415 - The Proof Is in the PRs: Racing an Ironman on 10–12 Hours a Week
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Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
On this episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon and Coach Max Gering reviewed Purple Patch athletes’ Ironman California performances and the training principles behind their results. Nearly 30 athletes competed across age groups 18–24 through 65–69; outcomes included two Kona qualifications, three top-10 age-group finishes, eight sub-11-hour finishes, several personal records, and at least five first-time finishes. Average training time was 10.13 hours per week. Athletes achieved strong results across a wide range of training loads, including some averaging under seven hours.
Matt and Max emphasized sustainable consistency over high weekly volume: training should fit life, avoid large gaps, and be distributed according to each athlete’s circumstances. Success reflects habits built over months and years, not just a short Ironman training block. Coaching, confidence, and a healthy perspective helped athletes manage expectations. On the hot, flat course, athletes benefited from pacing patiently, managing effort by feel, walking aid stations, and maintaining hydration and fueling rather than chasing pace.
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Episode Timestamps
0:00-:33 Episode Intro
:51-end Meat & Potatoes
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Matt Dixon 0:00
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. And welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast, as ever. Your host, Matt Dixon, and yet again, I get to welcome back my compadre Max Gering. Welcome back to the show. Pleasure
Max Gering 0:40
Good to be here again.
Matt Dixon 0:40
It's easy for me, although I do feel the heat of the spotlight on me a little bit because I know you're going to be peppering me with questions. But but we wanted to get together and do a little bit of reflection, a core high performance trait on a recent event, Ironman California, not to puff our feathers, but actually to draw lessons from that event with Purple Patch athletes, and we'll talk about some of the athletes to help people that next year are thinking about a half Ironman and Iron Man, looking to up level, etc. So I'm going to hand it over to you. This is where you take the reins of the podcast for a little bit. Give the listeners a little bit more detail. What are we gonna do? Dig us in, guide me.
Max Gering 1:22
Yeah, I'm super excited for this. We actually haven't had a full in-depth chance to chat through all of the great results from the weekend. You've been super busy before Iron Man California. I know you got right off the plane from a wind cycle trip and drove straight up to Sacramento. So I definitely want to hear a little bit about that, and then we will dive into the weekend of Iron Man, California. You had yourself several of your one-to-one athletes racing, so that'll be really fun to to chat through. As well as we had a slew of squad athletes racing, and as you said, the goal is to talk about the performances, not just talk about the podiums and the times, but to talk a little about how these athletes have managed to achieve such in our our minds, incredible and objectively incredible results within their age groups, training in a way that is very unconventional from what you see on social media about how people say you must train for an Ironman in order to be competitive. So that is the goal, and of course we're still talking a little about off season. So we'll have a little bit of chat about how you can take these lessons because this is a race that happened at the end of people's season, and so how you can take the inspiration and actually use that to take action now when you're still very far off from what would be sounds great. Well, 27.
Matt Dixon 2:33
I'll let you guide us, and and I'll add I'll pontificate as useful.
Max Gering 2:38
Well, Matt, I'm going to put it right back on you before I share stats about the weekend, I'd love to hear a little about your high-level overview of the weekend, how it was for you as a coach who's been coaching for a very long time.
Matt Dixon 2:49
It was a really interesting weekend for me on multiple fronts. Firstly, I, you know, from from a logistical standpoint, Kelli Will, one of our top coaches and I spent the days prior to that in Lake Oconee, Georgia. We were actually leading a wind cycle event, and and it was incredible. I think it's worth sharing. A Harvester private equity organization brought us in, and what they did across their portfolio of their companies that they have under the Harvest umbrella, they invited all of their women leaders to a day and a half offsite and and put them in our hands. And so we took many of the lessons of guiding world class athletes, but also many busy business professionals like who we're going to talk about today, and say what are these lessons to get together and think about? How can we show up better on a day-to-day basis as a leader? How can we infuse and develop all of the traits that are inside of us, character traits of high high performance, and how can we foster and nurture those to be better performing under pressure? And how can we take this into our teams that they're leading? It was, I will say, one of the most inspirational events that I've ever been at. I co-led it with Kelli, as as you know, my wife and business partner. She was exceptional. It was an incredibly powerful event. In fact, even one of the leaders shared at the end that she was in her mind come to this event thinking that she was going to retire because she was just feeling like I'm too old for this, and she was like, "I ain't retiring. I've got at least 2345 more years of this." They said it was a radical event, and and it was so powerful. So we came off of this flow. I came from this event that was incredibly inspirational. 7 a.m. Atlantic time and 4 a.m. West Coast time. Flew across, landed to SFO, straight into this immersive experience of of Iron Man California. So it was a, it was a. Huge shift, but I would say firstly, the race itself is a is a wonderful race. It's not the best representation of what California has to offer in terms of geography or anything else, but it's a really great race.
