Adaptive Performance with Laura Penhaul

Foreign.

Tribathlon podcast, finding out how ordinary people do extraordinary things.

So, one, you've got to recognize that drop, and then two, it's like, right, well, what's going to enhance those? What strategies can you enhance your mood?

That was Laura Penhall and this episode is Adaptive Performance. Laura Penhall set two world records when she led the first all female crew to row across the Pacific Ocean. She's a physiotherapist by trade and before setting up her own company, Adaptive Performance, she was lead physiotherapist to the Paralympic program for British athletics, supporting the athletes right the way through the Rio Paralympic Games in 2016. I actually first discovered Laura through Mark Beaumont's around the world cycling in 78 days, because she was the lead performance manager for Mark. And in the book he talks about how important the work that Laura does on that process and on that challenge and to the success that they had. So I really wanted to find out more about what it takes to perform at the top level and how you can ensure that you reach your potential through the sorts of tools and techniques that Laura's been using on her, on her rowing, helping people like Mark Beaumont and also helping the Paralympians. So this episode is really about trying to work out how we can get the best performance out of ourselves possible. This podcast is brought to you by Brits Superfood. Now, I've been a big advocate of wheat grass for many years, but I only in the last year or so switched to having fresh wheatgrass that's then frozen as opposed to the powdered stuff. And I found that to improve my health even more. Now, I've been a big advocate of wheatgrass because I know it's kept me fit and healthy. Because when I've had spells where I've stopped taking it, I've started picking up the bugs and colds and things like that again, which I never seem to get when I'm taking wheat wheatgrass. I know it improves my immune system, my health, but also it gives me more energy and faster recovery. So loads of health benefits of taking wheatgrass. But Brits is field grown, organic, freshly frozen, and they also do a load of amazing juices as well so that you can combine the two, like the beetroot ones. You can have your nitrates before or after an event. You can find out more@britsuperfoods.co.uk but at the end of this podcast, I'm going to give you a discount code or a referral code that will give you loads of benefits. So a discount, some free products, some free shipping, but they also have, which is worth just mentioning here, 110% 30 day money back guarantee. So if you're not feeling better having taken this for 30 days, they'll give you your money back and an extra 10%, which is absolutely bonkers. But that's how confident they are on the health benefits that you will see as a result of taking wheatgrass just for 30 days. So anyway, hang on to the end of this podcast and I'll give you a great discount code. This podcast is also brought to you by the Tribeathlon app. Have you ever wished you could find people that would train with you at the time that was convenient to you? Well, the best place to find people to train with is Tribeathlon.com or the Tribeathlon app, because that way you can find people that want to train at your pace when you want to train. So download the tribathlon app now. So I'm delighted. This is the first Tribeathlon podcast I've done in person. All the others have been recorded over Zoom and I'm doing it one of my favourite places in the world, St. Agnes on the North Cornwall coast. And I'm really chuffed that a local from St Agnes is joining me on this podcast, Laura Penhall. So, Laura, thank you for joining us on the Tri Bathlon podcast. It's great. I'm really looking forward to chatting to you.

Thanks for having me, Charlie. It's great. It's great to be here and actually at home in St Agnes and doing a podcast. It's great. Always, like you say, always remote and usually in London. So it's nice to be on home soil.

Absolutely. And even better to be doing it in person as opposed to over a Zoom screen. We've done plenty of Zoom meetings over the last few years or last few months particularly. So, yeah, for those people, let's kick off by starting with, you know, with your story. For those people that don't know about you, Laura, tell us, tell people about your story, where you've come from and what you've been up to in the last few years.

Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, most people won't know me. I'm somebody, I suppose, that always sits behind the scenes with people that have achieving, whether it's Olympics or world records. So my background is started off as a physiotherapist back in, you know. Oh, crikey, when was it? I would have been 21, so a long time ago now. And I started off very much kind of at the age of like 12 years of age. I always said I wanted to be a physiotherapist and mum was a nurse. And so I was surrounded by sort of the hospital, the medical sort of side of things and, and I kind of, I saw the role of the physio because I actually wanted to really work with people a little bit closer. I kind of didn't want to sit necessary in the medical space where it was about giving pharmaceuticals or, or sort of, you know, only 10 minute snapshots. I kind of wanted to really work with people and have always been fascinated by the human being and kind of to much deeper level from our physiology to our psychology and how everything, everything sort of underpins and everything interacts and beyond that kind of. Also when I was at school, I think my, my school down here, Tawergi Junior School, very much got a motto of my best always. And I hadn't realized back then how much that actually underpins my approach kind of. I've always strived to get the best out of myself on a daily basis. Trying to sort of make sure that was better than yesterday in some small form. And that's I guess in my practice is what I see. I see so much potential in people and I want to help and support them to achieve things. And that's continued throughout my career I guess. And when I qualified as a physio in Oxford, I then was working in trauma. Sport, not trauma, sport, sorry, I worked in trauma so Centre of Excellence at Oxford Radcliffe Hospital and alongside that started to do some work with spinal cord injuries and really started to see an interest more so in those people unfortunately that had gone through significant adversity and I wanted to help them to find their abilities rather than their disabilities. And that underpinned, even though I've gone into Olympic sport more of late, it still has really been the crux of, I guess my approach is trying to find what the biggest gaps are, what the biggest areas of work ons and kind of making sure we cover those and we support those best way possible. And that might be physio but it's not necessarily everything and kind of. So it might be actually pulling in a physiologist or pulling in a psychologist is sort of understanding the person, the human in front of you to get the best out of them. And that's very much been, I guess my approach long term. And after I sort of, I worked in the Paralympic sport so I started off really in full time sport, went to Vancouver, London 2012, Rio 2016 and was on the Last Olympic cycle through to Tokyo, which would have happened this year. And those four cycles really have been in different sports. I worked in skiing to start off with, and then I went into being the lead physio at British athletics with the Paralympic squad. So the likes of Dave Weir and the Johnny Peacocks and the sort of Hannah Cockcroft and stuff. So, yeah, that was my team then. And during that time is when I then went and did the row. So the row being the fact that when I was working with Paralympic athletes, I was really driven by the fact I was surrounded by these people that in some shape or form, they've either been born or they face significant adversity, and yet they've been able to draw on something to go on and achieve and to see what their abilities are. And being somebody that's healthy, fit, you know, touch wood, I've kind of been like, well, why? Why do you have to wait for adversity to be thrown at us before we actually then recognize what we're able to do? And it also made me always question, well, you know, what do you draw on when you're faced with wanting to give up? Like, what is it? What is that underpinning thing that we go to? Because in Paralympic sport, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't understand that quite for myself. Like, prior to that, I'd work with marathon runners, triathletes, so I'd run a marathon to sort of really understand the concept and the. The, you know, the everything, the environment, the feel, the kind of what happens at that 12 miles in, that 20 miles in, you know, what. What's all the. Whether it's blisters, whether it's your mental state, your sugar lows and the impact that has on your psychology. I wanted to feel that myself because I know it accelerates my learning to sort of be able to carry that back to the people I work with. And so, you know, I would do marathons and I would. If I was working with triathletes, you know, I started to get into triathlons and I loved, love triathlons, and it was a great way because I get bored quite quickly. So I quite liked, you know, I do a bit more running that week, and then I do a bit more running another sort of month. And yeah, so I kind of. That was always the way. If I was working certain people in certain spots, sports, I'd want to do it myself to, you know, only a hobby level, to give me some underpinning and to give me sort of the feel to really understand the people I was working with. But then when I went into Paralympic sport more and more I was like, actually there's more to this that, you know, I can do. I can see all the physical side of things, but there's something that's missing that I can't untap. I can't be a Paralympic athlete. So therefore, how else can I test myself to, to ask myself the question of what do we draw on when we want to give up? And that's what kind of, you know, I was searching for a big thing for me for a number of years and the sort of, the triathlons, the 24 hour sportifs, the, the sort of half ironman stuff wasn't quite kicking it for me in that sense of really testing myself. And I was like, well, it's over with within a day, so this is nothing to a lifetime sort of impact. And I found then ocean rowing and was like, actually, right, that's kind of, that totally flipped a switch in my head basically. And I was like, that's going to test me. That is exactly what I want. It's completely out the norm. I need to go from 58 kilos to 72 kilos, you know, anyway, I could go off on that like a tangent, but it, I wanted to be taken out and put completely into an unknown space, to be taken into sort of somewhere that I really didn't know and I need to prepare, prepare for, but knew it was going to throw a few curveballs and make me maybe question of giving up. So that's what I did. I did the row and I did that amongst being sort of lead physio with the, with the British athletics team. But it did take me away for nine months of crossing the ocean and then off the back of that, when we sort of returned, I went to Rio, supported the team there and then then supported, went into supporting Mark Beaumont to cycle around the world in 80 days. And the reason to get involved with Mark was it was a great opportunity to start going actually. Okay, I really understand sport now, like elite sport. And I've really deep dived on kind of what I can from our discipline, my specialty in physio. And I've been surrounded by other experts who have also deep dived in their disciplines, whether it's physiology, psychology, performance analyst, whatever. And I've seen how powerful that is when we can work together together and surround somebody as a bubble. And I was like, how do we take that performance understanding and start to spread it to the wider population and how do we Take that environment into expeditions Ultra endurance. Because, you know, I could see with Mark, he was doing some great records and I was like, he's got the mindset, he's got the approach. How can I, you know, if we just added a little bit more of performance support there, like, if I could sort out his nutrition, if I could sort out his hydration strategy, if we could look at his bike fit, if we could tweak what, you know, clothing he's wearing, if I could sort out his recovery, like, actually, how could, like, how good could he really be? And that's what fascinated me. So Mark had actually approached me and that was a really perfect sort of timing and relationship post 2016. And so I led, sort of helped support him to get ready for the start line, then supported him for the challenge itself. And then alongside that, I was also still keeping my hand in elite sport with performance managing Naomi Osaka. So world number one tennis player again, same principle. I was doing her performance support, really sort of trying to understand what her biggest needs and gains were whilst her coach was then really focusing on the tennis. So as much as, okay, athletic cycling seems so far from tennis, it was about understanding the performance. So, and that's, that's what I can see. And I can see where the gaps are and then I can pull the right people in to fill it.

