Turning a Triathlon Setback into a Comeback!

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. Really interesting conversation today as I have a tried coach with us helping us turn any triathlon setback into a comeback. It's a complicated sport. We do a lot of training. We do a lot of racing, and things are going to go askew from one point to another. And those things can become a setback that really gets in our heads, or we can use it to propel ourselves forwards and we can learn from things and move forward.

Stephen Horan: Thank you. Okay. Okay.

Andrew: The coach here to talk to us about this principal is Coach Stephen Horan from Iron Mind Endurance, based in North Carolina. Coach Stephen, welcome back to the podcast.

Stephen: Hey, thanks. Great to be back. So excited to be able to talk about this today.

Andrew: And I am Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, we'll get started with our warm-up questions. Settle in for our setback to comeback main conversation. And then we'll wind things down by asking Coach Stephen one of your questions, ⁓ audience question on the cooldown. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it. Coach Stephen, for our warm-up question today. I want to know what was the last professional sporting event that you attended in person?

Stephen: Yeah, so I'm not a super big professional before, uh, you know, sporting event fan. I'm a real big into college football, kind of things like that college track and field, uh, mostly because my kids have done track and field. They're followed, they follow gymnastics, but from a professional, um, my last thing was one of the professional football games here, uh, U S football in North Carolina with the Carolina Panthers now. It wasn't for the Carolina Panthers though. It was because the New England Patriots were playing them because my wife is originally from Massachusetts. Die hard Patriots fan, which my daughter has grown up as a Patriots fan. And so I was able to get us tickets to be able to go see the Patriots at the Panther Stadium here in North Carolina.

Andrew: ⁓ okay. Were you guys decked out in Pat's gear?

Stephen: I was not because I don't own Pat's gear and it was easier to go buy Pat's gear really easily in North Carolina. ⁓ I was decked out in just Panthers gear. My daughter, she had like all these different jerseys that she gets from the Patriots. And so she had one of those that she was wearing during that game.

Andrew: Ha ha. Yeah, cool. And I I said to you right before we got on the broadcast, I'm a big Miami Dolphin fan. So obviously one of the division rivals of the Patriots. So I have a very specific disdain for that organization. So the next time we're at the races together, I've met your wife at the races. I'll have to bring that one up with her. Yeah. well I obvious and Stephen, you already know this, but I am ⁓ asking this question selfishly because I get to brag about ⁓ my recent endeavor to

Stephen: Yeah. Ha!

Andrew: Literally yesterday, the time you and I are recording this conversation, yesterday, I went to my first ever World Cup football match. I I live in Dallas, Fort Worth. Dallas is host to 10 games in this current World Cup cycle. We're recording this in 2026. The World Cup is live. It's happening. It's going on. And my nephew is a huge soccer fan, he's 12 years old. And so I had my sister and my nephew flew in from Florida. We went to a to a game together. It was England versus Croatia, which was one of the best first round group stage matchups on paper. And it was an excellent four to two game. England won the game. It we had great seats. Shout out to my sister for finding us great seats. ⁓ I paid for my seat. It was expensive, but it was definitely worth it.

Stephen: Yeah.

Andrew: And you know, I've you know, I've been to NFL games, I've been to MLS soccer games, NHL NBA, like I've kind of seen it all. There was definitely a special energy at a World Cup match. There were Croatia fans singing all over the place. There was England fans drinking and chanting all over the place. They were hyped for their team. It was quite a spectacle that FIFA put on there in the Cowboys Stadium here in Dallas. So that's my answer to this question. it kind of sparked this question for today, just so I could I could brag about going to the World Cup. Elizabeth James, who I know you know very well, Stephen. You've been on some podcasts with her. ⁓ our listeners, if you know, ⁓ Pro Triathlete Elizabeth James, she was at that game as well. so she and I were texting at halftime, like, how cool is this that we're at the World Cup together? ⁓ we had a great time. ⁓ guys, we're gonna throw this question out to you, our audience. I wanna know ⁓ from everything you've done, ⁓ what was the most recent?

Stephen: Okay.

Andrew: Pro sporting event. And Stephen, we have to say in triathlon, a cool thing for us triathletes is you could say a triathlon, if you race an IronMan or a Clash Endurance event or a PTO SuperTri, there's a lot of triathlon racing where you get to watch the pros while you're racing. So that kind of counts, I guess. Kind of. Anyway, let us know in the comments if you're watching us on YouTube or Spotify especially. Just drop a comment below telling us what was the last pro sports game you

Stephen: That's true. ⁓ As per. Yes, that's true. you

Andrew: Got to watch in person, or let us know on the I am trying to Facebook group. I'll throw this question out there. Can't wait to see what you, our audience, has to say. Top of the main set here, Coach Stephen. And I have to say, as we're just bragging on recent experiences, you recently had the chance to race the inaugural Ironman Jacksonville. Brand new race on the North American schedule. I grew up just four hours south of Jacksonville, know that city pretty well. Coach Stephen, how was your race? What did you think of that new event?

Stephen: . Yes. Well, I would give the event probably a B minus and I would give myself a C so we can talk through both a little bit. know, but, but, mean, you know, Jacksonville downtown, had never spent a lot of time there. They're really trying to revitalize that whole area around the waterfront. So there was a lot of construction and I think

Andrew: Okay, all right. Ha ha. Real honest feedback here. Honest feedback. Yeah, not sugarcoating anything.

