Anger, fear, frustration, accepance

I wrote a blog on 4/5 about where you are in the COVID process. If you missed it here, it is.   Honestly, at that time, early in this process, we all assumed that by now, we would be back to "normal."  

Clearly, we are NOT!   For me personally, I have accepted the canceled race season, let's face it, there will no significant races in 2020, but there are some small local races, there is a way to race if you really want to.  I'm finding that most of my athletes and most of the athletes at NYX Endurance are not holding out for a race this year.  

What I do see is that we are athletes, we want to remain fit, we are motivated to train!  And we can create our OWN fun, get stronger along the way and crush goals.  My coaching has evolved from periodized training, tapering, and racing to working with each athlete to find what they want to do, what excites them, what scares them, what do they want! 

Me personally, I started by creating some personal goals; running 5.4.24, running 5 hours every 4 hours for 24 hours in April,  May was Everesting, climb 29,029 feet in one day on my bike, and then I was planning 4.4.48, and I broke my toe!  Plans changed, I rolled into 10K swims, monster days on the bike, pivoting to have fun and keep going.  What started out as my why, were soon embraced by most of our athletes, in one form or another. The camaraderie, goals, and finish line "feels" were there.  

Now, we have a goal to create challenges everyone can do, we have options so each person has their own goals!   We grew into this and its the best thing ever! 

Along the way through this pandemic, I co-founded a fantastic company!  NYX Endurance with 2 other coaches who inspire me every day.   NYX is a COVID baby, and I am thankful for that.   We are building something really cool, and what we are seeing, triathlon is not just swim bike run.  Its community!   It caring about each other, supporting each other and stepping out.  So without races, we have close to 50 athletes training and embracing our crazy ideas!

September is BINGO, we have JV and Varsity.  25 squares of fun and adventure.  Everything from 2 hours of stairs with a weighted backpack to a fast 1 mile run to 1000 squats to 100 mile rides to a 70.3 in one day to max 1 min power to 15 min of single-leg bike drills.  Some squares are quick and fun, others are a big ask.   We created a JV and a Varsity Card, so if 1000 squats are too much, you can choose another option. Don't want to do the swim row, don't.   Every athlete chose a card, JV, or Varsity and then worked with their coach to decide how many rows/columns they wanted to tackle!   And of course, there is the Black Out option. 

 Everyone has their OWN path, we took August to train for this.   So we have workouts that include 400 squats in one day, stair climbs, push-ups all day, and more.   A mantra of NYX embraces the darkness, so we have a run in the dark. 

Because we realize not everyone wants or needs a coach, or maybe they have a coach who is less fun and creative,  we offer the NYX MOB, join for $10 a month, and you can play BINGO along with us, and join all future challenges.   Our goal is to push some to the extreme, motivate some to do more than they have before or to offer just enough to keep others moving.   We even have an app to keep track of, thanks to the wickedly talented Alison! 

As a coach, this is incredibly fun!  We are training for events, executing events, and getting strong!   SAF strong as fuck  Thanks to Laura, who is a strength monster, hence the 1000 squats!   Coached athletes and MOB members get access to a free coached Zoom Strength session every Thursday, led by Laura.   

I had to write this blog today to remind me how excited I am.  I woke up in a foul mood, frustrated with the f'up situation we are in with COVID, as you may or may not now, my other business is contracting meetings and events.  What hat means now is canceling and moving meeting, which I am going to say, simply sucks!   I do see some hope in 2021, but getting there is rough.

So to plan for BINGO, work alongside coaches who motivate the fuck out me, is why I have a smile on my face now!  

We have so much fun, pain, and suffering planned for the rest of the year!.

We have a small group doing R2R2R on 10/10!  And then I need to embrace the darkness and knock out 4.4.48 the infamous David Goggins event. Run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours.