Is Your Race Ruined After Missing Training? How to Adjust After a Setback

You missed training. You got sick. Something flared up. Life got in the way.

Now the plan you imagined is not the plan you are actually living — and the question becomes: is your race still salvageable, or did the setback change everything?

In this episode, Coach Justin and Coach Katie talk through how endurance athletes should adjust after illness, injury, missed workouts, or disrupted training. More importantly, they explain why trying to “make up” lost training is often the fastest way to turn one setback into a bigger problem.

What You’ll Learn:
Why missed training does not automatically mean your race is ruined
The mistake athletes make when they try to cram lost workouts back into the plan
How to return to training without rushing intensity or volume
When to adjust the plan, when to adjust expectations, and when to stay patient

Timestamps:
00:00 — Why this episode matters
03:28 — Katie’s illness and the reality of interrupted training
08:07 — The emotional side of setbacks and lost expectations
13:10 — Why making up missed training usually backfires
17:12 — Patience, gratitude, and reframing the setback
23:02 — Handling the uncertainty of return-to-training
30:35 — Why injury and illness prevention is never guaranteed
34:51 — What to do after a short-term setback
38:13 — Returning day by day instead of forcing the plan
44:12 — Why movement comes before structured training
54:23 — How timing affects the cost of missed training
01:06:23 — Why race day is not decided by a perfect training block

For coaching inquiries:

Coach Katie → https://fuel2run.com

Coach Justin → https://tabularasaracing.com

Podcast Email → theenduranceathletejourney@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Justin. I'm here with Coach Katie, and this is episode 91. Uh today we're going to uh introduce a new topic that kind of piggybacks off of some of the previous series that we've been doing on building training plans. And but this one's going to take a different turn. And so what we wanted to do is we wanted to come to you with uh this idea on how do you adjust your training plan when you experience a setback. So we've we've shared a lot of information with you on how we build training plans, how we how we approach them as coaches, so that you have a really good understanding that if you're self-coached, how to build your plan. But what we never got into is what to do when you're off plan. And that can be the result of a sickness, uh, an injury. When would you need to completely rethink your plan? When do you just need a slight adjustment? When should you uh stick with the plan, but maybe adjust expectations? There's a whole bunch of different aspects to this that we can talk about. And I think that this is relevant because I see this a lot on social media and and as a coach, I get a lot of questions on, you know, people have bought this plan. They've bought it from either the website or some website or they've downloaded it from somewhere, and all of a sudden they they got sick or they got like Katie's did been dealing with something.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Uh so personal to me because I have because in my grandma's episode, I I mean, if you listen to that, you'll you'll hear, I mean, it's sort of talked about setbacks, right? So this is very raw, like real to me right now. Just you know, selfishly.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

No, yeah. So I I think it's a very valid and reasonable question because I mean a lot of people uh don't get their training plans from coaches. And so they they get these cookie-cutter template training plans and whether they're going to chat GPT in order to get you know their their plan, but they really don't have a good understanding on how to adjust the plan when the plan starts to fall apart or when you have to do when you have a slight deviation from it. And I think that this is where uh a coach really comes in handy in terms of you know getting things back on track or adjusting things as needed. How do you return to the sport once you've had to take some time off in order to deal with whatever setback it was? Um, and so this is where a coach really comes in handy uh and being able to implement appropriate methods for return so a that you don't uh exacerbate a situation that that you've been dealing with, and it you know, it kind of rebounds on you and comes back, or uh you develop a new situation that you have to deal with uh because of you know a too aggressive approach uh to return to training. So like I said, this is episode 91, and so uh let's go ahead and we're going to get started. Um, Katie, can I know that you just put out uh an episode on your your grandma's episode uh about what you've been kind of dealing with. So uh just in case somebody hasn't listened to that, can you give like a little bit of an introduction on what you've been dealing with for the past what like a week and a half now?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, about that or a little longer. But yeah, I I got the flu. So I I uh and we can talk about this because I think we're gonna talk a little bit about what influences things, kind of what can cause a setback. But for me, it was just an unfortunate series of events that caused some stress. So nothing I could have really prevented, but definitely maybe along with being in a marathon training plan, which already put you in a susceptible spot in terms of your immune system, I had the stress that happened. And that's kind of what I theorize, anyways, put me in a more susceptible place to get sick. And so I ended up getting pretty, pretty sick and having to take, you know, several days off of training. So I think I don't know the right, you know, the the date of it, but I had but did a run on Wednesday when I was sort of starting to feel ill. Um, and that's always hard to just you know know when, you know, when is it that you need to sort of like start taking time off? But it was the next day when I realized, hey, I'm really sick. Um, so I've had to take at least I I tried running in the middle of like a couple days in and it didn't go well. Had to take some more time off. So it's really been a good week and a half of not really training at all. Like very easy runs, but not really any substantial runs that are gonna make a difference in my fitness. Um it's just been, yeah, I just got influenza B pretty bad. And, you know, like fever, chills, it's not the kind of sickness that I would ever recommend anyone try to run through. In fact, if I think if I had actually like I did on Sunday, and then my illness got almost worse Sunday night and into Monday. So I actually generally would say in this case, probably wasn't a good idea to even try running. I know a lot of people try to run through things like this. Um, but it yeah, it's definitely taken me out. I was on a roll with my training. I was really doing well, and that's typically how it goes, right? You just you're doing great, you're feeling good about things, and then wham, you know, whether it's an injury or illness or sometimes just something happening in life that gets you, you know, maybe it's just a schedule change or something, your kids get sick, whatever it is, but it kind of gets you in your and you have to like reassess things or re-reevaluate or or take time off. And then you're, I think along with that, sometimes there comes those feelings of you know, anxiety and frustration and things like that. But that's kind of what I've been dealing with is just more of the illness um side of things. And usually when I get ill, I can take a few days off and come right back to it or or to come back with some easy running, and that just wasn't the case this time. And so um I think that's where I'm frustrated because I I've been so lucky, I think the past few marathon cycles of not really having anything so significant. And now I am dealing with something a little bit more significant. So that's you know, this topic is very relevant to me, but that's a little, you know, it's my my story in a nutshell. Like Justin, have you had I mean you've had some injury, you know, history injuries out of kind of so I don't know, I don't know if you want to share any of your like of your personal, you know, I don't know, story or even pick one.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Oh yeah, I mean yeah, I've I have no shortage of of injury stories. Um when I was training for Iron Man Chattanooga, it was my first Iron Man, I developed uh golfer's elbow, um, which is ironic because I don't play golf. I sucked at it, which is why I stopped playing golf and picked up triathlon and then got golfer's elbow from swimming. Uh so um and ended up having to have surgery in order to clear out uh the scar tissue several years later. Um I've had when I was training for Iron Man North Carolina 70.3, I had a torn rotator cuff and a torn bicep tendon that I actually raced with those tears, and then after the race was over, went and had them uh surgically repaired. I've had uh plantar fasciitis in both feet uh at the same time. And it was because I was stupid. I mean, as it it developed in one and I was like, I'm just gonna like push through this, and I was young and dumb and uh ended up doing like three half Iron Man, uh two half marathons, a couple Olympic races, and it ended up costing me six months of rehab in order to get that stuff cleared out.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Plus the other side of this is just pushing through.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Yeah, pushing through it. I mean I am stubborn and hard headed, and I don't want to uh really what it comes down to, I believe, is that when you're faced with these setbacks, it's not just the frustration of the setback. I think that there's more to it. And I think it's the the disappointment in the unrealized expectations that you had. Uh I know that all athletes form this movie in their mind when they click on the register button for a race. They they they pay their money, they click on the register, and now the movie starts playing in their mind where it's like training is going to go perfectly well, uh, there's going to be no issues, you're gonna get you're gonna do all of your workouts, you're gonna show up on race day healthy, you're gonna get a massive PR, and you're just gonna have you're gonna smile from ear to ear. And this is this is the movie that forms in our mind. I know because it it happened, it's happened to me. Everyone's every single time that I click the register button, I say, this training cycle is going to go really, really well, and I'm going to have a great race. You have to have, you have to have that because otherwise, why would we have to do that?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah. Yeah. I'm my race isn't gonna go great. I'm just gonna like, I don't know. Like most people are pretty optimistic, I think, about how things are gonna go when they sign up, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah, so when things don't go the way that you envision them, you start to get scared. Uh, and I think scared is is a reasonable word to use. Scared that the expectations that you formed in your mind when you click the register buttons button is not going to materialize. And so now you're going in with something lesser than. And I think that this is where a lot of athletes will step right in and say, Oh, well, now this is just going to be a training, a training race for me. You know, they really start to discount it. It's like, oh, my training didn't go like I wanted it to. So, you know, I'm just going to discount my performance before I even have it. I'm going to discount it now, and I'm just going to say, oh, this is just a training. This is just a training.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

