Mind Over Miles: A Mental Framework for Triathletes

Andrew Harley: Hey everybody, welcome to the TriDot Podcast. A little bit of a different episode today. I'm kind of excited to hear some feedback on what you guys think of this one. we're not gonna do our normal warm-up main set cooldown. We're not gonna do a normal interview where I talk to a coach or an athlete or a or a specialist about something. Today we're actually going to hear a presentation given by legendary run coach Bobby McGee. Bobby's been on the TriDot Podcast a few times before. And actually a few weeks ago, Bobby gave a webinar to our RunDot ambassadors. That's right. Not the TriDot ambassadors, not the TriDot athletes, not the Tri Dot Podcast audience, but specifically our RunDot ambassadors. And I was on the call listening in and I was like, this is such good information. We need our podcast athletes to hear this. We need our triathletes to hear this. And what Bobby was talking about was goal setting. And I'm not usually the rah-rah, sit down, write your feelings, write your goals, have a seven-step plan to get their kind of guy. I don't normally think about this kind of content, but the way Bobby approached setting goals and the way he really broke down different types of goals an athlete will have and can have really changed the way I will think of this for my endurance athlete life and my Real life outside of endurance sports. so anyway, I'm gonna step out of the way. And what you're gonna hear is Bobby just presenting for about 30 minutes on setting goals and specifically how he, as a coach, when he's working with his high performance athletes, he's gonna take us, the TriDot Podcast audience, through the steps that he walks through with high performance Olympic medal-winning athletes on. calibrating their goals and dialing in what they want to accomplish from a certain training cycle, a certain event. so anyway, I'm stepping out of the way. You're gonna hear from Bobby for a solid 30 minutes. And since this webinar had Dan Caskie, Tri Doc coach, on it at the end of the recording, you're gonna hear Dan kind of dialoguing with Bobby back and forth a little bit, and then we're gonna call it a day. So I really hope you enjoy this one. I I highly recommend you go to our YouTube channel or fire up Spotify and and watch this one. Bobby does have a presentation with some slides on the screen as we're going since it was a webinar. Anyway, kicking it over to Bobby. Bobby McGee, take it away.

Bobby McGee: Okay guys, thank you so much for for tuning in. I'm super excited, just like Dan is, to be able to share this. And I wanna start off by acknowledging my friend and current mentor in the in the sports psychology area, Dr. Corey Reich from Pure Intelligence. And he is the creator of this system that we have been using very successfully already with high performance athletes. And I look forward to sharing that with you. Now I'm sure that most of you from the very beginning, I'm maybe even second grade got told about having goals and writing them down and sticking them up on the fridge and so on. This is a completely advanced wrinkle on that, but it's still the same idea. We know that this approach works, but it's a difficult one to sustain. So hopefully with this approach, you guys will realize how much the psychology, the emotion plays into the performance side. So without further ado, let's get on with that. Okay, so usually we think that by setting an outcome goal, by setting a goal, that that's what motivates us, right? But it's so much more than that. And that outcome goal is sometimes not motivating. It's kind of like stressing, right? So let's have a look how we can utilize a more multidimensional approach to effectively setting goals for ourselves, right? So we want to utilize goals to transform performance. So if we're doing all this training and we're getting ready for something, we want to improve, right? Whether we're doing our first long course triathlon or whether we just doing a sprint triathlon and we just want to get to the finishing line, right? We want more than that motivation, right? So the goal process must turn possibility into probability. If you follow a decent structure, right? This dream that you had starts to get legs underneath it. And that's what we're looking for, right? So a successful goal process then lines us up through who we are, all right, where we need to put our focus and what that specific focus needs to be. So those three words you've seen a lot, but they come up as early as in goal setting when you're setting yourself up for an outcome. That's consistency, adaptability, and confidence. Right? Most of our confidence comes from our training, but we forget to understand that we have multiple thoughts and emotions while we train, and they also impact our confidence. It's not just the training, it's not just getting out the door. All right. So now we have more of a guarantee process that if we follow this process, we have the highest likelihood of achieving what we set out to do. So the four levels that we're gonna look at in terms of the architecture, how it's put together is we're gonna be impacting our focus, we're gonna be impacting the standards that we set for ourselves, we're