We are Our Kids' Future

It's amazing how kids look to us as examples. The more of my son's friends I meet, the more I see their parent's influences at work.  We don't just look like our parents, we act like them, too.

As kids try to figure out life, they look to adults to see how we are doing it. You can easily shape their future by setting a good example. And it's not just the way you do it, but also that you don't quit and keep searching for solutions.

Kai won't listen to me as well as he'll listen to and enjoy competing with other kids his age, so we put him on a team.  He improved in triathlon dramatically.  And the lesson I repeat to him is there is a solution to every problem - you just have to hook up with the right group to start getting real results.  

If your kid is bored and "underperforming", you have to change his surroundings so he's more challenged. Kids want to kick ass - they just need you to show them how.

Going Back to (Nor)Cali

I'm headed to the Silicon Valley Long Course race in San Jose on Thursday, so blog posts might be a little sporadic until next week.  

While there, I might get a chance to hang with Rich Roll - he's giving a talk about his book at Book Passage at 6pm (Ferry Bldg) in San Francisco on Friday night.  

In the meantime, I'm posting an early release of my interview with pro Jesse Thomas in the Zen Masters area.  

For live updates, videos, and photos from the race this weekend, make sure to follow @ZenTriathlon on Twitter!

The Problem with Zone Two is...

Everybody else.

Zone Two is the pace where you build "all-day" aerobic fitness.  To do this, you need to go really slowly.  This is fine, except everybody else around you is going faster.  The comparing mind gets upset and develops a nasty case of "keeping up with the Jones's", and you start going faster.

You see this all the time.  Just think of your last bike workout when a guy passed you and you pushed it just a little to try to catch him.  Or when you run just a little faster to match your last run's pace.  Yes, yourself at a different time, past or future, still counts as somebody else.  

This is why most age groupers plateau in performance and never get as fast as a pro.  They go too hard and this wears them out so they can't build the fitness they need.  Solid training means a lot of going easy with tiny doses of going harder, like medicine.  If you don't go hard too often, you can keep training day after day instead of having to stop because you're burned up.

Podcast - Questions and Answers with Angela Naeth

Click HERE to listen to the show!

Join us as pro triathlete Angela Naeth answers your questions from Twitter about how to train and race like a pro!

After that, we have The Training Log, full of Ironman Texas prep and other advice.

Make sure you check out the Broken and Beautiful blog http://brokenandbeautiful2011.blogspot.com/ 

to help support the team's fundraiser drive for St. Jude's Children's Hospital!

Want more?  Hop over to the Zen Masters Area for the full training log, the solo interview with Nate Pearson, and much more!

Enjoy!

Click here to listen or download.

Swim Faster by Pointing Your Toes

I'm about to tell you a tip that could make a huge difference in your swimming speed immediately, with nearly zero adaptation time.  

Get a kickboard, lay prone in the water, and start kicking your way across the pool.  While kicking, point your toes as far away from your head as possible, making your feet like flippers.  You cruise across the pool nicely, right?  

Now, keep kicking and turn your feet and ankles so that your toes are pointing directly at the bottom of the pool.  See how you come to a dead stop?  And in some cases, you even start going backwards.  

With most people, the could be swimming much faster if they just pointed their toes away from their head.  An easy way to adapt to this is to put on flippers and feel how they create pressure on the top of your foot with each kick.  Take off the flippers, point your toes and kick, and look for that same feeling of pressure on the top of your foot.  Good job - now you're doing it right!

Enjoy!