Episode 280: Purple Patch Case Study Series - #4 - Vijay (Performance in Life)
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This week on the Purple Patch Podcast, we continue our Purple Patch Performance Case Studies series. In this series, we delve into real-life examples and the experiences of real athletes to provide practical insights about performance.
In this episode, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon looks beyond athletics and sports and outlines a path to sustained high performance in work and life. Through the case study of Purple Patch athlete Vijay, Matt highlights the results of adopting an athletic mindset and strategies for improving health and how one shows up in work and life.
In our case studies, athletes have used the Purple Patch Pillars of performance to refocus their training, reframe their mindsets, and improve their race performances. However, what if you're like Vijay, having no interest in being a competitive athlete or struggling to balance work, health, and family?
You don't need to become a health nut or fitness freak to perform better at work and improve your healthspan. Instead, Matt lays out small, simple steps to achieving emotional and physiological performance results to help you thrive rather than survive.
With Vijay's story, we aim to inspire and motivate those struggling to adopt performance habits or integrate sports successfully into their daily lives.
Relevant to the discussion is Matt’s recently published white paper on Sustained High Performance. In it, Matt combines his two decades of coaching observations with current empirical research and direct insights from high-performing C-Suite executives. He lays out a roadmap to amplify performance at the highest levels of business leadership. Click here to download your free copy and to access Matt's extensive experience in coaching individuals to the highest level of performance in world-class sports, executive performance, and corporate leadership.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 06:31 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
06:38 - 09:42 - Matt's News-ings
09:49 - 48:50 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 279: Purple Patch Case Study Series - #3 - Chris Hughes
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Full Transcript
SPEAKERS
Matt Dixon
Matt Dixon 00:00
I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:24
Folks, welcome to the wilderness of hope, and desperation. That's how I view a performance journey that lacks a broad perspective on the elements that promote a platform of health, as well as a lack of practices to establish the correct mindset, and appropriate effectiveness of training within the context of a very busy life under high demands that we label a time-starved life. Well, this month is a month of case studies. We discuss pro athletes, we discuss individually coached athletes, and we discuss participants on our Tri-Squad. And we're also going to even dig into some cautionary tales later in the month. But those that succeed, don't rely on luck, don't rely on hope. They have a little bit of strategy. They are consistent. They are consistent in keeping things really simple and actionable. And they focus on the right habits for them, so that they can chase a personal recipe that is less around trying to create big moments, and instead more about integration into life, all of which are life that is under high demands from various aspects of their life. When folks get this concept right, and they get it dialed in, they experience really, really big moments at their races and events and the moments that really matter. But more importantly, they enjoy the journey and they experience sustained improved performance across all arenas in life. But we like to measure these improvements. And to help with that, we adopt InsideTracker. By assessing your biometrics and looking at your health parameters, some stress hormones, macro and micronutrients that can impact your cognitive function and energy, we can then tailor a strategic plan to improve each personal profile, all based on the expert recommendations from InsideTracker team. This process drives ultimately to simplicity, to actionable focus, and guess what we can then measure it and see results. And we can course correct if things are not going the way that we improve and it's a big amplifier of your performance journey. Well, you don't need to be a Purple Patch athlete to get involved. You can adopt it into your program as well. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch that's insidetracker.com/purplepatch and include the code Purple Patch pro 20, that's Purple Patch Pro two zero, and you get 20% off everything in the store. All right, that's enough of that. Let's get on. It's a good one today. We've got a great case study - a discussion with Purple Patch Tri-Squad member Chris Hughes. Enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 03:10
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. As ever, your host, Matt Dixon. And folks today we kick on. Case studies are the theme of August, and that is good. And today we are joined by Chris Hughes. You know what Chris is a story of athlete evolution. In fact, in 2019, Chris almost quit the sport after a decade of frustrations, but today we investigate the key that was the absolute focal point of unlocking his performance potential. As we speak, Chris is on a roll with a massively impressive streak of individual results across local races and broader, bigger Ironman events. And as I mentioned in 2019, he was on his way out. He was frustrated year after year, season after season of frustration, injury, and setbacks. Absolutely no performance progression, and certainly an approach to a sport that didn't integrate into aspects of life. He wasn't fit and fresh. He was fatigued, underperforming, and injured, and there are so many athletes that are walking around in this fog of frustration. But around that point, he adopted a brand new mindset and an approach that leaned into a radically evolved approach for him. It broadened his perspective by adopting the pillars of performance -- endurance, strength, nutrition, and recovery. He stopped just chasing the total accumulation of hours and instead started chasing feel-good sessions and prioritizing the key workouts. He leaned heavily into education and the coaching moments that the program provided opportunities for and despite training almost exclusively alone, he immersed himself in the online community. And the support and accountability that comes along with that. He's not coached individually at Purple Patch. He's simply a member of the Purple Patch tri-squad. And this is a story and a lesson in effectiveness, bravery, and great personal performance progression. He's also got some wonderful insights into a really positive perspective on the role of sport, and what success truly looks like. So who is Chris? Well, he's a husband, a father of two, and very, very busy. He's the epitome of time-starved. he's a data analyst and consultant for the fire and EMS services. And interestingly, he had almost no history in sports whatsoever, no team sports, no individual sports, and he happened to stumble across triathlon. And it's been about a decade in the making. But the first eight or nine years, as I mentioned, were full of frustration. And it is now that we find him on the podium, of Oregon 70.3, winning the local race that he couldn't even dare to dream to do so. Now, I think when you listen to his stories, today, you're going to draw a lot out of the performance lessons. You're going to be able to apply some of the insights that Chris provides into your performance journey, whether or not you're a Purple Patch athlete, so I'm looking forward to it. But first, we're going to do a little bit of business, Barry, it's time for Matt's News-ings.
