Episode 349: Love, Sport, and the Art of Integration: A Purple Patch Valentine’s Special

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Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!

A fresh new format featuring a coaching conversation with Host Matt Dixon and Co-Host Max Gering. This Valentine’s Day, we explore how athletes can integrate sport into life in a way that strengthens relationships rather than strains them—because true performance isn’t just about results, it’s about the bigger picture. IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon and Purple Patch Coach Max Gering discuss the importance of integrating sport into life sustainably, especially for athletes with busy schedules. They emphasize the need for effective training that fits within one's life, rather than overloading with long rides every weekend. They highlight the significance of communication with partners and family, planning together, and ensuring sport enhances life rather than compromising it. Practical tips include the "Sunday special" for reflection and planning, and making training a family activity. They stress that consistent, effective training over time leads to better performance and overall well-being, rather than focusing solely on training hours.

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Episode Timecodes:

00:-2:07 Intro

2:36-6:20 Max Gering on joining Purple Patch Fitness

6:33-11:20 Importance of Team

13:29-23:34 How to Integrate Sport into Life

25:25-30:32 Sunday Special Application

40:00-end How to create Team at home

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Transcription

Matt Dixon 00:00

Hey folks, today's show is a fun and some might say unique one, because you know what, I'm on the hot seat this week. Yes, we welcome for the first time, Purple Patch coats. Max Gering, and he's gonna take over as host. Today. He's gonna leave a deep dive conversation all around. What we're all so excited for this week, Valentine's Day, how to ensure that we bring our team, our family, our friends, our loved ones into this journey to not only ensure that you are successful, but to ensure that performance is sustained and we thrive across all aspects. Not about smashing our goals, that's the easy part, but smashing life as well, making it fun. It's really, really enjoyable. I thoroughly enjoyed the show recording it, and I think you're going to find it really, really useful as well. Max is a master of taking complex into simple, and that's a big reason that we have him onto the team now as you listen to the show, if you have any questions as you listen, feel free to reach out to us. Info@purplepatchfitness.com we would love to hear your thoughts. And if you'd like more episodes in this format, let us know, and also let us know what topics you'll be interested in us exploring. And of course, if you want to continue the discussion around Purple Patch net coaching, you can reach out to the same address, info@purplepatchfitness.com you can have a one time consultation external athlete, so we can help you set out on your journey and path to make sure that you really thrive over the course of 2025 you can join one of our squad programs, or, of course, you can partner with one of our one to one coaches to go on a individual coaching journey. We're here. We're available, and of course, we always appreciate your positive feedback and reviews on your favorite listening platform, whether it's your YouTubes or your Spotify or your apple podcasts. And of course, feel free to share this episode with anyone that you think might find it helpful, your friends, your enemies, or anyone else that follows you on social media. All right, that's enough of me delaying. I've got to go and get a hot body, because I'm going to go and sit on the hot seat. It is the Purple Patch podcast. Enjoy the show. 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. And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever your host. Matt Dixon, but today, I am not the only host. We are throwing the podcast in the air and seeing what lands, because I get to welcome another Purple Patch coach to the fray today. Max Gerin, welcome. Thank you. We are, well, going to try something different today. Yes, we are. It was all your idea.

Speaker 1 03:04

We could say that. Okay, we'll go with your idea, folks. We're going to do something a little bit different today. Max has been with us at Purple Patch since, well, goodness me, about seven months ago. You joined the Yeah, beginning of July. I started beginning of July. And as since time flies at the same time, it hasn't taken long for max to become an absolutely integral part of the team, and we just came back from a very nice holiday in Hawaii. Yes, your first Hawaii train. We can call it a holiday. It was a work trip for all of our listeners who travel a lot for work, they know that was it really a holiday? No, its fantastic. It was a one of a kind experience. How was it? It was your first, its first training camp with a newer you were deep in the trenches. Yeah, it was, it was great. First of all, it's, it's interesting. We work with hundreds of athletes all over the country, all over the world. We work together as a team of coaches, but it's all remote, and you don't get to experience any of it and any of the people and the magic of Purple Patch in person. So to be in Hawaii together and get to experience that team and community in person was

Matt Dixon 04:09

eye opening. And definitely I came home much more excited than I was in the beginning. And I was already very excited but about what we do at Purple Patch, because getting to see those people in person, was really, well, we're gonna have a discussion today, and, and we're gonna focus it around Valentine's Day a little bit, which was genuinely, was your idea, and, and it'll be fun. And we're gonna have a little bit of a, let's call it a coaches discussion. You're gonna be asking me questions. I'm sure you'll provide your perspective as well. But before we dive into it. And I didn't tell you we were going to do this, but, but I like to throw people on the spot, as you know, I like people to get a little uncomfortable, because that's where growth comes. And it's your first time on the on the show. You joined Purple Patch. You have a really fascinating background, which we won't go all the way into today. A but the one key sort of relevance to this question is that you joined Purple Patch, and you owned your own coaching business, and you came a part of a team. So I'm genuinely interested, how's it been so far beyond the great and it's wonderful, and I guess a way to get to that is what have been maybe the biggest highlights or surprises of you really getting entrenched in the team, yeah, making that shift from going from working on your own to being part of a team was has been a game changer, both from a personal standpoint of my own, well being as a Yeah, as a career, but really an unlock for what I'm able to do for the athletes I work with,

