You know those people you’ve watched train for years, and then one day you realize, “Oh damn… something really clicked for them”?
That’s Andy.
In this episode of Physical Education, I sit down with my longtime friend and Lumos member Andy to talk about HYROX, how his approach to training has evolved over the last decade, what changed when he stopped “driving with the parking brake on,” and how dialing in things like nutrition, structure, and seasons of training has bled into the rest of his life. If you’ve ever felt like you’re working hard but not really getting anywhere, this one’s for you. The video is below but if you’d rather read it the full transcript follows. Enjoy!
Noah: All right, this should be recording. Hey, y’all. Uh, welcome everybody who’s been watching this. We’re switching the format a little bit on this Physical Education thing — gonna talk with some of the people who make fitness a real thing for me, make it alive, teach me stuff. Coaches, friends, members of the gym. People I’ve learned from.
Noah: And today you’re here with my friend and longtime Lumos member from the pre-0 age… Andy.
Andy: Hi.
Noah: [laughs] Andy and I are fresh off, now, two weeks ago, doing HYROX — my first, Andy’s… not first.
Andy: Not first. Fifth.
Noah: Fifth, okay. And if you don’t know what that is, it’s a fitness race. A lot of running, movements like sled pulling, sled pushing, lunges, some burpee broad jumps — everybody’s favorite.
Noah: For me, one of the coolest parts was, obviously, it was my race, my first time, so it was fun to experience. But it was very, very cool to watch Andy do his thing. I’d heard the legends, and I got to see it in the flesh.
Noah: You started a little after me, so I didn’t get to see you start, and I didn’t see you at all on the course. It’s weird — my brain shut off afterwards. I was like, “I didn’t even look for anyone else on the course.” But I guess, theoretically, we were running at the same time.
Andy: Yeah.
Noah: But I got to catch a little of the end. I saw you going in on the wall balls — going into the wall balls just all smiles. You even had time to switch out your wall ball that had been sweated on for one that was fresh.
Andy: Gotta have a fresh wall ball.
Noah: But watching you, it wasn’t surprising. You’ve been training very consistently and intentionally the last couple of years, and I think it’s pretty obvious to everybody who has seen you. And I bet, you know, hopefully if there’s anybody other than our parents watching this, the people who have known you from past iterations of your fitness are going, “Wow, maybe he’s in some shape.”
Noah: That’s important to me, or powerful to me, because I’ve known you for now over 10 years from a training perspective. You trained at CrossFit South Brooklyn in early 2014 with me for a little bit, and then basically every day since Lumos has been open.
Andy: Yep.
Noah: One of the reasons I wanted to have you on — other than your sparkling personality and face made for radio—
Andy: Radio and podcast, yes.
Noah: —is that for many years, I’ve watched you give lots of effort at the gym. Very consistent, work really hard, not afraid to push to the limit or beyond.
Noah: But for years, it was kind of like… the analogy I like to give is driving with the parking brake on. Working really hard, but always having some stuff that was holding you back.
Noah: And it seems like in the last few years, some things have shifted. Probably some mental approach, some central approach, the lens you see things through. That’s really what I wanted to talk about today — what happens when somebody takes the good habits and effort they’re already putting in, and starts really pointing it in the right direction.
Noah: So let’s talk about it.
Andy: Sure.
Noah: All right, so first let’s start with HYROX. Give us an overview of HYROX, how this one went versus the other ones you’ve done, lessons learned, how you’re feeling now.
Andy: Yeah, I mean, those weekends have really become something I look forward to for so many reasons.
Andy: The people in the Hybrid program — we work out three times a week together — and it’s a chance for us to go be in an isolated place, hang out, watch each other race, see the progress. It’s also been really fun on the flipside: other people from the gym who are just kind of curious about HYROX coming and getting to see them do it the first time.
Andy: I think both experiences are equally valid — using it as something to focus your training in the gym versus really gunning for it. Both are awesome. So those weekends, to me, are really special.
