Multisport Mindset
We are a couple of endurance athletes who specialize in nothing so we can be mediocre at everything. This podcast will take a deep dive into the mindset of athletes who want to achieve greatness at all levels while juggling the everyday life of age-group athletes. Come join us for great conversation and the insight you didn't ask for!
https://www.precisemultisport.com/
Multisport Mindset
Endurance Mindset: Army PA (Jean-Paul) on Mastering Endurance Sports
In this episode of the Multisport Mindset Podcast, Aubrey Hayes interviews Jean-Paul Montréal, a healthcare professional and athlete. They discuss his extensive background in endurance sports, coaching, and the importance of strength training and nutrition. They explore the transition from traditional endurance sports to Spartan racing, the significance of recovery and stress management, and the role of coaching in achieving athletic goals. JP shares valuable insights for older athletes entering endurance sports, emphasizing the need for gradual progression and proper recovery.
Follow on all platforms
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@PreciseMultisport
Website: www.precisemultisport.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/precise_multisport
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554769354126&mibextid=wwXlfr&mibextid=wwXlfr
Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2460038
Intro Music: Tonight At Eight by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Outro Music: Climb by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Aubrey Hayes (00:01)
Welcome to the Multisport Mindset Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of endurance sports, training strategies, and the mindset that fuels peak performance. I am Aubrey Hayes, USAT Level 1 Coach, age group athlete, and co-founder of Precise Multisport. Today we have Jean-Paul Montréal, a dedicated healthcare professional and lifelong athlete, with an impressive journey of service, sportsmanship, and medical excellence. JP, how's it going today?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (00:29)
It's going well Aubrey, how are you?
Aubrey Hayes (00:30)
Yeah, good, good. So I want to give a brief, say brief, you have a very extensive professional and sports career. So I want to give a little introduction of this sports career. So this might take a little bit, everybody. Hang on. So after graduating from the University of South Alabama in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in education, JP quickly earned national certification as an athletic trainer, getting hands on experience with high schools.
physical therapy clinics, and elite running groups like the Joe Vigil Distance Running Team in Colorado. In 1999, he was honored to serve as the athletic trainer for the USA National Cross Country Team at the World Championships in Belfast, Ireland. In 2002, JP took a bold step into the military service, training as a combat medic and LPN in the US Army. From Fort Lewis with
forward surgical teams to deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, he provided critical care in some of the most demanding environments. Never one step... break... never one to stop learning, JP earned both a bachelor's and master's degree in physician assistant studies through the inter-service physician assistants program and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Now JP currently serves as the physician assistant
for the 41st Civil Support Team with the Kentucky National Guard and continues to combine passion and medicine and service to the nation. Beyond his professional achievements, JP has always been a fierce competitor from running cross country and tracking college to completing the grueling Florida Ironman in 2001, excelling in competitive cycling, and most recently, embracing the challenge of amateur Spartan races.
JP exemplifies resilience and determination in every aspect of life. Now check out that intro. Everybody meet John Paul Montreal. We can call him JP for the rest of his podcast for short, but how does it sound when you hear it out loud, your own bio? Cause I know typing up your own bio, it's like, yeah, yeah, but it's pretty awesome.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (02:29)
you
Well, I was just, I was looking at it I was like, I mean, I'm old, right?
Aubrey Hayes (02:47)
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (02:48)
No, I mean I just you know, I I my dad got me into running back when I was like I don't know ten years old and Ever since then I just been you know, love going and you know running cycling, you know, and then made a career out of it, know, and when I was in college and then My competitive and I try to be more competitive, you know when I was in college, I just didn't have the talent but but I transfer that over to do an athletic training so I could actually
you know, with the athletes and that's when I became an athlete trainer, moved to Colorado when I graduated, worked with Joe Vigil over there. was an Olympic coach for many years. He's a great mentor, so if you ever look him up, he's such a great guy. And so, you know, and I went to, and I was honored, like I said, to go to the...
1999 Belfast championships with the World Cross Country Team. We had some great athletes on there. was like, know, Dina Drossen. She was on the team and now it's her Dina Kassers now is her name, but she was Dina Drossen at the time. And that was like my pinnacle career when I did athletic training, then moved to become a, joined the military.
Aubrey Hayes (03:50)
Yeah, that's awesome.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (04:15)
2002, you know, became a combat medic LPN. And I was actually going to go to PT school. That was my end goal, to go to PT school, physical therapy school. But that did pan out. And because my class that I took back in 91, they too were too old, when I, were over 10 years old, they're like, hey, you can't, you have to retake. I'm like, retake it? So, and then, and then I've recruited, like, hey, you should probably look at to go into PA school.