Matt Dixon 5:12
And the whole weekend, you know, we had just under 30 athletes racing, and I I got to speak to every single athlete, I got to share as much as I can. In part, some wisdom, some perspective, and and it was very lucky for me because I actually had four of my one-to-one athletes that I coach racing in person. We got to spend a lot of time with each other, so it was incredibly rewarding. I accumulated on race day more than 30,000 steps running around this race course, so I got to see athletes many times. And what emerged was was one of those really memorable races for me to see so many athletes. And look, just having great individual performances from people that went under nine hours to people that were 1314, 15 hours, but having huge breakthroughs. So it was one that I just came home floating six feet in the air, just like that was the spirit of Iron Man. Really, really special. So it was great.
Max Gering 6:18
Love that, and it is interesting that some of the best performances we had are people that what you talked about at Harvest is incredibly relevant for them. It's some of our athletes with the highest demands across life and work are the athletes that are also going the fastest. I think that's really fascinating. So we will we will get into that, and that's what we'll do now. Is we'll go over some of the stats because you mentioned we had just under 30 athletes racing. So beyond that, we had representation in age groups from 18 to 24, all the way through 65 to 69. So I think that's really cool. We coach a broad spectrum of athletes at Purple Patch. We had two Kona qualifications, three top 10 age group finishes, eight sub 11 hour finishes and several PRs, some big ones, including two full Ironman distance PRs after 10 plus years of not racing. Those people went 947 and 1038, and those people will talk about them. But are above the age of 50, did an Ironman over 10 years ago, and are getting faster as their life gets busier and they get older, we had at least five first-time finishes that we're aware of. We're still hearing from some more athletes, but five first-time finishes. And then this is the this is the crux of the episode, and this is why we're having this conversation and why it's so important. Because the average training hours of all of these athletes, we did the math was 10.13 hours a week of training. That applies to all of these athletes, the ones that qualified for Kona and the ones that finish their first Ironman and are over the moon and did it in 13 hours. So that is what I want to leave with today. What are your thoughts about that stat? Yeah, it it it
Matt Dixon 8:00
probably sounds surprising to many listeners, and it's not surprising at all. It's validating to me in a way. I think it's important whenever we talk about total hours in a week, and I just want to hover. By the way, so so almost 30 athletes, a massive amount of success, and if we take them and their average training hours they accumulated over their journey getting ready for Ironman, it was just over 10 hours a week. The common perception that you hear time and time again is 16 to 20 hours a week is absolutely critical if you want to be successful, whatever your goals are. If you want to be top five, if you want to be top 10, etc., etc. If you want to have a breakthrough performance, I think that the one thing that's very, very important when you talk about this number is is many people will make the understandable leak of oh they're saying less is more, and and actually less is more is one of my least favorite sayings that is out there because less is not more, more is more. Okay, the more training hours that we can accumulate, the better we become as long as those training hours are effective, and so I think that one of the things that that's important for us to ground ourselves in is that we all have very busy lives, and that comes from family and friends and our obligations in our broader life, and of course from our professional lives. What we're doing, and we work with a lot of typically very very busy people. And so the spirit, when we think about it, is if you look at the landscape, it doesn't matter whether you're a firefighter, a teacher, with a with a family of 345, or you're a CEO and executive or head of people, whatever it is, with no kids.
Matt Dixon 10:00
Or one kid, or two kids, whatever whatever it tends to be, it tends to work out quite often. And there's a spectrum in here that, if we realize and appreciate that these are all stresses and demands in our life, we have an optimization challenge as a coaching organization, as the athlete, to integrate the most training hours that we can that fuel adaptations that enable us to unlock the magic word of of performance, which is consistency, and so it's not surprising that that tends to be somewhere north or south of around that 10 hour marker. So you know if you're Vincent Louis or your Taylor Nip, 10 hours is not the appropriate training to get ready to try and win the Hawaii Ironman World Championship. They do many more hours because they are removing many of the other responsibilities of life and have teams around them to help their body absorb that training, we have to have a shifted lens on this. And so, I just want to ground us to have this conversation.
Matt Dixon 11:10
Yeah, we have athletes at Purple Patch that do 16 hours a week because they're lucky enough to have capacity. As we learn, we have someone, the the gentleman that I coach, that went under 10 hours hasn't done a nine man for a long time. His average hours were under seven hours a week because he's incredibly busy executive with three kids. So, so it's not a magic number, but it does net out. And what that mark does prove, and it is a proof point now because we've done it for 20 years, is that you can successfully get ready for an a demanding endurance event like an Ironman if you consistently weave together training week on week on week, month on month and month, as it integrates into your lifestyle and go and perform, not just survive and an eye matt, and I think that's the important lens to look through there.
