Coach Tom (00:01.282)
Hey Kenny, how you doing?

Kenny Bailey (00:02.616)
I am doing fantastic, Tom, how are you?

Coach Tom (00:04.884)
I'm doing fantastic as well. We're back for another wonderful conversation, just you and I. We've got a few things to talk about. Before we get into that, let's do the business side of things. Make sure you subscribe. You're watching on YouTube or Apple or Spotify or whatever that comes on, subscribe, give us some thumbs up, five stars, all that good stuff. Get the ratings out there. Get this out to everybody else. We really appreciate that.

Kenny Bailey (00:32.185)
Absolutely.

Coach Tom (00:33.33)
I'm keep your questions and comments coming. So what we wanted to talk to today came up in a comment when we asked about it last time. We want to talk about what happens when things don't go to plan. Basically, like on a bigger scale, like you've got issues yourself, you're gonna run into different things, but how do you deal with adversity when it's out of your control? Yeah, we just decided to leave.

Kenny Bailey (00:38.945)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (00:52.912)
Mm-hmm.

Like your dog.

Coach Tom (01:02.958)
Especially like we've had so many swims canceled like just between last year and this year Just for us Chattanooga was close. We've got you know What was the one in Georgia was canceled last year and the swim down in Florida was canceled this year so The question came up is like how do you process that? mean mentally it's tough, especially if it's your first race your first race at that distance whether it was the half-iron full iron

Kenny Bailey (01:15.642)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Kenny Bailey (01:26.35)
Sure.

Kenny Bailey (01:32.942)
All the anxiety, all the preparation, all of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (01:33.282)
That's, that's you're building up, you're building up and now do you feel like incomplete? so what do you do? What's your, what you've been through this, right? You, you had a, it's a bomb cyclone hit. Are we allowed to say bomb on this? Yeah. Bomb cyclone. It's a weather thing. bomb cyclone hit California and you were getting your wetsuit on first thing in the morning. Now that killed the whole race. Right.

Kenny Bailey (01:42.511)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (01:46.156)
Bomb, I learned a new word, yeah, bomb cyclone. Yeah, I don't know, probably. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (01:59.653)
Yep.

Yeah, mean, it was pretty cool. I lived in Sacramento for 20 years. They decided Ironman Sacramento would be their next new location. Immediately signed up, super excited. I kinda needed that recharge. I was getting kind of like losing my why. And so the idea of being able swim in the river that I spent 20 years next to. I ran every course, I biked every place. I know it like the back of my hand. I was excited. The West Coast doesn't have, okay, apparently don't have hurricanes or.

tornadoes have bomb cyclones. It's a beautiful day on a Saturday. The sky unloaded at 2 a.m. and just dumped 40-millan-hour winds. The Porta Potty's were literally floating down Main Street in the morning. There was a palm tree on a car. It's insane. So to your point, here you are. spent close to 11 months in training. Physically, you those hot days in Tennessee where

Coach Tom (02:45.046)
If you see the videos, it's pretty impressive. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (02:57.296)
You don't want to be out there, but you know you have to be out there. You're trying to finish, you're dealing with pain, you're trying to come in healthy, you're trying to do all those things. then that day, mean, act of God, right? can't, this isn't like, oops, we screwed up or oops, my bike was broken. was debris in a river that going 30 miles an hour and driving rain and.

The hotel lost power, mean it was just, it's everything like a hurricane you thought it would be. It's basically on the West Coast. And Sacramento is, does it, California can't handle that much rain that fast. And so flooded, so what do you do? mean it's, you go through, I mean you go through all the emotions, right? You you're super pissed, right? You go, I can't believe this happened. I just spent 11 months training.

Coach Tom (03:36.078)
quickly. So what did you do? What did what was your? Yeah, you got really pissed off. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (03:48.688)
What do I do? I'm drinking a beer at 9.30 because why not? I'm sitting in a hotel literally in the dark at four o'clock in the afternoon because I'm trying to eat a pizza in the dark. The only thing works is the elevator. My iPad, all my battery died on everything so I literally have nothing to do. We knew it was coming. We kind of knew it. The funny part about it is, to your point, we were there. It's 5.30 in the morning.

Coach Tom (03:53.479)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (04:01.944)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (04:17.38)
driving wind, you can't even shut your door because it's raining so hard. People wore their wetsuits out of the hotel because that was a brilliant idea. Why get all wet and then get into a wetsuit? So they're literally coming out of the hotel in their wetsuit. And I'm in a tent halfway, trying to pull my, and I can't believe we're doing this. We got a couple thousand people that are literally gonna jump in the water with driving rain. I would have to pull over, I'm a fairly good, I can handle my bike really well.

