375 - Breakthrough 2026 Starts Now: The Off-Season Formula
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Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
In this episode, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon discusses the importance of the off-season for athletes, emphasizing intentional recovery and strategic planning for 2026. He introduces two case studies: Miguel, a first-time IRONMAN athlete who improved his training approach and finished under 13 hours, and Markus, a seasoned triathlete who overcame injury and frustration by focusing on foundational habits and smart training. Both athletes achieved success by leveraging the off-season to build a strong foundation, emphasizing organization, recovery, and targeted training projects. Dixon highlights the value of off-season preparation in setting the stage for a successful race season. If you have any questions about the Purple Patch program, feel free to reach out at info@purplepatchfitness.com.
Episode Timecodes:
00-1:28 Show Promo
1:59-5:25 Show Intro
5:33-15:03 Miguel Case Study
15:03-15:14 Sunday Special
15:20-16:07 Run Project
1742-28:05 Develop Bike Skills
28:02-28:07 Markus Case Study
28:17 Reflection-end
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Transcription
Matt Dixon 00:00
Matt, just before we get going, a quick reminder, our purple patch off season program kicks off October the first. It's going to be a great one this year, and this is your chance to Yes, recharge, intentional recovery is absolutely critical at this phase of year, but also for you to rebuild to set the stage for a breakthrough 2026, now, whether you've got a race left over in the year, or whether you finish your last race of the year and you're ready to go right now, don't worry, we will customize your entry point and so you can join us when the time is right. But if you have the luxury, I would recommend not waiting. In fact, if you want to find out if we're the right program for you, why don't you reach out to us info@purplepatchfitness.com we'll set up a complimentary needs assessment and find out whether one to one coaching is a better option for you, or, of course, our very popular tri squad program, and if purple patch isn't the right fit, well, that complimentary needs assessment is going to be helpful, because Max our coach is going to listen to your goals, understand your needs, and at least give you some really tangible advice to set you up for success. So it's absolutely no pressure we want to partner with you if that partnership is right, remember info@purplepatchfitness.com and either way, I hope you enjoyed today's show, but it's part three. I'm going to go through some case studies that are going to be very, very helpful to you guys. The listeners enjoy the show. I'm Matt Dixon, and welcome to the purple patch podcast. The mission of purple patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 01:58
And welcome to the purple patch podcast as ever, Matt your host, Matt Dixon, and today part three, this is going to be labeled off season in action, because we're going to go through some real life case studies of last year's off season that we helped athletes to hopefully for you to pull out some of the principles of the last two episodes, where we grounded ourselves in the critical components of off season, how we implement it, and some of the building blocks, but then today, putting into action, getting some real traction. And so this is yes, part three of our off season series. There is enormous value in taking on a big, big challenge next year, not just physically, but also cognitively. But with that, before you start just signing up for events, taking on the big challenge, I want to remind you once again that what you do right now in off season is going to ultimately determine and dictate whether your 2026 is a smashing success full of breakthroughs, or just another season. And so as you go through and you start this, I think it's important that we think about some reflection. Look back over the course of this year, what went right for you? What did you do really, really well. What didn't go right? Where are the areas that you failed to maybe implement, some of the promises that you had for yourself, some of the strategies that you thought you would implement. What went wrong with your racing? What do you want to accomplish next year as you look forward? What's really important for you? What determines success as we're set here in a year's time, how will you be able to pause and reflect like we're doing right now and think that was great. That was absolutely great. I achieved everything that I wanted to achieve. That's a determining spirit, because you want to have a clear picture of that. And here's the case, the mistake that many athletes make is waiting at around this part of the year and thinking, I'm going to go rogue. And they wait, they go through the holidays, they hit January, and then they start to try and reflect, they start to look forward, but by then, the window is gone. The truth is, and it is a truth that the actions that you take now are the things that are going to turbocharge your results next year. It's why, and you're probably quite fed up with me saying this, but it is why. It is for me, the most critical phase. Of course you got to show up next year. Of course you got to commit. Of course you got to work hard, but what you do now sets the foundation, and I ain't talking about bass trick. So what I thought we would do today is revisit a couple of athletes and dig into how they were so successful by setting up an off season. That was appropriate, and we're going to talk about a first timer. You. And we're also going to talk about an athlete that was really frustrated this time last year and was pretty high level, but was looking to level up, and it didn't go well for them. And then what has happened since then, when they really committed to a new approach that included an embed of a smart, appropriate off season, including a bunch of recovery and so that is in today's show. It is all in, ladies and gentlemen, the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 05:33