gonna be impacting our emotional control, which is hugely at play on race day and with quality workouts, and then also discover and be able to be facile with work with our identity under pressure. Right. So the focus is directing our attention to what matters most. Right. So focus is not lost, it's misplaced. So often when we get into trouble in a race or a hard training session, our focus is just in an inappropriate place. Right? Standards build those non-negotiable performance benchmarks, right? So in order to have this outcome, I need this and this and this in terms of Actual training that I've done, the actual numbers that I need to hit to get that performance. The emotional control is about your stability under competitive pressure. We know it's not just good enough to be fit and ready physically and physiologically, but we also need to be ready mentally and emotionally. And emotional control is something that we are quite haphazard with in our own training quite often. And then lastly, It's who we are and who we know ourselves to be under pressure that has the biggest impact when things start getting a little challenging out there. Okay, so let's look at what those four levels are. Already we know that when we were younger, we were taught that an outcome goal is what do we want, right? So what is the result that we want? We need to be refined about that, but to remember that it's only a direction. Below that comes performance goals. All right, so these are the markers that we need to hit physically that indicate we are likely capable of the result that we want. Below that are the process goals. These are the most important ones. It's the daily execution, it's the habits and the standards, right? So it's those things that we can control that can lead to the highest likelihood of us getting the performance that we're looking for. And lastly, and probably most importantly, and it's the soup in which one, two, and three live, right? It's right inside of that workshop is our identity goals. And it's the big differentiator. A lot of people do the work, but not a lot of people get the result that they want, right? And it's those identity goals that are the final process that leads us closest to getting the outcome goal that we deserve, right? So who we're becoming, who we need to be. So let's look at those in a little bit more detail. Okay, so outcome goals are the demise of many athletes if they don't do the rest of the work, right? Because they only provide direction and purpose. It's just the top of the mountain that you view in the distance that you want to get to, right? It's the clear target for you as an athlete or a high performer. You go, this is what I want at the end of a strong training process, right? This is what I'm aiming at, right? So it provides the overall vision. It's the compass for your training, right? It points in the direction. It does not provide confidence. In fact, quite the opposite. When you set out a goal overtly and you tell those people around you, like your coach and people you care about, this is what I want, it automatically starts to create stress, right? So it's not a provider of confidence. It's also not a provider of identity. Many athletes fall foul to that whole concept is because I said I'm gonna do this, if I don't do this, I lose my identity, right? So in other words, it's not a tool that you use to establish your identity. And also, if every workout that you do has first and foremost in in your mind the outcome goal that you're looking for. It creates emotional instability. It becomes very stressful, right? So outcome goals create vision. They don't define who you are. They don't define your worth. And that's so important, right? So you need to name them and say, this is my outcome goal at the beginning of the season or the beginning of the year or the beginning of the training process, right? And then you shift your focus to what creates these outcomes. So it's that prevalence for First and foremost in your mind of an of an outcome goal that can derail a lot of your training. Right, let's have a look at some examples of outcome goals, right? I want to complete a race. I've done a bunch of 70.3s. I've never done an Iron Man, but I really want to finish this first iron man that I do. I want to finish it nice and strong, but I'm not really worried about performance. I just want to get to the end of that. That is an outcome goal, right? Same with position. I'd like to come. Top third of the field or top 10% or I'd like to come on the podium or whatever the case might be, right? Also like to establish a personal record. I'm going to a cooler race. I've done that many races before. They've been a little warmer. This one I think I can go faster than I've ever gone before. Right? What is that number that you're looking for? Is it sub twelve? Is it sub-11? What are you looking for? The other one is qualification. I need to get into world championships. I need to get into something. I need to qualify. In order to qualify, I need to be X percentage of the field or I need to be X positioned for me to qualify to get into other events. So it's a slightly different outcome goal, but that's the outcome that you seek. And then lastly, championship