Matt Dixon 06:38
Yes, folks, Matt's News-ings, and once again, it is the final call, I need your help, you need to get involved, we have a brand new survey. And it's a survey of you, the audience. Now what we're hoping for is some insights from you, and some feedback so that we can really understand what you're looking for. What are you looking for, for education? What are you looking for, for programming? How can we actually build up the services and the programming as well as the education on the show for you to ensure that it's truly effective, whether or not you become a Purple Patch athlete? And we try and keep this show, as limited as we can on the promotions, we try to not bundle it with a whole bunch of advertising. And instead, we try and deliver free, insightful, invaluable education to help you on your performance journey. And so this is me just asking for one little thing back. The link is PurplePatchFitness.com/survey, we'll add it to the show notes, PurplePatchFitness.com, so our regular URL slash survey. Very, very simple. It will take you under five minutes, but it's your opportunity to tell us what you need and want and some of your perspectives. And that is going to be helpful for us. And we will take action, one of our main sayings at Purple Patch, evolve or die. We're always seeking to grow, we're always seeking to improve. But by asking you, we're actually going to hear it from the proverbial horse's mouth. I didn't just call you a horse. It's really, really thankful or I would be really thankful if you can just take a couple of moments are really appreciate it. And Barry will be good to go. And finally, just before we get going, as I mentioned last week, we have a huge q4 ahead of us. We are going to completely reimagine our programming for that last part of the year, it's going to be steeped heavily in technique and education, we are going to upskill you and our primary focus is not going to be about training really hard and dumping sport into life. Instead, it's going to be about developing the athlete. We are going to have bike school, swim school, and run school, a focus on strength, but more importantly, we're going to magnify and amplify our community and the opportunity for you to interact directly with myself and the rest of the Purple Patch team. It's going to be a lot of fun. As you're going to hear today, as Chris mentions, his experience as a member of the Tri-Squad has been better and more impactful than any of his one-to-one coaching relationships. And so if you are interested in Tri-Squad or a one-to-one coaching relationship with us, which we take very, very seriously, feel free to reach out for a complimentary call. Info@PurplePatchFitness.com, we'll have a good conversation and see whether we're fit. All right with that, feel free to reach out but let's get on with the show. It is Barry, time for Chris Hughes. It's a great one. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 09:49
All right guys. It is the meat and potatoes. And we have one of the long fellas with us. Yes. Very recently at the Napa camp, we had three guys that were there, three athletes, all six foot seven. And so we're very lucky to have one of the Chris's that are up there. Purple Patch pro squad member Chris Hughes. Join us -- joining us. Thanks so much, welcome, Chris.
Chris Hughes 10:14
Thanks for having me. It's an honor, Thank you.
Matt Dixon 10:15
Good stuff. Well, um, we're going to talk about your journey. You've had a cracking season so far. But we're doing this as a series on our August month of case studies, as we're calling it. Some insights and lessons that the listeners, the viewers can, can hopefully draw and apply to some of their journeys. And so I always find that it's helpful with a little bit of grounding first. And I really like to understand how people got to the sport and their backgrounds. So why don't you just give us a couple of minutes of you growing up, where you’re based now, family, what you do in life, give us a little bit of grounding on that side of stuff?