All right, yes, the meat and potatoes we are digging in. We have two major case studies to go through today. Very, very simple but really important. Now for both of these case studies, I reached out to the athletes, and they decided, You know what, I'd rather have a little bit of The Wizard of Oz going on. And so I'm going to change their names. They are real purple patch athletes, I promise you. But I'm going to change their names, and I'm going to give them some names that are pretty closely associated. So if you're listening as a purple patch athlete, this isn't one of your teammates, but you might be able to guess who it is based on their results and story. And so I'll let you guys do the pop quiz side of things. This is about a first timer, an athlete that had a tremendous amount of success this year, but we're going to focus on his first time Iron Man, and we are going to label him Miguel. And Miguel was getting ready for his first Ironman race. Now many, many listeners are tackling a big challenge for the first time in the upcoming year, whether it's the first time marathon, maybe you're choosing to do a 50k Ultra trail run, perhaps you're going to go off with your son or your friends and go and climb Kilimanjaro, or, of course, as in Miguel's case, climbing an Iron Man. And big challenges matter. They are really, really important to us as human beings. Now, of course, there's the pride and satisfaction that comes with it, a sense of accomplishment. It's good to take on something that gets you out of your comfort zone, that provides a little bit of validation. We're still human beings. We're thriving. We can do stuff, not just like when we were kids, but we can do it now. That's great. But also time and time again, when people step out of their comfort zone, they take on a challenge where maybe when they register for the event, or they book the flights to go and climb Kilimanjaro, whatever it might be, there's a little bit of fear, anxiety, shit. Can I really do this? And when you do accomplish it, of course, you develop confidence, confidence that extends to other things. There is a resilience that comes with it, because along the journey to get you ready for something that's a little bit scary and a little bit challenging, you're going to have to overcome some obstacles, some setbacks, and that brings you physical and mental resilience. It's really important, and we've known this for many years. I like very busy people to take on big challenges. We've talked about this in the show so much. But it's not just my observation, our observation, our theory. Neuroscience backs this absolutely. It's really interesting. Repeated exposure to high state situations actually rewires our brain. It improves our ability to plan, to focus the brain's adaptability, and in fact, it reduces stress reactivity. In other words, it equips us to handle high pressure situations, and this is important. So these big goals that we take on, they don't just make you fitter, they don't just build a platform of health. They literally reshape your brain to enable you to become more adaptable, more resilient under pressure. And where does that lead us? Well, the brain doesn't understand the context it is in. So when we take on these challenges, as Miguel is doing in our case study, it's incredibly powerful, because he goes on a journey where, yes, he's going to get pride and satisfaction, but he actually receives Brain Training to enable him to thrive more across other aspects of life. And that becomes, well, pretty cool, I think. But let's talk about Miguel in the context of the of the show as it relates to off season. And so I'll come off of my tangent, and I'll go back. Miguel, new to triathlon. Okay, pretty new. So 2024 I have to go back. 2024 was his first season. He survived his first 70.3 and I say survive because he used a cookie cutter program, templated program. Had some challenges with just chasing weekly training hours, etc, etc. He did do a couple of short course races, a sprint race, Olympic distance race, and really loved it. And he signed up for Iron Man Lake Placid. Okay, so we're going into the 2025, season right now, Iron Man Lake Placid. And of course, he arrived to purple patch with the very suitable, appropriate and understand. Questions, which is, Do I have enough time to actually train for this thing? It's a huge beast and Iron Man. It was well beyond discomfort zone. And then even, let alone if I got time, can I even do this thing? Can I actually go across 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of bike riding, and then a marathon, 26.2 miles, all in a single day in the terrain of Lake Placid, which, if you don't know what that is, it's very, very hilly terrain. Can I even do this thing? Well, here were his challenges that he arrived with. He has an injury history, so he from a musculoskeletal standpoint, he was training before he arrived for his half Ironman on a really compressed 20 week training program. And so here's I mentioned, it a cookie cutter program to get ready for his half Iron Man distance, so half the distance of an Iron Man, he had a static program with no flexibility built off of a spreadsheet, and quite often in that 20 weeks. So we're talking five months or so. In that 20 weeks, life and training collided, competed with each other. It was very, very challenging, and by the time he even finished the half Iron Man, he was just sick of it. And this is a very, very common case, because you've got all of your life and family commitments competing with your desire to really be ready for this event. And over the course of the weeks he was ramping he had some injury cycles and some frustrations, and he got through the thing that was good, but I wouldn't say he was thriving through it.
