Sometimes you have to take a break from training. Whether your break was from illness, injury, career, or family, getting back to training requires a thoughtful process. On today's episode, coaches John Mayfield and Elizabeth James explain what happens physiologically when you take a break, and how to proceed when you are ready to resume again. What can you do to best support your return? How do you know when you can race again? If you are ready to return to tri again, don't miss the steps outlined here to return as strong (or even stronger) than before! Big thanks to Precision Fuel & Hydration for partnering with us on this episode! Head over to precisionfuelandhydration.com and check out the Fuel Planner to get your free personalized fuel and hydration strategy. Use the code TRI10 to get 10% off your first order. The Preseason Project® is a triathlon research initiative that helps us quantify and enhance the performance gains that TriDot’s Optimized Training™ delivers over training alternatives. Qualified participants receive 2 free months of triathlon training. Learn more and apply at: https://psp.tridot.com/psp23pod/
TriDot Podcast .169
Tri Again – Returning To Training After A Break
Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.
Andrew Harley: Welcome to the show! We’ve got a great conversation lined up for today, talking with two TriDot coaches about how to return to training from an extended break. If this episode is for no one else, it is sure is heck is for me. I’m excited to dive into the episode today. Joining us to talk through all of this is professional triathlete and TriDot coach Elizabeth James. Elizabeth is USAT Level II and IRONMAN U certified coach who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot, from a beginner, to top age grouper, to a professional triathlete. She’s a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014. Elizabeth, thanks for being here for the conversation today!
Elizabeth James: Well, I am always happy to be here, let’s get to it!
Andrew: Also joining us today is coach John Mayfield. John is a USAT Level II and IRONMAN U certified coach who leads TriDot’s athlete services, ambassador, and coaching programs. He has coached hundreds of athletes ranging from first-timers to Kona qualifiers and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. Hey there John!
John Mayfield: Hey, Andrew.
Andrew: That was real energetic. Ten out of ten, I can’t wait! I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with our cooldown. On the cooldown today, Vanessa will be interviewing longtime TriDot Ambassador Greg Perron, who has become somewhat of a legend in the I AM TriDot Facebook group. Before we dive into all of that though – I’m a company man, so starting off today with a quick TriDot plug: TriDot is currently running the 2023 edition of our annual research project called the Preseason Project, which was recently featured in Triathlete Magazine and NY Weekly. We are looking for non‑TriDot athletes who want to jump into the research project this year. Qualifying athletes will get two free months of TriDot training. It’s literally two months of the best training available – the training that legendary Mark Allen and Michellie Jones use for their own athletes – in exchange for TriDot getting to analyze the training data that comes in from our sessions. I started training with TriDot during the 2018 Preseason Project, immediately took a liking to the structured training schedule, and saw huge improvements in my swim, bike, and run. Even once the two‑month research project was over, I committed fully to TriDot training, and have used it for everything from local sprints to my very first IRONMAN. I’m enjoying my races, the sport, and the triathlon community much more than before. So if you are a podcast listener and you’ve never given our training a try, head to TriDot.com/psp to learn more and apply, and we’ll have that web link in the description for today’s show, TriDot.com/psp.
Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.
Andrew: According to the Google machine, a phobia is defined as “an extreme or irrational fear or aversion to something.” In triathlon training and racing, there are certainly stimuli that can cause fear or anxiety about some component of the sport. So for our warmup question today, we’re going to face those fears and talk about this question: at any point in your tri journey, have you ever had a triathlon-related fear or a tri phobia rattling around in your head space at some time or another? Elizabeth James?
Elizabeth: Definitely, for sure. As you were talking through and hitting this question up for us, for me right now, I have a major aversion to ocean swimming. I took a girls’ trip to LA a few years ago, and we went out for an open-water swim in some pretty rough conditions. I got out past the breakers just fine, had a pretty good swim while I was out there, but coming back to shore I had a very scary experience there with those large waves. So I will need to spend some serious time practicing in the ocean before doing a race with an ocean swim, because right now, to be honest I am terrified of swimming in the ocean again. I definitely have a phobia of races with ocean swims.
Andrew: It’s so interesting how one particular event can just spark a new phobia or new fear. I know you’ve swum in the ocean many, many times, I have as well. And yeah, it just takes one swim where you’re out there and you feel like your head can play mind games, with the shadows you’re seeing ,and what’s going on in the water around you. It’s definitely an interesting place out there. Elizabeth, I hope you get more and more comfortable as you go, because we know we can’t wait to see you in the pro field of some events coming up, and there’s probably some ocean swims out there that you’ll find yourself in.
Elizabeth: Well I’ll just make a plug for Ambassador Camp being at a venue with an ocean so that we can all get some good practice and experience there. Can I put my plug in for that?
Andrew: Sounds good! So Elizabeth’s current tri phobia is ocean swims. This is a safe space, I’m happy you can admit that here. John Mayfield, do you have any sort of current or past tri phobia?
John: My tri phobia is just my one phobia, and it’s maybe a bit of a stretch but not really. I have a real phobia of needles. Normally not in the course of triathlon, but in my race career and in several races, I’ve found myself in the med tent with the need for an IV. I’ve had Elizabeth there to hold my hand, I get white and pasty. There’s just something about needles that freaks me out. I can’t even be in the room with a needle, I can’t watch my pets get shots or anything like that, I get kind of queasy. I don’t know what it is, it doesn’t hurt, but that’s a years-long thing, as long as I can remember I’ve just had this icky feeling with needles. I hate ‘em. But it’s kind of a catch‑22, in those times in the med tent. Like when I raced a couple weeks ago at IRONMAN Florida, I was feeling it after the race. I kind of knew, I was like, “Look guys, I hate the needles. But an IV bag is probably how I’m going to leave this place, so we can just skip to it.” I was like, “I don’t want it, I hate it, it’s very unpleasant for me, but it gets me out of here, it gets me going about my day.” So my life phobia is also my tri phobia. I hate needles in the doctor’s office, I hate them in the med tent.