Coach Tom (04:27.778)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (04:45.276)
And I'm going, I'm going have to pull over just to pull a bottle. And I'm like, I can't believe I'm thinking about this, right? I mean, it's like, and they canceled it and a lot of people were upset. There were people that ran the course anyway. They were like, I'm here, I'm so mad. I'm going to run the course. I'm like, there's debris. mean, people. So the hard part was, you know, the, the acceptance of that, like, Hey, you just can't deal with it. You're pretty bummed. You spent a lot of money, a lot of time and all that. The hard part is getting that gumption to go do it again. Right? It's that.

Coach Tom (04:49.954)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (05:12.866)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (05:14.02)
that 10 months that you spent and now it's January and you thought, okay, this was supposed to have been done in October, January, you you're turning around like, okay, now I have to climb the mountain of doing the training, starting over, putting the miles in, hope I don't get injured, deal with the hot weather, hard summer, go to fall, where, you know, so.

Coach Tom (05:21.486)
Are you gonna do it all over again? Yeah.

Coach Tom (05:34.232)
So for that one, for that one, they give you the option of going to a different race like earlier in the season? They gave you basically just anything next year, right? Cause this was September.

Kenny Bailey (05:39.172)
They did.

Kenny Bailey (05:44.144)
Well, actually, I think it was early October because what they did is they, because Ironman Arizona, there were two races at the end. was Arizona, I think it's Costa Rica was the last two, I think, or Puerto Rico, one of the islands. That one. So there was limited spots in Arizona. So they said, if you want to do it, hurry up and get in Arizona. That wasn't an option for me. And then I think one, it was an ocean swim.

Coach Tom (05:47.182)
It was October, right? Yeah.

Coach Tom (05:56.942)
Okay. Cosmo, right? It's Cosmo. Yeah, Mexico.

Coach Tom (06:08.681)
Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (06:12.464)
And, or they just deferred you to the next, by default they deferred you to the next Iron Man California, or you can register for any Iron Man in the following year. And I just kept to Sacramento because I wanted to do Sacramento. And I'm glad I did because I finished it, it was fun, yeah, yeah. But I think that's the hard part. The hard part, on a complete cancellation, it feels funky.

Coach Tom (06:24.536)
Yeah, Yeah, that's, you wanted to get there and do it. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (06:37.304)
I haven't experienced, I don't have experience with the idea of just the swim portion got canceled. Or you get an altered course because of issues, or, or, or, right? I think for me, that's part of the chess game. I guess if you look at it that way, I mean, it really is. If you think about it, we're playing chess. It's three different sports, trying to figure out how to balance between, you know.

Coach Tom (06:47.512)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Coach Tom (07:00.206)
Ahem.

Kenny Bailey (07:02.308)
Do I aggressive, am I aggressive on the swim? Do I hold back on the bike? You know, at what point, how do I fuel? What if it's humidity? What if it's cold? What if it's raining? What if it's, you know, all of those things that you're trying to figure out your three moves ahead, right? Okay, if I do this, then this, then this is gonna happen, right? If I bring this, if I, you know, my, yeah.

Coach Tom (07:07.896)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (07:21.606)
were staring at the weather on the way in. I remember back to, so when I think about my first Ironman in Lake Placid back in 2010, they almost canceled the swim. And because it was a storm and there was a potential storm and it was a little rainy and it was there and there could have been some lightning and they would have, so they delayed it like, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes. And I just remember

Kenny Bailey (07:28.4)
Kenny Bailey (07:32.036)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (07:38.565)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (07:45.882)
Mm.

Coach Tom (07:48.534)
I remember that feeling of wanting to do it regardless. Like we're so locked in, so locked in for the year of training leading up to it that yeah, you were willing to risk your life and lightening just because I want to be an Ironman and I have to do the swim, the bike, the run. And, and I remember that feeling. having done some now, I approach things a lot differently. I think even if they just canceled the swim, it's like, okay, well, there's no swim. We just move on.

Kenny Bailey (07:51.864)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (08:02.574)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (08:08.325)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (08:18.286)
Right? We just do the bike and the run. I get the disappointment side of things. Um, I don't understand the people that were like, I'm going to go to the YMCA and swim in the morning before, and then get over here and do the bike. And because it's, it's, it's still not the same. So you did. So you did it. Uh, uh, yeah, it's, and it's hard to, it's hard to process as a little bit of disappointment, but I think in the grand scheme of things, if you do it long enough, like that little blip is nothing.

Kenny Bailey (08:28.153)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (08:31.96)
Yeah, live to fight another day, right?

Coach Tom (08:48.106)
on the map that draws itself out. But for the people who doing the one and done, that's got to be tough. That's got to be super tough because now you were just going to do, check this box once and now like they were going to do Chattanooga full and they canceled the swim. What do you do? Right? You're still, you still completed the race because that's all there was, was the bike and the run, but you didn't do the Ironman type thing. do you feel, you know,

Kenny Bailey (08:59.396)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:13.317)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (09:17.27)
I'm sure most people who did that felt obligated to themselves to do it again, right? To sign up for another one. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:23.29)
Well, I want to ask a question to the audience, If you have a swim that's canceled, do you consider it an Ironman? I would love our folks to tell us, yeah, is it considered a full Ironman? Correct, yeah. So do you feel like you did the race or do you feel like, I mean, I guess the extreme point of that is if did the full Ironman, would you go get the tattoo? Right, yeah, yes, I could play an Ironman.