Matt Dixon 11:42
So when we set up going back about a year ago, talking to Coach Max, who was doing his needs assessment at the time, someone that you would have your needs assessment with if you're looking to join purple patch, Max said something that I think was really salient at the time. He said, Look, you're not you don't need more hours in a week. You don't need to train more, but you need more time. And what he meant by that is he more time. He needs more weeks because you don't want to Miguel, get ready over the course of 20 weeks, you want to extend and have a shallower ramp, a shallower grade of training load to ensure that you can put the foundational elements in place, get control over your calendar, create an integrated approach that then you can actually probably train less hours per week in that last 20 weeks and still be more ready for an Ironman than you were Last year for a half I met and so this became very, very clear. When we threw went through the needs assessment with Miguel, it became really clear. Number one, organizational effectiveness, not strong enough. He had this consistent collision of life, work, family, and it was creating friction, frustration, confusion. He also didn't have a platform of tissue health. Hence, he ramped up in that last 20 weeks before his half Iron Man, getting ready for his half Iron Man. Last year, he ramped up too quickly, and he got injured. And so there was a steep ramping curve on his training program. Number one. Number two, he just didn't have the foundational strength enabling him to absorb the required training. And number three, he had huge holes in some of the foundational habits that we want. He didn't sleep enough, probably because of his organizational effectiveness. He wasn't fueling enough, and he certainly wasn't hydrating, which is a really quick, almost instant fix for him. So in his needs assessment, interestingly, it was less about, and I think it's worth hovering. It was less about, are the training sessions the right training sessions? Are you doing the right amount of total volume? It was more that he was following a static program in a compressed time without supporting habits, and it was creating a whole bunch of tension, tension in his life, tension in his mind, erosion of confidence, etc. And so we persuaded Miguel, and he was hesitant to start. He was planning to start his Ironman journey to get ready for Lake Placid. He was planning to start in January. He said, I want to have a little bit of a break. I want to spend time with my family. I want to recharge, and then I'm fully committed in January. And Max said, you need more weeks. It's not going to be enough, even though Lake Placid is in July. But when he started training and credit to where credit is due, Miguel started. He started October, the first last year, give or take, and he started with an infusion of intentional recovery. Number one is really everything we've been speaking about for the last. Couple of weeks, but the very first thing that we put into place
Matt Dixon 15:05
was organization. And we really encouraged Miguel to lean into what, you know, likely the Sunday special, so getting into the habit, the routine of reflecting on his last week. What did I do? Well, what did I not do? Well, what do I need to accomplish this coming week, looking ahead and building his calendar in terms of his life, non negotiables, family, friends, downtime, etc, his work commitments, and what he was going to focus on and prioritize at work and what could be moved to the next week, and then integrating into that living calendar, his training, his downtime, his sleep, his nutrition, etc. And we started with that really, really gradually. And then we really did two main projects, if you want to call it that, or projects, if you want to be American, two main projects for him. Number one, we encouraged him to do a run project. Now, you might think that this is training for a marathon or something, after always getting ready for an Ironman, but it was quite the reverse. We said we want to build up your running resilience so the integrity of your tendons, muscles and ligaments to absorb iron man type training in the spring and early summer. So over the course of the winter, you're going to keep all of you running very, very easy, and we're just going to focus on technique, posture and frequency. And so he decided to do a project of, can he run over three months, almost every day. And he actually ran every single day, October the first till December the 31st that sounds crazy, but not if every run included walk breaks. Some of the runs were only 10 minutes coming off the bike or following a strength and he was running really, really easy with just a little bit of technical work and some strides, some speed based stuff, just to activate the neural system. Very, very easy. That was his run project. And over the course of time, he was not chasing fitness. He wasn't looking for speed, returning running, as he said, and this is where I actually stole this from. He said, I'm just training the periphery. I'm not training the central system.