Aubrey Hayes (04:25)
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (04:45)
I I don't even know what a PA does, right? And so I worked for the PA over there at Fort Lewis for a couple days. said, I got this. Most of the stuff is mostly orthopedic in nature. sure enough, I packed it in, went to, you know, inter-service physician assistant program, IPAP. And then we, and then, you know, it's been great, you know, become a PA in the military. It's the most, it's a huge rewarding, you know, I love the job.
They talk about what the best job in the military is being a PA. And I realized after joining the National Guard, the best job in the military is being a CSTPA.
Aubrey Hayes (05:26)
Yeah, man. Yeah, for some of y'all that don't know what that is, it's CST's civil support team with the National Guard do like a hazmat response essentially, like white powder incidents. So small man teams get to do some awesome stuff.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (05:37)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, so I mean we get great training and then get to work. I mean, on the side time I do moonlighting working at an occupational health urgent care clinic too. yeah, basically working two jobs.
Aubrey Hayes (05:50)
Yeah.
Nice. Yeah, I know. Like, so you would you go to work essentially with the military all day and then usually in the evenings you go and do moonlighting, right? You go and do your man. I remember those days like when we worked together, you were saying, yeah, I worked at the clinic last night and you like running on, you know, a couple hours of sleep a day. So, man, that's tough. And then on top of all that, like having a pretty awesome background in sports yourself.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (06:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Aubrey Hayes (06:23)
And I know recently you moved to doing Spartan races. How's that been going? What's the what's the transition from like specifically doing endurance? Some people argue Spartans endurance it is it's an aspect of it but adding in the strength concept of Spartan racing.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (06:43)
So, you know, I was always a runner and then I got into cycling for a number of years, cycle cross, road racing, you know, did really well in that category three. Nothing crazy, but you know, that was in my mid 40s at the time. And then I, but I started having a lot of back problems. Like, I don't know if it was, it could have been the way it was fitted on the bike and the work. It's just, I had SI joint problems and so.
I had the transition to more strength training, kettlebells, stuff like this. And so I kind of gave up the cycling. I would do it every now and then. Go for like a weekend ride, 20, 30 miles here and there, but I can't just do it over and over again. It just, it just kills my back. And so when I started doing more kettlebell stuff and then I was like, well, these Spartan races look pretty cool. And so I did a,
Aubrey Hayes (07:28)
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (07:39)
Yeah, I did a 10k one. It was in Nashville. I just did the one in Vermont last fall. That was a 5k one. It was crazy hilly. It was at Killington Ski Resort over there. And it's a monster. It's a beast over there. So anyway, yeah, so the transition allows me to work out more and my back's feeling way better.
Aubrey Hayes (07:59)
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (08:09)
doing this because I have more of a variety of workouts.
Aubrey Hayes (08:11)
Mm-hmm.
Nice. And that is a great transition into my first real question I have for you. And that is, how does strength training play into endurance sports and essentially like injury prevention? Because you can even say recovery in your aspect, like I think adding some of that strength work and, you know, maybe staying off the bike help too, there's a compounding interest there, but how does that strength training help?
prevent further injury and actually help you become stronger in the endurance sports arena.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (08:51)
So I think it came down to doing more core strength. Like I had a lot of leg strength, obviously, in cycling. And my upper body strength was OK. It wasn't great. But my core strength and my back strength was suffering. between doing a lot more core strength, kettlebells, helped me just to. And I had the right treatment on there, too. I feel that dry knee ligand on my back, too.
It helped me recover and then over time, know, I noticed that if I didn't do certain workouts like with kettlebells, I'm not a, you know, I don't know, I'm not a kettlebell expert, but I'll just tell you, there's certain exercises that I do that are just, they help me. If I don't do them then after a couple of days, if I don't do it after a couple of days, then I can feel my back. So it's just ache. So that strength training, you just, have to keep on moving. You have to keep it up.
You when you talk about your back strength, you know, there's different types of muscles, right? You got your fast twitch and got your slow twitch fibers, And so like the core strength and your abs, your back, that's more of a slow twitch to keep you upright. And it's not like your quads or your chest or your biceps or your calves where you just...
do it to sprint very fast, stuff like that. So yeah, that's what I mean by, you so as far as, to answer your question regarding strength training to help improve your benching, I think it's so important, so important, especially the legs, you know. I never did really know much about hex bar squats, and, because I do regular squats like that, but that would hurt my back, but hex bar squats?
I know what it is, must be the position, must be the angle. I have a lot more success, a lot more, you know, I could actually do better workout doing hex bar squats for me than doing regular squats. Because you know, squatting takes a lot of technique too, so.
Aubrey Hayes (10:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, a lot of technique and then you get a lot of pressure on that lower back. And especially if you don't have a lot of core strength, where you don't really know how to engage the core and stay like in a sturdy position, know, chest up, know, shoulders back, core engaged. And it's just like running if you get a little fatigued, you start losing form and then you don't want to lose form on a heavy squat or deadlift because you're essentially, you know, putting all of that strain on your lower back.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (11:12)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (11:36)
Yeah, it means a lot to
Jean-Paul Montreuil (11:37)
Yeah,
yeah, and like you say, you made a good point, foreboding is a huge, huge technique. mean, back when I was running high school college, I high school, I was a big heel striker. And then I had a good coach in college and he was more into the biomechanics and kinesiology and he actually helped me change my running stride to where I was running more on the flat put of my foot versus heel striking. It changed everything. So injuries.
