinking more milk before exercise, I don’t know. But, the really odd thing about this is that this is the second time I have mentioned the National Dairy Council on Tri Talk. It’s like they have a conspiracy to infiltrate the world of endurance sports. Weird.

Moving on! I had the chance to cover the 70.3 Ironman Championships in Clearwater, Florida for Triathlete Magazine just last week. Since Triathlete got me there, I felt it was necessary to put all the best stuff from the event into their podcast, which you can hear at http://www.triathletemag.com/. But, while I was there, I snuck in one interview for Tri Talk with Dr. PZ Pierce, the medical coordinator for the championships, having provided the medical support for over 30 Ironman events.

What are the most common conditions that lead an athlete into the medical tent at an Ironman? How can they be avoided? Let’s find out with a quick conversation inside an Ironman medical tent.

(audio interview)

That was actually my second trip inside an Ironman medical tent, the first time being as a participant, but I’d rather not talk about that. So it turns out that hyponatremia may not be as common as I thought. Also, loss of fluids other than sweat should be considered in your hydration strategies. Techniques and testing that determine hydration based on sweat alone may put you short of your hydration needs at long distance racing.

By the way, is it just me, or does it say something about the state of triathlon when the medical coordinator says that a half Ironman distance is short? Sure doesn’t feel short to me last time I did one.

By the way, if you want to hear the play-by-play of one of the closest, most exciting Ironman finishes ever, and if you want to hear me scream like a girl, you have to check out Triathlete Magazine’s 70.3 Ironman championship podcast at http://www.triathletemag.com/ and click on Podcasts. The coverage also includes interviews with 2006 70.3 Champions Samantha McGlone and Craig Alexander, who also both came in second place at the 2007 Ironman championships in Hawaii last month, as well as conversations with 2007 Ironman champion Chrissie Wellington, 2007 Ironman Louiville winner Heather Gollnick and even more pros and coverage from the event. But the main reason you should listen to it, is that if you don’t, they won’t send me back to do it again.

Before we wrap things up, I’d like to hold you hostage for a moment and remind you of two ways you can become even more connected to the valuable training information on Tri Talk. If you have not registered for the Tri Talk forums, you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to get instant triathlon training gratification. Why wait 2 weeks between episodes to hear about a topic of my choice, when you could go to the forums and ask you own question whenever you want, and have it answered by me or one of our stellar scientifically-minded forums contributors. Go to www.tri-talk.com/forums and register today.

And while you are there, complete your Tri Talk collection by downloading all the archived Tri Talk episodes. You know how you see about, like, 16 episodes on the website or iTunes today? Yea, well there are more episodes. Lot’s more. Like 20 more. You can get them all individually, or I have just introduced the Tri Talk archived collection CD. That’s right, all of the archived episodes that you can’t get today available in mp3 format on your very own CD. What better way to say “I love you” this Christmas, than a Tri Talk CD in your special someone’s stocking.

Moving on! Back in episode 42 I took a stab at sports psychology. I think it went well, but in trying to take in on twice, I felt it was important to bring in an expert for this second attempt. Why should we be interested in sports psychology? What kind of edge will it give us as athletes? My version of sports psychology has always been to mock my athletes when they tell me they’re tired. It turns out it is much more complex than this. To answer these questions, I enlisted the help of a real sports psychologist.

(audio interview)

That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to join me next time was we cover part 3 of periodization, with an interview with Tudor Bompa. I anticipate that this will be a don’t-miss episode. See you next time!

Posted in All Episode Transcripts, Triathlon Physiology Topics, Triathlon Psychology Topics, Episode 53 | No Comments »