Matt Dixon 17:26
Now, what he meant by there is I'm not training the cardiovascular system, heart and lungs. I'm just training the tissues and muscles. And that's exactly what we wanted him to do. So he did that. That was his number one project. His other project that he did was to develop bike skills, and we did this. He loyally came almost to every single live session that I coached. Now he was remote. He doesn't live in San Francisco with me, but he was via video to a video, and he doubled down on learning how to ride a bike. And there's the truth that's a bit of humility there for him. So I know how to ride a bike, I can keep it upright, but I don't understand how to get best speed return. It was almost a foreign concept to him when I started to talk about not just the power you produce, but the speed you can get from that power. So he spent the whole three months, October, November, December, looking to become a better craftsman of the bike, leveraging the terrain that we infuse in our sessions and leveraging the technique sessions that we do in off season, when you're not worried about driving fitness gains, when you're not chasing readiness to go and ride 112 miles, and that decompression of looming race goals enabled him to actually, in a really fun way, become better, just to become a smarter bike rider, and those were his primary two. Now, he still did strength training. He did a little bit of swimming, but he was probably training about 50% of the total training hours that he was doing, getting ready for his half Ironman. That becomes really, really valuable and important, because, therefore, by definition, he had more time to spend with his family and, of course, apply to his work. He was getting intentional recovery, but he was still laying this foundation. The other thing that we did that I think is worth noting here and and this was really something that we didn't emphasize as a coaching team, but Miguel brought this forward, is he started to really lean into the community. The purple patch up, and he said that straight away, right from October, November, December, when he went into January, he said, I've got eyes wide open because he understood the journey and the consistent engagement. He decided to lean in to our hub, our online community, and he said it just removed the guesswork. It removed the confusion, but most importantly, he felt like he was getting ready for his first Iron Man, not alone. It felt like it was a part of a team, even though, of course, most people on that community were not going to Lake Placid. They had their own events to get ready for. We only had, I think, about 12 athletes competing at Lake Placid this year, but he was there, and he felt supported. And that was really, really valuable. Now, the one other thing with the approach to Miguel that's worth mentioning here, and this was important, is we encouraged? And this comes from Coach Max again, we encourage Miguel not to even think about Lake Placid in the off season, we're not training for Lake Placid. In fact, we said we only want you to first think about Lake Placid as a race March 1. That was it before then you're just preparing. So we have the classic off season until the end of the year, January, February.
Matt Dixon 20:54
You're still doing off season type work, but you're starting to build into a little bit more central cardiovascular system, some fitness, some speed, some power, some strength, and then in March time you can turn the brain on, that's where we put the X in the calendar. And that was liberating for him, because he didn't suddenly have a 30 or 40 week program to get ready for Lake Placid. He had training for preparation, intentional recovery, becoming a better craftsman, his own little challenges, and then he showed up in March, and you know what he was, he was ahead of the game. He had control. He had an environment and systems in place that then when we could actually ramp up the training start to increase the demands he was able to manage. He had levers to pull because he had an established system. And I would highlight here it is almost impossible for any athlete to create systems to establish control when you are building those systems, while at the same time ramping for a race. And so the commitment to October, November, December was the very thing that gave him control, when really he hit the meat and potatoes of his season. This is it. Now. The interesting thing about Miguel's training program is, if you think about and if we just hold hands right now, and we think about Iron Man training, and you think about long over distance bike rides, yes, that's a part of it. Long over distance runs, yes, that's a part of it. Iron Man simulators, brick runs, everything else that comes with the sort of building blocks of a classic Iron Man program. If I just said to you right now, okay, how many weeks do you have to train for to be ready and successful in an Ironman you might say 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 16 weeks, 20 weeks, whatever it might be. Through the classic lens, we ended up only putting Miguel onto a classic Iron Man type. Build, hold your breath here seven weeks, seven weeks before that, we just layered consistency, consistency, consistency, and he was fresh and he was great. He showed up to Iron Man, Lake Placid, and you might think he only did seven weeks of training. He didn't do seven weeks of training. He only put the Iron Man hat on for seven weeks. In the end, we held him back. We held him back. You're doing well. You're adapting. You don't need to dive into the longer stuff. He did some longer stuff earlier. But the Iron Man classic build seven weeks, the shortest Iron Man build that we do with athletes, and it was his first Iron Man. And you would think, was he fearful? Yeah, of course he was fearful. He's never done thing like this before. Fearing anxiety is a part of it. But he was also confident. And he was confident because throughout his journey, he was consistent, and he was in control. He had clarity of what he was working on. The result. Well, the result was great. He finished his first Iron Man. And that is success. But he finished it and he had fun. He was in control the whole race day. And if you ask Miguel how long he would expect him to take it, no one knows how long it's going to take you to do your first Ironman. But he thought, well, 14 to 15 hours, that's the level of athlete. And I thought that's fair enough, but I think you're going to go a little faster.