Max Gering 12:05
100% agree. The only thing I'll add, because I know people write and people ask us all the time, is breaking down a little bit about what that consistency looks like. I think some people get a have a misconception. You talked about this a lot before of what consistency is, and consistency isn't never missing a day and showing up every single day of the week because that's not realistic. But it's preventing the bottom from falling out, as you always say. I really like that expression. And then it's not getting seven of your 10 hours of the week on the weekend and having this big hero weekend, being a weekend warrior, and then taking Monday through Wednesday off. It's spreading out that training consistently over the course of the week, week after week after week, month after month after month. Yeah, and and I'll add a little congesting as well. Is
Matt Dixon 12:49
like, look, it's not when you average 10 hours a week. You know, you you could sit at zone four for X period. You could sit at zone two, and you can average zone three. So it's not about doing 10 hours every single week, as you say, you know, life is a living, breathing thing that's expanding and restricting in terms of demands on us outside of of of our training. So, you know, sometimes some weeks we might have people that it's suitable to only do five to six hours, and as you say, not let the bottom fall out. But we do love athletes to be able to say, "Hey, let's identify 2345 clusters weekends that maybe they are able to get in 1415 hours. They have an extra day off of work, their family away for the weekend, and we are going to do some back-to-back rides. So it's not about 1010, 1010, 10. It's about the right training on the right week that is suitable that integrates into life. And so, you know, for for some people that means that it is a really consistent 10 hours dispersed over the week. For others, it's a little bit more oscillating or variable relative to what their life demands are. So I think that's really important and wise context. Yeah, good stuff.
Max Gering 14:10
Yeah. And now let's give a little bit of the people give give your athletes what they want. Let's give some people some notable recognition. Now they don't really want that, but we'll embarrass them anyway. I think it's a good place to kick off with athlete highlights is some of the incredible performance of your athletes. So why don't you?
Matt Dixon 14:25
Yeah. So I mean, where do we start? Yeah. Who do we highlight first? Perhaps I'll be a little selfish where I'll talk about not just the Purple Patch crew but the Matt Dixon crew. I had four athletes there. I was joyous for a coach doesn't happen too often. All four did terrifically well. David Farsai, I think, has to come first in many ways because you know when when you are he's a managing partner at a private equity organization. She has a lot of life responsibility or work responsibilities. He's also he's very engaged. Father and partner with his with his kids, and so he has a very big life. And for him to get 20th overall and and go under nine hours and qualify to the Hawaii Ironman and raced the right way, really going through an evolution, a journey was absolutely terrific. I often sort of equate him to Chris Harris, another person that has a very similar profile. is also in private equity, also a managing partner, got three kids, incredibly busy. He he was the athlete that his average hours. Some weeks it was more, yeah, but his average hours were just under seven hours a week. Pretty incredible. First Ironman in 13 years. His whole goal was to go under 10 hours so that he could go back and really focus on half Ironman racing. He's been on this podcast before about going through really deep fatigue, and even thinking about turning his back on himself and saying, "I'm just going to quit, and that was only last year to go 9:47, and and he was the one of my four that was really struggling in the back end of the run, and was incredibly brave, and and to do that, an IMM PR, he's mid 40s right now, like 46, 47 years of old, absolutely amazing, and going sub 10, and and then the guy that I I've already invited him back on the show. We just have to talk about him.
Matt Dixon 16:29
I don't think there's a better case study of executive performance in the broader lens than someone that I've had the chance to work with for now in our 17th year together. We've grown up together, but Pasquale Romano, average hours 10 hours a week. Fourth in his age group at 61. This is a one. This is an athlete that is self-professed. I am not athletic. I am not naturally inclined. We've gone through a journey. This is his 11th Ironman. It's his first since 2016. his best time was set in 2010. So you can go you can go back in that. That was 11 hours and two minutes. He's now 61 years of age, 61 years of age, qualified out of his age group for Kona, 1038. So over 20 minutes PR at 61 years of age, unbelievable. And then one final athlete that that really grabbed my attention, Panos Kokulis, another very busy guy, 11 hours a week, 11-11. There's a lot of 11s in this. Make a wish, please. But always great at 70.3. Could never crack the Iron Man code, and actually fell into the belief of I'm not just built. I'm just not built for Iron Man. I'm not suitable. And for him to go and have this day where he just unlocked and and was stable and controlled, he really, in his words, slayed the dragon. You know, he he really had this huge fear. Can I even do this? He was very nervous the day before the race. I haven't seen him that nervous, and the joy of that was great. I will also add because he was also on the podcast as well. Jeff Dolan, very very busy executive at Starbucks overseas, 80 countries, traveling all over the world all day, looked amazing, and 10 hours and two minutes, right in the finish, like 100 yards from the finish, he he pulled, he pulled, what was the name, Solvi Solhes? He was pulling one of those. He was in pieces at the end there. He really struggled, paused.