Stephen: They were maybe almost like a year early before I would have maybe done the race and had all that construction done. It would have just been nicer to lay out. Part of the other challenge is they had the swim start up at the Jaguar Stadium. We swam past the swim start to about another mile and a half down to the transition. And because of all the construction getting around and how the race was set up, the logistics were just a little more challenging than I personally would have liked. So it made a lot of walking. I ended up having to walk, it wasn't a straight one and a half miles, but like two miles back after, like I took the bus out to the transition and then walked two miles back with my bike after racing that evening. And so it's just like, okay, you can do something a little bit better there. And that's why it was a B.

Andrew: Okay.

Stephen: They're probably also going to have to change the bike course, at least that's the perception based on all the Facebook posts and all the social media, because the amount of traffic and the challenges they had that we had down on the bike course was just pretty impactful to the community. So I think they're going to have to revisit what does that look like. But then, you know, I had some challenges. We can talk about that. That was actually... You know, one of the things when I think about like setbacks, you know, that's what, how I think about it. I was pretty challenged on my fueling. I screwed up and did not grab my, all my gels at my personal needs bag at the, the bike. And because of that, I didn't have any of my gels, didn't get all the refueling done. And it kind of impacted me. I let it bother me during the race. I didn't kind of do a good reset. I let it bother me, I got behind and then it paid, you know, when I ended up getting onto the run, not middle, have all those, the likeage in stores.

Andrew: You know, and I like I like say great feedback on that race in Jacksonville. I mean, definitely hopefully they can they can get it a little nicer with construction done. And it's got sounds kind of cool. You get the start to swim by the stadium and it's kind of an underrated ⁓ Floridian city for sure. ⁓ it's a nice, nice town in northern Florida. But I like mentioning this, you know, you came on the show ⁓ I think it was September of 2025. And we did an episode where we talked about you had just finished your twentieth Iron Man. And we and we did twenty lessons from twenty Ironman. And you just walked us through one thing you learned from twenty different races. And so what was this number twenty one? Full distance Ironman?

Stephen: This ended up being number 22, full distance ironman. So I ended up having it. Yep. Yep.

Andrew: Okay. Okay. Yeah. So we're clock we're still clocking them down. You're still knocking them down, ⁓ which I love to hear. But with that experience, you're still sitting here, a a ⁓ certified triathlon coach working with athletes, 22 of these things under your own belt, and that's not even including shorter races. You've been in the sport for a few decades, and you're here saying, Yeah, I miscalculated some stuff. I had a few setbacks in this race that I had to navigate. Like there is no like I've learned everything there is to learn. I'm gonna nail every race from here on out. Like things can go wrong, whether it's your first or second sprint all the way to your 22nd Ironman. Like we like no one out there on course is immune to a setback, right? Like you don't win triathlon. You don't like, you know, like cross the finish line of and be anyway, you yeah, you get the point. So I like pointing that out now. Like whoever's listening to this, no matter where you are in your triathlon journey, like you'll keep having setbacks, like even if you think you know what you're doing. I think, Stephen, I've actually made more mistakes and had more like in training and in race setbacks as an experienced triathlete than when I was in a beginner. Cause like when you're a beginner, like you're like hyper focused on getting everything right. And like sometimes as a veteran you can go in the race day thinking like, Yeah, I know what I'm doing. Like this will be fine. And all of a sudden you know you show up to the race and you didn't charge a DI2 and it dies on the bike course. Anyway

Stephen: Exactly. Yeah. You

Andrew: so I like pointing that out. Like this conversation is for everybody. Like if you're a triathlete, you're active, you're out there training and racing, you're gonna have with regularity some setbacks. And I'm curious, just from your experience in the sport, Coach Stephen, what are kind of some of the more common ones that you see athletes experiencing in their training and racing?

Stephen: Good Yeah, I I kind of, when I think about kind of where people have setbacks, I break it into kind of three areas, right? I mean, the race day setback, most people are probably very common have, right? You have a mechanical issue, you're, you got to change your tube and you didn't bring enough tubes. You know, you have GI issues, very common for me. You know, you're missing your cutoff times. You didn't have a D, you you ended up having a DNF or. The weather was really crappy. mean, that's kind of the very most common. But then, you know, there's, I break them also down into kind of like the macro setbacks of like big training blocks, you know, injury issues for that. You know, a lot of times I have an athlete right now trying to get ready for like plastic. It has kind of a little bit of injury in his quad and like, you know, he, he's really trying to keep him focused on what we need to do. How do we respond? But.

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: You know, that's kind of probably the second most common. then really the daily disruptions, the micro setbacks that end up happening, right? I mean, our schedules, you know, hey, I didn't get enough sleep. I mean, those are kind of other areas that I try to look at and say, hey, how are we responding? And not just like, it's not just a DNF. It's not just like your race day. It's everything that you're doing. You have those little setbacks and it's what you do with those that make the biggest difference.

Andrew: Yeah, so you coach Stephen, you had a wonderful ⁓ post on Instagram ⁓ j just a few weeks ago that I just saw when I was scrolling one day and I was like, man, I'd I want to get Coach Stephen on the show to talk about this. and because 'cause you showed, like, hey, this is something I talk about with my athletes. This is something that I that I focus on in my own training and racing, turning a setback into a comeback. ⁓ and you had a wonderful post where you kind of shared a personal story from your own training and racing on where you kind of made a a cognitive decision that, hey, I'm not gonna let something that went wrong define the day. I I'm gonna shift my perspective a little bit. Can you just kind of share that that personal story of what led this to being such a core principle for you as a coach and an athlete?

