Tom Regal: 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.

Tom Regal: 0:29

Hey, Kenny, how you doing?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:30

I'm doing fantastic. Tom how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:32

I'm fantastic as well. We are here in 2025, let's welcome get this let's get this one started. We're middle of January, where, I mean, this is running me over. To be honest with you, I'm having a hell of a time, isn't it? Got a lot to go, lot to get on to this year we're gonna have, we're gonna have a really good year. But we wanted to get the podcast kicked off again in the right way, just with us, because we want to talk about a couple of things. Mainly we'll get into the meat of it being like planning for the year. That seems to be what everybody's focused on right now, is that we're all trying to plan our seasons out, if we have it. And then there's a few of us that have planned out the next three seasons, which is, I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:14

haven't planned out February, but that's all right, a whole different a

Tom Regal: 1:17

whole different mental illness issue. So how are your holidays? Did we get through everything? Okay, you guys, your family, did good. We're all set there. Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:27

holidays are fun. You know, got through everything. Like you said. We had a bit of a snowstorm here last week. That was our first one for the year. I got a new gravel bike that I haven't ridden because it's been 12 degrees or snowing so or I had the flu. But other than that, you know, have a new bike. No place, you know, no time to ride it. But and staring at it and staring at it every day, I come home and it gives me those sad little eyes. I'm sorry, that's a beautiful How about you, sir,

Tom Regal: 1:51

might throw a picture up here on that. Yeah. No kidding, yeah, um, yeah. Made it surprising. I made it through the holidays. Did a race on New Year's Eve, just to finish the year off right. What race was the wrap up? But I did the the run undead down in Pelham, Alabama, at the Oak Mountain State Park, kind of dropped into a 50k at the last minute, like you do, like you do, and had a blast. Wendy and Rosie hung out while I did loops on a five mile, five mile loop finished just before midnight. So that ended the year. So I've sort of been in the training mode already. That's great. Kind of carried through some winter stuff, which I'm very happy with being able to do, and just finally back in the pool this week. Oh, how does it feel? It my sinuses hate me. Absolutely hate me. I was enjoying

Kenny Bailey<br>: 2:41

that's a new that's a new thing, huh? A couple

Tom Regal: 2:43

of months of actually being able to breathe with no sinus headaches, no droopy, runny nose, any of this, that was kind of nice to go through the holidays that way. And I was dreading getting back in the pool, because I knew this was going to happen, yeah, and I've been in the pool two times this week, and I hate that. So I love the swimming. Swimming is good. That's not as far off as I was expecting it to be, but that's, yeah, the swim thing and the sinuses. That's why I'll be squinting and hopefully not sneezing and sounding really horrible on this podcast. So this year, yeah, what are we looking at for this year? Where, I think we mentioned it in previous podcasts, we have something coming up together. But what are you dialing in? How are you prepping? And what do you like you said you didn't have February planned out yet, but

Kenny Bailey<br>: 3:34

what's the kind of look like? Well, actually, ironically, you've got my February planned out so as my tri coach. So you know, in all seriousness, I've got, you know, we signed up for Louisville half half Iron Man. I've been the last couple years. I've been doing really flat ones. I did Oregon, it was really flat. Half California was was flat. I think this one's gonna be a little bit different. That's gonna be exciting and fun. So February, we both agreed that in February is when I'm going to start sort of the official training. So over the winter, it's sort of lift heavy things, and, you know, continue to do the workout program, continue to try to keep keep the weight down,

Tom Regal: 4:18

even though I was a challenge, right, heavier now than

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:20

I was last year, but that was heavy muscle, not heavy, yeah, fat, so and just try not to get injured. I did a light trail run and nothing hurt, which is good, which is kind of nice, and I think that's so to me. I think I've been holding off until February to get started. I kind of had a personal trainer working on those smaller muscles. I was working on stabilizer muscles with band work and stuff like that, because I knew coming into I generally don't have really good stabilizer muscles. Those are the things I need to work on. You know, I can, quads are working, glutes are working, but it's, it's, you know, IT band, it's, you know, balance between the left leg and the right leg, and not you. Getting my glue to fire on my left side so it doesn't try to trickle down to my leg and start blowing my calves up. So that's been the focus for the off season. And now it's like, Okay, time to do what you're doing right. Time to get back in the pool. Time, yep, start getting bricks. Time to start getting on a bike. My port bikes would love that. So we're getting geared up for that. Yeah,