Chris Hughes 10:55
Well, I'm an analyst for the fire and EMS industry, which is a kind of a nebulous field. Basically, I do data and deployment for fire and EMS industries to kind of help them figure out what to do better. So it's pretty nerdy stuff. It's not too exciting, though all the -- with all the current buzzwords around, machine learning, and AI, I can make myself sound much more exciting than it probably really is. I live in Bellingham, Washington with my wife and two kids. I've lived here since I moved up here to go to college and get my degree in computer science in 1999. But going way back, I was born in Oregon. My parents separated when I was a baby and I spent most of my life on the Kitsap peninsula with my mom and my sister, and I spent the summers with my dad in Bend kind of hiking around as he worked on his geology degree. So that was sort of my first taste in endurance. He would, would drag his 10-year-old son to all the crazy hikes and I hated it. I hated every minute of it. And he Yeah, he, unfortunately, passed away when I was 19. But it's, um, I went back since then, and did some of the rides up the Cascades and ran the trail that I have a distinct memory of just not thinking getting the end of this 10-mile trail and thinking, well, there has to be a helicopter out of here. There's no way he's making us turn around and hike out. But it was - it was kind of a kind of a trip.
Matt Dixon 12:29
So you weren't much of a sportsman growing up as you were. What -- did you play other sports? Do you play any ball sports or anything like that? I bet everyone asks you if you play basketball, but that you play any sports growing up?
Chris Hughes 12:42
No, none. Absolutely none. To my father's despair, who was quite athletic himself, I remember him swimming and running and biking, but I played none. I would have just rather been inside tinkering on the computer. He -- it drove him absolutely nuts because he would, like he would coach a T-ball team one time and I just had zero interest. I don't think I ever played any ball sports or I was ever on any teams. So -- I just had zero interest. Yeah.
Matt Dixon 13:16
Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating. So how did you first find triathlon? When was that?
Chris Hughes 13:21
It would have been so -- so the long story of this is in 2008, I decided I wanted to do something so I decided to learn to snowboard. And about five or six sessions in, in the most boring crash ever, I tore my ACL. And anyone who's had their ACL torn and the repair is about nine months wait, and you can't really do anything. But that was okay because I didn't care anyway, I didn't do anything. After about a year, I went back to the doctor and he looked at me he's like, you've put on a lot of weight, and you should probably do something to rehab your knee. And he was adamant that running was bad, so he told me to go to the pool. So at 29 I went to the pool and taught myself how to swim. Showed up in board shorts, no goggles, no swim cap, and just started flopping around. And then that was going pretty well so I got a mountain bike and started biking to the pool. And one day someone made a joke that hey, you're, you know, you're gonna become a triathlete. And I had no idea what a triathlon even was. And so with some Googling, I found that there was a local race in three months and of course, I stumbled across all the Ironman videos with the dramatic music and you know, Craig Alexander and Chris McCormack and those guys running around, and I was just obsessed. And so I did my first race and yeah, I was hooked after that. I just started registering for every Olympic I could find. No no concept of training or what anything was, I just, I was hooked, and then I lost a bunch of weight. I was -- I lost about 50 pounds and yeah, so then it wasn't long before I started plotting my path to 70.3 and 140.6 and...
Matt Dixon 15:04
Off you go. While this is, you know, under the banner of case studies, we sort of go through a profile, fascinating story by the way on your on how you got into sport. it's not the normal route, so that's tremendously interesting. But then we'd like to go through the sort of challenge as it were like the area -- and I think that it's safe to say that your challenge was life prior to Purple Patch, you're left to your own devices in many ways. What - why don't you just give us a little synopsis of your, your racing, your approach, maybe some of the challenges that occurred before, before Purple Patch before we sort of went went into a little bit of an evolved approach?
Chris Hughes 15:51
Well, you know, when I first started doing that triathlon, it was the -- I'm gonna mention a couple of times The Padden Triathlon because it's literally right outside my window. My plan was, I just did the race every day, it was like, that's what I did. I just got off work, I didn't have kids, and there were no time constraints, I just went and swam the lake and just rode the route and did the run. But after a while, I started having this approach that I called the perpetual motion machine where more beget more, and if some training was good, and more training was better, and enough was never enough. And even when I had coaches, they're just there wasn't really a balance, it was just sort of more and more, or you would call them pillars, but there just wasn't the individual pieces kind of holding things together. And I just did more and more and more. And, you know, I was by no means a slow athlete. You know, there are certainly people faster certainly people slower, but I wasn't getting a good return on investment. I was just coming off some injury or whatever it might be as, especially as I started to try doing longer races. And I was perpetually stuck in this pattern where, you know, in the fall, I would decide I'm gonna get super fit, right? Here's how it's gonna go. I'm going to -- this is my chance and I'm going to work really hard. And almost every year by March, I was injured, right? Because I had just overtrained and then I would kind of limp through the beginning, maybe make it to a race, maybe I'd be hurt all year. And then I'd be disappointed with the season. And guess what I go right back to step one. Okay, now, this is my year, I want to train so hard. And then I'm going to be great. And then basically, in the summer of 2019, the pattern started all over and I was about ready to just quit the sport. I could see the pattern, but I really didn't know how to break it and the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze.