Andrew: Your phobia at least is a very tangible, rational thing to be afraid of. The story I’m going to give here: I am very good at creating very irrational, “never going to actually happen” fears in the back of my head. Maybe it’s just as a creative person. But this is the true story, John and Elizabeth, of how I got really comfortable at learning how to bilateral breathe. Early in my tri career I used to swim at an LA Fitness. Oftentimes I was there by myself, especially in that 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 p.m. hour. So I was swimming in the LA Fitness lap pool,. There’s four lanes in it, and I was just going back and forth, and the thought struck me, “What if somebody walked into this LA Fitness, walked through the LA Fitness, walked through the gym, through the locker rooms, got into the pool area, and were to put a small aquarium-sized shark in the pool, and I was the only swimmer in here for it to chase and eat.” As ridiculous as that notion sounds – it’s never happened in the history of all humankind – that became a real phobia for me. Whenever I would swim at LA Fitness it was in the back of my head. So what I would do is I would always breathe towards the side where I could see the locker rooms, which was the only way into or out of the pool area. So whichever way I was swimming, I would just breathe to that direction, and always be able to keep an eye on anybody entering the pool area where I’m swimming. Genuinely, that is how I got good at breathing on both sides of the pool. Now I swim somewhere where there are lifeguards, and it’s never a concern or fear of mine. But if I ever find myself in a pool where I am the only one in the water, that thought, as irrational as it is, will probably enter my mind. So, now that I’ve aired that story out there, we’re going to throw this out to our audience. You might have some very rational fears like John Mayfield, or you might have some more imaginative things that creep into your mind like me and Elizabeth. We’re going to see where our audience falls on the spectrum. When you look at the sport of triathlon, what is your tri fear, your tri phobia? Every single Monday we post this question to the
I AM TriDot Facebook group, so go check out today’s post and let us know.
Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…
Andrew: We have chatted several times on the podcast with Andy Blow from Precision Fuel & Hydration about the best approaches to hydration. Episode .101 stands out actually, we learned in that episode there is not a one‑size-fits-all approach to hydration, because everyone loses a different amount of salt in their sweat. As someone with a high sweat rate who can suffer from cramps from time to time, I was very keen to get a better understanding of how much salt I lose in my sweat. So I had a sweat test with Andy when he joined us for the TriDot camp in St. George earlier this year, and I found out that I lose more than 1,200 milligrams of sodium per liter of sweat. After taking the test I received a personalized hydration plan and was recommended their strongest electrolyte drink, PH 1500, which is three times stronger than most sports drinks. So if you have ever struggled with hydration issues like dehydration or cramping, it’s worth checking out precisionfuelandhydration.com and finding your nearest center for a sweat test. You can also use their Fuel and Hydration Planner to get a free personalized strategy for race day. And don’t forget, as a listener of the show you get 10% off your first order of electrolytes and fueling products by using the code TRI10 when checking out.
So I’m going to slide into our topic today by sharing a little personally about my 2022 triathlon season. John, Elizabeth, this year just totally got away from me. It started towards the beginning of the year when I was rehabbing a few niggling injuries. Nothing major, just things that were bothering me a little bit like back and knee pain, trying to get the body right again at the start of the year. Then here at TriDot, we hit the travel schedule. We were on‑site at a lot of races, we had a lot of exciting initiatives launch this year with the Mark Allen Edition of TriDot and with TriDot Pool School, working towards the launch of our YouTube show, and keeping the podcast going. It was just a busy year for me when it came to work here at TriDot, and I imagine with a lot of our listeners. My story and experience is not unique; I think we’ve all been in a time period where we have good intentions every day of training, we have good intentions week to week of, “Oh, I’ll get back on the training bandwagon next week, or next month, or next whatever.” For me, this year just got away from me, and I’ve done little to no training. I’ve run a little bit, but I haven’t swam in months. I did four races this year, all of them with little to no training leading into them, so I definitely had to temper my expectations and race experiences. I know people deal with this for one reason or another, we all have breaks in our training where we’re trying to get back to it. But as we slide into this topic today, John and Elizabeth, have you two had periods in your life or your tri journey where you had an extended period off of training, and were trying to come back to the sport?
John: Similar to you, 2018 was a very busy year for me. We didn’t have near the staff at TriDot that we have now. There was a lot of things going on, and it was just really difficult to do everything that I was doing in the office, around the house with my three kids, and get in consistent training. So 2018 was definitely an off year for me. I raced a little bit, but nothing long-course, and not near the schedule I did normally. I’ve had a couple times where I’ve even said I’ve retired and taken some time. But it can be a little frustrating coming back, and even once I get back to my consistent training in the first of the year, it’s not going to feel like it did in those last couple weeks leading up to my A races a couple weeks ago. But the good news is it does come back relatively quickly, your body knows what it’s doing. It’s a little bit of a rough patch, but fortunately it comes back relatively quick.
Andrew: Elizabeth, what about you?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I’ve had some kind of extended times without training, and as I reflect on that, it’s been for a number of different reasons. I’ve taken a significant amount of time off of training for a busy time in my job as well, as both of you have mentioned. Specifically, for me, that was my first year of teaching. That was lots of hours in the classroom, even once the kids had gone home. I remember the custodians being so kind and walking me to my car at the end of the day because it’s 11:30 at night, and they’re like, “We’ll just make sure that you get out there safely so you can come back tomorrow morning.”
Andrew: “Why are you still here?”
Elizabeth: They would joke and bring me a blanket and pillow and be like, “You know, we’ll wake you up at 6:00!” Yeah, that was just a really busy time for work, so I did not do any training really during my first year of teaching. Then the past couple of years have been pretty tough for me with both illness and injury. I took a few months off completely at the beginning of 2021 due to extreme illness. Then I’ve taken some time off of specific disciplines, not necessarily training entirely, but time off of swimming, or time off of running due to injuries like a broken hand, or the tendon that I tore in my ankle, and a torn hamstring over the past year. So as John mentioned, coming back to training is definitely a process, and for me it’s a mixed bag of emotions. It seems like you never are quite sure what that day is going to bring. It’s a humbling, slow process, but at the same time it’s so exciting to be back, and it’s just exhilarating when you start to see that progress again. Even for me in the past couple months there’s been tears of frustration, doubt about reaching the same level that you were before. But at the same time, there’s this overwhelming joy and appreciation for the opportunity to do what you love once again. Definitely lots of highs and lows with taking some time off and coming back.