Speaker 2 05:42

I think often athletes don't know what they don't know, and then they work with the coach, then they're part of a team, and all of a sudden they realize there's a lot more to learn. That was the same experience that I had when starting to work with Purple Patch, realizing there's a whole world out there. When you collaborate with people, you're able to do a lot more. Yeah, so that's been, I wouldn't say it was a surprise, because it was one of the reasons why the reasons why I wanted to join, join Purple Patch. But it's been one of the most enjoyable parts of the process is having access to you, to the team, to John about swimming, to Nancy about women's physiology, to Brad about pretty much anything related to any athlete issue.

Speaker 1 06:17

It's been, it's made work a lot more effective and enjoyable and really fun as well. Yeah, I think that's sometimes. It's easy for me to sit on the show when I'm just mostly looking to the camera and pontificating and but I always talk about the importance of team. And it's easy to say, we operate as a team, but, you know, in an authentic way, what? What has that looked like? Maybe you, you shared that with, you know, leaning on the other coaches and stuff. Yeah, what does that look like? You we don't operate in a vacuum, and that was really clear when I when I interviewed, but it became clear from day one of we're constantly in communication with each other, whether it's, you know, leaning on each other for advice about how to better support an athlete, just brainstorming and working together about growing Purple Patch and sharing our passion for coaching and for living a performance based life. So I think it just plays out on a daily basis, and there are few decisions and few big things that we're doing when we're operating in a vacuum and working on our working on our own. And I think that's what makes us really unique and more effective, and, as you said, more fun. Yeah, because it's it's important to work hard, but if you're not having fun while you're doing it, you're not enjoying it, then you're not gonna be able to work hard for very long. I agree. I am one of the, just for me, as I sort of think about it, one of the,

Matt Dixon 07:37

the most enjoyable meetings that we've had. We have a lot of meaningful Purple Patch, whether it's thinking about athlete development or what we're going to do from an education standpoint, all of these areas, we sort of have this this genuine thirst for constant evolution and growth. But one of the highlights for me are the coaches round tables that we have and the one that we had just before the holidays and then just before heading off to Kona, where we talked about the year ahead, and we talked about behaviors and standards. I'm interested in your perspective here, but I laid out, these are the inputs. These are the standards across the coaching team that will give us the measures that we are delivering the right quality of service to achieve our results, athlete results getting faster, obviously, financial results, ultimately, components like that. But the reason I really enjoyed it is because sometimes you're saying, This is how we are going to coach as a team, and you have to, as a leader, get the tone right a little bit. But it was met with joy and excitement. You can really feel that. And this was a remote call, you know, I had you in San Diego. I had John and Scott in Maine. I had Nancy in Seattle. You know, we're all over the country, and there was this really galvanizing of, yes, we are a team. I'm not sure if that that came across. Maybe I'm, you know, maybe I'm imagining things as the leader, but, but did that sort of, did that feel like that in that meeting? It did. And I think anybody who's listening to the show who has achieved any level of success in their life knows that you can't do that alone. Yeah, no one. You're never going to be truly self made, not in business, not in sport. And so I think it was a big it was a almost a sigh of relief when we re for everyone individually, when we recommitted as a team to being a team, and knowing how much better it's going to make our lives and what we do. I think you, you struck on something that's really important there as well. I think it was empowering for me, because it's sometimes you think we think about things in pyramids. So by definition, I'm sort of the leader, and then the coaches are theoretically from a corporate structure underneath me, but it's actually the coaching team that drives me. Yeah, and it's actually there's this system of support and accountability that we have for each other in this shared mission that's really empowering. And I think about, you know, we just spent the last couple of hours, had a nice break, and I had a little eight minute nap, as I like to do almost every day between then and and as we sit down and we record this show, but we we brainstormed about the whole year of education ahead and a that's really fun, and really thinking it through what's really valuable for the athlete, but, um, but what I noticed when we were doing that brainstorming was, huh, I only came up with about 20% 30% of the ideas you know this, you were there. Tiger, who runs our squad program, Kelli, obviously leading the charge with a with a big marker on the whiteboard wall, etc. This is really us doing this. And it does make it more fun. It does, and it actually helps us build confidence in the belief that we're hopefully doing something helpful. Yeah, I I agree. I think, interestingly enough, it's what it's what we preach to our athletes, right, lean on us for support. Let's do this together, and the more we embrace that which we do as a as an organization, the more success we have, which is really great. Well here, and I'm gonna blame today's show absolutely on you, and it will probably be our most popular show that we've ever done, but we're going to have a chat. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to a little bit like when you're in a Google meet or a zoom call, and you could designate host elsewhere. What I'm going to do is I'm going to shift over responsibility for the next 15 minutes or so, and we're going to have a chat around the theme that you did come up with the Valentine's Day special. So I'm going to let you explain what it is, what we're going to do, and then we're going to get into it. And I the key thing, hopefully, if you and I are successful, is we can create some really actionable education out of this, but no pressure. Well, just to set the record straight. When your boss asks you if you are willing to go on his podcast with him, you can't really say no, so it was one of those type of rhetorical questions. But no, I'm, I'm honored. It's very cool to be in the studio. Yeah, I've listened to this podcast many times, even before I worked with Purple Patch. So it's, it's awesome. And the topic is Valentine's Day.