Fantastic. And what, I mean, what an amazing career so far. And you're just at the. I mean, you're at the very front end of your career and kind of go. I'm sure you've got amazing things lined up. So I stumbled across you as a result of your work with Mark Beaumont and reading his book. I'd read the first book of where he Goes around the world in 195. Five days, I think. And then the second one where he goes around in 78 days. And in, in that second one, I don't know how many times you get mentioned, but you're a significant part of that journey for, for him, aren't you? Because, I mean, I think. Did you not do one leg? Do I remember you stepped out of. Was it Australia maybe?

That's right, yeah. I stepped out six days. Yeah. In order to make sure I could still keep on top of my game.

Yeah. Because, I mean, you, you were obviously, you know, it was incredibly intense for him, but it was seriously intense for you as well. And you were having to be basically everything for him other than. Other than pedaling almost. And so tell me about what that experience was like and what, you know, I heard you Mention marginal gains when we spoken before. So tell me about some of the marginal gains that you were able to deliver to him on that. On that journey and what was it like to be with him on that journey? Because it must have been quite amazing.

Yeah, no, it was. I mean, let's start off at 10, is that mark Bowmer is a phenomenal athlete. I mean, I've worked with a number of athletes over the years, but he really stands out to be one of the world's best, to be perfectly honest. And he's so unassuming in that sense. But his approach, his meticulous approach to his planning and his preparation is. Is next to none. And that's kind of why it's really been really exciting to work with him because, you know, you can provide. It doesn't need to be necessary. We talk about marginal gains for sure, but marginal are the small things you add in. And actually, even what shocked me is there are some great things with Mark. I was like, oh, my. Really? Are you not doing this? Like, you've never had a bike fit on? What? Like, seriously?

Really?

Yeah. No, but I mean, he can smash out and we both know, like, he can. He can smash world records, he can smash out volume, but I mean, you could change his seat height and he wouldn't really notice. You know, like, he's. He is able to properly put power through the pedals. And in our sort of recent book we've written, he'll tell you about. It was never on his radar to go that specific with doing a bike fit. Whereas for Uri, that's kind of. Kind of is sort of the start of a tent. Like, you want to eke out as much efficiency as possible to sort of make sure you're not losing energy anywhere. And you're not, you know, classically saddle too low and you're sort of burning energy where you don't need to. So that, as one example, is not a marginal gain. That's a. That's a foundational basic for performance, I would say. And actually, in the sort of expedition space, I'd say we'd spend more time in trying to lay the foundations and be really consistent with an individualized, specific approach to get the foundational stuff right. And then we add on some of the marginal gains. So I give you an example of that. When we were doing the around the world in 80 days, so many people were on the social media feeds being like, why is he not wearing an aero helmet? Why is he not, you know, in an aero position more? And I'm like, because comfort is your first foundational gain for the amount of time he is sitting in the saddle. He needs to sit in the saddle for 240 miles and he needs to do that day on, day in, day out for the next 78 to 80 days. So I had to get him comfortable first and foremost. And so then it's like, you know what if he's down in the aero position, he's losing neck control, neck strength. We didn't have the time frame to do enough conditioning beforehand to get him strong enough in the that position. So therefore we had to be really timed at how much time he spent in the aero. And then I had to put 10 mil risers and stuff on it to get him more comfortable with his neck in his upper back position so that he could sustain a slight aero but with compromise or you know, on a tri bar, should I say, rather than being uber TT sort of aero position like that was never going to be sustainable for an around the world ride. That being said, now we're preparing for Ride Across America, he does need to sustain a proper aero position. So now marginal gains will come into, come into play much, much more. But I could have made him really aero, really slick with loads of stuff, with a helmet, with all of that stuff. But fundamentally it would make diddly squat difference if he's not comfortable on the bike. And in order to get the most out of those helmets and the boots and everything else, you've got to be in a good position position to get that aerodynamic positive impact. So if you're sitting a bit further upright it's, it's pretty pointless. And wearing all that kit and caboodle. So that's where the marginal gain. Sorry I kind of went off on a tangent then but that, that's an essence of it. Now your original question obviously was how did I find the 80 days and stuff. And it's, it's hard work. Like it's not easy because you've got to be thinking always two or three steps ahead. Like, like you basically need to be the eyes, the ears, the sort of the foresight, the thinking capacity person for the person on the bike. But at the same time that means you need to be up before that person to set everything up. And I needed to be going to bed after Mark as well. So I would only get say 3 hours of sleep a day, whereas I'd be trying to optimize, he would be getting five, five and a half hours at least in order for sort of physiological recovery responses that we wanted so for me, that was, that is, cumulatively, that is quite tiring.