Andrew: As you guys coach your athletes, what are some of the reasons that you find your athletes have for taking a longer break from the sport?
Elizabeth: There are truly a number of different reasons here. Some examples are a death in the family. Illness, whether that’s the athlete themselves or another family member that they are responsible to be a caretaker for. The birth of a child is an exciting time, but also a very busy time, and training sometimes takes a little bit of a break there. It could be difficulty in life in some arena: difficulty in a job, difficulty in a marriage, difficulty with a child. Or something like a major move, moving to a different state, relocating a business. It could be that you’re just wanting a break for a couple years, want to focus on something different. Or it can be for an injury. There’s a lot of different reasons why somebody may take a break for an extended period of time.
John: Yeah, I would say it gets into two buckets. You have those life events that Elizabeth described, and then you also have those that are more injury-based. I think it’s important to distinguish that the route back is perhaps going to be different depending on what caused it, and on how long the break is as well. You’re going to come back from a break from a life event perhaps differently than you would coming back from a physical injury that prevented you from training.
Andrew: Great point, and we’ll get into how to go about returning to training with both of those buckets. But before we get into that, I’m curious physically what happens in our bodies when we take time off from training. How long does it take for us as athletes to lose fitness with little to no training? Does it take a couple weeks to lose fitness, or a couple months? What’s the timeframe in terms of, we’ve hit a pause on training for one reason or another, then all of a sudden our body is losing the ability to perform?
Elizabeth: I’m going to go ahead and jump in here first. I’ll say that in considering how quickly somebody will lose fitness, age, gender, and the reason that they stopped exercising are certainly factors to consider. The effects of the deconditioning due to inactivity are really going to vary from person to person. Somebody that is less trained will not show a whole lot of change in that first one- to three-week period, but after four to eight weeks that fitness ability or aerobic capability is more than likely to go back to zero, if they’re really just getting started. But those that are rigorous exercisers, or those that have trained for a much longer period of time, can expect their losses to plateau after about that four- to six‑week period, and it will keep their abilities above what their starting point was for a lot longer than somebody that was a beginner. So Andrew, good news for you, you were consistently training for years. You’re not going back to when you first started the sport. All of that training you’ve done over those years, that’s going to be there, that’s going to come back. Then yeah, factors like age and gender can also impact your rate of detraining. For example, older women have been shown to lose muscle mass more quickly than other demographic groups, so there are some considerations there. And although the results of detraining or fitness loss vary across a lot of the different studies – different studies will give us exactly how many weeks and by which percent – there are still a few general statements or time frames that we can provide. Most of the research suggests that for endurance athletes, a loss of cardiovascular fitness is the first thing to decline. You’ll likely feel a small difference in one week without exercise. If you go a week without anything and then get back to it, that first session you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so out of shape!” You’re really not, but you kind of feel that way at first.
Andrew: Absolutely, yeah.
Elizabeth: Then after two weeks or so, there really is that actual decline, or a more significant decline. The studies on endurance again have a wide range here, that endurance will decrease between 4 and 25% after a three- to four-week period. That’s a wide range, but that’s also based on some of those factors that we talked about before, and what the activity level was like prior to the break. From an aerobic standpoint, in general you have very little to worry about if you take a break from cardiovascular activity for two weeks or less. Beyond that, we are going to see some declines in that aerobic capability. On the flip side of that, when it comes to maintaining muscle strength, muscle mass is going to decrease when there is no stimulus to it. Your muscles are going to become less efficient. Some of the research studies suggest you can lose up to 10% of strength in one week, while others say that it takes about three weeks to start to notice significant strength loss. Most of the literature points to losing those strength gains over a three-month period of time. Speaking in some generalities, for the majority of the endurance population, you can take about three to four weeks off of strength training without noticing a significant drop in your strength performance. Again, athletes are typically going to lose less muscle strength compared to non‑athletes. So if you’ve been consistently training, you are going to see a decline, but it’s not the same as somebody that just started exercising, lifted for two months, and then stopped completely. They’re probably going to go back to their baseline.
Andrew: It’s very interesting how, between strength and the cardiovascular and aerobic fitness, how each of those deteriorates at a different rate, and takes a different amount of time to really notice that you’ve lost something there. The other thing that you pointed out, Elizabeth, that I want people to catch, is that your experience in the sport can matter. Pointing back to myself, I’ve been a runner way longer than I’ve been a cyclist or a swimmer, so the run for me always comes back the quickest. My legs, my system, my body, it has that in there somewhere, whereas I don’t really have that in there all that long for swimming and cycling. I also think of our good friend and TriDot coach Mark Allen. When Mark heard about Pool School, he wanted to go to a Pool School, but he hadn’t swam in a lap pool for a long time, although he surfs all the time. He jumped in the pool one time just to shake off the cobwebs before Pool School, and then he attended Pool School, and guess what? After having not swam competitively in years, he jumped in the pool and threw down a one-minute 100‑yard pace. I can’t even do that when I’m fully trained. But Mark has years and years and years of swimming on his body and in his system. So TriDot takes your sport age – how long you’ve been in the sport – into account when it makes your training plan. How long you’ve been in the sport matters, and we see that here. It matters in how much time it takes for your body to lose fitness in each of those categories.
