The Tri Town Times: 8/26/24

• Posted on 26 August 2024
• By Antonio Gonzalez
• Posted in the tri town times
• 0

Inversion for problem solving.

Hi all,

Here is your weekly Tri Town Times newsletter:

Last week's highlights:

- Ben O'Connor of Australia leads the Vuelta Espana by almost four minutes with nine stages down and twelve to go.

- Daniela Ryf, the most decorated triathlete of all time, has retired from professional racing at 37 due to lingering injuries. Between 2014 and 2019, she won 10 world championships in the Ironman and 70.3 distances.

Events I'm looking forward to:

- The Tri Swap, our annual store sale and swap meet, is next month—more details will follow.

- Rebecca's Private Idaho is this weekend in Sun Valley.

Shop Ops:

- We are closed for the Labor Day Holiday on Monday, Sept 2nd.

Gear that caught my attention:

- The world's first titanium powder 3D printed bike. The aerodynamic road bike by No. 22 is like nothing ever made before. It uses 3D printing to make tube shapes out of titanium that would be impossible to make any other way.

A quote that struck a chord:

"It is the nature of things that many hard problems are best solved when they're addressed backward." — Charlie Munger

How do you determine the perfect way to build your fitness and prepare for a significant event?

The truth is, you don't. It's too complex a problem, with too many unknowns and variables beyond your control.

Instead, why not invert the problem? If perfection in your event preparation is unattainable, simply focus on avoiding stupidity.

Avoiding stupid decisions is easier and often more effective than trying to be brilliant.

On any given day, I have no idea what the perfect workout is for myself or any of my athletes. But I've spent enough time in the trenches to recognize a lousy workout when I see or feel one. Avoiding bad decisions is a simple, manageable challenge that I can focus on in training, business, and life.

Social psychologist Kurt Lewin laid the foundation for inversion thinking in the 1930s. Here's how it applies to running:

1. Identify the problem: "I can't run well."
2. Define the objective: Invert by starting at the end: "I want to run a marathon."
3. Identify the forces that support change toward your objective: e.g., run volume, strength, mobility, recovery, sound nutrition.
4. Identify the forces that impede change toward your objective: Invert again—time away from running, injury, overcommitments, training complexity, poor nutrition, poor sleep/recovery, etc.
5. Strategize solutions: Design a training plan based on inversion principles.

The beauty of inversion thinking is that it encourages action by acknowledging that we don't need all the answers before starting, nor do we need to be perfect in our execution to succeed. Seeking perfection is often just a mask for procrastination while taking action to avoid stupid mistakes is something we can all embrace.

This week, let's keep the words of German mathematician and master of algebraic inversion Carl Jacobi in mind: "Invert, always invert!"

Have a great week!

Antonio Gonzalez

Tri Town Bicycles

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