Matt Dixon 24:33
Well, he went under 13 hours. He was almost two hours faster than his expectations. But for me, for the first time, man, that's kind of irrelevant. What's really relevant is that when he finished the race, he was injury free. He got all of the accomplishment, all of the satisfaction, but he did it without a cost to broader life. In fact, it amplified his life, and that is. Is absolutely critical. He wants to do another one, and he can do another one because it fits into life. And so work and family life thrived via him doing an Iron Man, his energy went up, not down. And that's what a big part of successes for the vast majority of athletes, that's what we should be looking for, not just success at all costs of everything else, but success with the promotion of everything else. It's critical now, and I would argue that in his case, and this is just one case study of many, it's almost impossible to replicate those types of results, if you just show up in January and say, Let's go, because it leads to bad decision making, you are starting behind the eight ball, and that's it. Now, in addition to that, it's equally flawed. If we had have persuaded Miguel to start in October, and he had have gone. Iron Man, Iron Man, Iron Man, October, November, December, Iron Man, Iron Man, Iron Man, January, February, March. By the time July comes along and Lake Placid, it'd be done mentally and physically. And so there is a real art, but also a science to establishing a proper and appropriate off season that then is the catalyst to a great and successful race build his off season provided the liberating foundation that accelerated gains when it mattered most, and That's what I want you to get out of this, is that don't think in weeks to race, think about how many hours you're applied in the process. Off season isn't a break. It's a phase. Start with it. Build the foundation, not an Iron Man countdown clock. It's really, really key. So rah, rah for Miguel. Great job. Wonderful season, and now he's got to go faster this year. After all, I'm not going to lower my expectations for anyone, but let's go to case study number two, the comeback. Yes, indeed. Marcus, breakthrough after injury, frustration and a little bit of fatigue, this is what we might label the frustrated returner. You see, Marcus is very different than Miguel. He's experienced. He's ambitious. He wants to break through, but in the 2024 season, it led to a series of, ultimately poor decisions, because he was burning the candle at both ends. He's got a busy life. He wants to show up for his family and friends, and he ended up over trained, under fueled, underslept, and therefore the results were pretty catastrophic, plenty of DNFs, little bit of regression, some niggles and injuries, and ultimately, deep, deep frustration. And so what does he do?