Tom Regal: 5:19

and I think you did a good job, certainly building that stability and trying to be more durable. I think that's the focus we always try for is to make ourselves durable. We don't do lateral movement very well, so working on those small stabilizer muscles, I think that's key for everybody to be working on. And now is the time, right? You can do this stuff easy at home. You don't have to go to go to the gym to do stuff like this. You can stand on one leg while you're in the kitchen working on something. All you got to do is just these little pieces that kind of build those that stability up and makes you a little bit more durable. So then we'll sit down in February and we'll start dealing on a plan races in August. I believe it's August 17, that's correct. So that gives us a nice that gives us a nice run up for that, I think, with with the work you've done in the fall, and hopefully, I mean, we're supposed to get some single digit temperatures here in the next week, so it's like, well,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 6:13

that's the thing. I think February is a good time to start, you know, start being able to do it. And I think for me, what I need to be able to do is, you know, we haven't talked about it, but I think I, you know, my job is completely overwhelming at this point, so it's just trying to figure out how to find that balance between, like, look, you know, the places are going to blow up if I'm not there for an hour. Like, how do I push that off to one side and and maintain focus, right? And be able to do that, and be able to separate my brain to do training time now versus work time? Yeah, I think it's a challenge everybody has, right? It's trying to

Tom Regal: 6:43

pull that apart. Yeah, absolutely no, that is. So what? What helps you define what your season is going to look like? So when you're looking at, we put the big, the big Harry thing up there, 70.3 so that's in place. What are the surrounding races, what is the setup and ramp up to be? What is that? How do you look at that when you're kind of thinking about it? What's the, what's the mental process that you're running through with that? Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:11

I think you know, for me, I you know, what's my anchor race? What's my a race, right? So August is now, is now the run up for that. So any prep races are designed to be prepared for the August race. So, for example, I want to, I want to be able to do a half marathon, if August is when we're going to do the race, you know, late June, early July. It'd be nice to get a half marathon on the books and be able to race a half marathon where you have a bib and rather than just go run 13, my wife wants to do a half marathon this year too. So I think it'd be a great thing. We kind of combine that thing. So I'm actually doing something with my spouse, rather than ignoring my spouse. But, you know, try to do a half marathon there in order to get that, that side of it, ready. I think that's my biggest deficit is, is the run, and then it's, it's depending on smaller sprint triathlons during earlier in the year. And that is really to look at, focus on transitions, focus on sort of, am I? Is my equipment prepped? Am I do I remember, you know, head, shoulders, knees and toes, right? That's how I do kind of get ready like, am I? Am I? Am I, you know, and the pressure of having that, like I said, having the Getting up early, and having things laid out before the sun gets up, and that sort of pressure of the race, and be able to do that,

Tom Regal: 8:33

and I think that's key. I think I'm a huge proponent of the A, B and C racist, especially the B and C racist, for the fact that, like, if you put, if you put all this emphasis on one event that's out there in the distance, the pressure and the anxiety that builds up as it just keeps building and building and building and everything seems 10 times more intense than ever. And by letting off these little releases of getting used to the butterflies in the morning. On race morning, right? You don't want to get rid of them. You want to have them. That means you care. But the fact is, you don't want to have them so bad that you're throwing up and you're just you can't function, and now the stress is just too much. The idea is to tip your toe in a little bit, work on a couple of those little things like that. That's always good that race morning prep and ready of anything else, even you're doing a sprint, you're doing a sprint, even if you were doing an Ironman race, you're doing some sprint races, because that's all you need, is these little pieces that early morning, getting the nutrition, figuring out you're still getting up early, you're still having to eat. Your stomach needs to get used to that. So kind of you're training your gut at the same time you're training the mental side of it. I think that's always huge. Then what do you look at after? I mean, August is only the middle of the year. How do you what do you like to do, to deal with there is a down on the other side of that race, right? Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 9:55

that's, it's a good point. I think. You know, I'm vacillating back and forth. So there's something. I like trail running. You know, I don't do as much as I want to, and I think you and I talked about during my training session, but that we're gonna do a lot more trail running because I need to pick my feet up, and I just enjoy it. I just, it's a you don't look at your watch. It's not mundane. You don't trudge it on. So I'm not looking to do like a road marathon or whatever. I think it's either do probably a trail run, or I have a new gravel bike, and I in in Tennessee, it's difficult to find gravel stuff, and I just haven't, I haven't plugged into that culture, or plugged into where the maps are at, and, you know, that kind of thing. And I really love to be able to do, like, a really cool back half of the year, do a, do a gravel race,

