Tim Sorensen - Athletes in Motion Podcast Ep 052

The dog days of summer.... 

This is both true of the weather as well as the long triathlon training sessions that happen this time of year.  In this episode, we speak with Tim Sorensen, tri coach and founder of Multisport Endurance Academy, about the grind of the big training sessions, keeping healthy as race day approaches, and the most important aspect of it all, your “why”.  

A great episode for those that getting close to lining up for your next race.

https://www.multisportenduranceacademy.com/

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Transcript

Narrator: 0:10

Welcome to the athletes in motion podcast from race to recovery. With your hosts, Tom Regal, and Kenny Bailey.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:29

Hey, Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:30

I'm fantastic. Kenny, how are you?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:33

I'm doing fantastic. And I want to welcome back to our program. Tim Sorensen. multisports endurance Academy. Did I say it correctly? You did. Owner, founder and owner of lots and lots of metals, can we just appreciate all the medals for

Tom Regal: 0:47

us appreciate? So yeah, he knows thing quick round of applause for the metals.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:52

Thanks for joining us today. What we want, why we have you here is as a try coach, and Tom, your track coach as well. So I'm going to be an observer on this one. As you know, we're doing this series around triathletes journey, and one of the things that we're in sort of the dog days of summer, if you will. And so what we wanted to talk about is sort of those things that we know that the training programs is getting long now there's a lot of very heavy programs, it's getting tedious, people are starting to have if I dare say the oh, shit moment of like, okay, this thing is real, it's coming up, I got a big race coming up. So we just want to kind of talk through those kinds of feelings that people have, and how as coaches, do you try to help people people stay on point? How do we make sure that they're still the eye is on the prize when you're kind of in the middle or at the tail end of the slog. So, I guess first sort of as Tim is, is sort of, what do you what is your reference point for those for your clients when they say, you know, 100 degree weather out works? Another 60 miles? You know, I gotta get up early again, on a Saturday, how do you how do you keep them motivated? Or how did what is your what is your reference?

Tim Sorenson: 2:03

That's a fantastic question. And a lot I do those I asked, thank you. Good, I'm really glad because this would have been super awkward. If you did. The, the best way to do it is to try and make workouts fun. I mean, I've got a lot of athletes that just go check those boxes, and that's where the tedious part comes in is like, I gotta get my bike, I gotta get my run, I gotta get my swim. And then I can get on with my day. Right? One of the biggest differences between a 70.3 and an Ironman are the weekends. And if your weekends are like, I gotta get up at 430 in the morning, so I can check that box, and then get on with my day, it makes it very difficult to enjoy the workouts. Whereas if you can switch that a little bit and make sure that you're actually having fun instead of man, I got to do 100 mile bike ride, I'm just gonna go out and do it on the on the course that I've done it on over and over again, as opposed to saying, Hey, let's go find a really cool place to go for a bike ride. You know, it's, I'm in, I don't wanna say Central California, but I'm in Sacramento, California, which is about two hours from the coast. And it can get really hot in the Sacramento Valley. So on days, when we know that we got to do 100 miles, we'll jump in the car and head out to the coast and then just ride our bikes up and down the coast. It's not that far, and it makes it a whole lot more fun. You know, enjoy the scenery, you know, it's still a fairly challenging terrain over there. So just really dig into trying to the best you can and make it fun. Remember why we're doing this in the first place? Because we kind of like swimming and biking and running. Yep.

Tom Regal: 3:43

And how do you what do you? What am I saying here? What's your typical for your athletes? What's the season look like? Is it a long season for them? And and how do you break that season up to they have races all the way through to the end of the year? I mean, certainly out in California, you can you can stretch it much, much further things start to wrap up a little bit quicker. But for the basis, the majority of your athletes are you're dealing with a full season of a 10 months, or are you looking at shorter Dave athletes to just do the first six months of the year and then take the rest off? Or how's that?

Tim Sorenson: 4:21

Honestly, I've got both. I've got I've got athletes that wait till the very last moment. They're like, Well, how long does it train for train for an Ironman? The honest question is depends upon the athlete, I don't know. When athlete just came on and he's like, Well, you know, when I'm looking on the internet, I see these, you know, five and six month Ironman plans, and even four months Ironman plan, so I figured that's enough time to train for an Ironman and this particular guy is lucky because he's in really, really good shape. So, you know, when I started off my first question is, well, what's the longest you've ran in the past month because I have to have a base to start from Even if the longest you've read in the past month is a 5k, then we've got a wicked parabolic curve to try and get you up to repairman distance. So I like to have a 10 month plan when somebody's looking to say, Hey, I've I've not done an Ironman for I have done an airman before, but I want to get the best I can out of it. I like a 10 month or a 40 week plan. Because that way, you know, if well, and then I have to

Kenny Bailey<br>: 5:28

give birth in Ironman. Yeah.

