388 - Burnout to Sub-3 Marathon: Trusting the Process with Coaching
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Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
On this episode, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon interviews Chris Harris, a long-time coached Purple Patch Athlete, about overcoming a severe viral fatigue that affected his performance and motivation. Chris, a busy executive and father, initially sought coaching to improve his triathlon performance. Despite initial success, he faced a six-month period of debilitating fatigue, leading to a reassessment of his athletic goals. With a flexible training plan and the introduction of walk breaks during races, Chris achieved a personal best of 2:57 in the Cal International Marathon. The conversation emphasizes the importance of patience, grace, and a supportive team in overcoming challenges.
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Episode Timecodes:
00-1:11 Promo
1:39-4:31 Intro
4:31-end Meat & Potatoes
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TRANSCRIPT
Matt Dixon 00:00
Folks, it's a cracker today, a discussion with Chris Harris, a story of overcoming, emerging from a real pit of fatigue, and also the excellence of walk breaks. Chris is a one to one coached athlete who I work with directly. And if, after listening to the show, you'd like to extend the conversation as ever, we'd like to invite you to set up a complementary needs assessment, whether it's coaching with me, coaching with one of our great purple patch coaches, or, of course, becoming a part of one of our squad programs we're here to serve you. Set up a complementary needs assessment, and we want to understand your goals, your challenges, and, if nothing else, give you some guidance and advice so that you can be better on your journey. And then if it fits, If a program is right for you, we're going to ensure that you get with the right thing for your goals and needs. It's absolutely pressure free. It's complimentary. Feel free to reach out info@purplepatchfitness.com
Matt Dixon 01:00
and as ever, if you enjoy the show, please give it a great review, and, of course, share it with anyone that you think might find it beneficial. All right, enjoy the show. It's the purple patch Podcast. 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 01:40
And welcome to the purple patch podcast as ever your host Matt Dixon and today, well, what a way to kick off the new year. This is a story of inspiration as well as empowerment for anyone that's had to navigate challenge as it relates to their health and, of course, athletically and also cracking forth the power of coaching partnership and some out of the box thinking to come to an extraordinary result. At the end of the journey, I invite Chris Harris to the show. Chris is a long time coached athlete of mine. We've worked with each other, and we had great success. But earlier, about a year ago, he started to have some real complications from an unexplained virus that just left him feeling blur, just really fatigued, sapping motivation, energy, enjoyment from the sport that also extended to the other part of life. What went through over the next six months is a battle, a battle to help him just feel good again, a test of our coaching. And what emerged on the backside of it, as you will hear, is something quite extraordinary. It is an incredibly empowering story, of which Chris explains and brings the human side to it in a way that I couldn't have asked more for. It's terrific. Also, if you're interested in training for a marathon or training for an endurance sport, you're going to hear how Chris built an evolved mindset as it relates to training and used some really out of the box strategies to get to a absolutely smashing personal performance. This is a story of being really good, going through tremendous suffering and challenge and emerging on the other side. It's one that sets the path for 2026 just a little bit about Chris. Chris, not only is a purple patch athlete, he's also a partner at a very high performing private equity organization. He is busy. He is time-starved. His longtime sweetheart, Jamie, has been his partner for 30 years and with their children. He has that proverbial very busy, time-starved life. He's also competitive. Loves a challenge and leverages sport not just to achieve some goals and of course, give him great joy, but also to fuel his performance as a father, as a partner and as a leader. There are amazing correlations between his journey and what it takes to be successful in business and of course, across broader life. I hope you enjoy. This is an incredibly empowering show, one of my favorite podcasts ever, without further ado, it is the meat and potatoes I give you. Chris Harris,
Matt Dixon 04:38
yes, it is the meat and potatoes and today, what? As mentioned in the introduction, we have got one of my very own, one of my specials. Welcome to the show. Mr. Chris Harris,
04:51
thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt Dixon 04:53
You are in the hot seat. You've, you've listened to the show. We've, we've been on a journey with each other now. You are here live? Well, I'm in studio one in San Francisco, but you are. You're in the Bay Area. But how are we doing today?
Chris Harris 05:07
I'm doing well, look at looking forward to it. I've listened to many of these over the years, and looking forward to it.
Matt Dixon 05:13
We're, we're digging into this is going to be a really fun one, but, but also, I think for listeners, it is going to be incredibly empowering. This is multifaceted, but it's a wonderful journey. And I really thankful that you're you're willing to come into the show to share your story, your journey, focusing mostly over the last year or so and, and there it is going to be so packed with the lessons and, and I'm not going to say anything more. I just want to hold hands and go on the journey with the listener here, because, you know, it's, it's, it's going to be fantastic, but let's dig into it first and and just go in at the deep end, as we always do, as, you know, as a part of the show, I always like to ground listeners into when we do have guests a little bit of the background. So why don't you just give everyone a couple of minutes of your your youth, growing up, family where you grew up, education, stuff along those lines.
Chris Harris 06:14
Yeah, so grew up in Salem, Oregon. I think it's classic suburbia. A lot of feels like classic smaller town America, a basketball was my love. I played tennis as well. Didn't really do endurance sports, as you know, Matt, you've seen me swim. I did not swim growing up and but yeah, basketball was a big part of my live sports have always been a big part of my life. I've been very competitive, and I had two older sisters. I think that played a role in that. And I'm I'm tall, so I'm six, six foot five, so that helped in basketball. It helps a little less in the wind tunnel of the TT position, but yeah, no, basketball was the big one. Came down to the Bay Area for college in 1998 then spent a couple of years out in Boston, and then have been back in the Bay Area since oh six. I'm married to, actually my high school sweetheart, Jamie, so we've been together about 30 years. We date ourselves that we actually watched Titanic in the theater together. So that's, that's how long we've been together. And have three children, Caden, who's 16, Emma, who's 14, and ally, who is 12.
