Unknown: 0:00

Music.

Narrator: 0:10

Welcome to the athletes in motion podcast from race to recovery with your hosts Tom regal and Kenny Bailey. You

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:29

Hey, Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:30

I'm fantastic. Kenny, how are you? I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:31

am fantastic as well. This is going to be a fun episode today, because our guest today is the one Tom regal so well, first we're

Tom Regal: 0:40

going to talk about the fact that we we've been missing for a few weeks. Yeah, because life got in the way. Yes, we got crazy busy. Yes, Kenny is now the the man in charge at lifetime. Yes, Franklin, so the general manager. So Kenny's got a real gig.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:54

I got a real job now. It's

Tom Regal: 0:55

nice, so that's good. We're super excited for him. So trying to get through all of that, plus life in general, for me, got crazy as well, racing and all of that we're gonna talk a little bit about. But yeah, we're here. We're back. Sorry about that. So yeah, took a little

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:08

pause. Had to get thanks. So thanks for still checking in and speaking away. So if you are checking in, make sure you like and subscribe down below. Please do it that always helps our algorithm and also just gives you an opportunity to know when our new shows are coming up. So especially

Tom Regal: 1:23

if you take another break,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:26

but excited to talk about this today, because you not only do you coach folks in bike fit and just basically live the triathlon lifestyle, but you also race as well, and you had your Iron Man Lake Placid. Yep, this year, that was your race. That was my race. That was my egg race. Yeah. And love so want to talk about your race. Want to talk about sort of how you're prepped for it, but also you have another kind of interesting thing in the fact that you've got the label of coach above your head. So how you know, today we're going to try to talk about, sort of how that additional pressure, what, what that thought is, as you're trying to coach other people coach yourself, and those expectations that you put on yourself, or those feelings that you know, like, hey, what's my coach doing? Why can't he figure this out?

Tom Regal: 2:11

You know, it turns out terrible athletes. We're horrible athletes to come especially when we're coaching ourselves. That's really bad. So that we when you hate your coach. When you're out there, you get that bad workout, and you hate your coach, and you're just kind of like kind of angry at him, yeah, yeah, it's kind of

Kenny Bailey<br>: 2:26

weird. Yeah, he's suffering the same fate too. So yeah, we go through that. So you decided, what made you decide to do Lake Placid this year?

Tom Regal: 2:32

So I had done Lake Placid as my very first Iron Man back in 2014 so it's been a few years, 2014 2010 Yeah, 2010 because it was 14 years ago. So back in 2010 that was my very first Ironman. I had been in the sport for a few years already. I kind of worked my way up to that. So that's always a special one. I grew up in New York, went to school in upstate New York, spent some time in the Adirondacks. Love it up there. That's why I chose that as my first one. Had some family and some friends come over, so decided to go back and do that again. I don't know, for some reason I felt like it was time to go back and try to beat that time. I wanted to see as as the years go past, it was like, I better go now, because I'm probably not going to be faster or better than I was. So once again, family and friends came. We rented a nice place, and it was, go back. Let's see what I can do with that. So I focused a lot on short course the whole year, and got my training in and everything. But that was our main our main focus was to get up there and have some fun and see what I could do. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 3:38

And the interesting part about that to your point when you're younger, in your journey, your career, right? You're, like your first couple, there's this sort of, sort of sine wave that happens, right? You're not very good at the beginning. You're kind of fumbling around, but you did great, you had fun, and you got the bug. And then you sort of increase your skill level, and you decrease your speed and those kind of things. And then you start getting older to your point, and you're like, Well, you know, I've got a lot of knowledge now built up. I have a lot of education built up. And I can tell probably a year ago, two years ago, you were starting to get that itch, right? You're like, Hey, I mean, I got some juice in the tank. Yeah, right. There's a little bit there. I'm, you know, can I beat what I, you know, 14 year old, smarter than I was,

Tom Regal: 4:24

yeah, 14 years ago, especially in this sport, maybe not anything else, but in this sport, for sure, okay, that was and that was the key, and I knew I was gonna have to be really smart on the race, yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:35

And so your goal was to, is it? Was it to get the overall time? Was it get to split times? There was