Matt Dixon 17:36
And those years because it was yeah, I mean, I mean, painful emotionally, because you clearly sort of ultimately at baseline love the sport, committed to it. Did it every day, and just every year was just frustration, challenge, pain with injuries and stuff, and driving your journey and some coaching relationships in there as well. Yeah, just to clarify.
Chris Hughes 18:01
Yeah, I did some self-coaching. I did some coaching with other people. And well, part of it is I was sort of an immature athlete, but part of it was a lack of guidance and pillars that, if I was gonna fault coaches for anything in that like if you did -- if it was a two-hour bike ride scheduled and you did five then it was kudos, good job not like, well, hey, that wasn't really what we talked about, or not really concerned about recovery or, or weights or you know, how well you're sleeping or anything like that. It was just sort of, here's, here's the plan, go do it.
Matt Dixon 18:33
Quite a narrow perspective on here are the sessions, they're going to create the magic and good luck as long as you check the box, you should be good to go as it were almost.
Chris Hughes 18:41
Yeah. And I remember texting a coach saying, hey, my knee hurts. And he said, okay, and he deleted the hour and a half run that was scheduled the next day and moved it to the -- the day after that. And I was like, well, is that all I need? So of course, I went and did it. And you know, I've had every injury imaginable, but I ended up with like a bad IT band syndrome. And...
Matt Dixon 19:04
There we are. So, I wanted to -- because the -- that -- a lot of the catalyst of why I wanted you to come onto the show is because I think you're a great example of -- you talked about being an immature, immature athletically earlier, the evolution of mindset and approach for you. And I want to break apart in the pursuit of educating our listeners a little bit. What has been most important for you in this season where you've just had a fantastic year and not limping through race to race, but pretty much getting better race to race and just having great consistency across racing? And I want to ground our listeners here. I don't coach you individually. You're a part of Purple Patch. We know each other very well because we've been, you've been, to camps with us but you're a member of the Purple Patch tri-squad. So you don't have an individual one-to-one, coach. So we're going to talk about it in terms of you as an athlete, you're guiding it, you're leveraging the Purple Patch programming via the tri squad program. And so, I think that's important for us all to keep in mind. And as we go through this, I guess the first journey of this you talked about, let's come back to 2019. You said highly frustrated, you could see the pattern, you didn't know how to get out of it, you decided to join Purple Patch. What was the catalyst there? What were ya, what were you hoping to achieve? What -- was it he last desperate throw of the dice almost?
Chris Hughes 20:38
Well, yeah, I mean, in some ways, I had done a race in July of 2019. And, you know, I was basically two minutes slower than I had been before. It was the local race I keep bringing up and it's not an Ironman brand, nobody cares about it, except for the people around here, but it was sort of my bellwether of performance. And there I was, you know, I was kind of injured I made it to it and was two minutes later, or two, yeah, two minutes slower. You know, and despite being on the verge of quitting, I just couldn't shake this feeling that I had room within my talent sphere to be a better athlete. You know, everyone has some kind of talent limitation. It doesn't matter what I do, I'm never going to be Kristian Blu. But even if I did exactly what he did, I just felt like I had more in my sphere. And I had been in the sport long enough to know that there was some balance of weights and recovery and nutrition, but I just couldn't seem to figure out how to balance these in a way that made any sense at all. Or I would just go completely over the top, like if I read some article that endurance athletes benefit from weights, the first thing I did this, I went and joined a CrossFit box, right? And you imagine where that went, because then all sudden, I'm doing three times a week of CrossFit and trying to get better at hauling around heavy things and you know, that doesn't, isn't great. But the big catalyst for me was I was driving up to Canada, and you did a podcast, and I tried to find which one it was, and you were starting with a pro triathlete, and you talked with him that you started with a multi-year arc, right? And this struck me that the pro athlete would need this multi-season arc to reach their potential. And it seems like absolute common sense now. But in my mind, a pro athlete was someone who just showed up and was magically talented, or they just had some secret that they kept to themselves and you know, you were going to lay out a plan, and then they were going to win the World Championships. And for me, that really changed my perspective and how I define success in the sport. And that I needed to have the same approach, a multi-season approach that required patience, and set a goal of not winning anything, doing the longest race, or beating anyone, but just my goal was to become a better athlete and continue to progress in sport. And fortunately, you were launching squad that month. And I think I was one of the first non-beta people that you that you had on, I know you're on a beta right before that. And so I signed up. And for me, it was a no-brainer. You know, I was never going to be able to afford to hire a strength coach and endurance coach, a swim coach, a nutrition coach, and here is this, honestly, a pretty budget-friendly platform that was more than what I was able to do.