Aubrey Hayes (11:50)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (12:06)
Session's points. Yeah.
Aubrey Hayes (12:08)
It's crazy you mentioned that because I think a lot of athletes, if you were to go to anywhere now, the big thing or any coach you're going to hear is like cadence, cadence, cadence. And I feel like it's become just one of those like. Keywords that coaches say now, like increase your cadence and there's so much more to it like where your foot's landing. I would like for you, that's good and it probably took time for you to change that, right? It wasn't like an immediate change to like forefoot running from heel.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (12:36)
Oh, it
took me a whole year. It took me whole year. my first year running cross country at South Alabama, I had a coach. He was big on mileage. We were doing like 90 to 100 miles a week. It was crazy. then I was still doing the heel striking. Then shin splints. I was surprised to get a stress fracture, honest with you. But then I got a new coach, and he...
Aubrey Hayes (12:51)
Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
Mm-hmm.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (13:05)
He wasn't big on to the whole, you know, myles thing. He was more into like heart rate and then talk about technique. You know, he was doing that back in the day where he would actually do it based on your heart rate. And it was wild because, know, know, early on when I'm trying to keep up with everyone else, my heart rate probably like 80, 90 percent, which, you know, which is so bad because you just just weigh yourself out. You're doing like, you know, a couple days a week.
Aubrey Hayes (13:34)
Yeah, for sure.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (13:34)
But now you see the
trends now, you make sure you make sure you, you know, keep your, you talk about these different zones and stuff like that. And so it's, so yeah, I mean, I, would, so anyway, he taught me how to change my run stride. He gave us a series of drills. do a series of drills every time we go for run, you know, in the morning runs and the afternoon runs, we do these series of drills and you still, you still people, you still people see you using them all the time. You know, the.
Aubrey Hayes (13:50)
Mm-hmm.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (14:04)
the one leg drills, the calf raises, the high knees, the backwards running, the karaoke's, those are all ways to help your body stay upright when you run, right? So yeah, mean, that's helped me, but it took me a good year to finally fix it and I don't have shin splints anymore, so.
Aubrey Hayes (14:27)
Yeah, I was I started introducing like a lot of the a skips and things like that into my running and Actually a lot of like plyometrics more recently Doing some jumping option because I had a kinesiologist that I went to run analysis with he did focused a little bit on cadence and I'm okay with that because I I went from like but this took me three or four years. I started at like hundred forty eight steps per minute, which is
not good and my hips and my knees were always hurting because I was like stretching and planting my heel and I think I'm up to after four years I'm up to 172 steps per minute but it took time and it took doing those drills took doing some plyometrics but one thing he really mentioned about it was when you um when you do those jumping actions you're teaching your your muscles and your legs to continue moving after making contact with the ground
Jean-Paul Montreuil (14:58)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (15:27)
Right, so you want to have like some of those like, I hope I'm not saying wrong, but like reactionary kind of jumps. like doing some like high jumps and then hitting the ground and immediately reloading and coming back up and not letting all of that force settle. And then now you're recreating force. So I thought that was a pretty cool aspect of it. And that helped me. But again, like I think it's very important. Like you said, it took you a year under like a professional coach, essentially.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (15:46)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (15:57)
50 to 100 miles a week of getting after it. you know, me four or five years to increase mine and get into a better running. So I think one of the biggest things takeaways I give for people on here is like, don't expect it to happen next week. You know, so I've had a couple of athletes that are like, I got to increase, you So.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (16:13)
No, no, I mean you'll feel a difference.
Yeah, I
mean, I think one way that to really see how you're running, you go into a big field, grassy field, and you run with shoes on, and you take your shoes off, and you run with shoes off, and you'll run completely different. Completely different. you're to just, everyone's used to the shoes that they're wearing. But if you run barefoot, there's something about it. It just helps you run more naturally.
Aubrey Hayes (16:32)
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (16:45)
And then when you heal, I mean you're not going to be striking the ground with your bare heels. You'll be kind of coming on the soles of your feet or the front of the feet. And then you just, it's just a constant turnover.
