Your Endurance Lifestyle. Redesigned.

The Original Pie Chart???

The holiday season is in full effect. We kick things off here in the US with Thanksgiving, and then carry that all the way through the New Year. A full six weeks of exceptional joy, celebration, and digestion. I went back to the Coach P archives and found this two year-old podcast entitled “Managing the Holidaze” (Download the MP3 File Here), which covers this challenging period. Definitely worth a listen if you have the time. If not, here are some updated notes for you to implement as you manage the havoc that holidays bring.

1. Stay Focused: Don’t try to hit every workout. Likely your next race isn’t for months. Instead, identify what your goals are each week, prioritize them, and make sure you hit the top few.
2. Have Back Ups: Family mayhem, mall madness and the likelihood that someone you know will be smote by a strange illness requiring quarantine, all means that your fancy little schedule with nice hyperlinked videos isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Instead, have a default workout you can count on (mine is a 30′ run loop I can crush myself on).
3. Start Early: This is truly the time of year when everything from getting gas to making dinner just takes longer. Oh, and days are even shorter…joy. Do yourself a favor and get your workout done early. It might not be perfect, it might not be pretty, but it’s done. And that’s pretty good!
4. Know Your Limits: If your A race is more than 3 months away (most likely) then you’ll have tons of time to make up for any holiday indescretions. Be able to let the little things go so you can win the bigger game. You know, that life thing that’s happening all around you right now? It’s easy to miss when you are counting watts, heart beats, and training stress balance.

Most importantly, have fun. There is something special about a season that brings people and families together, that offers us a chance to step away from the rat race / daily grind and get in touch with that larger sense of human spirit that is always there, always running, but usually in the background. Even though I am working on my body composition, you can bet I am going to have some pumpkin pie this weekend. Heck might even have another piece for breakfast when everyone else is still sleeping. If my piece of pie is missing, I’ll know it’s you who ratted me out!

Happy Holidays!

Patrick

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