Matt Dixon 07:38
And you're you're also a busy executive in private equity. So, so you are the epitome of the the busy, time-starved athletes every
Chris Harris 07:47
time you have one of those workouts and you're like, Oh, the time-starved stopped here. I have to admit, I am time-starved on a lot of those.
Matt Dixon 07:57
So we, we go from there. So I think it's important, let's go back. Before we get into the meat and potatoes. Of the meat and potatoes, I want to just give a grounding a little bit of our relationship. We've been working with each other for for some time now. We've got, we've already gone through a journey, and this is perhaps like what we're going to focus on today is the most powerful part of our journey. But, but let's, let's go back to the start and and I would, because I think it's important context for the listener. Why did you decide a to to reach out for coaching in the first place? What was the catalyst for you to say, You know what, I need a coach?
Chris Harris 08:37
Yeah, I think it was kind of my my performance had plateaued, so I've been doing triathlons. I think you and I started 2020, 2021, something like that, just kind of post covid for me. And you know, the my performance had plateaued a bit. I was kind of doing the same I remember you seeing my spreadsheet. I'd kind of do the same program every year. We're at the same workouts and the same and and was expecting a different result somehow. And so I, you know, I didn't, I didn't love that my performance had plateaued. There was a lot I just didn't understand about the sport, like, I think I told you multiple times I had ended up in the medical tent, just not understanding, as it turns out, salt, I had never been digging salt, so there was just so much I didn't know. And I just thought I'd had a couple of friends that had worked with you and had very positive things to say. So sort of, I think it was a little bit of the, let's try this for six or 12 months and see. And now we're, what, four or five years in, and it seems like a budding relationship,
Matt Dixon 09:42
going on a journey. Yeah, we haven't fired each other yet. So that's, I guess that's a positive, and I think over the first few years, and that's maybe a great gateway into it. You came with an experiment, which is a great way, by the way to approach a coaching relationship. I'm going to go into it. I'm going to invest. And I'm going to see over the course of a good enough period of time, nine months or a year, let's see what happens. We're still together. I'd love just a quick review of the impact of that, not looking for saying, saying, you know, sort of self grandiosing or anything like that. But I think it's important for the listeners, as we're just about to give us a review of your coaching relationship, the results, etc, over the first two to three years. Give us, just give us a little bit of a summary of that. Yeah.
Chris Harris 10:31
I mean, and this probably doesn't always happen. I mean, the results were almost immediate, right? I think the first race I qualified for Worlds in 21 the 70.3 worlds, and then so and then, I think the next year, I took 20 minutes off my half Ironman PR, even though I was in my mid 40s. So I think the results came very quickly. And I think part of that is there's so much I didn't understand. I knew nothing about nutrition. I didn't know much about a bike fit. I didn't know I mean little things like run cadence and that being important, as opposed to just how fast you run, it actually is important how fast your cadence. And there was just a lot of nuance. And so it was like that first kind of year, year and a half, it was just drinking from a fire hose. And one of the things I've really appreciated about our relationship is that the learning has never stopped, and we're going to go through, I think what's happened over the last year, because it's been a tough kind of 18 months for me. But even before that, that kind of series of events like it's just, I feel like I keep learning even in those bike classes, did that Alcatraz one this morning, and they're, they're nuanced, things I pick up on, oh, at the top of the climb, like, no, actually get the speed back and and they're nuanced. But I just feel like I keep learning more about sport, and that's a real testament to you and the whole purple patch ecosystem that helps with that.
Matt Dixon 12:02
Yeah, I'll, I'll rebound off of you and and give my review of the first couple of years and and it because, again, through the lens, have been helpful. And it really mirrors what you were saying. There was, there was an athlete that is driven, competitive, passionate, eager to learn that's really important, but actually doing through no fault of your own, a whole bunch of stuff that was relatively simple to course correct on, but had a really big immediate impact. So it wasn't some magical training session that did it. It was, let's just reverse out of these cul de sacs. And when you get the recipe right, then things started to accelerate. And I remember exactly the same, and we were sort of in a proverbial purple patch. You really built it. One of the things I think, as I as I can't help but go down a rabbit hole as well, all about release, a little bit of a tangent, is the real education, which was really empowering for you over the first couple of years of don't just chase sort of set power on a bike, but really try and get speed return. And I remember call talking to you about speed chasing rather than power chasing, and that that sort of opened up your world in running a little bit, but certainly in cycling, yeah,
Chris Harris 13:21
hugely, it's funny. For years, I thought at the end of a half Iron Man, the goal was Max, average power, I kid you not. I was like, I think my max before I met you, was like, 279 and I remember you and I talking about it. I was like, Yeah, I can do 279 for a half Iron Man, and you were like, okay, like, almost, like, that's not very relevant, yet, you could do 249 and go a lot faster than 279 if you're smart on the bike and that sort of, I mean, it's simple things like wheel speed actually matters a lot more than power. And I know that sounds so ridiculous in retrospect, but that is not something I thought of before meeting you.
Matt Dixon 14:04
Yeah, it's not there. So anyway, we have the picture that's that's clear and great coaching relationship. We work very well with each other. It's probably already coming, coming out over the airwaves of we're very good at communicating with each other, etc, and so everything's accelerating along. Here's where we arrive. I want to dig into the last 12 to 18 months, because it has not been a normal. It also hasn't been easy. I'm going to ask you your perspective of what happened. I will explain first, you were one of a cluster of athletes, actually, that went through a period for many, many months of real navigation of what I would call serious suppression. So system, challenge, viral almost for sure, there is no answer to what it was. Was it covid related? Was it not covid related? But. Um, but certainly something wasn't right. And so let's go back, and I'll let you now tell the story. And firstly, timeline, when did you start to feel like things weren't right, and what was it like?
