March is the month of the Purple Patch Special Sauce!  I know what you are thinking, another one of those ‘what is Dixon on about?’ moments, but let me outline the premise of our upcoming March Challenge.

When plotting the season’s training, with a reenergized quest to help every Purple Patch athlete find their, well, ‘Purple Patch’, we put a lot of energy into reverting back to the important basics that has delivered so much success historically, while also adapting the programming to the special circumstances of this year.  One of the elements that really popped out at us was how March was going to be a focused month of bike training, with a particular emphasis on the type of training we label as our ‘special sauce’.  As this became clear we sense an opportunity for the month:

let’s pin a spotlight on the main sessions, and unite nearly all Purple Patch athletes in a chance to share the pain, gain from some focused education and coaching, and commit together to execute the sessions that will yield success.

This is the backbone of the March Challenge, in truth, less a ‘challenge’ and more of a focus and spotlight being cast on a principle element of the training.  I think almost every single Purple Patch athlete can embrace these sessions, even those on race-builds (*see the note at the end of this piece).  Let me outline the elements of the ‘challenge’:

• Training:  We host / prescribe a weekly strength-endurance trainer-based workout every Thursday.  Squaddies will see it as a part of their baseline, 1:1 athletes’ coach will post in their calendar when it makes sense.  This will be a spotlight session of each week of training through March:
• Thursday March 4
• Thursday March 11
• Thursday March 18
• Thursday March 25

• Education:  At the start of each week, we will highlight the session and I will map some educational content on the premise behind the workout, what the outcome goals are, what to think about in execution and more.

• Live Coaching:  Each of these sessions will be coached live by me, Matt, in the live coaching sessions.  These are available to both 1:1 athletes and Squaddies for the drop in fee.  These live sessions will be mini-clinics focused around the session -- in which I will go through the technical cues and focus, coach the session, and provide feedback to live attendees.  Yes, I get to see you executing the workout!  These sessions are at 7 am PST (details here).

• Video-on-Demand (VOD) Coaching:  Each of these sessions will come with an included access to a pre-recorded and coached session of the workout.  These sessions will be housed on the new Interval platform that will power our new live and on-demand experience, and are FREE for all Purple Patch athletes. I lead you through the session, all video-based, with purpose, coaching and posture cues all embedded.  I highly encourage every Purple Patch athlete who cannot attend live to execute these VOD sessions, rather than loading the structured ride in Zwift.  

• Feedback and Sharing:  As we ‘execute’ the session -- we invite every Purple Patch athlete to provide their experience, thoughts, complaints and horror stories in our Facebook athlete community page.  Pictures of the aftermath are welcome, and the coaches will be on hand in those forums to answer questions and provide context.

Week by week, we all ‘hold hands’ and navigate these four important sessions that are a priority for most Purple Patch athletes.  For 1:1 coached athletes, feel free to chat to your coach, as we are all excited and intend to build the week’s programming around these sessions as is appropriate.

Of course, there will be a big bang finish: 

At the end of the month, we'll host a celebratory big live coached session on Saturday April 3.  This will be FREE for all athletes, hosted on our new Interval platform, and will be a monster session of about 90 minutes of strength-endurance love.  As we are live, I will aim to give every attendee a shout out, a fair amount of loving abuse, and even pick out outfits for the ride and more.

As we drive toward races -- that may or may not happen -- I would love this to be a really fun, educational and performance-valuable series of coaching experiences.  We will be hitting you with plenty of details, but let me leave you with this:  Get Involved!  Don’t let this one bypass you.

Cheers,

Matt