Andy: My race went well. It wasn’t my fastest time — it was about two minutes off my fastest time. That’s a bummer. But it was definitely the most complete race I’ve run. Start to finish, my lap times were exactly where we thought they needed to be. We hit all those. My station work was the best it’s been.
Andy: So I kind of look at HYROX as a season for me right now. I’ve got three races this season over the next four months. This was a great kickoff. Hopefully, with a race coming up in eight weeks, we’ll be in a better place, we’ll be able to take the learnings from this one and push it, and get better and faster. That’s my goal — to take what we got here and build on it.
Andy: I just talked to Brett about our next training cycle, the next eight weeks as we prepare for Phoenix, and then where to take it from there and beyond. But right now it’s really focused on the season.
Noah: Yeah, and we’re gonna talk about this more, but the idea of thinking in “seasons,” thinking in what in the training world is called mesocycles, microcycles, actual periodization — that’s very different than the way you were definitely thinking and training for a long time.
Andy: Totally.
Noah: And we’ll come back to how that’s evolved and when that started to evolve. But like I said in the intro, we’ve known each other a long time — from South Brooklyn, from the first days in the park here, from when the gym was basically just whitewashed walls and half a floor.
Noah: I have this video — I think I told you about this — this video of you from early in that time.
Andy: I don’t think I’ve seen it.
Noah: No? I think you’re deadlifting here at Lumos, and it’s definitely Ash in the background. Let’s see…
Noah: [watching video] Okay, Jesus.
Andy: Perfect form.
Noah: Yeah. But thinking about that time — your training and your mentality — how would you characterize that? What would you call it?
Andy: I mean… very loose. Very much… My mindset toward the gym and working out has definitely evolved.
Andy: When I was going to South Brooklyn, I’d always carried extra weight, but in my early 30s I’d put on a lot, and it was really getting in the way of things I wanted to do. In my mind, all I needed to do was go to a gym, work out consistently, lose a bunch of weight, and then I could offset my life — the bad decisions I made outside the gym — with the gym. Going to the gym as kind of an atonement.
Andy: So that’s changed a lot. Back then, my idea was: whatever we’re doing in here, form, warming up — none of that stuff matters as much as just coming and getting a workout in.
Andy: I definitely had an attitude for a long time of skipping the warm-up or mailing it in, not really seeing the value of it. I have mobility limitations as an athlete. I got into this very late. So the form stuff was kind of a mix of, “I’m not getting hurt, first of all,” and also, “Why spend the time on this?”
Andy: That’s changed a lot. A lot of it was dictated by the movements, learning them, not getting them right, and then seeing how much easier it is when it clicks.
Andy: But definitely: loose. Definitely more… vibes.
Noah: [laughs] Yeah, it was definitely vibes.
Andy: Even as I got consistent, getting through a workout was the big thing. Worrying about the specifics was less important. It was like, “How can I make it through this 10-minute workout?”
Noah: Was the most important thing showing up, or was the most important thing effort?
Andy: I mean, first it was showing up. Then, once you get over that hump, it was really putting in effort. But “effort” is such a weird word.
Andy: I remember coming in and being like: the one thing, as a tall person, I was good at was rowing. The number I put up was comparable to what other people in the class were doing. I remember getting a fast 2K time — I think it was probably 7 minutes — and thinking, “All I have to do is come in, shut my brain off for seven minutes, go as hard as I can.”
Andy: I viewed that as mental toughness. But really, physiologically, your body after three minutes is like, “Yeah, you can’t hold this.”
Andy: So that change in my understanding of effort — at first it was, “Just try your hardest and you’ll eventually get better.”
Noah: Versus directed effort.
Andy: Exactly. Directed effort.
Noah: There’s a certain type of effort in sticking to a plan 100%. Executing something the way you’ve practiced it, versus just, “Every time I go in, I try as hard as I can.”
Noah: So I guess it’s like effort of trying versus effort of executing.
Andy: Yeah. We talk about that a lot in Hybrid. Towards the end of a run your brain puts you in two positions: sprint right now or slow down. The hardest thing is just to hold that discomfort. To say, “I’m at this pace, and I’m going to hold it.”
