Running

Reflecting on your skills and weaknesses, keeping a journal, and going towards pain are all essential for growing as an athlete. Bill Bradley is an example of someone who worked hard to improve his weaknesses. We should also take the time to reflect and be honest with ourselves in order to grow.
 
Transcript: "So you need to, from time to time, reflect on your skills, whatever it is you're doing. You need to know what your weaknesses are, what your strengths are, and work on them, okay? Keeping a journal like Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, where you go through things and this is for yourself, for yourself to grow. And all the time, as a coach, I try to write training, I try to learn things that are a little bit painful, okay? You gotta go towards pain to grow. You gotta go towards things you're not super comfortable with, whether it's 800 meter training, whether it's mental skills, learning those things, okay? You gotta be honest with yourself at times. If you're gonna grow, you need to get out of your comfort zone and learn different things, whether it's nutrition, it's the mental game, stress management techniques, or just really good communication skills with your athletes. But definitely need to go towards pain. You know, there's a great story about Bill Bradley, was like 10 years old and he was just tall and didn't have many skills. And, you know, he looked at his weaknesses, which was dribbling and passing and got much, much better at them. He trained his weaknesses. So you need to train your weaknesses as well as your strengths and get into the mode of growing as a person, as an athlete. And a lot of times that's going towards pain. That's, you know, we don't reflect a lot in our society today with all the distractions and social media stuff, but we need to pay attention to what we're good at, what we're poor at and try to be honest with ourselves and grow."

Watching other sports can be a great way to learn different coaching techniques, body language, and how to use emotion and tone of voice. The biathlon is especially interesting because of the dual challenge between fighting and relaxing. Learning from professional sports and adopting their tactics into your domain is also beneficial.
 
Transcript: "So, I find other sports fascinating and I do enjoy them, but also I feel like you can learn a lot watching other sports and so I do include watching a lot of NBA. I find the biathlon fascinating too because it's the battle between our sympathetic fight-or-flight nervous system of cross-country ski racing with the parasympathetic rest and digest of shooting to extremes and how difficult it is to go through these and be successful. You know, look at other sports, especially the body language, the enjoyment, okay, the process of it, okay. Try to look at everything and, you know, some of the coaching techniques, how they speak to their athletes, the emotion they use, the tone of voice they use, depending on the situation. So, tone is huge. One of the most underrated things, how you speak to athletes, but the tone you use, you can say the exact same thing in two different ways. So, learn from everything, take from everything. You know, NFL is huge. I watch a lot of NFL, NBA, love NBA, college sports, but the Winter Olympics, the biathlon, I found one of the most fascinating events to learn from because how difficult you have to change on a dime. So, learn from everything, enjoy sports. I think you can take a lot from professional sports and bring it into your domain. Keep learning, keep paying attention, and go from there. You know, even some of the soccer teams take plays and things from from NBA teams, so it's quite interesting."

I'm not afraid to use higher lactates early with my athletes, as it can affect brain and body neurons positively. It's also important to mix up training stimuli to help them develop optimally. Hill climbs and using hills early are great for developing more fibers and protecting the aerobic metabolism.
 
Transcript: "So, obviously aerobic development is huge to your athlete's performance and you want to progress them and mix training that makes the most optimal development in their aerobic metabolism. But most of the time I'm very rarely afraid of using higher lactates early for a couple reasons. Lactate affects your brain neurons, your body neurons, it does some other things rather than just focus on one element. Everyone's worried about their aerobic metabolism, but it does a lot of other positive things too. And the athletes I coach, most of the time they're distance athletes and they haven't used a lot of higher lactate. So I'm not afraid to use higher lactate. The other thing is a lot of times I'm bringing in early with more fibers. And there's some science on whether if you can bring more fibers in using hills and hill climbs and things like that, that it protects your aerobic metabolism and strengthens you better. So a lot of ways to do things. I think the hill climb and using hills early are really smart for generating more fibers. But very rarely am I afraid. I like to keep the pathway open. I think it's important, especially for marathoners when they've come out of a marathon phase, to keep some higher lactates in and not be afraid early. Obviously if they're coming from not training much, that's a concern. But when they've come from marathon to marathon to marathon, it's a stimulus change. And part of being great is changing the stimulus. You can periodize, you can do all the things you want, but keep in mind, change is good as you train athletes. And it can really help develop them and their mind and body."