Speaker 2 12:25

I remember when I think it was actually when I was here in San Francisco for my interview, you and Kelli both looked at me and said, we don't create triathlon widows. That's something that's really important. And I think that that is a really nice barometer and way to segue into the fact that a big part of our mission is helping athletes integrate sport into their life. Yeah, not just, you know, for sport, but also for life. So with Valentine's Day coming up, I wanted to talk about how we can connect that and how that's a part of our deeper mission, and why, if your relationship's good at home, just like if things are going well at work, if you're in a Purple Patch in other areas outside of sport, that means you're doing something right with sport. So that at the end of this episode, our listeners can walk away with some actionable ways to better integrate sport in their life, to thrive outside of sport. So that's what we're gonna do. That is a sound bite. What you said right there, though, that's brilliant. That is exactly it. Episode over all right, what does it mean to integrate sport into life, and why is it really important, whether you're training for an Ironman or any other big goal you have? Why is it important, both for your pursuit in sport, but also your pursuit of everything else that's important too outside of sport? Important

Matt Dixon 13:45

to you outside of sport. I'll kick yourself. Yeah, I think that. I think from a coaches listening and for athletes being coached, I think for the vast majority of people that participate in endurance sports or any types of events, this is the holy grail. Actually, I think it's so important, if you can define the right perspective, and I'll explain why, the vast majority of folks, athletes, like like you guys, the listeners that enjoy taking on a challenge and participating in an event have got a whole bunch of stuff in life, massive competing demands. Many, many people are in a relationship of some kind, and many have kids, and so that's a that's a huge and a hugely important part of life, and then the vast majority have a lot of demands from other aspects of life, work, travel, for work, etc. So life is big, and we need to understand stress, that it all comes down to stress. Stress is accumulative, and. So and you can't fake physiology. Those are two little key words or key phrases. So like, stress is accumulative, and you can't you can't beat physiology. Can't fake physiology. So you know whether it's um, financial stress, stress around sort of confidence and self image, travel stress, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, adding training stress, it all builds up in this big reservoir of stress, and as soon as it overflows, bad things happen. And so back in the day, not so many moons ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, at most, 15 years ago, we lived very siloed lives. You had your family life, you had your work life, and then you did whatever you did on the side, and some mad people did marathons or triathlons. But life is life, and you can't integrate that. And so you can't, I don't think you can have a siloed impact and be successful over the long term. In other words, if you take a training program that, for some reason or other, you perceived as the ultimate training program, and you just go about ramming it into life, there is going to be compromise, and that compromise is going to come from poor reading habits, lack of sleep, lack of presence with your family, lack of ability to focus in the workplace, there will be negative consequences and and so I think the only path for an athlete to be successful is to actually take an integrated approach, otherwise stress accumulates and we start to fail. Yeah, I like that. I think something interesting you said it made what that made me think about is sustained success, sustained performance, which is something we talk a lot about at Purple Patch, which is creating predictable and sustainable success. Which is, do you think that, you know, potentially, an athlete could get away with having one really good race without integrating sport into their life, but that's going to be it. They're not going to be able to repeat that over and over again for year after year, and live that live up to their potential year after year. Maybe they could have one good one and done race. It's like an artist having a one hit single, one hit one, yeah. And in fact, it's like, IF listeners have ever done a race, and they finish the race and they think, Oh, my God, that was amazing. And thank God it's over, because for the last X number of weeks, it's felt like a monkey on the back, almost you've been living in the cage. By definition, it's not sustainable. Yeah, and, and if a listener has gone through a journey where they've been really committed, but they haven't got the performance that maybe their effort, you know, would would suggest that they should yield, or they've got injured along the journey, kind of by definition, there's been an accumulation of too much stress somewhere. So, and look, injuries happen somewhere, but, um, but yeah, that's that. That's a part of it. You can, you can get away with almost anything for a short period of time, but pretty quickly you start to get to diminishing returns. And that that applies to anything in life, by the way, you know you can, you can sleep under the desk and go on a work sprint for a few days or multiple weeks, but if you're doing that sustainably, something has to break and ultimately, not effective. I always, I always like to think about it in not how much training can you do? Because we always want to maximize training load, but we want to maximize effective training, and that that sort of anchors if, if you keep that in mind, then you get the magic word of of really performance, which is consistency. So that's the long term and and it makes it more fun, makes it more enjoyable. You also have capacity to show up in other areas of your life. That's really important. So not only do you get faster when you integrate training into a time starved life, you also get the net reward of actually having better energy, more cognitive function, able to be present, able to be more to perform in the other areas of life as well. I think that's really important, and that really ties to what our topic is today, which is Valentine's Day and relationships, and making sure that what you're doing in sport is actually enhancing all the other things that are super important too in your life, whether it be work or or family. And I think that level of capacity, first of all, if you're not integrating sport into your life, not only will you not have capacity, but you won't even have, you won't even have the opportunity, because you're going to be out of the house every weekend, all weekend training. You're not going to leave yourself any time to even, let's say you had the energy. You don't have the opportunity to enjoy that energy, because you're not even creating the time. I just want to Bunning, because I think that word we both mentioned capacity. I think that's really important. Capacity is just one of those three away words, yeah, you got to have capacity. Capacity is not a fixed entity. And, and I think this drives to the heart of the manner when you get your own performance recipe, right? And, and it's, you know, like life is a living, breathing thing. You're. Demands ebb and flow. But when you get your recipe right, if you want to call it that, your training and all of your supporting habits, what occurs is you increase your capacity. So it's a very flexible concept. Conversely, if you are consistently burning the candle at both ends, you're compromising your sleep, your nutrition, your over training relative to what you truly have, sustainable ability to absorb and adapt to you are diminishing your capacity, and that's a nice way to think about it, because you go back to your triathlon widows, it's