Matt Dixon 23:24
And when you, I mean, you came in, it just sounds like you were ready. You know, you are emotionally practically frustrated, eyes wide open, and yet and that shift of approach. When you first came in, you're adopting, there still change there, you're adopting a new methodology. We're asking you to think differently. It sounded like you were ready for it. But, what, when you, if you can go back, you might not even be able to sort of remember the early months, but can you highlight some of the biggest differences that you experienced from pre to post? What was so different from your prior approach?
Chris Hughes 24:01
I think just having the and I'm going to start calling them pillars because that's what I learned to call them, but having those things work in unison. You know, that was always a struggle for me where you know, you'd read up a Triathlete Magazine article -- well, here are the four key weight sets you need to do for your best race season. Like when? Do I do that next week? Do I do it right now? Do I do it when, you know, as part of my race build or whatever it might be? And so I found that to be much different than any approach I'd ever had. And in all fairness, I had read your books prior and listened to your podcasts and so I was sort of on board with your program. And I think I've even jokingly told you back when you did that -- the meetings with Matt that I snuck into your video before you even launched squad. I think you'd accidentally posted them publicly a couple of times when Google Plus was the thing I was like, I can just click on this and listen to this like master coach talking to all these athletes. I even asked you a question one time, I remember you looking at something and going, Is this guy even on the roster? I don't know who this is.
Matt Dixon 25:10
That's fantastic.
Chris Hughes 25:11
So there was already this in their inherent press in the Purple Patch methodology, which is, you know an important part of the relationship. And feel free to stop me if I'm rambling but I feel like there was also a big change was a sense of focus. I think that there's a lot of noise in the world of endurance. There's always some new trend. Right now, it's ketones or low carb-high fat diet, or Ironman in 10 weeks of training, lactate testing, or some new strength workout, or whatever. So the first thing that I got out of Purple Patch was that I could just tune out a lot of that noise, right? I didn't care what the new workout weight workout was, because I had that I don't care about the nutrition strategy that someone was posting on social media, because I had that all there. And it just really helped me focus on what I was trying to do and quiet the cacophony of stuff that you're trying to constantly be sold. And, you know, that helped a lot.
Matt Dixon 26:09
Well, I'm so glad you said that, because one of the things, I just want to pause there a little bit because I'll sort of bounce that back to you a bit from the coaching team's perspective. So there's obviously Purple Patch is not just Matt Dixon speaking in third person, that -- there's a coach of -- a team of coaches. And one of the things that we see as our role is to -- we always talk about the filter, so there is a whole bunch of stuff out there and we need to have eyes wide open. But ultimately, we hope to act as a little bit of a filter to say, this is good, this is interesting, this is applicable for you, but not you, et cetera. So the fact that you highlight that, thank you very much because that's something that we try and take on is to try and boil things down to simple and actionable and focus on the right thing. So that's so refreshing to hear that maybe we're getting that part right a little bit.
Chris Hughes 27:05
And I think from a time-starved perspective, the amount of time that I'm not spending trying to figure out if this ketones thing is worth it. Do I need to read a meta-study? And like, I mean, sure, I'm not saying that it's not I'm not saying that they're not good. But I think you've talked about getting the first 95% of things, right. I mean, nail the basics. I guess I think the other thing, and I was telling Mike this at camp that the structure of squad, for me is ideal, because I don't know how many times I would, even when I was coached before where there'd be a 30-minute run scheduled and how important is this? What if I can only do 15 minutes? What do you want me to do? How do I change? The program is flexible enough that I can look at my week and see what's key, and what's not. And even within the workout, I only have an hour, I don't have an hour and 20 minutes. So I can shorten that up. And I never had this sense of anxiety, because I'm type A right? That I'm not checking a box, I've missed some spots, I'm still on the program, even if I did the abbreviated version of it, and with the program, I've read the book, even if it's the Cliff Notes to keep up.
Matt Dixon 28:15
Yeah, that's great. Well, let's fast forward to now you've had a terrific season, you -- recently second place at the Oregon 70.3, a great race. You had a ton of good wins and podiums over the first half of the season. So how do we find Chris Hughes right now?
Chris Hughes 28:32
Yeah, it's funny, I was thinking about this question. And the first thing that popped into my head is after I did Oregon, I felt fit and fresh. I know that — not to be a commercial but I, — other than being a little stiff that day, I felt great the next day. And fortunately, the squad has a recovery week on there to stop me from doing something dumb like going out and hurting myself. But yeah, I feel great. I'm honestly I'm in the middle of a season where I'm able to race as much as I want, and the patience is paying off. I'm having a blast, and while you know getting on the podium is great, what makes the most, me the most excited is that I feel like I'm improving and have room to grow. It sounds again, not to sound like a commercial, it sounds trite but I think focusing on process rather than outcome makes racing and training a lot more fun. And that has been a huge lesson to me that once you let that go, other things just sort of start to come. You know, being on the podium is great. I had an overall win this year. I've been on the podium and every race I've done but the fact that I was faster than I was the previous year. You know, I can't control who shows up to a race. I could have maybe won my age group but someone who was faster was there, but had I won it, and I was slower than last year, I probably would have not been as thrilled with the race. And the same thing is with the local race that I did here. I can't control who shows up but I was four minutes faster than I'd ever been. I PRd in every segment. And that, to me, gave me a lot more joy and satisfaction than winning the race. Podiums are fun, but progress is better.
