On the cusp of my 50th birthday, this is a great time to reflect back on my athletic career, which began at the ripe old age of five.  Literally thrown into the deep end of the pool to follow my older siblings into the sport of swimming, my parents held no aspirations for me beyond learning how to save myself should I ever fall into a body of water deeper than I was tall.
 
I did end up sticking with swimming, and turned into a nationally-ranked swimmer from age eight through my collegiate career.  I parlayed that into a near decade-long career as a pro triathlete, focusing on the Olympic Distance and finishing with a best ranking of top American/6th overall in the ITU World Cup Series.  Along the way, I won more than a dozen races, and placed 4th, 3rd and 5th respectively at the World Sprint Championships, Pan Am Games and Goodwill Games.  Currently, I compete as a Masters cyclist.  Results include multiple state champion titles as well as 5th at the National Hill Climb champs. 
 
The older I get, the more tricks I try to hold on to the power, speed and vitality of my youth.  While I still feel like I’m a young buck, there are chinks in the armor which prove otherwise.  Volume is not an issue, but I am unable to train as intensely as I used to.  I can pump out the watts, just on a less frequent basis.  The body needs more TLC between hard workouts now than even five years ago.
 
I’ve also realized the growing importance of strength work.  Every year I hit the weight room, but invariably I cast the strength work aside anywhere from January to March.  This year was the first year where I remained dedicated to it without stopping.  And it made a difference; I just felt stronger and sturdier overall.
 
I learned a lot this year.   The main thing being this:  Be disciplined enough to pull back and insert more rest and recovery.  Through much of the Fall/Winter, I only biked four days per week.  I lifted weights three days per week religiously.  I cut back on the number of long weekend rides and complemented them with a second interval session instead.  Week-to-week, I felt great.  Rarely did I have a bad day of training and the upshot was that I could spread my recovery weeks farther apart, thus creating periods of more load before needing to back it off. 
 
The proof of this approach came in the annual kick-off to the Colorado cycling season, the Frostbite TT the first weekend in March.  In 2017, I won the Masters race but was nearly two minutes off the overall winner's time.  In 2018, I again won the Masters race, was 80 seconds faster than the previous year and finished only a handful of seconds behind the overall winner with the second-fastest time of the day; the overall winning time was near-identical both years.  My power was higher and I felt really solid.
 
Whether it is myself or the older athletes I train, I’m not convinced that the sharp decline starts to occur once we hit age 40.  Or even age 50.  We are part of a generation that will be proving 60 is the new 40.  What is critical as we age is to continue challenging ourselves, to not slow down.  It is imperative that we consistently work on sprinting, and VO2max and threshold intervals should be part of the training diet year round.  Strength training will help you retain muscle mass, and ensure your bones and connective tissue remain strong as well.  Most importantly, discipline with deliberate rest and recovery days will accelerate your recovery between workouts so that you can press hard when you need to.  Think of your workouts as an EKG readout – you need the peaks (hard workouts) and valleys between them (rest and recovery), because the alternative is a flat line.  And nobody wants that!
 
Getting older does not have to equate to being slower.  Eventually, sure, but later in life that what we are told to believe.  As you think about your own training plan, identify ways you can do things differently and more effectively.  Worry less about the vanity metrics – how many hours you put in, how many vertical feet you climbed, how many hard intervals you did, and so on – and instead focus on what will allow you to squeeze more out of what you do choose to do.  I can just about guarantee your results will improve with a refreshed approach and mindset.
 
Happy Training,
Coach Nate

​Life is not linear, nor is our desire for the physical pursuits we choose. At some point, the rigor of what we are doing outweighs the enjoyment we once received from the pursuit, and it might be time to reevaluate why it is we do what we do. It is also important to understand our motivations behind these pursuits, so we continue to do them for the right reasons. This video is a gut check about training and competing.

​Elite athletes who cheat are making a bed in which they ultimately will have to sleep -- if not now, then certainly down the road. Circumvent and play the system as they may, the impact of their failed morality boomerangs back to hit them square between the eyes -- always. They may not ultimately get caught cheating. But, whether it be a failed test, a whistleblower dropping dime, a life-threatening malady like cancer, severe depression or worse, being held to account will happen for each of them in turn.

​For some bizarre reason, people think triathlon is a squeaky clean sport. Nothing can be further from the truth. I was provided a stark reminder of this when I overlapped the Boulder Ironman race course at the tail end of a long ride. Doping is alive and well in the SBR.

Levels of fatigue – surface, deep muscle, systemic.
 
In the past, I’ve written about being tired and fatigued, and the need to differentiate between the two sensations.  Today’s blog will be complementary on the fatigue sensation.
 
There are different types of fatigue, which I separate into three layers – surface, deep muscle, and systemic.  Rather than basing these on scientific research, I instead base them on years of experience and feedback from my body.
 