Speaker 1 20:39

you can go and train for an Ironman, and if you're not present, because you're training so much, even when you return, your capacity is so diminished, your body might be there, but you're not going to be present. Yeah, and that's where partners, friends, business partners and teammates, start to really hate your sport. They start to see it as the enemy, because they see what it's doing to you guys. No, I love that before we move on to the next thing, one thing that I want to something that I don't have kids, but I have a lot of athletes that do have kids. And there's a quote from a entrepreneur and endurance athlete, Jesse Itzler, who he always says, I'm never too tired for my kids. And that's something that I try and take in mind when I work with any athlete that does have kids, that phrase of making sure that they're never too tired for their kids. And I think if you know that as a North Star, when you're coaching an athlete with with children, you're going to do a pretty, pretty good job, pretty darn good job. I love that because it's,

Matt Dixon 21:43

it's similar quite often we, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about purpose and why you're doing it. And a lot of athletes will come in and they say, I want to be a great role model for my for my kids. I want to be an inspiration. You know, doing an Ironman is or a marathon or something like that. It's, you're showing them healthy, fit lifestyle and taking on a challenge, and all of that is true, but quite often, then they want to follow an approach and program in which they're effectively, physically or emotionally absent from their kids, and it's like, no, they're not going to

Speaker 1 22:20

that. They're not going to care about your finish time. They want to see that this sport is additive to your life. And actually, the inspiration is, I do it, and it's really enjoyable, but I'm there for you every and you need energy for that. You know, I always talk about the fog of fatigue, and certain Vincent Lombardi and some other coaches said, fatigue will make cowards of us all. That's it. When you get accumulative fatigue, you can't function, you can't bring your best self, and that's in work, that's with family, that's everything. And so if you truly have an integrated approach in your training, it needs to be a catalyst to ignite a better self, a better version of yourself, across life. And that's the only way that sports like this will be sustainable and ultimately valuable. I think that's a really important component. It is moving on to the next, next part of that, some practical tips for our listeners. So that's what happens if you don't integrate sport into your life, right? You're going to have that fat fatigue, you're not going to have the capacity. Maybe you'll have a little bit of success one time, but you won't be able to repeat it, if we want to avoid that. So as coaches, you always know what the important things are to your athlete outside of sport, for them are, and you're keeping that in mind when you're coaching them, whether it's on a call, or whether it's when you're writing their programming or helping them build their season. But for our athletes that are listening, that don't have coaches that are self coached, what are some things they should be doing on a weekly, monthly basis to make sure that they're keeping themselves in check and making sure that they're integrating sport into their life in a healthy way. Yeah, I think, I think it's two things on that