Andy: That’s definitely, to your effort question, part of it. The gym was definitely a means to an end for me back then. The specifics really started to change here at Lumos.
Noah: That leads to what I wanted to ask next: do you remember if there was a moment where you were like, “I need to change something”? Was there an event, a conversation, or just a feeling you were having?
Andy: I mean, I give a lot of credit to the early days of Lumos — you, Anna, and I’m gonna throw David in there too, even though—
Noah: Inspirational leader David Woods.
Andy: Inspirational leader David Woods. And Anna — Anna’s the one who really exhibited the most of the gym being its own thing. Wanting to get better just for the sake of getting better.
Andy: That changed my mindset in terms of, “This is gonna become my hobby. This is not a means to something.” That was a big step.
Andy: I remember the first Open we did here. There were like eight of us doing it, the gym wasn’t finished. It was that first February with those two people from Barcelona coming in. Back when it was five weeks long, and every Friday night the eight to ten of us would come here, we had scorecards, and there were maybe three people who could do the full workout. But we took it very seriously just for the sake of taking it seriously. That really started to shift my way of thinking.
Andy: There’ve been other touchpoints. After the pandemic, I definitely had a moment where there were a lot of things I could do, but I couldn’t do them in a workout. I could stick around after class and flop around on the bar and eventually get a pull-up, but I couldn’t get them in workouts. That was frustrating.
Andy: So John and I started doing IDP — individual program design — and we took this handful of things and just hammered them. We got those off the board really quickly.
Andy: Then a couple years ago, John and I had this conversation — and you and I did too. That’s where it might have been the most frustrating, because my fitness level, in terms of work capacity, had elevated a lot, but my skill level was stagnant.
Andy: That’s frustrating when you’re not super interested in competing in CrossFit, but when the Open comes and you’re like, “If I get the right movements, I’m gonna crush this. If I don’t, I’m not gonna be able to do it.”
Andy: The conversations I had with you and with John were like: we can certainly get there, but there’s an opportunity cost involved. For intermediate/advanced gymnastics, heavy squat patterns — we kind of have to take it down to the studs and start over. I was getting what I wanted from workouts, I was just limited in what I could do.
Andy: So we made a conscious choice not to chase all of those. About that time was when Hybrid was starting, and that made a very fun transition. I’d built this work capacity, and then when you add a running program…
Andy: To your first question, it was less a series of big watershed moments and more of an evolution.
Noah: Yeah.
Andy: And we can talk about this too — I didn’t brief you on this beforehand — but we can talk about nutrition as well. For full disclosure for people who know: I worked with a nutrition coach that you hooked me up with. He was outside the gym at the time when we were sort of between nutrition coaches here. You’d worked with him and thought his approach and personality would jive well with me.
Noah: Yeah. And I certainly think that worked.
Andy: Yeah, it definitely did. Again, I would say it was evolution. The first 800g Challenge we did really changed the way I shop, and that hasn’t changed. Then taking the next step and doing full-on macros for seven months — weighing and measuring everything — that was a huge watershed moment.
Andy: The 800g Challenge made me feel better outside the gym. When we got into macros, it got me over that last bit of carb-phobia I probably still had — the Paleolithic remnant of “carbs are a necessary evil.”
Andy: Taking that jump, having that extra energy in the gym, and really seeing the difference it made was huge. I’d gravitated toward longer workouts just based on skill level and where I was. Enjoying a grueling 30-minute, low-skill workout — just a slog — got so much more fun once I was eating better and really thinking about how I was fueling my body.
Andy: Again, definitely an evolution. Two steps forward, one step back. But when all those pieces are together — when you’re training well and eating well — it goes beyond saying, it’s like the magic formula.
Noah: Did you expect it? When you started working with John on IDP, or getting into Hybrid, or working with Kenny on nutrition — were you like, “If I do this, it’s going to work”? Or were you skeptical?
