Endurance Minded

If It's Too Good to Be True, It Is.

We welcome back Selene Yeager to the show to discuss a wide variety of topics many of which come from her latest podcast endeavor, Hit Play Not Pause, where she discusses the role menopause plays in maturing female athletes and helps them optimize their physiology, maintain fitness, and harness their power. 

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The Importance of Mental Space

Motivation is not defined by how many workouts you complete. Athletes should give themselves the permission to make space in route to their full athletic potential, and coaches should work to identify when and how to make these opportunities for space productive so that longevity is prioritized above all else. 

The four key areas for mental space are:

- During vacation/travel.

- During big blocks of training.

- After the completion of a big goal. 

- When stress is high external to training load. 

Visit www.thomasendurancecoaching.com for more tools and resources on this topic and more. 

Defining Your Operating Manual

Revisiting our conversation with Carrie Cheadle, renowned mental skills coach, from May of 2020 to understand how we can apply our experiences and perspective to our ever-changing circumstances. Carrie's insight and expertise is applicable across a wide variety of disciplines, skill sets, and backgrounds. 

Episode Highlights Include:

• Understanding the role of stress in performance and how it should be factored into our expectations and goals. 
• There's no straight line to our goals, so resiliency is critical for sustainability. 
• Perfection is not the goal. 
• What your "Operating Manual" tells us about how to reach optimal performance. 
• When it's the right time to work on limiters, and when it's not. 

Visit Thomas Endurance Coaching for more resources, guidance, and support.  

The Value of Doing Hard Sh*t

With so many event cancelations and forced alterations to our goals over the last year and a half, some athletes are struggling to find the drive and clarity necessary to set their sights on big goals again. In this episode Taylor talks about why that might be the case, and where the true value lies when we embark on the journey to reach lofty goals. 

Episode highlights include:

• Embracing a goal with a high potential for failure is a good thing. 
• The work required to reach that goal is hugely impactful, and has far reaching impacts over and above fitness. 
• The process provides valuable perspective and doses of humility that have broad reaching effects on your athletic identity. 

For more information on how to define, work towards, and execute on your goals visit www.thomasendurancecoaching.com.

Let Joy Lead the Way!

Jen Rulon has been a triathlon coach of 18+ years and owner of JenRulon.com. She received her Masters in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Exercise Science. You can find her knowledge as an author and speaker ranging from Triathlete Magazine, Runners World, on the TEDx Stage, the Health and Wellness Expo in San Antonio, TX, Men’s Journal Online, and the New York Times.

When Jen “retired” officially from the long course triathlon in 2019, she decided to split her focus elsewhere. This is when she started to take her lessons learned from racing 15 Ironman Triathlons and teaching women how to build that “Monarch” Mindset. 

Her newest book, “Self Motivation Strategies for Women” is available on Amazon or order directly from Jen for a signed copy. 

Follow her on Instagram.

Episode Highlights Include:

• Leaning into failure to drive success. 
• Remaining committed to long-term goals in the face of adversity. 
• Finding your “why” outside of fitness, and the role of internal validation. 
• Maintaining motivation through both the “light” and “dark”. 
• Establishing your support network to reach your full potential. 
• Formulating your “Priority Pie” to understand where you’re at vs. where you want to be. 
• Understanding the role of obsession in sustainability and becoming a lifelong athlete. 

For more information visit www.thomasendurancecoaching.com

Interpreting Morning Metrics for Improved Performance

Taylor Thomas, Founder, and Coach at TEC answers a listener-submitted question covering the top five most valuable qualitative metrics and how to use them to better quantify and understand stress. 

Metrics Discussed:

1. HRV - Understanding what it is, where it comes from, and how to use it. 
2. Sleep Quality - Looking at deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep, time awake, etc. to understand sleep patterns and how to build healthy sleep habits. 
3. Overall Feeling - Taking note of your mental and physical well-being.
4. Motivation - It won't be high every day, but what do we do when it drops?
5. Stress - Understanding the role that stress, from all areas of our lives, plays in our ability to train effectively. 

Visit www.thomasendurancecoaching.com for more information on everything discussed on Endurance Minded. 

Contextualizing Stress and Its Role in Performance

AJ Sobrilsky is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and a Board Certified Orthopedic Specialist at Excel Physical Therapy in Bozeman, MT. He's also a coach and consultant with the Climb Strong group. He brings his experience as a runner and mountain athlete to his work as a physical therapist to address the nuance of the athlete experience as it relates to injury prevention, resiliency, and treatment. Keep up with him on Instagram. 

Episode Highlights Include:

- Load management and how to properly handle stress, no matter where it's coming from. 

- Building capacity with longevity in mind. 

- The mental aspects of training and recovery from injury. 

- Pain vs. injury. How to know the difference. 

- Defining expectations to establish a realistic runway for success. 

For more tools and resources to help you pursue your goals visit www.thomasendurancecoaching.com

The Hidden Value of Workouts

For many athletes training is a combination of workouts that often results in a race towards peak fitness. While maximizing our fitness through individualized workouts is critical to reaching our full potential, it's not the only benefit of executing a training plan. In this episode, Taylor talks about the benefits of workouts that we may not realize are there. 

- Confidence: Consistent workout execution builds confidence, which is not always guaranteed in other aspects of life and training. 

- Experience: Each workout provides the opportunity to gain experiences that bolster the confidence and skillsets needed to reach your goals. 

- Perception: Gaining the awareness necessary to use an intimate understanding of your body to make decisions when it counts. 

- Compartmentalization: Making time for your workouts will uncover your ability to be productive in all areas of your life. 

Visit thomasendurancecoaching.com for more tools and resources to help you pursue your goals. 

Doing Small Things for Big Results

Sid Vaughn is a professional runner for the Hoka NAZ Elite team based in Flagstaff, AZ, and one of the running coaches for the TEC coaching team. His experience as an athlete and a coach make for a dynamic and fascinating conversation covering everything from mental skills to the Olympic Trials. 

Episode Highlights Include:

- The role of coaches in Sid's running career. 

- How Sid bounced back from a disappointing outcome during the Olympic Marathon Trials. 

- How the small things add up to equal big results in both performance and longevity. 

- When more training isn't what it takes to progress and how to navigate that. 

Visit www.thomasendurancecoaching.com for more resources, tools, and insight on everything discussed on Endurance Minded. 

Using Grace to Guide Performance

Katie Whidden is the co-founder of Lifelong Endurance, a business coach, and entrepreneur based in Golden, CO. Katie brings her experience to our conversation to provide a unique and dynamic perspective on sport, business, life, and everything in between. 

Episode Highlights Include:

- The intrinsic value of sport and its transformative potential. 

- How Katie shifted her athletic identity from a D1 basketball player to a triathlete, and ultimately to an athlete whose focus is on helping others. 

- The tools coaches provide to help athletes find motivation. 

- Where does confidence come from?

- The role of grace in reaching your full potential and maximizing performance. 

- The "Boom and Bust" culture in endurance sports. 

- What qualities make for a great coach?

Visit thomasendurancecoaching.com to explore more of what we discuss on this podcast.