- Morning trainiacs.
2020 has been a heck of an endurance adventure.
This year, I don't know if it's good one,
but we will get through it.
As I always like to do at the end of the year,
I like to film some of these videos as a bit of a wrap-up
with lessons of what I've learned,
and also what we are gonna take into life going forward.
The whole purpose of this channel, of this dialogue
that we have, is that I believe endurance training
can make you a better version of you.
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Worst version of audio quality.
And this is a really good year to start looking back
on the things that you've learned,
and we did a video on that.
But the second part of that is
what are you gonna do going forward?
So I wanna share with you, what are the five biggest things
that I am going to be doing?
These are the goals that I want to share with you
over the course of 2021.
What can you expect to see from us that's different?
And more than any other year that we've done
this YouTube channel and the podcast and the books
and everything that we have experienced
over the past six years,
this is one of the biggest years
that I am looking forward to, ever.
So let's share some of those things to let you see why.
The first, is the entire rebrand to Mottiv.
M-O-T-T-I-V, Mottiv.
What is your reason for doing endurance sports?
Why are you getting up in the morning to go into the pool,
to suffer those miles out on the bike,
to pound the pavement?
Why are you suffering in a race?
Mottiv, M-O-T-T, standing for Team Trainiac.
So we always remember what the core is,
of why we are doing this,
why our motive is to keep working.
Keep working on this YouTube channel
and sharing stories on our podcast.
Team Trainiac was at the core of what we did at the start,
and it's still going to be at the core.
But instead of www.triathlontaren.com,
we're gonna have www.mymottiv.com.
It's all going to come under Mottiv.
And the reason for that is like,
I look at what I'm trying to do here and share.
It's like I've got this lever that I'm trying to pull on
to get people into triathlon, to help live a better life.
And right now we've got a really big lever because there's
a lot of you out there, but it's just me pulling on that.
What Mottiv does is, it takes it away from being
a brand that's just about me.
Www.triathlontaren.com is just about me.
Team Trainiac is just about essentially
my loyal rabid followers.
But www.mymottiv.com allows it to be much more about you.
What is your reason for doing things?
And then functionally, what you're gonna see with that brand
is it's going to allow us to do things
like have water bottles that say, "My mottiv is..."
And on there, you can write what your motivations are.
So when you put that on the pool deck, you get a reminder,
whether it's your kids or whether it's your health
or whether it's that big goal that you've got.
You've got a reminder to
why you are doing what you're doing.
And then we'll of course have kits and shirts
that are gonna be more about you.
www.mymottiv.com, as opposed to www.triathlontaren.com,
also allows us to share more perspectives.
Essentially right now, it's kinda all about me,
but it's only one perspective.
With www.mymottiv.com, we've hired, T.J. Murphy,
who is the former Editor in Chief
of Triathlete Magazine and Lava Magazine,
to be our Editor in Chief.
And work with people like Renee Kylie who lost weight,
stopped smoking, is now a pro triathlete.
Like pro triathlete, Jackie Hering,
and age grouper, Jennasiya Seyfried, about how do moms
fit in training around life and being a mom?
How experts like Erin Carson recommend
you do strength training,
And age groupers from Team Training Act,
like Robin Sterling, who has a background in technology
and really loves testing all kinds of gadgets.
What is his experience from an age group or standpoint
that you can learn from to help make your purchase decision?
So when we go back to that lever,
instead of just me pulling on that lever by myself,
there's gonna be a whole bunch of people
pulling on that lever.
And that's gonna be much more powerful
than just me and that feels good.
So that's a really long update.
But the second thing that you're gonna see is,
you're gonna see me next year,
probably doing single sport activities more than anything.
I am not ever gonna be an elite swimmer,
I'm not ever gonna be an elite runner.
Cycling however, locally I can actually keep up
with some former pros around here and occasionally
out sprint them, depending on how the sprint has set up.
Also Canyon bikes are looking dead sexy this year.
So if there's a year that racing
is going to maybe be a little bit questionable,
and my health isn't quite ready yet go and smash myself
with 20 hour weeks trying to get to Kona,
hey, you know what?
I can go and do really, really well in a single sport
with a 10 to maybe 12 hour week.
And I wanna take a year to see what my capabilities are.
So I think you're probably gonna see me
doing single sport events, like cycling.
Next, you're gonna see a whole lot more strength
and mobility content on here.
What I've learned is that triathletes, we aren't very mobile
and we aren't very strong.
Sure, we are very, very good at going this way, straight.