Aubrey Hayes (17:02)
Nice. with that, so I have a question. So kind of leading into the next question I have for you. And it just made me think of it. So when you ran in college, obviously there's more to running. So you're in college, stressful environment. I would venture to say like most people that are listening to this now have busy lives, family. So they have a lot of stress in their life on top of training.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (17:15)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (17:31)
I kind of want to look at the how like cortisol and like stress hormones basically from training in life events how they can really affect your training and did they affect you back in college maybe you weren't that into it then but now looking back
Jean-Paul Montreuil (17:50)
Well, I think, you know, we're younger, 20 years old, you know, 19, 20 years old. mean, you're just, your body can take a ton of, you you can live off of two hours of sleep and just over, you know, it's it's crazy how, and I think as I think it was to get older is that, you know, your body needs to recover. I mean, I think I started really getting into the whole idea of melatonin back my last year in college. That's when
Aubrey Hayes (18:04)
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (18:19)
in 95, 96 and this is melatonin they said hey it has more of a benefit and more has a use the word anabolic benefit because it helps you recover very quickly I don't know if that's true or not but I bought it at the time because I was all about hey I want to get better I want to get better so but yeah I think so yeah your cortisol will you know basically when you wake up at the morning your cortisol is up because it helps you wake up
Aubrey Hayes (18:38)
Right, yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (18:48)
And it's just like, it's like your body's natural steroid and it actually gives you a little bit energy. But if you're kind of going, going all day and you know, and then you go into the night, you don't get much sleep. Your body doesn't recuperate very well. so yeah, I think it's important to just, you know, I, I'm realizing more and more every year how important sleep is. It is, I can't tell you how important it is. I mean, I mean,
Aubrey Hayes (19:16)
Would you say age
has a play on that one?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (19:20)
Yeah. But I mean, it's I mean, if I go like, if I, you know, if I go to bed like 12 and then I get six hours, I'm OK. But it's really not optimal. If I get, you know, you know, eight hours, that's more optimal for me. I don't know. I just think that sleep is important. Strength training is important. You know, and obviously hydration and eating right to so.
Aubrey Hayes (19:47)
Right, essentially like, yeah, cause I know six hours, I'm so bad about this. I get maybe six and a half hours a night. And it's cause of work, trying to fit in workouts, family, and then doing this and coaching and stuff like that. So I kind of cut myself short sometimes. On the weekends I get about eight hours, but I try to get as.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (20:12)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (20:13)
quality of sleep as I can in those six and half hours and something that really helps me is obviously electrolytes and then taking magnesium, some different like fish oils and stuff like that help the body recover but if you don't like what you're saying is if you don't sleep well the cortisol levels essentially just don't come down and you're just building on that cortisol right and those stress hormones.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (20:37)
Yeah, the stress hormones are just, it'll wear out because like if you get up in the morning, you probably heard this before, when you get up in the morning, you take your heart rate, right? And then if for some reason, say your heart rate's already 50, 50, 50, but it starts to climb up to 90 to 100 every morning you wake up, well, that's a sign that you're overtraining for one, or you're just burning.
candles at both ends. You you have to like find a way to schedule the rest that you need, you know, or you're just training too much. You know, some people like, I'm gonna try to get like two workouts today. And, you know, I mean, you're a coach, you know how people are about, I mean, you can't, you have to try to make up for the time they, they wish they could have worked out the day before.
Aubrey Hayes (21:24)
Yeah, you can't do that. Yeah.
Yeah, that's my biggest pet peeve I think was coaching not to get off track is like, like if you missed yesterday, yesterday's gone, it's gone. Move forward. Like we're not going to make it up because all you're going to do is put yourself behind the eight ball. And like you said, we're going to, we're going to build those stress hormones up even more. and then you worrying about it is going to compound, know, compound that and Hey, look, it's gone. We're going to focus on today's workouts and we're going to move on. That's it.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (21:41)
Exactly.
That's exactly right.
Aubrey Hayes (21:59)
And I have fallen victim to that too. Like when you're deep into a block and you have a big goal, you're like, no, no, no, no, I got to get those hours in. And sometimes, like sometimes I miss workouts because I'm like, nope, my body's off. I use HRV, which I would, which could probably be like, hey, heart rate variability, which probably be sign of like cortisol differences as well. Like, so if my HRV is really low,
Jean-Paul Montreuil (22:00)
Right. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Aubrey Hayes (22:28)
I know that for me, like my baseline's around like 55. Anything below 55, I can feel it. Like I wake up and before I even check, I'm like, yep, it's probably low today. And it'd be like in the thirties or twenties, which is means that maybe my cortisol levels are up. I've overtrained, like you said, I've stressed myself. So there's tools to look at it, but I like the heart rate thing you're saying. Get up, check your heart rate, just see where you're at. And that could be a good, good way to analyze.
what that cortisol is. So would it be safe to say?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (23:00)
Yeah,
and then not only that, I mean not only that, would say, you know, cortisol is one thing, you gotta make sure you think about thyroid. Thyroid is another hormone that controls your metabolism, makes you tired if you don't have enough thyroid, or makes you super hyper, or lose weight when you have too much thyroid. So, you know, typically, like when the guys come to the team and they get their physical.