Stephen: Yeah, I mean, that example that I shared was I had a wreck. I mean, it was sort of in my control, but it wasn't in my control while racing in Texas. I ended up having my very first DNF and that was impactful for me. I mean, I had been racing up to that point. I had already done Legacy with Kona and I was getting closer to my 20th Ironman and having my first DNF ever was pretty impactful. And so the accident, I was bleeding from the head. had the emergency group look at me and just say, hey, yeah, I really don't think you should finish. And I probably could have, but it was like, okay, was it worth it? And giving up on that was just pretty hard for me at that point. And I was also trying to get to... to Ironman World Championship. That year it was going to be in Nice and I'm like, hey, this is a good opportunity. Not so many people are going to Nice. Can I get a slot? And I was really trying to do that and I had a buddy get it and he's like, hey, you gotta keep going. Exactly, and this was like, so I had to get back on the horse pretty quickly and I had to kind of make that decision and it was hard.

Andrew: Come on.

Stephen: I mean, how do I continue forward knowing, and again, the fear of taking that next step was one of those areas. And yes, I mean, this isn't the perfect example for kind of the reviewing because like my accident occurred because of, you know, my bike, my front tire fell into the expansion gap and I kind of bike, but it kind of came back to say, okay, hey, how do I come back?

Andrew: Nah.

Stephen: from something like that. What do I change? How do I move forward? How do I take that next step to be able to continue? Well, I ended up going to Coeur d'Alene. I can't remember. I'd have to go back and look at the timing, but it was only like a couple of months later. So I kind of went from Texas, really focused on healing, getting back to where I actually could go and train, went to Coeur d'Alene, was able to get a slot and was able to go to Nice. And, you know, it was, it was hard. How do I get, you know, I was a little fearful getting back on the bike. mean, things like that.

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. And it's ⁓ you had a way of phrasing in that process, like shifting the perspective from I this was a failure. I failed here to okay, what can I learn from this to l like you just said, move forward. Right. And it would be so easy to, God, you spend so many hours training for an Iron Man. Like that's what that's my first thought. Like if it's me, spent like I don't like the hours. Coach Stephen. I that's why I don't do too many full distance ironmen. I like the half. I don't like the hours in the saddle you have to get, the hours in the running shoes you have to get to be ready to go for a full distance, right? And so if it's me, like you go down, you get an injury, like I don't want to keep doing those hours. Like, are you kidding me? Like, I man, that that would have been very tough to walk away from to make that mature decision. And for you to be able to to in the weeks after say, Okay, like yes on paper a DNF is a failure.

Stephen: you

Andrew: But it doesn't have to be, right? going back to your social media post, like you posted shifting the mindset from I failed to I learned. And there's so many things in my personal triathlon journey that I've learned the hard way as a triathlete. Like, hey Andrew, why don't you charge your electronic shifting before every race? Guess how I learned that one, Stephen. I

Stephen: Yeah. Because you screwed up and didn't charge it.

Andrew: I did a race where my electronic shifting died in the middle of the bike course. And I just had one gear to get myself home. And I and so that's just one example, right? Of like things that can go wrong on a race day and you learn from it and now you know. but it'd be so easy to just kick yourself, kick yourself, kick yourself and not walk away with the lesson and improve for the future, right? So as you're talking with your athletes, what conversations do you have when it comes to reframing those moments where you make a mistake or something goes south? in your training or racing from I failed to I learned.

Stephen: Yeah, I want to, I mean, I want to back up just a little bit because I do think there's maybe a little bit of influence that I think is important because, you know, I'm a former Marine, right? I kind of came back from there. And the one thing that I really liked about the Marine Corps and the military is after action reviews. I mean, sometimes we just do something and then we just move quickly forward. I think it is a good and a bad. So it's not just like, hey, what can I do to move forward? What can I go and do and learn? mean, if you did something really well, that also is very good learning, right? And how do you apply that as you move forward? Because I think that's what's important when you think about like, hey, how do I make that shift? You have to think about, you know, when I tell my athletes this is like, you got to take your ego away, right? Ego is the enemy of progress. If you think you've done it all right, then you're probably not going to continue to progress. If you blame it on something else, right, it's not going to, you're not going to go to that next level. So when you say that I failed, you know, yes, it can be, you know, it can kind of feel like it is a setback, but you got to remove that and say, okay, what did I do wrong? Right? How can I make some changes to be able to go do that and say, Hey, what can I learn from that? Like,

Andrew: Mm.

Stephen: You know, I'll just use what I was giving the example of Jacksonville, you know, okay, hey, what can I do to learn not to forget my jealous, right? When I go into personal needs, while I was rushing, I was trying to be too fast. I wasn't being methodical, you know, and it's just like, you know, what, can I do slow is smooth and smooth is fast, right? And like slow down a little bit, be more purposeful with the things that you're doing, or have a backup plan a little bit more clear for me to be able to

Andrew: Ha ha ha.

Stephen: make that change. You know, the other thing is realizing that you know that you have to, know, that setbacks are really only temporary, right? And can be that instructional piece and realizing that optimism, right, is a big piece that we have to have, right? And realizing that, okay, yes, you may not hit your goal, you may not hit the time, you may not be able to go do it, but realizing that if you can believe that I can go to that next level and learn from that. But the other part that I also try to tell athletes and as I'm kind of coaching them is like, don't let your successes mask your flaws also, right? ⁓ that, a lot of times, something may seem like it goes well. I hit a new PR. Well, was it the wind that was doing that? That gave you like a lot of tailwind? Hey, did you maybe not?

Andrew: Wow. Yeah, good one.

