We launch this week with a hearty congratulations to everyone who has stepped up and competed over the initial weeks of this crazy season.  We have already had some amazing achievements, with many qualifiers to the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships, several first-time finishers, and more who got to dip their toes in the competition water and build a platform for the year ahead.  It has been interesting, and helpful, to see so many race reports pop up on the Facebook Community page, and inspiring to know that so many of the lessons around mindset and tactical approach have been implemented.  If you haven’t yet got a chance to compete, stay mentally strong and patient, as it tastes sweet when you are back to it.  

This week, I want to provide some perspective and advice for the weeks ahead. 

You may have noticed that we have upped our game with education and advice around key races, as well as race planning.  Many of you enjoyed the St George preview, and we have a preview for both Chattanooga 70.3 and the new IRONMAN Tulsa this Tuesday.  I encourage competing athletes to attend, or register to review the new course previews we have completed, as well as the recording of the upcoming sessions.  Many of you will also want to put May 25th in the calendar, with a come-all for planning the Fall Season of racing.  This is a super one to invite your friends who are non-PP athletes to come and learn, but you are welcome also.  Following this, we plan to have a deeper Q and A session with the coaches, which will only be open for the current Purple Patch athletes.  It will be high value to join on May 25, then bring individual questions to the coaching team in the internal meeting following. 

With this in mind, this is the time to really plan your season.  1:1 coached athletes should be in deep planning and coordination with their coaches, and squad athletes will almost certainly benefit from grabbing a coaching consultation to plan their season.  Highly recommended.  

As we build into the heart of Q2 training, you will notice the shift in training focus, as we are now pressing forward with really building speed and sustainable resilience.  When you can, I highly recommend taking the bike outside, implementing key sessions on the road.  For the in-week sessions, it is almost non-negotiable to utilize the video-on-demand coaching.  In pursuit of not sounding like a broken record, I want to enforce how much value you can draw from these sessions if you immerse into them and truly aim to amplify how you ride, the technical cues, and get lifted into riding with great force while remaining calm.  Really tough to do solo, or simply following along in auto-pilot. 

In the coming week, you are going to receive important news on the full official launch of these video-on-demand and live sessions (named PLUS).  I will give you a teaser today.  A large part of these sessions are going to be what we call WATCH PARTIES.  Several has mentioned that they love the community aspect of training, and this is going to be a game-changer.  Utilize the video-on-demand session, but team up with a group of your Purple Patch teamies (and a PP Coach), in a synchronized watch party.  You are all following the session together, at the same time, and can see each other, communicate and cheer each other on.  We plan to have watch parties across time zones, so that you can train together, but with real purpose and intent.  There isn’t anything else like this out there, especially the video-coaching piece of the puzzle integrated into community, so I hope you guys love it.  More to come on this over the coming week.

In the meantime, keep driving, maintain strength, don’t forget your habits and let's keep pursuing performance.

Cheers,
Matt