Coach Tom (09:30.382)
Yeah. Or a full race, yeah. Or half if it's the 70.3 because they canceled the 70.3 swim. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (09:44.898)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:47.696)
and all that sort of stuff. But it's interesting when you, there's sort of a, there's two ways to approach it. One is you fight it the whole way. And the other one is like, you just, you roll with the punches, you figure out what to do next, and you just sort of move on. And the people that tend to do better,

And I'm in the former camp where I try to fight it, right? Like, my gosh, there's gonna be waves, or my gosh, it's gonna be raining, or my gosh, you what do I do? Like, somehow I'm gonna get away with it. Like, if it's raining, if I just do this, or if I wear this on my shoes, somehow I'm gonna keep my feet. No, right? At some point, you just have to accept the weather and the fate that it is, and say, okay, well, alright, I'm just gonna shift my thinking to your point. No swim, okay, well, slough that part off. Yeah, I know I spent...

Coach Tom (10:09.195)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (10:12.546)
Yeah, yeah.

Coach Tom (10:20.686)
Ha

Kenny Bailey (10:31.664)
A majority of my time was going through the water and it was painful and I hated it but I'm ready now and I don't know if I can be ready again. know, okay, put it out on one side. I need to focus on, how do I shift my nutrition a little bit? What do need to do get ready for the bike? How do I make sure that I've got fresh legs? I don't want to go in too hot because one of problems when you don't do the swim is you treat it like a time trial at beginning because you're anxious. You've that and you want to go, right?

Coach Tom (10:55.982)
There were so many people at Chattanooga at the 70.3 that were just blew themselves up on the bike. I was there at the start. I was about not even a half mile up the course right there at the front. And they were hammering it in a group, like hammering it. And then you had one or two people that were trying to start their watch and were weaving back and forth all over the place, which is a whole different issue. Yeah, awareness.

Kenny Bailey (11:03.013)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Sure.

Kenny Bailey (11:12.452)
Yep. Yeah.

Which is on another podcast. Situational Rewards. There you go.

Coach Tom (11:25.39)
And yeah, so but they were hammering it off and even a couple people that they blew by they just were shaking their heads like What are you doing? I mean, this is like we've got a we've got a long day out here in the heat and like this You're not making up anything. So I don't know

Kenny Bailey (11:31.62)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (11:41.296)
Yeah, and I think it's those... I wish I could adopt that. I mean, I'll be honest. I'm not that good at it. I tend to resist at first and get upset. the second year I did Ironman California, so it was in Sacramento, weather was going to weather and sure enough, the second year was a 40 mile an hour, you know, 30 mile an hour sustained, 40 mile an hour gust on the way out or on the way back. So you're spending, you know, 20 plus miles an hour on the way out. Turn around, I'm doing 11 miles an hour on the way back.

Coach Tom (12:02.466)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (12:10.32)
Now, I could try to fight that thing all I want and just burn calories and burn watts to get myself to what, 12 and a half miles an hour? And I'm passing people, I'm doing 11.9 and I'm passing people. Billy Goats passing me, but it's sort of like, at some point you just need to accept the fact that this is what it's gonna be, especially because it's a two loop thing. And so you get out of that and you're like, wow, now I gotta go do it again.

Coach Tom (12:21.838)
And you pass before, yeah.

you

Coach Tom (12:33.794)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you got to hit it again. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (12:37.388)
and it's not going out, it's coming back. So the last thing you're gonna get is just a sustained headwind. And I remember the last two miles, I'm literally yelling at the wind at that point. I'm like, just give me the last two. Nope, you're gonna just squeeze me for everything it's worth. Got it. But I think that tendency to fight, it's the same thing with the swim, right? You don't do a very good job in the swim when you fight the water. It's the same mental, yeah.

Coach Tom (12:45.774)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Coach Tom (12:58.072)
But what do you talk through your head? What's going through your head when you're pushing into that headwind? So this is, we're talking about stuff that's outside of your control here, right? So this is wind conditions, this is weather, this is the race organizers having to change up something last minute. What are you thinking about? I mean, you're getting mad at it at first. So were you going through all the stages? When do you go up and just get defeated and go, whatever?

Kenny Bailey (13:03.493)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (13:13.658)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (13:19.61)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (13:27.62)
Well, I think it's a stage process to your point, right? You see the, first off, you're like, it's sustained 30 miles an hour winds. Okay, any idea of a PR or any idea of, I had a time in my head that I think if the wind was fine, given the course conditions, everything else, I can probably do this time. Then it's like, okay, at this point, you go back to the basics, right? You go back to the basics, which is miles an hour for me is a secondary measurement.