Matt Dixon 30:14
I mean, there it is, that's great, and that's a really healthy relationship with the sports. It's everything you can control. And it's, but I will note, there's no better PR overall because we all love PRs. But there's no better PR when your PR everything. And of course, by definition, unless your transitions are incredibly slow, you're going to PR overall with that. I want to go to an element that is I think important for your story. And I want to talk about the try squad in your engagement of it. You're really engaged, you're active in the athletic community that we have, the internal athlete community, you've joined us at our training camp in Napa, you're often in the live webinars, even when you weren't a member, I've just learned and that story, and you're doing the office hours with myself and the other coaches. So I'm just interested in unpacking beyond the training and the four pillars that you talked about, what's the role of the community side of Tri-Squad been for you? Has that played sort of a role in you enjoying the journey, being more successful? What are the key points?
Chris Hughes 31:21
Yeah, you know, my friends jokingly call me the lone wolf. Because I while I have an amazing community of friends and athletes around me, because of my schedule, I trained almost exclusively alone, I don't, I don't have the time to like, meet anyone or drive somewhere. I'm pretty boring in that way. But with a squad community on Facebook, I feel like there's this shared value and purpose and we can all share stories of races and our successes and failures and help lift each other. I generally find social media to be a fairly negative place. But that's not the case there. In fact, it's the only reason I still have a Facebook account because I get a lot of joy from sharing my journey and seeing everyone else's definition of success and how -- that -- how proud they are of their race. And to me, I could just log on, and I know I can get a smile out of it and I know I can help encourage other people. So it feels like there's a little more of a community there. And the other thing I like about it is if one person is having a problem, we're all on the same page. We're all, you know, somewhat -- It's not like a forum somewhere where someone's off doing something done, and they've hurt themselves. Like, we're all following the same pattern so we can all kind of work around that. And additionally, you and the coaches are on there too. So if someone posts that, hey, I was just crushed by this workout. And 10 of the people chime in. That's feedback for you. And the program evolves. I think you just did that recently, where I can't remember which one it was because I was recovering from a race. But there was something and you just said okay, you're right. This is this was -- we rolled this out wrong and we're gonna change this. And it really felt like a two-way street rather than just sort of a sea of negativity that social media usually is.
Matt Dixon 33:02
Yeah, that was actually a workout. That was -- I wrote that that was solely on my shoulders. And, I mean, you're right, as you've been on squad long enough to know that the program is always evolving. It's always growing. Every year we do a refresh, but also sometimes as a coach, it's normal. Your ambition outstrips sort of a sense sometimes. You're like, I think this is a great dose of work. And it blew everyone to pieces. Well, you hear that you hear the noise and the feedback and there's a pattern there. People are not lazy. And that was great. So it's like, Hey, we're gonna go and repeat this workout every three weeks, we're gonna tinker with it evolve. And then everyone, you know, had a much more valuable experience as well as a more pleasurable one, which is good. I want to ask directly because I know that you're really committed to these and I always I should just say, I love some of your commentaries after you've completed these but our video-based coaching, the bike workouts, your schedule doesn't allow you to come live so that means I don't get to bully you live on the two way.
Chris Hughes 34:09
That's the story. I can't get there because of my work.
Matt Dixon 34:12
Yeah, exactly.
Matt Dixon 34:13
It's -- there's no hiding when you're when you're live on two-way video with me but you do the on-demand. So you do the sort of video coaching on demand and I always see you posting about them afterward along with the other folks the sort of water cooler as I call it. But those have been effective for you as a bike rider yeah? That, why don't you give the context of those because I think that's interesting.
Chris Hughes 34:37
So for me, you know, it's funny, the VOD program. I'll be the first to say that I was reluctant at first, because I was a Zwift guy, right? Like, oh Zwift is, this is this is the virtual world. This is as close as you're gonna get. But you know, I'm a go-with-the-flow guy, so I did the program and to me, it's allowed us much more linear progression of my I'm sorry of my cycling as I worked through, I shouldn't really be surprised that being coached one on one was more productive than mindlessly staring at like ERG or watching a cartoon avatar on Zwift. But for me, what I found was that truth be told my wattage numbers are not any different than they were over the last five years. I mean, my FTP is roughly the same. The differences with the VOD, sorry, if VOD is the right, not the right term, let me know.
Matt Dixon 35:37
Video on demand, on demand, VOD. It's all good. Yeah.