Tim Sorenson: 5:31

But that as far as the, as far as the season goes, a full Ironman is going to be unique in that. Where's the rights? I mean, a lot of athletes don't do the race that's in their backyard, they like to do you know, call it a try location, and go wherever they were, wherever the race takes of now in that one of the conversations I have with my athlete is are you a cold weather racer? Or are you a hot weather racer, I have some athletes that are like, I don't do well in the heat. So we're looking for like early season races. You know, Oceanside, 70.3, in April, there was an early season full one 40.6 escapes me right now. But but, you know, some people don't do well in Texas is

Kenny Bailey<br>: 6:22

pretty early in the winter, I think early in the season. I think no, I don't

Tim Sorenson: 6:27

think it is. I think it's I think it's a little bit later. But anyway, I don't do well in the cold at all. I'm useless in the cold. So I make sure that any races that I do are going to be August or September, something like that works well for me. So to kind of answer your question, is it the season depends upon, you know, kind of how developed the athlete is. Some athletes are just just one and done. Get me in, check that box, get me out, I want to change the race. And I'm out. And then I've got other athletes that I've been training for 10 years. And you're like, Okay, what's the race? What's the next race? And then we just choose that and push it on through? Also to kind of answer your question. I like to have an a race to be racing to see race. So let's just say example, you're a racist Ironman California, and that's in the October October. Yeah, well, right about seven weeks prior to that is Ironman, Santa Cruz 70.3. And that's a really good B race. And that's also kind of a do or die point. Prior to that, is Oregon, which is also kind of close. But those are really good intermittent races. So if you get to Oregon, and let's just say as a general, and this is a massive general rule of thumb, that you take your half Ironman time, double it and add an hour and that's going to give you kind of an idea of about what you're capable of doing for a full. And if you're Ironman 70.3 Time is eight and a half hours because you just haven't been putting in the training you double that and add an hour. You got to wonder whether or not you've actually got the ability to finish a 70 points or excuse me a full that's, you know, eight weeks away. Yeah. So so I you know, and then C races those would be like an Olympic distance race where you just, those are fun, right? Those kind of keeps me motivated because you go out at Full Tilt Boogie, right? You just kind of have fun with that one and get a good tempo workout. So yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 8:35

Tom, do you generally subscribe to that, too? So the nine month thing for you 10? One thing Yeah, what do you

Tom Regal: 8:41

Yeah, I usually do the same. And and and I really love the ABC race type thing, because that's when we go back to talking about how do we make it fun? How do we make the year a little bit more viable? Like we've got the ups and downs, like if you can stick in some of these other races, you've got smaller targets to hit that are coming up closer and quicker. Instead of just thinking okay, I've got 10 months, how do you keep yourself motivated for 10 months through the summer and going through that way? So yeah, no, I totally subscribe to the same, just the same philosophies on that. See races themselves means so much. I mean, big races are important. They're good metrics. But to see race is I think our I think that's the stuff that really keeps you happy, keep you fired up, even if you're just going and volunteering at a race that helps you keep that energy of why you're here, right? Why are we doing this? Why don't we do the sport. Once you're at that, that point, you get the vibe of the people, everyone getting ready for the race and you're doing all that stuff, and you just feel that energy and that just lights me up? I mean, I just see people just get excited about that. So I highly encourage, you know, volunteering at races along with doing a lot of see races sprints in the Olympics just to work on just the process flow, the flow of transitions, the flow of easy stuff, right and then you can get your training and at the end of the Day, right? Go out and go out and train after after sprint race, right, you can get some other stuff in, but at least you get the flow of your transitions you get that practice and that kind of that kind of keeps everybody motivated through the year. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:13

Good. All right, Kenny. No, I just think it's as an athlete, like you said you the monotony of going out on the courses, like you said, you know, you're doing the same course your, you know, pool swims are the worst, right? So you're doing the same course, and all that sort of stuff. And then when you show up to these things, it kind of reminds you that oh, okay, I have a number I have a bib on, you know, I, you get that juice that other people around, you get that kind of that sense of community that that sense of going back to your why, right, which is like, Okay, this is a lot of fun. And it kind of reignites that, where in the past I've done where I've only trained for one event, I didn't do any other races, and you get to that event, and suddenly, it's almost a shock, right? It's it's like if you don't have those to practice, if you will, just the the bigness of the event, that could actually be a difficult thing to do. I think

Unknown: 11:03

you're 100% Go ahead. Go ahead.

