The Journey From Lemon to Legend

So, John thought up the title From Lemon to Legend. He says he's been saving it

to Legend. He says he's been saving it for years for the right opportunity. And

I didn't really know the full story of it until I read his forward to the first edition that's out now on Amazon. Turns

out I'm the lemon. And fortunately, I'm also the legend. And he'll talk you through that if you read that part of the book that opens up. But our topic

today is really what's different about my approach that enabled me to get from lemon to legend relatively quickly at

two different times of my life.

[music] So recall last time we talked about the different competitive tiers of athlete

from health and fitness, exerciser, a novice, developing, competitive amateur, top amateur. Then we go into the elites,

top amateur. Then we go into the elites, national class, international class, world class, Olympian, Olympic champion,

world champion. tiers all the way up. If

world champion. tiers all the way up. If

you aspire to move up the tiers, you are going to have to overcome certain thought habits and certain expectations

about what training involves. And the

first of which is you're going to think that it needs to be hard and painful and exhausting. And you're going to go in

exhausting. And you're going to go in with this expectation that you need to be sore all the time and chronically inflamed, managing niggles, and it's a

it's a psychology of pain and denial.

And there are moments of discomfort and there will be setbacks that you need to figure out how to overcome. But to go the distance and to level up quickly,

you need to be joybased or you need to have some sort of mission and some sort of source. And John actually wrote an

of source. And John actually wrote an article uh about some folks that are kind of like anger based a bit. Uh that

can work for certain personality types.

It doesn't work for me. And when I look at endurance athletes and particularly the longer course athletes, it's tough to stay angry for the amount of volume you're going to need to do. So, let's

talk about what I got right so that you can emulate it and you can level up for your goals if that's what you're into.

Now, both times in my life, so this is late 20s, early 30s, as well as my early 50s. So, two separate physiologies. I

50s. So, two separate physiologies. I

decided to get into race shape, into endurance racing shape. And I went into both those phases strong, strong

relative to myself, but also strong relative to my peers, my age matched peers, not my performance matched peers, because you'll remember when I start

out, my performance is not very good.

John Nuome knew me at the very beginning. He's the co-host of I am talk

beginning. He's the co-host of I am talk and he fairly described me as a mediocre amateur at best. So I knew nothing about

training. I was fortunate to run into

training. I was fortunate to run into Johnny, some other people in Hong Kong in the local running and triathlon scene that kind of took me under their wing and helped me figure things out. Then I

had good coaches as well over the years.

So started strong. So if you are not strong, if you are relatively weak, you need to be addressing this and you need to be addressing this for the rest of your life because it'll be there's a

reason you probably aren't strong.

Whatever it is, you need to figure that out. You need to get relatively strong

out. You need to get relatively strong because the ability to generate force is very important. The other thing I was

very important. The other thing I was smart with eventually was I realized that I needed to create the space that we talked about last time for the volume

and I focused on volume because I loved it and that ultimately led me to Ultra Man and then the Ultram Man Championship in Hawaii won that and really had a good

experience and most of the three days of racing was very enjoyable. There was

obviously there was going to be some discomfort when you have to run a double marathon when you're exhausted or ride 175 miles on day two, but overall really

enjoyed it. And I enjoyed it because I

enjoyed it. And I enjoyed it because I was prepared for the duration. So you

shake this mindset that you're going to graduate to a lot of really grueling training. And let's bring up John's

training. And let's bring up John's subjective perception chart. So, if

you're thinking about training mix, and this is the easiest way, my training mix always skews green. Always, no matter

what I got going on. And then when I'm in specific preparation, I will lift that tempo, that zone three section, the section, and that is what

the Nordics call threshold. So, be aware there's a difference between threshold between an American coach and a Nordic coach. So that that threshold effort

coach. So that that threshold effort that is an an intensive aerobic effort which can make the body more aerobic and

it can make us more efficient and and more economical. So that can be a very

more economical. So that can be a very important zone for the competitive amateur. Where many lower tier athletes

amateur. Where many lower tier athletes go wrong is they go slamming themselves with a bunch of zone five and that costs

them a tremendous amount of volume and consistency and those sessions are not very much fun. You will be kind of dreading them and you'll be thinking, well, I got to do it because it's my

medicine. No, you don't. What you need

medicine. No, you don't. What you need to do is figure out a way to get much more volume into your life and start yanking out all the stuff that's screwing up your consistency. That's

what it's about. Just do more. Be more

consistent and get more endurance training done in an adaptive sense. What

I got wrong was I had this volume mindset, this load maxing mindset, and I wasn't focused on adaptation. And this

is something that Olaf Alexander Buu nails when he talks about it. Intensity

control and making sure that the volume is creating an adaptation. And you

should be seeing adaptation over six to eight week blocks. And if you're a multisport athlete, it's really easy because you normally have something going right in your program. And if you

are an athlete that does block periodization, like I explained in my series, the physics of performance, you will be seeing progressions based on

what that block is focused on. So the

body will be adapting differently over time in the blocks and we will be trending up yeartoear

as well. Another thing that I got right

as well. Another thing that I got right was I never actually hit fullblown overtraining and lost a whole season or something. I got carried away and I had

something. I got carried away and I had some deep nonfunctional overreaching, but I never went far enough to really wreck myself. And a number of athletes

wreck myself. And a number of athletes and friends unfortunately have ended uh their careers for multiple seasons and

permanently damaged their health through neglecting that kind of refocusing. And

I talk about that in my video about kind of anabolism and supporting that that that recovery for longevity. So let's

recap what's different. I didn't seek to graduate to this imaginary level where I'm just going hard all the time. That

doesn't exist. Green zone training is fundamental. So get that right. I was

fundamental. So get that right. I was

also able to apply sportspecific force. If you are weak, you need to

force. If you are weak, you need to address this because you've got the force component and then you've got the cadence component. So if you think about

cadence component. So if you think about it, it's kind of like torque and cadence. easy to understand on a bike,

cadence. easy to understand on a bike, but it's happening in all movement patterns. It's happening swimming, it's

patterns. It's happening swimming, it's happening running, all of that. So,

there's the force and there's the endurance and the speed skill, the skill. So, those are the three in the

skill. So, those are the three in the triangle. You'll see the picture of

triangle. You'll see the picture of that. I got that concept off of Joe Fel

that. I got that concept off of Joe Fel and I think he might have picked it up off of uh Tutor Bumpa going back as well. but it'll serve you really well if

well. but it'll serve you really well if you focus on the basics and just nailing the basics and use consistency as your number one protocol. Thanks for

listening.

Thanks for watching. [music]

Hit that like button, then head over to my YouTube channel and subscribe to the Lemon to Legend playlist. My book, From

Lemon to Legend, is now available on Amazon.