Surface fatigue is what we feel during workouts based on the stress of the workout itself – so independent of any carryforward fatigue from previous workouts.  Certainly, carryforward, or latent, fatigue impacts how we feel day-to-day; I’m simply explaining what each layer is.  So, the burning in the muscles during a hard interval workout, for example.  Surface fatigue is also what we feel directly after a workout as we start to recover from it.  For example, when we ‘hit the showers’ after a grueling swim workout.  The surface fatigue fairly quickly ebbs away as HR drops back down to recovery levels or below, and we start to flush out the lactic acid which has built up in the working muscles.  In anywhere from a few minutes to a half-hour, we tend to start feeling pretty normal again.
 
Deep muscle fatigue can be categorized as the latent fatigue we feel later in the day or in the subsequent days after a tough workout.  Maybe we get lightheaded if we stand up too quickly, or the legs feel heavy up a flight of stairs, or the muscles start to burn in the opening minutes of our warm-up.  The body is in a fatigued state and this is manifesting itself at least in how we feel, and maybe even as a negative impact to a subsequent workout’s results.  Deep muscle fatigue isn’t always bad and doesn’t always lead to negative impact.  A little of it can be thought of as good – we know we’re challenging ourselves and the body is being forced to adapt and get stronger.  However, in this case, a lot of a good thing becomes a bad thing fairly quickly.  Because if we do not allow for proper recovery, we blunt our ability to perform like we need to during key workouts and, ultimately, competitions.  If you’re dragging ass during warm-up, typically it’s a sign to back off and live to fight another day.
 
Systemic fatigue is what affects the CNS (Central Nervous System).  This is when we are overreaching for too long and we’re starting to break down.  Systemic fatigue can manifest itself as elevated HR, low back aches because the adrenal glands are exhausted, muscle soreness or tightness due to lack of recovery, a general malaise that makes us believe we might be getting sick, and more.  Systemic fatigue can hit from one particular workout, or a series of them.  What’s important is to clue in on the signs and course correct accordingly.
 
I’m feeling some systemic fatigue this week.  Work has been stressful the past month and, while I handled it well day-to-day, the extra responsibilities definitely added up.  Also, I rode really hard a week ago, doing three of the hardest climbs in Boulder.  The first two went extremely well.  Halfway through the third, however, I cratered big time.  It was shocking because it hit fairly immediately.  It’s not like at the beginning of the climb I thought, “This is going south.”  On the contrary, I felt it would go just as well as the first two climbs did.  The implosion halfway up blindsided me.  My power dropped first 10%, then 20% and finally 30%.  I was doing a poor impression of a paperboy up a steeper straightaway later up the climb.  Sheer agony.  But I wasn’t going to quit.  I had bonked.  Big time.  And there was nothing to be done about it unless I decided to climb off, which I wasn’t going to do.
 
Because I was scraping the bottom of the barrel, I knew it was going to take longer to recover than had I not imploded.  I’ve ridden really hard for 4-5 hours and bounced back in 24-48 hours no problem.  In this case, I knew it would take longer.  When I got back home, had showered, fueled up and hydrated, I found that I was both sweating and super tired the rest of the day.  My core was running hot, and I just wanted to sleep.  I NEVER want to nap!  But, it’s all I could think about that afternoon.  I was cooked.
​
Here, a week later, I’m feeling some telltale signs of systemic fatigue.  My low back has been much tighter, as have been my hamstrings.  My right glute isn’t firing very well.  When I ride, my low back starts to ‘scream’ at me when it should not be.  I FEEL the fatigue much deeper than in the muscles, if that makes sense.  It’s like the fatigue is in my soul.
 
Ultimately, that’s OK.  As long as we honor what we’re feeling and we allow ourselves to take a step back, objectively assess the sensations and course correct, we will be OK.  One of my athletes is racing tomorrow and we decided to course correct today based on what he’s feeling.  His gut was telling him to skip today’s workout but he felt guilty for suggesting it.  My advice to him was to trust his instinct; it’s a powerful signal which rarely steers us wrong.  Like him, I will forego my own typical tried-and-true pre-race tune-up tomorrow.  I need a relaxed ride more than some openers, but I’m not comfortable doing nothing.  I think the risk is being flat rather than ready to go for the race.  We’ll see.
 
As you complete your workouts and progress toward your goals, keep these various layers of fatigue in mind.  They’re different, they’re the result of different things, and they affect you differently.  Trust your instincts and try to avoid blindly following your training schedule.  If you work with a coach, proactively communicate with that person BEFORE it gets out of hand rather than afterwards.  A coach should be there to help you adjust and more quickly get back on track, not browbeat you for skipping a workout.  If your coach defaults to the latter, time to find a new coach.
 
Happy Training,
Coach Nate