Matt Dixon 18:41
He sort of felt like he was passing out 100 yards from the finish. Spent three minutes. It ticked over 10 hours, but he finished, and then he was fine. So he had a moment, unfortunately, that cost him that that treasured sub 10. But those those were just like these incredibly busy executives that that invested with with no more than eight, 910, 11 hours a week and got this out of themselves. It was just those are my highlights for me.
Max Gering 19:10
Yeah, I love all those stories. I may say Chris Harris in in conjunction with Stephanie Go, maybe the Purple Patch go of time-starved athletes. Average of six hours of training is truly time-starved 10 to 12 hours. 10 hours a week. As listeners know, that's a lot of training. So six hours is is very impressive. I want to highlight Jeff for for a second because really fantastic coaching from Nancy, who's just such a joy to work with. But she mentioned and you mentioned that he had some hesitations about doing the race just because of how busy things were, and you know what he was going to be able to to do on the day. And I think that's where coaching is such an important part of this, because the ability to show up and race and race to your potential in the context of busy life on Liberty Training takes a lot of mental confidence and belief in yourself, and having. Someone to partner with to help you instill that belief in yourself and confidence in the training, and then say, "All right, I'm ready. I'm going to go do the thing on race day." is really phenomenal. And yes, a lot of the athletes were coached by you, but even the ones that are coached by Nancy, I think it's saying we'll talk about the squad
Matt Dixon 20:18
athletes. I can't overstate what exceptional coaching that is from Nancy Clark. Like truly world-class coaching. This is an athlete, Jeff, who who would share with this, so he won't mind me sharing. When he got the big promotion at Starbucks, he's like, "This is insane! I can't do it. I'm going to quit." And he said, "I'm just going to stay exercising and keep myself healthy, but I shouldn't compete as I go through this chapter of life." And Nancy and I had conversations with him, and Nancy basically said, "You can't quit. You need to actually double down right now," and and took him on a journey where unlocked, like in the podcast, he qualified to the 70.3 World Championships, he he unlocked a PR in half Ironman distance the night before this race, and and I'm going to share a couple of points of perspective that I think are helpful for listeners. But I got a chance to speak to Jeff the night before the race, and he showed up, and you think this guy he's so busy and travels so much, I assume that he would be really nervous, and he was great. He's like, "How's it going? Good. You ready? Yep." And I just said, "Aren't you glad you didn't quit?" He said, "And I'm not talking about because of this race. I'm just thinking through lenses." He's like, "Yeah, like this is just great," and and you could see the vibrancy in his eyes, and and I'm gonna I'm gonna share a couple of things that, and I'm gonna go beyond Iron Man California for a moment. I also got to have dinner with Panos and Pat the the night before the race, and and I chatted to them in front of their their wives, and I just said, look, guys, I know this is a first Iron Man for a long time for both of you, but here's the thing that I think is important for you both to understand, and that's that you've already won. You know, Panos, you're in late 50s. Pat, you're in 60s, and and you are the model case studies of high performance in life, and you are getting the opportunity to go and test yourself in an Iron Man tomorrow. At this age, better prepared than you've probably ever been, and so tomorrow won't ultimately the barometer of whether it's been successful because you are already able to do this, and and the reward has been from the journey.
Matt Dixon 22:41
You're already an exceptional role model for your kids. You're an exceptional role model for the teams that you're leading, and you you are setting yourself up to stay young, and so go and have fun tomorrow, and and it sort of cross pollinates with Sarah Gott, another athlete that top 10 in her age group at the World Championships a couple of weeks ago, where she was understandably really nervous going into the race, and I just chatted to. I'm just giving her some some coaching insight here, helpful or not? I'm not sure, but one of the things I said to Sarah is, "You're nervous yet? Yeah, okay, that's understandable. It's the World Championships a really tough day. What is the? What is? When do you do best, Sarah? And she said, "I do best when I'm training and I'm training with other people." Bring that, Sarah, to this incredibly tough event. Go and train all day, and go and train with other people: your spectators, your fans, your family, and and people on the course, and and enjoy it like that, rather than trying to be something that you're not. And so, I think all of these people had the right perspective on the event, and it enabled their body to show up, rather than being paralyzed by the pressures and expectations of what so many athletes think they should have in their mind before they start a race, so across all the athletes, and this extends to our squad athletes that we'll talk about. I really felt the sense of freedom and liberation that they all raced with, and that comes with really good preparation over a long period of time.