Matt Dixon 24:06

which I'd like your thoughts on it, because you one of the reasons, one of the reasons I love having you as a part of Purple Patch is you really understand the human aspect of it. You really do take on what's important to this athlete and integrating sport into life that not, not all coaches intuitively do it. So for coaches listening, for athletes that are not coached, I think it's these two things, but I want your perspective as as well. I'd say the first is exactly the practice that we do that I've talked about on the show a lot, the Sunday special. And the Sunday special is, is a is a simple process of reflection of the week prior, which is going to be my second thing I talk about, and then planning your week ahead. And it's very, very simple, but most people tend to plan their week. They either look at their training or they plan their work. Work, or whatever it is, very few people take an integrated approach, where they they plan everything and, and I think that's so, so important. And, and if you're not familiar the Sunday special very, very simply, it's how we build training programs, but we start with life. So what are the non negotiables in life? And, and I'll give you a real life example of that when I am doing my Sunday special with Kelli, obviously, my partner and wife, we look at the landscape of the week of okay, where's backs to sports, and does he have a doctor's appointment and who's going to drop him at the bus stop, or who's going to pick him up and take him swimming, all of those sort of coordination stuff. But then also for me, when's Kelli going to work out? Not when am I going to work out? And maybe Kelli can do it a different time. When's Kelli going to work out? And we, we organize those things so feeding ourselves, it's sort of the the logistics around life. Then the second part is looking at work, and what are the priorities and those components. And then with the time left over. That's when you, as a coach or me, building my own plan, can start to integrate and have a realistic set of time slots within the week and total capacity to actually build your training. And I think that Sunday special is really important. The second thing then I'll ask your point of view on it, is reflection, constantly pausing at the end of a week and looking back and saying, what went well, what didn't go well? How do I need to adapt now and go into that planning process? And I think reflection is a key attribute for high performers across all arenas that I've ever worked with. I would say, Yeah, I love that. I think one thing that I would take out and add on to is that the thing you talked about where you don't just do the Sunday special with yourself in a vacuum, you do it with Kelli, and there's communication. And I think if we go back to not creating triathlon windows, and how can you use sport to make sure that your life's actually better? Is you need communication with your partner. And if you're communicating with your partner on a weekly basis, and it could be your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. Maybe if you are co founders of a company, you probably need to communicate with your business partner a little bit about, if you're a small startup, a small team, about what's going on in your life and and what your competing demands are. So communicating with your partner on a weekly basis will keep you grounded so that you're able to be, I don't know if the words empathetic, but that you can be really thinking of your partner and think about, when is Kelli going to work out? When is my partner going to do X, Y and Z? And also make room to understand what's happening. We get very focused on our goals. I'm running a business. I'm training for an Iron Man. I'm training for a marathon. You know, these are all amazing pursuits, but they're somewhat they're self centered. We have somewhat selfish and we can forget that there's other people in our life, not from a bad place, but it's just, it's natural, and maybe there's a week where your partner needs a little more attention, and going out for a really long ride on Saturday isn't the best thing. It's not gonna give you the most reward in your life. Yes, you may have a great ride, but your relationship is going to suffer, and then you may, in return, not have a great week of training the next week, because you're going to be emotionally stressed from your life at home. And so if you communicate with your partner as you do the Sunday special, I think that is a way to really tie it all together and make sure that it's working. Well, I can give you a real I started to laugh to my laugh to myself a little bit, because I can give you a real life example that was directly about Kelli and I, and I'll share this. So we came back from Hawaii Sunday night. You flew about the same time back to San Diego and me San Francisco. So got back after effectively 10 days away. But the camps are exhausting. You know, we're all like done at the end, because we are. It is certainly not a holiday. And you come back and you're mentally frazzled, you're physically frazzled, but Purple Patch continues chaos. You know, come back and you say, Okay, there's a lot of patch up, a lot of grounding. But by definition, I didn't. I did on the plane my Sunday special. What do I need to do this week? But Kelli and I didn't do, which we do every week, sit down and say, All right, everything I just went through and I went in and she she really supported the first couple of days, because I'm just a zombie. I feel like I'm half hung over and half like I traveled around the world and and we had a whole bunch of meetings, but the whole week, I felt off kilter, and Kelli felt off kilter. And at the end of the week, is that, well, hang on, are you doing this, or am I doing this? And so I didn't, I didn't, and she didn't have any sense of control, and we didn't feel like we moved, you know, ourselves forward, our our business, forward, our team. Forward. Things fell through the cracks, and then at the end of the week, we spent two hours because we hadn't done it for a couple of weeks, and we we fell off, and we just went through everything. You know, we're doing a house remodel. We're doing all the all of this stuff in life, and we're building. A team. We're rolling out the strategy, Max is coming on Monday, and we set it up and two hours investment, which is way longer than a Sunday special. Sunday special is typically 20 to 30 minutes, but we did it, and it was just like and this week, we've been highly effective. We haven't been less busy, but we both feel like we're in control. And the big thing is we have clarity, almost, role like what we're bringing to it, and we we knew what we had to do. So the effectiveness this week is a stark difference. So I think that communication is really, really important. I love that. I think it's great. And I think if we move on just that, having that, it's systems, and that's what we talk about with our athletes. Life's gonna happen. You're gonna have the week where you don't do the Sunday special together, but because you do it every week, because you have the system in place, you're never just one good action from getting back on track. Yeah, no, that I really like. I have another one as well, actually putting into real life context. And I might be getting ahead of ourselves here, but athletes that want to do an Ironman like that. That communication when it comes to what our theme is Valentine's Day, but an Ironman or a marathon, you talked about being absent, physically absent, with the long rides that are a prerequisite, but that comes down to communication and planning as well, like the big macro Sunday special, almost like, okay, here we are. Here's the X in the calendar. We're 12 weeks out. We're 14 weeks out. And actually, as as a time starved athlete, absolutely smashing the myth that you have to go out and ride 4567, hours every Saturday, you know, and then run two hours on Sunday. It's a myth. You don't need to. But instead getting with your partner, planning ahead and identifying 2345, times where, yes, we got it, Matt's going to go out and do his big ride. And the partner, husband or wife, whatever it might be, knows it is clarity. There's no confusion, there's no conflict. But then the other weekends, you're really minimizing training load on the weekend, and you really invest. And you you, you know it's it's partnership, so therefore, it's not compromise, but it's investment in ensuring that everybody is winning in this journey. And I think that's the vortex of not just harmony, but actually performance out of it. And I think that's important. Yeah, I want to pause for a second and double down on that topic of long rides.

