1. You’re insane.

• You continue to do the same thing over and over again but expect a different result.

2. Daily nutrition is bad.

• Forcing you to retain body fat.
• Not allowing you to maximize your workouts.

3. Nutrition during training and racing is bad.

• Doesn’t provide the necessary fuel for performance.

4. You don’t separate hard and easy, and spend all your time in the gray area.

• You don’t go hard enough to get faster but you don’t go easy enough to recover.

5. You think longer = faster.

• Longer means long, slow workouts. This makes you MORE of a long, slow athlete.

6. You don’t know how to suffer.

• You think every race is supposed to feel good and you’re afraid to push yourself to a point you can’t mentally handle.

7. Missing workouts due to lack of planning.

• You try to do workouts later in the day and life gets in the way. You don’t work out in the morning because you’re not a “morning person.”

8. You do zero neuromuscular training.

• This relates to #5. You don’t do strides, pickups, short/fast hill repeats and proper interval work. As you age you lose the snap (and speed) in your legs.

9. Insufficient recovery.

• No recovery drink. Not sleeping enough. Not taking in enough water. Working out too frequently.

10. Your pacing sucks.

• You positive split every race hoping for your COULD race, instead of even pacing or negative split pacing on your SHOULD race.

DO ANY OF THESE APPLY TO YOU?

11. You don’t appreciate your sport as a skill.

• You go through the motions and don’t think about what you’re doing while you’re doing it.

12. You make excuses.

• It’s never your fault. It’s somebody else’s or some other thing. Be accountable.

13. Racing season is poorly planned (i.e., you race too much)

• You can only peak so often. Rarely.

14. You don’t strength train PROPERLY in the offseason.

• You think carrying around a “program,” that you’ll do for the entire winter without ever switching anything up, is somehow going to make your body more bulletproof and lessen your chance of injury when training kicks up.

15. You’ve set predefined limitations on your own ability.

• You’re holding yourself back via the self-fulfilling prophecy. You’ll only ever go as fast as you THINK you can go.

16. You ruin your taper by “testing” your fitness right before a race.

• You try to “sneak in” late workouts because you’re not confident in your preparation, only to go into your race tired and fatigued.

17. You don’t assess and reassess your fitness.

• You have no idea if what you’re doing is working and whether something needs 2B changed.

Best,

– SW