Andy: I think… Well, first of all, I don’t think I knew what a nutrition coach meant. Kenny was very good about being like, “This is how much weight you’re going to lose; this is what we’re going to do if we don’t.” So reframing expectations.
Andy: My old working theory before getting into any of this was: you lose 20 pounds a month for three months, then you stop and go right back to eating exactly what you used to. That was wrong.
Andy: With Hybrid, the hook was: I’d jogged a fair amount at different points in my life — a three-mile jog in the afternoon, nothing crazy — but I’d never done a run program. For me, the running adaptations came really quick. I mean, Roger Bannister’s not shaking in his grave, but when you go from running three miles at an 11-minute pace just to kind of look like a ball of cement, next thing you know you’re dropping down to eight minutes. I ran a 6:54 mile last year — something I’d never run.
Andy: When you start seeing those adaptations, they come quick, and that’s more of a hook. A nice way to keep the ball rolling is to be seeing progress, as opposed to spinning your wheels.
Noah: Yeah. And I know this has been true for me working with a nutrition coach or coming back from my ACL surgery. The progress doesn’t have to be 20 pounds and “look at my abs.” As long as it’s progress — as long as I’m moving in a direction.
Noah: At this point in my life, it can be as slow as it needs to be. As long as I can say, “This week was better than last week; it was better than two weeks ago.” As long as it’s going in the right direction, I’m satisfied. My urge for it to be fast has kind of subsided.
Andy: Yeah. I mean, as someone whose only thing he’s better at than losing weight is gaining weight — 100% — gaining that skill set has been huge. I haven’t worked with Kenny in eight months. This summer I played around with food, took time off macros, and none of it derailed me.
Andy: In the past, you’d eat 1,500 calories a day for two months, lose a bunch of weight, and then the first weekend you don’t do it, you’re back. You almost can’t find your way back. The habits that worked, you’re like, “I don’t remember what they are.”
Noah: Yeah, you’re like, “Where are my guardrails?”
Andy: Exactly. I think working with the nutrition coach and also working with John and Brett and everyone I’ve worked with here has shown me: your expectations may have been way off.
Andy: If you’d told me nine years ago that after nine years of coming consistently, I wouldn’t have muscle-ups, I’d be like, “What did I do with that time?” But the gains you see, the progress you make, is not what you expected, and it’s not a light switch. Never exactly what you think it’s going to be.
Andy: There’ve been a lot of surprises. Even when there wasn’t progress in one area, I felt like there was progress in another.
Noah: You’ve mentioned Hybrid and Coach Brett a couple times. What do you think clicked there in a way that group classes didn’t quite hit for you?
Andy: I mean, it’s just better directed. I’d be hesitant to say other things haven’t worked. Group classes absolutely worked. But a big part of working with Brett that’s been special is that not only do we have a shared goal, but there are dates. This is how we’re gonna set this up. We have eight weeks, we have 30 weeks — thinking about it long term.
Andy: And Brett very much embodies “strong opinions, loosely held.” I’ve seen him with other athletes: we’ll go to Houston or Dallas and he’ll watch all his athletes run and then be like, “Maybe we’re not doing enough of this, maybe too much of that,” because the data is showing us.
Andy: Working with him, on a coaching level where there are definite goals, has been really special. It’s a really cool relationship that’s come out of this. Right thing at the right time, and it’s really just locked in.
Noah: I’m sure as things have changed — your ability in the gym, your aesthetics, benchmarks, PRs, races — that often comes with some identity shift. Do you feel like along the way you’ve begun to think of yourself differently?
Andy: I mean, that’s a huge question that could turn into a country music song. [laughs] I struggle with this.
Andy: My first impulse a lot of times is to be self-deprecating or make a joke about my own prowess.
Noah: Same.
Andy: But I’ve started to take things more seriously, and I’ve started to see that reflected back. Fitness for me has been both literal and figurative. If you talk about changes since joining the gyms on my personality and the way I am — they’re myriad.