goals, right? The highest I've ever come in the world championships or whatever championship race that you choose is X. I'd like to have a better number. I'd like to be X and Y and Z, right? So then those outcome goals go into the background. They just the direction. They're not validation by you saying what you want. People around you that care about you, if you have only that available, then they and yourself are going to see that. If I don't achieve that, then I'm not going to be validated. You seek this validation somewhere else, and we'll get to that. So they guide your training without controlling your self-worth. And that is such a heavy statement that you really need to consider, right? If I don't hit this outcome goal, I don't collapse as an individual in terms of how I view myself as a triathlete or as a runner. All right, number two, let's have a look at performance goals. Now these are quite similar. So if you consider the top of the mountain, right, as your outcome goal, these performance goals are the markers that you must hit on your way up the mountain to indicate that you're progressing to that point. Right. So they also involve outcomes, but they are intermediate outcomes, they are training outcomes. That you need to aim at, right? So let's have a look at them in a little bit more detail. They turn your effort into evidence, right? So if you say, all right, for the next six weeks, I want to train five times a week, these are going to be the sessions, right? What are the numbers I need to hit in those sessions? I started off with a half an hour, but by the time this process is done, I need to be doing that intensity of workout for an hour and a half, right? If I can do that intensity, of a work out an hour and a half, then I'm ready for my outcome goal. Right. So these are performance markers that point toward your outcome goal. You're standing on a plateau, you're looking out across a jungle, you're seeing a mountain on the other side. The mountain is your outcome goal, right? All the little rivers and swamps and forests that you have to work your way through, those are your performance goals, one at a time. Okay. So they make the progress visible. All right, and it's not just proof. I mean, it's not just the work that you do, but it's the quality of the work that you do, the numbers that you add to that work, right? So they are your execution targets, right? So in your benchmark workouts, et cetera, et cetera, but also very important, your pressure metrics. If you can't perform a benchmark workout to a specific standard that indicates that you're on your way to reaching that outcome goal. Right? Because you succumbed to the pressure because it was a benchmark workout. Now it's indicating, all right, so there needs to be a metric. How did I mentally handle these performance goals? Those are your pre your pressure metrics. Right. So this process builds your confidence. Instead of having just this one outcome goal where you get either zero out of a hundred or a hundred out of a hundred, this gives you those percentages. At the moment, I'm 40% towards my outcome goal. And that's a performance marker that you hit, right? It's a performance goal. And so on. You keep building up, building up. So pretty exciting stuff. Right. So let's have a look at a couple of examples, examples of performance goals, right? So just like in any training plan, there will be durations, there'll be frequencies, there'll be intensities, right? And there'll be scores like times and numbers and volumes that you need to hit. And then lastly, in there are your demands of competition targets, right? That's what DOC stands for, demands of competition. For example, if you want to be in the top third of the field, you might have looked back and seen, okay, in the last three years under these conditions, the top third of the field achieved this time in my age group, right? And so you would then put down, right, so if I need to hit these targets, all right. Which are my performance goals in order to end up in the top of the field. So let's look at duration. It's just like at the moment you're training four hours a week or five hours a week. You need to be training probably 11, 12 hours a week, you and your coach have calculated by the time you will be ready to perform. Right. So you're going to work from this five, six hours a week, you're going to work that up to your 11, 12 hours a week over time. Right. And so every time you add an hour or a half an hour or 15 minutes to that overall duration of your training week, you have hit a performance goal. Right. And those are established in advance. The same with frequency. You might be doing two runs a week, but you know, in order for you to be the best runner you can be off the bike, you need to be doing four runs a week. And so you're working up to that. So when you hit four runs a week, that number four is a performance goal achieved. And Each one builds on your confidence as well, right? So what watch do I need to do for my zone three type work? This benchmark workout that I have that is six by ten minutes at my Iron Man wattage, right? What do those watts need to be to predict out that I'm getting closer towards this outcome goal that