John: I guess the takeaway for me in all of that, and this is certainly anecdotal and a good reminder, is that the true loss of fitness lags behind the FEELING of the loss of fitness. That’s something I’ve even experienced just recently. I was headed into that CLASH race that I mentioned. That fall period is very busy for us, I’m traveling almost every other week, so it’s real hard to get in good, consistent training. I remember a day or two before that IRONMAN Florida race just wondering if I could even finish, wondering if I still had the stamina necessary to finish, having just done a pretty good IRONMAN six weeks prior. And like I said, the true loss of fitness was way behind what it felt like I had lost, and I had a pretty good race that day. Certainly plenty of fitness and stamina there to complete the race, and even do pretty well on the day. So generally, it’s rarely as bad as it feels, especially early on.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s an outstanding point, John. I always feel so uncoordinated when I get back to training, like that first run session, that first swim session in particular. I just feel clunky, I feel like I am not flowing at all, like my body has never done this before. But after just two or three sessions, that feeling goes away and you realize, “Okay, this is where I’m at with my fitness.” You realize your new baseline. That feeling of being a non‑athlete goes away very quickly.
When we have been inactive for a period of time, what does that do physically to our bodies? What changes physically in our muscles, our joints, and our physiological capabilities?
Elizabeth: As we just mentioned, when you have a break from exercise, the most noticeable change will be in your cardio or aerobic fitness. This is the ability of your lungs, heart, and blood vessels, to take in oxygen and transport that to your muscles where it’s used to produce energy for movement. So the more you work on this cardiorespiratory system, the more efficient it is at doing its job. But when we take a break for more than a couple days, then our cardiovascular fitness starts to drop off fairly quickly. That’s because when you lose that cardio fitness, your heart has to work harder to get enough blood and oxygen to our deconditioned muscles, which are now themselves requiring some extra fuel, because they’ve had a reduction in some of the important proteins in that energy-producing pathway, and the components of the muscle tissue itself.
Andrew: Interesting. Science! Biology!
Elizabeth: Yeah, science, cool stuff! The muscles themselves are going to show decreased mass, decrease in muscular strength, and they also begin to lose their fat‑burning potential. So as we’re losing our cardiovascular fitness, as the muscles are starting to decrease in both the mass and the strength, then we start to see some other changes in our body as well. For example, the blood glucose response, this is also going to cause a slower metabolism. It can alter body composition, depending on how long of a break we’re taking. For some athletes, they experience some increased blood pressure. There are those internal things that are happening in the body’s systems as well, and we see the result of that in either how we feel, or some of the numbers if we were to do some testing. But as we mentioned before, the good news is athletes can reach their peak fitness levels more quickly after a break than when they first started training. So yes, there is this decline, there are things that we are going to have to work hard to reestablish.
Andrew: But there is hope!
Elizabeth: There is, there’s hope. It’s not all bad news. It’s okay.
John: Even in addition to those very physical things, there are neurological issues that occur when we take off. There is definitely a component to training where even the brain is really learning to be efficient and engage muscles and recruit muscle fiber and that type of thing, and that can diminish with time as well. Sometimes that can be some of those really short-term effects that you feel, but those come back relatively quickly as well. It’s kind of like, in an extreme case, someone having to relearn how to walk. Because there was something that happened where those previous neural pathways that the person learned how to walk were no longer working. There’s muscle memory and technique, but also the body has built this fitness before, and as it repeats, it knows how to do that and is more efficient year after year. I’ve really felt that. It’s almost a win or a bonus for me, is I feel like I’m able to pick up and get back to where I was much quicker now that I’m over a decade into my triathlon career as compared to those first couple years. The more time you’re in, it gets a little bit easier.
Andrew: So we always talk about how TriDot training is dynamic. TriDot training is always changing based on the training sessions you’re doing, how that training is going, and how well you’ve executed your sessions. When you stop training for a short period of time, or for an extended period of time, there’s some adjustments that have to take place in order to optimize your training. How does TriDot training respond when we stop training for a while, and start to pick it back up?
John: Obviously, it is aware of all these things that we’ve been discussing. When we take these breaks and we’re not training consistently, it’s not what we were able to do previously. The system is going to take that into account, and it’s going to adjust those sessions accordingly. What we’ll see initially is a reduction in the amount of intensity, and then over time the amount of volume will come down as well. This is a little bit different than micro-cycle optimization, especially in the long sessions, but when we take those times off the system is going to see that, and it’s going to adjust accordingly. Something we see kind of often is that these adjustments aren’t going to come as quickly as a lot of people might think. Like Elizabeth was explaining earlier, these changes in fitness really begin to diminish over a period of weeks. Just because you miss a single session, or maybe you’re on vacation for a week and don’t get the opportunity to get your training in, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those future training sessions need to change. There’s a very high likelihood that you could have done nothing for a week, and still come back and hit that training session just as you would have if you trained consistently the week prior. Given enough time, you will see the training plan adjust for that. Then going the opposite way, once that athlete begins to return, we’re going to replay that in reverse as that athlete comes back. First thing we’re going to do is rebuild the volume, so you’ll gradually have longer sessions, more sessions, then we’ll see the intensity coming back to where one session will validate the next. So when you can successfully complete a session with intensity, that is when and where you’ll have the capacity to take on more of that intensity. Then hopefully sooner rather than later, you’re back to training as normal.
Andrew: So we’ve taken our break, but we’re ready to get back to it. How on earth do we ease back into our training? How do we decide what durations and intensities to target in our first sessions back on the training grind?
Elizabeth: I think a lot of the guidance and the structure points back to what John was just saying about how TriDot handles not only peeling back the intensity and duration, but then also building that back in once you are ready to get back to training. On top of that, there are three tips that I think about when I’ve gotten back into training, or when I’m working with athletes that are coming back after an extended break as well. The first thing is don’t get back to it too early. This really applies after an illness or an accident, where you really need to allow the body to fully recover before you get back into training. That’s a little different than if you were taking a break for something else. But if it’s an illness, injury, or accident, something where there’s been some trauma to the body, you need to make sure that the body is fully healed and ready to absorb the training that you’re going to be demanding of it. Here, I think it’s really important to get the advice of a medical professional. Listen to your doctor’s advice on when you can really restart training, then take their recommendations as to how often we can be doing that, and how we need to make sure that the body is responding during that time as well. Coming back too early can have serious consequences. This is something that I experienced in this past year. I was recovering from a run injury, and I thought things were good, I thought we were progressing well. Then things started to get irritated again, but I still thought I was okay. But everything hadn’t fully healed, and it cost me so much more time in the long run than had I been a little bit more patient or gotten a little bit more information months and months ago. That’d be the first thing I’d say, is don’t come back too early. Make sure that the body is fully ready to absorb the stress and the demands that we’re going to ask of it.