Max Gering 24:17
Like that a lot, and it brings to mind something that I've been thinking a lot about as a coach, especially having a lot of the calls that I do with external non-pro-patch athletes. These strategy calls, and sometimes end up joining us, sometimes not. But this idea of you know what comes to mind for me is your athletes and athletes you just mentioned. They've made this a part of their identity. They are high performers in who in the fabric of who they are every day, and they approach the sport and the Ironman well beyond a 1620 week Ironman build. And so, yes, they flipped a switch mentally in the weeks leading up to the Ironman, where they were hyper focused on the Ironman, and that was very top of mind for them because it's a big and demanding event. But throughout the year, this is just who they are. They love to train. They love to push themselves. All the different little habits that we talk about are integrated into their life and help them show up better. And that helps them bridge the gap between putting the necessary pressure on the day that's relevant that you need to show up and perform under pressure, but at the same time diffuse it and just go train all day and have fun and realize, as you said, that they've already won. They've already accomplished so many of the the important goals. And we'll talk about it now. But the squad athletes. But that's really that's really it. These results don't come on the back of the specific Ironman build. They come on the back of being a high performer, integrating. Yeah, I think there's almost bookends of this
Matt Dixon 25:42
to be helpful. This no one that had a great result. Everyone we've mentioned and many others besides, no one built that performance as you say in 12 or 16 weeks. Like every single one of these athletes, you hear us talk about, oh, having a great off season is a catalyst. Every single one of our athletes that were there that had really good performances yet again actually integrate this sport as a lifestyle and have really good sort of layering of training over many many months and and in many many cases many years. There's a lot of manys there, but that's okay. And so going into this, it's not about doing 10 hours a week for 16 weeks. It's like it's a part of the fabric, and how this expresses itself. By the way, we talk about Jeff, we talk about Panos Pat, Chris, David, and many more besides Joe Ellison that had an amazing day. One of our squad athletes. There's not even a consideration. So the race finish, I had to zip back. So I got to see the last finisher. I was like, fantastic, good job, hugs, pictures. All right, I've got to go. I want to try and see Baxter before he goes to bed, and haven't seen him for a week. So I need to go back and be with my family, and and have a have a week off. Turn your back on the sport. We won't chat this week. We can have a hot debrief, but we're going to do a deep dive next week. So this week, as as we put this podcast out, there's not even a consideration, not even a consideration of, okay, now I'm going to take a break. I'm going to turn my back on the sport. I'm going to go invest in my family, in my work. It's not even a consideration.
Matt Dixon 27:28
Like, no, that that's 17 years. No, you take a break, you recharge, then you come back with a proper off season that's appropriate, that fits into life, and and and that's if there is a secret, it's not about the intervals, it's not about the training, it's not about the weaving of the threads of resets, as we talked about last week in the podcast. Hydration, you should. It's not about that. It's about that done as a practice in life, across life, and so while it's an intuition, an intuitive thing, to say, "Oh, I'm done. I need a break. I'll see you next year." It's catastrophic from a performance, and the secret is make sure it fits into life and do those 10 odd hours a week. Throughout life, you end up showing up better from a longevity standpoint, your health, from a work performance standpoint, who you come home to as after work, and how you perform as an athlete. And so, this is just one expression of why it's so valuable to integrate these this training and these habits into our life, and so I know that was a little soapboxy, Max, but but I think it's in many ways one of the most important things we can express today.
Max Gering 28:52
I agree. I think it's a really important mindset shift for athletes. It reminds me, and then we'll move on to some more athlete highlights. But when you come back from vacation, you're you know you sad your vacation's over, but you're excited to get back to your life. That's a sign that that life is good. If you finish a race and you want to take a week off and turn your back on sport, but you're excited to get back to training and just the rhythm of it, that's a sign that you're in the right place and you have the right coaching and the right programming. And on that note, I want to mention Joe because you already mentioned Joe, and Joe is actually a squad athlete that I've never met, never consulted with, but really inspired by his story. So I wanted to share it here. He averaged 12 hours a week of training, 12.1 hours to be exact. Came six in his age group with a time of 1009. This is another good story of why someone just missed the the sub 10 hour mark. Busy dad, father of four.