Tom Regal: 11:06

No, I

Tim Sorenson: 11:07

think you're 100% right on that one, Kenny, because if you're, if you race a lot, you get good at racing, right? You can go on there, and you can put on all the training, right, you can have, you know, the, you know, the swim base, the run base, the bike base, but if you're not actually racing, then you're not going to be very experienced at racing. And then

Kenny Bailey<br>: 11:31

getting a little too soon here too, too well, to simply keep talking, but not

Tim Sorenson: 11:38

not going out and exposing yourself to the events. Yes, therefore, context means a lot, right, they're not being exposed to the event to be in the energy of the event. Just the actual, to to Tom's point, the the flow of the transitions, right to get from one, even if you're not. And I'll actually do this with my athletes, I don't want you to go out there and race this event to see if you can beat anybody, I want you to go out and test some of your pacing, right. And that still gets you in the flow of being around a lot of people and actually setting up your strategy for the event so that when you show up, there's not so much anxiety. And it's just another day at the office, like, Hey, I'm used to this environment of racing. And this is this is easy for me where a lot of people like hey, I've got one race for the year, I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna do that race, and then everything is new. And everything is not as comfortable as it could be if you had more experience just being in the environment.

Tom Regal: 12:40

And the post race let down is less. Right? Yeah. When you do that build up to that one event that were just peaks and all the way that the fall off on the other side of it is like, Okay, now what? Right, but I can tell from experience.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:56

If you yourself, Let me chime in on this one. Yeah, I mean, Kenny? Yeah, no, I mean, you know, that's what I did. This year, the only race I had was a half Ironman, and I put all my eggs in that basket, right, and it didn't turn out well. And it's it to your point, it's, I didn't show up to any previous races to practice racing to practice, that feeling of being around waiting in line waiting in a swim line, like when you go to practice a swim, and you just go in the water and go and then having to stand there for 30 minutes to get in the water is a completely different experience, right? It's just, you know, your wetsuits been on for 30 minutes, you're already sweating like crazy in it, you got a bunch of people nervous around you, you know that whole thing? And then and then once you get in it, I mean, that whole beginning of the race is, you know, to practice that, to your point. It's, I think the critical thing that I think we're what I think we're all trying to say is it's not just a physical thing, you can be physically capable to do something. But if you're not ready to understand the philosophy of the race, or there's the race itself, that can also be a detriment as well. So, Tim, you mentioned a lot, and I, you know, we talked about it before we came on to about the why. And you're a big proponent of that, could you kind of expand on that sort of why that's important, or are you? That's a pretty big philosophy for you. So

Tim Sorenson: 14:16

it's huge. I think it's the biggest, there's a lie. I have athletes come to me and they, you know, their friend did an Ironman, right? And they're like, Well, I'm in better shape than that guy is I can do an Ironman, right? Or they they lost a bet and they are have to do an Ironman.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:31

They want always the best Right? Or, you know what? I've had it. I've had it. I had a guy come I finished last Barnsley football team, and now we have to do an Ironman. I don't know

Tim Sorenson: 14:43

that was it but a guy came to me he had three months to learn man Tabo and he was a bodybuilder. He was not an endurance guy. And he goes yeah, I've contacted a few triathlon coaches and they won't train me because I have three months to Ironman Cabo San Lucas and I don't I don't swim. And I knew he was right. He didn't swim. I told him straight up, and I'm like, I can't, I can't promise you, I'm gonna get you to the finish line. But I can get you to the start line. And hopefully I can keep you from drowning in the swim. So I spent a lot of time with this guy. And I mean, he was, he was hell bent to get this race done. And I was shocked at how far he actually got in the event. He got to mile 80 on the bike before he quit because literally everything went wrong he breaststroke the entire two and a half miles with his goggles on his forehead, because he wouldn't put his face in the water. His his Why was, I'm gonna get this done, no matter what. There are other athletes that, you know, I just think this is kind of cool. I want to do this. You know, I think it'd be cool to wear the tattoos or I could walk around and brag about it. But this is the time right now where whatever that why is, is the most important because as soon as you're getting in, like you said, the dog days of summer, right right now, but just that you're training for Ironman California right now is we've got seven weeks until Ironman California. So this is where we're actually merging the build phase. And getting into the peak phases, your volume is about as high as it's possibly possibly going to be right now. And that's where it gets monotonous. You're, you're you're constantly tired, you haven't seen your friends, you can't party on the weekends, because you've got to get up and you gotta get these massive workouts in. And that's where you start to get a serious case of. I'm trying to filter my language here. That's where you start to get uncomfortable.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:50

Yeah, it's

Tim Sorenson: 16:53

yeah, you start to get a serious case of Fuck it all. And then it's just it's hard to push through that. So if you're why whatever reason you're Why are you doing this? Right? You got to remember what that why is it and it for everybody is different, right? Like I said, for some people, they lost the bet for some people, they're doing it for other people. Now when I'm having the conversation, I try to make sure that any athlete that I work with, I'm like, I'll ask that I'm like, why are you doing this? Then I'll get like, well, I'm doing it for my mom. And I'm like, Well, is she still alive? And they say no. And I'm like, Okay, well, good on you. But you need to do this for you. You know, and at the end of the day, are you enjoying what you're doing right? When it gets really monotonous. And you still like to go out and ride your bike or you go instead of going for just that run to get it done. You go out you find a beautiful trail and register and relax into the workouts you got to you got to remember that you liked the workouts. You know, and again, it doesn't matter what the why is it just has to be a strong enough why to you know, for?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 18:04