The next thing that I would say is to really take it easy. And that is coming back from anything. If you’ve taken some time off, we need to ease back into that. Patience is such a virtue, and it is essential when returning to the level of training where you want to be. Start gradually, at low intensity, this is echoing what John said. Build back that consistency, the duration, and then we’ll start to fold back in that intensity. Just to give an example here, my first “run” – in air quotes – was five rounds of one minute jogging, one minute walking. Ten minutes total, that’s it. For me, someone who absolutely loves the marathon and finds so much joy in going out for a 20‑mile run, it was hard to say, “Okay, my run today is ten total minutes where I’m jogging for half of that.” But that’s what my body needs right now. I need to reaccustom those joints, tendons, ligaments to that demand. I can’t just go back out and go for even a two‑mile run. I’m not ready for that yet.
Andrew: Can I tell you, Elizabeth, my runs right now have been like, 20 to 30 minutes Zone 2. If I start pushing the pace I start feeling aches and pains creeping in, so it’s like, “Hey, let’s just go spin the wheels for 20 or 30 minutes, let’s keep in Zone 2.” And here’s the thing, my Zone 2 right now is not what my Zone 2 used to be. You can’t just come back at the zones that you used to have. I used to be able to hold 8-minute miles in a Zone 2 heart rate very comfortably. Right now if I do an 8-minute mile, my heart rate is borderline Zone 4. So I have to just accept, “Don’t do too much. I know you want to run a certain pace, I know you want that on Strava, Andrew Harley, but you’ve got to dial it back and do what your body can do right now.”
Elizabeth: Perfect. Yeah, for sure. Then another thing that I personally have found very helpful, and I know a lot of athletes that I’ve worked with have looked into some of these things as well, is looking for appropriate but alternative training methods. This might be more for severe injuries and people that are coming back from that, but using things like aqua-jogging, which is particularly good after a leg or foot injury, because it allows you to build that muscular strength again and the proprioception in the feel. I’ve used the AlterG anti-gravity treadmill as another option as I’ve gotten back into the return to running. So things that can keep you moving, can elevate the heart rate a little bit, even if it’s not necessarily your conventional swim/bike/run, might be appropriate as you’re getting some fitness back. Again, that’s where working with a medical professional and taking their advice on how to return to activity, working with a coach and helping them structure what’s appropriate for you as you make that comeback, is a great resource too.
John: So something that’s a little different spin on the injuries, is oftentimes I’ll see athletes trying to come back too quick from illness. A lot of times they feel better, they’re wanting to get back. Especially if there’s something on the calendar that’s out there looming, they feel that pressure to get back to consistency. But it makes sense if you think about it, just because you feel better, that doesn’t mean you’re ready to take on additional stress. Just like that virus, that infection, whatever it is that was causing you to be sick is stressing your body and causing your body to allocate resources to fight that off and bringing you back, training stress is doing that same thing. It’s affecting your neurological system, it’s taking capacity from that. Just because you’re back to baseline doesn’t mean you’re ready to stress your body, or that your sympathetic nervous system is ready to take on that stress and has capacity to adapt from it. What can happen very quickly there is you can dig yourself back into that illness. Just because you’re back to baseline and you’re feeling good Day One, that doesn’t mean Day One you start your training again. Your training should be proportionate to how sick you were and how long you’ve been recovering. It’s really about that. Coming back, set yourself up for success and just be okay with that and know that that’s all part of the process.
Andrew: Yeah, great point, John. It’s very humbling to come back. I mean, Elizabeth James is a sub‑3:00 marathoner, and she’s doing one minute running, one minute walking, run/walk breaks. I’m an 18‑minute 5K-er, and when I was returning to running over the summer after a couple months of not really running, I was struggling to run 9:30‑minute miles on a warm summer day in Texas. It’s very humbling to get back into it. That’s a great point from both of you on just approaching it with the right headspace, the right plan, and easing in and not shocking your body, particularly if you’re coming back from injury or illness.
This won’t be a shock, but for me, I always enjoy getting back out to the running. It’s easy to step out the front door and go for a 20 or 30‑minute run to get the legs moving again. I’m not going to lie, guys, I found it really hard this fall and winter to get back on the bike, to actually get in the car and drive down to my pool and get in the pool. I can make every excuse in the book to not do that. I know for coach Joanna Nami here on the TriDot team, she loves the swim, so it’s probably really easy for her to get in the car and go down to the pool and get back to swimming. But she hates the track, so for her it's probably harder to get back to the running. Regardless of what you like and don’t like, we all can struggle with the motivation to train after a long break. Even beyond physically ramping back up into a full training load, there’s the mental edge that you have to earn back as well in those early training sessions, the motivation to push yourself to the proper intensities. At least for me, it is not there right now after a long break from swimming and biking. What strategies do you have for getting that “eye of the tiger” back in your training?