Stephen: and do a swim, you know? mean, are there other things that you wanna look at? But you have to realize that there's value in both good and the bad, if you wanna call it bad, that you can learn from. And that's where I think it's not that I failed or even that I did really well, but that there is something I can learn from all of those because you may be able to take something you did really well and apply that even further as you're moving forward.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, r really good one. ⁓ I I was thinking as you were talking, ⁓ just trying to I was trying to think of just the different moments in in my own racing career where I've had setbacks right in in the middle of a race or in a training block. And ⁓ I think the biggest ongoing setbacks for me are kind of what you mentioned. Like a lot of athletes deal with like injury, interrupting training, right? That that's a big one for training is like you can't do the training if you're not healthy to do the training. And I had to learn ⁓ it's literally in my physiogenomics. So for all my TriDotters out there, if you've never uploaded a genome file into TriDot to get your physiogenomics, ⁓ it's pretty cool to do. It shows me that in my gen at the genetic level, Coach Stephen, I'm an easily injured athlete. And sure enough, all my life in sports, from playing soccer as a kid to tennis as a junior to to triathlon now, like I'm an easily injured athlete. Like I've got to really listen to my body and

Stephen: Thank .

Andrew: When I start feeling something get tight, ⁓ Coach Matt Sommer, who I know you you've probably met by now, he comes on the podcast and he says, Listen to your body when it whispers so it doesn't have to roar. And early in my triathlon-ing, especially when I was like a 20-something, ⁓ I would kind of ignore some whispers, thinking like, that'll go away, that'll go away, that'll go away, and then all of a sudden you're shut down for a month, because your body starts roaring. And so that's something that was a setback that I I've

Stephen: and Exactly.

Andrew: and learn from. And now I kind of notice in my training, ⁓ hey, when I hear those whispers, I've got to listen. I've got to take some corrective exercises so that my body doesn't have to roar at me. That's something I've that's I've learned along the way, right? As part of my comeback ⁓ from previous setbacks. And I I think to ⁓ tangibly on race day, I had a race ⁓ Stephen, it was a local sprint. I I've told the this story on the podcast before, I don't know how long ago though, where

Stephen: . Yeah.

Andrew: It had rained the night before. ⁓ and it was in the Dallas Fort Worth area, and there was just debris all over the road from the night of rain the night before. And so people were flatting left and right on the bike course of this. I think it was like a 60-mile bike leg. And I flatted probably five, six miles in, changed my changed my tube, you know, got reset up, kept going, flatted again a couple miles later. ⁓ I didn't have another tube. So I just literally walked.

Stephen: Yeah. with you. Thank Yeah.

Andrew: until another cyclist came by, gave me a tube, I replaced it again, I got I finally got home. But I I wasn't super good at bike maintenance. I had ignored that for a long time. I'm not really like a do stuff with my hands kind of guy, like around the house or in my life. and so I hadn't really practiced like I knew just the basics of changing a tire. But Stephen go going back to like our topic for today, I it wasn't immediate.

Stephen: you

Andrew: That race was really frustrating for me because like I literally was like the last one in on the bike because of how long I had to walk. And anyway, I I'm rambling, but I weeks after that race, I was looking at it and I was saying, why did I flat again? And I realized it had to have been a pinch flat from just not properly inflating that second tube. And so guess what I do? I I spend some extra time practicing changing a tube, and I've never had a pinch flat since. And but I was able to

Stephen: Yeah. .

Andrew: Because I I let my mind go back to that problem and solve that problem, instead of just moving on and saying, well, that race was a one-off. Hopefully it never happens again. I never had that problem since. ⁓ so anyway, that's just one example of patting myself on the back of something I've learned from a setback on race day to not having it happen again. But you but because you're so intentional with your athletes as a coach, which is something I love about you, you have three kind of core. Exercises you walk your athletes through when it comes to bouncing back from a setback, turning it around, making it a comeback. And I just want to take some time and have you walk us through what those three things are. And so the very first one, you call this the post-workout microanalysis. What is this? How do we do it?

Stephen: Yeah, so this is, I mean, this comes from the after action review concept, right? really a mini math after action review that, you know, I try to get athletes to reflect. When I meet with an athlete, I ask them, hey, how the week goes, you know, things like that. But anytime that they're doing a session, you know, whether it's a big session, whether it's a small session, kind of review back over it, right? ⁓ And it's not just like looking at day, did I get a hundred if you're using TriDot, right? If you got a hundred for your TrainX score, but you know, okay, were there other things that you actually ended up doing? But also kind of going back, even if you did everything right, did you do the right things before? And trying to look at those. And so you gotta ask yourself is, I really do, and you've said this a couple of times, we said it in one of the other, like the intent of what the workout was. mean, you could actually cheat, try it out a little bit, right? You can actually pause your watch in the middle, right?

Andrew: Mm. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Stephen: do your stuff. And so, but, you know, really trying to be honest with yourself. And I think that becomes really important, right? So you're really trying to catch those micro deviations, right? Before they come up to those failures. Similar, like the example that you used, it's like going back and saying, Hey, why did something happen? I mean, I use the idea of five whys, right? Really understand why something is occurring, like getting to the root cause. and not just like superficially saying, I had a flat. But it's like, okay, why did I have a flat? ⁓ well, you know, then why? you know, or excuse me, you know, why did I happen to pinch flat? You know, what are those things that really were causing that and driving down to the actual root cause? So, you know, that becomes the biggest area that I've tried to get athletes to think through. It's like pause a little bit. You know, a lot of people want to journal. I think journaling is really good because you can do that immediately. You can do it in your app, right? You can actually type in a little bit of notes in your app, but because If you wait always to the very end, you kind of forget some of those. So I met just as an example, I just had an athlete do her very first sprint triathlon this weekend. She's preparing for 70.3 Jones Beach later this year. And immediately she raced on Saturday. I sent her kind of a list of things, kind of questions, and we met Monday, right? And we kind of walked through everything, spent an hour kind of going through. what was good, what was bad, you know, and I kind of use the good, bad, ugly type of concept, but what are those things that you can go do? And because you can't forget the good either. And that becomes the other part. If you're always looking at the negative, then it doesn't become fun. you know, what is the good things? Because, you know, there's a whole idea of like leveraging your strengths to become better. Well, that's if you're doing something good, how can you continue doing that?

