As we enter the final days of 2020, and a slightly surreal holiday season, I feel it is important to take a little pause and reflect on 2020. It has been a year like few others, but here we are, ready to march into 2021 with an eye on performance.

You - the athletes - have done a terrific job within the adversity. It will be easy for us all to look back and just disregard 2020 as a terrible year, but with reflection, and within the adversity and chaos, there are several elements that bring us at Purple Patch great pride. They also ignite excitement for the year ahead. So today, I thought we would share some of the results of our own 'post mortem' of 2020-Purple Patch. We always go through this exercise, to learn, but this year we believe that sharing some of the observations and memories may well help with perspective.

Covid-Response:  
This was a heavy lift, but Kelli and I were incredibly proud of the Purple Patch response to the descent of the cloud of COVID-19.  A complete rewrite of all training programming, a reorganization of the team and roles, and a quick invention of much-needed services to build connectivity, stability, and fit-for-purpose coaching. The response paved the way for a host of improvements in services and approaches that will become mainstays and the heartbeat of Purple Patch going forward. Examples are live and video-on-demand coaching, educational videos and seminars, and improvements to the Squad programming. I was also so proud of the team’s charge to create the Purple Patch Challenges in the fall, something that will become a part of the programming over the coming season. It created an anchor, a chance to share the journey, and provided a compass within the fog.  

Supporting the community:
I have yet to connect with a single person who hasn’t, in some way, really struggled with the impact of COVID-19.  As I have mentioned many times, this has been stressful for everyone. 

The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential, and through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. 

With so many struggling, Kelli and I, as well as the whole team, felt it imperative we do what we could to help every athlete we could. I hope the perspective and guidance we offered on your athletic journey resonated and helped keep things as stable as possible. We were so proud to see the realization of our long-held message of the importance of the journey of sport and health in broader life, bubbling to the surface in 2020. No events? No problem. We still needed sport for stability, health and resilience. Beyond this support, we were honored to help those less privileged:

In 2020, we were proud to award over $50,000+ in scholarships to assist those impacted financially by the situation of Covid-19. Fueled by a caring donor, who acted as a catalyst for other Purple Patch athletes to join, along with Kelli and I, we supported 70+ athletes on their performance journey.  I should note, we intend to keep this support going for 2021, as the struggle is not over. If you would like to join us in a part of the scholarship program, we would be grateful for you engagement. Email us directly at info@purplepatchfitness.com for details.
We were also so proud of the efforts of the whole Purple Patch community in our support of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF). As a part of Performance Reset 2020, we raised over $105,000, changing the sporting lives of many young aspiring athletes. We were stunned with the generosity, as were CAF themselves, to be honest. We can all be proud of that accomplishment.

The Center:
We finished the Purple Patch Performance Center! This has been a huge project for us over several years, but the end result is a gem. It will be the hub of all things Purple Patch, and will have a material impact on the life and experience of every Purple Patch coach and athlete.

Ok, an April 10 opening date wasn’t perfect timing, but we are really proud of the outcome of the facility. We are desperately excited to see the center come to life in 2021, and it is a real accomplishment for the team. As we ramp live and post-produced (on-demand) coaching sessions, and infuse them into all athletes programming, I believe you will really begin to see why we are excited for the future.

Product Development:  
We took several steps in 2020 to improve the coaching experience, emerging from the situation of COVID-19 and with a keen eye on the future. We launched live coaching literally from our back yard, including bike, strength, and swim band sessions, and evolved to professional-quality live video coaching - paving the way for important product evolution in 2021. You will see the emergence of meaningful coaching, engagement with other Purple Patch athletes, and a chance to supercharge your experience from wherever you are located.  

Performance:
Racing was decimated this year, but we still managed to sneak in some high performance results. Twelve qualifiers to the Hawaii IRONMAN World Championships/ IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in 2021, Sam Appleton’s strong 6th place showing at Daytona, a few massive personal accomplishments, and who can forget the ‘Peter Minute’ in the podcast, as his heroics in the 50-miler in August.

I mentioned something in May, that I will hold up as a path for you now.  Remember this, and believe it: If you remain focused now, with plenty of soul-filling training and a high degree of flexibility, you will be laying the groundwork and opportunity for massive personal breakthroughs in performance in 2021.

This is true, so stay with us, as we each have the chance for a good one this coming year.  We have to get through the last thick fog of this pandemic, but we believe 2021 will come good.  

Team:
We end 2020 with a tightly united Purple Patch team, coming together with clarity and focus to help every Purple Patch community member and athlete thrive in 2021. We see the light, and also know we still must navigate some challenges, but we don’t intend to sit on our behinds and wait for the storm to pass. We are a close team united in help you perform, and we invite you to step forward with us.

Please enjoy your holiday break. It is a perfect time to recharge mentally and remain active while not taking the training and performance too seriously. Stay on track with our December consistency challenge, with at least thirty minutes of activity daily, but give yourself latitude to be a little more free. Come January, expect a call to arms and our first steps to a great 2021, no matter your level.

Thanks so much for being a part of the team and journey.

Matt, Kelli and the Purple Patch Team