Tom Regal: 10:37

gravel gravel revival in October, out in Hickory, exactly. Would be, that'd be great, ideal,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:42

yeah? So I think that's a great event, yeah? And it's, it's, uh, it's just completely different, right? So I'm not just try, try, try. And this year, I just, I decided, at least in the last couple years, that doing a full for me at the at this stage in my, you know, kind of my, what my sort of calendar looks like, is just, it's not, it's just not the cards. I don't, I don't have that. Why? Right now, like, I really want to do a, I really want to do a full Ironman, because when you're when you graduate to that one, you better have a why? I mean, it's 2025, hours a week. You it's going to be horrible. You're going to be training 100 degree weather in the middle of the day. You're going to be like, why am I doing this? And right now, I just don't, I don't have that desire. I've done a couple, you know, I know I can do them. I just maybe next year I'll be more cranked up for it. But right now, I think getting a half done is going to be a fun balance between training, where you have to get up and have that oh shit moment in the morning, like, if I don't go out and train, it's going to be a bad day. Yeah, but not so much that I that I'm, you know, 20 hours in. So yeah, that's what I'm doing, yeah, and you're doing, you're doing as well, but you're also looking at a full, right?

Tom Regal: 11:48

I'm looking at a full, but this is my stretch out. So I did Lake Placid in last year, 2024 and I did good. I was happy with the race. I wasn't, I wasn't happy with where my bike and swim were currently, because I took the two years before that to work on my run, and the bike and the run took a little bit of a dip in performance. I did exactly what my training said I could do in the race, which was key, and then so I wanted to focus on that. So that's why I'm only doing the 70.3 this year, because I'm going to go back to Lake Placid. The plan is to go back to Lake Placid in 26 so I gave myself a two year ramp up for that. So that's my my looking. This is where I look. This is how I plan my years out. I plan a couple years in advance and take the steps to get there. So I'll have some, I'll have some of the magic sports sprint races. I'll probably do Music City and Chattanooga riverfront. Those two for sure. I'll be at those races regardless, so I might as well race them and have some fun. Ashland city. I'll be at, but I probably won't race. We'll see, see how I'm feeling, but ultimately that my my checkoff box for the a race is the 70.3 this year, and that will tell me where I am one year out from going back to Lake Placid. So my focus, my focus in the off season, was lifting weights. So I did more strength training than I normally do, and really been working on that and building up core strength. I double back and go, Okay, if I want to hit this goal, I need to work on swim and I need to work on bike. So what do I need to do from that point to get my swim even stronger? So I need to work on building some muscle mass, and my core needs to get more stabilized and more strong. So I've been really focused on doing that part of and that'll continue through the year. And I'm already, I mean, just back in the pool this week, I'm already seeing the effects of this, of the strength training great. So I feel that glide. I feel a little bit more I can I can stretch and tighten my my body a little bit more. It holds form a lot better. So I'm just going to keep pounding on that thing. But my ultimate goal is two years down the road, will be 2026, for Ironman Lake Placid, to go back and do that. That's one of my favorite races of all time. Who knows how much longer they're going to have it? They keep they just extended. I mean, I jumped into it last year because I was afraid that they weren't going to extend the contract. And they did through, I think, 26 or 27 so all of that could change depending on how the year rolls out. So yeah, ton of stuff going on. So So for

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:34

you, then how do you? How do you? Oh, my chair. There we go. I lost me. How do you? How do you go then from August to the following year, what is the rest of 25 is it then just training is I know you, you love to trail run more. I

Tom Regal: 14:48

will throw some more trail runs in there, for sure. I did the the run undead that we just talked about, and I'll probably throw that in there again. There's, there's some other trail runs I'd love to do. I. I'm a huge fan of trail running, for triathletes in general and runners in general, just because it causes you to pick your feet up, it builds like strength, and you're not the same repetitive, you know, beating of your feet the same stride length, all of that stuff. So I'm I love it. It's made me stronger. It's been great. So I'll throw that in there. A lot of it's going to kind of hinge on how I do and how I feel going into Louisville. So Louisville comes out. It's an assessment after the race going, okay, yeah, this is on course. This is where I want to be. And then I set the next stage for where I want to be and what I need to work on. So it'll be a flux. It'll be a flux of what I'm actually working on, but it'll be a lot more training, and I'll throw some races in there. Have some fun. Ain't thinking about, I'd love to do the xterra off road down here at Oak Mountain State Park that's in May. And, yeah, might break the mountain bike out and see, you know, try to go out. Yeah, that thing would be, that would be something different, just to mix up, mix up the training