Tom Regal: 4:40

a couple. There's a couple different different pieces to it. So overall, it was to finish. That's always my my goal is always to finish. So the second goal was to beat my time. My third my time was 1341 so 13 hours, 41 minutes. So the beat the overall time would have been key. And then, of course, I wanted to see each component swim by, to run eight. End transitions. I wanted to see if I could actually be faster on those. So the last two years, I had focused. I was coming back from injury. I think we've talked about this on another podcast, and I focused a lot on running. Yeah, I didn't. I did mainly running. I did minimal cycling, especially for me, 1000 miles maybe a year. In comparative terms, folks, that's normally it's five. So it was one. So I knew, starting back November, when I really got training for this, that was my weak link, and I didn't know how much of that I was going to get back, yeah, because it doesn't always come back. So I had a try. It really worked on a plan to build up my we look at watts per kilogram for power output. I never quite got back to where I was a couple of years ago. It just, I just didn't have enough time. I had nine months. I didn't have enough time to get there. Isn't it funny, nine months, nine months isn't enough time to point at

Kenny Bailey<br>: 5:57

that. And that's the thing. Full Ironmans are no joke, right? You don't hide from a full Ironman. No, it, if you sort of phoned it in on a certain part of it, it's going to reveal itself during the title of the race, and not just itself in that particular like, like you said, if, if you just kind of not that you did this, but if you phoned it in on the bike, yeah, you're not only going to suffer on the bike, but that runs going to be just a nightmare, yeah. So, yeah. So you know your bike was but your bike was good. It just wasn't where you wanted to be. Yeah,

Tom Regal: 6:24

it was, it was strong. I knew where it was. So this, this time, this time around, I was training with power, which I didn't do back then in 2010 because, yeah, most of those power meters weren't around. Yeah, it wasn't as much as, as prevalent as it is now. Yeah, and easy to do. So I knew I had to train like I had to train smarter, right? I had to, had to work. So I knew a week out from the race is where I know exactly what numbers I can hit. Yeah, that's, that's, there's no magical answer to doing better than that. I knew what my targets were. I knew if I had the absolute perfect day, everything went to plan. If not better, I would get 12 and a half hours. That was probably the best I could do. Yeah, with swim, the bike, the run, all of those pieces all falling together. Is

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:11

that an important thing? That's a really, that's an interesting way to look at it, right? Which is, you know, no know what your realm is like. You're not going to bust it in, you know, nine and a half, you're not going to bust it in 11.

Tom Regal: 7:23

It's realistic. It's the only way to set realistic goals when you're going into races like this, because you're never going to, no one's going to step up and all of a sudden, you know, come to the forefront. I've like, if you're running a four and a half hour marathon, you're not automatically going to be able to run a three and a half hour it's just, it's not going to happen. It's whatever you're doing in your training is that it is. So it's always interesting when someone starts talking about what they want to hit, yeah, you can have goals and say, Yeah, I want to go sub 12 on my on my Ironman. But as the as the week go by, and as you get closer, if you're not training at those levels, you're not going to hit it. Yes, it's not the race. It's going to get you a magical tailwind that's going to come that's going to come and all of a sudden you're two miles an hour faster on the bike. Yeah? It's just not going to happen. So add to that that they had changed the course a little bit, which they always do, right? So we just kind of, they added this little segment in it that probably added close to 1000 feet of gain. So we're at close to 7500 feet nice of elevation just on the bike. So you're gonna earn that, yeah? So it's, it's like, okay, realistically, that is critical, especially in this race for the run, yeah, are you gonna blow up completely trying to hammer the bike to the numbers that you did on the flatlands? Yeah? To, you know, not have anything available in the tank for the for the run. So, so

Kenny Bailey<br>: 8:41

when you decided to do this, and you said it out loud to your clients, yeah, what is you do? You have a concern to that point, are you trying to set a precedence? Because everyone, you know, everyone's going to look at you, right? You're, oh, coach is racing this one. Oh, coach is racing this one. So, you know, that kind of thing. How do you set up that expectation level? Or do you feel like you have to?