Andy: Over the last two years, taking myself as an athlete seriously is something I’ve definitely done. I make choices outside the gym that are driven by how I want to perform inside the gym. A lot of my life has changed. The way I eat has changed dramatically. Thinking about sleep, my relationship with alcohol — all these things have shifted.
Andy: HYROX and performing well at HYROX probably shouldn’t have been the instigator, but it is. So we’ll take it.
Andy: I’m up against middling/average athletic talent and I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I’ve become very aware of how hard it is to make these changes — that I’m capable of them, but they require change. I’ve taken that outside the gym as well.
Andy: You mentioned I didn’t know what a nutrition coach was. There’s probably not a lot of new information Kenny gave me, but the way it was presented, the accountability — that opened my eyes to, “Maybe I should work with a career coach,” or other areas outside the gym.
Andy: I’m hesitant to say it’s changed my personality, but my confidence, my overall mental happiness — it’s helped.
Noah: Yeah. It’d be really psycho to go through your life having big things change, or knocking things off an accomplishment list — career, life, gym — and have it not change you at all. “Oh yeah, I did that, and I’m exactly the same person.” That’d be wild.
Andy: Oh, 100%.
Andy: The only reason I’m hesitant is because when I walk into the HYROX venue and see every dude — we’re all wearing the exact same thing, tracking everything — I’m like, “Am I just another guy with a Garmin?” But that’s fine. I’m happy to be grouped in with them.
Andy: If my personality is “goes out and races with gratitude and joy,” let that be my personality. I’m totally fine with that.
Noah: It’s a pretty good way to be.
Noah: I have those moments where it’ll almost bring me to tears mid-run, or doing Murph, where I have these overwhelming feelings of gratitude and amazement that I can do this. Feeling lucky and blessed. That’s powerful.
Noah: We’re joking about identity, but identity is powerful. I’ve noticed this shift in myself from, like, ten years ago when every T-shirt I owned said CrossFit on it somewhere, to now.
Noah: Some of that is just style changing, but some of it is also that hipsterism — like wanting to be “above it” — which sometimes doesn’t serve you. It is powerful to be like, “Yeah, I do this thing and I’m into it.”
Noah: If somebody asked you, “Are you a HYROX athlete?” would you say yes?
Andy: Yeah. I mean, I’ve got the debt. I’ve paid the entry fees. [laughs] No, I think I just accept the fact that I am, and that’s what I do.
Andy: Those weird hangups I had — “Because I’m not the best, I shouldn’t say I do this” — those are all gone. Now, yeah — if my personality is racing with gratitude and joy, I’ll own that.
Noah: I love it.
Noah: So, what if somebody’s watching this, and they feel like they’re in that space where they’re trying hard in the gym, but it feels like they’re spinning their wheels or not seeing the results they want? What would you tell them to do, or how would you tell them to think?
Andy: A couple things. First of all, showing up is great — you’re doing a great job. That would be my first piece of advice.
Andy: But that frustration — if it’s a skill movement, there’s a progression. We’ve always out-kicked our coverage on coaches at Lumos, and they’ll be happy to work you through a progression.
Andy: One of the issues with CrossFit being so scalable — which is great — is that it’s very easy to fall into a “scale trap,” where every time there’s a pull-up on the board you’re like, “I’m going to do jumping pull-ups. That’s just what I do.”
Andy: If you’re really stuck there and you don’t want to be, talk to a coach. Find a progression.
Andy: If you don’t think you’re getting fit and you want to be, you do have to have that conversation with yourself like I did: “Yeah, I go to the gym five hours a week. There’s 163 other hours — what am I doing outside the gym?”
Andy: If it’s what you really want — if you’re coming to the gym just to check the box, you like the endorphins, the crowd, God bless, there’s value in that. But if you’re really frustrated that you’re not making progress, you have to take a hard look and say, “What am I doing the other 163 hours?”
Noah: It may not be that you have to change all 163 hours. A lot of times there’s one glaring thing, like, “Oh, you sleep three hours a night. We gotta fix that thing.”
Andy: Yeah. Hopefully it’s not everything in your life outside of the hour in the gym that’s a total shit show. Those people exist, but either way you start with one.