It's gotta be authentic, right? It's got to be something that like

Tim Sorenson: 18:08

the old cliche, you know, if you've got a strong enough why you can achieve any what? Right and you just need to know what that is and make friends with it. Because whether or not it's in the train, or even in the race, you know, when you're at mile 15 on the run of an Iron Man, you start to think why the hell am I doing this? This sucks, right? And if you still can grasp on to that, why you remember why you're doing it? And that's gonna get you through both hard days of training and racing. Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 18:35

so you've got a question for the both of you then it's, it's how do you remind people of that without, you know, without beating it over their heads? And you know, you, you know, I've you know, I know my why but you know, it's still it's a hunt, you know, it's 80% humidity, it's 95 degrees out I got a 60 mile 70 mile 80 mile ride, right? I gotta get in front of me or whatever, four hours? How do you remind, you know, what is your methodology you guys try to use to help sort of remind people of that without sort of, you know, being overt Are you are you overt? Or is that something you need to you know, just snap into him like remember while you're doing this,

Tom Regal: 19:09

I think as as a coach, it's important for us to know the athletes each athletes why like the real deal why like so it's important for us to know that and kind of make a note of it and keep it on the side. And then each athlete is also going to respond to different stimulus, right so there's going to be the ones that you just need to snap and be hard Adam and go and like Yes, stop being an ass you know, stop being a pussy, get out there and just do it. Right go. And yeah, the other ones that you need to be a little bit softer with and you have to just gently go back to helping them understand their why right? remember having a conversation of bringing it up in a way that you go. Remember, we talked about x, y, z and they just are Yeah, this is my y this is kind of bringing them back to it has to be their decision. It has to be them coming up with the idea of bringing it back. It's just how you do it totally varies on the athletes themselves have had had both ends of the spectrum where there's some that you just have to snap at, and just go because that's what they, they thrive off of, they thrive off of that. Staff Sergeant kind of saying, that's what they want somebody yell at, they want to yell at themselves. And when somebody yell at them, all good and great, it's not my style, right? But you know, and then everyone else is more cerebral, where you can actually talk through it and kind of go get, here's your, here's your Y, here's it, here's what's going on. But it's critical for us to know exactly what their y is.

Tim Sorenson: 20:35

That's that's spot on Tom, the, the working with the different athletes, I don't tend to be the stat of the sergeant's type of coach, I'm more of an encourager, I find myself doing what I'm not predisposed to doing is listening. I sit and listen. And a lot of times, you know, I, I ended up being almost a therapist, and then just helping the athlete work through the issue. You know, and they'll, they'll, they'll remember the why just by having a conversation with them. So yeah, and that's one of the that's one of the nice things about being a coach is, you know, instead of working on I don't have a whole bunch of athletes that I work with. So each athlete that I work with, it's, it's a personal relationship, right? And I encourage the athlete, the athlete leans on me, I lean on the athlete and, and, and that's what's fun to me working, you know, helping somebody achieve something so monumental, you know, for both of us.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 21:44

Yeah. And it's it's funny because I remember the why I had for my first one was Mike Riley saying my name like that was it? Like it wasn't any more or less than that it was the fact that Mike Riley and Mike right, for those who don't know, Mike Riley is the voice of Ironman and since retired, but the idea I mean, it literally gave me goosebumps, right, I'm in the middle of a of a 16 mile run I got to do and it's mild 12. And it's gross. And I'm just I just keep hearing him say my name. You know, Kenny Bailey, you're an Iron Man. And like, the thing it's like, it's, it's whatever it's it could be, it doesn't have to be you know, I'm doing it for my mom, because she's always wanting to or it could just be a stupid thing. Like Mike Riley's saying your name. But it's as long as it pulls you right? As long as it gets you there. So yeah, it really

Tim Sorenson: 22:27

doesn't matter what your y is, as long as it's personal and important to you. Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:33

So there's, we talked about earlier, there's, I think, now to your point, you're seven weeks away from Iron Man, you may have done a half and it wasn't as successful as you're hoping it was going to be. There's an O ship moment that occurs. Do you know I guess D Do you? Can you sense when an athlete's like, ah, is there a difference between I don't know if I can do this and just lack of confidence, or they truly just they shouldn't be out there? Because they're going to either they just didn't put the work in or just they may harm themselves or whatever. Do you know when that athletes at that at that juncture? And do you? At what point What do you try to do to help them kind of either go A or B. I mean, if you I guess I'm trying to be careful in saying that. You always want to encourage people, but you don't encourage them to do stuff that, like you said, if you're if you're pulling them without a y at this point, then it doesn't make a lot of sense. But at the same time, people are going to be down, right? And you need to be able to say you can do this, there's going to have self doubt. How do you distinguish between that? I guess that's the question. How do you distinguish between that self doubt, versus like, they just truly aren't ready?

