Bye-Beast Triathlon Coaching

Wanted to take a moment to wish Jim Dion (who I nicknamed - Skeletor) good luck this weekend as he will be racing the 2024 IronMan World Championships in Kailua-Kona which he qualified for through his age group win at IronMan Waco (2022). I remember first meeting Jim in NJ in 2019. Chris and I were doing a Swim workout at Mountain Lakes and Jim opted to come along for what would be fast, hard post-swim Run. I remember seeing him at NJ State later that summer as he was walking between his bike to run transition and I yelled "Jim! Run! Run! Run!" as I came by. :) From that, later in the summer, Jim would join me for workouts as he want to see what "hard" training was like as I was prepping for a series of tough races. I was always impressed with his work effort and when I decided to start coaching triathletes in 2020, he was the first person I called to see if he'd be a guinea pig for me to test my approach on as I knew he would do everything he could to get as good as he could be.From that point, I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing him go from a partcipant to a podium competitor and an absolute force of nature (that, of course, can't back off and gets injured for a few weeks every July but that's okay... :) )Since then, I watched him have an endless stream of stellar race performances and was as ready as I've seen anyone going into Wisconsin in 2022. Unfortunately, the Wisconsin weather was brutally cold with freezing rain and given his lack of body fat (hence, the Skeletor nickname), he DNF'd at mile 20 of the bike as he was shivering so bad that he couldn't control the wobbling on his bike. I remember the dejection in his eyes afterwards as he knew he lost his opportunity to crush Wisconsin and get his Kona slot. After a few days went by, we talked about regrouping mentally and continuing training a couple more months to race at Waco. The iron distance is so hard to train up for to be competitive in your age group and having to go through all he did and not be able to race, then, start up another tough 8 week block (with a vacation to France in the middle of it) was going to be hard. But, Jimmy regrouped and got back after it. At Waco, in contrast, a miserably hot day, with 5 miles left on the bike, he had a slowly leaking tire and opted to just roll in as it would be quicker than changing the tire. The final miles were disheartening as guys were flying by on route to transition. He regrouped and absolutely crushed the run to go from 10th or so in his age group and pass his last age group competitor at Mile 25 of the marathon to take the Age Group Win and get his so well-earned Kona slot. His race that day was flawless and met with the tire issue which would have mentally destroyed many. It was an incredible well-earned victory after so much dedicated effort has been put in.The following two seasons in 2023 and 2024 has been an incredible progressison in capability in all three disciplines and he is ready to stand at the Start Line at Digme beach in Kona! I've always been about putting in the training to be able to stand at the Start Line, look around, and think, "I did all I can to be ready for today". Then, the race is just simply converting all that training effort into raceday and enjoying every minute. Jimmy, just remember to enjoy every second of the day, look around and smile throughout the race (you'll have time...), and then be sure to wave your hands high when you cross that finish line on Ali'i Drive!!!
Relentless Forward Motion
Bye-Beast Triathlon Coaching

Fantastic presentation as part of the Wolfpack Virtual Series by my friend and fellow coach John DiPalo (No Limits Endurance Coaching). He went deep into how to maximize your aero advantage -- "Where Can I Get Some Watts and Go Zoom!" :)

This is a good one! Enjoy.

Wolfpack Virtual Presentation Series John DiPalo: No Limits Endurance Coaching (USA Tri Level 2 Certified Coach) Title: Things that Make you Go Zoom (Where Can I get Some Watts)

Appreciate Rocky Mountain Tri Club inviting me to answer questions at the annual Coach Panel! :)

2023 WOLFIE AWARD -- GOAL ACHIEVEMENT
Mary "Mountain Goat" Hoftiezer
Congratulations to Mary for being one of the two Pack Members who won the Goal Achievement Award which is the award for the members of the Wolfpack who had the most Podium Performances in 2023. After a ton of work on Zwift during Q1, Mary went on to win her Age Group in the Karen Hornbostel Memorial TT Series then went on to win her Age Group at both the Colorado Sprint Tri and the Boulder Sunrise Sprint Tri.
Sadly, Mary's seaso abruptly ended as she was hit by a car while on bike ride; but, is bouncing back for 2024.
Relentless Forward Motion is not just a slogan! 🙂

Tri-Coach Tidbit #16
General Advice:
Don't fall in the habit of blindly downloading your workouts from your training plan onto your fitness tracker/watch. I know we all like to open up our training plan software and see the workout we are sypposed to do, then just go out and do it. Don't do that. Take a look at the workout that is provided and understand what we your coach or training plan is trying to accomplish with the workout. That is, understand the "Spirit" of the workout and execute against taht. The problem that not understanding what you are doing is that it causes you follow it to the letter; therefore, if you are feeling a little off, you'll quit early or, if you are feeling great, you'll not get the full advantage of it by going beyond. If you do that, you'll start to understand what a given workout is trying to accomplish which will only make you a better racer! :)

For the Full List: https://www.bye-beastcoaching.com/post/on-the-days-after-new-year-s-eve-my-tri-coach-said-to-me

The 2023 Wolfpack Recap Video
https://www.bye-beastcoaching.com/post/wolfpack-2023-recap-thank-you-luke-pfeiffer

Thanks to Luke Pfeiffer for pulling this together and for all the suffering and associated achievements by the Wolfpack!