Speaker 2 32:36

This was something that you really stress stressed when I started working for Purple Patch, which is this idea that we don't need athletes going out and doing over distance rides every weekend. And not only do we not need it's not realistic, because you made it very clear, these are the type of athletes you're going to work with, and they're just not going to have the ability. It's not even going to be an option. It's a mistake that I made when I trained as an athlete myself, as I would be out on the bike every weekend, 456, hours, and I lost a lot of really close relationships because of it. Because I wasn't investing in important friendships, my personal relationships suffered.

Speaker 1 33:12

And at first, I didn't see how that could work. How could you train for an Ironman, you know, how could you train for an Ironman without doing those long rides? And then when I started working with Purple Patch and adopted the methodology, the methodology, that's what I had my athletes do, and the first time I really saw it in reality was when I had an an athlete. He's a founder of a tech company. He has three kids. Just had his third baby. We planned out exactly as you just said, the four or five long rides he was going to do over eight, eight weeks, and then it ended up coming, and he only rode two times a week for eight weeks, ended up coming fifth in his age group at Ironman, California, the third best bike time, best bike time he's ever had after 10 years in the sport, and seeing that happen, and realizing it's it's true, yep, was a really eye opening experience for me, and I think it's Just an area where a lot of triathletes suffer is those long rides. It's kind of the elephant in the room. It's the thing that takes the most time. You know, if you're training for a marathon, you don't have that many long training runs. You can get away with waking up early and getting a running before the kids are up. But it's the long rides for triathletes that I think can really throw their lives out of mounts. Yeah, and it's we have to, I think, be be honest here, of like some over distance writing is really important emotionally and and physically, the sort of physiological stimulus that occurs the muscular endurance. So it's about how, how do we actually fly under the radar in the big picture and get enough in but how do we actually show up. Cardiovascular fit enough, muscular endurance fit enough. And there's many ways to do it. So yes, they are good opportunities to do as long as they don't occur every single week. I always, I always encourage athletes to have a broader perspective. So never think about.