I'm seeking? The same with pace and the same with heart rates. Right. And the last one is just if I'm doing repetitions on the track or I'm doing what numbers over duration, I might be hitting the watts, but the durations aren't long enough. Right. So I might be doing five times six minutes and I actually want to be getting to ten times eight minutes. So those are the numbers you're talking about and the volumes as well. Okay, so super exciting that you're now starting to see the lattice, the framework of what it takes. to get to that outcome goal through your performance goals. All right, level three. This is honestly meat and potatoes time. This is where it happens, right? This is absolutely the most important part of this process because the big word here is controllables, right? This is what you've got control over. You don't have control over the previous two levels of goals, right? The outcome goal, anything can happen. The process, Goals, any not the process goals, the performance goals, anything can happen, right? So here we're at a point where you are in control. So these are the things that create consistency. And from the early actually, it was late 90s, they came out with the early research in triathlon because triathlon was going to become an Olympic sport and the world was starting to pay attention. And it wasn't just one race in Kona once a year. And so they started doing research, and every single research project showed that the greatest performance accelerator was consistency, without a shadow of doubt. Right. So let's have a look. Controllables, work back from the outcome. Right? Work back from the outcome to where you are on that day that you start this process. All right. These are the Daily controllables. Even hourly controllables. They are the hourly controllables in the minds of the professionals, right? So you want to look at your daily controllables, are things like your work, your sleep, your nutrition, your family time. All of those things are daily controllables, right? And those things, believe it or not, the time that you put your child to bed, right, that drives performance directly. And if you can start having that global awareness of, wait a minute, these are all the little things I can control. I'm going to spend a half an hour less time on my phone and get to bed or whatever the case might be. Those are controllables, right? And now you can set yourself within that framework, you can set yourself standards. I was doing a camp recently with a bunch of junior athletes and we were talking about phones, right? And we were just saying, okay, just look at your number at the end of every week. What are you spending on the phone? Right. So that could be part of those process goals where you can say, okay, I'm going to spend two hours, three hours, five hours a week, less on my phone. Right? Those high standards without emotional dependency on results. Right. So now you go, I just need to. Do, I just need to get it done. Then you start to understand the mantra of the endurance athlete, which is consistent. Just do it. Just do it. Don't evaluate each individual activity as a do or die. Right? 80% is good enough. 75% is good enough. Just doing it as opposed to not doing it is good enough. Speaking to an athlete the other day, just like, can't run at the moment, definitely can't run for an hour and a moment. And so I can't do anything. No, but you can walk for 10 minutes. Can you walk pain free for 10 minutes? absolutely. Well, then take that slot that was gonna be an hour and a half run and do a 10 minute walk in there. All right. That has all sorts of magical implications for your brain. It's part of that consistency, it's part of that accountability that you that you build and that you are in control of. Right? So now your actual training strategy and your life strategy is in the foreground. Right. And then that last part of that is your identity link. Outcomes are earned by process. By doing three, four, five, six weeks of training, in the back of your head, you might not know the exact details of all those sessions, but you had a simple check log done dun dun dun dun dun dun. All right. That already pro produces a tremendous amount of confidence in yourself and in your ability to execute, right? Because you are the kind of person that does what they say they're going to do. And so that's the big identity link there, right? So process, performance, results. It always works that way around. You cannot get results, right? Without having those performance markers along the way. And those only come about as a result of process. Right. The process is daily behaviors and training process. All right. We went through that at length, but as I said, I cannot emphasize this enough. You've got to look at those details because the details make the whole. Focus cues for performance. Right? So now when you're doing something, you realize, okay, it's fine that I'm doing this, but I am not in zone three or I'm not in zone two. Right. And so I've Actually recorded this. These are my cues. I check where I am and I adjust when I notice I'm not where I need to be. Right? So you have these cues. I've even had athletes who want to push strongly in a race because they strength