I check your thyroid, check your cholesterol, know, chemistry levels, stuff like this. But thyroid is important. think when you go see, say a physician and you talk about, I may be overtraining, I may be not feeling well, I'm always checking thyroid. And the thyroid, you get your thyroid level first and then, or at least you get an idea what your thyroid is doing, and then everything else will kind of fall behind that.
And then obviously you got your electrolytes and then, you know, your blood levels and you know, you're basically your, you know, your, your iron levels and stuff like that too. I mean, it's just, it's just good when you, especially triathletes, you know, you start doing a lot of training. I think it's good to get a baseline, you know, set a lapse on people and just, Hey, let's get, you know, let's get all this stuff done. That way you're not like, you can't, you know, for some reason that a person is having trouble.
either losing weight or their goal is to, you know, maybe they're tired all the time. It could be a thyroid thing, so, or something else, so.
Aubrey Hayes (24:36)
or something else yeah something that a lab could probably figure out right do you think there's an age like a hey at this age you should definitely be getting labs or do think most people should probably go get labs prior to starting like a a big adventure like an iron man for the first time
Jean-Paul Montreuil (24:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I think, yeah, I think everyone. I don't think there's any, there's definitely, I definitely the age is like 40 is when you want to start doing most of your cardiac labs. But I mean, it's, it wouldn't, it's no harm in doing one on a, someone who's young and a 20, 25, 30 years old. If you just get a set of labs, I would kind of know what your baseline level is. And then you can actually use that baseline level, you know, when you get older, say you do it five years later, 10 years later.
say, this is my thyroid then, this is my cholesterol is in, and then you sort of follow them throughout the years. I mean, not you, but the athlete with his doctor, stuff like this.
Aubrey Hayes (25:38)
Yeah, they're their primary care or physician and things like that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that is good advice and I fall victim to that too. I haven't really done it since since I left the team. Since one of those things took for granted when we were when I was on CST with you guys is having the ability to do that. there's some things actually here at the Star Majors Academy. They do a senior health assessment, senior enlisted health assessment. So.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (25:41)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Aubrey Hayes (26:09)
They brought us all through labs essentially because they want us to go back out to the formation healthy and ready to, you know, take on the challenges that come with being a senior leader in the military. So this is the year it's like everybody.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (26:16)
Mm-hmm.
So you're saying they do like a senior like PHA type thing, a periodic health assessment or is it like a full lab they do? mean, they just see a physician.
Aubrey Hayes (26:23)
What's that?
No, they did a
full lab, a PHA obviously, and then you do, you're doing, they do, sorry, they did a HRV, they do VO2 max tests, they do full blood panels, all the above, and then yeah, just make sure everybody's healthy and get on track. it's really good. And when I leave here, I'll probably continue to do that because I know how much it's helped.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (26:50)
No, okay. Okay.
Let's go.
Aubrey Hayes (27:04)
Me actually improve my fitness some things I got to focus on while I was here. So Yeah, and overall health obviously overall health is the most important but I have this mindset like I just want to work out a lot. So but yeah Whatever I meant to say overall health first everybody. Okay, so With that you start obviously we've talked about the physical component and the hormones
Jean-Paul Montreuil (27:25)
Yeah.
Aubrey Hayes (27:32)
How big does nutrition play into it? And I guess a broad answer is obviously we know nutrition plays into performance and injury prevention, but what are some of the things that you've seen and maybe some of the things that you've practiced as an athlete and a physician assistant?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (27:49)
So I think, generally speaking, think that most people that I run into, even myself, I just was not taking in enough protein. I mean, think that was very key, know, because, yeah, you need to do carbs, especially when do this, but you've got to have that protein there too. And it's actually not, you it's not an easy thing to do. You think about, you know, people generally say that, I think it's it's like point, I think it's point,
Don't know it's it's it's under one mil under one gram of protein per you know body weight, but I like to do you know one gram of protein per body weight so from 145 pounds Yeah, try to do 145 grams of protein a day try to break it up and like You know me 40 at a time. It's hard to get all that right you once you forget. Okay eggs and chicken and
and you have to add poly supplement with some type of protein shakes like this. And so I think that's one of the biggest things that I was not doing. Then when I started to actually increase my protein, you could see the difference. You could see the difference. just everything's, you because you'd be able to, you you had all the building blocks that's there to help recover and to help build those muscles again.
So.
Aubrey Hayes (29:20)
Yeah, I can definitely say personally, I feel it too. Putting in more protein lately, because I'm lifting a lot more as well as doing cardiovascular, working on those endurance events, but it's helped me. actually feel more recovered after I do my workouts in the morning with more protein I take in.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (29:24)
Mm-hmm.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. then they say like, you know, when you get your protein within about a half an hour, an hour after you did a good workout, but that's for the, you know, if you're an unconditioned athlete, that's timeframe you want to do it. Once you're sort of conditioned athlete like yourself, as long as you get the protein, it doesn't have to be that 30 minute window, as long as you get it within a couple of hours, you're fine. I as long as you stick to routine and get your protein in and then...
