As I sit here in the coaching cave, in need of moving to my pain cave, I find myself writing similar e-mails and having similar discussions with several of my athletes. I had one athlete ask to be put on hold, another re-calibrate their spring expectations and race schedule, and I am pretty certain this will happen again with another athlete before the month is over. Life Happens! (It is not shit; although sometimes, it may seem shitty- it is LIFE!) I am an endurance coach, my life is not inconvenienced by your request for, or need for, or need to wait or not to be coached at all. I do this because I enjoy it and hope to help my athletes complement their life with sport. It is my opinion that sport is totally important because we as humans need to move more than what the average fat-ass American does, but we must primarily live life. My task is to help my athletes find that balance and accomplish their sports goals.

Just by the nature of my military background, my current stable of athletes (on- and off-program) is half active-duty military, and about 95% have some military connection. For the 50% that are not active duty military, nearly the rest of those have a family. The potential for life happening is high with these individuals. Orders are issued, kids get sick, the weather changes, and, despite the hope we don’t have this happen, injuries occur- (whether training or skiing!) For very few, there is an environment so controlled that sport is rarely compromised. Again, life happens!

That does not mean we should not set goals. It means we should set goals with a graduated set of expectations. I implore my athletes to have goals and dreams, and even the goals have tiers. The main reason for those tiers is for when life happens (or in a race, racing happens). If they gets an unexpected assignment and can’t get to that year’s A race, they can still take a step back and re-calibrate sports expectations to their long-term goals. They should never lose sight of those long term goals.

By always having goals, even for an individual workout- each workout should have an intent, they can even overcome the little “life happens” incidents. The kid gets sick, and they are now forced to cut a bike short. They take a look at the schedule, then shift the workouts, or cut the workout down to the time they have and get the intervals done! If they have to skip a workout, there is no making it up. Additionally, they make sure they don’t skip the one’s with more emphasis. And if things really are made tough, just do something! It is important to keep sport in there as best they can, so there’s an outlet to unplug and get some movement that the body thrives on.

To those crushing it without incident, awesome, thanks for reading; I am sure this will apply at some point- just hopefully not soon. To those dealing with a little life, as we begin this new year, keep your eye on the prize whatever that is. Keep sport complementing life.