I can already see my mind going there a little bit. Like, oh, well, if things don't start turning around soon, maybe I'll just have fun. I don't know if there's anything wrong with like going into it and being like, okay, well, I put a lot of pressure on myself. And maybe there's a little bit of having this break that's like, okay, yeah, I was getting a little obsessive. Like, yeah, I was getting a little crazy obsessive, but and you need to have a little bit of that when you're training. There's nothing wrong with that, but like to take to have the break, I don't have the training to kind of hold on to as a coping strategy anymore. So then I'm like, my mind starts to wander a little bit to think, well, you know, if I can't get back to it where I was, like, maybe it's okay to just have the race be the whatever it's gonna be. And maybe that takes some pressure off of me. But, you know, so I have and that maybe that's okay a little bit. Like you don't want to have a ton of pressure on you because there's so many things that can happen in some of these races, especially marathons anyways. Like I don't want to go into it with so much pressure that I that it's no fun anymore. But also at the same time, I don't want to sort of like, okay, well, it's done, it's over. I had this little setback, you know, I might as well not even try anymore. I'm just gonna like run a little bit and hope and have, you know, whatever. You know, because I think that's that's kind of where my mind's gone a little bit. And I think it's just me trying to cope with this a little, like to because I keep waking up and not feeling good because I'm not able to bounce right back like I want. And I think my mind, you know, my mind is almost like kind of creating it out for me in a way, as like a way to kind of cope with what I'm dealing with right now with the setback. And so I think it's n it it's common to kind of be be like that, or like, well, it's not this training plan isn't going perfectly the way I've perfectly set it up because they're all perfectionists, right? And I had I had it all set up, you know, and even though I know it's all in pencil and I do week to week move things around and sometimes change things, I still had this envision of like, and I've had to now cut out a few key workouts that I was really excited about, or I have to either I can't, I can't kick them down the road and set and put them somewhere else because I now have five hard workouts in one week because you're trying to make up for it. So it's like I have to this training plan that I had built and had these workouts in, some of that may have to go out the window and it's not gonna be as perfect as I was hoping. And so I think that's part of it too, is like like letting go of some of that and that that perfectionism piece that I think some of us runners have too, of like, oh, I was supposed to follow this plan and now it's not working. I'm just gonna sort of discount this race now because things aren't going the way I wanted them to go.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

I think I think to a certain extent it's kind of it's almost like a protection mechanism.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, protection. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

So, but then you also see people uh where they they fall behind or they got they got hurt or something. And so they, you know, they let's just say they bought a 16-week training plan that was uh 12 hours, 12 hours a week training plan, and then something happens, and now they're just like, oh well, now I gotta go buy a new training plan that's going to be eight weeks, and instead of it being uh 10 to 12 hours, now I gotta do like 14 hours. So they're trying to make up lost lost time, and really I've never ever seen that be successful ever. Um so you know that's just the word of caution. I mean, when when I when I did when I trained for Iron Man Florida 70.3 in December, I mean, I was my training plan was going fantastic. I mean, it was great. I was super conservative with the run because I was dealing with with ankle issues, but my bike fitness was was on point, my swim fitness was great, and three weeks prior to race day, uh, I came down with posterior tibial tendonitis and was on crutches. And I still couldn't, I still couldn't walk well when I showed up to the venue for packet pickup. Like the day before the race, I was still limping. And and I I caught myself a couple times in the expo, uh, really, and I I verbalized it and it caught me off guard because it's the first time I've ever done this where it says, if I finish, I've never ever said that before. I've you know, knock on what I I have never uh had a DNF so far after all these years of doing this. Uh I've I've never had to deal with that. And so I've always kind of like found a way to crawl across the finish line, you know, at the very last possible minute. And but this was the one time that I caught myself saying that, and I knew that's that my mind just wasn't right because I allowed that thought to become verbalized. And you know, I I never altered um you know my effort level. I I never came, I never went into the race saying, you know, I'm just going to, you know, just kind of go it easy and just have some fun. I'm I still wanted to push myself as as hard as I could. Um, you know, even if it was just for the swim and the bike, and then just do whatever I could to get through the run. I ended up having uh a 20-minute PR on the bike. I went finally went sub three hours on on a half Iron Man bike course. And the swim was like one of the hardest swims, swim courses that I've ever done. And but the run just it ate my lunch because I couldn't I couldn't run it. It's tough, yeah. You know, but I I I will say that I'm glad that I had the experience because it was something that I needed. I I needed that. Uh I think I learn more out of the races that I go into maybe having had to deal with something during training. I think I learn more from those experiences than I do if the training went fantastic and I had a great race. So, you know, if there's a silver lining in all of it, and it's just like, okay, well, you know, if I didn't have to deal with any adversity during training, then really what did I learn, you know, about myself? I, you know, I may have learned that, you know, this is a this is a good approach to use for training for this particular race at this particular point in my in my journey. But really, I think once you have to deal with some level of adversity or something that just does not go the way that you expect it to go or you hope that it would go, I think it makes the experience so much more valuable and so much more learning and it creates better athletes. It gives us more wisdom and experience. And I think that that's really important.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