Tom Regal: 9:04

It was interesting, because I'm up to this point like being out here. I've been out here for about four years now, right? I usually don't share much in my training and my racing. Everyone will find out about it afterwards, right? I'll post up about it. Hey, I'm at the race or something like that, and there's not that much this one was kind of odd, because the amount of people that were watching, and even that I didn't know we're watching, that I talked to afterwards, that's kind of kind of wild. It's like people that I just met once, they were like, Yeah, I followed you. I watched you on the video finish. Like, wow. Okay, no, that that's amazing. Yeah, that blows my mind. So I like I have a Strava account. I have followers. I've never posted anything on it, right? I don't share my workouts because I don't think they relate to how your workouts would be. And I know some people like to do that. That's fine, but I don't want you to compare about what I'm doing, because what I'm doing, it works for me, not for you. It's different that way. So I'm very I'm very cautious and shy when I shared training and all this. So it was kind of weird when I started talking to people about it, and people got excited and they remembered. So as it was getting closer to race day, they were just kind of like, Oh, you got your race coming up. We're so excited. We're gonna be following you. They're like, like, not used to that, yeah. So that was a new realm for me to go into. So I did. I had to work really hard about not focusing on that, yeah. And I had to go back to my race plan. Nice, because I figured if they're watching, the one thing that I've gotten really good over the years is setting up a good race plan. Yeah, it's worked for the 100 milers. It's worked for everything. All of this sets up, and that's, that's the thing that I said, Well, I have to focus on that, because if I don't have a good race plan and I blow up, then that's going to look worse than if I just go slow, yeah, if that's a race plan, yeah?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:54

Or if you're trying to hit a time and you don't hit, it, like, if you don't hit there's 100 reasons why you can't hit a time, yeah, but if it's because you fundamentally broke your own rule, it's like, that's

Tom Regal: 11:05

the part that I was like, Okay, so that's what I and I had to self talk myself a few times on it. I had to sit back and go, no, no, no, let's, you know, focus, come bring this back. This, this is the plan. We have to go with the plan. The plan is what I have to do. And fun. Funny thing was that my wife, Wendy, were were up at the house. Our friends had come in, they went off and did some stuff, and I checked the bike and I did wherever, and then I'm sitting there watching the tour on the couch, like, you know, I'd set everything up. And since she was like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, why? You know, she goes, you're really calm. I'm like, Well, I've done this before. Yeah, I knew exactly what I needed. My transition bags have very little in them, yeah, because I just need, you know, I need shoes and a helmet. Just my transitions have gotten I don't bring extra stuff. I had my calorie count laid out. I had exactly what I was going to do was all laid out. It was all done. I repacked the bags a couple times and then took him, checked in, took the bike, and then, and then, just watched TV. Yeah, it's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:03

like the first race you bring in Santa Claus back, right? Well, just in case, I need armor. So what if I need,

Tom Regal: 12:08

what about, what

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:09

if I have an expert, socks? I know

Tom Regal: 12:10

I don't need all of that. Yeah, I've that's good, got all of that covered, um, you know, and I'm confident that if it doesn't go right, yeah, I'll be okay. I'll be able to figure it out. Sure.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:20

So race day shows up. You know, the weather, hopefully was cooperating for you.

Tom Regal: 12:26

Yeah, the weather was, it was super hot the two weeks before, just like it was just about everywhere in the country, right? Water temperature got up to 78 degrees, which it never does, yeah, up there. So it was almost not wetsuit legal. It dropped down to 75 that morning. So it got down. So we were wetsuit, nice, great, which is fine. I was prepared to go either way. It was fine, so I seated myself and this is, this is a bone I have to pick with everybody that sees themselves improperly. This is in these problems, because this was, this was a major problem for this. This is two loops. Everyone stacked up. I got in the one hour 10 minute to one hour 20 minute zone, because that's what I can do. Yeah? I know I can do that. My my fastest swim was a 105 Yeah. I usually sit in the 110 range. So I walked myself up, which was not easy to do. Kind of work scored my way, ended up at the front of that group. So I'm at the front of the one the 110 group, the one hour to 110 is in front of us, and then the sub one hours up in front of them, and the pros, whatever up there, there, they've got us lined up, so five at a time, every five seconds. Yeah, that should work fine. Yep, it's two loops. You shouldn't run into traffic until the second loop, I swam over probably 50 people in the first 200 yards. It was ridiculous. Yeah, and they were swimming sideways. They were going all different directions. I got kicked in the throat twice. Wow. I got kicked in the chest. I got punched in the head. It was like people weren't even caring if they touched you. They didn't back off. They just hit you harder. Yeah, it was like, everyone just like, was it was mayhem, yeah. And that first 1000 yards was brutal, and it didn't get any better the rest of the rest of the time. So, yeah, those

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:11

two loopers, it's interesting. And I think that's the, I think the part that you can't practice very well, yeah, is, is that right? Which is, you know, you've done open water, you've done your pool swims. You're feeling healthy, you're feeling good. Yeah, you know, getting smacked in the throat. I don't think, as a coach, you practice smacking your clients in a

Tom Regal: 14:29

throat. I try not, you know, they frown upon. I've learned a couple new tricks that we're going to use in the open water test coming up because with a noodle and so, yeah, oh, I was, yeah, it was, it was brutal. And around the top part of the course, I got hit with a fist, with a fist. This was not a hand. This was a fist right in the hamstring that just locked the hamstring. I was sinking. It went so dead leg on me that I was sinking around and had to come back from that. Had that happen with the other leg on the second loop. So it was brutal. Brutal I come out of the swim. Survived that at a 119 right? I was still in my 110 to 120 right? Yeah. So not spectacular, but faster than my first triathlon, yeah, my first Ironman. So I was, I was still, I was still ahead of the game at that point. Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 15:17

Did you feel like you were so you were doing your plan, that you thought you were doing your plan, get on the bike. The bike, same thing.