Andy: For most people, it’s one or two things. Start working on those. Don’t beat yourself up either — your self-worth does not depend on toes-to-bar. But also… care enough to look at it honestly.
Andy: I remind myself I’m not the only person who’s immune to adaptation. If I do it right, if I approach it right, I will get better.
Noah: That’s one of the more liberating things for me about what we do here — and it carries over into the rest of my life — every problem can be broken down into steps.
Noah: If I’m fixing something and I need to get here, how do I get halfway? Okay, how do I get halfway to that? Sometimes it’s as easy as: get out your tools. Then: read the manual. Do the first couple steps, and now you can see the path.
Noah: I think about that in fitness: “I wanna do a muscle-up.” Okay, can I do a pull-up? Can I do X? Now there are things I know I can work on, and it doesn’t feel like this huge, impossible thing.
Noah: Gymnastics progressions are messier — you have to be more creative. With weight training, halfway is just cutting the number you want. Gymnastics, you have to be more creative.
Noah: Were there any beliefs about training or nutrition that you feel like you had to let go of?
Andy: Oh, I had every bad belief. I’ve definitely fallen into every trap. We talked about carb-phobia. Little things like Paleo rules — you don’t eat legumes — and somehow holding onto that and being afraid of beans until, like, two years ago.
Andy: I’m like, “I’m going to have 15 Coors Lights tonight, but if one fucking legume makes it on this plate, I’m done.”
Noah: [laughs]
Andy: I literally had that thought in the airport today: “I used to do Paleo, but I also just drank beers.” It doesn’t work that way. Cavemen weren’t crushing Coors.
Noah: They definitely would have.
Andy: Other ones: In the South Brooklyn days, my mentality was, “First you have to get in shape, then you go to the gym.” Ego gets in the way.
Andy: A big thing is — we were talking about scaling earlier — doing something heavier than you can is pointless. Go lighter and go faster. I ruined a lot of workouts like that.
Andy: A big thing Brett and I talk about a lot, and that’s become more important to me now, is: hit the stimulus. They can’t all be… In the early days, if the intent was for it to be high intensity or low intensity, I hit it right in the middle, no matter what. And you don’t get the gains.
Andy: So yeah, lots of traps I’ve fallen into.
Noah: One of the things I like most about HYROX is that within about 15 seconds you have absolutely no idea where you are relative to anyone else. Which I think is really helpful. It helps you run your own race.
Noah: Even though there are a million people around, you have no clue where you are, because everyone starts at different times, different stations. Unless you can face-memorize all the other dudes in matching outfits, you’re just like, “I don’t know where I’m at,” and you just try to do your thing.
Andy: Yeah. You have your goals, and you’re like, “If I can execute those, I feel happy.” You don’t get sucked into, “Me and this guy are racing and I have to beat him.”
Andy: I felt that in road races too — you’re next to someone forever and then suddenly they’re gone. You pretty quickly lose track.
Andy: In HYROX, the only people I remember are the ones who are absolutely crushing me on the sled early on… because I pass them later. [laughs]
Noah: [laughs] Yeah.
Andy: I also don’t look at my total time while I’m racing anymore — just my lap time. I thought it was interesting you and Barry both did that too — not really tracking overall time, just using it as a sanity check.
Andy: If you’re looking at total time, you’re on the track of chasing. “I gave up 15 seconds here, I gotta make it up here.” That’s a downward spiral.
Andy: So yeah, there’ve been a lot of changes in my approach.
Noah: You mentioned earlier — and we’ve got about 10 minutes left — the impact on the rest of your life. How do you think taking yourself more seriously in the gym — not just mentally and emotionally but in habits and tradeoffs — has bled over?
Noah: Like, if I want to do X, it might mean I can’t do Y. There are tradeoffs, decisions you need to make today that impact tomorrow or further down the line. You mentioned maybe working with a career coach — how has this stuff bled over?