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:00

a little bit. Yeah. And I've noticed there's been a trend, it seems like, with with triathlon, like it was, I'll try, you know, nothing, but, you know, road, you know, get on a road run, get on a tri bike ride, get on a, you know, get out in the water swim. And you've just seen a lot more people, I think, trying to just mix it up to your point, do an X terror event, because it's fun to do, but it still tests, you know, your endurance, right? Do trail running rather than just straight road running 100% of the time. Yeah, I still gotta get on the road to run, but, you know, at the same time, you can mix it up and have fun. You've just seen a lot more variety from people. And you're, you're noticing that those skill sets still bring itself to bear in the triathlon, which is, which is fun, right? I mean, that's, that's you kind of at the end of the day, we're supposed to have fun at this, right? It's like, that's the whole goal, you know? It's like, you get done and, you know, you like the idea of this. You know, part of the fun is the suffering to know that you, you've gone through the that, that journey of getting to the finish line, and that that's why it feels so satisfying when you get there. Like, I've struggled and I I've, you know, I've had crappy days, and I've had good days, and I've added up more good days and I've had crappy days, and I got to the finish line, and it's a relief. But, you know, yeah, every once while you can go have a side gig, go do fun like, go do like you said, go do a Xterra. I

Tom Regal: 17:12

think the, I think the gravel riding as has opened up people's eyes to a few other things. I mean, it's just when you're doing mountain bikes, you're doing gravel. You're working on bike handling skills. You have to have some bike handling skills. You learn them very quickly, and you're in soft, different terrain, all of that stuff, which is a huge help. It's less boring. It's certainly less boring than sitting on a trainer or just being an arrow on, you know, just putting in the 8090, 100 miles, or whatever the heck you need to be doing. It's just, it just mixes it up, just a little bit. I like the idea that we're enduring sports, athletes. We're multi sports. Yeah, not just, we're swim, bike and run, but it could be anything. That's, you know, the they've got the Attila Swim, swim, run events now they're coming up with some cool stuff. They've got the chroma team race that's here in Nashville, where you're actually in a train team environment. You get to draft each other on the bike, teams of three. This must be their second year. So yeah, I've got to look at when that is. I might be out of town, but I know they moved the date on it, but we have to look the chroma team race would be pretty cool. There's some other fun stuff that I think people are starting to experiment around with and and do things other than pickleball, which

Kenny Bailey<br>: 18:31

is really good for lateral movement, which is for lateral movement, and for, you know, chiropractors, yeah, I think, you know, I think that's, that's part of the thing, right? I mean, I think what we're trying to do on this podcast, what we've been trying podcast, what we've been trying to do all along is is go do fun stuff, and it doesn't have to be that progression of, I've done a sprint, I've done an Olympic I've done a half, I've done a full, like, why? You know, Have you, have you been to Hawaii? Yet? It doesn't matter go, you know, you're active and you're having fun, and you try something, and, hey, man, that may not be the thing I like. You know, one of the things, going back to the gravel run and or the gravel race and the trail runs, the thing that I really that helps too, is, is that mental unplugging of the data, yeah, like, when you're on a road bike, you're sitting there looking at your watch, you're looking at, you know, your speed, and you're looking at your pace, and, you know, is my, do I have a 5149 split on my I mean, I'm looking at all sorts of data. When I'm the run, I'm like, Okay, what's my split times? Yeah, you go on a trail run, it's gonna be whatever the trail gives you, like you, you may be running really fast, or you may be walking up a really big, steep hill, same thing on the gravel. I'm worried about, like, what that terrain is in front of me, not what my if I look down on my computer, I'm gonna end over my handlebars, right? I mean, I want to be able to and so releasing yourself sometimes from the data that that drudge of you know, what's my pace and all that, and just go, go test what your RPE rate of perceived effort is. It's

Tom Regal: 19:49

working body feel for sure. I mean, that's something. And in fact, we're going to throw that in there for some runs and things for you, where we're going to tell you to turn your watch off. You're going to just go out and run for an hour and you're just going. Have to not pay attention, like a

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:05

little hives going.