John: Tenacity and grit are acquired skills that fade without use, just like the fitness that we’ve been discussing. That is going right along with that. Like I described earlier, there are doubts as to your ability, and that can scream loud sometimes. I definitely deal with that. It’s like I go out for this session thinking, “Man, there’s no way this session is going to go well,” and that really puts you behind the eight-ball before that session even starts. You’re setting yourself up for failure. It’s really about pushing through and developing that, and knowing that you’re going to experience some of those same doubts and questions on race day. So the better you’re able to deal with those and overcome some of those doubts and questions, being resolved and dedicating yourself to just getting back at it, knock out three or four sessions in a week, a couple sessions that next week, and generally by then things are starting to go really well. You’re beginning to rebuild that confidence, you’re getting back to that place where you’re feeling familiar, you’re feeling fit, you’re feeling better, you’re feeling the endorphins and all the rewards. You’re beginning to see that, “Okay, this is going to be all right. This fitness is going to come back. I can still race well, I can do what I’ve done before, and I even have that capacity to exceed.” Like I mentioned before, a lot of it has to do with setting reasonable expectations, and setting yourself up for success so that you can achieve those things and build upon each session.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I’d definitely say that for me, it’s that mental toughness piece that needs some sharpening up after a break. It’s something where I’m so excited to get back to training, and the motivation for me is there to get started, but then the motivation in the middle of it is like, “Oh my gosh, this is super uncomfortable!” When you haven’t done threshold intervals on the bike, or a track session in a while, and you’re in the middle of that main set, it starts to hurt a little bit and you’re like, “Oh man!” That is where we need that grit and tenacity to sharpen back up and actually get the session done with. I have personally found that working out with a training partner is great as we’re getting back into something, because not only are they going to help keep you accountable, make you show up, but they might be there for that extra push when you’re in the middle of the interval going, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t felt this uncomfortable in months! I’m ready to call this one quits right here!” The other thing that I have found to be really helpful is to do some C races or local events, just to get that push and that competitive edge again. If I can jump into a local 5K, that’s a great way for me to not only relive some of those pre‑race jitters – because it’s been a long time away from racing – but also get to that point of, “Oh yeah, this is what it feels like to really push myself again, or sprint for that finish line, and give that extra 10% that I wouldn’t if I’m running around the neighborhood.” So as it aligns with those sessions or as appropriate, I know that as I’m getting back into racing, finding some local events is something that I look to do just to get some of those mental skills sharpened back up along with the physical.
Andrew: Aside from the swimming, biking, and running, is there anything we can do to accelerate or support our return to training?
Elizabeth: I’ve got lots of answers here, because I’ve had some time off of training with some other things to focus on and think about. But really, there is still plenty that you can do even if you’re not swimming, biking, or running for a particular period of time. One of those things is to really prioritize your recovery, especially if your break from training is due to injury or illness. As we started off with the podcast here, you have to allow your body to heal and recover in order to have an efficient and effective return to training. Prioritize the recovery, and with that comes things like eating healthy, eating enough to support a return to training. I’m sure we could get Dr. Austin on here talking about what to eat in terms of recovery, but this is one of the things that I feel like a lot of athletes struggle with, because they’re like, “Ah, I’m not training so much, I shouldn’t eat as much, either.” But your body needs those nutrients in order to replenish itself and in order to heal, so that’s an important part of it. Prioritizing sleep is part of the recovery, that’s important too. Then there are things like building strength and increasing mobility. Maybe you can’t be running. I’ve done a ton of work this last year in the gym, building strength, increasing mobility, working on technique, and all of that is going to benefit when I can get back to racing. Then things like making your race plan: what do you want to do with your return? Take care of some of that administrative work. Book those races if you’ve got the clear go‑ahead. Plan the travel. Work on some of those mental skills. There’s a lot that you can still be doing and feel productive about your training, even if it’s not the same physical push that you’re used to.
John: Yeah, those are great, and I always tell athletes to recover with the same tenacity that they trained.
Andrew: Ooh! John, John, John! I like that! Let’s say that again a little slower, “Recover with the same tenacity that you trained.” That is good, please continue!
John: So what I mean by that is, so many times as athletes, we approach our training with that high level of consistency, it’s something that’s important to us, we’re dedicated to it. We obsess over those TrainX scores, we want to do the right training right. But then if the season comes where we can’t do that training, it’s about replacing that with something else. So instead of training with that tenacity, it’s recovering, to minimize the impact of that time away. Things like Elizabeth mentioned, strength training or recruiting those specific muscles. If you can’t swim, can you go to the gym and work on those muscles? Can you do swim tubing, that’s going to reinforce proper technique, those kinds of things? If running is out, can you work on mobility or strength training in those specific muscles? Can you isolate the injury and still work on other areas within the body? And if not, there’s always the mental game. There’s always education. Can you get smarter? Are there courses you can take, books you can read? Can you increase your knowledge and awareness of what’s going on? So you’re always improving in some way, and you’re able to maintain that and keep that in your life, because that’s really something that we come to count on, and we really miss it once it’s gone. So recover with the same tenacity that you trained.
Andrew: Even when I look at the professional field of the sport, there’s a lot of really great inspirational stories where even at the pro level, we see people coming back from extended breaks. Elizabeth, you’re an example of that, as we all watch you get back to training and racing this year. I think too of Lucy Charles-Barclay, a crowd favorite: she had a major injury this year and then ended up second in Kona, was able to come back from that injury. I look at Chelsea Sodaro, who won Kona this year, our female champion: she returned to the sport after giving birth to her first child this year. So we certainly have seen athletes at the pro ranks take some time off from the sport and then come back. I’m hoping to be some form of an inspirational story like this as I head into 2023. But I’m curious, in all the age‑groupers that the two of you coach, the athletes that you work with, what’s one story each – John one from you, one from Elizabeth – of an athlete who for one reason or another had some time off from the sport, and then in the right way was able to come back and experience success once again training and racing?