Tim Sorenson: 23:44

That's a super sticky place to be Tom, do you have a good answer for that? No.

Tom Regal: 23:50

Because it's like super uncomfortable.

Tim Sorenson: 23:55

Really, I actually have a great answer for it. But I actually almost wanted to hear Tom if you had a good answer for it. Because it's a very, very awkward place to be.

Tom Regal: 24:02

It's yeah, it's really tricky. I don't think I have a good answer for it. Because it to me it's very athlete dependent at that point of of the relationship and how close I am with them or how closely we're working with they're going through. I haven't had a point where an athlete is just not ready for race that's coming up that's big, where I've had to like, rub them back. I've had athletes that are going to do okay, not as good as they wanted for whatever reasons for injuries or other stress that's kind of come through where it's gone through. We're just like, Okay, we're gonna go through, we just reset expectations. And I think that's the reframing that occurs to start. Yeah, it's like, and I do that through the processes we set. We set what the goals are at the beginning of the, of the relate working relationship, and we go through and we check back on those back and forth. As we get closer to race day. That's where we do the reframe. That's where we sit back and go where are we at? How are we going? What were you able to do we see this. And then here's what our expectations are for race day. Right? And that goes right up to race day, the night before it should be, what do we expect? Because now we know what our reality is, and all of that stuff. And we try to make sure that we go in that point, here's our here's our truly realistic expectations. So

Tim Sorenson: 25:24

on on full Iron Man's, that's where I would tend to have that sort of a conversation 70 Point freeze not so much and never on an Olympic. But on a 70 on a full. I am convinced at this point that unless something goes catastrophically wrong, if all you do is the training, you can do it. Right. If we set up an appropriate training plan, and all you do is just follow the plan, you can do it. Like I said, if something goes catastrophically wrong, if you get injured, if you get a life circumstances that puts a massive hole in your training, certain situations like that will prevent you from actually being able to do the training. And then obviously, there's a different outcome. But But yeah, for, you know, I've seen, I've seen people cross the finish line of an Iron Man that you would look at and you go How the hell did that happen? Right? You know, whether they're morbidly obese, or they're missing limbs, or they're really old, or I mean, I mean, just kind of third to come up with all the excuses that people use. And I've seen those run across the finish line of an Ironman. So if it like it, just just put in a training, and you'll get it done, right. So as an encouraging coach, I will encourage the athlete, and there's going to be a whole lot of workouts that aren't getting done. And I'll still encourage the athlete as best as I can. And they're still not getting done. And then when we come across, you know, 70.3, that's eight and a half hours long. At that point, you say, Okay, well, here's the situation, you have a goal. And that goal is to complete an Ironman. At this point, the odds of you completing that Ironman are getting lower, and lower and lower. And I'm not gonna say it's not possible, because I've seen some crazy shit happen. But I'm just gonna say it's getting harder and harder and harder. Yeah, now, you've got a couple of options at this point, you can either defer, or just keep pushing, pushing through and see how far you get. Right, because here's the cool part we talked about a little bit earlier, if you race, then you have the experience of racing. So for a first time Ironman, you've never done one before. Sign up, see how far you get. If you finish to enthusiastic thumbs up if you don't, you just paid massive tuition for your race next year. Right? And that experience just pays dividends, right? So now you know what the finish line of an Ironman is giving you the starting line of an iron man feels like, you know, what T one feels like? And if you made it to the run, you know what T two feels like? But that is a sensitive conversation to have with the athlete because, you know, at that point, they're feeling down. Right, you know, if you're

Kenny Bailey<br>: 28:24

someone what about the other end where it's sort of like there's just massive self doubt, right? I mean, the bigness of it. Because in April, you're thinking in October, you know, that's, that's, you know, a lifetime away then all sudden, it's September, and you can count on one hand like the amount of time you have left and that oh shit moment hits. How do you help encourage those folks to kind of like you've got this like it's or if they're on the edge just to say, you know, just reset expectations because I know that can be really difficult. I know personally, if I'm back at the pack, I don't want to do it. I'm highly competitive. I hate myself for it. But I know that if I'm going to you know if I'm coming in it last year was an injury so I knew that the injury was going to be what it was but if it's but you know, there's that it's not just I want to finish it I want to finish it leaning in right or someone wants some set of expectations but then like you said because of life circumstances or whatever else you got to kind of change that or they're just feeling unsure what's your what's your kind of you know, your your coach speak your your your rah rah talk to kind of like, Look, you got this. Is it back to that? Why again, or is it?