Max Gering 29:43
He's actually a busy surgeon who just started a new practice this year. So starting a new practice, having four kids, you can still come six in your age group at Ironman. But this is the the interesting quote: "If I didn't have races on the calendar, I'd probably sleep in most mornings. I race to force the daily exercise.". And love the challenges that racing brings. I've raced a dozen 70.3s and now three fulls. Thanks to Purple Patch, I keep getting faster. This past Sunday, I was just sniffing distance from both my unimaginable stretch goals, less than 10 minutes from a sub 10 hour full, and just three people from a Kona spot. Or as my teenage daughter was quick to point out, I got beat by 17 girls. You know,
Matt Dixon 30:21
I love I love Joe because I I got to meet him the day before the team, and that's a great part of having team races. Is the day before I said, "Oh, Joe," I said, "Oh, nice to put a sort of face to a name type thing because I'd seen the name but hadn't spent much time with him before." And then you know the way this worked because these convoluted convoluted courses where they're going here, there, and everyone on the run. It just so happened that I probably saw Joe 15 times in his race. I saw him at swim exit. I saw him at bike start. I saw him at bike turnaround. There's Joe. How's it going? I was like, wow. I'm seeing this this guy Joe in his gold Purple Patch outfit on the run. I must have seen him 10 times, and so I was willing him to to excel. And every time, I was like, "This is, you know, he's doing really well," and and he's not like his. And I and I mean this in the great. It's not like visually you're looking at this felt like undeniable force of nature athlete. I was like, wow, it's really up there, and it's just steady, controlled, and and and a fantastic race of execution, just all day, and and it was brilliant. It was brilliant to see. He he absolutely deserves his flowers. It was really one of my favorite performances to see.
Max Gering 31:43
I love that. And on that note, I want to pick your brain just a little bit. Race season is over, but I think it's worth highlighting. You've coached athletes to a lot of Ironman finishes, world champions. You've been around a lot of Ironman races. But you said something just now about steady and controlled. Anything that you saw this weekend that reminded you of the fundamentals of racing an Ironman.
Matt Dixon 32:02
This was a flat course, and many people make the trap of thinking flat is fast, but actually always say flat is strong. In other words, when courses are flat, you actually need a massive amount of muscular resilience and strength because there's no natural variance, and so the body tends to get locked in the same rhythm, the same muscle patterns, and so and on top of it, people unintentionally, subconsciously fall into trying to chase time on the bike because they think they should be riding fast, and quite often they overextend themselves, get off the bike, haven't introduced variants, and quite often are forgotten about some of the fundamentals of making sure they get off the bike hydrated. They make sure they get off the bike with all of their substrates, their energy, and and people suffer on the run. And so the flat course dynamic is the same thing is true. You still need to make sure that you're introducing variants. You still need to dose your effort over what is a very very long day. We're talking about 10 hours, so that's going to create physical fatigue and mental fatigue while athletes are making mistakes around you. And so, having a really good internal sense of is this going to be good for me in three hours' time, all day? I think takes a a real act of bravery in a race like this, and then I need to get off the bike with great energy, great hydration. You could see the people that did this. I'll also say, by the way, I made sure that I station myself near many aid stations, and to see all. In fact, I would say every single athlete that we talked about so far today walked every single aid station, and every single athlete still had the closing sort of vice of mechanical fatigue in the last 10k because it was very hot, 86 degrees. The sun, where there was no shade, and so the day was tough, and so this it still had the accumulation of the day, and I would argue if you weren't brave enough to actually invest in some real patience early on, it really unraveled on the back end, and so it was another core reminder of pragmatism, control, self-management, a deep relationship with yourself rather than being metrics-driven. And and and I'll highlight this with with one athlete, Pat Romano, who is an engineer, by the way, who who I have had to train to sort of be guided by feeling, and I came up to him, and he had in his mind, okay, 9930 pace would be a good place to to sit. So four or four hours and 15.
Matt Dixon 34:50
He ended up running a four and a half, much of it temperature driven. He was not looking at his clock. I came up; it was about mile 12. And and I came up and said, "Okay, you're in a good place. Your pace is there. Like you you've actually ridden really well. You're in a great place, Pat." And he said, "I'm all by feel. I've I've just got to do what I can do. I'm not looking at pace. I'm going by feel here." And that takes a real act of bravery. But if he had been in his mind thinking nine to 915 pace. I am a failure. 930 s start to become. Oh no, I'm not going what I what I wanted to dream about. And he said it's irrelevant. I'm on the mission to do what I can do today. And he crossed the line and he went f yeah. And and it wasn't as fast of a marathon as he theoretically could do, but it was a wonderful performance. And so, who cares? You know, who cares? It was great. He got there with a slightly faster bike. So, so self management, I think, was key.
Max Gering 35:53
Love that. That's that's fantastic. Very curious. Two two minutes max. There's a great story that people should listen to the Chris Harris podcast when you talked with him about his seven three hour marathon and his unique race strategy. Any other highlights about how you coach athletes and coach these athletes to success? Yeah, Chris Harris.
