I have been thinking a lot about workout venues lately. In fact, I have been thinking about workout venues every single day for the past, ohhhh, fifteen years? It started as a competitive triathlete looking for the best places to train in swim/bike/run while living at 10,000 feet above sea level. I eventually relocated to Tucson, AZ for a winter, sick of banging my head against the steering wheel in the parking lot of the rec center, before steeling myself for yet another indoor suffer fest on the trainer or tread. Once springtime in the Rockies rolled around, I was constantly poring over maps and researching routes and water temperatures for the best places to get outside, do some brick workouts and test all of my hard earned fitness. Oh, and have some fun. I distinctly remember asking my coach at the time, “I spend all of my time training for the sports, when do I actually get to do the sports?” Her response was “When you race.” Kidding. Kind of.
So I began in earnest my quest to combine good training and fun. I knew that it was possible to get out and explore a bit, find a big climb on the bike, soft dirt to do tempo runs on, and warm(er) water in which to swim. The obsession continued as I began to train for and compete in road cycling, Skimo, XC MTB and ski races, and finally, Swim Run. What I loved most about training for and racing in all of these disciplines was exploring new places to do the sports that I loved. And that change of scenery made it more fun. The obsession went even further when I became a youth cycling/running/Skimo coach and was tasked with finding the perfect locales to execute a practice in which a) teenagers are in a safe place, b) I can keep the general public safe from teenagers, c) the athletes get a quality workout, and d) we can end the practice with a little fun. There’s that word again: fun. But, Coach, how can a workout be fun? To answer that question, I’ll fire one right back at you. Why did you start doing the sport you are training for? The answer most of the time is… because it was fun.
As an endurance coach, I prescribe a lot of different workouts to a lot of different types of athletes across multiple disciplines. The one thing that all of the workouts have in common is that they have a purpose. Whether it is targeting a specific energy system, addressing a weakness, building durability, or active recovery, or even when I prescribe no workout at all, there is a specific goal for that session. Training for endurance sports requires a lot of time at or below the aerobic threshold, say roughly 80% of training volume. These days it’s easy to get back to why you love your sport – it is fun to get out and just ride, run, swim, ski – alone, with your dog, or with friends. These days should be at a conversational pace, so why not have some company? Your dog might not read you their dissertation on Trotsky, but you can read them yours. The other 20% of the time, we (and by “we,” I mean my athletes, me, and all of you trainers/wannabe trainers out there) should be doing some intensity in the form of quality workouts. Intervals!
I don’t know where intervals became the opposite of fun, but it does not have to be this way. First step to making intervals more fun is to change your brain. By doing intervals, you are changing the way your body does your sport – for the better. Intervals make you faster and better at your sport, and doesn’t being faster and better at something make it more fun? It does for me! When I am beating my husband up a climb on skis or a bike, I am having FUN!!!
Secondly, there is something to be said about a job well done. Okay, maybe it’s not fun, per se, but it is extremely satisfying to execute a workout WELL. Gradual warmup, check. Speed skills for the day, check. Hitting all of your prescribed targets during the main set, check. Doing a nice long cool down, check. It feels SO GOOD to NAIL a workout, and gives you confidence coming into your next quality session knowing that you are more than capable of doing something WELL.
Lastly, let’s talk about the good old fashioned kind of fun – wind in your hair, banking turns, face shots, wildflower blur, sea turtle fun. Let me give you a hint – you can have this type of fun WITHIN a structured workout. Well, after the structured part, but hey, it’s still there! It’s all about planning. To execute a workout well, as we just talked about, you first need to look at the workout and determine its purpose. Pro tip: look at the workout the day before, and certainly well before you have your kit/shoes/boots on. Identify the ideal location for those 8×2’s, 4×5’s, 3×20’s. What will the weather be like? Is it hilly enough? Flat enough? Too trafficky? Once you have that location locked in, think about the terrain surrounding it. Where can you go where you can get in that quality set AND be inspired by your surroundings to have fun doing your sport? My favorite example of this is doing hill repeats. What goes up must come down, and the down is FUN. So, pick a venue that allows for a cooldown on a sweet singletrack descent, or pow turns on your skis to finish the day. Now, there will be some days that doing the workout indoors is the best choice to do your quality session. In this case, I will refer you back to my point about how executing a workout well is fun.
Being able to suss out the perfect workout venue takes some time, practice, and exploring. But I guarantee that with the right mindset and some planning, the journey will be rewarding, and yes, fun.
– Jaime Brede, Summit Endurance Academy Coach
Read more about Coach Jaime Brede here.