athletes, but they're running on a flat course. We'll take time frames. We'll say, okay, after 30 minutes of running, there's a hill. You can attack the hill. You know, so that you add in those cues that help you achieve those performance goals, right? And that's within your control within every single workout every single day. Right? Your recovery protocols, they are as set in stone as your training plan. They are as important, if not more important. So you don't say if I get to the end of the day, if I have an opportunity to sit in in in a massage machine or something like that, then I will do so. But if I run out of time, then I'm just gonna spend that fifteen minutes because it's not long enough, I'm gonna spend it on my phone. That is loss of process, right? That's loss of focus. So your emotional regulation tools actually govern all of this. Because if you feel like doing something or you don't feel like doing something, there's a a small little battle to be won, right? So being aware. Of the feelings that you have and how you regulate those feelings. What do you turn them into? What choices do they represent? And what choices are you making? And if you see that as something completely under your control, right? It comes down to that statement. Allow your actions to determine your feelings and not the other way around. Don't allow your feelings to determine your actions. See the space between stimulus and response and choose a response that gives you what you want in the long term. Right? And then they did some interesting research in Canada, right? That coaches who spend an inordinate amount of time on creating environments within which their athletes can prepare for t for events are more successful than coaches that are brilliant communicators, for example. Or brilliant designers of schedules, et cetera, et cetera. It's that environment. And that's when you can go, okay, I'm in a situation now that's very similar to the race in which I want to achieve my outcome goal. I'm gonna go look at what is my script, what are my cues when it's this hot or it's this humid or it's this hilly or it's this windy or it's this choppy in the ocean. What am I saying to myself? I'm pre prepared. Preparing those scripts so that my internal dialogue is guided at the time by these things that I have practiced. That's the key right there. All right, level three: measure what matters. Right? We have so many tools nowadays that are measuring what we are doing. But it's up to us to decide what is important. Right? So for example, Execution under load. How well do you execute under competition load? So you know how you do in a certain training session, you have a recollection of how you used to do in the race, and there's a disconnect there. There's a different mindset in the race than there is in the training session. Do I need to change the training session, increase the intensity of the training session, or create a situation where I'm putting myself under that kind of load, right? And then have to execute. So you those are things you can control, your training environment, your training intensity, all those kind of things. Have a look at what your recovery speed is, right? So, in other words, if you make a mistake, you go out too fast, you exceed your watts because you're going into a headwind, right? You've made a mistake, you spent an hour at an intensity you shouldn't have spent. How can you quickly adjust? Many times what we say is, okay, I've messed it up already, so I'm just going to. Do the best I can. No, make conscious decisions as to how you can recover. For example, don't make it an hour. Realize after five minutes that you're overdoing it and adjust and practice that. The next one is presence. How effectively do you stay in the present? Now we know you cannot stay intensely focused during an entire race, not even a 5K. Can you remain intensely focused throughout that? Right. We know in marathons and in Iron Man races, if your focus is too intense in the swim and the early part of the bike, it's really hard to focus later on. It's really hard to focus in the run. Right. You go from this creative mindset to this survival mindset, which basically throws your plan out the window. So you've got to practice getting back, realizing you've lost your focus, bring it back. Asking yourself, where should my focus be? Bring it back. Realizing all my focus is gone, bring it back. Realizing that I've been self-critical because I lost focus, stop criticizing yourself. Don't judge yourself. Praise yourself for getting your focus back. These are things that need to be practiced. All right. And then the last one in this in this section here, measuring what matters is your confidence stability. Everybody's confidence on the start line, right? And as Mike Tyson said, everything goes out the window once you get hit in the face, right? And you know, you might get hit in the in the face by a wave in the first five minutes or the first minute of your swim, right? You've got to work on remaining true to the processes you can control. And that's called confidence stability, right? So under pressure, creating situations, choosing once in a while to go out for a run with a friend that's always half stepping