Andrew: Okay. Yeah, great point. Yeah, yeah, I love that. So is that I mean just I'm sure there's plenty of ways to arrange like how you're analyzing how did that workout go, how did that race go? I think the good, bad, and ugly is ⁓ kind of a fun way to do it. ⁓ if you're so in a in an hour-long conversation like that, when you're walking an athlete through it, like how ⁓ do you kind of go category by category or like for a race, do you kind of look at it like swim, bike, run? Like how do you chunk it up to really like make sure you're thinking of all aspects of a race or a training cycle?

Stephen: Yeah. And I mean, one of the things I attempt to do, right. It's, not just a swim bike run. It's the day before. What do you prep? You know, I mean, it's like the morning of, you know, pre-race, you know, set up, but going through all of those portions of it. So I typically do it chronologically and say, Hey, how was it the night before? Well, I happened to know, because I was working with her was that, Hey, I ended up having to go and.

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: You know, she didn't get home until late that night because she went kind of registered, got home late. It was an hour and a half away because of traffic and like didn't get home until nine 30. So sleep wasn't really good, right? So kind of use that as a starting point saying, Hey, how well did it? And it was her first race. So she didn't sleep the night before, you know? And so like all of those different things, but I do chronologically all the way through kind of challenging. And, know, we always go to the bad first or the ugly first. You know, and yes, there were challenges and, know, but now I say, okay, why did that happen? Well, you know, what could I do differently? And then coming down at the very end, I bring it down to two to three things most, right? Don't take everything, but just reflect through it. So people are thinking through and say, Hey, these are the three things I want to go do differently to impact my next race.

Andrew: Yeah, love that. I just pointing out like it's important to examine pre-race and post-race as well, right? Not something I think everybody would think about, but I've had some races go askew before the race even starts, right? I had one where ⁓ I left my bag. I had my bike in the car, but I left my transition bag, like with my shoes, with my everything else, helmet right by the front door of the house. Got to the race site, racked my bike. my gosh, where is my stuff? Had in it was a local race. I was driving four times the speed limit all the way home at five o'clock in the morning to get my bet. Anyway, ⁓ so why did that happen? How did I forget that on my 20th, 30th race of my triathlon career? Had to examine that. ⁓ we had another one where ⁓ I was racing. I live pretty close to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and I had a race in Rockwall, Texas. If anybody looks at the map. Or lives in Dallas and knows Rockwell's about an hour away. And so my wife and I just stayed at a hotel closer to the race site, even though it was a local race. ⁓ I just hadn't looked at what the parking situation was gonna be. And so I ended up pretty stressed out on race morning trying to figure out where in this complex we were supposed to park, ended up parking probably farther away than I should have, had to walk quite a ways, and ⁓ and just by not being prepared for the logistics of the race, kind of had a a stressful race morning. So Yeah, Ilike that notion of the you can have a setback ⁓ but before the race even starts and looking back at that and examining why that can happen. So ⁓ going back to ⁓ Stephen that the micro analysis from like a workout. What I really love about this is for our trying out athletes, you know, you get that training score. So you have instant feedback on how well you did the workout, right? If you get 100, you probably did it really, really

Stephen: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: Really well. ⁓ actually, per Jeff Booher, our CEO, a 60 or better is a good score. If you score 60 or better TrainX on a workout, that is a good score. You did the workout well. Sure, if it's in the 60s, 70s, there's room for improvement, but I think people see a 60-70, think that's a C or a D, and they think they failed. No, no, no, no. 60 or better means you did the workout pretty well. ⁓ but if it's 60s, 70s or lower, that okay, why is it a 60, 70 or lower?

Stephen: Okay. If. .

Andrew: And I think a l not enough people ask themselves that question. And I kind of found early in my tri-dot journey, I'm getting 60s, 70s, and I'm going, why am I getting 60s or 70s? And often it wasn't that something went wrong in that workout. It was because it when I looked at my week, I had gone a little too hard a couple days prior. And so I didn't have the juice in the tank. I didn't have the gas in the legs.

Stephen: Okay.

Andrew: to nail all my intervals in today's workout. And on the surface, like I'm scratching my head, what was wrong with today? Why did why wasn't I feeling it? And actually the answer was days prior, right? So I love that notion of take a look. You know, ask yourself the question, okay, why didn't I nail it today? Why was that score not higher? ⁓ and your training's gonna get better and better over time because of it. ⁓ so that's the post workout analysis. The next habit you walk through with your athletes to help them Bounce back from setbacks. You call this the daily 1% improvement.

Stephen: you

Andrew: What is this? Talk to us about it.

Stephen: Yeah. mean, you know, so realize, you know, it's called the law of incremental gains or aggregating marginal gains, right? That's easily 1 % improvement, the impact that ends up having, like the idea of compounding effect of 1 % of 1%, right? I mean, a lot of people want to do this massive shift. And what I attempt to try to help my athletes understand, it's not the big shifts that are going to make the difference. because sometimes those are even harder to be able to go do, but really kind of saying, hey, what are those small things that I can go and change easily? Right? And it's kind of like daily, when you're trying to change a daily habit, you can't just go and change everything, right? But making that small improvement makes it. But what is the secret a little bit behind it is that Really, when you end up focusing on things immediately controllable in front of you, that 1%, right, is actually going to take a lot more focus to be able to go do it. you know, if you think about, like, you know, it's kind of like if you're saying, hey, I got to go do this 1%. Well, let's just say the 1 % is, is, hey, I want to do better with kind of post-exercise rolling out, right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: you know, rolling out calves for like 10 minutes, right? And instead of, you know, being able to go do that, but like focusing to be able to make that happen is going to really kind of get you more focused overall. So again, that's just a small trick that getting to the 1 % focus and really determining those minor things. It's no different. It's not like saying, Hey, I'm to bed early by an It's like, hey, if I can go get 30 minutes more, what does that impact? Can I roll out more? Can I go do that? But realizing that those make very big improvements for the things that you're doing. So don't always think big. And that's really what that idea is, is don't think that you got to make these massive changes. Just do the small incremental ones because they're going to continue to pay off as you move forward.