Tom Regal: 15:23

I had a great t1 I had a great t1 I was really happy with that flew out of there, got on the bike. The bike is a quick downhill to start nice, and then it goes uphill. So the first 12 miles, you're 1000 feet of climbing. So it's, it's fast, very steep descent right out of transition, with some hard turns. And some people were flying down that thing and were almost wrecking Yeah. So then it was just getting into a mode. I knew my power numbers. I had my my Watts Up above, and I was staying just below the power numbers for the first for the first loop, about 35 excuse me, about 35 miles in. So I cramped on the swim. I cramped. My abs were cramping in transition, and then I cramped on the bike about 35 miles in. So that was the part where I was like, Okay, let's take a look at this. So I started taking in more electrolyte mix, the mortal hydration that they have, which was fine. I didn't have any issues with it. I had trained with it before and tested it out and got through that was still a little nervous about that, so wasn't feeling 100% on the bike. So on the second loop, I backed off a little bit more. So I went under my power numbers. I knew I couldn't go over, because I knew if I went over at this point I was screwed. So that's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:38

14 years of experience on that one, right? So 14 year ago, you would have done

Tom Regal: 16:43

pushed, pushed. Just kept pushing, yeah. And did well, yeah. And so I think that's,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:49

that's the difference between you can be older, yeah, you know, you can have a plan. You know, it's older. It's better to be sort of older and have a plan than it is young, unless you can get away with it, which rarely you can, yeah, but that's, that's the difference, right? Is that okay? I know now, yeah, that if I push it, it's not only going to affect my bike, but it's going to affect that run moving forward. So did you stick to your nutrition plan?

Tom Regal: 17:12

You think I had to adjust the nutrition plan because I tried to take in more more electrolytes, okay? I tried to take in a lot more mortal hydration, because I was trying to stay ahead of what I thought was cramping coming through. So that switched me a little bit. So my nutrition was very liquid to begin with, with tailwind, yeah, and a couple bottles of tailwind I was taking. I was set to take in between 90 and 100 grams of carbides per hour. I brought enough whole real food with me as well, because I wanted to be prepared for that as well. Ended up switching more to real food than I did, because the mortal hydration just filled me up. Yep, it just I was liquid. I had to stop and take a long, long pee break on the second loop of the bike, everything sat within the numbers. I said, Great. If I have the perfect day. I'm really going to be a 615 on the bike. If it goes the way I think it's going to go, it's going to be six and a half hours on the bike. I ended up being 640 something. I was like, 648 or something like that. It was like, as long as I was sub seven hours, I was happy with the climbing, because I was really focused on the run. Yeah, like, I've been working on the run. The Run was good. The run is solid. It's like, really, like, I was going to come out and have a really solid run. Had a killer t2 four minutes, good. Just racked it. Just racked the bike. Ran through, grab my stuff. I was out on the run. That's awesome. And then the shit hit the fan. What his sort of, so the run is downhill, slightly downhill, omega, you hit an intersection, and then it's a hard right, and then it's a really steep downhill. I was trying to slow myself down, and my whole body cramped. I mean, everything, I think, my eyelids cramped, everything went into lock mode. And I was like, I was still trying to test myself. I was still trying to slow my pace down, because I didn't want to come out of the box 830 I always coach everybody. I tell you all, to take it nice and easy, go nice and slow that first mile, that first two miles, get into it. And I saw I was trying to go along. That was my, my plan. And then I realized that I had two options. I could send it and just go, because holding myself back was making things worse. Yeah? So I'd either land flat on my face and be carted off, or somehow I'd make it to the bottom of the hill, the long hill, and then I would, like, sort things out. Yeah, walk. Figure it out. I couldn't stop myself to walk, yeah? Like, literally, I could not slow myself down to walk, because everything just went absolutely nuts and bonkers. Had similar issues in the past, right? Had occasionally would get something like that, not usually a full body, yeah? So that was kind of weird. So I sent it. I just absolutely sent it, must. I wish somebody had video. Somebody has video of me going down that first. Hill. It's got to look the goofiest thing. Arms all over the place, just the body, just me screaming. It was just all the way down to the bottom. When I got to the bottom, things loosened

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:09

up a little bit. They're looking for the Hornet's Nest behind you, with the bears.