And then you can recover a lot easier. So that's the theory.
Aubrey Hayes (30:16)
Yeah. When it comes to nutrition, so we kind of talked about the protein. Obviously, having like a all around diet is good, but.
I would venture to say that most endurance athletes just think I've got to get carbs in and they start throwing down like hostess cakes and pizza and stuff like that. then you get, and hopefully it doesn't offend anybody, but you start to see like the skinny fat athletes. know what I mean? Like they're just, everything they eat is going to their waistline or their hips. And I always tell, I always tell people there's two things my mama gave me is their personality and her hips, you know?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (30:40)
Hahaha
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (31:01)
probably from carbs. I love you mom. And but yeah, so it kind of matters on what those sources of nutrition come from, right? Like you can't just shove anything and everything down your system. I mean, what's your thought process on that when it comes to fueling?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (31:23)
So, protein, you get a lot more bang for the buck when you eat meat protein versus plant-based protein. You usually have to get a ton of plant-based protein in order for you to get the right. When you think about complex carbs versus the simple carbs, something like a Twinkie bar or a
Or a coke something like that. It's got tons and tons of sugar in it lots of calories But I mean it has this place right I mean, it's nothing There's nothing I love more than a can of coke after you do a hard ride at the 50 miles You feel like you're about to bonk it's something about it. I love it so
Aubrey Hayes (31:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like the most refreshing thing on earth is a soda. It makes no sense, but I
love it.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (32:16)
Yeah, I think it's just the sugar, the carbonation, and whatever. It's just in its cold. Yeah, it feels good. yeah, think you want to make sure you eat, obviously, the vegetables. You've got to your vegetables in, and protein, whether it be the chicken, or lamb, or steak, or some of those things on there. And then, you know,
A lot of the carbs come from bread, all kinds of breads out there. I'm not saying cut your carbs, it depends on... I'm not a nutritionalist at all. I'm not a dietitian, whatever. I just do basic stuff when it comes to... They don't really teach us that in PA school. But I'll say that I just learned over time that...
Aubrey Hayes (32:59)
Yeah, yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (33:13)
You can feel the difference when you eat like crap versus you eat like, you eat good. if I go to McDonald's and it feels good when you eat it, man, you feel like crap outdoors. I don't know if I can use that. But I mean, yeah, I mean, otherwise if you find a good place that has, you know, fresh veggies, like over here, it's a place called Kareto's and it's good if you have like a Mediterranean, you have the...
Aubrey Hayes (33:16)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (33:43)
You had the cucumbers and salad and with a rice and chicken and hummus. Yum, I love it. I love the protein bowls. That's my favorite.
Aubrey Hayes (33:53)
Oh
yeah, big old protein bowls. We try to make those at home. The wife makes them every once in a while. like, just massive, like lettuce bowl with all the proteins, you know, plant, meat, absolutely love it.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (33:56)
Yeah.
Yeah.
yeah. Yeah. And you feel good afterwards, right? know, it's, so.
Aubrey Hayes (34:08)
Yeah. Yeah. You're like,
man, that wasn't so bad. And I feel full. Yeah. It's crazy how that works. But sometimes the easy button is nice. You know, like a good Taco Bell run never does you wrong. know, I don't know, man. It just, sometimes it comes a calling, you know,
Jean-Paul Montreuil (34:11)
Yeah.
You
I hate you. I hate you.
Yeah it does. Between that, Chick-fil-A, or whatever.
Aubrey Hayes (34:32)
No.
Mm-hmm
Wow, so what? Yeah, man, I love some chick-fil-a too. All right, so with that When it comes to endurance sports obviously you've dabbled a little bit of everything and you know, your family's been in endurance sports and You guys have I think touched every end of the spectrum for it
Jean-Paul Montreuil (34:43)
So do I.
Aubrey Hayes (35:03)
Are there some things that you're very passionate about in endurance sports or something that, you know, if you could bring up or ever just like elevator pitch about endurance sports, what would that be?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (35:17)
I think having a good coach would be very important. think, so like say for instance my daughter, My daughter Faith, she was an incredible cyclist. She was just, she was on the USA team, the junior team. She went to Europe. And she did it, she loved it, but she did not want to coach.
She was never coach. At all.