A diuretic increases urine production, which can lead to dehydration if not enough fluid is replaced.
 
Transcript: "A quick and easy answer, a diuretic increases urine production. So you are peeing more, that means you're getting yourself dehydrated if it continues and you're not replacing that fluid. That's it."

The two most efficient and effective workouts to prepare for a 10K race would be a tempo run over the course at race pace or above and a 2K repeat with 3 minutes of rest in between, followed by a maximum 1K on the end. This will help simulate the difficulty of a 10K race, as well as sharpen your body and mind for a hard effort.
 
Transcript: "So well, it's not that simple to just give you two workouts. Obviously, there's a lot more that goes into a Great performance from the recovery running from your base from your mileage for your long runs But I'll give you two that I think are probably the most efficient and the best bang for the buck for this situation that The from the information I have So there's two things. So first I would do is a tempo run over the course, okay? And I would do it at our Effort, okay our race pace effort or if you know your threshold, I would do it around there. Okay Over the terrain specific to the race. I think that's important that you get a feel for things and and What effort feels like going uphill and going down so obviously a tempo run Over the distance of the course 10k area. Okay, you could probably start at four miles and and move up to 10k Then probably the most important workout I would do is a specific 10k workout over the course so a workout that I like and I think that it simulates a a 10k the most is 4 by a 2k at 3 minute recovery and a hard Maximum 1k on the end. Okay, and so the 2ks are done starting just slower than race pace and Moving to just above race pace. So you get a feel for it, you know long intervals are tempo runs you're going to be a lot more comfortable long intervals at 10k race pace are very difficult and hard and Prepare the mind and body for racing. So I would do long intervals 2k repeats and then I'd finish with a maximum 1k That's going to sharpen you It's going to be very anaerobic and and see what's left in the tank and really prepare you for for a hard effort"

Intensity is important for success as an athlete. Science says most people are bringing too much intensity to racing, so it is better to be calm and relaxed when you race, and more intense when you train. To increase intensity, caffeine can help, as well as doing a more aggressive warm-up, training with others, using mental imagery of a race, saying something intimidating, and doing fast deep breathing.
 
Transcript: "So intensity is huge to your success as an athlete knowing how to throttle up or throttle down Depending on what you need now The science says this and this is a really good question because science says that most people are bringing too much Intensity to the racing they're already excited and they're trying to rev it up a notch Okay, and really be a race performer, but that's hurting them. Okay, you want to be a little calmer and relaxed and confident when you go race and More intense when you train because a lot of times most people it's really hard to get a race type performance in training and so some things you can do like a DJ that dials up or dials down first keep a log and Write down where you train and compete your best know the number whether it's one to ten you use one to twenty Okay, and know how to dial up or dial down depending on what you need now Some things you can do to throttle up For more intensity in training are caffeine can help Okay using some caffeine before you train can rev you up and get you more intense Okay Doing a more aggressive warm-up You can do an extra 400 after your warm-up at like 3k pace to really wake yourself up So it doesn't take time to get into the intensity You know most the time it takes a few intervals to get you going Training with others a group or having even a coach out there can raise your arousal level. Okay Mental imagery of a race because the mind doesn't know the difference pretend it's a race Okay, that will really rev you up think of a slight and get a little mad at times can raise your arousal As can Saying something Intimidating or exciting to rev you up a little bit some fast quick deep breathing Think you're a fierce animal a volcano or a tidal wave or all things possible"