I think patience maybe is my my learning, my learning experience here. It's just like the patience of just waiting it out until I know my body's ready instead of being like, well, I kind of feel okay, I'm gonna start you know pushing it again and then maybe just being sick for four weeks. Just you know what I mean? They're having something like prolonged, and then I also think when I do get back to training, I'll probably really appreciate it a little. Like it'll be like, oh, I feel good. You know what I mean? Like I feel good, my body feels good, and I'm like training again. And I think sometimes in the grind of training, and I could kind of tell like this this happens sometimes at the marathon training, anyways. I just kind of like, ugh, I gotta do another run today. Like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, it's gonna be a hard run, and I start to like not appreciate it as much because I'm just grinding it out, and it's just like every day you're kind of, you know, sometimes tired from training. You just get used to it almost. And so I do kind of think maybe having this experience when I am able to feel good, I'm gonna really appreciate feeling actually waking up in the morning and being like, oh my gosh, I'm not coffee and I don't have stuffiness and I'm able to like actually have energy and like oh, I'm gonna be like so happy about that because this has kind of really sucked and not feeling good. You just you forget how great it feels when you feel good. When you when you don't feel good, you're kind of like, oh man, I really wish I felt better. Like you're saying, like reframe, like it's a learning experience and it's like a a good time to kind of reframe and really get to appreciate whether it's like an illness or you have like a an injury, depending on the severity of the injury, obviously this the amount the how much it is a setback is you know gonna matter. But you know, when you actually do go out and you're like, oh, but it doesn't hurt anymore, I'm or I feel good or whatever, like it's it's it helps you really appreciate being able to go out there and do it, you know. Um the flip side though, like with the with that, as you do feel better, there, you know, just like what you're saying, it now it it's not the opportunity now as you feel better to then be like, I'm gonna make up for all of the all of the things I missed, you know, when I wasn't feeling well or when I was injured, you know, you still have to have a little bit of that restraint. But um, but it it does. I mean, I think kind of like thinking of it like almost like a a reframe, like a setback, you know, is very normal. It happens all the time. Runners and triathletes and anybody in endurance sports experience it. Like some people maybe more than others, just are maybe more susceptible to it or something, but it happens and it's not a failure or something that you like, even in this case, I I I I'm going back and I'm like, what did I do wrong? What could I have done to maybe not get so sick, right? Well, honestly, it's just a bad set of circumstances. Like, really, there isn't really much I could have done to not to maybe not have that stress happen. Like it just was a bad set of circumstances. I may have gotten sick anyways. It's hard to even know, you know. Sometimes you I but I think there is this tendency to be like, what did I do wrong? You know, what did now it's like sort of a failure on my part somehow that this happened. Um, and I just want to put it out there that that's usually not the case. It's just that this this happens to a lot of people in this, you know, doing sports. And so um, yeah, it isn't it isn't a failure. Um it's is, I think, like you're saying, Justin, like it is a part of long-term progress. Like it's hard to think about that sometimes. Like, oh, a setback just seems like a a setback, it's like a bummer and it su it does suck. But like sometimes it can, I think reframing it a little bit can help because maybe there is some something that it prevented, or maybe, you know, maybe you were overtraining, who knows? And it was actually somehow a gift that you were given, you know, to be having to take some time off. It's it's hard to to know that for sure, but I think sometimes it's it just happens and it is part of the long-term process and progress that we make to have setbacks here and there. And so kind of just accepting that and not not like, oh, it's the end of the world, and really just like letting it totally, you know, mentally cause a lot of grief and and and issues, I think that can be a helpful way to look at it. And then um, yeah, just thinking of like what is there like sometimes it's hard to know what we can learn from an experience when we're in it. Like right now, I'm like, what am I gonna get out? What is this gonna what is this helping me learn? I don't know, maybe but maybe as I'm back in a training I'll be like able to to look back at it a little bit differently and have a different perspective on it. And um, you know, who knows? I mean I might be able to be like, oh, actually that might have actually been okay because now I'm able to put in this solid block of training and maybe I was really, you know, overdoing it a little bit and I needed some time. I mean, who knows? Those are my thoughts, anyways. It's kind of like that mental side and how people are kind of looking at it and trying to not let it be like catastrophic, you know, necessarily. It's hard. It's hard the the the more of a setback it is for sure, the harder that becomes. Because if you have an injury that's actually like maybe like a stress fracture or something that's like you actually can't be, you cannot run through this, you know. Yeah, it's gonna be something that you have to take 12 weeks off. Like if that happened to me, it's be a different conversation. Like, I'm sick, like I know I'll get better. I'll be able to get back to running. I don't know how soon I'll be able to get back exactly to my training plan, but it's not gonna be 12 weeks, you know. But it's a more significant setback that the more this might take a toll on somebody, and I understand that too, right? So it does depend a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

I think a lot of people, a lot of athletes tend to struggle with the uncertainty. And I'm glad that you kind of brought this up because I feel that that's one of the hardest things that you have to deal with during these setbacks, whether they be sicknesses or injuries, is this level of unknown on when when will I feel better? Because the body is going to take however long it needs to get there. And sometimes it's outside of our control. It just gets better when it gets better. And there's nothing that we can really do or say in order to speed things up or improve things. There's stuff that we can do in the meanwhile that will, you know, keep us occupied or keep us engaged so that you know we don't completely like detrain. And that's one of the things that I do with my athletes and I do with myself as well. It's like, okay, well, right now I can't run, but what can I do? Okay, I can bike all I want, I can swim as much as my shoulders will will absorb. And if I can't run, well, can I do the elliptical? Or, you know, those are the sort of things that I really try and emphasize with with the athletes that I work with. It's like, look, we're not going to sit here and we're not going to cry in our milk on stuff that we can't do because there's stuff that we can do. So let's focus on that. Yeah. And when we can get back to doing what we want to do, we'll be grateful on the opportunity to return back, which I'm love that you brought up this this idea of gratitude. And it's almost kind of like a humbleness because I know that I experienced that when I came back to Triason last year after taking like four years off from shoulder surgery and elbow surgery and the frozen shoulder rehab. It took me four years to kind of return to sport. And when I returned, I felt incredibly uh uh what's what's the words I'm looking for? I had a lot of gratitude. I guess gratitude is the word that that I would use that I was able to return. And before that, it was all unknown. I didn't know when it was going to happen, but I did everything that I could possibly do in each of those situations to eventually get myself into a situation where it would be possible to come back. So if you just completely just give up and disengage, then I don't really know what to tell you.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah, I have heard people say, like, when you're injured, that your new job or your new trading plan is like recovery, getting your body like doing what you can to stay as fit as you can or to like recover. It's a bone injury, and you're like, well, I um I'm really gonna make sure I'm eating enough if maybe underfueling was an issue, or like I'm gonna have enough calcium, or you know, just like those things that will help you recover quicker, right? So that becomes your new focus. And that can really, I think, help through an injury, especially one that's maybe a little bit more significant. I do think in those cases, like if it had been something like a stress fracture for me, I, you know, it is a bummer because I probably would not then be able to do grandma's at all. Because it's like seven weeks away. I wouldn't be, you know, you do sometimes then have to unfortunately like give up on that. You know, you signed up for the race and you know, give up on that rate, you know, that race isn't gonna happen in those circumstances, and that's really hard. Um, especially if you've paid to go. Like in my case, if if it if that were the case, we would have paid to go and we would have, you know, the it becomes an you know more of an issue sometimes because you've put a lot of stock and investment into it or whatever, you know, those things. But I think like it's okay. There's always gonna be more races, and and I think it's not like that's the only race out there. It's the only time you could ever do it. So but you know, there are instances where the setback isn't you know, it's not just a few weeks. I mean, we're kind of we're sort of framing this particular episode more like for those l' little, a little bit more minor setbacks of like one to two weeks off, and how do you kind of jump back in? Um, maybe maybe there's a discussion there for like how an athlete can sort of reframe and cope with a longer setback. Um I'm almost wondering if that's like a separate one, but it it it is hard. And yeah, I agree with you. I think it's like instead of moping around and just doing nothing, you just your new job becomes the recovery piece. And like, what can you do? Can you do swimming? You know, if you have a stress fracture, it might be something like swimming or you're offloading it for a while, but you could probably get in the pool. Maybe you can't kick, but you can use your arms or whatever. Like there's something you could probably do, some strength component to it, and then just yeah, providing all the nutrients your body needs for healing, and that becomes what you focus on. Um, I think in the short term too, like that's a nice, I mean, that's where it's a little like a minor injury. Yeah, I mean, if it had been something where I'm like, ooh, something's a little bit tweaked, I would have been able to maybe get on uh on the elliptical machine or the swimming pool or you know, do other things. Like, so that's I mean, I don't know, injuries are hard because sometimes you don't know if it's just a minor injury and you take a few days off and you kind of nip it in the bud, usually, you know, maybe this just goes away or maybe it doesn't. And so sometimes the injury, there's a lot of unknowns to that, which I think is anxiety producing, where when you get sick, you you know you're probably gonna get better. I mean, I'm sure there are instances where you the sickness just lingers for a really long time. I'm hoping that's not the case for me, but I don't know, because it's still lingering. Um, but it's more severe to the point where it when you're sick like this, like there was no way I was gonna go anywhere to train. There wasn't much I could do really when I was like literally like had a fever and was had chills and was like only unfunctional pretty much for a few days. Um just I guess it depends. Like, you know, in that case, I was just not feeling good, feeling pretty sorry for myself for a few days. Um, you can wallow in that. Um, but yeah, if you have the ability to like sort of do something, it's it helps too mentally to be like, okay, I'm gonna keep I mean, don't go crazy, you know, spending three hours on the elliptical and three hours pool running or something like that, but like you don't overdo it, but like take your energy or put a little bit of energy into something. Um, and there's like a little jumping spider over here. Um, I'm kind of thinking too, like, let's move on from like, okay, we have a setback, and we're now we're sort of starting to get back into training. I know we talked a little bit about preventing setbacks, um, but I don't really think there's a way. I mean, I don't know if I could say like there's a prevention strategy here. I think things like this just happen. You know, the prevention is just the regular stuff we talk about, having a really well thought out training plan, reducing outside stress, sleeping and eating well. I mean, all of these are are going to be key prevention strategies, but sometimes you just have a setback, like you have something come up and there's nothing you could have done to prevent it. So I don't really think we need to set spend too much time on that.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