Tim Sorenson: 29:29

No, there's always going to be a little bit of a lion there but that's where you just start. You just start using time like I said, a really rough rough guess. Because there's there's that's the wonderful thing about triathlon is there's so many things that can go wrong that the best athlete isn't always the one that wins. But what am I athletes actually? She she said yeah, I can't do it. This is this is too much. My my time it's it Salem was so slow, and I can't do it. And I said, Let's just push it tatted up, right? Let's look at your 70.3 time, double it and add an hour, that's 16 hours, would you be happy doing it in 16 hours? And she's like, Oh, hell yeah. And I'm like, well, there you go, we already show that you can do that. If we take the times that you've been doing in your training, and figure, okay, and let's just do the math on it. This is how long it's going to take to do the swim. This is roughly how long it's been taking you to do your bikes. And this is roughly how long you've been taking it to do the runs. And you can throw some transitions in there. And it still comes up to 16 hours. Are you okay with that? Or like, Yeah, I'm like, well, there you go. There we go. Right. You just kind of start throwing logic, Adam, and then no reason to say knowledge in logic,

Tom Regal: 30:43

logic. I think the other thing that that goes along with the why is, what is failure look like? And what do you define failure, as I think as each athlete looks as good as a coach and an athlete, I don't have a lot of failure. I don't know what failure is. Because as long as you're learning from something, you're you're not failing at it, right? So you get to the start line, that's huge, right? You go to the next step is like you got through maybe mile 80 of the bike. And that's where you that's where the wheels came off. And you just had to stop at that point. So you look back at it and say, well, is that failure? Like? No, you got to the start line, you had a good swim, you got to just go through the pieces of it, I tend to be very positive in my outlook on things. I always look for the positive sides of things. And I think that the definition of what failure actually is, I mean, that's something that you keep coming back to is like an athlete that goes through a bummer of a time doesn't have a good race, and you just go like, Yeah, but you got up the sun came up the next morning, everything is still good. Your paycheck doesn't require you to you know, use not like you can't feed your family. Now. I mean, this is, let's, let's put this in perspective, and really readdress what what failure is? I mean, it's not, it's not much. So.

Tim Sorenson: 32:05

Yeah, it's the same point. You know, I've got all these little sayings like there's no failure, only feedback, right? You've redefined that. And it's like, okay, well, you're, you're, you're you're racing. If you look at your racing, and then you go back and you're training, you're training, your race day is generally a reflection of your training, but you're not happy with your race, you go back to your training. And again, this is if nothing, if nothing catastrophically went wrong, if you didn't get a mechanical or, you know, you didn't break metatarsal on your foot or whatever. Some days are great, and some days are just harder, right? Hopefully that harder isn't race day. But yeah, just go back and use every single one of those as a learning experience. And you know, I know that Kenny is very competitive. I've I've known Kenny for quite some time. And it's important to me, and I start off the relationship with my athletes this way, it's important to me to have the conversation with the athlete that we don't know anything about the other athletes, you know, if you're if you're at the top of the food chain, and you're Lucy Charles, and you're competing with Daniela reef, those two follow each other very, very closely. They know what their splits are, right. They know how, what they do together, they can compete against each other because it's almost like competing with themselves because they're they they follow each other so closely, but me some random guy, 50 plus year old out there on the course, running along the guys next to me in front of me, and that I don't have any idea if they're an expert, professional, you know, if they're just an idiot and pushing way too hard. Or if they're super fast and go, I know nothing about them. So for me to compete with them, it's just stupid, right? So I need to go out there and I have the conversation with my athletes. Know your zones, stay in your zones, right? I picked this up from another coach a long time ago. But in a 70.3, you stay in your zones, all the way up until about mile nine to 10 ish on the run. And then on a 70 point or on a full one 40.6 You stay in your zones, all the way up until 18 mile 18 on the run. Because what happens and this has never ever, ever served me wrong. If you find out what your swim effort should be any stay there, right and if you're using a power meter, you stay in your power zones on the bike. And then on a 70.3 you get to mile nine on the run and I'm like mile nine. If you got a bunch of extra energy and you're pissed at me, you can sprint the last four miles Amarin ever wants hasn't anybody sprinted the last four miles and especially on an on a one 40.6 You know stay in your zones all the way to mile 18 And if you're a mile 18 And you got a shit ton of extra x Energy, and you're pissed at me for making you go slow, then sprink it. And again, never once has anybody said, Damn you for making me go too slow.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 35:09

So yeah. So I think I think the hard part to your guys's point, the hard part is having to reset the expectations, right? Like, I have an expectations of what what my split time should be. And if I don't meet those expectations, I'm hard on myself and I get it. I've got issues, but you know, it's, you know, I will feel it's a disappointment. Yeah, I understand. not logical. I'm not trying to hear, you know, I'm not trying to be logical. But I think the hard part to your guys's point is because of a life circumstance and injury or you moved or a job change, and it requires you to have more, you know, more time at the office or something happened with a family or whatever. Or it's, it's that, that shifting of expectations, it's that, okay, you were here with your expectations, because the training was going well, you're doing great, you're physically able to do this. Now, it's gotta be here. I think that that to me that that hard part is, is you know, am I going to finish or not? Or am I gonna do it? Or I'm not going to do it? That's one thing. It's like, to your point. Are you okay, with 16? Hour? Like, if you tell me that I'm going to be like, Ah, right. You know, you know, how bad Am I limping? Right. I mean, I will be, you know, in irony enough. I was I was limping. I think I took 15 hours. But But I mean, the point is, is I think that's the hard part is having that conversation with the athlete to say, I think it's time to reset expectations. I think it's time to, to maybe you know, you're enthusiastic in March. It's September. Now. Let's talk about sort of, where do we think we're going to be? I think that that, that's got to be a fun conversation for you guys, or at least something that's that, like you said, you, I guess if you present math, maybe that's the thing you lean on. It's like instead of saying, overtly, hey, I don't think you're going to do this. You just go, here's what your training program has been looking like, here's what your previous, you know, and let the man speak for itself. That seems to be a because everyone seems to be okay with that. Right? Well, and