Tom Regal: 20:13

It was crazy. So, yeah. So I made it to the bottom of the long hill, and there's a they. They changed the course on the run as well, kept it more in town, added a little more elevation, so I think total elevation on it was close to 1000 feet, if not a little over. So for a marathon, you've got two loops, there's a lot of hills. You're going down, you're flat, and then you're coming all the way back into town. There's some work to do. So I was just trying to sort things out, but I was able to manage my paces. I was sitting in the mid nine, 915, 920, per mile, which is what I was planning on doing. It was going along, but I just didn't feel right. Yeah, I didn't feel right. I felt off. I felt like I was about to cramp any minute. So I managed to push through that till mile 11. And then mile 11, I said I had to stop and do something. Yeah, like I was drinking lots more mortal hydration. I thought, like, electrolytes, electrolytes, electrolytes. It turns out I needed salt. Okay, I needed more. And there's not enough electrolyte. There's not enough salt anymore. At least the more than that, they were mortal hydration that they were using. And that's fine, I get it. They can't give that much salt to everybody. That's no big deal. I didn't. The one thing I didn't bring with me was Little salt tabs. Yeah, right. Should have known better on that. I usually have some salt tabs in some place, but yeah, so I slowed down, walked stopped, ate a lot of chips and and stuff for the first,

Unknown: 21:35

yeah, that little

Tom Regal: 21:38

for the for probably three or four miles after that, I made sure I dropped down to, I think one of them was a 15 minute mile, and then I was down in the elevens, elevens and twelves for a little bit. Is

Kenny Bailey<br>: 21:49

that the part when, at what point when you're doing that? Was there a coaching like, oh my gosh, my the people are watching me. I mean, is it all external, or do you always just remove that price when I'm

Tom Regal: 22:00

in the race, I'm I'm good with that. There was a, there was a there was a few times I was thinking about that on the bike, but I was able to put that away, because I have a that's what I love about racing, yeah, like, I can have that singular focus. Finally, normally, I'm add, I'm all over the place. I'm just, like, thinking about too many things, as you can tell, right now, right? But for for the race, I'm locked in, I'm going, Okay, I just need to just keep going. So for me, it's constantly checking how my body feels, like, okay, my feet, okay, good. Ankles, knees, everything feels good. You just That's my constant run through while I'm running is to make sure it's all good. And then I was sitting here trying to figure out exactly what was wrong, right? I was trying to go, Okay, this isn't working. Let me try Plan B. Let me try. And then it was just like, You know what? I'm gonna stop and eat a whole thing of potato chips. Like, salt. I need salt. I need salt. And literally, I was stopping to make sure that I ate all of the chips. And then from there it was drink some coke, which I was gonna be at the second half of the race. Anyway, elixir, yeah. About three or four miles later, it was like, I could feel my whole body just coming back to life again. So then it was like, so I managed some, you know, some 10 and a half to 11 and a half minute miles as I was going through, because I was walking parts and going up the hills, and then everything came back to life. So the last six miles, I'm flying, I'm doing 830s now, and I'm just like, this is, this is where I yeah, this is where I could have been had I, had I kind of managed this a little bit quicker, but I'm still good with it, yeah? And

Kenny Bailey<br>: 23:27

it goes back to that experience, right? It goes knowing that, okay, if my body is doing this, then I must do this, right? And you're not gonna get it. I mean, 100% 100% of the time, but you, you know, like, oh, it's salt, okay, that's okay. That result in there, and then all of a sudden, and with the Coke, it's just sort of breaks the dam and not and all of a sudden you're, yeah, popped it on, popped it on, right? So, yeah, I think, I think sometimes I know, you know, I have friends and colleagues that are watching the Ironman tracker, right, and their senior split times, and I know when I'm walking, I'm like, Oh, they're gonna look at the split times and go, What else, yeah, and so on your when you're on the opposite end, you just don't know. You're like, Oh, he's doing great. Oh, he's doing great. Oh, yeah, he's back, you know? So it's a

Tom Regal: 24:04

when I'm watching as a coach now, and I know the course I it's like, going along is like, Oh, he's flying. He's doing great. He's doing great. Oh, he hit the hilly section. Okay, here he is. He's okay. He's doing good, about a little hot. Yeah, maybe