Aubrey Hayes (35:50)
Man, that's wild. Yeah, I remember seeing her ride. I'm like, dang, I never knew she didn't have a coach.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (35:56)
she never had a coach. I they had some people kind of helped her out and she would ask the questions, but she would always go on these group rides and she would get offers all the time. Say, I want to coach you, I want to coach you. And she said, I want to be coached, Cause I think her heart wasn't in it. And that's, that's fine. I'm cool with it. But I mean, she, she was an incredible athlete and then COVID happened. said, she said, dad, I'm done being, I'm done. So I'm like, okay. You know, I mean, I can't, I can't, you know, she was, I think
Aubrey Hayes (36:11)
Hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (36:25)
18th of time or 17 and so say if you don't like to do it then just give it up but No, I would say that I would say that coaching is very important because It puts you on the right schedule you know whether you know whether you click books or something to get you on schedule because if you just sort of like You know dabble the snare that way you're not gonna get
you're not going to your goals. And then you end up injuring yourself. So I think a coach just makes you more accountable and it gives you the right schedule and gives you someone that can encourage you. So I think coaching is important.
Aubrey Hayes (37:16)
I agree and I would like to add to that is like not every coach is going to bond with you as well or mesh with you as well. So finding the coach that your personalities match or that the way they're coaching matches what you're looking for. Because I think a lot of athletes probably get out there and they get a coach and like, I got to stick with it. Well, if that relationship isn't working, it's never going to work or their style of coaching
Jean-Paul Montreuil (37:28)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (37:45)
doesn't seem like it's working for you at all. Don't be afraid to say, hey, I need to cut ties. I got to find a different coach. So I think that's just as important. I know I've stuck with coaches before myself and I felt like I was getting nothing out of it at times. And that might be a time like you just need to change.
you need to change the what you're getting out of that coach or you need to change how your training is laid out or the type of intensity you're getting from training to maybe improve a little more. So sometimes, you know, one or two years, okay, or, you know, a couple months, you know, like this doesn't work. All right, I gotta find somebody else. So yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (38:22)
Yeah.
Yeah, and
it works really well for like individuals. It works good for like, you know, cycling or cross country or running, you know, those type of sports. It works well. Like I remember in college, right? You get there, you had the coach. He's the coach because you're stuck with him, right? And then, and you had to, yeah, you had to deal with it. But I mean, a lot of times people during the summer would go out to their old coaches that they had either in
Aubrey Hayes (38:45)
Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (38:58)
high school or maybe they met through some camps and stuff like this and they could coach to them but then when they came to the back to university then they stuck to the same coach.
Yeah, you know, I remember coaching my daughter for cross country. She did cross country for a number of years and she did well. That's the one thing she took to the coaching. She took to coaching when she did cross country. And I think she knew that I was a cross country runner and I was a runner and then she soaked it up. So she did really well in that too.
Aubrey Hayes (39:27)
Yeah.
It makes sense like when they when your kids know what you did, they kind of want to emulate that and because like I I had no interest in wrestling because I wrestled all the way through middle school and high school, but I had no interest and it kept like mentioning at school like all wrestling you want to come try out and then my dad I brought it up at home one day and my dad was like, you know, I wrestled right like I went to state and I was like, no way.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (39:41)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (40:03)
And then all of sudden I was like, I want to wrestle. And it became like, you know, I did other sports too, you know, like soccer and cross country and stuff, but wrestling was my thing. And all it took was my dad just saying I wrestled and he showed me some pictures from like, I think 1968. And I was like, I'm in, I'm doing this. yeah, it's weird how that works, right?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (40:20)
Nice.
I know, I know. mean,
you were coaching here, right? Which you're coaching in Louisville, the wrestling.
Aubrey Hayes (40:31)
Yeah, I coached at a local high school there in Louisville, Kentucky. It's Louisville male high school. Yeah. And I coached there for like 10 or 11 years as an assistant coach. And yeah, I loved it. Actually, I got more deep into the sport when I started coaching. Like I was, I was in it. But when we moved to the DC area and then out here, I just, I haven't had time to coach and we had our own kid. And so maybe hopefully, you know, he'll get into wrestling or something and
Jean-Paul Montreuil (40:34)
Okay.
Hahaha!
Aubrey Hayes (41:01)
I'll my best not to coach. don't want to be, but it's probably going to happen. It's probably going to happen.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (41:10)
Yeah, I would say that when you have a child, son or daughter and you want to just like, you want to give them everything that you had. It's so easy. It's so easy for me to like get all hyped up and like, hey, you do this, gotta do that. And I was like, okay, I need to back off. so, and you learn, you learn. You sort of check in with your kids, say, hey, am I doing too much?
Aubrey Hayes (41:26)
Mm-hmm.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (41:40)
I want to encourage you at the same time, I'm trying to pressure you and make you feel obligated to do the sport. So, yeah.
Aubrey Hayes (41:46)
Yeah, I had
a buddy that was having problems with that. His kid was running cross country and he would go to practice with them and run with them. And the kid was just like, can you stop like telling him like, yeah, man, it's time for you to be dad and let the coach be coach. Like he's young. He's trying to build a friend, you know, circle. So it may feel like awesome to you, but to them, they want you to be dad, not not the cross country coach. Yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (41:57)
You
Yeah, yeah, just, yeah,
exactly. I agree.