Chris Harris 15:15
Yeah, I mean, the last time I felt really good was kind of June ish of 24 you know, summer it started. We had a big week up in Tahoe. Felt great. And my, I started the taper for Oregon, 70.3 last year. So that was kind of early July of 24 Yeah. And just heading in, usually the taper, your body comes alive, right? You get excited, you kind of get the butterflies going. And I just wasn't having that. And even during the taper period into Oregon, 70.3 I was just not feeling great. I'd have a I'd have some good some some good training, some bad training. And then the race comes in late July, and it is just awful. I mean, I finished in a somewhat respectable time, but I was almost emotional in the swim, in the sense that, like I was, it's a down river swim, and I was out of breath during a downriver string swim. I'm not even sure how that's possible. I finish, I come across. I'm super emotional at the finish line, and actually, one of my I don't have it in here, but one of my favorite pictures is I come across. I'm just sobbing almost uncontrollably. I'm so disappointed in the race, and my at the time, I think 14 year old son, 14 or 15 year old son at the time, just comes over and gives me a big hug and says, I love you, dad and my mother in law's there and takes the picture of it. It's just really special. But it was, it was, like, really hard that I put all this work into this and had such a bad race, and unfortunately, that was sort of the start of the next six months. And, you know, again, it never got diagnosed. We think it was something viral. But, you know, I took a couple of weeks really light after that race. Just, I know you and I talked a lot about it, and I just, I could not figure out what was wrong. And so, you know, I did a stress test, cardiologist, pulmonologist, they all said I looked great, like relative to a normal population of people, you know, I was fine on the stress test, even though it felt to me like I was not, or I definitely wasn't, performing where I typically would perform, You know, I'd have an above average vo two test, or whatever it was, and it was our pulmonology test, but it just wasn't normal for me. It felt like I was living at elevation. You know, that feeling where you're at five or 6000 you're out of breath in two minutes of running, even if you're at zone two. And that lasted for four months, and it really was, I mean, it was my wife will tell you. It was impacting my my mental health, for sure, not just my physical health as I I just couldn't train really, for the second half of 2024
Matt Dixon 18:14
Yeah, I guess. Let me dig into that a little bit, and that because it was really suppressive fatigue, and that's debilitating mentally as well, real emotionally. So on a day to day basis, let's forget about performance in sport, per se. I'm really interested. How did it show up day to day for you? Yeah.
Chris Harris 18:38
I mean, I think about it. Think about it a lot. So I mean, I'm used to working out, doing something on a daily basis, and, you know, usually when I take some time off or easy, like, I'm really, I'm almost giddy getting ready for the next workout. Or, you know, that Alcatraz kind of simulation I did this morning, you're like, excited to get on. And really the relationship with working out really changed. It was sort of it felt like work. I wasn't that excited. My motivation level went down. And I started to see that translate into, and we'll go to the positive side, but translate into motivation at work, at home, like just overall motivation definitely started to become compromised, as I just wasn't having those good days. It was sort of bad day after bad day, even though, and we'll go through specifically, I was going lighter and lighter. So it was not like over training. It was like even getting up to do an easy 40 minute run. There just wasn't a lot of motivation, because week after week that was, that was just, it didn't feel good.
Matt Dixon 19:47
Yeah, it's, um, I think there's a bit coaching context as well here just, you know, you told the story of crossing, crossing the finish line in tears. You are not someone who. Who is defined by their athletic success. You know, sport has a really positive, important role in your life, to fuel longevity, health, fuel your performance as a leader, because you got a lot of responsibilities to show up better in life. And so it's not like you have this identity thing where it's, you know, it was that it was generally suppressed. And then the other part of it for me, I think a big part of why I had a lot of coaching empathy is obviously, I've gone through chronic fatigue, yes, and it's, it's nothing. It's very different than blowing out an ACL where people can have a lot of sympathy because they can point to it or or having something that's that's directly diagnosed. We couldn't get a diagnosis. And in many ways, you look great, you look fine. Yes, you're showing up. It's not like your signal, it's not overt. So that's, that's a, I think, a double down of the emotional challenge. In many ways, that fair enough sort of perspective, that's a big part of the struggle.
Chris Harris 20:58
Yeah, yeah. I think that's fair enough. It was the frustration that most people outside of you, and a couple of close people with me, my wife, my mother, like, just thought, Oh no, you're, you know, you're overreacting to this, like you're still, you're still in fine shape, you can still run, you know, five miles on a day, or something like that. But I knew something was wrong and or, and it will get to kind of the low point, or maybe this is just me getting old. And so I think what happened over that six month period, and you kept a really good perspective on and it was really helpful for me to hear you had other athletes going through this. I think one of the things that a group like purple patch brings you is, like you have a community, and if you're dealing with something, somebody else in the purple patch network somewhere is probably dealing with it too, and, well, I didn't like spend a lot of time with individuals, just knowing they're out there certainly helped me know that, okay, we'll get through this, but, yeah, after, after a number of months, I will tell you, there were, there were days where I certainly thought about giving up on my athletic endeavors.