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:17

she shouldn't come out. Slow

Tom Regal: 24:19

down, slow down, slow down, that type of thing. So,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:22

yeah, so as you know, as other coaches, right? If you're coaching coaches, the idea of of the idea of having to perform, by the way, what was your time

Tom Regal: 24:33

when you got 1303? Well, there you go. So, so I had three minutes you missed by three minutes. That was my extra pee break at mile 11, because it was more than three minutes. I beat my swim time, my bike time, my two transitions were faster, my run was slower. Is that ironic, or what that's it's hilarious. The one thing you wanted to do because I had GI issues. I had GI issues on the run, yeah, on the first one, yeah. And that's when I discovered. That soy and I don't mix, but I still had a faster run back then I was, yeah, I was younger, and that's my only disappointment, was the fact that I really wanted to nail the run. Yeah, and I, I did good on the run. I'm not, I'm not upset with it. It was within what I thought I could do, right? It's still within that window of the plan. Yeah, was still

Kenny Bailey<br>: 25:23

there. And you had, you were staring at 12 to right. The number 12 like

Tom Regal: 25:27

that would have been so sweet. And the thing was, the last half of the of the run, I wasn't looking at my watch. I wasn't worried. I was just trying to get to the finish. I was just trying to sort myself out and go. And I don't think I could have run any faster. Really, I couldn't have, because I was running fast. If I had was, like, sort of sloshing along on that last bit and, like, took it easy and was just like, I'll just get the finished. I'll be fine. Yeah? And then coming to winter 13, that's right, I would have pissed, yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 25:49

I think there's a, you know, I preach this a lot, right? You want to. It's, it's not a time issue, or it's not a quality issue. You just want to reach your capability, yeah, right, if you felt like I didn't give my capability, like, I didn't live up to capability that I could have done on that race. Yeah, that's what bugs the crap out of yes, yeah, right. So the back half the raise, you were like, Oh, I'm running to the speed I should be running. You know, you're not thrilled because of GI issues and other issues up front, or because, you know, the salt didn't kick in, but you lived up to the capability that you were looking to do, right? Yeah, that's what it becomes. It

Tom Regal: 26:21

was in a number, yeah, like I said, if I had nailed everything perfect, and the, you know, all the conditions are great, it would have been 12 and a half hours, yeah. The worst case it was going to be was 13 and a half hours, yeah. And to come in right at 13 hours is like, what's there? I did what I knew I was capable of doing. I was very, very satisfied with that. I was, I was exhausted at the end. I mean, I put everything out, and that's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 26:42

great, right? Because, again, if, if weather hits, you know, terrible weather, or, you know, when I did California, the wind was ridiculous, so you just kind of adjust. You're like, that's outside of my capability change, of course, right? You see that stuff? Because now you're, now you're living whatever capability you can within that, within that weather thing, that's what makes these races so fun. Yeah, mechanical certainly pisses you off, right? Because it's like, I want someone to control but, but it's like, it just robbed me of finding my capability. Yeah, right, yeah. It's those ones where you screw up, you do a dumb mistake, you know, you tell yourself, I'm gonna go buy this plan. I'm gonna eat this kind of stuff. It's

Tom Regal: 27:19

when you start racing the other people on the corner, yeah? You're just like, well, that guy's up a front and he's really flying up that hill. I'm just gonna go catch him, yeah? Or worse

Kenny Bailey<br>: 27:27

for me is, I don't think that person should be in front of me. That guy shouldn't be Yeah, exactly, yeah. There's no one guy should not be in front of me. That guy.

Tom Regal: 27:35

You can have a healthy dose of that to keep yourself going, Yeah, but you have to, like, once again, you have to look at some metrics and say, Yeah, I'm really outside my zone on this one. And I think that's, that's a big thing with racing with power. I think that's where a benefit comes in. If you can stay to those numbers and look at that, yeah. And

Kenny Bailey<br>: 27:52

the hard part for me to your point is, you may have you settle in on a group of people, right? You know, these races are long enough where you just have this sort of cadre of, you know, a dozen people, you're all around the same effort, and suddenly you're doing the same effort. And then you feel a little bit like you're fading a little bit. And then all of a sudden, they're still not, you know, they're not fading. And then that's, yeah, yeah. And that's when you're like, I don't want to break the rubber band on this thing. And then all of a sudden you're like, Okay, I gotta, I gotta put my pride away and go ahead. That person's strong, yeah,