And no opportunity to catch up on that sleep during the day.

No, I did try. I would really try and prioritize a 15, 20 minute cat nap once a day. And in order for me to do that, I needed to make sure routines, fueling, hydration, all that stuff was laid out really clearly so that he could be carried on and the mechanic can be, you know, Alex, the mechanic was awesome, but other people in the team were able to just then give it at the right time so I could then rest and relax knowing that he was still continuing to be supported appropriately. So I did, I did try and do that. And also you've just got to look after your basics. It's that classic analogy of you got to put your oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on the person next to you. So, you know, for me it was how do I maintain my sort of recovery, my cognitive function to make sure I'm making the right decisions for Mark and thinking for him. Well, how do I fuel properly, how do I look after my hygiene, all of that stuff when I'm traveling in a, in a sort of camper van sort of thing. So small things like that were actually really important because also as the support person around him, I needed to be consistent in my emotions and my behaviors so that nothing impacted his emotions.

I dare say you had to absorb a few of his emotions on that journey as well.

Did you? Yeah, for sure you do, but you can't. I think what I, I got really complacent with, and I hadn't realized is that working in maybe elite sport over the years, you know, that that role, being a consistent emotional state is actually really important so that athletes can ebb and flow like they're going to go through a massive journey. And particularly for this in expedition stuff, you know, I knew Mark was going to go to a very dark place and I couldn't protect him from that fully. I needed to allow him to sort of go there, but just be the support without being a hijack, you know. And what I mean by that is classically any one of us could see that, you know, in a workplace or whatever, if somebody's constantly a bit of a downloader and you're the one that's always listening, you can absorb a lot of that and that ends up to taking up a lot of your own energy. And I think over the years I've kind of learned how to, to protect myself a little bit, to be able to create that rapport Create that closeness but not be the sponge too much. Whereas I did notice that in the team, the rest of the support team that haven't had that exposure the same, they really would get draw. So if Mark was down, they were starting to go down and if he was up, they were up. Whereas I had to really try and help facilitate that. That wasn't, you know, people didn't ebb and flow in the same direction as Mark. So that ideally he had still a positive bubble or a supportive bubble around him with as much consistency as possible.

Which I think, you know, was demonstrating how difficult it was to do. That was demonstrated by when the, your replacement came in for the six days in Australia. I think Mark says in the book that he was, you know, they did an amazing job. I can't remember Claire did an amazing job. But he was really relieved for you to come back because it kind of felt like, you know, you were being, you know, providing an amazing support role to him in delivering that and cycling 240 miles a day. I mean, when I was chatting to him on the podcast, I still can't quite get my head around that day in, day out. I mean, it is a full phenomenal achievement, isn't it?

Oh, massively, yeah. I mean, crikey, yeah. Doing a 240 mile a day, just doing one day.

Yeah, it would be.

Completely wipes you out. Yeah. But you've got to remember there's not a like for like comparison. And this is not demeaning what he's done, don't get me wrong, it was what he, what he achieved was phenomenal. But at the same time, like, Mark has got a, an absolute solid pedigree of a history from the age of 12 years of age, you know, like he cycled across Scotland at whatever age he was 12 or something and he did John o' Groats Land's End at the age of 15. And then he cycles the world the first time at whatever he was 21 or something. So he, and he's consistently maintained as much as there might be a year or two here that he's done something else. But he's always got a base of endurance, like volume, like solid, solid volume in him. So, so it's not like, you know, now you or I sort of in our mid-30s or whatever that we have suddenly gone, you know what? I'm going to start doing 240 miles a day back to back, because for sure we would be completely broken, ruined. And no way would we achieve that, you know, going around the world but he's been able to build his stepping stones over a long foundational base of years. And, you know, he set himself up by doing Length of Africa, for instance. He's already done Length of America and everything else he's also achieved. But Length of Africa was a bit of a testing sort of thing for him to go, actually, how many miles can I do at what speed and consistency? And that automatically gave us the sort of confidence to go, well, actually, you've just held. I can't remember what it was now, which is really bad, but say he was holding an average of 190 or, you know, just under 200 miles per day without support, you know, and he was able to do it consistently for over 40 days. You go, well, actually, if you're able to do that by yourself, we just add in the support. We sort out where you're going to sleep on the. On the job. You're not looking to sort of find somewhere to sleep. You're not having to look for water or carry water. You don't have to carry your food. You know, you literally just have to put power through the pedals and just keep those wheels turning and that is it. There is no more planning, prep, thoughts ahead, any of that stuff. So if we can take all of that stuff away, you know what, eking out another 40 miles on top of that 50 miles actually doesn't seem that inconceivable. So that's kind of where suddenly things become a bit more achievable by the Stepping stone. But I don't know if you've watched, but Alex Honnold with the. What's his film? Have you seen that? The Climber.

Oh, I haven't seen it.

Oh, it's a brilliant, brilliant film. But I mean, that's a classic of. Can't even think what the film's called now. But, you know, you see that he. He climbs El Cap. Free Solo. It's called Solo. That's it. Free solo. And he climbs that. And people would look at that and go, well, that's just insane. Like, that's ridiculous. I would never in a million years. So risky, all of those things. But look at the meticulous approach that he's got to it, the years and stuff that he's gone to it. He's roped up, he's gone through every single hold, every plan, every move. So the leap in doing that as a. As a soloist is not as big a leap as what you originally think it would be, if that makes sense. It's still insane.

But, but, but yes. And it's, it's kind of like people sit there and go, well, you know, look at that David Beckham, isn't he a natural at kick, you know, bending a football or Johnny Wilkins. But it's all of the, you know, the purposeful practice year on year, on year that gets you, gets you there. And so from endurance point of view, because obviously the book that you're, you're literally just being published, I think. Did you say yesterday?

Yeah.

Called Endurance with Mark Beaumont. So tell us what, what did you learn from that, that round the world cycling with Mark that has gone into book endurance?