Chris Hughes 35:41
I found that my ability to manage terrain, to ride over hills, to ride through hills, has a that's been my improvement in cycling. There's no additional power here. It's not like I'm suddenly super strong. And maybe it's just me my secondary effect of this is that watching everyone else go through the same pain is cathartic. But also when I'm out racing and training, instead of trying to take this magical fitness that I've pulled off on Zwift or whatever mindless ERG I was doing, I can hear you and Mike and Brad when I come over a hill -- through the line, pedal, keep going, do not stop pedaling, fast cadence down the hill, get back into aero and those mental cues for me, maybe that's just me, but I mean, my entire race is 70.3 Oregon, Victoria, especially Victoria with the hills, like, pedal over the hill. Get down, fast cadence, keep going, constant tension on the chain. It's sort of like having a Tour de France rider with a radio in my ear.
Matt Dixon 36:41
There it is. Well, that's, it's interesting you talk about that. Because I mean, I've talked on the show a lot about the obsession of horsepower, stronger, fitter, faster. I mean, you spent years, a decade, and you're a big guy with a big engine that has developed that engine. And that once any athlete gets up to a certain level if you pick any professional athlete, ultimately, it's very, very difficult to get incremental fitness gains and boost FTP, at the top end after a decade of work, that's not that plastic anymore, very different than the early years where you're just going up this sort of (inaudible) curve. So now it becomes a game of how do you get more out of that. And the only way you can get more of that is to take that fitness resilience and have a smarter application across the terrain. So now it's about gaining speed. And in honesty now I'm gonna be sort of advertorial for my own coaching here, which I know is not the purpose of our discussion, but it's amazing to me that when we managed to get someone to buy into that and say, Let's not chase fitness, let's chase speed, how cathartic, to use your word that can be of like, hang on, that's a game changer because sometimes actually your power distribution can mean that your average power might even be lower, but you're going faster and I think that's ultimately the thing that counts which is so key.
Chris Hughes 38:11
You know it can I think you actually said at the start, like we're gonna go faster now not have more power. That's the point. And you know, to go back to the Tri-Squad community on there, it was, I posted one time -- it was last year, just like, how can I have this much power. I must need some new aero device and it was Mike that chimed in and said aero is measured in, like milliseconds. But terrain management, intention, and cornering are measured in minutes. And again, sort of this like well duh moment where like, okay, it's not some new helmet, it's not some new fairing I need to buy, it's, I need to keep pedaling. And it's not about how much power I can smash up this hill it's how much power I can push completely over the hill to the other side and keep going. Because I was the stereotypical case that you often talk about where I would get to the hill and right before the crest I'd just go, oh I did it, you know, and then I'd gear down and kind of slow way down and it was probably, I don't at the time I thought I was smashing it but I was, it was costing me minutes.
Matt Dixon 39:15
Minutes. Yeah, ultimately minutes. So let's wrap it up. I want to ask a couple more questions here. And you're a man that's evolved, you've been a tremendous success. A great, I would say, ambassador for Purple Patch, so I really deeply appreciate that, but if you now have a couple of minutes I'll give you the stage, what are the biggest two or three lessons that maybe you've gained on your journey over the last season or seasons of progression for you. If you had to distill it down and say, These are the lessons. This is what I want to impart, if I can get across -- what would those be?
Chris Hughes 39:51
I've already talked about the hill. You know, if you're not a squaddie, you're not doing the coach, learn how to ride hills and learn how -- it's not about smashing them, it's about riding the entire hill crest and down. The next one is -- easy is easier than you think. And this is one that really hit me in the last probably 18 months. I used to think easy was, if you told me to do an easy three-hour ride, it was as fast as I could ride for three hours, and or whatever the timeframe was. And I had to slow way, way down, like running. And I learned that at Camp too. Running and biking, both of them are just, you know, you can't, your easy pace cannot be 10 seconds slower than your race pace. And then, a huge one for me is eating. Fueling on the bike in the run, I was under-eating by half. I just wasn't eating enough. And again, I picked this up at camp because of the readiness available for food. There was just constant food there. And I went from, you know, just for the bike example, taking 70 grams of carbs an hour or two. When I did Oregon, I was 140 and still taking in gels. And I realized that oftentimes in the middle of the bike of a race, I would be hungry. Like I was legitimately hungry, and I just had to train my gut to eat more and that -- I'm just not tired. I'm not -- I realized many times I was probably just bonking before I even got off the bike. So I think those three things like if I had to pick three things that I would keep in and kind of push everything outside are the big ones for me, at least in the last season.
Matt Dixon 41:27
How about a broader perspective? You take on this journey, you're busy, you got two kids, you're obviously really engaged as a husband, father, and, and you got a very busy life as well. So, any aspects of taking on the journey of sport that have translated or helped in other arenas of work or life?
