The previous post was about skills. Key to improving skills is adequate flexibility. With flexibility, more is not always better. What you need  is just enough. This is particularly true with running, where too much flexibility will result in a loss of economy and can increase the chance of injury. When we don’t devote time to flex work, when all we do is swim, bike, and run, our muscles adapt to a limited range of motion. Eventually, this will cause trouble in the knees, hips, shoulders, lower back … just about any joint except maybe your nose.

The early season is a great time to focus on skills. Later, when large volume is the goal, spending time on the mechanics of execution will feel like a waste of valuable time. Now is when you should back off, slow down, and strive to achieve smooth, fluid motion. Swimming, biking, and running all use different muscle activation patterns, so spend time on each.There is no metric that will inform you that you are performing well. Go by how you feel. Smooth, easy, yet powerful.

What is top end? There are several terms in use that describe pretty much the same thing. The key is rapid movement at high intensity. Think kicking a soccer ball on goal, or a volleyball player spiking the ball. Now extend that effort for thirty seconds to three minutes. For cyclists the best model is a sprint finish. I follow Joe Friel’s terminology and call this aerobic capacity work, since the goal of this exercise is to maximize the body's ability to process oxygen.

This is the first of an eight part series on what to focus on at the start of your season. For those of us lucky enough to be living in Hawaii, that is now. This is not the time for epic, all-day marathon efforts. Focus instead on force production, skills, and things like bike fit and diet improvement, things that often get swept aside once the season gets underway.

Before I begin I must tip my hat to Jimmy Carter, who passed away on Sunday. We should look to him as a model of how to serve. We athletes, and even more so coaches, must never lose sight of our responsibility to serve our community, in whatever way we can.

My take away message for 2024 is this. When life gets hard, having a crazy big goal can help get you through the rough patches.

Eating is a life changing behavior. Eat well and you will be healthy. Eat poorly and your quality of life will suffer. Stop eating and you die. I can think of only three other activities of equal importance to our lives: drinking, sleeping, and breathing.

SAD

The acronym SAD stands for Standard American Diet. It’s fitting. Most Americans eat too much calorie-dense, nutrient-poor food, the result of cultural norms, over-processing, and an endless blizzard of advertising.

A top priority for any coach is to get their athletes to the start line without injury. I did that this year, in spite of a heavier run training program. My last long bike workout was on October 20. Soon after that I made the decision that Pattie would not be strong enough to travel to Mexico for my IM Cozumel race, nor would she be strong enough to be left alone at home. I still had the Honolulu Marathon penciled in on my calendar, so I cleared away most of the remaining bike workouts and replaced them with runs.

If you are like me you are experiencing an explosion of AI promotions offering to write your Emails, fix your photos, and just about everything else short of washing your windows. For athletes, this includes coaching services.

The big race is upon us. Good luck to all of the athletes. I hope you find time to relax and enjoy your stay. Don't forget to eat at my fav Kona spot, Lava Java.

The training process is not complicated. Apply some stress to your body and later on, while you are asleep, your body will respond in ways that make you faster and more powerful. The same activity trains your brain to perform the necessary movements as efficiently as possible.