Tim Sorenson: 37:05

it goes two ways, right? I have actually, I had an athlete that was doing so good. And I didn't want to tell him, I didn't want to put something in his head. Yeah, that might have stressed him out. But this athlete going back to somebody that you're working with, on your podcast, Elizabeth see me I'm coaching her as well. And she said something about red, right, lots of red and training peaks. Well, this particular athlete, were also in training peaks was all green. I mean, neurotically. Wow, green, there was no yellow, there was no red, every single workout that I put in training peaks. He said, You know, he did it, right. It's like a unicorn. You wouldn't if you didn't want me to do it, you wouldn't put it in there. I'm like, well, there's there's that right? Build wiggle room in there on purpose. But this guy got every single workout done, and he was just lighten everything on fire. And I actually had the opposite conversation with him. You know, I said, so you know, you keep telling me that you're really excited to break 12 hours, but I'm looking at all your training. And if we do the math on this, it's actually coming in significantly lower time than that. I mean, if we were to do the math there, what would you think that you would want to do? And he starts adding it up. And he's like, Well, that's like nine and a half hours. And I said, yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 38:35

That's really fast. Yeah, that's

Tim Sorenson: 38:39

and and he was he was, we were four weeks out, when I started finally presenting this information and lights were going on in his head. He's like, Oh, my God, I'm so much faster than I thought I could ever ever do this, because this particular athlete had actually come to me with a broken hip. Right? And because he was an ultra runner, and we just moved him into swimming and biking, and then all of a sudden, he got healed and was just an amazing athlete. So it was really fun to be able to have the conversations both directions on that one.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 39:07

There's a unicorn, right? That's your guys's dream, isn't it? Like all green? It was like, Well, I don't exist. Is that what keeps you guys going as coaches like that one? That one? Yes. And magical athletes actually does when they

Tom Regal: 39:21

hit the workout. Workout. They did it again. They did the workout again, just like every week. Oh my god. It's like I don't know what to do. Now. I have to really work on my workouts. I want to really, I really want to make them perfect for everyone athlete that came to me 15 or 16 weeks out from from his first Ironman and said I think I need a coach. I was a was a good athlete. And we sat down and I decided to take them on and get him to his knees. He also said he was like, Do you think I can get under 12 hours and like I can't even approach that number at this point. And we kind of just said I said we'll put a plan together. We'll do it if you trust the process and do The work, we'll see what comes out of it. So I got him to put that out of his mind and not think about that number. Like, don't think about the number he did the workouts, he nailed everything. He nailed it all, like, light lit, lit everything up green, was pushing him and pushing him and get through this thing. We came to, you know, night before the race or two nights before the race, when we chatted about it was just kind of like, you know, probably got a good shot at hitting your goal. You know, the numbers look good. But let's just stick to the plan that we have, we've got a really good race plan. And let's make sure everything goes good. It's a hot race, all the stuff that goes through this thing. I'm getting texts from his family, while the race because I didn't get to go to the race with them. And I just I just told them at that point, I said, he's gone sub 12 Easy, like easy sub 12. Like, we've got this thing, he's got it in the bag. And we're like, are really they were getting so excited about the thing. He ended up coming in with 1121 or something. It was just like, it was incredible. His run was just amazing. And he ran, he ran the whole run and he paced himself just right to the whole race. He just did everything he was supposed to do was fantastic. So it's made my year.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 41:14

All right, so parting thoughts here, Tim, what would be your kind of pearls of wisdom with those people that are watching this podcast that are like, you know, they're tired? They're sore? They're hangry. They, they they got it coming up? They're a few weeks away? What what's the what's the what's the leave message you would like to leave them with?

Tim Sorenson: 41:35

Um, I think don't be afraid of mobility. One of my athletes the other day asked if you are ridiculously sore, is it better to have a subpar workout or no workout?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 41:51

Oh, shut up.