John: These kinds of things are almost inevitable, if you work with any individual athlete for long enough, there’s going to be a time when something is going to come up. Whether it’s one of those life events or an injury or something, there’s lots of these. Every coach will have stories of working with athletes and helping them through these. I had one very recently, in fact we’re still coming out of it. I’m working with an athlete who’s been battling some foot pain, and to her credit she has done absolutely everything right. Like I described, she managed it through her A race in August, it was an issue, it was causing her some pain, but we did what we had to do to get her training in, get her through that race, then after that race, she took off about three months from running. She went and met with a PT, went to the doctor, she got the X‑rays, MRI, all of that, and fortunately they were able to eliminate any of the worst things, stress fracture or anything like that. She had some plantar fasciitis in there, so she wore the boot for a number of weeks, got a couple of injections in there, all to speed the recovery. In the meantime, she attended Pool School and really focused on her swim technique, so there was plenty of options, plenty of time to do that dry land work, as well as some work in the pool, had a great, successful Pool School experience and knocked a bunch of time off her hundred. In that same manner, she wasn’t running, but she shifted focus to something else to keep her occupied and give her those goals. Once she was able to put some weight and start to do a little bit of running, she did some anti-gravity running on it, did some elliptical work to begin to reengage and reinduce that loadbearing on the body, and right now she’s just getting back to the point where she is able to run. A little bit of pain coming back, but again, a lot of those muscles and tendons haven’t been stressed the way they were previously for a series of months, so that’s going to take a little bit of time to come back. But really, I feel like she did everything right, and the benefit of that has been this has been a minimal impact. There was no impact on racing, and now she’s headed into the preseason with some big goals for next year, and she’s going to have a healthy foot that is going to be primed and ready for all those miles to come.
Elizabeth: I’m glad you had a specific example, John, because as I was listening to you talk, I was like, “Gosh, there’s so many stories here.” For me, it was hard to pick just one, because as you mentioned, unfortunately it is inevitable that if you’re coaching for so long, or training and racing for so long, there’s going to be something that takes you out of training for a little bit of time, and it just depends on how long that is. I’ve coached athletes that have taken 20 years off of physical activity almost completely. They were a high school athlete, then through college, starting a career, maybe starting a family, they just didn’t make that a priority, didn’t have time for it. And here they are, now ready to take control of their health, and they’ve committed to training as part of that process. I’ve also coached athletes through pregnancy and then the return to racing. Some women that have taken significant time off to start a family and then want to get back in to everything as their kids are growing up. I’ve also coached athletes that started off injured, and they were looking for a coach and guidance to get back into training. In each instance, that’s required a specific plan that was tailored to that athlete, and it was based on not only what was motivating them about the return to training, but also supported what they needed to do. So working with other professionals such as the doctor or physical therapist to ensure that the athlete was returning in a way that was sustainable and really set them up for that long-term success.
Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.
Vanessa Ronksley: Our guest today is my friend Greg Perron, and the reason that we actually became friends was because he was in a bike crash in April 2021, and he suffered some pretty crazy injuries, one of which was a serious traumatic brain injury. I thought that after today’s podcast theme, it would be great to talk to an athlete who was given the old, “You may never ride your bike again,” from the medical team, and here he is crushing gravel trails, massive road rides, pounding out ridiculous watts, like we’re talking max watts over 1,000, and he has also become a verb! You know when someone says they “Perroned” a workout? Well, this actually refers to getting such a bad TrainX score, because they have blown past their expected NTS. That’s what it is, they “Perroned” a workout. So here I am with Mr. Greg Perron, I am so excited to be talking to you today. This is Vanessa, your Average Triathlete With Elite‑Level Enthusiasm!
Greg Perron: Wow Vanessa, thank you so much for that amazing intro! You make me sound so interesting that I’m actually excited to hear what I have to say today too! But seriously, I’m really grateful for the invitation. I’m happy to be talking with you today, and I hope that what we talk about it is actually helpful to someone listening. But before I get started, I think I’m actually legally obligated by TriDot to say that while Perroning your workouts is super fun, especially bike workouts, it’s definitely NOT doing the right training right, and I’m trying to be a more complete athlete in the 2023 season, so I’m going to try to do that Perroning as little as possible this year.
Vanessa: Right, sounds good. Now getting back to your injury, how did you feel when you found out about the severity of your injuries? What was actually running through your head?
Greg: Yeah, this is a really interesting question to answer, because I really didn’t understand the severity of my injuries until 16 or more days after the accident. As you shared in your introduction, I suffered what’s known as a serious traumatic brain injury, and that injury included shearing or tearing nerves in four different areas of my brain, with associated brain bleeding. This actually happened because my brain rotated inside my skull during the accident, so pretty serious. And as you can imagine, this accident created all sorts of interesting processing issues for me, since my brain couldn’t correctly interpret sensory or memory-making information that was being sent to it. For example, I have zero memory of the crash. I have zero memories of my six‑day stay in the hospital. I didn’t realize I was in the hospital, didn’t know about it, which was strange. If you’ve ever seen the movie “50 First Dates” with Drew Barrymore, I was literally “10‑Second Tom” for the first 16 days after my accident. I once asked my wife when our youngest daughter was getting home from school, and she said to me, “You just talked to her, she’s already home.” It’s really frustrating, but honestly it wasn’t concerning because I couldn’t remember long enough to even be concerned about things yet. My brain really didn’t start slowly recording again and allowing me to somewhat understand my situation until I had already been home from the hospital for almost two weeks. But once I could begin processing things and understand how serious my accident was, I was actually really just simply grateful to be alive and mostly operational. But I was pretty emotional as well, really concerned at first with how I was going to be able to function well enough to provide for my family. Honestly, when I could finally understand the severity of my injuries, it was kind of terrifying, to be honest.
Vanessa: Yeah, I can imagine. That sounds very overwhelming on multiple levels, physically and mentally as well.
Greg: Yeah, it was tough.
Vanessa: So after you’ve had this period of time where you have gone through not knowing what the prognosis was going to be, and eventually after a few months potentially, what was your initial reaction to what the prognosis could be in terms of your physical activity?
Greg: Yeah, great question, and to this day, my neurologist can’t fully explain why my recovery has been actually so exceptional. People with my type of brain injury typically spend weeks to months in a coma, and I was actually awake and talking within 40 minutes of the accident. I don’t remember any of it, but I was actually able to talk and communicate in the hospital. So for prognosis, when it was actually time for that talk about what limitations in life I could expect to experience, and what she would suggest that I can or can’t do as I continued to recover, or how much I would recover, I actually was already ahead of the game, in that I had formed a lot of my own thoughts about what I wanted and expected out of this second chance. So her prognosis for my brain injury recovery was that it would never be 100%, ever. And more than a year and a half into it, she’s right. I still am not 100%. I experience daily difficulties with memory, speech, processing, and just other brain-related things. But she also advised against riding my bike again, or doing anything adventurous that could lead to another accident.