Matt Dixon 22:11
Yeah, talk about that, because that was a huge that was a, in many ways, a crossroads. Yeah. I mean, I remember a couple of conversations, and look, we were for everyone listening, we were peeling back. We were peeling back. We were making less and less hard days, if any, hard days. We were sort of, you know, building the program. And at the same time, I couldn't, as a coach, give you an end, sort of finish line on this. It could be two weeks, it could be four weeks, it could be four months. We don't know what we have to do is the things under our control. And there was a point, and I'd like to have you considering stepping away from a commitment to this hobby for you, but very, very important hobby that fuels the rest of life and also fuels your competitor in you performance sport, let's call it that. Towards the end of of last year, you you're effectively going to quit. Why don't you share a little bit on that?
Chris Harris 23:07
Yeah. I mean, I've always thought about a huge part of sport for me is it brings energy to the rest of my life. I am a better, you know, managing partner, kind of CO CEO in my work life because of sport, I have more energy for it. I'm a better father. I'm a better husband, the things I care about, I'm better at because of it. And I felt like through the six months, second half of last year, I was no longer getting that advantage, that it was sort of taking energy to kind of continue that going, and at some point that that endeavor isn't worth the energy suck that it was taking. So I remember very specifically, you and I both. We had a conversation it was either late November or early December last year, and I just said, Matt, like this is no longer kind of bringing me energy to tackle, making me I think your word for it is more robust for the rest of my life, and therefore, like, maybe I just need to reassess the role this plays in my in my life. And you know, again, I didn't have the answer for what that meant, but we just had that conversation. And what I really appreciated you said, I share where you're at. Let's give this another six weeks, and, like, I just it may you may not emerge in the next six weeks, and then I think, you know, taking a break at that point will make a lot of sense. But let's just, let's just take another six weeks, and the goal of the six weeks is just to start to emerge. And that was the word you used of, like, let's just see, and it was interesting. Like, it just the body. And I don't know if there's a psychology part of this, of like, just knowing that they're, you know, we're just trying it for six weeks, as opposed to part of the, the worst part of the of the downtime that that six. Months where I had this viral issue was there was no end in sight. I had no idea how long it was going to take. And somehow the six weeks felt doable. Okay, if six weeks, I mean, I've been, I've been doing this for the last 15 years, like six weeks, whatever. And I mean, obviously we're going to get into what happened, but I just started to see the signs of emerging. And I still remember this my master's program that I do with this coach, Tom, who's wonderful, every Wednesday they have these sprint sessions. And I'd had like, dozens of terrible sprint sessions in a row, and it really sort of gone down a couple of lanes. And I still remember there was one Wednesday. It was like, Oh my gosh, I can breathe again and again. That didn't mean every workout thereafter was great, but it was like, oh, okay, maybe I'm starting to emerge. And it really was that conversation in late November, early December, that kind of, let's just give it six weeks and and that was, that was kind of where I started to emerge.
Matt Dixon 26:00
And in that six weeks, I think there's an important thing that you hovered on there. It wasn't, let's be six weeks to get back to it was six weeks to give us something, to give us a sign. Because in I think it's very, very important, what we want is a mini victory. That's basically what I was saying there. Let's, let's, let's have a spot. Because if you've got a spot, you got a spot, you got something to build on. And, you know, I, I do you remember that the training prescription there? Because we were very, very flexible with even what the training prescription was, I'd love your, your memory on that of how we built workouts, because it wasn't just like this, going to be a hard vo two max or interval session or anything like that.
Chris Harris 26:41
Yeah, it was very much feel. And actually, we're going to talk about what I've learned from all of this, but I've become much less metric driven than I was before the all of this. I don't, don't work out with heart rate. I even on power, like, it's just, it's, it was much more feel. And it would say, I remember like a workout. Would say, hey, 40 minutes easy. But if 20 minutes in, you're you're feeling fatigued, you just, you walk home, or just kind of finish at 20 minutes. And so it was very flexible. Even the like on a run, even the speed you would enter, you'd say, Hey, do six by 30 seconds. But again, if you don't have it today, that's okay. And it sort of gave me permission not to like the letter of the workout. And I think one of the mistakes I had made before this six month period, and we'll get into the build up to the marathon, was if you said 274 of watts. Or, if you said 630 pace, I could be on my deathbed, and I was going to do 629 and this was a very different feel of just go out feel. And I think it was, yeah, it was just much more flexible than I had been around working out before.
Matt Dixon 28:00
And the reason that I was prescribing that, which is obviously obvious, obvious, but you know, to put the hammer in it is what I wanted, is the body to guide the program, versus the brain and theory, because we couldn't understand the body. Physiology is really complex and dirty. There was something in there that we couldn't define. And remember our whole coaching premises, foundation of health, platform building in enough recovery, and here we were with something certainly external. You know, it wasn't like I suddenly was over training a bunch of people, but there was this rhythm of three or four other athletes that weren't going through this, that had either come to me in this state or yourself, and one or two others that had found themselves in this state while working with me, and we had to let the body lead. So it was really good. So we started turn the corner. And now we start to turn the corner of here, if we start to look forward, and over time, we built out. I would love to dig into the psychology a little bit of it and and just going back in this, this incredibly challenging, long journey that you went through in the gutter, as it were, physically, emotionally, now that you're on the other side of it, and we most certainly are. How did that challenge sort of evolve? How you see yourself as an athlete or beyond.