Coach Tom (13:27.95)
It is what it is.

Coach Tom (13:48.75)
That ain't happening. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (13:56.93)
It's watts and it's perceived effort, right? So if I happen to be going 11 miles an hour on the same watts that I'm doing 23 miles an hour on the way out, then that's what it is. And so what I had to do is just throw away the idea of speed, throw the idea away of time. It took me nearly seven hours to do this damn course. that is way longer than it needs to be. It was probably well over an hour slower.

Coach Tom (13:56.972)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Kenny Bailey (14:21.122)
It's not gonna be my PR day. And that was a course, could be a PR course. I mean, it's designed to be a PR course. Not today, like not today. So it's sort of like, you just go back to the basics. Like, what did I train for? I trained for watts and rate of perceived effort. That's what I use to control myself. And that's it. And then speed is secondary. So it's like, you get what you get, you hope.

Coach Tom (14:25.346)
Yeah. Yeah. Not... Yeah. Wasn't happening.

Coach Tom (14:35.576)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:43.576)
You know you're gonna do longer on the bike, so you hope you have the fuel that you thought you had, right? Make sure you start relying, you start thinking through, you've got time on a bike now. So, mm, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then I think the other thing, and you know this, right? Just anything with a sport like this that's so long and so big, it's like, I know when I go...

Coach Tom (14:51.064)
You definitely got to focus on the fueling to get through that because you still got to run after that, that type of thing. that's, yeah, that's.

Kenny Bailey (15:08.056)
back, I'm gonna hit a headwind. I know it's gonna be a headwind for six miles and I'm gonna take a right hand turn for like a little bit of time, about a half a mile, and then I'm gonna go back into the headwind. I am not going 28 miles back in headwind. What I'm doing is I'm doing six miles back in headwind and I get a half a mile to go, and then I'm gonna go back, right? So you just, you count the chunks. I just need to make it to this road. I just need to make it to this cutoff or this turnoff. I just need to make it to this sign or this bridge or this turnaround or whatever it is.

Coach Tom (15:25.772)
Yeah, back, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (15:37.922)
and you start reducing it to manageable chunks. I I had to get down to like, I'm gonna make it to the end of that road and I'm not gonna look up. then, you know, what would take me three minutes, you know, 10 minutes later I look up and I'm like, okay, fine, okay, I made it past that road. There, okay, I'm gonna make it, correct. Yeah, correct. Yep, yeah, yep, yep.

Coach Tom (15:45.048)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (15:52.226)
finally there yet that ultimate goal comes in of finishing the race. That's where it goes back. I always say your first goal is always to finish the race. And then you have all these other great things. I want to have a good, good swim, a good bike, good run. I want to have good transitions. You could still do a lot of that. You can still have good transitions. If you're facing conditions that are really rough or no swim, you still need to finish the race, right? So you still that last bastion of whatever. I

Kenny Bailey (16:07.342)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (16:13.829)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (16:17.562)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Tom (16:20.75)
If I only accomplish one thing today, it's I finished the race and regardless of the conditions and what they threw at us. Um, I did the, I did a race on the big Island, um, called monster try. Um, it was, uh, uh, 140.6 wasn't a, uh, I am branded race, uh, on the same course. Uh, it was in February and they had a storm that rolled in that basically shut down all the beaches. Um, and everything I was the only person that did the long course.

Kenny Bailey (16:23.566)
Yep. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (16:38.544)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (16:50.158)
And to get up to Javi for the turnaround took me, I think, just under two hours. I flew. It took me four hours to come back. And I was leaning sideways towards the ocean and trying to stay upright the whole time, just grinding all the way back. yeah, it just kind of put your head down. was just like, just needed to complete the race. All I needed to do was complete the race. it was, they had...

Kenny Bailey (16:54.394)
Mm.

Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (17:01.136)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (17:14.276)
Yeah, at this point. Yeah.

Coach Tom (17:19.438)
I had a nice guy following me that I didn't know in a car just to make sure that I didn't die out there. It was kind of fun. We had a really good time.

Kenny Bailey (17:23.888)
Yeah, mean, like the Half Ironman in Oregon I did my first one, great race. But the road conditions, know, they had a couple of potholes, some railroad crossings. So there's some bounces, right? You see water bottles. I saw somebody's bike seat and bike post, which I don't know how they finished that. Like, that's a telling. Like, you ride by like, well, that's not good.

Coach Tom (17:40.674)
yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (17:45.56)
That's crazy. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (17:49.058)
And so I'm coming back and I've got a pretty good clip going. I'm feeling good about this, right? Swim turned out fast. I was really good about the swim. Bike was going well. I was clocking at a good pace. I hit the railroad track and bam, my handlebars jarred loose. So now I have loose handlebars, which you kind of need. So I had, I couldn't be down to my drops because they're all over the place now and I've got like six miles left to go. And so...