Yeah, no, it's a good, good question. Basically, you know, from doing the around the world with Mark, it, it became really apparent that just giving people access to some basic sort of understanding the foundational basics of what it takes to endure and what my sort of line of support in this book is, Mark gives a very brilliant run through from his perspective as an athlete and kind of how he's approached things over the years. And we've separated the book out into chapters and everybody automatically goes to, and gets drawn to the fun stuff. They're like, ah, training, like what's the training? What training did Mark do? Like how did he do it? What's your approach? All of this thing we've put training specifically at like chapter five I think it is in the book because we're like, well, if you, you're wanting to prepare for an endurance event now that can be Your first ever 50 mile, your first ever century, your first ever day ride, your first week riding, whatever it might well be. But your principles are fairly the same. You need to plan it, you need to have a logistics planning, sort of thought process. What's your route, what's your kit, what's your sort of, you know, your mindset approach, what's your what if planning, what's your emergency planning? So chapter one is more about. It starts off with you need to plan, plan for what you're going to be doing. Then it goes into the mind of Endurance. So in the endurance space we'd say the physical stuff is actually. Yes, you need to nail it for sure. You need to train hard, but you need to train smart. But beyond that, you've got it before that, sorry, you need to have the right mindset and approach and adapt your mindset as you're building and as you're training. And if you, if you flip it and you know, prioritise a bit of the mental training as a priority alongside then your physical Training, those two go hand in hand, and things can really develop. And what I mean by that, as an example that we use in the book, is, you know, you must know if you're going out for a run. You went out for a run this morning, didn't you? So those times when actually mentally you start to drop off and you're like, you know, I'm about to get hammered by this good old rain storm. Yeah, rain, yeah, exactly, you're about to get hammered by that. Now, mentally, you could have all of that internal chatter of like, you know what? I know I could take a right here and I could be home in a minute, or I need to carry on on my route. And my plan that I've set out. If you hadn't set that plan, you could easily give yourself sort of the. The choice to turn it halfway back up, and alongside that, you go, right, well, some of that mindset as well. Well, is when we get those nutritional lows, you know, you kind of. Your blood sugar starts to drop. Most of us, when that starts to happen, or core temperature changes, it all affect our psyche. Our sort of, you know, our internal chatter being that our mood drops and our sort of internal chatter goes to the fact of being like, this is really hard work. I can feel everything, my legs are hurting, my this, my that. I don't know if I can continue, continue to go on, and it suddenly spirals into a negative inner chat. And yes, you could say, okay, you could keep trying to push that. And is that mental training physically? Or could well be your blood sugars and actually having a simple bite to eat or kind of a gel or whatever it might be a banana, you know, keeping it natural, but having something to fuel. And suddenly you're back in, appreciating the surroundings. You're looking outside and not looking in as much. And that's not mental training. That's understanding your physiology. It's understanding how your physiology is impacting your psychology. And so once you sort of have that. That sort of overlay of the impact of your mind on your body, then you can really start to train your body, and then you can train the mind as sort of time and distance starts to expand.

And so in the book, do you go into any sort of techniques that people can help? Kind of. Because, I mean, the more I. More of these podcasts I do, the more I realize that you're absolutely right in that at least 50% of endurance is about the mental approach as opposed to the physical approach. So are there any particular techniques or any Particular processes that you found helpful to kind of get people to go through, to get them through those dark moments and kind of establish what the problem is.

Yeah, I think. Well, there's a number of things and we do talk about it in the book and we also. The main thing of the book is, if you can imagine, endurance is such a broad topic. I mean, it's anything from getting and doing a 5K through to, well, maybe not 5K but you know, up to an hour versus around the world in 80 days type stuff. So it's so broad and we can only cover the sort of, the overarching topics. But what we've putting it, put in it, sorry, a key wise word of expertise to go, right, you want to deep dive on this, Go and follow Professor Greg White, go and follow Sophie Killer for nutrition or Rebecca Dent and stuff, ultra endurance nutritionist. And so we signpost you to podcasts that we've done to go alongside it, but then also to give a bit more depth and expertise that you can find out a bit more. But coming back to your point, there are some very simple sort of techniques even when you're training. If you look at kind of, you might want to go, right, I just want to understand a bit more what's my nutrition looking like when I train? And just recording it, just doing a bit of a planner and going, okay, I've had this breakfast, this hydration, da, da, da. I've gone on, you've done a run, like say this morning, whatever you might have done. So you did a couple of hours of run. Actually there are these points when I started to dip and I felt like a bit unwell or whatever. And see if you did take a sip of water or at that point, did that change things? Did you take on a bar? Did you take on it, you know, did you have a, have a mouthful of a banana or whatever. But if you're going to look at nutritional impact on your, on your physiology, then you need to kind of track it a little bit. Just in a simple, simple note, simple analysis of it. It doesn't need to be anything too technical, but just literally record what's going in and you know, record your feelings and your thoughts. Once you've kind of done that and you go, you know what? Now I think I'm fairly consistent. I know what happens when I start to drop. I know when it's nutritional, I can feel it. That classic on a bike where we talk about, you know, when we bonk. I mean, all of us can definitely. There'll Be time. I mean, I can go straight. My head goes straight straight to do an Exmoor Beast cycle. And it was, it was horrendous.

Hadn't prepped myself, just, just some background. The Exmoor Beast. Tell me, what is that Sportif, is it?

It is a sportif. Sorry, yeah, it's a cross Exmoor and you can choose different distances and we just did a 100 miler, but it was. Exmoor's just nice and hilly, so you, you know, you've got a good 20 percenter in there that seems to go on for far too long. And when I, when we started the, that we just, you start at sort of five in the morning or something. And we stupidly had driven down from London, hadn't classically, hadn't sorted out our breakfast, thought we were going to get it at the hotel. Of course we didn't because it was too early. So stopped off and got a banana and a blooming flapjack at the petrol station, which is not ideal for the start of a 100 miler for sure. And yeah, and then straight away we started and you're into, you're into hills. So yeah, I was. Did not start the best, let's just say that. And, but straight away I knew, you know, you get that tunnel vision. You start to really sort of, everything is closing out around you and, you know, a couple of mouthfuls of a banana and a couple minutes later I'm, I'm good to go and I'm absolutely bouncing off the walls and I've got banter with people around me, you know, that type of thing. So I think to me, food is one core thing to look at for first. If you're noticing your mental approach is starting to take a bit of a dive at times, if you then can rule out and you go, you know what? Now I'm pretty feeling like my preparation is good, my fueling during the event or training is fairly consistent. My hydration is key and that's something that really affects our mood. Just simple making sure you're hydrating every 10 minutes, 10 mil sips rather than downing sort of bottles. So if you're covering those off, then I go, right, okay, now I'm, now I'm into a mental training sort of strategy. And what I mean by that is, yes, there's tons of ways, there's tons of psychologists that you can follow. We saw certainly Mark spoke to a psychologist, Jim Taylor from America, and I kind of work with a psychologist called Keith Goddard and he's, he's done marathon desables himself, which is the seven marathons across the desert at a number of expeditions. He's an ultra marathon runner himself and he's a brilliant sports psychologist. But his background was also occupational psychology. So he helps you with all the organizational side of things as well. But for me, for the row, Keith was somebody that was so fundamentally important. I worked with him for two, three years prior, prior to setting off on the row. I used it, kind of worked with him for my own personal development. But I also worked with him for the team dynamic, for our planning to get to the start line and then what our structure was going to be like on the water. And, and then he supported us when we're out there. And one of the biggest things he taught me from how to control your emotions is it's okay to ebb and flow. You're gonna like that's. But prepare for it and sort of already have a bit of a forethought of where you think that's going to happen. So we all know in a marathon there's key moments where you're going to take some deep dives when you kind of, you're not quite at that halfway mark so you can't successfully think. Right now it's the countdown. You're still on the upward climb. And then again when you're about that 20 mile mark, when you think you're so close but then it feels feel.