Chris Harris 29:21
Yeah, it, I guess it's given me more grace with myself, like I just even the way that I started training for this, this marathon will get into the build. But I had, I know the ultimate outcome as a PR, and everybody's excited for me. I had, even after I emerged, I've had very bad workouts. The body has felt completely dead, and I've just given myself, I think the body and my mind just piece of today's about. Day, and that's totally fine. It doesn't mean this is going to be a bad year. It doesn't really mean anything other than, I'm here, I'm trying, and it's, it's, I think I've just had a healthier attitude toward kind of everything around sport as a result that that, I think just being humbled by six months of, like, literally, I did not have a single good workout in six months. And so I have an appreciation for every good day out there that I didn't before, where I would just, oh, it's a bad day. I'm just going to jam it and push my body. And now it's like, I appreciate the good days. And I'm totally like, I'm okay. I'm on the bike, and I'll just pedal easily today, and tomorrow will be a better day. And that's just it's a very different attitude around training, and I would equate before so much input to output. The you know, the harder you train, the better you're going to race. And I know that's not what you prescribe, and that is not a purple patch saying. That was a good saying. And it's really it, what you say is so true. It's the journey and just doing your best every single day over a number of days and good days and bad days. And that's a very different attitude toward training now than I had, you know, two years ago.
Matt Dixon 31:23
Well, let's, let's fast forward a little bit. Let's go to the comeback, because, you know, we went through and that there's a window, which I think we can skip over a little bit, where we progressively built back. You started to do some fun stuff. You did a 5k that wasn't a disaster, you know, it wasn't a PR, but it felt and your body didn't collapse on it. And we started to build back consistency. So we got a few months where we started to build back resilience, a bit more performance, predictability, and there came a stage the way you said. I'm not sure if this is crazy. I'm not sure if I should be doing this. But, you know, last year I wanted to do a marathon. I didn't do it because we found ourselves in this state. Do you think it's bonkers to do a marathon? And so the Cal international CIM, a big race up here in northern California, you chose to do it. So what was the draw to do it beyond your body? Saying, I think I might be able to do it. You went 100% but give us
Chris Harris 32:23
the app. Yeah, I remember that conversation with you too. I I wanted a goal. I love goal setting and pushing forward. So it was kind of, for me, an Iron Man is too much at this stage in my this stage in my life. Although I'd love to do I've done two. I'd love to do another. And so it was like half Iron Man marathon. And frankly, CIM I had signed up for in 24 I had a deferral to 25 so I was technically already signed up for it. One of my good friends, Doug, was running it already, and it just felt like the right, like a B hag, like like, a big, hairy, audacious goal, but maybe possible. And I'll be honest with you, I knew I was going to during our weekly calls. I knew I was going to throw it out to you. I thought you were going to push back and say that might be a little ambitious. So I wasn't sure that you were going to think it was a good idea. So when you said it was a good idea. You're like, No, I think you can do that. I was like, Oh, I guess I'm I guess this is the plan. So it was a little less premeditated than it may have thought to you, but it was like, Okay, now I have a goal on the books, and I will tell you I got it kind of, I got the love of the sport back to another level once that goal was on the books. And that was, what, five months ago, something like that, four or five months ago. And it was like, Okay, this is happening. And yeah, it just it kind of, I know I had been emerging for some time, so we didn't just, on my first run, say, hey, let's, let's do CIM. But it definitely kind of gave me another boost mentally to say, Okay, let's spend the next five months training for CIM.
Matt Dixon 34:09
Yeah, because you are a goal driven. You do love to race, and that's the ironic thing where you that was taken away and every training session being poor. And to give listeners the context. You're, you're six foot five, you're 45 or so, is that right? Yeah, 45 Yep, 45 and just to share, I'm sure you don't mind, but I'm 195 pounds. How much do you weigh? Somewhere between 190 195 so same thing, yes. So we're, we're similar outside. You got a couple of inches. So I must have big thighs or something, but
34:41
your shoulders are a little wider hence.
Matt Dixon 34:46
But you're a you're a, well, we run like each other, which is proverbial, two purple patch donkeys dipped in cement, like what we and I think either us are pretty runners, but you do have a good engine. You have run a 305 marathon before, yeah, yeah, that was a couple of years ago. So you have always had this backdrop desire, of course, of, can I go six minutes faster? Can I go under three hours that? That was sort of the type this, this will be your second marathon. And I think when, when we decided to do it, that is obviously there, still unspoken and spoken. It's like, well, that's it. What I really want to do is go and do a marathon that I'm into control, and it's great, and I've got this goal. And by the way, wouldn't it be amazing if I could go under without and probably didn't, probably believe that when you first actually committed to do it, that you would go under?
Chris Harris 35:41
No, I thought that was out there. And frankly, given the year I had had in 24 just finishing a marathon in 305, again, would be a win. Would be kind of the moral victory. And I really didn't think it was, you know, in the vein of possibility, until I did do a half marathon about six weeks before the marathon, that was sort of the first, I mean, I know I called you like a 16 year old boy when on my way home from the Santa Cruz half marathon because I was so happy. I mean, since I don't think I'd had a race like that in three years, and so that was the first time that I thought three hours might be possible. It was the half marathon in Santa Cruz.
Matt Dixon 36:26
Yeah, that was, that was a good litmus. I think we should dig into your training a little bit because, you know, we talked about your, your sort of sub 200 but, but still, big guy, six foot five. Not A, not, not a really robust running background whatsoever, right? So you, you know, we had to be very, very careful, not just with your systemic side coming back, but also your, your your tissue side, you know, muscle, skeletal side of stuff. So why don't you, rather than me saying, This is how we built the training program. Give it from your perspective. Give it. Give it a how do we go about this through through your lens as the athlete? Yeah.