Vanessa: Oh, right. Yeah.
Greg: So your reaction was my reaction. My initial reaction was, “Yep, that’s definitely not how this is going to go, because that’s not what I want out of life. I expect more, and I’m going to work to make life happen in the way that I want it to.” Now of course, I jumped back into life being as careful as I could while still accepting some reasonable risk and enjoying myself.
Vanessa: Right. That’s so important. You’re so right in saying that you want this second chance that you have, you want to live it in a certain way, and that way has to include biking. Especially for you, it was such a huge part of your life before. And I also have to say, this is the first time I’ve cried on the cooldown, Greg. You’ve made me cry, I need a tissue! Oh my gosh. Now, it seems that you sometimes don’t listen to doctor’s orders. How do you make these decisions to go beyond what’s actually recommended to you, and in your situation, do you think this has worked in your favor?
Greg: Yeah, that’s a good question. That wife asks me that same type of question all the time, like, “Didn’t your doctor tell you not to do that?” So my mindset, while working my way back, has been if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. But if you don’t want to, you’ll find an excuse. So I wanted to do this. I wanted to get back to where I was, because that meant something to me. Not so much because it’s the sport that meant that much, but I had to prove to myself that I can be that same person again. So doctors are important, and my insurance company has actually paid them lots of money to take good care of me over the last 18 months, but I’ve also found, in dealing with them, that they’re ultra-conservative. Which they should be, right, when they give their advice. So with my family’s blessing, I have pushed the envelope of what the doctors have advised me, while trying to be as careful as possible in my adventures. And reasonably pushing the envelope has been extremely helpful for me, because it gave me something to strive for, something to measure my success and my recovery, and quite honestly, it helped my self-esteem and my own confidence. But it hasn’t been easy. I haven’t shared this with many people, but I had a really rough time mentally while racing the Belgian Waffle Ride in Utah in September. It was difficult to focus on some of the single-track sections, and that made my brain and my mental processing, it was very tired and very hard to think and process stuff. So once that was done, I actually came home and sought the advice of my neurologist, and talked with her about some of the things that happened during that race. Again, her advice was, “Stop riding your bike.” “Well, that’s not going to happen, so tell me something different.” But I also asked her about doing a full IRONMAN again, like, “What do you think?” Because Belgian Waffle was so hard, the IRONMAN is longer, but I don’t think it’s as hard. So I thought, “Okay, what’s the next boundary that I can push?” And her advice about doing an IRONMAN was no. Now, I don’t want to be totally cavalier about things, but I signed up for IRONMAN California next year a few days after she told me not to. So yeah, I see you raising your hands and cheering in the background. So I feel like I’m pushing myself to find my limits again, while totally being willing to stop and DNF. I’ll be totally okay with that, if I get to the race and I push myself as hard as I can, and I’m not able to finish. But I want to try. Totally pun intended there. I want to TRI. That’s the plan.
Vanessa: The first time we actually met in person was at the 2022 Ambassador Camp in St. George, and I will always remember the zest you have for experiencing and living your life to the fullest. Now you have mentioned that this camp reignited your love for triathlon, so can you tell me about that?
Greg: Yeah, I’m waiting for the announcement for the next Ambassador Camp.
Vanessa: Right??
Greg: Totally, right? What’s going on here? But St. George camp was absolutely the best. My only regret was that I did not stay on site. So I wasn’t able to experience all the camaraderie with friends and people like you mentioned, meeting people that you had just known over the internet or Facebook or whatever, and now they’re real and live in person, and experiencing that. I only wish I had stayed on site so I could have experienced more of that, which would have been great. But what I did get to experience with the group was all of the positive energy that everyone carried with them and shared so freely. It was amazing, it really was. I mean, you felt it, you were there. So to me, it was like the most amazing family reunion, but a family reunion where you actually like every member of your family.
Vanessa: Yeah! You’re right, this is true!
Greg: It was so like that. But it was so inspiring to see so many different people at different points in their triathlon journeys coming together, and being accepting of everyone and valuing everyone’s effort and dedication equally. So if you’re a podium athlete, or if you’re a back-of-the-pack athlete, there’s a spot for you on the team, and your experience and your voice is valued equally. That was incredible to experience in person, and honestly, it really fired me up and made me want to push harder and find more of my own success. That energy just fed what I was already feeling on my own. And I think, based on this and the experience we had at camp, and I know what that felt like, IRONMAN California 2023 is going to be an absolute party like no other. So I’m looking forward to it, but I’m really grateful to good friends who have encouraged me to come and experience this race with them, and actually see if I can tackle that distance again. It’s going to be amazing.
Vanessa: Okay, so not only have I cried once on this podcast, we’re going for number two.
Greg: All right, let’s see if anybody can beat my record going forward.
Vanessa: So you have the Perron, the verb for the workout, and now you’ve made Vanessa cry on the podcast twice, and I’ve also had shivers.
Greg: Right, so what you can say is we’ve Perroned this podcast. We Perroned the podcast.
Vanessa: Yeah, we’ve Perroned the podcast. It sounds like there’s a huge contingent of athletes from TriDot going to IRONMAN California, so it’s going to be pretty amazing, and it makes me feel like I want to join the party as well.
Andrew: That’s it for today, folks! Big thanks to pro triathlete Elizabeth James and coach John Mayfield for helping us return to training from a break. Shout out to Precision Fuel & Hydration for partnering with us on the show today. At precisionfuelandhydration.com use code TRI10 to get 10% off your first order. And don’t forget to go to TriDot.com/psp to apply for the Preseason Project. Two free months of triathlon training to everyone who participates in this annual triathlon research study. Thanks so much for listening, we’ll do it all again soon. Until then, happy training.
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