But I do want to kind of maybe move on to like I do want, I do want to talk a little bit about that because I've seen I've seen a lot of comments out on social media that I've been interacting with with athletes on, you know, what are some of these tips and tricks to uh to prevent injury? And that's the way that they phrase it. And the reason that I wanted to say this is because there's no way to mitigate 100% of the risk. So if you think about it like the stock market, if you buy one stock, then you're you have pretty high risk of you know the performance, your performance is going to be a function of the performance of that single stock. But if you buy a portfolio of stocks, now you have mitigated risk, you've you've lessened it, but it's still not zero. You can still lose all of your money. The same thing goes for training. We can have a well-thought-out plan, we can do all of the self-care that we need to do, and that's all the stretching and rolling and percussion and compression and everything else. We can eat well and sleep uh appropriately for what our body requires to recover and absorb. Uh, we can do all of the right things, but it does not mean that we can prevent injury a hundred percent of the time. Even the professional athletes have to deal with this, and they have people that they hire to take care of them, cook the cook their food, make their meals, uh, do their do the therapies that they need to have done. Their coaches are doing their training plans, but they still get hurt. It's the human body, and there's no way that uh you can uh try and follow a plan thinking that it's going to prevent you from the risk of being injured. Uh there's there's no plan out there that is 100% foolproof. And if somebody is telling you that this is a plan that's guaranteed to not get you hurt, uh they're lying to you. There are things that we can do to prevent and not take unnecessary risk and and you know try and mitigate some level of risk, but we cannot completely wipe it out.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah, I agree. And I think with illness too, I think of I feel like I had somebody that was like, oh, you know, all the things they're like, you take your take zinc and like NAC and like I'm like, I did I already did, I did that. Yes, yeah, I did it. I took the high level like dose of zinc and I took the NAC like 500 milligrams two or three times a day. I did all of that and there's no magic to it, really. I mean, maybe it would have helped, maybe it would have helped, maybe it might help somebody, but I think it's like, yeah, I I did that. It doesn't seem to make a difference for me. I mean, maybe it would next time. I've done it before and I've felt like it's been helpful, but it's just funny. That's kind of just, I don't know. It's like sometimes it just your body is just in a compromised state, and no amount of throwing nutrients at it when it's too late anyway is gonna probably help prevent, make sense to just kind of like do what you can.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

We all try, you know, try to do what you can, but you're right, even the professionals like I I follow a lot of professionals kind of like YouTube channels or whatever, you know, their their Instagram's pages, and you know, there can be sometimes sometimes they have pretty significant setbacks where they're having surgery for something, or yeah, I mean they deal with it just like we do. So and yeah, they have all the resources. So yeah, I think that helps me feel sometimes better about it.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Yeah. So do we want to get into what to do after a setback? And I think this will actually allow us to also introduce the things on things that we should not do. But let's talk about the stuff that we should do. To do, sure. Um after we've experienced some setback. So this is the setback could just it it could be like what you're dealing with was the flu, or this could be, you know, just let's talk about it in terms of like a mild injury, you know, if that means, you know, a little bit of maybe tendinitis flare-up or something like that. We're not talking like like bone issues or anything else, which I think has a different, a different approach and a different uh portfolio of things that you have to consider uh in terms of return, return to sport. But let's just try and keep it, we'll keep it simple and just talk about, okay, you know, I missed, you know, a week of of you know training because, you know, I got the flu or you know, I I got COVID, you know, those those sort of things which are recoverable and you know, but is not typically a long-term issue that you have to deal with where now you have to set a very specific path uh forward.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

So I mean I think the first thing is just really trying to prioritize so the recovery piece. So as soon as you kind of start to feel sick or you're um you've got that acute thing going on with the injury is just that sort of like, okay, maybe you do need to take a few days completely off just to kind of allow. I mean, maybe it depends again if it's like a like an in with the injury or what's going on there. Do you have to take time completely off, or can you maybe do some cross-training? But I think really prioritizing that, okay, now I'm kind of getting this acute thing happening. Let me make sure um to get a little bit of extra rest, to make sure the you're eating well, you're hydrating, you know, especially for like an illness. I sometimes I think people kind of like to push through, but I think if it's again, go back to our immune episode because we talk a little bit about the the like when to sort of know when to stop and when to keep going. But I do think anything that if you're just kind of feeling unwell and you're just not optimal, I think it's a sometimes I do think like trying to run will set you back a few more days sometimes. Like it's it's a little bit better once you really start to feel ill to sort of be like, okay, I'm gonna probably I'm gonna take at least one day off and see what happens rather than trying to push through. So really focusing on that. So let's say like I want to kind of put this back on you. So let's say you have somebody that's either, you know, a few days off, but I don't think like if somebody is just taking a few days off because they were a little bit sick and then they're kind of getting back into it, maybe they don't they don't run as hard for a few days. I don't think that I view that as much of a setback as much as it's just kind of a normal part of training. So let's just kind of preface this as like somebody's had to take at least one week off of their main sport. So whether from an injury, they maybe they're a runner and they had to take the a week off at least, maybe a week to two weeks, or for an illness like what I'm dealing with, having now taken a pretty much just a little bit of easy running, but several days off, almost a week off, and then some easy running, and it's now gonna be like a week and a half. So it might end up being like a full two weeks before I'm really able to start a significant amount of training again. What like I think a conversation about the adjustment of the plan and kind of where where would you start? Like, I don't know, use me. Like I wanna Yeah, let me be your like uh like your subject, I guess. And what would you say to me if you were if I were your athlete and I'm dealing with what I'm dealing with? And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