Chris Harris 37:03
I mean, it's, it's shocking. I've actually shared, I posted something on LinkedIn, and some people have asked and how many miles a week were you doing? I mean, this was not a heavy run focused training, so it was definitely multi sport. Kept swimming, kind of two ish times a week. Kept biking two ish times a week. And very importantly, the strength training. I really like the purple patch strength training. I like those video 45 minute videos, doing a couple of those a week. And so most runs were pretty short. It would be 15 minutes off the bike or try to get 30 minutes on a day, I think I did three long runs like that. Were particularly long for marathon. Maybe there was a fourth in there. And in most of the long running was in my happy place, which, as Matt knows I love, trail running. My favorite place in the world is 100 park trail running. It's just beautiful. You can run all the way up the skyline down to the coast, just and he'd say, yeah, go two hours or two and a half hours. And and that, to me, is just kind of playing. But yeah, this was very much multi sport, swimming, biking, staying staying strong. I think the and then we talked a little bit about muscle fatigue, and I do think the strength training was probably the most important change from what I've done in the past. Just because I did feel much more, I love your word for it, robust, than I have in the past,
Matt Dixon 38:38
it's key. And to put in context like we don't generally, I'm not looking at accumulating a set specific number of miles or number of hours a week for any athlete, and the reason for that is your schedule being a classic time-starved athlete, it's so flexible relative to other stress and demands on your life, whether it's travel, whether it's family, whether it's just elevated work that we try and create a really sort of dynamic approach to it, because I'm always looking to optimize every single week for that. You have to yield positive adaptations, rather than just dunking, dumping work on top of life. But if people are going to want to know, I would guess that you were probably averaging 20 to 25 miles a week, maybe a little less than that.
Chris Harris 39:27
I would say on average, it was less than that, but there were probably three or four weeks. Three or four weeks of that. I did 120 mile run so that week, but I think I only ran three times that week, so that week might have been a 30 mile week, but, yeah, there were no I mean, I'm 195 pounds like I can't do 50 mile. If I do 50 miles in a week, I'm going to end up injured before the race even starts.
Matt Dixon 39:52
But it is worth throwing so that there is, I mean, that that's there and that that that's the truth, because people often can't appreciate that. But what we're. Were doing, as you said, is we were doing quite a bit of high intensity in the swim the bike sessions, you kept in one or two key bikes, and we actually rode on the weekend a reasonable amount when we made that really soul filling you live in a hilly area. So that created a bit of muscle tension there. That was good. The one run session I do want to hover on just briefly, is one thing that we did as a through line, because we also didn't have you do that much. We're really too many, much interval training. We use Hills model thing. What we did do is a single workout that we kept as a through line, give or take, every three weeks, which was always three by three miles, at a feeling of aiming to hit that marathon pace. So for you, what we were measuring was about 645, miles. That's what we were looking to do. I want to go back, because I really, I'm not sure if you remember this, but I really remember the first time you did that. It wasn't pretty.
Chris Harris 40:58
I first time, yeah, the first time you did that, I did not read marathon feeling. I read marathon pace. So I went out and said, I'm going to do three by three miles at 645 I got I did the first one at like seven minutes. The second one 650 something, and the third one I couldn't even finish. So I think I called you and said, We should scrap this whole sub three and create another goal, because it's not going to happen. So that, yeah, that was, that was not a good start to the three by three miles.
Matt Dixon 41:39
I remember having the conversation saying, That's today. That's the start of the journey. Let's see what happens and and the one thing I was very, very keen not to do is to say, don't worry, you can do it. It's going to get much faster, much faster. Just say, let's stay curious. Let's keep doing it. And incrementally over time, of course, it sped up. The other thing that I was very strong on encouraging you to think about doing was walk breaks. So I'd love to dig into that, because your race day did include walk breaks in the end. But before race day, what was your perspective on that? When I was saying, Yeah, you should integrate walk breaks, not just into training, but I think we should do it in racing.
Chris Harris 42:19
Yeah, I thought you were completely not so well, not on training. I mean, I've walked during a training run before, but the idea that I'm going to try to break three hours in Marathon as a goal, and I'm going to walk during the race, I thought you were completely, actually, I thought you were joking the first time, and then you race it a second time. And I was like, Oh, are you serious? Sometimes, like we were kind of teasing with one another, and I wasn't sure. And so, yeah, no, I thought that was, yeah, a very unusual idea, but then you kind of talked me through it, and you, I think the rationale makes perfect sense, which is, I asked you, if this race doesn't go as I hope it will, what is most likely to happen? And you said, Well, it's muscular fatigue, like you're in such good shape, you can you can work out for three hours, you can have a high heart rate for three hours, but your muscles may just not not make it. And so I said, Well, what's the number one thing I could do to to kind of offset that, yeah, offset that, mitigate against it. And you said, walk breaks and that, that is absolutely what sold me on it. It's like, okay, I mean, we're in the investment business. That's what we're doing all the time. Is like mitigating risk. And so the number one risk to this investment in a three hour marathon was okay, I can mitigate that with with walk breaks and so, yeah, that's what I ended up doing, 17 aid stations at CIM and every single one I walked now, sometimes it was as short As as 20 seconds, but yeah, I did it even well, you know, I know you know this, but I even called you the day before to reconfirm that you thought this was a good idea. So even going into the race, I still had second thoughts, but yes, I still did it.