Tim Sorenson: 41:52

What? What'd I say? What? I sent you that text you ate? And my response was? A better question is, if if I am so sore that I can't do a quality workout, what should I do? And in those happen, I mean, you have those days where you either are so sore, or you're so unmotivated. The the quality over quantity, right? If you can't do a good workout, then do something else. Right? If you can't get that bike in, because you're just wrecked. That's a good day to listen to your body and say, You know what, maybe I'll just kind of lean into mobility, right? One of the things that by nature, endurance athletes don't ever want to do is be in a gym or do mobility, and mobility. For anybody that doesn't know what that means is it's kind of like an end range of motion yoga type of stuff, right to make sure that you're just touching the end ranges of motions of everything that you have. Right, exactly.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 42:56

Right, you don't see that it's swim bike run, Tim, when you didn't see that, right? Viewing you What's that?

Tim Sorenson: 43:03

When you look at the the absolute professionals, and you see them getting massages, and you see them doing all the stretching and you see them, you have to think well, if the professionals are doing it, what makes me so arrogant to think that I can get away with not doing it. So it's important to make sure that you're getting in not just the swimming and the biking in the running, but you're getting in the mobility exercises. And then, you know, the we'll look at multi sport as five different disciplines. You've got swim, bike, run, nutrition, and mobility rights, and the nutrition is eating clean. And the mobility is just making sure that you're taking care of your body so that you can continue swimming and biking and running.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 43:45

No, I think that's a great point. I mean, especially this time during the year, right, because you are breaking down and your body, you want to you want to hit the start line, not just like you said, for the three disciplines being good, but your body's feeling good your mind. You're in the right mindset, you've you know, you've taken care of your body, you've done the workouts, you've done the training. Now just let it you know, execute on everything that you've been practicing. Right. So

Tom Regal: 44:09

yeah, and I think the quality of what you're saying the quality over quantity is key and having an extra rest day here and there that you're mobile, you're doing things but you're not doing the workout, I think is fine. You're not losing your fitness in that sense, but you're taking care of your body and going through that process. I always tell people, you can't always see it on TV because they don't show it but if you're watching live sports or whether it's soccer or football or something else like that, watch a pregame saying go to the game early. If you get to go you know in person and watch what the players are doing. They're doing all the simple little like calisthenics, right? They were just at a preseason game last week and they're all in line on the field. And they're just hopping and their walk and they're walking through and they're stepping through and you sit there and go this is the stuff nobody wants to do. These guys will do that. was on the field for an hour before the game starts, they will go through that range of and a range of motion, they will go through all of that stuff. And yet, we will walk up to an Iron Man that we're going to spend 14 1314 1516 hours at. And we don't even stretch, we don't even do any anything. We don't do anything to loosen our shoulders up and everything, we just go out there and 100% we just walk up and we're just like, just just hammer this thing and I just sit down go, Well, maybe they've got something here. I mean, they do this for a living. So it's more important to them. How about that mobility part comes to play. Like I know, during the week, like sometimes you're thrown down workouts, you're getting them done yet in the office, you're doing whatever. But you have to find time on the long weekends and some of the other stuff to actually, you know, find that range of motion, go through all of that, do exactly what you said, you know, get that mobility, because that helps the recovery that actually helps you have a quality workout. Like you're not tight, you're not warming up. Yeah, I just warm up over the first four miles of the run. And then I'm good after that. It was like, Well, yeah, that's why your, you know, your your back seats down here. That's why it's something else, you know, kind of kind of goes on you. So it's, I think that's critical, especially as you get older athletes is as we get older, I find that it's way critical for me to do a mobility routine, that's 10 minutes every single morning, whether I'm working out or not, I can't I can't live without it. Like I'm walking funny. If I don't like I go through this just nice, kind of partly yoga, partly range of motion type thing, it helps me wake up, it gets me moving. Like I highly recommend that to everybody. And even the younger athletes will appreciate it. For sure. Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 46:33

absolutely. And then you'd like you said this time of the year with just it also kind of a Zen moment for you. Right, it kind of helps you center. Because I'm really big on the idea that it's also like you said, it's a mind thing as well, right? It's it's, it's setting expectations, it's feeling appropriate, like the race day, to your point, you're used to what's going on you, you're giving yourself a chance during the day, or at least a couple times during the week to just center yourself again and get ready to go. So when you do show up, you show up, both physically and mentally ready to go. So, Tim, we appreciate your time today. Thank you very much. Again, thank you for letting us see all the glorious metals you have. over the 3040 years of racing, probably 50 years are racing to your

Tim Sorenson: 47:19

kid on the block anymore back in ought to

Kenny Bailey<br>: 47:21

when you were.

Tom Regal: 47:24

Yeah. No, thank you so much. We appreciate you. And we appreciate you, everybody. All your feedback and comments. Thanks for Thanks for tuning in and following along. We really appreciate all of you give us some thumbs up some five stars. Subscribe, I hit the subscribe button wherever it appears on the screen. All of that stuff helps the algorithms and helps the podcast bump up in the in the list and more people can find us and hopefully learn a lot from everything that we're doing. So, Tim, thanks again. Kenny. Great as always, say everybody, and we'll catch you the next time