Chris Hughes 41:47
I'm glad no one I work with is a triathlete, because they would think, nail the basics and control the controllables is my phrase. But I use it all the time at work, I use it with project management, I use it with people above me in the food chain, and below me. Like, I think that is something that I tell my kids, you know, when they get a flat tire when they're out biking, these are the things we deal with. And then, you know, I think I'd also say, again, you did a case study one time about budgeting your time for how much realistic time you have to work on something and come up with your economy of hours. I use that when dealing with customers all the time when I'm kind of calling them out on their schedules, like tell me about your budget of hours, how much time you actually have to accomplish this, and let's come up with a realistic schedule to set you up for success. And not only does that help my projects, be more successful, customers that are dealing with me are like wow, this guy really knows what he's doing. But fortunately, none of them so far have been triathletes they don't know that I've just stolen from Matt Dixon.
Matt Dixon 42:51
Fantastic. And last question for you, Chris, Do you have any advice for listeners, you got any last sort of parting advice that you might give as they're going on their journey, whether it's in triathlon or not?
Chris Hughes 43:06
You know, for athletes, lots of athletes are just looking for the magic secret sauce, some new aero device, some workout, some supplement. And I think that the secret sauce is consistency. And you're gonna get that by, need to sound like an advert like you said, but going easy feeling recovery, strength, all those things are gonna get you much further than doing some monster workout or some new aero device or taking ketones or whatever might be the new buzzword. And the only thing I would say is like, the other thing for me is I cleaned up my sleep. You know, when we were at camp you talked about the only legal doping I think is sleep. And I, someone gifted me an old aura ring that I never would have bought. And just like, I couldn't believe how dirty my sleep was. Like my dog waking me up, you know, my wife stealing covers or whatever. And just like looking at that, I was able to add like an extra hour of quality sleep without any additional investment. And that has made, like that extra hour of sleep. If you told me I'd get an extra hour every day. So yes, please clean up your sleep, do whatever you have to do, even if you have to get your own set of covers and take the bell off your dog and you'd be surprised how much better you're gonna feel the next day.
Matt Dixon 44:21
I love the practical advice, but Chris, a great story, and your journey is not done. You know that. I want to thank you for coming to the show. But I also want to thank you for being a great part of Purple Patch. And I know that the community looks up to you and also gets a lot of insight from your own story. So thanks for being such a great part of it. It's really athletes like you that helped make Purple Patch what it is. So really appreciate it.
Chris Hughes 44:49
Jeff, thank you keep everything in place and I'll keep following the program.
Matt Dixon 44:54
We'll keep going. All right. Well, folks listening thank you so much. I hope you learned something and that was a cracker. Thanks for joining us, Chris.
Chris Hughes 45:02
You're welcome.
Matt Dixon 45:03
Well, guys, that was thoroughly enjoyable. I have to say, I love chatting to Chris. He's very deliberate. He's very thoughtful. He never wants to miss a point. But what emerged out of that conversation, I think, is some really interesting insights around the performance journey and what it means to be successful. It's not just about outcomes, it's all about the journey. And one of the things I love is that Chris and himself really magnified the power of a program that I'm really, really proud of. And all of us are proud at Purple Patch. Because we set out a few years ago to design a program that was specifically designed for the demands and needs of a time-starved athlete. And we wanted a dynamic training program that was highly flexible. It was one that could empower athletes and make them smarter on their performance journey, but also integrated access to the coaches at Purple Patch, including myself and the experts whom we have great relationships with. And finally, to really, really galvanize a community of like-minded athletes. And one of the things that Chris just talked about is, I do almost all my training alone. But what really emerged is, I feel a part of something. I actually mentor other athletes, I get support and accountability. I can't wait to share my stories, about my struggles, my successes, and it's great to be a part of that, it's invaluable. And that is true. Because in the most individual of sports, if you integrate a team approach, it not only drives individual performance, and so individuals do better. But these individuals contribute to a performance culture. And that's a big secret. And that is a central heartbeat of the tri-squad program. So if you're intrigued, if you're interested, if you want to learn more, you can go read about it at the website, PurplePatchfitness.com or just reach out to us and have a complimentary call. We'll talk about it, we'll see whether it's a fit, it may or may not be but we'd like to have a conversation and understand your journey. info@purplepatchfitness.com Reach out. We'll have a chat. All right, guys. Next week, cautionary tales. It's going to be a good one. I'll speak to you then take care.
Matt Dixon 47:18
Guys, thanks so much for joining. And thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the Purple Patch channel on YouTube, and you will find it there and you could subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe. also, share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now any questions you have, let me know. Feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us at info@PurplePatchFitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show on the Purple Patch page and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends but as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience and we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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