Tom Regal: 28:18

let them do that. Catch them on the run. Yeah, last words, yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 28:23

So as other coaches that are, that are, what would you tell the coaches about that? Because I know you guys talk about that, right? It's like, you know, I don't know if I should be public about my races. I don't know the expectations of my clients. You know, was there a myth? We get

Tom Regal: 28:38

mixed messages. I get more mixed, mixed messages from people who try to help coaches. So there's there's consultants and people out there that help help us coaches like so if we needed some help, some mentoring and some other stuff. And half of them are like, You need to put up good results, and the other half of them where you don't need to worry about the results. Yeah, I tend to think that it's not about the results. But that being said, that's the thing that pops to our heads, is that that's the thing that we worry about the most, is that we want to put up good results. Because we see comments where people put up is like, Wow, he's really he's he's practicing what he preaches, yeah, from someone that doesn't even know you. Yeah, all right, just putting this up there, and just because they saw the result that you did, yeah, and it's like, oh, so there is that out there. Yeah, I don't know how much of, how much you put weight into it, whether it's, you know, 60% or 20% of what's out there, but it's there. And I think that's something we just need to not focus on and not dwell on it, yeah, and just, once again, do the best we can. But it's something that that's it's out there, it's prevalent, and it pops into our heads every once in a

Kenny Bailey<br>: 29:43

while. I think, to your point, well, and I also there's a difference between 35 and 55 right? I mean, if you're a 35 year old racer and coach, right? You know you have a better capability to do something, but, but I think you hit it earlier. I think it's around what, what is your game plan? And if you preach. A particular game plan, or you preach a particular way of approaching a raise, yeah? And then you yourself don't do that. Yeah? I think it's that gap that causes people to be concerned. It's like, yeah, I stuck to my plan. Things what, you know, people know things go awry. They know that, you know, nutrition, I was trying, you know, I had a nutrition plan that's gonna, that's gonna appear, yeah? I mean, that's

Tom Regal: 30:21

the fun part of the race, yeah, it's never a straightforward thing, yeah? So I think

Kenny Bailey<br>: 30:26

more coaches should focus on that. To your point, it's not a time thing. It's a hey, I stuck to them the own the same plan I gave you is the same plan I used for myself. Yeah, the results were what I was hoping it to be. You know, you did beat your time for 14 years, yeah? Yeah. So that's fantastic, right? I mean, 14 years ago, you were racing, and now, you know, 14 years later, we're the best of your time. It's

Tom Regal: 30:47

and it's hard to judge year from year, because it changes in course, changing the temperature, where all of that stuff goes into it, I wonder. And I actually played with this in my mind. I do. I share my race plan before I go and race that's interesting to say, Hey, this is what I'm planning on doing. This is the time I think I can hit for the swim. I'm going to try to do this for all of that. I give that to Wendy because she's watching so she knows when things go awry or when things are good. But I didn't share that with anybody else, and I did think about it. That would

Kenny Bailey<br>: 31:21

be an interesting thing to do, to your point, because I think, as a client, if you guys are looking for coaches, I think, you know, pure time, it may not be the your coach could be a phenom, yeah, right, and well, but if they stuck to their plan, right? That's interesting. So I think it would be almost better to do that, to say, hey, here's, here's, you know, here's the plan I have, and when, if the plan didn't go awry, you discuss that with your clients, right? Like, Hey, okay, and here's what happened. You know, the nutrition didn't hit like I thought it was gonna hit or, yeah, I hit the number it was, it was rough, but I got within the range I wanted to get. Yeah, right? And here's my build up to what I've

Tom Regal: 31:56

done. So if I don't share it ahead of time, to come back and we talk about it afterwards, does it sound like I'm making excuses because I didn't do right? It was like, Well, I had some issues. I had to back off on the bike, but then I did this, but you didn't know what my target was to begin with. If I told you my target was to begin with, and then I came back, and I had to adjust, but I still stayed within my target. Is that better? I know if I looked at a coach and I saw them race, and I knew how they coached, and I saw them do everything wrong or everything opposite of what you said, I would have less respect for that coach. That's my point. Yeah, seeing their seeing the results wouldn't matter at that point, because it's just kind of like, well, your your chain fell off because you didn't take care of it. You didn't have your bike tuned and ready to go in, you didn't have this you weren't prepared for everything. And as a coach, I expect you to be more prepared for things to go wrong, and then watch you adjust for them. And whether it works or not doesn't matter. Well, I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 32:56