you, always half stepping you, but practicing to keep up with them and not take it personally. All right, but to keep working on what you need to work on. You know, saying, Okay, they always half stepped me, used to upset me in the past. Now he's just a treadmill. He's just setting a pace or she's just setting a pace and I'm just gonna keep up with that pace. Thank goodness for them, that's actually helping my process. Okay. And then this last level, which we so often don't have a look at, right, is these identity based goals. Right? So you're not asking yourself only what do you want to achieve, you asking yourself, who are you? All right? Who am I becoming? Who will I become through this process? Who do I need to be? Saturday is an open water swim. Weather's predicting it's gonna be howling out there. We're gonna have three foot waves on the pond, right? So who do I need to be to execute? Right? Asking yourself, what type of person executes under these conditions? And then you try that on and you say, okay, this is who I need to be. Right? Identity is the deepest driver of your behavior under stress. Who you really are comes to the fore under stress. So this is a beautiful opportunity, right? Every kind of philosophy across the ages, 2000, 2500 years of history, involves putting yourself to the test, involves putting yourself to the fire, putting your feet to the fire, finding out what you made of. And that's what your process is for, your process training, right? So you might say, because I've started working much more effectively on my nutrition, I recover quickly. I as a person, all right? I am composed under pressure. I trust my training. I love to compete. Right? Even though that might be confronting in the beginning, ask yourself, all right, I'm in the middle of a hard workout. What am I enjoying about it? What is difficult about it? Right? So that's actually creating a task for yourself, right? This is what I don't like about it. Right. Again, back to the examples of the great athletes out there. They find the things that are hard and they learn to love them. They make them priorities. So they take them from hard to embracing the hardness because not only is it making them stronger, but it's also making them enjoy doing the hard stuff because they have become good at it. So that's part of that anti fragility teaching that is so popular at the moment. All right, so how do these four levels combine, right? Outcome creates direction. So you put it out there, right? Now you're going, I'm on the plateau. Here the swamps, the bellies, the crocodiles, the monsters, that each one needs to be beaten. When I beat those, those are the performance goals, right? So that creates my belief that I'm capable of meeting the outcome goal. But the process is the what? Creates those results. Right? The dailies, the controllables, the every single day, what I do. And then lastly, the identity, which gives you that stability under pressure and that confidence. Having gone through the process for a protracted period of time, every time you get out there and do the work, your confidence increases. Right? So outcome is what you want, performance is what is required. Process is what you train and identity is what sustains that process. So in closing, again, look at that. Identity drives your process. Who you are is the kind of person that does that kind of work and has those kind of results. If you view yourself as that kind of person, half the battle is one. Process creates the performance, right? It's the dailies. It's the one brick at a time that creates the beautiful palace at the end of six months or at the end of 18 weeks or whatever that build process is. Right? The performance earns the outcomes. If you see those performance markers being hit, slowly but surely you know I'm getting inevitably closer to this outcome that I'm seek seeking. Outcome is the target. That's the golden light that you put out there. All right. That set everything else in motion. But identity is the engine. Right? That's what drives you. Okay. All right, Dan, what do you think?

Dan Caskie: That's what I think, Bobby. what an amazing. I love how you frame this in such a way that that is still applicable. you know, we made the joke when you told me about this. I said, I think I'll get faster just by listening. And I think I already have because my identity now is a little bit faster. So I can definitely get to that. Now, as we think about this, you mentioned some very interesting things, like trying to set that vision and that can be, you know, just what's fun for you or I know people get caught up in saying, I need to cross that finish line. And if I don't, I'm crushed. But I really love how you say, listen, my identity is someone who works hard to get to this point, as someone struggles to find those goals, it can be a fun process. but we need something that's realistic. And so finding a coach or a tool to help get you there can really be key. Can you maybe say on that first step when they're trying to struggle between an identity that that they want to own because they need some stability from an outcome to what's practical and maybe how like something like RaceX or something could predict what's possible.