So far away, apparently only halfway through A marathon is 21 miles.

Exactly, exactly that. Yeah. And so you already know you're going to have those mental blips regardless. So therefore, how can we smooth them out a little bit? What can you do to prepare fueling? We've talked about hydration, we've talked about. So the other types of strategies that Keith has taught me, one of them being what's called performance enhancing strategies. And that's where we laid out, for instance on the row we had this sort of table that you got us to do which was say for instance, your mood starts to drop, your arousal level drops down and you need to step it up a gear. Like what is it that's gonna trigger that step, that change? So one, you've got to recognize that drop and then two, it's like, right, well what's going to enhance those? What strategies can you enhance your mood? Now that can be. You put it in a table and you'll say, right, to step myself up, what are the quotes that I can sort? I would draw on. What are the pictures in my mind that I can draw on? Who Gives me motivation, who inspires me, who will make me sort of give me the sort of virtual kick up the ass, basically. And then you might have songs for, you know, we all know how inspiring music can be and how kind of it massively can influence our sort of. Yeah. Mood, our motivation, all of that stuff. So you might have. Right, if I need to step it up, I need to switch to this type of tune or this music or whatever. There might be like a smell and there might. Or there might be a song. A song, a stone or touch of some point. So what I mean by that is a classic would be an elastic band around your wrist that kind of. If you're starting to drop, you, you just ping the elastic band and you're like, right, yeah, that's my physical kick, basically, rather than giving yourself an actual slap across the face as you're running or cycling. But it's. Those are all different things for different people. And there's no way to say you need to do this. It's about trying to draw that up for yourself. And it's the same if you're actually in an event where you're buzzing, you're bouncing off the walls, you've had too much caffeine or something and you kind of need to de arouse yourself and just bring yourself back to level. And a good example of that would be, you know, imagine you're on a start line and you just. Everybody just sprints off the start line. But it's like, well, this is going to be going on for three days. There's no point sprinting at this point. So how do you calm yourself, be comfortable at pacing and all of that? And just in any order to do that, you might have planned it and prepped it, but you've got to get your mind into the. That space. So you need to de arouse the kind of stimulus that you're getting from your environment and be able to get into quite a mindful sort of state to control those emotions and be like, it's okay and reassuring and it's exactly the same. You just put that in that table and you think, right, what quotes are going to give me a nudge to just bring me down? What, what are the things visually that I can draw on that done for me? What's the sound that I can listen to the music that would slow me down? What's my. What are the touchstones? What are the things that would just be a bit more calming to dampen my arousal system than to heighten it? And you can Easily just have like a bit of a table that you can draw up yourself and like I say that'll be different for different people. But that, that's one strategy I would say that I have massively always, always used and to this day would help others to formulate themselves.

I think that's great advice because I think one of the things they say before you do an ironman, visualize what's going to happen if you get a puncture so that when you get that puncture you're not in a panic and a fluster. You just kind of get on with it and deal with it. But actually pre preparing. Right. I know I'm going to have these mental lows at different stages. Here's my tactics lined up for different ones. I think that's. That sounds like fantastic advice.

Yeah. Well I guess the other thing with it is you want to, you kind of want to bring your senses alive a little bit so you want to draw on stuff that can make you a bit more centered and so just think about what visually you can see, what you can smell, what you could taste, what you know, could there be something that you could eat that would either stimulate. So I mean a perfect example with Mark's around the world Natey day stuff, you know, he needed cognitive and psychological stimulation. So I would give him, I get him to brush his teeth for instance to stimulate or I'd get him to have a bit of lemon, like fresh lemon and suck on that or something to kind of, I mean that's slightly different. That's giving him a bit of a stimulus from a wake up point of view. But at the same time we have the same affiliation with certain foods and tastes as well. That's comfort or sort of help you just, just feel. Yeah. Comfortable. It's like a cup of tea, like you know, good old cup of tea for the English, like that's something just centering and calming versus obviously coffee or you know, actual active stimulus. But there may be other things that give you a bit more of a psychological arousal. Up or down. That's not just a physiological stimulus. That's up or down. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does, absolutely. And thinking about nutrition because I mean fueling 240 miles a day for 78 days, you know, must clearly that's not done on gels and energy bars but with that and your row and I'm going to come back to row in a bit because I know we haven't really talked about that but I want to explore that some more. Have you found any kind of overlying principles that, that you want to try and adhere to with regards to nutrition, whether it be to do with caffeine or whether anything really, that you think, you know, I've learned this works or this doesn't work. Is there any kind of nutrition principles that you stick to?

I mean, there's. It depends on. Yeah, I suppose it depends on the individual very much. So it's about what individuals personal preferences are. I mean, the classic is. It was only the other week I got asked, you know, somebody came to me saying that they wanted some performance support, but they're a vegan and wanted to know whether I was a vegan too, because that was important. And I was like, it's got nothing to do with my personal food preferences. I will do whatever necessary to underpin the performance and see what your science is telling me and will always support what a dietary preference is. Alongside that, we just might have to, to tweak, be sensible with what supplements we facilitate and how we go about. That's just got to be creative. But your personal dietary preference is your own. And that's not for me to dictate too much. But outside of that as well, there's, I mean, and there's so, in the endurance space, like, there's so many fads and there's so much. There's so many people pushing their agendas and it's, I mean, it's kind of scary to see the impact it has, has. I mean, you can only now see classically game changers as being like such an influential program that, I mean, we've had Olympic athletes, for Christ's sake, excuse my language. But watch that. And then the next day being like, right, I'm vegan, like, you're an Olympic athlete. Like, then, you know, you've got science surrounding you. Why are you not asking the questions of, fine, we'll support it, but we, you know, you're not asking the questions about what's best to be putting in your body and how to impact your performance. So. And what, why. That's kind of gone off on a bit of a tangent, but I suppose coming back to your point is there's different horses for courses in how you can mould things. If I go back to your original question of like, what are some solid, solid things and traits I've seen fundamentally, we've always, always got to have a really good, solid micronutrient base. And that is where vegetarian veganism will show positivities in energy levels because suddenly people are just Eating more fruit and veg that they weren't doing before. So, yeah, they, for sure, they feel better because now we're suddenly consuming like 9, 10 portions of fruit and veg a day, because that's what you're fueling off. But we should be having that anyway. Where. And whether you add in a bit of meat on that, that's your own personal preference. But what your protein source goes alongside that and what your carbohydrate source in a different sort of format is, is. Is up to you. But solid micronutrients and really consistent in that makes a big difference. And we know it makes a big difference when we test the physiology and there's so much work being done in this. But our biomarkers, and kind of what I mean by biomarkers is antioxidants, which, when we, when we train, and particularly in endurance, you're creating sort of an inflammatory response within, within your sort of physiological system. You get, you know, it creates sort of a bit of an acidic environment. There's loads of sort of responses that we have. It basically creates physical stress within our physiology. There's a response that we have, whether it's inflammation and other. Other bits and pieces that we know rise. So therefore, what we get from having a good micronutrient plant, you know, berries, all of that sort of stuff of a base is that provides some, what we call antioxidants, so some dampening of that stress response in our system. Does that make sense? Have I made that comment?