What I would say is uh let's we're gonna take this day by day. And that's that's the first thing that we're going to do. Is like there there is there is no like plan per se where it's like this is what we're doing Monday, this is what we're doing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. This is a a daily check-in kind of thing, where it's like, you know, let's let's try something on Monday, and then I'll check in with you and see how you're feeling. And then, you know, based on that feedback that I would get from you, I would then set Tuesdays workout. Um when you have been forced to miss a significant amount of your training plan, and that could be anything from like one to two weeks, what I will typically do for a return to sport is we'll go back to the to the last week where you felt healthy. So if it's been two weeks that you've been off, we'll go back to we'll go back three weeks and I'll take a look at what kind of volume uh and talking about duration and intensity mixture that was in that week. Depending on the severity of the illness, I may even take it back an additional week. And so if that was three weeks, then I'll go back four weeks in the training plan and see what that one was. And typically I'll remove all intensity from it, and this is all going to be zone one, zone two activity just to uh blow the rust off per se. Um there's there's definitely like we were we were chatting a little bit about, you know, you know, oh I've got you know race pace stuff and I got sub-race pace stuff. Um I would absolut I would say absolutely no sub-race pace uh work within that first week. I may uh save that for the second week of return. Um whatever if if if the return has been going well and we've gotten a few days into that return, so let's say that we're turn we're returning on Monday. Monday may be a just a complete like zone one, zone two jog. Uh, and then the next day we'll evaluate, it's like, okay, well, that went well. Okay, well, let's let's stick with that and maybe we'll go a little bit longer. And so if I if I give you uh we're just gonna do 30 minutes, that's all we're doing, zone one, zone two, uh, just to activate things. The next day I say, okay, well, if that went well, then let's do let's go 35, 40 max, and that's what we're doing. And then we'd we'd circle up and say, well, how'd that feel? Oh, I felt great. Uh I'm I've I'm feeling really, really good. Then I would say, okay, the next day we may do some if you're really, really itching for some intensity, I'd give you a race pace interval workout, um, but the intervals are going to be really, really short. We're talking like no more than like two to three minutes of race pace effort with ample recovery time. And the way that you would approach it is we would just go interval by interval. So you're the one that's gonna have to make that decision during the workout on how many intervals you're going to do. I'll set the guardrails and say we're doing no more than five intervals, but you know, at least try two because the first interval is always crap anyway. So I'll always throw the first interval. Yeah. So it's like, really, I want to know what that second interval felt like. You're like, oh, it felt great. All right. Now commit to doing the third interval, then evaluate once that interval is over, how did that feel? Okay, now we'll do the fourth one. That one was was that's where I start to felt feel the stress. Then it's like, that's that's where we stop. All right. Now the rest of the workout is going to be zone one, zone two, uh, just a nice, easy just to duration of the workout. And that's how we would we would progress, right? Uh, especially during that first week. Then you have to kind of circle up and say, okay, well, how does how does the second week feel? And we may start to dip back into those weeks that you had missed. We're not going to start where the training plan says that you should be. I think that that's really, really important because that previous volume is was there for a reason. And it's because we needed that volume. What we would typically have to see if we have to make an adjustment to the way that we approach taper period uh because of the time that you took off, you may not have the same level of accumulated fatigue when it comes time for the race. So you may not need as long of a taper. So you may that's the first place that I would kind of go to and say, okay, well, instead of two weeks taper, let's do uh a week uh or maybe 10 days of taper rather than the full like 14, and we'll start to unload there. But you're you're you've you have you're going to sacrifice at least a couple weeks of that training plan. It's like, which weeks do we want to sacrifice? And it's usually those those later parts where you start to get into the race specificity training. We may have to just sacrifice those because we don't want to skip volume that we should have already in our bodies in order to do the race specific stuff. We have to, it's a progression that we have to stick with. Um but it is definitely it's a it's an iterative thing where it's like you just have to go like day by day until you get to the point where it's like I have no more symptoms, uh, I have no more cough, uh, my sinuses are empty, uh, I feel good, I'm sleeping. Well, my appetite is back. Then I say, all right, now we can go into training. What we were doing before is like a return to sport protocol, uh, which is different from training. We have to reintroduce the body to activity. And it's not just, and it was one of the things that I really wanted to bring up is that this is we're not just concerned about the the loss of aerobic capacity, you know, from taking time off because of being sick. Yeah, you will start to to detrain a little bit when you start to approach like two and three weeks uh of being off. It's expected, uh, but it's fine. It's not going to kill your race. Uh you may have to adjust expectations, but it I don't think it's going to kill things. But uh the one thing that we have to be aware of is how you're going to feel when you return to sport. And especially for running, because it's a it's a load-bearing uh activity, you're reloading ligaments and tendons and and joints, and so you're reintroducing that load, which is why it's really important to not just jump right back into training because it's too much of a shock to the body. You know, your your muscles and tendons have have deladed now, and it's shed a bunch of fatigue by the time that you've taken off. It doesn't mean that that you you're healthy because your body spent a lot of energy trying to fix itself, you know, trying to get better. You know, it's not like you can just sit there and say, Well, I haven't done anything uh for for two weeks. You may not have physically done anything, but your body has been working really, really hard in order to get you back to baseline. So when you start to train again, you may experience harder breathing, runs that maybe may feel harder than what they used to feel. That's fine. Um, but the important thing is we're having to reload the joints and tendons. And so it's really important to just be cautious and patient with that and not rush things because what I've seen is that athletes who have missed a significant part of their training plan, they jump back in and they try and make up this lost time. And what it does is it's too much of a shock to the body. So you either develop new issues because now you've overloaded joints and and tendons, or you run the risk of a relapse of whatever it is that you have been going through. Uh, you know, for you, you know, if it was the flu, it's it's a strong possibility that that can wake back up and and and show up again.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

You know, yeah. But I also think in this case, I'm sort of susceptible for other illnesses as well. So that's another thing, is right now, um, you're thinking of it like the sickness and stuff, like you're just a lot more susceptible to other things, yeah. Other things when your sort of immune system has been attacking something. So like I have to be extra careful, even if I did feel a hundred percent tomorrow, to the thought process might be like, Oh, I'm gonna go do like a really hard workout or I'm gonna jump right back into it. But there just has to be like a level of caution, I think, for myself, just kind of looking ahead. I I do have like a half marathon that I'm supposed to do on Saturday that's gonna be at race pace, but I might end up doing some sort of variation on that of like not all of it at race pace, where I do like a certain mile at race pace and then like a break a little bit of a break and then a certain amount, you know, and still do the half marathon as a workout, but like not exactly the way I was gonna do it, because that is a long stretch, 13 miles to be, you know, pushing. So I, you know, and then the the lead into that, I have a pretty easy week anyway. So I think I'm gonna have to kind of think about the workouts and if there are any workouts that I missed that I would want to replace with some of the workouts I have, you know what I mean? Like I'm gonna have to kind of look back at the plan and be like, okay, what did I miss that I could maybe do? Because it's supposed to go to Horno More Race Pace marathon specific stuff here in a couple weeks, but I might still want to have some of that intensity that I missed. And like we and you talked about, and this is something we talked about, was the taper. The key is I don't think you're gonna be able to always make up for everything that you missed or the mileage that you missed. And so it's just adjusting what you can. And I think I won't really be able to see exactly how much it impacted me until probably a few weeks from now. Like, you know, did it really have maybe I'm kind of get right back on track and I'm didn't progress in my fitness, but hopefully I didn't lose a whole bunch. But I'm not gonna really know that until I start to feel better. So it's, you know, I think that's the hard part is kind of being like, I don't know. I think for most people of a setback, it's kind of like, I don't know when, you know, when am I really gonna get be able to get back and to hold yourself back when you do feel good is probably the hardest part, and not being like, okay, I'm gonna I feel good, so I'm gonna go do all of the things that I missed, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Yeah, there's a there's another piece to the puzzle, especially with with a situation that you experienced where you you lost your appetite. And so really you have to look at it, it's like you're now in a sub a subnutritious state. I don't know how else to describe it. So it's like, you know, if you tried to go in and try and do a quality session uh without any kind of, you know, time on your belt where you like your appetite's returned and you've been fueling properly. If you go in and try and execute a quality session, I I would question on your ability to actually execute it and get the performance that you want from it. But I would also question is like what is going to be the impact of that kind of intensity that you've now put onto your body? Are you gonna dig a big big of a deeper hole that you now have to try and dig out of as you've as you're returning? So that's why it's really important to kind of manage that intensity the first week that you're returning to sport, which is why I really don't encourage any level of intensity uh during that first week, uh, because your body is still kind of like trying to wake itself up. You may feel well, but it doesn't necessarily mean that your body is well, yeah, and properly fueled and and ready for training. Where right now we're just you need to think about it in terms of what can I do to reintroduce movement to my body, and then once I get past that, then I can talk about returning to training, which is purposeful and structured. Right now, we just want to to say, where am I at?