Tom Regal: 20:07

Usually data, but usually, usually when I have an athlete that tells me that was like, Oh, I forgot to turn my watch on, or something like that. But you know, I did the workout, usually my response is, sure you did

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:18

right? No. And I think once in a while, but really, in an RPE race, it needs you could be such a slave to data, right? Oh my gosh, my you know, like my heart rate's supposed to be here, or I'm supposed to be this faster, or I'm using this many watts. Okay, well, I'm

Tom Regal: 20:30

gonna go out, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that nobody should be wearing a heart rate monitor in the pool. Oh, I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say, don't wear heart. Wow. And we

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:43

just start a controversy right here. Stop it. It's not necessary. Send the emails to Tom dot Regal, yeah,

Tom Regal: 20:52

throw all the hate mail at me exactly. There's there's that.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:55

Now, why do you say that? Why? Why is it just it's stupid. It's

Tom Regal: 20:59

not necessary. It should be more on feel I'm not sure if you're gathering the data, what it's going to tell you, if you're looking at effort against the clock, the time against the clock is what matters. The efficiency of your stroke matters. Your heart rate is going to be what your heart rate is, certainly once you get out into open water. So I'm not sure what that data actually shows you, because there's no pertinent data that goes along. It lags in such a way that it doesn't lock up to anything that becomes useful at this point. Well, you would show me where my panic attack started. Yeah, there's other data modules for that you could follow. Yeah, but it's not really necessary, especially, I mean, yeah, it's on your watch. You've got the optical reader on your watch, whatever, fine, whatever. Just don't put the extra strap on. I see people in the pool a bunch of times with the extra traffic. You don't need it. It's not necessary. Yeah, I don't know. I partly is because I'm jealous, because I can't get mine to stay on. When I put it on like that, and I take one structure, it's around my waist, and then I'm annoyed and bothered by this strap, and I'm just kind of like, it's not, I think it takes away from your your perceived exertion, your body feel, and water

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:17

feel. And that's the thing, I think, with water especially, right? It's all about, you know, making sure you can glide through the water. And if you can glide through the water, then, yeah, you're, you're 90% there, right? And then it's body position efficiency. Yeah,

Tom Regal: 22:32

it's all body position. So cool. So we've got a ton of guests that I'm reaching out to. Hopefully they say, Yes, I got a couple fun things that we're going to talk about. We're going to try to bring in, like we normally do, some some education. We're certainly going to cover a lot of what we're doing in our training, as we usually do. And then, if there's other things, topics, subject matter, that you want to have discussed, please send us some notes. You can reach it. You can reach me at try Tom r@gmail.com you can hit us on Instagram, at the athletes in motion podcast. You can get us on Facebook. You can reach out a bunch of different ways, but give us some notes. See if there's anything that you want us to actually cover. But we're gonna have, we got some nutritionist friends. We're gonna have come back. We've got a really got some gravel stuff. Actually, we've got Shannon from the Tennessee gravel reached out to him, met him at the gravel revival. Really cool dude puts on some great gravel racing down in Alabama, Tennessee, southern, eastern Tennessee, mostly, and does some really cool stuff. And kind of give us a little update on the, on the state of the gravel riding. So there's a bunch of cool stuff. We're going to cover a lot of multi sport and endurance type stuff. Yeah, it's going to be fun. I'm looking for, yeah. And,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 23:52

like you said, if there's tops you guys want, we're going to try to follow the season too. So, you know, find experts or tips and tricks of, you know, hey, you're, you're starting sort of the training. And then midway through the training, how do you, how do you stay consistency? How do you handle injuries, nagging, kind of lagging, pain, yeah. And then how do you kind of mentally prep it, you know, we like to follow sort of the season and, and how, how, you know, hopefully provide you some some people and some advice and some things that can help you. You know, have fun and do a better job. So,

Tom Regal: 24:22

yeah, yeah. So we're gonna balance our crazy schedules, and we're gonna get content out on a more regular basis, which we do a little bit in the fall. But that was so much going on, so we appreciate everybody still sticking with us and being here where this is our fifth season. This is, this is episode 76 or 77 I have to look at the numbers, 1000s of downloads. We really appreciate everybody listening in and and chiming in with all the comments and stuff. So give us, make sure you subscribe. Give this five, five stars, thumbs up, all that good stuff, you know, and helps. Helps this get out there a. Bit more, and we'll we'll certainly have more content coming your way. We're looking forward to a great 2025 absolutely and yeah, thanks everybody. We'll catch you on the next one.