think there's also Yeah. So I think, you know, if you're asking my opinion, I think the fact you said, Look, I'm between 110 and 120 I might swim. I got 119 there was, you know, there was some, it wasn't easy getting to the 119 Yeah, my bike corner between X and Y, yeah, like, and then, you know, my, if it goes worse than I expect, it's going to be down here, yeah, and you stay within that. But it's sort of like golf, right? I mean, to me, it's, it's, I know there's a weird analogy, but, like, what makes the difference between a pro and a duffer, right? Pros always make mistakes. They're in sand. They hit in the in rough, yeah, they're all over the place. How they get out of it, right? Yeah. I mean, the wedge shots that these guys are doing, you know, off of a rough on, just like, right onto the green. Yeah, you know, look inhuman, yeah, right. Us mortals can't do that, and that's why they're cashing in the checks, right? I think that to your point, if I have a problem where I have cramps or other things, I I, I combated it this way, and then it fixed it, and now I ran. Yeah? That's to me, like, of course, you're not going to have a perfect race, no. And of course, something's gonna go wrong. It's how you corrected it. Like, oh, I realized into myself, this is what I did. So I'm sharing that lesson with you now clients that you know, and if you noticed, like, you know, I didn't have an assault. I realized that I corrected it, and now I'm busting an 830 on the back six miles, right? That, to me, is, I think, a much better thing to talk about. Then, to your point, you know, I'm gonna do a, I'm gonna do a 59 minute swim, and you do a buck 20, and it's like, yeah,

Tom Regal: 34:28

exactly. Like, really, yeah, yeah. Well, because I knew, well, there's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 34:32

a lot of people like, okay, you know that. You as a coach, you should know that. So I think that's, that's kind of the big takeaway, right? Is just, maybe, just be honest with your your folks, and so

Tom Regal: 34:43

I'll admit to everybody that sharing even even on this podcast, is difficult for me. I am really an introvert, and introverts don't just hide. We actually need energy. So I like group training. I like being out at the swims. I like. Being all of that stuff, I get a lot of energy from everybody, and I appreciate all that energy that you give me. And then I need to go recuperate. Yeah, did swim training camp, and I needed, like, four days just like, be by myself and my thoughts and get through all of that. So I'm not comfortable sharing all of this information. I'm getting over that this is my therapy, yeah, this is my end of the therapy,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 35:21

yeah? And I've been on the other end of that where I've shared, you know, my whole journey, and then I absolutely imploded, yeah, where? And it's not fun, yeah, right. You're like, oh, well, then why don't you shut my mouth and race next time? Yeah, you know. So you have to make that sort of balance, like,

Tom Regal: 35:34

I still appreciate that sharing, even if you implode on it. Yeah, I would rather see that, because I think we learn more from it. Yeah, I think we certainly learn more from it. So that's the things I'm going to try to do going forward. I don't know what races I'm going to do next. I don't really have anything else planned I'm going to do. Let's see what is that gulf coast sprint. Try nice coming up in a week and a half, a week, week and a half. This should come out before that, just before that race. That's my that'll be my fourth sprint for the for the year. And I don't know what I'm doing after that. I'll do some running races. I'll figure out what kind of relax. Yeah, we've got too many other athletes racing, some big stuff. We got armor, Iron Man chat, new coming up in a month, and that's awesome. They'll be fun. That's gonna be some good stuff. Cool opening there. So it's been fun. It's been a good journey.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 36:23

Well, Tom, thank you for sharing. I know, like you said, it's difficult to share, but I think it's important not as a not just as an athlete, but also as a coach, as kind of people learning, right people? You know, this is the whole point of this podcast, is to kind of share information, share ways of like, Hey, how can I get better? What can I do? What can I look for in a coach? How? What expectations of a coach should I? Should I put away? Versus, you know,

Tom Regal: 36:45

hopefully it gives you some additional questions to ask when you're looking for a coach, yeah, the answer to should I get a coach is always yes. At what level you need that Coach, how much you need that coach? What you need that coach to do is, is different for everybody, but just asking the right questions. Just don't take a coach, yeah, right. You need to make sure the personality is bound up, their philosophy, how they how they go through things. There's a lot of really good coaches out there, and it's just finding the right one for you. Yep, is the key. So cool. Thanks Tom, there you go. Thanks everybody. Thumbs up. Stars subscribe. We said that the beginning. We're gonna do it again. So next time we'll we'll be back with the triathletes journey. We'll be bringing some of those episodes. Absolutely. Thanks everybody. Keep the comments coming, and we'll catch you on the next

Unknown: 37:42

one. You