Spencer Barlow Uses Triathlon Training To Amplify Life as a Shift Worker
The Athlete:
Meet the amazing Spencer Barlow! Spencer is a 31-year-old shift worker at a steel company. As an Overhead Crane Operator in Ontario, he works 12-hour shifts that flip flop from nights to days each week. For obvious reasons, Spencer's occupation makes it challenging to be a successful triathlete. Nevertheless, he thrives. We will show you how he does it.
As a young child, Spencer was diagnosed with a learning disability and ADHD and was prescribed Ritalin. Spencer was on Ritalin for 10 years and was able to safely get off of it in 10th grade. From that point, he committed himself never to give up on his interests and always aimed to learn new things, no matter how long it took him.
This mindset and approach have enabled him to navigate the schedule challenges of his current life and evolve into an accomplished triathlete.
His triathlon journey isn’t about podiums and qualifications. Instead, it is an inspirational story full of lessons in commitment, embracing the training, and overcoming adversity.
The Challenge:
Integrating consistent triathlon training into a chaotic shift-work environment in order to amplify life.
With a background in fitness coaching, Spencer knew the importance of staying physically active while working a sedentary job. In 2019, when Spencer started his current career that involves shift work, he knew the implications of sitting for long hours, plus poor sleep habits can be a recipe for disaster. He didn’t want his new career to change him as a active person.
Spencer was inspired to use triathlon training and ultrarunning to remain fit and vibrant while working at his new job. To motivate himself and create a ‘northstar’ for his first year on the job, he signed up for three sprint triathlons. Spencer had a lot to learn before these events. He was athletic but had no triathlon experience and, literally, could not swim.
To prepare for these events, the first task at hand was learning how to swim.
He had never covered more than the length of a pool before and was naive when it came to the demands of swimming in a triathlon. Two months before his first sprint race, he started his swim training. He attended a few swim master classes at a local university and joined the local triathlon club, but could only periodically make it out to the early morning swim sessions because of his work schedule.
Spencer is a very muscular guy, weighing 180lbs at 5’11, and his first wetsuit barely helped keep him afloat. Spencer thought a 500m open water test swim would help him assess his readiness to swim at his first race, but, unfortunately, he failed to make the cut-off time in practice. Far from this failure, Spencer decided to think out of the box, quickly deciding it was time to become adept at swimming on his back.
When it was time for his first triathlon, Spencer went all in and raced three sprint distances in a row. Each of the races was a “living nightmare,” according to Spencer, especially his first attempt. The cold water, the crowds, and the lack of fundamental swimming skills led to panic attacks. He tried to remain calm but barely made it 100 meters without becoming so winded that he swam the entire 750 meters on his back, just making the cut-off. Despite the swimming challenges for these first events, Spencer fell in love with the sport. He didn’t quit. He grew.
As the 2019 triathlon season ended, Spencer turned his attention to ultra-marathon running races. Like his initial triathlon experience, he trained for these races with no real plan, learning everything by trial and error. The predictable result was injuries to his knee and calf. These injuries led him back to triathlon. Post-pandemic, he bravely registered for IRONMAN 70.3 Muskoka. To help him develop as an athlete and to learn more about biking and running, he decided to follow an online training program. Despite his best efforts to follow the plan for six months, creating a training rhythm seemed impossible. In addition, his knee refused to heal, he experienced high levels of fatigue, and he wasn’t progressing in the sport. He simply couldn’t find a training recipe that could ebb and flow with the challenge of his life schedule.
Spencer’s commitment was evident. He had already shown great courage and resilience in navigating adversity, but the result was still a person who was fit but fatigued and stuck performance-wise. He was neither thriving, nor optimizing life performance and health. A change was in order.
It was time to evolve, and Spencer sought something different.