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And so I think what you're saying is, yeah, we want a large proportion of the diet to be based on fruit and veg and that sort of stuff. Yeah, which absolutely makes complete sense. Do. If you were trying to guide one of your athletes to the nth degree, would you be saying that some meat and some fish on top of that is a good thing? Or would you be saying, actually, you know what? I agree with Game Changers and Scott Jurek. Veganism is the. Is the way to go. What would your advice be?

Do you know what? I was on a. I was chatting to a guy called Mark Hyman yesterday or day before. Yes. No, it was yesterday with this. He's in America, he's this functional med doctor. And he put this perfectly, that he was sitting between two people. One was absolute vegan and kind of was pushing their ethos on that. Somebody else was a paleo. So very much on that. Meat is everything. Meat and fats is the key, key thing. And he's sitting in the middle and these two were like bouncing off each other and he was like a ping pong ball watching it in the middle. And, and then when they came to him and he was like, well to be perfectly honest, I'm a pagan, I must be a pagan if I'm sitting between a vegan and a paleo. And I was like oh my God, that is genius. Because fundamentally it's about the science, it's about what you need. Now the context of how you apply that is, is up to individual preference. And this is where I'm not in a vegan back, you know, I'm not in a vegan space, I'm not in a paleo space. I just want people to get good solid balance in their nutrition and their nutritional basics. Protein is a massively important source that you need and you need X amount of protein per kilo depending on what it is that you're doing and you're stressing your system. If you're looking to do strengths for training, you want to grow muscle, you need X amount like after you stress the system to help to rebuild, to help grow muscle. We know that protein is our, our maintenance is our like our healing but not healing. That's the wrong word but it's. Yeah, that's your foundational for your maintenance. We know we need carbohydrate for fueling and this is where the, the paleo type of stuff can sometimes try drop down because. Or even the fasting bits and pieces in the endurance space people are wanting to do the fat adaptation type diet stuff which is a massive thing at the minute. Now don't get me wrong, it's got its place for sure but you need to have a well balanced diet. You need to be doing well balanced diet alongside a solid blocks of training, be consistent in all of that. Then you can start to intersperse some fasted sessions if they. There's a real target that you need to go after. But those fasted sessions people are tending to just follow what athletes are doing and people are saying they've run 100 miles being fasted and you're like but what's the point in that? You've just put your, your body has physiologically been stressed and stripped bare and the impact on immunity system, on the impact on our just our health, our general energy system health is. You don't know the impact of that because it's all underlying but it'll show itself later down the line. So all of these things have their place but they are superficial to a solid, solid foundational Consistency of a diet. And so yes, so what am I trying to say? Protein 100% has its, has its place. I personally do love meat. I'm Cornish, I can't see me never having a meat pasty. I've just been growing Cornish through and through. So. But that's personal preference and I would, I do like. But I would go organic and local farm. So I know that sort of, it's nothing. I would never eat processed stuff. I would never eat. I don't, you know, I'm not a fan of sugar, you know, refined sugar. So I think anything that's, that's kind of, you know, processed has been where potentially society has been impacted quite negatively on our dietary impact on our health. And that's another bigger picture and that's where health and sustainability and all of that stuff can, can sort of really link into one. But where I kind of would go, you've got your protein, you need your, your micro oxidants as I sort of say your micronutrients, sorry. And you need your carbohydrate and you need your fats like so your basics are the ratios that you have those in will change depending on if you're on a, a rest day versus if you're on a maintenance sort of training day versus if you're on a high intensity sort of training hit versus a low intensity training day. So your ratios will undulate depending on what systems you're going to need to draw on. Carbohydrate has to sit in those things at some shape or form. They help to recover. They also carbohydrate, hydrate is needed for access to, for an energy source. You know, this fat adaptation, there's a place for it for sure. You can. But those systems don't just switch on and switch off completely. It's not like we go right now, you're just drawing on fat. We've forgotten about carbohydrate system, the glycolytic system. They all run constantly, all the same time. It's just, they're just dialed up a little bit more or dialed down depending on what energy you're trying to draw on. So you go for a cycle, but you need to do a bit of a kick to go up a hill. You're going to be needing to draw on some carbohydrate based sort of different system versus if you're doing slow and steady for sure over an hour or more of exercise, you can draw more on your fat burning system. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. And I think it rings true with what, what I asked Damien hall what the worst advice he hears and not relating to anything particular. And he said that the kind of low carb approach to endurance sport was the worst advice he, he hears. Because while some people seem to be okay and successful doing it for the vast majority of people, I mean like Ross Edgeley in his book talks about the importance of each of the different elements of the diet. And actually the key is having a good balance by the sounds of things.

And it's just the more people can learn about that and it's your own physiology, then you can start to adapt it and mold it and individualize it to you. So what your diet would be that suits you would be different to me. And we might do the same exercise, same activity, but we've got multiple variables that impact us. So I'm sitting here as a female and kind of, so my hormonal influence on how I'm going to metabolize sort of certain foods during certain times in the month versus also during certain times within if we did a two hour run or whatever, like there's, I would be metabolizing food different to you. And kind of, it's not just whether you're male or female, but there's also, when I talk about stress, so to speak, you, you know, there's all the outside things as well. There's kind of if you've got, you've got a young family, haven't you? So family demands how much sleep you're getting. You know, if you've got stress at work and all of those things. If you're traveling all over the, you know, all over the place to get to work, to get wherever those are psychological stresses, so to speak. But also that psychological stress creates a physical stress. It changes our immunity profile. It creates, creates heightened cortisol and all of that stuff in our system physiologically. And then that has a knock on effect to how you metabolize food, how we sleep at night. So everything has a strong interconnection and it's what works for one person doesn't necessarily translate to working for the other person. And so it's how can you just get to know yourself, become more and more body literate, sort of be more kind of understanding of what is influencing your highs and lows, whether it's moods or your capabilities, like when you go out for a run or whatever. Trying to understand what, what variables are influencing you and how you can smooth those out is important.

