Welcome to The Infirmary

The Podcast of Campfire Endurance Coaching

If you’re struggling, we hope something here can help

Knowledge is…Not Power, but Helpful

Coaching is great, but sometimes you just need to hear something a different way.

The Infirmary has been a long time coming, but we’re excited to bring you endurance and triathlon advice in a different way than what you hear from your coach, whether you work with us or not.

We hope these episodes will bring you assistance, insight, and, just maybe, a laugh or two.

Welcome to The Infirmary—we’ll try to get you feeling better soon.

Featured
Episode 7: How to Train to Give Yourself a Chance to Qualify
Episode 7: How to Train to Give Yourself a Chance to Qualify

Now that Ironman World Championship season is over for the year, after the women raced in Nice last month and the men just raced in Kona, we thought it would be helpful for those of you excited about those races to hear what it takes to qualify for them.

Too many athletes believe that qualifying for races such as Kona, Nice, and Roth (all long distance triathlon) requires speed. It doesn’t. Qualifying for these races (which is another way of saying “executing this difficult distance effectively”) requires a physiology that doesn’t slow down.

In this episode, which is the audio from a webinar our owner, Chris, gave a few times in October, we walk you through a common misconception about long course triathlon racing and how to change your training so you can give yourself the best possible chance of qualifying.

If you would like this content as a video, you can watch the presentation over on our YouTube channel.

And, finally, if you would like the presentation from this webinar, you can grab it here.

Episode 6: Take It Seriously, Hold It Lightly with Annick Chalier
Episode 6: Take It Seriously, Hold It Lightly with Annick Chalier

Many endurance athletes think that the path to success is a kind of inflexible and unrelenting grind, resulting in all sorts of toxic sayings such as “HTFU,” “No Pain No Gain,” or “Rise and Grind,” but the best performers in the world have a much more compassionate, curious, and patient approach.

We sit down with Annick Chalier, who has been a Campfire athlete for over a decade and a Campfire coach for the past two years. Annick came to endurance sports after deciding to get sober, spent some time as a triathlete, and then found her endurance calling, cycling. She has raced professionally domestically and abroad, won the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association’s road championship in the elite women’s field, and ridden her bike farther than this particular podcaster can count.

Annick’s journey inspired our topic today, as in her early years in the sport she could be somewhat severe towards herself during training and racing. We talk about how that changed and her consistent progress towards being happier, faster, and healthier.

After we wrap up that conversation, we give you some ideas as to how you can set yourself up for success this coming winter when you are forced to take the bike indoors.

Episode 5: How to Arrive (and Thrive) in Kona
Episode 5: How to Arrive (and Thrive) in Kona

It’s a tale as old as…well, it’s probably around 40 years old, but for a sport as young as ours, that’s fairly venerable: a hard-working triathlete puts in their time over the course of a season, qualifies for Kona (or Nice, which is a really great site for a world championships, go ahead and @ us), and then, through a combination of poorly timed heat acclimation, arduous travel, wide-eyed enthusiasm, panic training, expo smorgasbord, and terror ends up performing far below their potential. Today we’ll be talking about how to navigate the veritable gauntlet of triathlon’s big show and perform to the best of your ability.

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