What Is Up! Welcome to Three Thing Thursday Thanksgiving Edition

A huge what is up to the new fresh faces of the newsletter. Thanks for joining. And a modest (but firm) "hello" to the returning faces. I see you and I haven't forgotten about you! 

This is the only endurance sports newsletter where each month it attempts to make your life that much better. How? By serving you up with pure powdered form uncut performance-enhancing supplement style value.

This is usually in the form of three (ish) fun and informative (fun-formative?!) content pieces that I've found on the internet or created.

This month's edition is a good one because it's the only holiday that hasn't been (mostly) killed by commercialism - THANKSGIVING.

I'll be going from Keto diets, intermittent fasting and surgeries of life for all endurance athletes. Then we swing over and get super specific with a focus on you winning $100! We'll get to that last item first!

Thing 1: Tell me what to post next and win $100

I want... no-no, I NEED you to help me because I'm stuck. I've been making endurance sport-related content for the last few years and in my neurotic brain, I overthink everything. This overthinking has led me to a serious fork in the road.

I have literally 10 directions I want to go with new content but I realised I don't know sh*t about the audience I'm talking to (aka you all!)

Questions in my head be like;

• What content do you like that I'm doing now?
• What content do you want me to do that I'm not doing?
• Do you follow me on the socials?
• Do you listen to my podcast?
• If I started selling services/products would you buy them?
• If so how much would you spend?

See - lots of ideas and gut assumptions that need validation.

How can you help me?

Just go over here, and spend a quick 5 minutes filling this survey out. Enter your email at the end you'll go into a drawing to win $100usd AND possibly even more money (you'll see at the end).

Thing 2: Do supplements & intermittent fasting work for endurance athletes?

10 years ago you couldn’t tell me I would be able to run for 2 hours without eating. Now I can do that every day.

I fell in love with training while fasted… to the point where I started to slightly crack at the seams a bit.

After midday headaches and general life bonking I knew something was up. So after some accidental googling, I found out that my electrolytes were low due to my high sweat rate.

Problem solved? Maybe…

Go here to find out if intermittent fasting is something you should incorporate into your training for benefits.

Bonus Article - Is the Keto Diet healthy for endurance athletes?

Learn more and get that answered here.

Thing 3 - The surgeries of life by

This month's guest post is by Khyla Freeman. Coach Khyla has experience working with a multitude of youth and adult athletes to help them reach their strength and competition goals.  She brings a mental component to her coaching by working to implement sports mindfulness practices to enhance performance.

Khyla went to the University of Pittsburgh where she competed as a Division I track and field athlete in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay. She is a NASM certified trainer and Performance Enhancement Specialist with expertise in athletic development and running mechanics.

She's also the other half of Global Human Performance coaching who we featured with Coach Donald's wave story last month.
Go and follow her on Instagram after reading the below.

For those of you that do not know, next Thursday I have to get knee surgery. A couple months ago I hurt my knee performing an exercise and when I went to the doctor to get it checked out, it turned out that I had some damage to the outside of my knee that assumingly had been there for a while. When the doctor said I would need knee surgery to remain an active adult, I immediately had a flashback to my recovery from ACL surgery in high school and how hard it was both mentally and physically.

I was at a crossroads... get the surgery so that I can stay active at the level I do now or deal with the pain as it comes and lower my activity level. What really scares me is the long recovery process more than the injury/surgery itself, even though I know it will help me long term.

There is a simple quote that says "the hardest thing you have ever been through is the hardest thing you have ever been through". Sounds repetitive right? Actually, it is a simple way of saying that we have already gotten through the hardest parts of our lives so far, yet we still fear the uncertainty of what is next. We already have the courage and the resilience to get back up, yet we think we cannot face the next thing.Getting surgery is like facing uncertainty in life. In the long term you may see these great opportunities to succeed but we are afraid of the risk that comes with pursuing that option.

The risk for my surgery is that it may cause complications with my current ACL repair, meaning I would have to get ACL reconstruction surgery again, in addition to the minor surgery intended. The risk in life is that you may fail along the way and have to deal with some difficult times.

However,  sometimes your greatest risk can lead to your greatest achievement.

What aspects of your life are you avoiding the surgery? What is scaring you about taking that leap forward? Just like the damage that had been in my knee for a while, what damage are you causing to your joy by not taking a risk to do what you love?

Maybe you want to start that business but you think you will fail. Maybe you want to travel but you find excuses as to why you can't. Why don't you get the surgery if you know it will bring you closer to the life you want?

It may be tough in the beginning, but the end result can leave you in a better place than where you started.

What will your choice be?

-- Khyla Freeman of Global Human Performance

And... that's it for this November/Thanksgiving edition. Thanks for reading this far and playing along.

If you're liking this stuff please share a link with cool, committed and fun folks like yourself.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or hell - you want to be a guest on the DLake Creates podcast or have your work featured in this newsletter - hit me up! Just reply to this email or shoot a message to talk@dlakecreates.com.

PS - Feel free to follow me on Instagram for real-world documentation on commitment around endurance sports, stoic lulz, etc. 

PEACE!