Turn that dial down! How to recover your "mojo" and get motivated again for triathlon training and racing

It's mid-July. It's still hot. If you've been training consistently since January (or before), you may find the "mojo" is a bit lacking.

Chill out. It's ok.

Turn the Dial Down

As a triathlon coach, running coach, and cycling coach, I will talk about "turning the dial" when it comes to prepping for big races. The opposite is true coming off big races or an intense spring of racing: You may need to turn that dial down!

You don't have to be training full-gas, 24/7/365. After accomplishing a big event or goal, it's perfectly normal to feel unmotivated for a bit and have trouble getting back into the groove of training. A mid-season break is something I implement for myself every year sometime around late May or June. In the past, It also conveniently coincided with a time when I was coaching a summer league swim team and so much busier and more tired from other stressors!

If you're feeling in a bit of a funk these days, it might be your big spring of training, it might be the business of life, it might be that it's just so darn hot. You may not even realize what is killing your mojo or how to get motivated for that race you signed up for 6 months ago.

Here are a few tips for you to get motivated again:

1. Find people to train with. Friends are fun. Friends make the miles go by easier.

2. Back off the intensity. Intensity is the least important and it's also the most dangerous. When in doubt, slow down. Especially in the summer.

3. Don't get depressed by dropping some fitness. It WILL happen after coming off a big event. You'll also feel less fit in the summer when RPE and HR are higher for a given power and pace.

4. Explore some other modalities and ways to have fun with training. It's important not to become a total couch potato and let fitness slide away from you indefinitely, but you can find a few other ways to have fun and still maintain a decent level of fitness.

5. Limit zeroes. Some zero days are ok of course but in general, stringing together a whole bunch of zero days wreaks havoc on our aerobic system. Kristian Blummenfelt (Olympic Champion) is said to see a benefit from even just 1 mile of running so find time for at least the minimum!

If you have some big goals for later this season, then it's obviously important that we keep ticking along, building some depth, and touching on a bit of pace and intensity 1-3x a week.

Summer is a GREAT time to lay the foundation for October through January because we get a massive benefit from training in the heat if we do it intelligently.

Keep drinking water, everyone. Take your electrolytes, and keep ticking along. Training is boring. Racing is fun. Do the work. Reap the rewards.