Andy: A lot. We talked about how much the gym is just a framework. “Find a coach if you need help.” “Progress is not linear.” There are going to be big jumps and then plateaus. “Consider the intent — what’s the goal?”
Andy: Consistency is huge. Some days you don’t want to come — just show up.
Noah: Do you still get that? Because you’re probably the most consistent person I’ve ever seen in a gym setting.
Andy: I generally do want to come. I think when I didn’t have a goal — when I wasn’t working toward something — just coming in wasn’t as important to me. I kind of self-regulated. I wouldn’t work as hard. Then what got me back on track was picking something — a 10K, a Spartan, whatever — and saying, “Okay, now I’m going to focus again.”
Andy: There was some self-regulation, but for a long time — and still — getting over that block of wanting to show up is mostly handled by habit. Discipline is hard; habits are easy. It just became a habit to come here at 5 or 6 and get to work.
Noah: So now that you’ve “hit the mountain top” — or at least a mountain top — what’s next?
Andy: I mean, I just had my planning session with Brett, and HYROX right now has fully captured my attention. I really love it as a goal — the actual race.
Andy: So I’m going to keep focusing on that. We have two more races, and… One big topic in our planning session was our misunderstanding of “till the wheels come off the bus.” This is my hobby. I’ve been doing it now for nine years. I hope to get another 20–30 years of it. So I want to keep the wheels on the bus.
Andy: But I’m not ready to go into maintenance mode or some type of training where I’m not excited. My plan right now is: regardless of what biology has to say about the timeline, I need to get stronger and faster. That’s the course we’re setting.
Andy: Maybe I should be thinking differently, but it feels good to have this amazing community and great coaches, so let’s try to stack quality on top and keep going.
Noah: I like it. My next few questions were about whether you’re still growing or starting to maintain, but it sounds like: still growing.
Andy: Yeah. I think maintenance comes when it comes. It will dictate itself. At the end of last year, I was like, “I’m going to focus on this more, and then after Dallas I’ll reassess.” And Dallas came and went and I’m more excited than ever. I’m pumped for the next two training cycles.
Andy: Having something to look forward to makes motivation and habit easier. Right now, there were no glaring weaknesses in my race, but I’d like to be sniffing the mid-70s, not the mid-80s.
Andy: I ran an 85, best time is 83, and I don’t want to be muddling around in the low 80s for the next year. My goal is to get into 70–75. That would be awesome. So I’m all in on that for the next two training cycles, and then I’ll find something else and chase another curiosity when the time comes.
Noah: All right. That’s pretty much it. First podcast. Couple minutes left — how’d we do?
Andy: I think we did pretty good. I definitely feel like there’s a 15-second window in there where we both just talked about banging Coors Lights. That’s the takeaway.
Noah: [laughs] The clickbait is just, “Our top 10 tips: 15 Coors Lights, no legumes.”
Andy: Tip number one: don’t eat beans.
Noah: [laughs] All right. If you’re watching this and you’re thinking, “Wow, I’ve been grinding, I’ve been working hard, I haven’t been seeing a payoff,” hopefully this helped you think about that and maybe shift some of your mentality.
Noah: Whether that’s nutrition, the structure you put around your workouts, putting something on the calendar like Andy was talking about, or even just asking somebody for help instead of thinking you can muscle through it on your own.
Noah: If this episode of the podcast resonated with you, do me a favor: share it with somebody you think should hear it, review it, subscribe — all the things. Like and subscribe on YouTube.
Noah: I keep saying my thing is I want to have more YouTube channel subscribers than people I know in real life. Right now we’re still in the 70s, and I know hundreds of people. I’m pretty popular. [laughs]
Noah: And if you’re local to Austin, please come hang out at Lumos. I hope Andy turned your ear about the magic that we do here.
Andy: Gorgeous place. Thank you so much for this. This was a fun opportunity.
Noah: Pleasure, my friend. We want you to find your version of the Andy story.
Andy: You need to be the Andy you want to see in the world.
Noah: [laughs] All right, I need to stop embarrassing you. That’s it. Thank you, dude.
Andy: Thanks.