Matt Dixon 35:00

Training in terms of a week. We live in a week, but that's not what it takes to prepare for a race, you know? And the easy thing is, as soon as you think about the week, it's, how many hours a week do I need to hit? Well, the answer is, it depends, because if you're going here, there and everywhere, and it's really, really busy with life, effective training means that you're going to have to do less hours, but they're going to be really good hours. And if you've got the family away and you've got more time, then, yeah, let's let's expand it. Let's take advantage. You can do more hours, but I never think about, are you training 10 hours a week, 12 hours a week, 15 hours a week, 20 hours a week. I think about, how can we accumulate really consistent, effective training over four months, six months, eight months, three years. When you start to layer it on, that's where performance evolution transformation occurs. The average number of training hours for an Purple Patch athlete to an Ironman is under 11 hours. I think, I think it's 10.8 hours. But we qualified 100 people to the world championships last year, so that there's something there, there's and it's not. And I think this the key thing. It's not that 11 hours or so for an Ironman is better than 20 hours. It's that it's better if those hours are done really well in the context of your life. So I, I never trained a professional athlete on 11 hours a week. They did depending on the athlete, 1820, 2428 32 hours. Sometimes Laura Siddle, 32 hours. Big Hang on. Matt Dixon is not of a good big volume guy. Well, I am with Laura Siddle because she responds really well to that. I'm not with Tim Reed, world champion, because he did not respond well to that, and so we and he also had kids, so it was a different thing. So it that's a great example of that. Yeah, I was training 20 hours a week, for example, and I was not a professional athlete, and I could handle it physically. And that's the tricky situation with a lot of coaches, is you have amateur athletes who are great athletes. They can handle it physically, but they can't handle it within the context of their life, yeah, and I think for listeners, what I would to summarize, what we just talked about is this concept of running your own race doesn't start on race day, yeah, it starts in training. Train your own training that, I don't know if that sounds good, but there isn't, as you said, there's value in long rides if your life can handle it. And that's the big, that's the big, if I'll never forget, and I've talked about Sami Incan a lot on this show before, but Sami was the very well known Purple Patch athlete that won the Hawaii Ironman World Championship on 10 hours a week, because he was the same year doing that, taking truly a public so just And, you know, strong like bull Sami, the bull was very gifted, talented, but you know, he was under nine hours in Hawaii back in the day when, quote, no one went under nine hours in Hawaii as an amateur male. The sports evolved, obviously, but he did genuinely, 10 hours a week. And I'll never forget, I said to him, does it ever worry you that all the folks that you know trying to beat you are doing twice as many hours as you like the the top amateurs? He's like, No, I do the thing that is right for me. And so it's, I mean, there you go, folks, that's, that's an athlete mindset right there. That's a an incredibly high athletic IQ. Another one like that was Jesse Thomas, who was he had kids. He was building picky bars, the the business, great, purple. He used to train some hours, 10 hours a week, sometimes 25 depending on what was going on. He, you know, he didn't think about that when he was racing Janno at Lanzarote and beating him.

Speaker 1 38:40

Jan had just had the kid, but, but, yeah, so these are these really sort of fun examples of this in action of train your own training sort of thing. Yeah, keeping and I think to keep us moving forward, I think again, you said athlete mindset, thinking athletes like something. I would encourage our listeners, this isn't a once you don't do the Sunday special at the beginning of your training block, training program, and or, first of all, training is a year long pursuit and its consistency. But let's say you're one of those athletes that's downloading a 12 week training block off the internet. You don't do at the beginning of the 12 weeks, and that's it. This is an active process. The active integrating sport into your life is a continual process that never ends, and that's how you make high performance lifestyle. It becomes a lifestyle. That's right? Because at the end of that race, when you've done it right, you're fresh. Everyone thinks it's been Abbot additive to your life. It's fun. And so therefore you want to repeat it. Because it turns out that winning anything, and you know, I don't mean crossing the finish line first, but winning this is what this is, is really, really fun, yeah. And so therefore you want to do it again. And on that topic of winning,

Speaker 2 39:45

you need the people around you to want to win, also you. You need to get your your family, your team, involved. And that's something we talk a lot about, team, your team. Team was important when you made a pro squad and had the pro patch pros, you helped your the executives you've coached.

40:00

The past, become better leaders and create better teams at work,

Speaker 2 40:04

but making your home and the people in your inner circle, whether it's your close friends, your family, part of your team, so that when you finish that race, they were like, that was awesome. Let's do that. Let's get let's do that again. I want you to do another marathon. I want you to do another Iron Man. And for our listeners, the secret to not making triathlon widows is getting your your spouses and your partners on board with triathlon, maybe even buy them bike. But I think that's a good way to start. To wrap it up, is a few things that people can do to make sure that they're creating that team environment at home. Yeah,

Matt Dixon 40:39

well, I think about, you know, it's, firstly, it's sort of getting them on board, on your team. It's, it's make it everyone's journey. So this is always very, very important to you. And I don't necessarily believe in, in it's great if there's interest to do this sort of athlete conversion therapy type thing. But there's more than that of it's actually something that's really additive and, and it comes, you know, we talked a lot about balance before and, and how much we don't like the word balance because it makes it sound like some utopian, you know, thing that is always perfectly they there are times in the year when you if you choose to do a really important event to you, and we're using Iron Man as the example, that you are going to need intentional focus, that maybe some other areas might take not a back seat, but might take less of your focus. And families are part of that, and work to a certain point, but you obviously need to be careful with that, but that means if you're going to achieve balance over the course of a year, which is a good thing, that you need to therefore have times that you don't just turn your back on this in the same way as you don't turn your back on your family when you're getting ready for a race. But you really invest, that's the word. You really invest in your family, and you absolutely let the training side of it be way more supportive. And that's over the course of the time that you you start to build into, like, more harmony, more team. And then the other thing that I would, I would say, as well, is that ensure that that beyond the side of it, like not riding along every week, etc, etc, but also choosing opportunities and events that are really enjoyable for the family to go to. So there's two ways to go. Do you choose your racing calendar where there's two or three events that are easy hits for you, that you go alone, and that's great, but there are other ones that are really good, where kids and kids and husband want to join you there, or kids and wife want to join you there, whatever it might be and and I think that's really valuable. We just had, you know, we have countless people, and you saw this in Kona, that go away to the training camp, but bring partners and spouses, and then we tie those together so that it's, you know, at Panos, recent guest on, on the show here, his wife, Helen. She like, I'm coming every year, like, this is where life is. This is fantastic. And that's that's about, that that's because it's a really joyous thing, something to share. I think, yeah, what do you think? I think on a practical level, a few things I would add on the topic of Valentine's Day is