SPEAKER_00 50:53

I've learned somewhat the hard way that sometimes when we push when we're not feeling quite well or we're not quite uh 100%. So even if I wanted to try to do like a workout tomorrow or Monday or something, and I just got out there and I didn't feel quite well, I feel like it would be I just wouldn't be able to do it. I don't know, like it's just like my I I I don't like to push, you know, beyond w what I'm capable of. Um so I feel like that's that's another thing too, is I just um I'm kind of like the RPE thing, like feeling ill kind of affects that, right? You're trying to go out, and even today when I tried to push the pace a little bit, I was like, it felt harder, yeah. I just felt not well, I just felt not like this isn't gonna go well. So I'm just gonna keep it easy, right? So it's like some of that is just naturally gonna happen because I think I but I urge people to not like override that system and think I'm gonna push it because that that's what I've been really trying to do the last few days I've been running is just listen, just kind of go with where my body's at. And so it's hard because I have been like almost I've had a workout that I've been kicking like a can down the road. And I'm just gonna, I almost wonder, I'm like, I'm maybe I should like take that out or put it, just put it in the plan somewhere later and like have it be like this could be an optional one that I do once I feel better, but I'm gonna like sort of take it out of the mix completely because I think at this point it's just like I think that's the other thing is like if you have in your training plan something that's just sitting there and you're I think the especially a hard workout, the tendency to want to see that there and then be like, oh, if I don't do that, it's just gonna be a yellow or whatever in training peaks or red or something like that, you know. Maybe it's better to just place it somewhere else or take it out or put it down the, you know, not to say you should add it to another a hard week that you already have training, but maybe it's like, okay, I'm gonna put this on this other day that I'll choose when I kind of get there. Do I want to do the workout that was originally planned, or I could maybe do this workout that I was actually really looking forward to?

SPEAKER_01 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

So I think to I think that's part of what's weighing on me is like I've got this this workout that I've been kind of kicking down the road every day, every I've been moving it, you know, several times now since I've been sick. So it's hard, I think, sometimes not to then be like, okay, I'm just gonna go, I'm just gonna do it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:26

Um I I think the pro the approach that we would use for returning to sport is really going to be a function of where you are within your training plan right now. So, you know, if you got sick early on in your training plan, like week, you know, two or three, then this may not be an issue at all. You know, it's like, okay, well, you know, we may have lost, you know, a couple weeks, uh, a week of of build, but you had solid fitness going into it, so it may not have cost you all that much. But because it happens seven weeks out from race day, you're now in, you're now starting to enter into some race specificity training. Right. And so that's that's a different recipe. And so that's one of the things that you have to be, you have to keep in mind is not just how do I return to sport after being sick, but you have to ask yourself, well, where was I in the overall process of training for for this race? Because the approach can be very different. So, you know, it it may not cost you all that much if it happened earlier, but it may cost you a lot if it happened later.

SPEAKER_00 54:36

Later, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

That's that's something that I've experienced in my own training uh as well as my as my athletes as well, because we all deal with this with this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

Yeah, I mean, I do think it would have been better if it happened back in the day. You know what I mean? For sure.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

But the earlier it can happen, the better.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

The better, yeah. So it's just it's hard to know now like how much it it will cost me. I also think like just to kind of maybe reassure myself and reassure people listening, like three to seven days off of training, a few days up to a week is really gonna have pretty minimal impact. Obviously, you still have to adjust your plan, and it does depend a little bit on how close to the race. Um it just doesn't this is like like fitness just doesn't up disappear overnight, even though it feels like it might be, because you're like every day I don't run, I'm losing fitness, is kind of sometimes the perception. When it does matter is probably gonna be once you kind of begin into that two or three week period. Because at two weeks you do start to lose an you know, I don't know, I can't give any percentage or anything, but that is, I think, from what I was sort of looking up and what I've heard before with fitness and cardiovascular fitness, you do start to lose some fitness around two weeks. And then um definitely some with strength training as well. And so it's kind of like, you know, maybe that reassures people, or maybe that makes people you know, not reassured, but I think that's just something to mention. So, like for those. It does put a clock. Like right now, I'm kind of seeing that in my mind. It was like when I was sick for just seven days, I was like, okay, I'll be okay. But now it's creeping into a week and a half. So that two-week mark is coming up, I think by next Tuesday or Wednesday. It'll been a couple weeks since I really got a you know, something in that was more significant. So yes, and it's kind of like, okay, well, if that's it's still lingering by then and I'm not really able to kind of get back into it a little bit more, it will probably have more of a cost. Um, and that's okay, because I think you know, it's just it is going to be what it is, and I'm going to have to maybe make that sort of call of when I'm gonna adjust or how am how am I gonna adjust my goal? What might that look like? Um, you know, you never know. Some like you said, I mean, there's sometimes weird things that happen on race day, and you know, I can adjust my goal and still have a great race and be like, oh, you know, it all worked out anyway, but I think it does then make it like, okay, is this ambitious goal that I had, you know, I might have to adjust it a little bit. And what that's gonna be, I'm not sure. I think sometimes things happen that we do have to adjust our goal. My tendency is to want to like preserve, and I don't really think I have an all or nothing mindset, but like because I've been so set on this goal.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

You're trying to protect it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

It's I'm trying to protect it. So yeah, it's part of me is like, well, I'm not even gonna care at all. I'm just gonna go into it. And that might be maybe there's a piece of that that's okay of like, we'll go into it and have fun, yes. But maybe I can still have a fairly fast time. I just it might be like just breaking three, you know. Maybe I'm not going out to get like a 255. I might be now just like maybe I can still just break three hours, right? Or something like that. I think the tendency sometimes is just to be like, yeah, it's just gonna be a training run then, or I'm gonna just go into it and jog the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

I have somebody come to me with that. I was like, we're not, we're not doing that. That's not that's not the route that we're going because we're we're there to race. Yeah, and they'll be disappointed as well.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

I did that, I would be disappointed with myself too. I do think unfortunately there are gonna be points where depending on how long the setback is, we do have to re-assess our goals. Um, it's like I I would love to like sugarcoat it. There's no way to do that. Like there's no magic, like we were talking about last time. There's no magic way to kind of improve speed. Maybe, I mean, maybe for like a 5K, but like for a marathon or something longer, there's no magic way to kind of like the long run I missed. I might be able to make up a little bit and do some longer, still have a chance to do some longer runs, but I missed that 22 mile or supposed to do like a real long run. I don't know if I'll be able to get that same like specific thing, and that's a missed opportunity that was gonna drive me closer to that goal. Um, I can't get that back, you know?