Matt Dixon 44:19
Yeah, and yeah, it's worth hovering on. This is and the key thing here is it's not just integrating walk breaks when your body demands them. You were brave enough that word is really appropriate here, you were brave enough to do it well before there was any sensation of ebony muscular fatigue. So you you, actually implement it right from the first aid station through every single aid station. So I want listeners to do this. You're trying to break three hours and you listen to some crazy English guy and say, Yeah, I went to walk in the very first aid station every single one. And of course, what that enabled you to do is make sure that you got hydration, that you got fuel in. Etc, etc. Also give me, I'm sure people are interested, because you're trying to break three hours. You mentioned feeling before. Do you remember the race plan? I know you do. I'm setting you up for success. Talk people through the race plan, because it is funny to hear. Yeah. So the
Chris Harris 45:18
race plan was so in general, you understand I tend to go too hard and in training in races and then blow myself up. And so the race plan was nothing above a five out of 10 for the first 13 miles, so get to the half marathon, never having gone faster than or harder than five out of 10. And so notably, it has nothing to do with pace we had. We didn't have a pace goal for the first for the first 10k or anything like that. And so it's just don't go harder than five out of 10. So that's what I did. I did run with the at CIM, they have pacers, so I was running generally with the three hour pacers, but there were a couple of times, like on the uphills, they would go faster than me. I'm a big guy, I would slow down every time at the aid station at two miles, they were 100 yards past me because I walked the aid station, and then they're well ahead of me. And so it did, you know, it was it. I never felt like I was pushing in the first half. Now, I did go out in right about 130 so it was good that I hadn't, I hadn't pushed it, but it also meant I needed to negative a split, or nearly, or at least even split, to be able to break three hours. But, yeah, it was five out of 10 for the first 13 miles, and then start to lean in six out of 10, you know, in the kind of to 30k and then seven but, but really it was the the race plan was nothing more than five out of 10 for the first half.
Matt Dixon 46:56
Yeah, that, that is something that you don't need to write down on a spreadsheet. Go five out of 10 for half of it, move to six out of 10, see what you got coming home. So I'm interested, how was it taking the walk breaks, especially those early ones, Was it, was it? Was it a bit strange?
Chris Harris 47:12
Yeah, it was strange. I mean, there were actually runners yelling at me, like, you sort of get it, get up. Because, you know, in a three hour, in the three hour group, you have people that are that are moving right. They're running 640 fives. And so it was sort of, I was taking two full cup. And one of the things walk breaks gives you is you can consume much more fluid during a walk break than you can while you're running. So I would take two, two precision hydration. It was nice that they had precision on the on the course here, and I know Iron Man's going to have them next year. And so had just two cups, and I would get the full cup down. And like, you know, when you're running, you kind of are breathing, and so it kind of comes back up a little bit, yeah, this is, like, all the way to the stomach. And then I would start running again. And I do think I ended up consuming much more fluid as a result. So there was kind of a physical dynamic to it, in addition to the mental break that you get with a with a walk break
Matt Dixon 48:12
and you are a salty, sweaty man. So that was, that was. So when, when did you start to get the patience I'm interested sort of second half the you know, when did you start to realize, hang on, things are going pretty well. Here was it. Was it halfway where you go through just under 130 with the walk breaks, like, and you start to feel great?
Chris Harris 48:29
What? Well, like, it's funny, I, I went into this race with less confidence than I think a lot of people do, and so no, and at the half, I kind of looked down. I'm like, Oh, man. I talked to my sister. Is a great marathon runner too, and so I talked to her the day before. I was like, Man, I hope it's like 128 30 at the half. And I looked down, and it's not 128 30. I know I had gone easy, but it really wasn't until about mile 15, and in CIM is Hillier in the first half than the second half. So if, if you weren't more tired, you should run the second half of CIM faster than the first just as a caveat. But I, yeah, it was about mile 15, and I just said, you know, this pace that the three hour pacers are running is no longer it's a five out of 10. It's not a six or seven out of 10. I'm just gonna for until the next and this is where the walk breaks is really helpful. Until the next aid station, I'm gonna go six or seven out of 10. And then I don't know, and I had no idea if that's a mile, two miles. They were, there were 17 of them. So they're they were quite frequent. And I did that, and I get to the next aid station, I look around and the three hour pacer isn't there anymore. And I don't know if I was 20 seconds or 30 seconds ahead, but I had made up a pretty big stagger. And so I sort of said, Okay, this is going to be my new pace. And kind of leaned in, and that was really the. 15 to 20 where I leaned in. We haven't gone through caloric intake, but a big change for me is I took many more calories in this so I took in somewhere between 1012 100. I not quite sure how many calories were in the precision hydration. So somewhere between 1012 100, which is way more than I used to, and I know it's a lot less than the pros do in triathlons, but and so it really was that kind of mile 15 where I started to lean in, and the body didn't, didn't push back. And I was like, Okay, this could be especially
Matt Dixon 50:40
well, get us, get us to the end, across the finish line. What was it?
Chris Harris 50:44
Oh, it's just elation. Like I just, it was, I mean, I know I called you, like, 10 minutes later. So it was, it was just, it was, it was special. It had been a goal. Three hours had been kind of one of these things for a very long period, like as long as I can remember, and so that on the one, on the one hand, but it was also just given what happened in 24 I definitely, like it kind of became a bit emotional, just because it was, like the it had just been a hard road, and It was sort of, it was a validating moment for my Yeah, for so many reasons that that I just felt like, wow, I've done this. It's a result, but it's kind of it. It was not, it was just like a really special moment. I'm high fiving everyone around me like and I'm just assuming they all wanted to break three hours. I'm sure some of them were desperately disappointed with 257 but I was kind of, hey, we did a great job, and it was just fun to have my family who knew how important this was. You know, it was a two hour drive home. I talked to you just all of the conversations. My friend Doug, who ran it as well, there to congratulate me at the end as well. It was just, it was really special. And I think it's moments like that are kind of why we do sport. You know. I know it's the journey as well, but the hope that there might be that at the end. Yeah, it was a very special, special finish line.
Matt Dixon 52:28
Well, in the last couple of minutes, we just got a couple of minutes to wrap up here, and I am interested coming up a level. I mean, you know, what a fantastic story and what a great sort of ending to that chapter of your life. Of course, it's not the end of your journey. A Finish Line never is, but I've got a couple of questions as it relates to broader life for you just to finish up. And the first is, why does physical challenge still matter in your life?