Speaker 2 43:29

one, as you said, sharing with your partner so find, and we talk about the soul filling workouts, and the easier, the easier workouts, and the times that you're not hammering intervals on the on the run or on the bike, find opportunities based on where you are in the season, to share activity with people that are important to you. And it doesn't have to be working out together, but communicate with your schedule, if your life permits, with your partner. Hey, I'm planning on going to the gym X days this week. Maybe you can go to the gym together and do your own workout. Or I'm planning on going for a run this week, and on Sunday, maybe we should go to the park with the kids, and I'll run, I'll finish my run, and then you can run, and I'll be with the kids in the park, so communication about how you can actually share in activity. And then I think to tie it together with all the supporting habits is, don't double down on your supporting habits in a vacuum. If you're working on nutrition and you're working with a company like fuel, and you need to prepare some food, think about your family. Yeah, think about, you know, how can I use my pursuit of trying to improve my nutrition to actually make it easier for my family to eat healthier and fuel better for their life? And maybe it's asking your partner what they want to eat for the week as your meal prepping, and add in some food for them, and prep some food for them, and just do little things that show that you're not just thinking about yourself and that you're thinking about how they're playing into your performance journey. I think that's really important. I think that I can sum that with that become a weirdo

Matt Dixon 44:58

within your own family. Yeah, it's. Say, hang on, there's all these powders and supplements and no, I can't eat that, and I can't go out to dinner. Ben, a guy that's been on this show and very busy. He's got young kids, very busy, executives, lives over in London. He does a lot of stuff where he lives in central London, but he'll go and do his long run. He's training for the London Marathon at the moment. He'll go and do his long run, but he'll run sort of on the fringes of London out to a really nice village somewhere and and here we meet his wife and his kids. They'll have a pub lunch, they'll go for a, you know, either a play in the park, and they'll play soccer often, but it becomes a family out in and they just get there. So that's how they do their Sundays. And yeah, like a little bit of point to point, but they'll choose somewhere that they haven't been before. And it's like, Yeah, that. So it's not just bends off again. I'll see him in two hours. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a that's a great way to think about it. I like that, so I'm gonna adopt that the run, run out and meet people on me, and it's fun. The nice thing is that if you're if you're really well behaved, you even get a ride home. Well,

Speaker 1 46:12

we could go on for a very, very long time, but I have a flight to catch back to San Diego, so we should probably start to wrap this up. But if the listeners like this, we could, we can do it again. Well, that's it. So as you heard in the in the promo at the start of the show, this is something brand new. We're welcoming Maxon giving it a crack, and we'd love to hear from you, what did you like? And also, I think that we would really benefit of some, maybe some topics that you'd like to us to to to talk about. So if you if you have any topics that you'd like us to get involved with, or any areas that you'd like us to dig into a little bit more, we would do it. But you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to let you wrap it up. I'm going to take a secret sit back and close out the show for us. Matt, well, I would say to wrap it up with the theme of Valentine's Day. The first thing you can do is tell your partner that you appreciate their support for you on your journey. Whatever it is you're working to accomplish that can go a long way. And the second thing is, is when you listen to this episode, just pause and think about, okay, what are one to two practical things I can do to improve how I integrate sport into my life. And if you focus on those ones, do things in the rest of this first quarter of the year, you'll be off for a really good start to 2025 and then in q2 do the same thing. Think about what are one to two things I can do, and do that over the course of the year, and you will achieve many purple patches in your life.

47:41

Ah, shit,

47:42

he's too good.

Speaker 3 47:45

I'll be that. Well done. He's gonna be back. Oh, here we go.

Matt Dixon 47:50

Well done, folks, thanks for listening. Really enjoyed it. It was, it was a lot of fun. Max, well done. Thank you, Dad. You're on the hot seat and and you did great. It was a really enjoyable and a fun conversation. I hope you found it helpful, and we will learn well, we're gonna see you. We we won't see you next week, but we will see you very soon, and I will see you next week. That's the way we're gonna play this thing. All right. Cheers. Take care, guys. 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 of 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 that 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, at Purple Patch fitness.com, or leave it in the comments of the show at 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

Valentine's Day, team dynamics, integrated sport, training load, effective training, family support, communication, long rides, Sunday special, athlete mindset, training consistency, performance lifestyle, partner involvement, training planning, training adaptation, ironman, relationships, marriage

Carrie BarrettFebruary 12, 2025