SPEAKER_02 58:52

So you're you're operating under the assumption that that particular session would get you closer. But one of the things that I like to tend to uh that I tend to do with athletes is that we can say, look, the time that we've that we lost or the so-called opportunities that we lost, those are only lost in terms of what we thought we were going to get out of them. The adaptation that we thought we could get doesn't mean that it would that it would have been guaranteed adaptation. Like that's what we would have gotten. And who knows?

SPEAKER_00 59:27

I could have been I could have done that around it. It could have got me injured. Like I could have gotten it.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

Could have got could have gone horribly well wrong, hurt your confidence. So one of the things that I like to do is like we show up on race day. I I tell people anything can happen on race day. Does that mean that we sandbag all of the work going up to it? No, but I don't want us to focus on okay, I I missed this session and that session and I missed this week and and all this kind of stuff. This is what my life was like, because it doesn't necessarily mean that we're not that we may not even we may still meet our expectations because, like I said, anything can happen on race day. You could be going into this race having missed two weeks of training, but it may not have cost you anything, and it may actually have improved your position going into race day because now you have less fatigue, you're already an established runner, you already have a solid foundation of of aerobic capacity. So would it is it definitely going to cost you anything? We have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

Yeah, it's hard to say.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

Please don't sandbag the race because anything can happen. And I I'm speaking in terms of myself as well, because when I did Florida, you know, I was I was super discouraged because I was walking through the expo limping, and you know, I had to go home. It's just like I can't stay on my feet. I I I can't I can't do this. There's no way that my body is going to hold up for a 70.3 if I can't walk the expo. But if I had gone into that, it's just like, oh, I'm just going to, I'm just gonna go out and I'm just gonna zone to it and you know, I'm gonna do the the best that I can. I would have never observed a massive PR on the bike. I wouldn't have gone into it with we are here to race. My performance may not be what I would really like it to be or what I envisioned when I clicked the register button, but my performance is what it is, and we are going to put in 100% of whatever it is that I have in the tank. We are going to empty this tank. It may not, the tank may not be as full as I wanted it to be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I had to have it that full because the body sometimes is capable of miraculous things, and we show up and we perform way more than what we expected. Am I willing to just Am I willing to just like wing it in every single race that we go into is like, oh, you know, well, you know, the body is capable of anything. I'm not of that mindset that that's an excuse to not be prepared because we're we're we're betting on the body just stepping in and doing something that we haven't trained it to do. But you know, these training plans are our best guess on what is needed to make us prepared. Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong, and sometimes the workouts that we put in there don't generate the same adaptation, and we may have been better off not doing some of these workouts. So that's why race day is never a foregone thing. Inclusion.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

You know, training hasn't gone like it's especially something like a marathon where there's so many other variables too. It's like I mean, I could have had the you could have great weather conditions. Yeah, I could have a have had a perfect training plan and never got sick and all that and still have had something kind of come up. I think if anything, like I'm gonna kind of look at this as like maybe um okay, like I'm gonna reframe some things for the rest of the training plan. I think definitely gonna be a little bit more um excited about training every not that I wasn't, but like because I actually was actually enjoying myself. But I think like just that sort of level of gratitude of like, okay, I'm when I'm feeling good, I'm I'm really excited. Like I get to feel good, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna train. Um, and that gratitude of actually feeling good because I know how bad I was feeling. So there's that. And then I think also maybe trying to take like go into it still like I'm gonna do the best I can, but maybe a little bit of the pressure, like that balance between like going into it, still putting in the work once I feel better, not like giving up on the training plan, but like, but maybe taking a little bit of the load or the pressure off that was kind of cooking there, starting to build a little bit with the training. Cause now it's like, well, you know, I had that taken away, the ability to train and just feeling bad. You know, I don't know for sure how much I may not know exactly how much I lost or or didn't gain um in terms of fitness, but I think just like coming into it, like remembering, hey, we're doing this for fun. It should be like enjoyable. It and maybe there's a little bit of that pressure taken off. Like it maybe it'll go great and I'll still be able to get my goal and everything's gonna go well. But there's always a chance, even on that day, even if I do get regain, you know, have good fitness and stuff, that it's a hot day or whatever. And so it's just kind of going into it like, yeah, this is all just kind of a crapshoot anyway. Like, not really, because you're you're not just going into it having not prepared, but right, like, oh, it's okay to let's just take the pressure off, let's just enjoy feeling good and yeah, take care of myself the best that I possibly can going forward, so that I, you know, hopefully this doesn't happen again. But, you know, we yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

I know I had I had a scenario last year where I was training where I was training for uh James Town Olympic race and it was in June, it was in Williamsburg, and I think it was like two weeks before race day, I developed some some some sensitivity in one of my ankles, and it was gotten to the point where I couldn't I couldn't I didn't want to run. I mean I I could have like pushed through it, but then I was like, okay, if I push through this, what's it going to what are the risks of me showing up to race day in a worse condition than what I am now? And so what I ended up doing was like two weeks prior to my race, I shut down my run and just uh focused on doing some elliptical stuff in order to get still keep some some kind of muscular engagement. I still focused on the bike and the swim. And I went into race day. It's like okay, well, I haven't ran in two weeks. What what's this going to happen? What's what's going to happen here? I raced as hard as as as I could and found myself on the podium. So even though you know training wasn't optimal and It didn't materialize like I wanted it to or what I envisioned it needed to in order to generate performance. I was still able to perform way better than what I expected. So I don't know if maybe that two weeks' break of running actually put me in a better situation on race day than if I had like not had a problem and just continued to run for those two weeks. I don't know what I would have been like.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:25

Yeah, it's hard to know, right? A lot of this is just kind of hard. You know, we there's no way we can actually like determine what it would be one way versus the other. So I think that's a big thing. I think, you know, the call to action, I suppose, would be, or the like this the takeaways or the call to action would probably be like um, you know, consistency over the time matters m a lot too. Like I would say yeah, I started training. I mean, I've been training this for like a while now. It's like I was training back in December. I was training, it's my training plan started in March, but I was already training, you know, running consistently before then. So there's that consistency over time matters most. So a few breaks in there isn't gonna be the end of the world. Um, you know, I think if somebody does have a setback, just kind of reflecting on their own training. And hopefully, I mean, it's a little bit more of an issue if they've only had a 12-week training plan and they didn't train consistently before that 12 weeks, it's gonna be more of an issue. So you may have to adjust your expectations a little bit. But if you so reflecting on your own training, and if you've had a pretty solid block of training and you've been consistent for quite a while, it's probably gonna be less of an issue than if you just took a long break and then kind of got back in and now you're you had only 12 weeks before your race, and then you have a setback within that. That's probably gonna be more of an issue, honestly, unfortunately, just the way it is. Um and I think, you know, just it I think the biggest thing too is just we don't know how much that so I think people have anxiety in how much it's costing them to take time off for an injury or illness. And we really don't know like it's hard to know like what would have happened if you had gotten sick and kept training versus if you had it. We don't know how much that's gonna actually cost because there's no way we can measure that really. Like, how much fitness are we really losing? I don't know if there's a way to kind of measure that. So, like to try not to get caught up in your own head what worrying and wondering and and being um and letting that kind of you know bother you or giving up on your race because you're just like, oh, it didn't go perfectly. This plate training plan didn't go perfectly the way I wanted. So I'm just gonna kind of like bail on my whole race and you know, um, to kind of take that mentality either. So I think it's just trying to, the quicker you can get back, the better, but like trying to also like take your time in and not push it, you know, um listen to your body and that it's hard to say what would have happened. Like I like with that example with the 22 mile run. I don't know. Would it have maybe it would have helped my fitness, but you know, maybe I would have been out there and I would have had something happen that would have injured, been an injury or something that would have caused some uh setback of its own or maybe more severe issue. I mean, it's hard to know because we can't like go and live different lives of things that would have happened and see what the outcome would have been, you know. So it's like I had a friend tell me, well, you never know, maybe like this prevented something from happening, like a more significant injury, or maybe you were gonna get hit by a car and you got sick. I don't know. I was like, oh, well, I guess that's one way to look at it, right? Like it was like divine intervention to get sick like this. Like I'd I wouldn't have wished this illness upon anyone, but I guess that's another way to look at it too, is like you never know what worse outcome could have happened. Maybe it was saving you from something or there is something we need to learn from the experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