Matt Dixon 28:05
Well, most athletes, they think, I've got to train harder. I need to break through this. I need to be tougher. The truth he needs to train better. Hours without context are wasted. And so the first action that Marcus took God alone. He did great job here is to reflect, and reflection is a high performance train. What really went wrong? Let's remove the emotion after the frustration has dissipated, and let's actually look at how last year went and he came to the answer. Ultimately, this wasn't just over training. It wasn't too many hours. It was certainly too many hours in the context of all of the other life demands. But as is usually the case, there's more to it than that. He had pretty poor fueling habits. He was probably under consuming calories to support the training hours he was doing. He didn't have enough intentional recovery. He wasn't brave enough remember, it takes courage to recover. He wasn't brave enough to infuse some multi day rejuvenation in the program. And sleep wasn't enough of a priority, and it left him physically and mentally tired, less resilient, and so we need to ensure, as he as a gateway of coming out of this season, that he could rejuvenate and heal systemically and also from a musculoskeletal standpoint. That's really critical. Now this is the fork in the road here, because if you're in Marcus's shoes and you hear that I need to heal, I need to refresh, you might jump to the conclusion that the best course of action is just take some time off. Just turn your back on the sport. And you would be right if you're talking about a week. Week, or maybe 10 days. But after that, it starts to transfer to not recovery, but regression. And that's not what you want. We want intentional recovery. And so we started off, in Marcus's case, with a week. Just turn your back a true reset. We need to cleanse. We need to floss your mind, flush your body, whatever you want to do. But then on the return, let's do off season different let's set a foundation with really smart practices where when training stress is much, much lower, he went down to about 50% of his training hours and race demands and deadlines are way off in the future, you can put some of the foundational habits in place. And so we wanted him, number one, just like Miguel, for very different reasons. Dial in his Sunday special, get really organized. But number two, there was an over emphasis on some of the foundational habits that could fuel, and I'm pardon the pun on that by use it deliberately fuel performance, adaptations, daily nutrition, eating a ton more protein, a ton more total calories, a bunch of fruit and vegetables. Post Workout fueling, making that habitual, every time you do any training, you follow up training with carbohydrates and protein. Critical number three, cellular health, immune system adaptations have a bedrock of daily hydration, three liters a day on top of any fluids that is taking in training. And number four, dialing in sleep. Get to bed the same time every night for the most part, and commit to seven plus hours if you're committed Marcus and you really want to make a breakthrough where you get all of your adaptations, where you rejuvenate, where you build resilience, to absorb the training you want to get done is through sleep. That's where your battery recharges. That's when you get stronger, fit and more powerful. So dial it in. Be elite through that mindset, and what we look to do then is over the course of remember, he's running in parallel to Miguel, our second case study, what we did with Marcus was the minimum effective dose of endurance training. So for him, his projects and emphasis were different from Miguel's. We did strength training, building it up, building a platform of resilience, again, helping to get a big platform of strength. So he did very, very serious strength training.
Matt Dixon 32:33
He has big aspirations in half Ironman and Iron Man. But we didn't just go and do a bunch of base building strong like bull was his off season project. We also did a soul filling run project, and so we really wanted to just make sure he had tissue resilience, and he really got to have some fun. He went to do some trail running. He got to do daily runs that were very easy and it wasn't demanding at all. We did a little bit of swim technique with him, and then we did on the bike, stuff that he really ignored over the course of the last season, short, short high power riding, building the engine. But he really limited the total endurance work. So you can think about the classic foundational pyramid of building the base, he flipped it absolutely upside down. I don't want you going near Half Ironman or Iron Man over distance training. The days are short, the days are dark. You go fast, you go strong, and you do minimum number of training hours to elicit continued rejuvenation and recovery of the system while building this platform. Now this is the antidote of every single year prior, because every year he would spend hours and hours and hours on the trainer in his mythical zone two, running on the treadmill, keeping his heart rate under 140 zone two, zone two. And every year he showed up in February or March, mentally stale and physically just a little tired, because sitting on the trainer for hours and hours and hours building this base wasn't giving him the ROI.
Matt Dixon 34:19
This year he arrived in February, and I think we had to strap him down. I think we had a harness on him. We put him in a cage, because he was like a coiled spring. He was strong, he was fresh, physically. He was exploding mentally, ready to go, desperate. Give me my miles, give me my hours, and he was in control. He had a platform of health, fully rejuvenated. But he hadn't just turned his back and gone off the reservation. He was doing stuff that was building a different type of foundation. He actually found himself walking. Way ahead of the game. He was so far ahead that he shifted. He changed his race plans. He was originally preparing to do an Ironman that was coming up in June. He shifted it to early May. He was like, I just feel great. Here I am in February. So he did interestingly. He did about a 10 week ramp Miguel in our first case study, did seven weeks, did a 10 week ramp into an early May Iron Man. And so he built in that Iron Man training, just a little bit of resilience, a little bit higher intensity. Wanted to keep it in there. It actually, in truth, was a little bit more like 70.3 or half Ironman training. But he went and did it, and he showed up to the race, almost riding on the front of the wave, as I call it, really, really strong, really consistent, with just that little kernel of doubt, of, have I done enough?