Andrew: What what's so good here, ⁓ Stephen, is I know I say this all the time, like my I I I right now am not the strongest I've been in my triathlon journey, right? Which is an interesting notion. Like it's interesting rolling up to a race and thinking like, man, I wish I had the fitness I had four years ago. I don't. I gotta do what I can do with the fitness I have right now, right? And I, you know, I'm a dad now. you know, I spent a lot of time with my kiddo and ⁓ and some you know life just looks a little different for me right now than it did at my peak triathlon fitness. But anyway, so when I was the fittest in triathlon I've ever been, it it wasn't because I had unlocked some revolutionary workout or pattern or strategy in my training or race day. It was it was just a season where things were clicking. I was staying healthy. I was doing my TriDot training very well to the T day by day, right? ⁓ not overreaching. ⁓ and I was importantly, I was doing my run drills on days it said to do run drills. I was doing my bike activation exercises on days that gave me bike active activation exercises. I was really focusing on my swim form and not just wrestling the water trying to hit a certain time on the clock. Like it was a season where I was spending some extra time on those little 1% things like you're mentioning. Right. ⁓ I I think a big one for me right now, like looking at where I'm at in my triathlon journey right now, ⁓ I I I'm really fighting to have like stretching strength mobility in like make it into my weekly routine ⁓ more than than often than not. And

Stephen: you Okay.

Andrew: If I look at on the surface and I say, man, like I'm not doing this enough, I need to do more of this, like it's intimidating to say, okay, how can I get X number of like stretching sessions in per week? But Dr. BJ Leeper on our show all the time is like, if you can, if you can get 10 minutes a day, like I in my head think like I need to set aside 30 minutes, 60 minutes to get a good strength session in. I can't do that most days. But if I can, if I can get my pain cave upstairs and do a couple things, you know, squats, push-ups, a couple stretches for 10 minutes.

Stephen: Yes. ⁓

Andrew: Doing that seven days in a week, that's the one percent, man. That that's the little bit that's gonna make a huge difference, even though I don't feel like it's going to. So love this principle. ⁓ our pastor, Stephen, our pastor puts it in football terms. He's like, We don't have to throw a Hail Mary and score a touchdown every play. Like sometimes you just gotta gain one, two yards at a time. Like, right? Like, ⁓ so and one I have to give a shout out here ⁓ to Chris Nikic.

Stephen: Okay. You Okay.

Andrew: the first the the first athlete with Down syndrome to finish an Iron Man. ⁓ this is his jam. This is his mantra. I mean, they hit him and his family and his crew, they roll on the race day with one percent better shirts. That's the shirt he wears on race day. ⁓ and that's his mantra is to just be one percent better every single day. So love that you're reinforcing this with your athletes. ⁓ the final habit, the third habit that you use in working towards a comeback mindset. Is the reset protocol. Tell us about what you tell your athletes ⁓ when it comes to the reset protocol.

Stephen: . Yeah, I mean, you got to give time and you got to be, you know, give yourself, you know, kind of this ability to be able to kind of say, Hey, I am going to reset. It's not like you kind of just put all the past and just say, it's behind you. Right. I mean, this idea of wiping the slate clean, right. Is what you want to get to, but it just doesn't happen overnight. So, you know, I kind of say, Hey, give yourself 48 hours. I mean, go more and go do whatever. Right. I mean, you know, things are going to happen, but you gotta make sure that you're giving yourself that time a little bit to be able to kind of move forward. So kind of give, I use that 48 hour rule and say, hey, give yourself 48 hours, go through, kind of spend that, you know, more over that race, you know, but then close that window, right? And that's kind of wiping that slate, close that window and now just make that step to say, I'm going to move forward. Okay, so. Now, after that 48 hours, it's about kind of saying, hey, how am I going to execute? And this is where I would say, this is where you should go back to that after action and where all these things are tying back together and say, okay, what are those 1 % things that now I can go and implement? How do I kind of take that next step forward? Right? I mean, I truly try to get people to realize that it's progress over perfection, right? Not trying to make it perfect, taking that and making a little bit of progress. as you're doing it. And again, just using the example of me, like, Hey, I was fearful of getting back on the road. Right. And I'm like, Hey, I'm not going to try to ride five hours that next weekend because I didn't do the whole race. You know, I mean, really, you know, and, know, but kind of resetting a little bit and say, okay, Hey, how do I approach it? And realizing it may take a little bit of time, but you gotta, you know, you gotta really just kind of be honest with yourself.

Andrew: Yeah. ⁓

Stephen: and say, hey, this is okay, and trying to make progress as you're moving forward. But, you know, and also kind of, you know, make sure, you know, if you're working with others, you know, how do you, meaning if you're working like with your family or whatever, but like be honest with them, talk it through with them, because this not sometimes it impacts your family or your others around you that you also have to be cautious with, and just saying, hey, how do I actually put that back? How do I kind of remove that of kind of what's happened? ⁓ I mean, again, we wanted to learn from history, right? I mean, history is our greatest teacher. So learn from it. And I'm not saying just close the door. That's why I truly believe in that after action, record it. But really take that opportunity after that 48 hours of mourning, learn from all of that, and then take that progress and start moving forward using that 1%.