The Solution:
Spencer’s goal was to start fresh from the ground up and learn everything he could about triathlon. He believed that with knowledge he could become empowered to self-manage and make intelligent decisions on integrating training into life. On January 1, 2021, Spencer decided to bite the bullet and sign up for the Purple Patch Tri Squad. As a long-time listener of the Purple Patch Podcast, he was familiar with the Purple Patch philosophy. He was especially drawn to the fact that Coach Matt Dixon is known as the 'Recovery Coach.’ Equally crucial to Spencer was Purple Patch’s philosophy of educating athletes on why they do our work.
A Flexible But Structured Training Program
For Spencer, flexibility in a training program is critical to his success. The ability to move workouts to suit his changing weekly schedules and having the option to choose between longer and shorter training sessions allows him to consistently train despite his complicated and demanding work routine. In addition, with layering fatigue and stress from night shifts, it was important for Spencer to understand the value of each training session and to focus on the key sessions within each planned week of training.
Spencer was empowered to press on when life stress was low, and was equipped to make intelligent decisions to pull back the training load when stress was high. As a result, he never lost specificity or consistency and began layering progressively better training. The Purple Patch Squad program's structure helped Spencer stay focused and motivated, and the differing workouts kept him from stagnating or becoming bored. The sure sign of positive training began to emerge, with Spencer realizing that the training plan didn’t feel like a monkey on his back. He started to look forward to training sessions and woke up excited to improve on the day before. His newly found sense of purpose meant that he prioritized sleep and stopped letting his eating habits slip. It became a way of living and energized him beyond training and into broader life.
Community and Educational Resources
The coaches and fellow athletes that make up the Purple Patch community help keep Spencer accountable and having fun on his training journey. As a self-professed lifelong learner, Purple Patch’s educational resources gave Spencer a better sense of clarity and commitment to the training process. The why in training was essential for Spencer’s continued focus during workouts and his longevity in the sport.
From Sink to Swim and Injury Recovery
Before joining Purple Patch, Spencer was admittedly a terrible swimmer. He couldn’t finish the swim portion of a sprint distance race without reverting to backstroke. However, two years on, he has found confidence and speed in the water. Unfortunately, there was no pool access at the peak of the pandemic, so Spencer had to rely on his swim cord workouts to keep his swim progress ticking along. When he finally got back in the pool, he immediately noticed a difference in his muscular endurance. Using swim toys like the snorkel, pull buoy, and ankle strap, Spencer built fitness and worked on technique simultaneously. He credits the snorkel explicitly for improving his catch and pull form, removing the variable of having to breathe every stroke.
Finally, Spencer’s knee and lower leg injury disappeared. He credits Purple Patch’s ‘little but often’ approach to running training for this recovery. Rather than executing a few big running sessions a week, Spencer followed an accumulation of high-quality running training over many smaller runs each week. Training load didn’t come from significant mileage in single sessions but from frequent running across many sessions. As a result, improved form, confidence, and tissue resilience led to healthier and faster running. Combining this with the strategic implementation of strength training designed to complement Spencer’s endurance work helped him build muscular resilience, making him less injury-prone.
The Results
“The most profound change has been the way this training program has given me more purpose and energy throughout my everyday life. I go to my job feeling more energized, and I leave work excited to get home and train.”
Joining Purple Patch has benefitted Spencer in a multitude of ways, both specific and general. He’s experienced some fantastic race results, and his swimming has improved by leaps and bounds. In addition, the structure and support of the Purple Patch system have allowed Spencer to thrive.
In addition, he is becoming a more sophisticated racer, and he is learning the power of hydration and fueling to provide him energy for the run.
Spencer finished Musselman 70.3 in 4:41 this year with a massive PR, qualified for the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in Finland, and took age group wins at multiple short-course events this year.
More importantly, Spencer has more motivation, drive, and energy at work, during training sessions, and in everyday life. Consistent and tailored training has kept him healthy and given him a newfound sense of purpose. Spencer also credits the Purple Patch community for inspiring him to start his own YouTube channel and podcast to help others find structure and balance in their own lives.