And we're very, very good at going like this,
paddling, and going like this.
But all of a sudden, you need a little bit
of strength out here, you need to twist a little bit,
you need to be a little bit more functional.
I learnt the hard way this year when I started golfing,
and when I started doing kettle bells,
that I thought I was really flexible and really quite strong
because I do a little bit of stretching
and I do a little bit of strength work.
But when it comes right down to it,
unless you're focusing on good functional strength,
functional yoga practice and mobility and actively making
that an equal part of your training as the swim bike run,
it ain't happening.
You sir, are made of quick dry cement,
I want to alleviate that.
And when I think about making sure that all of you
are not just fast 30, 40, 50 year olds,
but also mobile 60 and 70 year olds,
we have to focus on strength and mobility now.
Because guess what?
It's deteriorating whether you like it or not.
So you might as well combat that
while we're doing swim bike run.
How do we fit that in?
Well, you and I are gonna learn together.
The fourth thing that you're gonna see from me,
is that races will be fun.
Now, while I talk about focusing on a single sport event,
that doesn't mean that I'm not gonna do triathlon.
But it does mean that I'm probably going to be able to do
more triathlons because instead of looking
at every single race as something that I have to PB in,
and if it's not a PB, it's no good,
I'm instead looking at races as like,
you know what's gonna be fun?
Challenge Miami, that sounds really fun.
Some of the other Challenge North America races,
that sounds really fun.
Things like Dirty Kansa or some of the other
bucket list cycling races out there, those sound really fun.
And if I approach it as opposed to looking at it
like I have to PB and I have to be damn near elite
to impress all of you,
I just look at it from the standpoint
of sharing the stories of those races.
So you can decide if you wanna go there or not,
and having a little bit of fun in the process
and getting to experience it and stop and smell the roses,
hey, that's gonna be a lot more fun.
It's also gonna be nice to see
the inside of an airport again, never thought I'd say that.
The next and final big thing that
you are going to see from us is with our training app.
I'm gonna take a second here to do a bit of a plug,
and I always talk about how we have big things coming up,
but this time it's really, really true.
Our team right now is actually re-architecting
the entire site, whatever that really means,
so that we can improve the app quicker
and come out with features quicker.
We have a list like this long of really cool features.
Number one, you're gonna see a smartphone app,
like an actual smartphone app.
Number two, you're gonna be able to not just do triathlon,
but you're also gonna be able to do running races.
You're gonna be able to train
for things like grand fondos, things like ultra runs.
We're also gonna work to include
guided strength and yoga sessions,
so that you can feel connected to the community
by going through that stuff together.
Instead of just like writing down,
well, here's what I've got to do,
you can do that with a guided session.
I've been doing a lot of guidance sessions with instructors
that we've been testing out over the last couple months.
It is way more fun to do that with somebody
barking out the workout to you or as a Yogi would do,
calmly guiding you through your sun salutations.
That makes those sun salutations way more fun.
You're gonna get to integrate with things
like Training Peaks, Strava, Today's Plan,
and we're gonna work to make it more fun.
You're gonna get rewards in the app,
which you can then actually get things
like water bottles and shirts and actual rewards.
For things like running your longest distance ever,
for doing your first 100K ride,
your first 200K ride, your first century ride,
or your first sprint triathlon with us,
or your first triathlon period.
Or your first half marathon, or your first 5K,
or getting rewarded for doing
two weeks of workouts in a row.
Making training fun,
making it a game, is what we're gonna work on.
So if we can make all of that training fun,
we can include all of those fancy new features,
we can make that social aspect of the guided workouts
of the social media feed, where you can connect
with trainiacs all around the world,
that feels like much more of a community
than just an app that you get workouts from.
The workouts are still gonna be there,
but you're gonna be able to enjoy those workouts
a heck of a lot more.
Because shared suffering is half the suffering or whatever.
So those are the five big things that you're gonna see
for me that I'll commit to right now.
There is a lot else that we are working on,
in behind the scenes, but this year
more than any other year,
I think because we're gonna have more people
pulling on that lever, there's gonna be a lot more
really interesting stuff to share.
So thank you all so much for being on this ride
for like almost six years is now,
and let's hope that we've got another six and a better six.
It wouldn't take much to be better after 2020,
but wherever you are, however you're doing,
I hope that you are doing well
and you're staying mentally healthy,
and hopefully you can be with family at this time.
And we will get through this, 2021 will be better.
So good luck to everyone, thanks for being around.
Later trainiacs.