Matt Dixon 35:54
Well, guess what? He'd done enough. He showed up to that race and he smashed it. He qualified to the World Championships. Later that neon nice. And he said, Well, he was so surprised, because he said, I knew I was fit, but I just didn't think I was Iron Man ready. But that was just a shift in his mindset, because how he had identified being Iron Man ready was just doing loads of mileage, and there's a part of it we do need to do some over distance. What we did is leverage the last seasons, but getting fresh, getting strong, getting more powerful, and still do just enough to hold that resilience. And so when he said, I feel like I'm fit, but am I Iron Man ready? That's when I knew he was really ready, and that's a big lesson for you as a listener here in Ironman training, particularly if you're a more fat seasoned athlete, fitness is seldom the limiter. When I see athletes struggling, they struggle because of a lack of effectiveness, and so fitness is seldom your limiter if you stay consistent and you're smart. And so if you've had setbacks this season, to draw from Marcus's story, if you've had setbacks, don't paper over them in the middle of the season. Don't try and ignore them. Don't relegate them, reflect on them, learn from them, and then step into off season and don't just double down on toughness and think through frustrated eyes. I'm going to make up for this, but instead, use off season these coming months to fix your real issues. It could be nutrition, it could be sleep, it could be strength, it could be organizational, whatever it is, fix them, but fix them while also allowing the body to rejuvenate and progressing in the other elements. This is the foundational element. This is how we unlock athletes. And it can be from someone that's qualifying or almost chasing podiums at World championship events, all the way to people that just are aspirational to finish their first half Ironman or whatever it might be. You've heard Miguel's story, a first time Ironman athlete who was unsure if he had enough time. And you heard Marcus's story, a seasoned triathlete stuck in that injury cycle and frustration, which really frustrates me, by the way, when I hear that for athletes, what did they have in common was very simple. They leveraged off season, but it was with the right guidance, the right lens and the right project. And that was the key, the key to transform their path forward.
Matt Dixon 38:40
And that's what we do here at purple patch, whether it's through one to one coaching, whether you get a personal coach to tailor everything in your life and goals, or through tri squad and the support of our whole coaching team, and of course, our global community. And we want you to have structured training, education, community support. And our mission is to make the journey easier, more effective, but ultimately, whisper this more fun, because it's human. It's really fun, and that's valuable. We don't believe in cookie cutter training. We believe in meeting you where you're at, helping you fit training into life, and giving you the systems, the accountability and the support for you to succeed. And so if you've been listening, you think, could that be me? Could I be ready for my first big challenge or through frustration of the last year of am I really happy in my current situation? Can I break the cycles of frustration and underperformance? This is your chance reach out complimentary needs assessment. We'll talk you through your goals, your training, your life schedule, and we're going to see whether one to one, coaching or tri squad is the right fit for you. Absolutely no pressure, no obligation, just clarity, support and a path forward. Reach out to us at info, at purple patch fitness.com, and that is. This is the end of our off season series on the podcast this year, three episodes, I would encourage you go back and listen again. This is my most fun that I have all year. I love off season. It is seeing athletes building their foundation, helping them from the ground up, elicit control.
Matt Dixon 40:19
And there is a reason that so many athletes stick with us, not just for a race or two, but for years on end, it's because of this, the grounding pot. It unlocks your effectiveness, and it helps you get faster, and that's what we like to do. Alrighty, as ever, reach out to us. We'd love to hear your questions, comments, concerns, and of course, as ever, feel free and please do share this with anyone that you think might benefit. We look forward to hearing for you, and we'll see you next week at the purple patch podcast. Take care, guys. Thanks so much for joining and thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the purple patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there. And you could subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you if you will subscribe, also share it with your friends, and it's really helpful if you leave a nice, positive review in the comments. Now, any questions that you have let me know, feel free to add a comment, and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us at info@purplepatchfitness.com, or leave it in the comment. Comments of the show at the purple patch page, and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset, as we like to call it, and so feel free to share with your friends. But as I said, Let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience, and we want to welcome you into the purple patch community with that. I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun. Keep smiling, doing whatever you do, take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
off season, intentional recovery, purple patch, triathlon training, needs assessment, case studies, athletic potential, race preparation, injury prevention, foundational habits, strength training, nutrition, sleep, community support, training program