Bobby McGee: Yeah, exactly. So the beautiful thing if they training on this platform, this approach, right? There is so much data available that says that you hit this and you hit this and you hit this, you you're golden, right? So you're using RaceX and RaceX is based on the training you've done and the environments that you've trained in, predicting what you will be able to do on that particular kind of course. So it's perfect. The idea is to get to a point where you cross the finishing line and you don't know yet quite what you've achieved, but you know you were there every step of the way and you were able to make decisions on that. And so you are satisfied and joyful and ready to look at what the result is, but you don't need the result to tell you who you are. You already know who you are.

Dan Caskie: I love that. The other thing you talked about and you just mentioned this is self-awareness and maybe during training, you know, I think the natural thing is I'm just gonna push because I got a little extra. but how do we start to then look at when we burn those matches, right? When we have the post run feedback that you get in your try dot app, maybe you got a low TrainX score because it was supposed to be zone two running and you decided to kick it up. How to help how do athletes connect that mental mistake, if you will, or misstep in process goals, like you said, on that run they went out too hard and then look at the data to make the next right choice.

Bobby McGee: Interesting. Great question. Because research has shown us we are at our most efficient. In other words, we're using the least amount of oxygen when we are objectively aware of what we are doing. So checking in early and often, that's what focus is, to not run away with this, right? And being able to go, I feel great today. I'm going to go to zone three or I I'm realizing I'm in zone three, but what are the long term implications? There's a couple of great coaches in the world that say this is the workout. How hard should we do this workout, coach? You're going to be doing this workout for the next eight weeks, and everyone needs to be better. So don't judge how you're going to do this first one so that eight weeks time you're still with us. That level of presence, that level of large, large focus on the long term. and then adjusting within the moment.

Dan Caskie: Okay, Bobby, I know you're a big fan of a warm-up drill. we've used your videos for years on guiding me through my misguided A skips and B skips, but it almost seems like at this point the athletes could benefit by taking a little mental warm up before they go out and understanding the purpose of each workout versus simply just logging a run for the day.

Bobby McGee: Absolutely. So it all depends on what happened before the workout. Right? And this realization that that mental and emotional energy burns calories even more extensively than physical energy does. Okay. Interesting, they did a study with chess players, master chess players in a five hour tournament. The average caloric expenditure was six thousand calories. Wow. just by using their brains and playing chess. So there was not a lot of physical movement there, as you can imagine. So being aware of how mentally exhausted you are, recharging those batteries, that could be anything. Could be just a mindful moment sitting down, having a, you know, a sport beverage before you go out the door, just collecting your thoughts, getting yourself back to where you need to be. But that mental warm-up is absolutely critical. Either the breathing or And the presence that you bring to your warm up as opposed to something that I have to do. Right? Saying, no, the warm up is equally important. If you feel you need another five minutes, then you take another five minutes. It's more valuable to chop five minutes off the workout and spend an extra five minutes warming up because the workout will be so much more effective. Excellent.

Dan Caskie: No, I love that. And you've said that. I've heard you tell us that before, that setting those performance goals to understand this is what I'm expected of today. And again, having the ability to change your workout is also a benefit. So maybe on that day you pivot, right? If it's too cold and too hard and you don't have you don't you're not rested enough, maybe make that pivot. No, that's excellent advice. Well, Bobby, one last question, as we think about this, I I've got a lot on my mind and I appreciate your time. This has been so valuable to me and I'm sure to the audience, but If an athlete finishes this talk inspired to be more intentional with their training, what's the simplest next step they can take on that next run with their tri dot or run dot? What's how can they immediately apply what they learned on the next run?

Bobby McGee: Absolutely very easy actually. Clarity of purpose of the workout. Clarity of purpose. So nail the process. Don't seek a time or whatever. Nail the process. Right? And then simply ask yourself the question: what kind of athlete do I need to be to nail this process? Right? If I'm agitated and I've got a long zone two run. Hey, it's not gonna go well with me, right? I need to chill out. I need to get relaxed. I need to slow down. I need to realize just get the work done. The best endurance athletes in the world love boring. They love boring, so they don't see it as boring. So that's it. Just clarity of purpose and presence.