Aubrey Hayes (42:16)
So last question that I'm going to let you off the hook. right. So any advice, so open whatever advice you want to give to older athletes getting into endurance sports. Because I think lately we see a lot of there's I don't know if it's just because I'm I'm I'm in it or but lately it seems like there's a lot of older as older individuals getting into endurance sports lately, mainly like running and triathlon.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (42:20)
Okay.
Aubrey Hayes (42:45)
What kind of advice would you give them?
Jean-Paul Montreuil (42:50)
Start slow for sure and then also Recover, so I think it takes you a little bit longer to recover from a hard workout I mean you can get you could probably get you know two workouts a week high intensity stuff in there and the rest of the days you just got to recover You know like for cycling, you know, you just it may seem kind of boring you're on the road and just whatever and doing those like
Zone two steps up and that's it. That's so important and then you got to have like that You know that 10 10 15 percent of doing high intensity stuff through the week But you got to make sure you have enough time to recover I mean when you're young you can recover very very fast and everything right? So I would just say that you know make sure that you're recovering and if you know if obviously if you want to feel the you know the the after you do the strength training
Aubrey Hayes (43:21)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (43:48)
You want to feel sore afterwards. Hydration is very key. But definitely, would say, recover so you can actually benefit from the actual workout you did. And then you can move to the next one and do that one and recover. So I think recover would probably be the best thing for the older athletes. I know that for me, every now and then, at work, we'd be doing the MRF once a month.
Aubrey Hayes (44:16)
yeah, yeah.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (44:22)
And so it's it's it is I mean it's a strenuous but yeah, I mean usually after I do that mirth I can get about two days off because I'm fried I'm fried so
Aubrey Hayes (44:32)
Yeah, I would venture to say most people are but yeah, I get it where you have to like, it takes a little more as you get older. And me, I'm not as old as you, but even at 36, 37, I have to, if I have some hard workouts, I may take an easy day. And I always schedule, we talked about this a couple of podcasts ago, like building a basic triathlon plan is.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (44:53)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (44:59)
Scheduling a rest day every week kind of like those micro rests Through your training plan and then like and then every month having a active recovery week So three weeks on one week of active recovery and I think it's it's so important and I'm glad you brought that up because Old and young athletes don't feel like well if I recover, you know, if I have an easy week I'm losing fitness. No, that's time that you
Jean-Paul Montreuil (45:04)
Yeah, of course.
Aubrey Hayes (45:27)
Absorb it and that's the time that your body adapts and that's when you get better like sleep and recovery is only way to get better like because we're we're tearing our body down when we work out and If you never repair it in your sleep like all the aspects that we've talked about here with through like nutrition through strength training, you know flaring stress hormones for your body through sleep like
Jean-Paul Montreuil (45:32)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Hayes (45:53)
If don't do that, you're gonna flatline essentially, you're gonna become pretty stagnant in the environment. And that's great. I like that advice and I hope everybody takes it. I'm sure everybody's heard it a thousand times, but maybe this one time will make you take a rest day. But, hey JP, I wanna thank you.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (46:01)
Yeah. Yeah.
But no, it is, is,
no, no, it's very important. I I realize that, I mean, now, I know I don't, I try to work out something every day. I used to have a Sunday off or Saturday off, whatever, for me. And, and like, you know, you just can't, I mean, like I say, active recovery. Like my former coach, talked about how, you know, these, these micro cycles or meso cycles like every month or.
You you take like week a week of active recovery and then during the year you pay like a take an active like two week recovery so anyway
Aubrey Hayes (46:54)
Nice. No, for sure. So, man, I want to thank you, JP, for joining us. it's been an absolute honor to have someone so experienced, knowledgeable and accomplished, not only as an athlete, but as a working profession. and I want to thank you for your service to the military, to this country. I know you've, you've put in, a lot of years. What, how many years are you at now, 23 years of service.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (47:03)
Yeah.
23, 23.
Aubrey Hayes (47:22)
It's appreciated man and if nobody tells you today, thank you for your service.
Jean-Paul Montreuil (47:29)
Thank you. I
mean, you're still in the thick of it, you two. Sergeant Major.
Aubrey Hayes (47:34)
Yeah, yeah Yeah, one day in a couple months,
maybe I might be a star major. Yeah, so But yeah, so to close out guys, I just If you ever want to reach out and you and you have some questions You guys can submit questions at precise multisport at gmail.com Or at www.precise multisport.com
Forward slash contact us. There's also a little link under this podcast that says text us here You can click on that and you can shoot it by text and we'll get your message from there Make sure you click the follow button here on the podcast as well as YouTube and If you're in the running for a coach all PM coaches are Taking on new athletes. So just reach out at our website under services and shoot us a message Thanks again, JP and we'll see you guys next week
Jean-Paul Montreuil (48:32)
Alright, we'll see ya.