Andrew: Yeah, w when I first started in triathlon, ⁓ I wasn't it took me a couple of years to find TriDot. I I didn't know TriDot existed or that it was a thing. I was just showing up to the races and in my week I would get off work and some days go for a run, some days go for a bike, some days go for a swim. I was just kind of doing what I felt like I needed to do each day. And what I did after every single race was I had a Google Sheet. So that's basically an Excel spreadsheet on Google Sheets.

Stephen: this.

Andrew: And I would I would log what the race was. I had it color-coded by like what the distances were, sprint Olympic half full. ⁓ I would I would jot down what all my splits were ⁓ in in different columns. And then I had a couple different sections where I could put in notes on like how certain parts of the race went. And it was I I didn't start this, I think I started this in like year number two. ⁓ and I kind of backfilled my history. And so it kind of became like in my first four or five years in the sport, it became like a hot sheet where I could pull it and boom, there's all my splits, and I could see how my splits were progressing from year to year. I could see in my notes, like, okay, what happened in that race again? That that I know that I know I did something wrong. And what was the note that I wanted to remember for next time? ⁓ and it was a very informal way of not as quite as intentional as you're talking about, but it was my way of just trying to remember what happened at the races. Because you don't realize it in year one or two, but you get three years, four years, five years, twelve years in the year journey and

Stephen: Okay.

Andrew: You can kind of look at yeah, I did I did 70 point three Galveston one time. How did that go again? What were my splits? I don't even remember. I just know I finished it. ⁓ and you kinda you kind of forget, right? All the bike rides can start to meld together and the racing stories can kind of mesh together unless you unless you write it down and put it to memory and give yourself reminders of what you wanted to fix next time. So I really like that you're encouraging us to do this. ⁓

Stephen: Ha! .

Andrew: How does this look between you and your athletes? Because you've given us like the overarching theme of hey, if you have a setback in your training, if you have a setback at the races, don't leave it there. Like let's turn it into a comeback. Here's how. Here's these three steps, these three principles that we're going to apply to turn it into a comeback and not leave it as a setback. So when you're talking with your athletes and something has gone askew.

Stephen: Okay. .

Andrew: Do you walk them purposely through all three of these steps? Do you kind of cherry pick based on what their experience was? What does it look like between you and an athlete to kind of go through this process that we just talked about?

Stephen: Yeah, I mean, and I use the example that I had of the athlete, you know, we immediately had an after action review kind of on our Monday right after a race, right? And again, I do that for races, you know, and say, Hey, what can I do? And again, it's not just the comeback, but it's also, Hey, what did I learn? And taking every experience, every opera, you know, or every event and say, Hey, what can I learn? I really try to make it collaborative, right? I mean, you again, having fun with it, but I challenge the athlete that they have to own it, right? They have to have that extreme ownership of that idea, right? And, you know, it's not like, Hey, what was the strategy? mean, I tried to guide them to creating a strategy upfront, but I want them to kind of restate what was their strategy going into the race. mean, we have RaceX.

Andrew: okay.

Stephen: You know, yes, we try to plan on our times, but, and, know, we had Bobby McGee on, right? That had this planning for races, right? And I actually, I personally now leverage that pre-races with athletes and say, Hey, you know, go and say that. What is my outcome goals that I have, right? What are the, the, the overall goals? Again, not just trying to say my time goals, but like,

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen: What are my outcome goals? How am I supposed to feel? What are the things that I accomplished? All of my nutrition. Did I accomplish all these other things that were there? But we try to walk through that first, right? We go through kind of one by one, pulling those together, walking through sequentially through that whole race to do that. Then at the very end, I try to come back with, okay, what are three things now that we want to go implement? And that really kind of comes down to that. you know, 1%, you know, what are those things that we think are going to make the biggest impact? You know, I, it's maybe not just always 1%, right? Sometimes it's an 80, like, hey, out of all the things that you have, what are the biggest things that can impact 80 % of your future performance to be able to go do that? And then trying to apply all of those different things, right? So really trying to make sure that we're putting those plans in place and to be able to go do that. But You know, sometimes it does take that reset protocol, right? And saying, Hey, what is it? And sometimes they need to talk through it. Right. I mean, you're always going to be upset when you don't hit your goals. Right. I mean, that's just us as people, right? I mean, we're going to be upset and you know, we need to let that emotions kind of come out and let that happen. But I'm going to challenge them. Hey, you only have that 48 hours to be able to go do that and try to bring them back. and say, what does that occur? Now, does it always happen in 48? No, right? But you gotta, I gotta help walk through those to be able to kind of say, hey, what do, what does that overall impact and why, what do we need to change? How do we kind of move forward and make progress on that?

Andrew: Sure. Yeah. And so I think we've hit really well. And I know you and I both have our run sheet with the questions I am prepared to ask you today in front of us. And I think we've hit the last question really well. So I'm going to throw a different last question at you before we go to the cooldown. You mentioned when you're reviewing races with your athletes. Obviously a lot of the conversation today has been around taking the bad, taking the setbacks in our training and racing. Things we've identified as a setback and how to rebound from them, how to come back from them. ⁓ But part of that analysis in both training and racing, you mentioned that we need to look at the good. And we need to acknowledge what went right. What did I do well? Leave us with just a few examples, either from your own race journey or from working with athletes. What are some examples of things you've had athletes put down as I did this really well today? And what difference did it make for them to identify that?

