Episode 140: Adventure Training, Better Goal Events, and Lessons We Wish We Learned Earlier

In this week's episode, we dive into how novelty and adventure can reignite motivation, from using travel and exploration to make training more fun to choosing goal events that actually match your strengths and what you genuinely enjoy. We also share practical questions to help you identify races you'll love training for, discuss what to do when the joy of training starts to fade, and reflect on the biggest training lessons we wish we'd fully internalized years ago, from learning to train the athlete you are today to why consistency, recovery, and easy training matter more than hero workouts. We wrap with practical ways to become a better athlete this summer, even when the heat makes pace feel discouraging. Check it out!

Katie

• Thoughts on identifying goal events you might enjoy or be good at (inspired by an athlete comment on a random hike recently: “Really pleasant! I love hiking up and running down/trail running, maybe I should start looking for events where I can do more of that to train”) 

  • I often see athlete comments that give clues about what goal events might be a good fit to train for. Examples - you always choose hilly routes when running → could be a good fit for trail running; you love to mix in swimming with your run training, or you do triathlon but you hate the bike → could consider SwimRun; you come from a team sports background and like training/competing with others → Ragnar or other relay type event (even a triathlon relay) 

• Some questions to ask yourself for identifying your strengths/what brings you joy and choosing goal events that align:

  • Always start with our favorite question: What is my purpose in training or racing? Then ask yourself:

    • What workouts do you look forward to the most / rarely miss / prioritize in your week? Which ones do you dread or miss more often? 

    • What terrain do you naturally gravitate towards when given the option? (Trails vs. roads vs. flats vs. hills)

    • If you pivot to “unstructured movement,” what does that movement usually look like? What do I do most of in my off season outside of regular competition? 

    • What parts of races or training tend to be my strengths?

    • If I ignored prestige, expectations, and what everyone else was doing, what event would genuinely excite me to train for?

• Athlete/listener question we can riff on: “I’m feeling like the pleasure I used to get from an activity is diminishing - and I need to do more and more to get the same feeling. What do you do when this happens?  Is there a podcast episode about this?” 

  • Super normal! Our brains and bodies are extremely adaptable to repeated stimuli, so the same workout or mileage that once felt exciting eventually becomes “normal” 

    • I have a vivid memory of the first time I went for a run in the summer in high school, on a random Saturday, outside of any structured track/XC practice. I think I ran 3.5 miles and made a fancy smoothie after and literally felt like it was the coolest thing in the world. Today and especially during peak volume training? 3.5 miles barely registers as a stimulus!

  • Be careful not to chase the feeling with more volume → easy to think the answer is simply doing more, but more can sometimes just raise the baseline of what feels like it’s “enough”

  • Consider life context -- how long have you been training hard without a break? How has life stress been? Cumulative fatigue rather than truly falling out of love with a sport could be the answer. Important to differentiate fatigue from burnout. If you woke up tomorrow completely rested, would you be excited to train? If yes, may just need recovery; if no, may need something new or a goal pivot 

  • Novelty to restore joy: off season, recovery week(s), different discipline, new route, group workout, or different goal

Elena

• The role of novelty and adventure in training motivation– when I travel, I’m excited thinking about where I could run just to be able to see more of a place, not because time will matter at all. With summer travels, how can you lean into this extra joy and motivation? 

  • Includes silly adventures locally. What sounds fun? Multisport combo of paddleboard, swim, bike, hike? Human powered adventure? Be creative.

• How to become a better athlete this summer. 

  • Not about being the fastest right now, but peaking for fall races

  • Embrace heat adaptation

  • Think about time on feet! Hence adventures

  • Strength train

  • Focus on drills! Strides, hill strides

  • Really really good fueling and hydration

  • Patience. Pick one non-pace metric and focus on it!

    • Consistency (not at the expense of feel, but in terms of feeling good on runs consistently and having steady training weeks)

    • Weekly strength sessions

    • Daily carbs or protein target

    • Sleep duration

    • Fueling every workout

    • Two strides sessions per week

    • daily hydration strategy

• Training lessons I wish I’d internalized 5 years ago:

  • Consistency beats hero weeks→ adaptability rather than sexy numbers

  • Fitness compounds, fatigue compounds faster→ listen to when that’s happening

  • Feelings are also data→ motivation, enjoyment, excitement

  • Easy runs should feel embarrassingly easy→ not just this is comfortable, but very easy. 

  • One bad day is noise. 2 bad weeks is information

Challenge of the week

• Elena: plan an explore run/bike/swim! Where’s a new place that would be fun to check out? 

• Katie: Brainstorm on out-of-the-box goal events you might enjoy or be good at! 

Gear/Resource pick of the week

• Elena: Slushiesssss. Also Coralta.co and specifically the mental prep worksheet!

• Katie: Go Go Squeez applesauce