Steve Maas - Triathlon Swim Bike & Run Coach

Steve Maas - Triathlon Swim Bike & Run Coach Triathlete & Gravelpreneur

The GMCF Endurance Team took a trip across the lake to be part of a historic IRONMAN Lake Placid, and came home with mem...
07/21/2026

The GMCF Endurance Team took a trip across the lake to be part of a historic IRONMAN Lake Placid, and came home with memories to last a lifetime. With 3 athletes competing, we were there to support our friends and do what we could to see them across the finish line. Along the way, there were epic shared meals, cliff jumping adventures, sightseeing excursions, bike rides up mountains, and just so much fun we could barely handle it all. Race day was an adventure all of its own, which began at 3:45 AM for athlete shuttling and didn’t stop until well after midnight. We volunteered on course, helping staff an aid station for about 4 hours, in an ideal spot which allowed us to see almost everyone, including the pros, multiple times. All of our athletes finished safely and recorded successful performances. It was an incredible weekend that our team will not soon forget! We are already plotting for 2027. Interested in coming along? Learn more about our team at GMCF.life/endurance !

I recently told an athlete that triathlon is a series of puzzles, redesigned for every race. If you engage with the spor...
06/28/2026

I recently told an athlete that triathlon is a series of puzzles, redesigned for every race. If you engage with the sport enough, you realize it’s about solving it, not winning it. My 3rd go at the USAT LD National Championships proved this beyond doubt. It presented puzzles right from the start. A hot swim, the warmest I’ve ever done, and barely wetsuit legal. I considered going without to keep the core temp down, but the chop was also super high and I would need all the help I could get. It was a tough swim; I never really found my rhythm and exited feeling thrashed. Not a great beginning, but one piece of the puzzle in place. We’d ponder the design later. The bike was great — fast and flat, decent roads, not much drafting/grouping, not many surges required. Head down, steady power, all the fuel I could get in me. About 40 miles in I suddenly noticed the heat had noticeably spiked. Foreshadowing of the next piece to be put in place, and it was an ominous one. T2 found me sitting on the ground contemplating a DNF for the first time. I felt okay and I wasn’t cooked yet, but I knew what was coming. My watch would later show a temp max of 97 degrees. The humidity was not low, and the course was exposed. I was in for it. There was nothing to do but try, though — we don’t quit; we try and sometimes it’s not enough. There’s no quitting. So up I got. The first 5k was not terrible but the heat was oppressive and spiked my HR. I passed many walking the wrong way back to the start, their day done. I didn’t get far before it was time to throw all strategies and expectations out the window and come up with a new puzzle solving plan. It ended up being run/walk fartleks, with ice and hydration refilled at every single aid station, mile by mile. I did everything I could to cool down; very little seemed effective. But it kept me moving, and I was able to run the last couple of miles continuously. The puzzle put together, the picture finished. It wasn’t my prettiest but it was done. And, as it turned out, it was enough. I found my way to my division podium in 2nd place and qualified for the World Championships in 2027. Solved.

Today was a great day to be outside on bikes in Vermont. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to ride with friends an...
05/16/2026

Today was a great day to be outside on bikes in Vermont. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to ride with friends and .life ENDURANCE teammates at Richard’s Ride, supporting the
70 miles of stunning views, rolling hills and no small amount of speed when the chances were there. It was a good trial ride to test some fitness and see what kind of gradient I could reasonably handle on my tri bike. With over 5k’ of climbing, there was no shortage of test climbs.
We all finished with smiles and satisfaction; a good event experience! We got sweet frame bags from .us too
Thanks to GMCF ENDURANCE Team sponsors:


Fueled by

“Fun while” is a phrase I’ve been mulling over lately. In a world full of dubious guiding principles, shoulds and should...
02/06/2026