You know, if if you believe in God or you believe if you're more spiritual like that, just like maybe there was a reason and we just don't realize it ever, but you may realize it later when you get back to training and or you're kind of like you've learned there's like an experience you're supposed to get from it, you know. So I think thinking of it like that too, sometimes is there's a lot in life that are kind of out of our control, and there there's often like a learning experience or just something we can get out of it, even when in the moment it feels like you're just suffering or something, you know, like in my case with with an illness. But so hopefully I'm I'm gonna leave on that positive note.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:45

I know that's that's one of the ways that I like to look at things like that. Um, I mean, I'm very spirit I'm a very spiritual person, so there are there are times where it's just like, you know, why do I have to really endure this? And you know, I I've just come to the realization, it's just like, well, maybe I have to endure this because there's gonna be somebody that I'm gonna run into in the future, and my experience with this will help them uh with something that they're dealing with. I mean, we never know if we get caught in traffic and we're in our car and we're caught in traffic and we're complaining about traffic, but being stuck in traffic actually put us in a position where we missed being involved in a car accident. I mean, I'm a I'm a true believer in those types of of interventions. So when when your friend said that, and I was listening to your podcast this morning as I was driving out to my to my long ride, I I heard you say that, and I was like, you know what, that is spot on. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

It's hard to know we won't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

If it's just because that's the way that I like to to reframe it so that it it just kind of breaks it from, you know, this is outside of my control. And, you know, there's the that I'm now somehow better off.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:58

Or just that that mentality of like, oh whoa is me. Like it's this always happen, like this happens to me, and I'm you know, kind of like a victimhood sort of mentality of it, like to more of like a oh, this is this happens, like it happens to a lot of runners, and maybe there is a reason behind it or a learning experience behind it, or something, or is preventing somehow there was something else that may have happened if I had continued on that trajectory, and it kind of like, yeah, it took me out a little bit, but there's a bet there's something that I may never know that was actually a worse outcome. We don't know, but I think like looking at it that way, because I think sometimes I think people do kind of get stuck in that. I don't know, like I don't want to be like victimhood, but it's kind of like, yeah, this is happening to me and this is bad, and you know, it's very negative, you know, that's not gonna get you anywhere. It's just gonna make you upset and cranky, and maybe, you know, maybe when you do get back to training, I don't know, like it puts you down a bad path versus more positive, a more positive.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:02

It's almost like a it's a mindset thing. A pity cycle. Yeah, pity cycle. Yeah. You start to just it just it perpetuates itself and you've got to find a way to break the cycle. Otherwise, it will continue to spin and spin and spin. And I think that then it'll impact when you do get back to running.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:18

It'll sabotage, yeah, you'll just sort of sabotage because you'll be like, Well, I missed all that. Why did I even try? Like I kind of missed all that time, and now it just doesn't matter now because my race isn't gonna go the way I wanted, and it's kind of just perpetuating, and then for sure your race is not gonna go the way you want it because you because of that mindset versus maybe spinning it and trying to think of it in a more positive way. And then I think when you do go back to training, then you'll be more apt to like be positive about the training and kind of have a more positive outcome. So I do think that's important, and that's really what I'm trying to focus on because every day I wake up and I'm not quite a hundred percent, it's hard not to be like, well, this sucks, you know, like this is frustrating and I'm I'm losing more, I'm gonna be starting to lose fitness soon and having this like negative mindset of like that's kind of in going in circles of negativity and trying to instead kind of spit it a little bit differently. And that's um, yeah. I mean, I can't say it's like always easy. I think negative thoughts come hard to my head, but I think it's just trying to come out of it a little more positive and just being grateful to that, okay. I'm I was able to run today. I got a little bit of a lifting session in. So okay, it's not like what I would have wanted to do, but it's a step forward, even it's not like as quickly as I want to be. At least I'm stepping forward and hopefully tomorrow will go better, and maybe Monday will be better than that, and then before you know it, I'll be back on track. So yeah. So, anyways, I think leaving it there, positive positive on a positive note.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:48

Yes. So I want to thank you guys for for joining us. Uh, this has been episode 91 of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast, where we've talked about how to deal with setbacks and training. Uh, if this uh episode resonated with you and you know it really kind of spoke to you, we hope that you will consider subscribing, leaving a comment or a review, uh, sharing an this episode with somebody else that you think uh might be might help them. Uh those are greatly appreciated. Uh like I said, like we've said before, we don't monetize this podcast, so we don't have sponsors and we don't have ads. Uh so those types of interactions uh really do help the podcast. So if you're looking for a way to support and you know and spread and spread the podcast, share it with other people, and uh leaving reviews and comments are are greatly appreciated, and they definitely help. If you would also like to join the community, uh we have a closed Facebook group and it's called the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast Group. Uh we do put out some additional content uh within that uh aspect of Facebook. So uh all you gotta do is just go out there, search for that name, and answer uh one simple question and then agree to the to the rules that you know all Facebook groups you have to abide by, and uh it will let you right on in. Uh join the community. Uh, we'd love to grow that out more and uh open it up to Q ⁇ A's, and we have a lot more things that we would love to do with that community. So we hope that you will please uh consider joining. We are both active coaches and currently are always considering taking on athletes onto our rosters. I know that we both have open slots. So uh if you are interested in coaching, whether that means that you're looking to do things differently or you're just super busy and you just want to turn over all of the thought process of trying to come up with workouts and how to string them together, and you just want somebody else to take over that, and all you have to do is execute. Uh, I hope that you will consider one of us or both of us uh as your coaches. You can go to fuel the number two run dot com for Coach Katie. She does dietetics and run training. You can go to tabularasseracing.com. I do multi-sport and single sport training plans or in one-on-one coaching. Uh, we hope just reach out to us and you can check out both of our websites. We've got tons of content, blogs, videos, articles, all kinds of stuff that's out there for you, all kinds of resources to help you along in your journey and help you do your due diligence when it comes to evaluating what coaches best for you. Uh so feel free to reach out to us. I can't think of any other uh housekeeping that we need. So let's just close it off. So thank you guys for joining us. This is like I said, this has been episode 91 of the podc of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I've been your host, Coach Justin, along with Coach Katie, and we look forward to talking with you guys again next time. All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye. That wraps up today's episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Endurance sports have a way of teaching us patience, humility, and resilience. Lessons that carry far beyond the workout. Progress in endurance sports doesn't come from shortcuts, it comes from consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it's not glamorous. Wherever you are on your endurance journey, keep trusting the process and honoring the work you put in each day. If today's episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone to help on their endurance journey. Don't forget to join the conversation on our social sites to help build and foster a community where we all learn and support one another. We'll be back with more stories and insights from Coach Justin and Katie. Until then, visit the podcast website at the endurance athlete journey.buzzsprout dot com for more episodes from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Have questions or comments about the podcast? Feel free to send us an email at the endurance athlete journey at gmail.com. For all things coaching, visit Coach Katie at fuel the number two run dot com and Coach Justin at taboularasta racing.com. Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast, and remember to find joy in the journey.