Matt Dixon 36:11
He was another. He's another guy that quite often. What shall I? What power should I see? What pace should I see? And in his marathon, he'd always done 3073 11, 315, like that sort of window. But he really would love to to go under three hours. And I and I knew that if I gave him a pace, you know, ultimately human physiology is really chaotic and it's really influenced by outside factors. And he's a really busy guy. So I thought if I create a cage for him in pace. There's a there's a high chance that I either under serve him, or it's just not the right pace for the day, and it's going to come unraveled. And so I persuaded him to run his marathon. This is a standalone marathon by feel, and I had him turn his watch around so he just used the mile markers, and I said, and I have to make sure I remember it. We can listen to the podcast, but it was effectively 20 kilometers at a five out of 10, five to six out of 1010 kilometers at six to seven out of 1010 kilometers as strong as you want, and and he did that, and he said I got to 20 kilometers, and he said, and he did have a little peak, and he was like, "Holy cow, I'm at 131, and and I haven't even started yet." He also walked every single aid station from the first mile, and his last 10 10k was his fastest 10k. He went 256. So you talk about a negative split that was developed through the trust in himself of training that way, so that we weren't just training metrics driven. So that that was how we did it, and and he leveraged that on race day as well.
Max Gering 37:54
Love that. That's one of the big things we train, and it's a challenging thing when you're trying to talk to somebody about joining Purple Patch because it's not very sexy telling somebody all about how we train by feel.
Matt Dixon 38:03
So not train by feel in absence. So it's not a luddite. It's leveraging metrics to provide the feedback, and you use them as partners rather than ignore your feeling and this is what you should do because some algorithm says it. And I think that's a. And by the way, any smart physiologist would suggest you do the same as well. So, so yeah, I think it's an important nuanced point there.
Max Gering 38:28
Fantastic. A little more about how we train and our athletes. I wanted to highlight some squad athletes because we had some really great stories, and I wanted to actually highlight an athlete that I met with the week of Ironman California, and he raced with his brother. This is Scott. It was his first full Ironman. His average training hours was eight and a half hours a week. Three weeks he had above 12 hours in his Ironman build, and he had a great day, 1150 on the day. But he actually had some injuries that he wasn't able to run going into the race. And this is not to toot my own horn, but I'm gonna do it. It's an example of not me as a coach, but of the power of coaching. Because we had a chat the week of the race, and it wasn't that much about pace. We talked a little bit about pace, a little bit about race strategy, but it was about mindset, about how to approach the race. How do I go into an Ironman when I know I'm undercooked from my run training? Because that's the reality of the situation. How do I approach it and still have a great day? He did have a great day, and he got to race with his brother, who also averaged about 11 hours a week of training and had a fantastic. It was great, you
Matt Dixon 39:29
know. I got to speak to him the day before the the race, and he does our bike classes quite often. So, so I feel like I know Scott better than I probably do, just because we we see each other, you know most Tuesdays and Thursdays. But he came the day before. You should toot your own horn because he was at the team meeting and he said, "I haven't run really at all. I've got an injury. I have no idea. But I'm going to go and race with curiosity." I had a conversation with Max and. We're going to see what happens. I can't predict, but what I can do is is commit to problem solving and looking after myself. And as a coach, I didn't feel like I needed to bolster him or give an encouragement. I was like, "Yeah, go be curious, mate." And he was curious, and and I was very lucky. I got to see him cross the finish line and give him a high five. I was standing right, right in the tunnel. So, so it was terrific.
Matt Dixon 40:24
And and his brother Greg was was super as well. We were having a a team meet up the day before the race, and it was on a lovely lawn. We were sitting in the shade. There's 25 odd athletes, and and we started. And here I was giving wisdom to everybody, and suddenly, two guys came across the lawn, and and from a distance, they looked like they were probably dormant on an Eastern European disco. They they were straight out of Gold's Gym, very intimidating. Walking up, I thought, oh my God, my past is catching up with me. These guys are here to drag me off and throw me in the in the river, and and then I realized that they were teddy bears, but they were muscle bound, huge guys, and little did I know that they were Purple Patch athletes, and little did I know that they were historic Purple Patch athletes that we've spoken so much about, and I didn't have any visual representation, so I'll I I got to meet the famous sushi brothers. Give us the give us the story, Max.