“Fun while” is a phrase I’ve been mulling over lately. In a world full of dubious guiding principles, shoulds and should nots, here’s-why-you’re-doing-it-wrongs and just plain bad advice, I think it’s easy to pivot and say it’s all useless or misguided and all that matters is fun. “Just have fun. If it’s not fun why do it?” But enjoyment isn’t something that’s reliable. There’s almost nothing that is fun 100% of the time. Even the most fun things can go wrong once in a while. So how do we make sure we are getting what we want out of what we are doing? How do we regulate the unpredictable and follow positivity when it isn’t showing up? I think an answer might be don’t have fun doing it — have fun while doing it. It’s about finding the fun within the experience, not requiring the experience to be fun at all costs. If we need the experience to be fun, we’ve set ourselves up for failure before we even start. If we can have fun while doing it instead, we’ve got a shot at taking something good home with us. As endurance athletes, we are experienced at living within and through suffering. If the fun only comes at the finish line, we are spending an enormously disproportionate amount of time without it.
Have fun while it’s happening, whatever it is. Find the moments that matter. If you love the work, find the moments when pushing feels good and hold onto them. If you love the data, dive into the numbers when things aren’t going your way. If you love solitude, breathe deep and feel the inner workings of your mind. If you love the social environment, thank every volunteer and wave to the crowd.
If you’re injured, find what matters most to you and focus on that with the space the injury gives you. I guarantee that your busted calf isn’t specifically what matters the most in your life.
My number one goal for the athletes I work with is for them to be enabled to find their way to “have fun while doing.” It’s not my job to give them only fun things to do. It’s my job to help them see their way through, while finding fun.
The fun is there to be had while you are struggling. All you need to do is find it.

Early morning race day alarms hit a little different when you’re organizing the race. In my case, I wake up an hour earl...
01/31/2026

Early morning race day alarms hit a little different when you’re organizing the race. In my case, I wake up an hour early, apparently. The brain does what it wants sometimes. Which is a great reason to get in the pool and swim for an hour straight. The 1-Hour Swim Challenge has become a tradition at .life , our version of the 1-Hour Virtual Championship. This year, we had more registrants than ever, and hosted 3 continuous hours of swimming, every lane full, a huge slate of helpful volunteers, and a pile of motivated swimmers looking to see what they could do. The great thing about the 1-Hour is that it can be anything you want. A race, sure. A challenge, always. But are you here for distance, or to prove something? What do you want to learn? I saw friends prove to themselves that they are, in fact, “real swimmers.” I saw them achieve something they doubted for weeks. I saw them crack thresholds and exceed limits. I saw them show up despite it all, and execute their plan. I saw absolutely nobody quit, because quitting means you stop before you have to and you don’t give what you have. I saw a community rally together in hard times, and create something that answered them: “Be harder than the times. You can do great things.”
For my part, I tied my personal best for distance. But I swam more efficiently than I ever have, and more consistently than I ever have — my stroke count was steady and as low as it has ever been, my splits never tailed off, and my HR stayed right where I wanted it. Having real-time data in my HUD from was incredibly helpful. In swimming, efficiency is everything. The same overall distance with massively fewer strokes, lower HR and consistent splits? Big win.
My biggest win, though, was seeing this thing come together after weeks of preparation, and swimming alongside athletes I know have each been through their own journeys to arrive at this one single hour — and then watching them thrive.
As a coach, an organizer, a spectator, a friend…there is nothing better.

The data are never the whole story. Metrics mean only so much. This was an ordinary run, out for an hour, up some hills ...
12/16/2025

The data are never the whole story. Metrics mean only so much. This was an ordinary run, out for an hour, up some hills but otherwise unremarkable. Not a speedy effort; well below average for me in fact. The numbers say there’s nothing to see here.
What they don’t show are the conditions — frigid cold and just-plowed, snow covered dirt roads. No sanding or salting, just packed snow with the gravel barely rising through. No spikes on my shoes. There’s a popular meme where a smarmy runner waxes superior about similar conditions and then promptly falls on her ass.
The metrics also say nothing about the feeling. And that’s what made this one good. A feeling of strength, in a way that was new to me. Strength in my feet, flexibility in my ankles. Stability in my knees and engagement in my hips.
Running imparts forces 6-8 times your body weight for brief periods, and around 500-700 times on each leg for every mile you run. That is a colossal amount of impact, directed straight into your hips, knees, ankles and feet.
For the past two months I have been spending Monday evenings training my body in uncomfortable ways, at a class called GroundWORK. leads us through flow sequences at .life designed to build strength through range of motion, often focusing specifically on — you guessed it — hips, knees, ankles and feet.
On this run, I felt that GroundWORK translate to my work on the ground. My literal toes felt strong. I was stable like I’ve never been. I wasn’t fast — speed comes later. But this was the strength that speed will be built on.
We train in very familiar ways, to improve at what we know. But sometimes, progress comes from the unfamiliar, and the unexpected. We have to try things we never have to learn what we are missing. And sometimes the answers are right underneath our feet.

Address

23 Commercial Drive
Waterbury, VT
05676

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Steve Maas - Triathlon Swim Bike & Run Coach posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category