Coach Tom (18:04.055)
Yeah.

Yeah

Coach Tom (18:11.512)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (18:14.8)
I got to an area where I was able to come down a hill, I doing about 22, 23, hoping that my front end didn't fall apart. And then I kind of went off to one side and I had to sit up for six miles and go like 16 miles an hour. And all these people I passed, I had to tell them I didn't bonk. Like I didn't bonk, it's mechanical. It's like this guy. I just want to be clear, it's a mechanical. But then again, so.

Coach Tom (18:27.842)
Yeah, just to get back.

Coach Tom (18:33.166)
The first thing the first thing was like, what does it look like, you know?

What you were really hoping is, what you're really hoping is that there wasn't a photographer in that last six miles because it was going to be your.

Kenny Bailey (18:44.784)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so I wanted, I think I wanted under three hours on that one at minimum. And I rolled in at 259.59 with having to pull up. So I got it. again, I can't.

Coach Tom (18:49.966)
Yeah. Yeah.

Take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (18:58.51)
Like these are handlebars, man. I should have, you know, but I was able to, it was just the sticks. It wasn't the whole handlebar. So they were just so loose I couldn't, so I just had to pull up and kind of finish it out. So then you switch, I think the point is you switch your brain, right? It's like that's the part where you have to.

Coach Tom (19:12.247)
ride the bass bar.

Kenny Bailey (19:20.304)
That's the lesson you learn. It's like, okay, if I'm sitting up and I can't do this, well, I got six miles now to keep my legs loose, get some fuel in before the run, just, you know, pedal my legs out and yeah, I'm gonna go 16 to 18 miles an hour, not 22. Okay, so just pedal it back. Now just get some fuel, relax my back, you know, you're kind of up, you're doing that. And you take what you get. It's sort of you MacGyver, you have to do sort of a mental MacGyver, right?

These components are now missing, what do I do to just put these components together to still finish my race? And I hope you're at a most terrible.

Coach Tom (19:54.434)
And that's what I love about the race. mean, it could be sprint, Olympic, half full, that it's, it's, it mimics life in the best way because you can be as prepared as you want. But what you need is to be ready to pivot because it's never going to go perfect. You're never going to have everything just line up. You're going to cramp at some point, or you're going to have something that's going to come up and cancel the race. You're going to have a mechanical.

Kenny Bailey (19:58.894)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:05.742)
Yeah. Yep.

Kenny Bailey (20:12.133)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:20.964)
Yep. Yep.

Coach Tom (20:23.886)
that's going to force you and you have to at that point, we talk about the things outside your control. Like if you have a mechanic on your bike, whether it's a flat tire that you can't fix or broken spokes, shall we talk to Brandon? You know, there's things where you have to sit there and make that choice of like, okay, this is dangerous. I'm just going to stop. And I got to tell you, that's hard to do. I mean, we're not wired for that. We're not wired to just quit.

Kenny Bailey (20:36.612)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:45.466)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, 100%.

Coach Tom (20:52.128)
So we try to find some other way around it. And I think a lot of that is like, how, how aware can you be of your surroundings going over to the aid station? Can we fix this? Is there some way, what are our options to do all of that stuff? And a lot of people, especially newbies getting into this thing, doing all this thing, they're so tunnel vision focused on this, them in the race that they can't set back and make those decisions.

Kenny Bailey (21:00.048)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (21:21.72)
they're still way too emotional, they're not thinking about it in a very, I don't know, what do I call it, stoic kind of way of being able to process it a little bit better. And I think that that helps.

Kenny Bailey (21:32.154)
Well, I think you hit it well, which is this isn't going to be your only race of your lifetime. We hope not anyway, right? And so you sort of like, you know, I sat up, I go, OK, it's not going to my fastest bike, but it's going to be a decent one, you know.

Coach Tom (21:39.01)
Yeah, you hope not. Yeah, stay in the sport.

Kenny Bailey (21:47.512)
not going to be, you know, so just take what you get. Which is funny because, you know, I'm the guy that goes absolutely bat shit crazy when I have to get traffic that I don't feel like traffic should be. Like everyone's stupid in front of me, everyone. Right? I'm the only smart person on the road right now. Right? And so those things I get incredibly impatient with, but what you learn is when you start doing this sport is that, you know, everyone gets the sign, they put it up or they'll post it on their Instagram about, know, you can control what you control and you don't freak out about the stuff you can't control. That's easy.

Coach Tom (21:57.634)
Yeah,

Kenny Bailey (22:17.465)
to say and it's easy to put on a poster but it's really hard to do. But I think to your point, it's a race. You're not trying to save a life. You're not a heart surgeon and if I don't get this person, it's a race. It's like, hey, there's plenty more coming up. You're not pros. Yeah, my sponsor's not going to cancel me. I hope not. My wife's getting… Yeah. She might cancel me but…

Coach Tom (22:33.942)
And we're not pros. We're not making any money off of it.