Fantastic. And so you mentioned sleep a few times. You know, I Can remember Mark Beaumont, when he was doing the self supported around the world, was sleeping in drainage tunnels under the road.

And then.

But even when he was on the 78 day around the world, he was only getting about 5 hours sleep, but you were getting even less than that. And then on your, on your row, which actually before we dive into the sleep on the road, why did you decide to row across the Pacific? Yeah, I mean, it's an incredible thing, but why?

Well, I mean, I kind of, I suppose in a garbled way I started off this conversation with my. The why for me is so important. So it's a great question. But it's, it's so important because my purpose and my why of why I did the row is just ingrained in me and it's. People sort of talk about, you know, oh, well, I must be just wanting to get on the bandwagon of doing expeditions. And that's not the case at all. Like, I wanted to, to one, I just put myself on the other side of it. I wanted to be the athlete, not the support, so that I really understood what it takes when we go to the extremes. I wanted to just embody everything. I wanted to be my own science project so that I could feel and live and breathe kind of what it takes when you're sleep deprived and the challenges and the psychology and the team dynamics, all of that stuff. So I wanted to embody that so that I could give back to the people that I support, so that I could create more rapport and just depth of understanding and have more kind of foresight, I guess, of what challenges they're going to face when they go into things. So that was the underpinning and I guess the real driver to my why the Pacific and why the row was because other things weren't ticking that box. But it comes back to that Paralympic sort of theme for me. You know, being surrounded by people that have overcome significant adversity and yet they've woken up and thought, you know what? You know, I really want to make the most of life. I'm gonna just try and get every inch of me out of me. Like that's. When you're around those sorts of people, that's, that's massively motivating, inspiring and stuff. But it is what started to make me question what, hang on a minute, what are my, you know, what are my abilities? What can I do? Like, these guys have unfortunately been blown up at war and lost their legs, and yet they have woken up and gone on to now be a bronze medalist at Rio 2016 or, you know, they've gone on to massively make the most out of what they've got. And I love that. But it made me question, well, why, why do we wait for adversity to be chucked at us? Us? Like I really, why don't we, we sort of grab it? Why don't we seek challenge? And so I guess I've always been of that mindset that I've wanted to seek challenge in any shape or form to stress test me, to kind of push my boundaries, to make me learn more about myself. And then when I can do that and have greater self awareness, I'm able to give back and help others grow. And that's why I did the row. That's kind of.

And so when you went, when you were kind of out there, you know, maybe your subconscious was programmed into looking for some sort of challenge. How did row of the Pacific?

Yeah, good point.

Come out? Because that's, it's not something that would immediately spring to mind.

It's not, no. And I've never heard of it before, to be fair. I was looking, I was thinking maybe Everest. Then I was looking at Ride Across America to sort of do that, whether it's gonna be a solar or team. And that still does, does appeal. But I kind of was like, wow, there's people doing that. It's a race. I don't necessarily want it to be a race. I want it to be. Because that's a, there's a whole other, you know, when it's a race, is it. There's a whole nother different thing from that again. So I was like, no, I'd want it to be a testing, really testing environment and testing in different levels. So I happened to get this, this message from one of my really good friends. I spent some time in Chamonix and Verbier and a good mate of mine from over there sort of said, look, I've just heard about this girl that's looking to put together a team to row the Indian Ocean at the time. And she's like, I know you're looking for something to do on a big challenge. Would you be up for it? Let me know. I'm going away for two weeks, but let's chat in two weeks time. And I was like, ah, no, no, no, hang on a minute. We need to talk now. Tell me more. I've never even heard about ocean rail. I've always wanted to row. I was at Oxbrookes Uni and wish I joined the rowing team then. But I Just, I didn't for a number of reasons. But our course was pretty full on. And, yeah, I didn't think I could do it sort of side by side because rowing was a good, strong commitment. And anyway, so I was like, wow, this means I could learn to row. And I've got, you know, I'm absolute blank canvas. So I didn't row. I'd never been out at sea, offshore properly before, obviously grew up on the coast down here in Cornwall. But, yeah, everything was a blank canvas. It was brand spanking new. So I was like, this is brilliant. It's exactly what I want. I want to learn. I just. I just love to learn. I love being in that environment and I've always been. I suppose I prefer that because most of my choices in life, my opportunities that I've taken, have been an opportunity to go, go. You know what? I don't know what. I don't know anything about this. I'm a sponge. Teach me, teach me. And so, you know, where I've gone into now is setting up a company called Adaptive Performance to support other people in this space. But the point about adaptability is the fact that it's a. It's a skill set that's ingrained in all of us. You've just got to make sure you unlock it. And kind of the row embodied that. I was like, if I can be a blank canvas, if I can adapt to whatever, I get skill sets of expertise around me, actually, how good can you be? You know, kind of, what. What are we open to? And. And so my. Straight away, I went to. I went to Alex Wolf, one of my good mates that was the head strength conditioning coach at GB Rowing at the time. And I picked up the phone to him and I was like, wolfie, I'm looking at maybe Rowan and Ocean. And he's like, why the hell do you want to do that? He's like, you've never rode before. I know, that's my first question. And he was great. He linked me up to a great rowing coach that was one of the GB rowing coaches, and he took us under his wing and taught me how. And I was like, right, as a physio, I want to make sure we do preventative, you know, preventative approach. So he taught us rowing, got us out to normal row river, you know, So I learned to skull on the, on the tideway, and. And then from there, you know, it evolved. And then Wolfie with him, I was like, right, wool, this is Ocean Run. What do I need to do? And we were Very much right. We need to put mass on. You need to be physically robust to withstand what the sea is going to throw at you. You need to be pretty solid. And as a marathon runner, 58 kilo sort of weight at the time, you know, you're pretty fragile really. You're straight line runner, you're not into, you certainly not into that quite closed pack rowing position. You're not kind of doing anything that's pull it's upper body. So yeah, needed to put on some proper muscle mass in order to do that. So, so yes, anyway, long story short, but it was that adaptability to me was the crucial underpinning thing of going right, okay, if I, if I go a clean slate and I surround myself with the right expertise, I trust that they're going to feed in exactly what, what I need to do and I'm just going to do it. I'm going to do exactly what I'm told to do and see what pops out of it. And it was fascinating journey. Like I absolutely loved it.

Amazing. I mean it. I thought, by the way, there's. For those that don't know, there is a documentary on this journey called Losing Sight of Shore, which is fantastic. Makes brilliant watching and it tells the story just, I think, you know, really, really well. But what must have been, I mean, firstly, it was an incredible challenge just, just to get to the start line, wasn't it? Because, I mean, what did it take you, four years, is that right?

