Angela Naeth WINS Boulder 70.3

Showing what a little time off can do, Angela Naeth finished first at Boulder 70.3, ending her string of seconds.

If you feel like you are head-butting into a wall and know you can do better, take a break.  It allows you to re-organize and restructure, making for a straighter path to your goals.

We naturally feel like we will lose too much fitness if we take time off, but that's usually the opposite of reality.  If you are already putting in all the time you have, then you might just be over-revving at a slight deficit and getting overtrained.  A nice break will boost your performance quite a bit.

Way to go Angela!  We knew you could do it.  May this be the first of many!

The Comfort Zone

"The Comfort Zone" is a dangerous place.  Sure, it's comfortable, but it's also The Land of the Average.  Look, there are enough people in that group already to take care of its business; they don't need your help.

The issue at hand is that the comfort zone doesn't make for change.  If you want everything to remain the same, then continuing to do what is comfortable and not challenging yourself makes sense.  The problem is, you will either lead change or change will happen to you.  When change happens to you, it is most often change that you have no control over and change you don't want.  In fact, it's usually a "happens" that can be lumped into that wonderful phrase, "Sh*t happens."

The comfort zone can be illustrated perfectly with the difference between recreation and training.  If you are out for recreation, you are basically in the comfort zone, just enjoying the swim/bike/run with no specific goal in mind.  If you are training, then you are pushing yourself to reach a goal.  

You cannot improve yourself without pushing past the boundaries of your comfort zone.  Luckily, you can use the comfort zone as a tool to improve yourself.  It's simple - Just ask yourself if you are going at a pace that: 1. Everybody else would be going at if just out for a recreational jaunt and would put you in the middle of the pack. Or 2.  One that would put you at the lead of the pack so others are following you.  If you answered the former instead of the latter, you should know that you will continue to get the same results you have always gotten.  Not exactly productive use of your "training time", huh?

It's that slight difference that you can apply 24/7 in all your endeavours.  It also happens to be the difference that puts you in charge of change instead of change happening to you.  It's not a huge change in pace, by the way.  It's only ever so slight, but it makes all the difference in the world.

Armstrong Re-qualifies for Leadville 100, Crushes Your Age Group

When reading about Lance Armstrong re-qualifying for the Leadville 100, two big questions come to mind. Namely:

1. Lance Armstrong has to qualify for a bike race?
2. How would you feel doing a race and you find out a seven-time TDF champion is in your age group?

Mr. Yellowpants ripped up the course, demolishing the competition, only to announce later that he isn't very interested in racing Leadville anyway.  He's just doing it for the LOLz.  Maybe he is keeping triathlon goals under the radar?

How Evans Won the Tour de France with Tactics YOU Can Use

Cycling great Robert Millar recently wrote this article about how Australian Cadel Evans came out on top in this year's Tour de France.  Of great interest is the mindset that Cadel had to take the overall victory.  Essentially, he went in looking for opportunities to take instead of defending against losses.

My best race results to date didn't have anything to do with "just surviving" or "just making it to the finish line", or "just" anything now that I think about it.  Instead, I attacked at every opportunity to shave time off my result.  I cut every corner on the bike and run as close as possible, squeezed into the draft zone behind the cyclist in front of me to slingshot past him, and used every runner as a marked target to catch, only to keep doing it to the very next one in my sights.  In the end, I won second place in my age group, qualified for Escape from Alcatraz and Age Group Nationals, all with a spread of only 19 seconds between first and third place.  It was a difference that was so tight, even the post-race announcer had to comment on it.

To this day, I still remember that day as real racing.  It was hyper-aggresive and there was a specific target in mind - qualify for Alcatraz.  Reading Millar's analysis of Cadel's performance made my great luck that day suddenly make a lot more sense.  I went into that race looking for opportunities to take, not defending against losses to others.

This isn't just a tactic for those that want to win.  Everybody can use this in any event, no matter how fast or slow they are.  There a dozens of ways to get a leg up on race day, this being just a few:

• Previewing and memorizing the hill profile.  Look for places to attack, not restrain.
• Checking out the course on Google Map's street view.  Analyze how fast you can go through the turns.
• Staying on top of the weather conditions.  Change your tire pressure based on how wet the roads are.
• Look at last year's results.  Don't see if you're fast enough to "make it."  Pick somebody else's time in one of the events, even if it's a transition, and see if you can beat it.
• The shorter the course, the faster your time.  Bike and run on the inside of turns as much as possible.

And a million more...  Look, don't go out there just defending yourself.  You already are what you are.  You want to improve, proactively empowering yourself with more and more velocity and moving up in the pack.

Good luck and race safe!

- Coach Brett 

Podcast - Interview with Conrad Stoltz

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Conrad Stoltz has won the XTERRA World Championships a record four times.  We sit down and chat with him from his home in South Africa, discussing everything from 29er bikes to his gruesome foot injury (WARNING - Intense!).  Join in for a great talk and learn how one of the best makes it all happen!

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