Yeah. Yeah, my smarts. She might cancel me. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (22:44.558)
But the point is, you're right, I'm not Lionel Sanders, I don't have fresh heat that's gonna breathe down my neck if I don't get this done. It's like, hey, just put it back in perspective. Okay, this is what I have, I'm gonna MacGyver my way through this thing, get to the end, take notes and go, okay, I'm gonna make sure that my bolts and my head unit on my bike is going to be ready to go because I know this is gonna be a bumpy race.

Coach Tom (23:10.978)
Yeah. Well, I can relate it back to Gulf shores last year. It's the last, my last race of the season went down to Gulf shores doing the sprint. it's a, I don't know, 300 meters swim in the, in the ocean with a 12 mile bike and a two mile run. And it's flat. mean, it's flat, flat, flat, super stormy the night before. I actually kind of surprised that it cleared up enough for us to actually get the race done. So everything's still wet.

Kenny Bailey (23:14.18)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (23:36.698)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (23:39.986)
I didn't bring tubes to put on the back, so didn't have CO2 tubes and spares on mine. And of course, because it's a big, I would have had it, but I forgot it. I left it on the other bike. I didn't transfer it back and forth. So of course, because it's wet, there's more flats. It's just know that if there's a wet race, you will get a flat tire. I have every race I've done in the rain has had a flat tire. I have at least one. So I forget it. I'm like, okay.

Kenny Bailey (23:42.277)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, good it's a short race, right?

Kenny Bailey (23:50.244)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (24:09.612)
Whatever we get out there we do the turnaround. We're flying along. We're having some fun. I'm racing a bunch of guys in my age group Really, you know, we're joking about everything and I get a front flat tire that goes down hard I mean it went it was a big gash. It was a big piece of glass It ended up being a big piece of glass. There was a wreck up in front of me as well there's a whole bunch of people with flat tires and Yeah, that the the wheel just grabbed went over and just slammed me to the ground BAM went down

Kenny Bailey (24:17.764)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (24:35.834)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (24:39.15)
I was pissed. I was really pissed. was, I'll admit, I was really pissed. I was annoyed at a bunch of different things. And then I was thinking like, okay, well, I don't have a spare. And then I'm even more pissed because I didn't, of course I didn't have the spare. The only race I didn't have a spare, that's the one I get a flat tire in. I'm all scraped up. My arm is all scraped up. I tucked and went under and I start walking back and I'm like, I'm just gonna quit.

Kenny Bailey (24:50.981)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (24:55.311)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (25:07.458)
This is, you know, this is not worth it. And I realized that we're so far out. There's no sidewalks. There's no shops. There's nothing. There's just sand and beach homes on this stretch. And I'm like, I'm on the race course. I'm going to have to stand on the race course in everybody's way, or I could just move forward. and it took me a few minutes to process this. I really had to go through it because I was like all annoyed about a bunch of things on a short race that we're just supposed to have some fun.

Kenny Bailey (25:17.274)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:34.884)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (25:37.12)
I was starting to feel the effects of bouncing off the pavement, which I don't do very well. And I'm like, this hurts. I'm bleeding. so Marshall comes up to me as I'm walking and I'm just kind of like, hey, if, if one of the support guys can catch me, I'm, I'm going to head back. I have to, I have to finish the race. Well, I don't have to finish the race. I need to get back there anyway. It's going to take, it's going to take my wife, you know, three hours to be able to come down and get me. And I'm not just going to sit here.

Kenny Bailey (25:40.004)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:44.772)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:52.485)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:56.261)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:59.962)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (26:04.59)
Yeah, might as well just start. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (26:06.616)
had there been a coffee shop or a place to get pancakes or something, I might've stopped. But I started moving along and I started thinking like, okay, this isn't, know, like I'll just keep going. This is no big deal. It's flat. It's not like I have to climb anything. And my heels were getting all ripped up because of the sand. And so then I started running on my cleats. It's just, it's actually easier to run on your cleats than to try to walk heel to toe type of thing. So I start moving along and now I'm moving.

Kenny Bailey (26:24.026)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (26:37.186)
I'm not moving super fast, but I'm moving around. I think I ended up doing like nine minute miles. Literally when I looked at my watch when I was finished and I just kept going, had my bike, I was rolling it through. totally. I was coming up on other people that were quitting. Other people had flats and like the Marshall came over like two other times to me and I'm just kind of like, I just, whatever. I'm just going to make it. I made it all the way back. And then went out and did a two mile run and finished.

Kenny Bailey (26:38.906)
But you're moving. You're going forward.

Like Chris Froome. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (26:52.773)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (27:01.616)
So that's awesome.