Chris Harris 52:56
Yeah, I a little bit like I said earlier, like, I just think it helps me process stress and kind of be more robust in the rest of my life. So it enables me to be a better leader at work in, you know, in my personal life, husband and father, friend like, this is a period of life. I think in your middle age, I understand why people used to go through or go through midlife crisis, like, there's a lot of stress. It's kind of peak stress at work. It's peak stress at home. I've got parents that are getting older, like, you kind of have everything. And for me, sport has become critical to process all of that. And I really learned how critical that was during the six months where I had sport had to take a back seat, because it it did feel like life was becoming more stressful. And in retrospect, I don't think it was. I think my ability to process that, that stress, and a lot of you know, those long runs in 100 out in the forest like that. That I know puts some stress on the body with a long run, but I come back mentally so healed and like rejuvenated, and that's a big part of it. So yes, the high of a 257 marathon is great, but it's like the whole road, the four months to get there. It kind of is kind of how I process and manage stress in my life.
Matt Dixon 54:29
It's amazing. I'm going to ask you a big question, then a quick one to finish. The big question here is, I can't help it because we, we've sort of danced around this. I'd love to know what your your thoughts of the parallel of endurance sport, something you're passionate about, and private equity. What are the parallels there you live in both worlds? One foot in both?
Chris Harris 54:48
Yeah, no, it's a great question. I mean, and number one, for sure, is having a team in both in both arenas. I mean, it's, I think people look at. Sport, especially these sports, either triathlon or marathon, as a as an individual sport, but that's not that's not really the case, right? It's having having a team around you, having a coach like you, having other athletes that are pushing you, either in a Master's class, having a family who's supportive, my wife's incredibly supportive of this, right? It's a lot of early mornings, it's a lot of weekends where I'm doing this, and having a system around you that is supportive is incredibly important. And then obviously, On the work side, like we I'm so blessed to have such a phenomenal group of individuals that I work with like, it makes this job so much more rewarding to have the team we have here. So to me, team is the most obvious. I think humility helps in both, right? The day, the day you think you know everything in either in work or endurance sport, you're probably where you're definitely not going to improve anymore, and so constantly learning, constant self improvement, both at work and and in sport. And that's why I've loved the relationship with you. I think you're constantly Oh, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And that's a that's a big outlet for me in my sport life, and I think at work, having the right mentors, having the right team around you, and just, I don't think I have all the answers, even if I'm kind of managing partner here, I don't have all the answers. And I look to the team for a lot of those answers, yeah. And then probably the final one is just having some resilience, like things don't it's not up into the right in sport and in this in this role, and so having kind of resilience when, when something goes against you, like the the viral issue we talked about earlier, just kind of being able to fight through that. I think that's really important in both
Matt Dixon 56:55
I, you know, as you know, I do do a lot of presenting, discussions, keynotes, etc, with with a lot of top business leaders and teams. And when we talk about champion athletes, one of the ones that's often surprising to them until they join the dots, they talk about humility quite a bit. And say, this is like every one of the highest performer in any arena that I've worked with, they always have a very healthy dose of humility. And at first people like, well, you think about champion athletes and think about ego naturally, it's the reverse. There is ego there and that that can be harnessed to a positive but humility is actually the thing that's the real fuel, and, and, and so I think that that's really salient. So last question for you, and you know, typically, I'd say, what is the one thing? Yeah, love listeners to take away from it, and maybe you do that. But I'd love to also to focus on, what's your advice of someone that's also stuck right now, whether it's an injury, whether it is something viral, whether it is burnout, a question, what would be your one piece of advice or one takeaway that you'd love listeners to take with him from this conversation.
Chris Harris 58:02
I think it's give yourself some grace during this difficult period, like you just you there are a bunch of other people in the same position I was there at any given time, so you're not alone. But just be patient and give yourself and don't push yourself in ways that like, Just give yourself grace. Be patient. Give yourself some grace. You will get to the other side. I'm confident of that. I'm just one data point, but Matt has the whole purple patch team probably has 50 data points on this right now, between injuries, between issues around performance, and just be patient and don't, don't. Yeah, I guess for me, I was just so frustrated with myself, and I just needed to relax and like my body's doing the best it can. And I think that's what I would tell myself if I could go back to 2024 again,
Matt Dixon 59:04
that's great words. Well, I tell you what, many, many people. My last words is, many people, most people, and I've told you this privately, would have likely quit and and turn their back, whether it was turning their back on me as your sort of partner in this journey, or or on yourself from an athletic lens, and just saying, You know what, this is the easier path, the fact that you stayed strong and you did ultimately lean in and go on a journey, it is so much more rewarding. It's one of the it's one of my proudest coaching journeys, of which, and it's not about the 257 that's great. I'm happy for you. It's about in the middle, that messy middle that you go through, that we just stuck together and worked through it and stayed solutions based. I wasn't blaming you. You were. Weren't blaming me, at least I don't think you were blaming me. No, we kept looking to work on it, and the solution was something that's just inspiring, and it takes a lot of courage. And you are a great high performer. So so well done. And thank you so much for sharing your story. I think it's really, really powerful.
Chris Harris 1:00:18
I appreciate your role in that too. I think if I had been on my own, I wouldn't have gotten to the other side, at least in this way, I probably would have taken at least a break from sports. So I really appreciate the role you played.
Matt Dixon 1:00:31
Too, good man. Well, much appreciated. And appreciate you coming on the show. Awesome. Thanks, Matt. 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,
Matt Dixon 1:01:26
or leave it in the 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
athletic potential, coaching partnership, marathon training, viral fatigue, mental health, resilience, goal setting, walk breaks, strength training, endurance sport, private equity, team support, humility, stress management, personal performance