Max Gering 41:27
Maybe this episode will I'll expense that sushi dinner. Who knows? So this was Iron Man 70.3 Oceanside. I guess back in April, my wife and I went to dinner. The I live in San Diego and went to dinner the evening after the race, evening of the race, and I overheard two guys sitting at the bar next to us talking about the race, and they were clearly had just done the 70.3, and we're all excited, and they were trying to figure out. I could overhear figuring out what they were going to do next for training. You could very clearly hear the the situation of how in the world are we going to double our training volume and be successful at sport and life training for an Ironman. I was like, I don't want to interrupt, but I'm gonna interrupt anyway. I introduced myself, I gave them my phone number, and we chatted the next day. And lo and behold, they signed up for Purple Patch. They had a terrific race and great guys, Ryan and Joel. And I think the thing to hover on here is they that question: How am I going to go from a 70.3 distance to a full Ironman? So for any of you listening that want to race a full Ironman for the first time this year, or want to level up in the full Ironman, and are just confused about how you can do it and how you can make it work, there is another way. You don't have to double your training volume in order to be successful, both of these guys are incredibly, incredibly busy. And I'll just read a little bit of a quote from from Ryan when Tiger reached out to him. So after completing the half Ironman in Oceanside, we were having sushi, and Max overheard us talking about the need to find a coach. Enter Purple Patch. As a husband, father of six, founder, president of a large company and enterprise. I needed something that could adapt to me and vice versa. Hence, Purple Patch, the state of flow. What happened next was a sheer blissful experience.
Max Gering 43:10
I absolutely loved the platform and the community. Meeting Matt in person this weekend was amazing. For me, I wanted to do something harder than I've ever done. At mile 125, I found it, and I hung out with it for the next 14 miles, and then ran across the finish line faster than I've ever ran before. Epic! And this is the kicker: ready to continue this journey. This athlete is not going to check out for the next four months and say when when do I sign up again for another race build? So I think that really summarized. Got to hang
Matt Dixon 43:39
out with them for five or 10 minutes afterwards, and and they are just two great guys. And and the one of the things I knew they were going to have good days because they were saying, "What should we do after this?" I said, "Well, firstly, have a conversation with Matt's afterwards. Like, go and have fun tomorrow. Go and go and excel." But I said to them the the famous Jesse Thomas quote, one of our sort of really famous Purple Patch pros, which was cool races in cool places. Maybe you want to go and do Iron Mantana. Go and do something cool. You know, not just what where can I do in PR. It's like yeah, and you could tell they showed up really healthy, great perspective, and and you could see bouncing off of both of them, that this commitment that they'd done was fueling them as a human being. It wasn't a how did we actually stay stable. I'm sure. I mean, they've always been great. You can tell they're just you know like the spark of life and just really fun. But you could really tell that they had successfully integrated this training to be additive, not a net level, not be able to do it without consequence, but actually fueling benefit, and and whatever happened on the day was a bonus. Well, it ended up that they both had terrific days, and so I, you know, we we always talk about Max. It's easy to start with David Farsight. It's you're a fantastic, great performance, and that's great. We celebrate people that qualify to why, etc. But this is equally powerful. It's not about who's the fastest. It's who unlocks their recipe of performance to expand life in the best and most joyous way, and also achieves their goals, and also finds something about themselves, and I think that's the power of the sport in many ways. And we talk about it all the time, but it really is. And and this was these two great guys. It was it was it was a great addition to my whole weekend. I have to say,
Max Gering 45:39
yeah, no, this was this was a great episode. I really really enjoyed having this chat as a Purple Patch coach. It made me even more excited to go back and sit at my desk and do my job because we really are doing something special. And I know that's why you started Purple Patch many many years ago, and it's still what it's still what we're doing. So just it's really fantastic.
Matt Dixon 46:00
Firstly, Max, thanks for your time. Great, great to have a conversation. Always really enjoy it. Secondly, for for folks that are listening, if if you have questions about today's episode, if you if you have any follow ups, there's there's a lot that we went through today. But also, if if you have dreams, if you have goals to either up level, to qualify to why to do your first half Ironman Ironman whatever it is. If you're wondering how to take a break but also fuel readiness in the off season, set up a complimentary consultation. Max is the man here, and he'll be happy to have a call and and help you completely pressure free. Whether it's providing you with some perspective for you to help your own self-coach journey, maybe how to set up a conversation with your coach, or of course to become part of our team, whether it's in the squad where the majority of our Ironman California athletes were, or one of our one-to-one coached athletes, we're here for you. So I think all you need to do is reach out info@purplepatchfitness.com. Completely pressure free from Max, myself, the whole team. But we want to help because we are purpose driven and we want to fuel transformation in people's lives. Because the role of a coach, ultimately, ladies and gentlemen, is to help people get the most out of themselves. That's what makes us tick, and that's why we wanted to have this conversation. So, Max, we'll see you in the coming weeks. We're going to unpack more, yeah. But really appreciate your time, guys. Thanks so much for joining, and thank you for listening.
Matt Dixon 47:32
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 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
Ironman, training, consistency, performance, coaching, endurance, mindset, lifestyle, integration, resilience, strategy, motivation, recovery, discipline, execution