Kenny Bailey (27:05.86)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (27:06.242)
So I finished the race and then I went to the med tent and got banished up and everything. But I had to go through the process in my head and I had to think about what I coach and what I preach to my athletes is that you always finish, right? If I had broken bones, different story, right? If I had smashed, if I had been like the guy that went into the back window of a car in front of me, I would have stopped, right? He was pretty bloody.

Kenny Bailey (27:10.117)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (27:17.69)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (27:24.46)
Of course,

Kenny Bailey (27:29.154)
jeez, Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Tom (27:35.31)
But it was that like had to go through the steps and going like, okay, it's it is what it is, right? Okay, fine. I'm okay. The bike's a little bashed up. Like it ended up being okay. It destroyed a brand new tire, which was more annoying because that's like $90 right there, right? And it just absolutely just destroyed the tire. But I made it back and I was just kind of like, you know what? All things considered, it could have been much worse. And I did finish, slowest sprint.

Kenny Bailey (27:40.975)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (27:49.56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Tom (28:05.262)
try that I've ever done, but it doesn't matter about the time. was just like physically I had to get through all of that, but it took me a little bit. Right. And then when people started cheering me on on this sidewalk, when we did finally get back into town and people were watching, they were just kind of like, you're okay. I'm like, yeah, just flat tire. Can't, you know, like, they see me bleeding and they're like, geez, I'm like, go man. And all of a everyone's cheering you on. You're like, well, now I kind of have to finish, but it's that, it's that mental processing to get through. Right.

Kenny Bailey (28:06.096)
Rrrrr

Kenny Bailey (28:14.789)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Tom (28:34.862)
That's the part I could have thrown the bike and I would have been really annoyed and just started cussing at people and the marshal and everybody else and the traffic and whatever. And it was just, took me a few minutes to get over that little bit of anger on it. And then just sit back and go like, but my wife has no idea what's going on because I don't have a phone. So she's like, probably going to freak out that I'm not back when I'm supposed to be back. So, and sure enough she was. Yeah, she was a little worried.

Kenny Bailey (28:38.948)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (28:53.637)
Yeah.

Yep.

Kenny Bailey (29:03.322)
Yeah, but you made it.

Coach Tom (29:04.44)
Cause nobody knew where it was. And yeah, I made it back, but it was that, I think it was going through that mental process. That checklist I had to do was I had to get really pissed off first, that initial emotional reaction, right? And then I, and then I was able to respond to it quickly to switch back and go, okay, let's respond to this. We don't want to have that reaction of anger or, I can't believe they're not going to let us do the swim or whatever. it, it came through that whole process. So when they canceled the swim down in

Kenny Bailey (29:12.346)
Yeah. Yep. And allow yourself to do that, right? Yeah.

Coach Tom (29:34.274)
Chattanooga for the 70.3 just a month ago. Same thing where people were getting really annoyed about, but it's the swim. We're all going downstream. We're all gone. And I had to go, wait a second, think about it. Let's look at the process that we have, like over 50,000 cubic feet per second river moving. Like, that's ridiculous. I said at 30,000 feet per second, like the kayakers can't stay in position.

Kenny Bailey (29:44.794)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (29:55.12)
Yeah. Yeah. Choose life. Yeah.

Coach Tom (30:04.14)
So forget the swimmers, right? Great, we'll just throw you in there and catch you in a net at the back end. The idea that you have to start thinking bigger picture about the whole thing is like the kayakers can't stay in position. And even if they could, they can't get to you if you needed help. And that's the issue, right? That's where it's, and we have to get out of that emotional reaction state to...

Kenny Bailey (30:13.551)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (30:20.29)
Exactly. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (30:27.3)
Yeah, of me. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (30:28.942)
to think about it, yeah, of me, of me, this is my race, this is my thing, this is all about me. Well, yeah, there's also 3,000 of you out there. So let's think about all of me's and everybody that's out there and kind of go through it. there's kind of like a mental checklist you have to go through where you can actually kind of go through and get that emotional reaction out of the way. Try not to be a dick about it. And then, then.

Kenny Bailey (30:40.802)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (30:57.608)
of rationally respond to it and go like okay bigger picture yeah this is a race I wanted to do it's the perfect time of my life for me to actually do an iron man and sort of my first iron man to do I'm probably not going to be able to do it again next year blah blah blah whatever the things come in well I'm sorry but that's life at that point and

Kenny Bailey (31:06.702)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (31:11.408)
Mm-hmm. Yeah? Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (31:17.604)
Well, and so to put a bow tie on it though, right, the good news is when you get done, there's a couple things. I mean, you have stories, right, that are epic, right? And you have confidence. So I know, you know, I can deal with a 40 mile an hour headwind because I've done it, right? I know I can deal with a nagging injury because I've done it. I know that I, based on the experience of before, I know how to take care of this now.