Wolfpack 2023 Recap (Thank you Luke Pfeiffer!) John Bye4 days ago0 min readWolfpack 2023 Recap (Thank you Luke Pfeiffer!)Athlete Features23 views0 commentsPost not marked as liked

2023 WOLFIE AWARD -- The Hunter
Anthony "Warhorse" Booth
Congratulations to Boothy for being one of four folks who won the Hunter Award which is the award for the members of the Wolfpack who had the most Lifetime Personal Records Achieved in 2023. Warhorse's Strava moniker is, aptly, Fenix Rising. I had the pleasure to work with him over the past several years and seeing his constant improvements is nothing but amazing.
This year he achieved PRs at the half-marathon, 10K, and twice at the 5K distance!
Relentless Forward Motion is not just a slogan! :)

Tri-Coach Tidbit #15

Bike Advice:

Seldom are exhausting Interval workouts something that athletes gleefully look forward to doing. However, once you get going and when you are done, you feel like you conquered the planet. The best way I have found to execute them is to essentially sandbag the first interval so that you got something to build on for each subsequent one. The bottom line is that if you want to become a good cyclist, you need to suffer when training as "suffering" creates that "ferocity" which allows you to attack the bike course.

I wrote an article that goes into how to leverage power measured on your fitness tracker or bike computer so you can actually see real-time what you are doing -- https://www.bye-beastcoaching.com/post/you-got-1-hour-to-workout-weather-is-awful-but-you-got-a-power-meter-and-a-smart-trainer

For the Full List of Tidbits: https://www.bye-beastcoaching.com/post/on-the-days-after-new-year-s-eve-my-tri-coach-said-to-me

1st Howling of 2024!

1st Howling of 2024! Happy New Year! Am very excited to kick off 2024 with the first Howling. The massive cold snap across the country has been a bit limiting of course, but I applaud the efforts that have gone into the prep work for the 2024 Season! What has most pleased me about the Wolfpack Nation is that we've been....

Personally, the 2023 Season race season was super fun. First time that Chris and I didn't do an Iron Distance race in almost a decade, but allowed me to finally dabble in Time Trialing which ended up being a blast.
I ended up ranked #1 in the country for USA Cycling Cat 4 M50-54 and only fell to 6th when you include the Cat 1, 2, 3 guys (4th in Colorado, of course - behind my friends Matthias Stehle and "The Hulk" James Whitmire). Also, met a bunch of cool guys through the Local TT circuit and we were able to put some crazy-fast TT group rides together (called them the Stampede)! :)
As we raced a bunch locally (Colorado has races every weekend), in total, got on the podium 14 times (Tri's, Time Trials, and Running Races). Of that, the highlights included placing 3rd M50-54 in the Aquabike National Championships in Florida at CLASH (My friend who lives about 4 miles from me, Eric Gutknecht, took the crown - even if I didn't cramp in the swim, I still think he would have held me off), was the Colorado State Age Group State Champion for Sprint Triathlon (Tri-Boulder), and, at USA Tri National Championships (Milwaukee), qualified to participate as a Member of Team USA for the 2024 Triathlon World Championships in Malaga Spain (Draft-Legal Sprint and Olympic) next October.

Tri-Coach Tidbit #14
Get the focus on the "Start Line" rather than the "Finish Line" and into the "It's about racing mindset."

One of the big things I work on with the Wolfpack is the idea of being ready for race-day and putting the work in so that when you're standing at that Start Line you aren't worried about crossing the Finish Line you are excited to attack the course and leverage all of that training to put your very best effort out there and set a Personal Record or snag a Podium. In this way, the focus goes from negative thoughts on whether or not you'll make it to the finish line, it will be how quickly you get there.

This time of year is key to preparing yourself with consistent training so that when the quality training starts, your body is ready to absorb it. When you flip the switch, for the first 2 weeks, get into a consistent daily training mode. Just do anything, daily, for 30-60 minutes. The "what" is not as important as the "do"; for example, easy aerobic trainer or outdoor rides, hitting the pool so some aerobic swims, two-to-five mile runs where you don't look at your watch, yoga/mobility and/or strength work. Whatever you are motivated to do is what you do.
For the next two weeks, do the Noah's Ark approach where you do two swims, two bikes, and two runs but, in this case, add some focused intensity for 20-30% of the workout; then, on the 7th day, hit the gym for the mobility and strength work.
Finally, your last phase is jumping into a week-long training block where you hit, what you feel is, your weak area hard. For running or biking, simply have two, three-day efforts where you do hills one day, intervals the next, and a longer endurance set (again with 20-30% intensity baked in). For swimming, my favorite is to incorporate a shark week into the mix and get that "Feel" for the water.
Once you've reignited the spark for Training, it's time to get after the quality work so that when you step on the Start Line, you can look around and the folks next to you and have that realization that you are not like so many folks who haven't trained adequately, but of that small group that are ready to get after it and have some fun!

Relentless Forward Motion!

For the Full List -- https://www.bye-beastcoaching.com/post/on-the-days-after-new-year-s-eve-my-tri-coach-said-to-me

Congratulations to the Wolfpack's 2023 WOLFIE Award Winners!
Top of the Mtn (1st Place Overall Performances) - Kaitlin "The Dolphin" Buckley
Goal Achievement (Most Podium Achievements) - Mary "Mtn Goat" Hoftiezer & Jimmy "Skeletor" Dion
Hunter (Most Lifetime PR Achievements) - Anthony "Warhorse" Booth, Tara "Yes I Can" Corduan, Eli "Lethal Weapon" Madden, Taylor 'Zwift' "Warrior Princess" Veranth
Alpha (Most Impressive Performance of All) - Josh "Colossus" Hoeft

https://www.bye-beastcoaching.com/post/2023-wolfie-award-winners