Stephen: So, I mean, I have to challenge myself at this one, but one of the things I always try to tell my athletes is about having fun. We get really locked into our numbers, but most of us don't get paid to do this, right? And so, yes, we're very, very competitive, but it's about having fun. I've found a couple of times with my athletes that when they have had fun, they've had overall better races, right? And so... That's one of those that, you know, that, even like just one that was preparing for another race in the future. I'm like, remember the having fun part, right? And like what you said, like, this was the most fun thing I did. This is the things that I did to make it fun. You know, having my family there. And I said, how do you apply that? That's the good. How do you now apply that for that future race that's coming up? And that's again, those, that was just one that's just kind of.

Andrew: Yeah.

Stephen: specifically happened. The same thing is sometimes I personally get so stuck into, got hit this time goal. I got to be able to in this position, you know, and I forget that. And, you know, I think those are things, but the other things is like going back and I still go back to, you know, the whole preparation and trying to reflect. And that's what I try to walk athletes through also. It's like, okay, did I do, how do I perform? And again, it's not just the overall. Okay, did I hit all my workouts? Did I do all these other things? There's so much behind doing an Ironman or a 70.3 or even just a regular sprint triathlon that is more than just the numbers. And I try to walk all my athletes through those.

Andrew: Moving on to today's cooldown, where Coach Stephen will answer a question from our audience. This one comes from Bill from California. He says, I started tried out earlier in the year and I'm really enjoying the run workouts. My only problem is I do most of my running on paths and sidewalks around town. The terrain is not super hilly, but it's also rarely flat. I usually am going slightly uphill or slightly downhill all throughout my runs. How can I best hold my paces on harder intervals? When the terrain fluctuates so much. Coach Stephen.

Stephen: Okay, so realize if you're on TriDot since you are, ⁓ it's measuring great adjusted pace. So managing and holding a specific pace on your Garmin is not really what TriDot is measuring off of. Realize that TriDot's measuring stress, right? And it doesn't matter about the level, you know, if it's flat, if it, you know, or, you know, or if it's, you know, cooler, it's all about the stress. level that it's actually managing. So number one, try to change your garment if you have a garment to put great adjusted pace so you can kind of manage that as your metric. If you don't have a garment, know, again, trying to monitor and trying to determine that perceived exertion level, that becomes something that really is an art, but you need to start training yourself to do it. I mean, I would say, I I'd run a lot on sidewalks also. Be careful, right, if you're doing it on the floor, running on sidewalks is not safe sometimes. And then the other thing is I would recommend, and I know it's not as easy, but if you're doing some of these workouts, there's probably a track around the area. So go find a track. Some people love doing on tracks. think Andrew, you're one of them. Like, hey, I love to go run on tracks to be able to get through that. That's really a very good safe area. And then start learning that exertion.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. I do. Guilty.

Stephen: and start learning what does that end up meaning in relationship to your pace.

Andrew: Yeah, no, very, very well said. And I liked this question a lot. And I plucked it ⁓ when I saw it because I related to it. ⁓ I we used to live in a suburb of Dallas Fort Worth that there were some tracks near us, and the public was allowed on these, you know, middle school, high school tracks to train in the evenings. And so I did a lot of track workouts, and then we moved to a different suburb that has all the school facilities shut down. And so where I live now, I would have to drive 20 minutes to a track, and sometimes I make that happen. Sometimes I can't fit that drive into my day. And so I I'm doing, like Bill, more running with some undeleting terrain. And exactly like you said, I I started with gap. I I actually changed on my Garmin watch for it to show me my gap ⁓ great adjusted pace instead of pure pace. And that was helpful. It was a little bit delayed, like when I hit an uphill, it took it a couple seconds to realize it was an uphill. ⁓ so it was better but not perfect. And then honestly, buying a stride power meter changed everything. ⁓ if you have the budget for a stride power meter or a similar device, ⁓ it's just an instantaneous number that helps. and we have integration with stride with stride outs. You can see you can do your run workouts by power instead of pace. so that really, that really helped me. I didn't need it when I trained on a track a lot and it was flat, but when I went to terrain bill like you're talking about, that that was super helpful. I will say this, Stephen, I don't know if you've had this experience. ⁓ my

Stephen: Yes.

Andrew: My ⁓ zone five, zone like map shuttle days and interval days where I'm in like zone five. I I'm into five minute miles, you know, four forty five like pace for those map shuttles. Like if I'm not on a track, if I'm having to do one of those like around town, I cannot get my grade adjusted pace or my power number on my stride high enough on a downhill. It's easy on an uphill.

Stephen: stuff. Okay.

Andrew: Because you got that uphill helping you work harder. But I just I just can't. And so if I have a five minute interval at zone five intensity, it's five minute miles or or X power number, and I'm bombing downhill with all I've got on a sidewalk. If I can't hit the number safely, I can't hit the number safely. And I'm gonna do my best. But like Coach Stephen just said, you gotta come home safely. And so maybe you just don't get a hundred on that on that training score. Maybe you get an eighty two because you did the best you could.

Stephen: Okay. Okay.

Andrew: without endangering your ankles on a sidewalk. ⁓ just depending. But ⁓ well covered by Coach Stephen there. Totally agree with everything that he said. ⁓ you know do the best you can and ⁓ yeah don't be scared of the track. I freaking love the track. Do you do you use the track, Stephen?

Stephen: I do use the track. does get boring, know, but I do use the track. Mav Shuttles are always on the I do travel.

Andrew: found my limit ⁓ my limit on a track is two hours. If a run is over two hours, I gotta take it to the paths because like mine you'll your joints will feel it the next day that you just turn the same circle over and over and over again. Anyway, Bill, hope that helps you out. Happy training everyone.