Coach Tom (31:28.269)
god yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (31:46.96)
So every time you have an adversity on these things, you build up a knowledge base that, and you can look back and think to yourself, okay, how could I have handled that better differently and come out to your point? But you've done this enough where you're like, well, okay, get mad, okay, got that done. Now I can either quit or I can just kinda move in relentless forward progress. Like somebody's gonna pick you up, they can pick you up at mile four or they can make you make it mile 10, might as well just start walking and see what happens.

Coach Tom (32:08.788)
It was forward progress, yes.

Kenny Bailey (32:16.536)
As long as you move forward, So forward's a pace. But then you look back on that and say, well, okay, now I have the confidence to know that I can get through that because I'm dead in that. I got the confidence I can get through that choppy water because I wasn't expecting it to be this horrible, windy, terrible today. It was supposed to be smooth, but I got through it, right? So that's the kind of the good thing about adversity is if you pass the test, mentally...

Coach Tom (32:18.466)
Just keep moving forward. Yep. Keep forward.

Kenny Bailey (32:42.084)
you know, emotionally and physically, then you can go, okay, I'm ready for the next one. It's not gonna be as scary because I know I got through this. And so with that, me, I can handle the next one. Okay, well this is not gonna go, okay, you know.

Coach Tom (32:42.328)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (32:55.062)
And I think that, yeah, that gets us to focus on not the event itself, but we try to say the journey is the training, right? The training is the lifestyle. The training is what really makes you who you are. The event is just the cap, right? That just ends it, that type of thing. So I think in that sense, exactly what you're saying is that, like, you know you can get through all these pieces because it made you stronger.

Kenny Bailey (33:07.354)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (33:12.26)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (33:22.734)
And anytime we face adversity, we grow. We need adversity to grow. A soft life and easy life doesn't make you a better person because there's no adversity. You become a better person with adversity. So how do you face this adversity that comes through? And in this sense, like canceling the race on the grand scheme of things is not that bad, right? There's a lot worse things that could happen to you that would be... Yeah, darn.

Kenny Bailey (33:26.266)
Yep. Yep.

Kenny Bailey (33:47.632)
I have to train to be healthy for two years in a row now. You know, it's like, you know, I mean on the one on the bad side It's it's gonna be a lot of work. But hey, you know, it's a lifestyle you do and you get back in Yeah

Coach Tom (33:55.82)
Yeah, it sucks. It sucks. There's money that's involved. You kind of get into that thing. But once again, we also look back at the gratitude side of things of like, you know, the fact that we're able to do this. Even even if we're just doing a one and done check to check the box and move on to something else. I mean, it's special that we were able to do this. There's so many people that don't have the ability, don't have the time, don't have the money, don't like there's so many things that are strikes against them for

Kenny Bailey (34:03.141)
Go.

Sure.

Coach Tom (34:23.874)
getting into this kind of lifestyle. having a little bit of that gratitude and having some of that emotional control in a sense that gets you there. So, and think about the journey, think about what you've gone through and the friends that you made, kind of looking at the bigger picture of how we get through this thing and go like, well, well, there'll be another time I'll get to do it again, or I'll try again next year. I say stay in the sport, come back, do it again.

Kenny Bailey (34:28.912)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (34:36.836)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (34:42.512)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do it

Coach Tom (34:52.366)
Let's keep trying. So that's our answer. So let us know what you think. Do you feel like if you were doing a race that the swim was canceled, that in particular is a big one because it's been happening quite a lot. Do you feel complete? And there's going to be, I'm sure there's a whole host of people because usually on Facebook and Instagram there's a whole

Kenny Bailey (34:54.394)
There you go. And I think you found the cap. Yeah.

Coach Tom (35:22.218)
Arguments of like no you're not. Yes, you are. You know, you're not like whatever Let us know what you think and how you feel and if you had that experience What you went through and how you dealt with it? Because that's we want to know it's it's interesting why we get into this thing. So cool Well, that was fun Let's let's do this again. We've got some good stuff coming up. So make sure you subscribe Somewhere on here if you're watching the YouTube you're gonna see a little thing that says subscribe

Kenny Bailey (35:40.144)
Yeah it was.

Coach Tom (35:50.382)
And again, thumbs up, five stars, all that good stuff. Please let your friends know. Hope you enjoy it. Give us comments. Let us know what we're doing. We're getting better. I think this is, I think we're in the 80, 80, I think this is 83 or 84, like our fifth year doing this and I'm still having fun. We've got some cool nutrition stuff coming up again and some other fun stuff happening. So a lot of good guests that we're just trying to get coordinated on the schedule. So.

Kenny Bailey (36:03.802)
Crazy.

Kenny Bailey (36:13.242)
Sounds fun.

Coach Tom (36:18.048)
Awesome. Thank you everybody. Kenny, always good. And for everybody, we'll catch you on the next one.

Kenny Bailey (36:21.039)
Yep, Tom.