Yeah, like, I mean naivety is bliss, isn't it really? Because I thought it was only going to take like a year. I mean where it started from. So that original question that you asked was, yes, at girl wanted to put a team together to row the Indian at the time that evolved because it was like, basically when I joined the team, we realized actually there was an awful female team that rode the Indian. So I started to ask the question, question, well, has anybody rode the Pacific? And originally we were going to do a race just to Hawaii, but I was like, well, if I'm saying I'm rowing the Pacific, that's not the Pacific, that's a third of it. So could we do all of it? Could we go from America to Australia? What would it take? What would be the route planning? What would we do? So that's where it evolved into the full Pacific. And, and then, yeah, and then the, you know, we then sort of, the team changed because it became such a big bigger project. And, and so then it was like, right, okay, let's do the next year, let's get a team base, let's get the finance to get the boat and all of this stuff. But classically, I was naive. I cracked on with the training. It was again what we talked about within the book. I jumped to chapter five straight away, Loved the training. I was up at two in the morning getting on the erg, trying to practice what sleep deprivation would feel like. I was taking the training to the nth degree to be like, right, I'm going to be nails this, you know, this is what I've got to do. And yet, of course you need to get the project on the start line, you need to raise 250 grand funds. We needed to get the team dynamics right. I needed to get a boat built, I needed to know how to run the electronics, how to fix the boat. The project in itself ended up being like as if we were setting up a new business, you know, and I'm a physio by trade, I've got no idea with any of that stuff. So it was, everything was such a big, big learning curve. And again, I drew on reaching out to ask people. I was like, I don't know how to ask for sponsorship. I give people stuff. I don't ask, certainly don't ask for money. So I couldn't. That was really difficult. That was a real out of my comfort zone space. You know, we were working to raise money with the charity, so we were doing it for breast cancer care, we were doing, doing it for women injured at war with Walking with the Wounded. So all of these. There was so much project management that actually was the, the core thing that I needed to do and the planning and the preparation that, the training and all of that stuff was kind of secondary. But the first year it was all about the training. Of course it didn't happen then. So I was like, right, I need to change this around. And then it was, it evolved. And you're right, it took four years to get to get to the start line in the end due to multiple things that weren't quite right. But it was the tenacity, I guess, that I had of sort of saying, well, I know there's going to be an all female team at some stage, it's going to row across the Pacific, so why can't it be us? And, and that's where I was like, right, if it's not working, I need to ask somebody else. There's got to be, there's got to be a way. Like to me it's always about solutions. It's not about stopping and Giving up so. And I'll only stop, stop when something out of divine intervention gets in my way.

Which nearly did 10 days in, didn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, how, you know, having to turn back after 10 days and go back to the US did. Was there a point at which you said, you know what, this is it, we'll just, I can't, we can't start again. Yeah, 10, 10 or so days later.

Yeah, for sure. No, I mean I was in a place of a dark place. I guess the girls that then were on the road like they'd only joined really about sort of eight months to a year prior to that start line which. And there was such strength in the team of the diversity that we had. But basically, yeah, I'd been there through that four years and suddenly at that point, so we had flooding on the boat, we had a battery fire. It was all, it's all a bit of a up, to be honest. And I was like, oh my God. Where you know, I've tried to make sure that we were as best prepared as possible. I've drawn on everything I could. I felt really comfortable, confident by this point that we were good to go. And yet this has happened and I'm. It was my one time, it's my first time I ever went actually crap, you know what all these people that keep had kept saying to me, you sure this is the right thing to do? And I was defiant against it. Suddenly at that moment I was like, you know what, maybe this is a bit of a sign. Maybe I should be listening to something. Am I actually risking life here? Because I didn't. Even though I put a load of plans in place about what do you, you know, what could happen? Because I was always, I'm always a bit of a what if planner, but I never really believed any of that, you know, so I, I put a lot of what sounds now quite sadistic or dark plans in place in case the worst happened out at sea, but never in a million years thought that that was going to happen, otherwise I most probably wouldn't have been doing it. But at that point, 10 days in, I definitely, that was my one and only time did I question, you know what, maybe this is something bigger than us and I should be listening to this. This is the way universe is trying to tell me to pull the pin. This is, you know, the ocean's bigger than us and you know, it's trying to hold its power. And then about an hour later I snapped out of it and it was alright, but I snapped out of it. Because of the strength of the team, the other three girls were able to sort of actually switch the mindset and say, you know what, we've just had 10 days, two weeks out in the Pacific Ocean. It's been a great training run. We've been straight into a storm. We have had the worst conditions ever that people on the Atlantic would never even face or see. They certainly wouldn't have seen the depth of sea that we saw. And just the extreme, extreme nature of the Pacific is, and particularly what we saw. We had three storms back to back. So we literally went straight into the deep end. And it tested and challenged us in more ways than one. And thankfully, thanks to the girls like Nat was able to really twist it and go, you know what, Actually it's just been really good training. If we go back in, let's reset and stuff like that, then we can, we can just restart and the road starts. Starts from Santa Barbara. And the point of why it got to that point was we had a question mark and it was a team decision. I always wanted our decision making to be team when we could, unless it was time critical, in which case, if I was there, then I would make the decision, or whoever was on the oars at that time would have to make a decision. But basically when it wasn't immediate time critical, I wanted it to be a collective decision making. And if it was unanimous, then great, we crack on whatever that decision was. Typically, we had two. Two of the girls wanted to turn back in to Santa Barbara and fix stuff. Two of us wanted to carry on, and the two of us that wanted to carry on was me being one of them and the other girl is. She was getting off in Hawaii. So I was like, well, hang on a minute. Second. The. The two that want to go back in and fix stuff are the very two I need to stay with me to go to. From Hawaii to Samoa and then Samoa to Kent, Australia. If I drag them now to go in my direction and we are going to still face some difficulties potentially, this is going to put us in a really hard state for the next two and a half thousand miles. And that's only to Hawaii. We're going to get to Hawaii and they could very easily just walk off at that point. So I had to really question what was my. What was my driver? Was it pride? I didn't want to be a pink boat of women turning back in after 10 days, or was it the fact of what was going to be best for the project? And then, you know, at that point it was like, it needs to be what's best for the project. It's not about me personally. And therefore, if I've got two girls that want to go back in, I need to support them, to make them feel comfortable, confident that they're feeling listened to. So that's what we did. I was grumpy for about an hour and then that helped me to sort of realize, yeah, we need to see this in a different light in a different way. But I really did think at that point I'm going to get to land and be like, I don't know if I want to get back on the boat.

But thankfully, tough. Yeah, I think just, yeah. Ten days in and into what is a mammoth journey that ended up taking nine months, I think, didn't it?

Yeah, just.

Yeah. Must have been torture going back.

But.

And I touched on, and I never quite got as far as asking the question, this whole sleep issue, because with that, I mean, you know, getting three and a half hours sleep and then a cat nap seems pretty bad tough from a sleep point of view. But on the boat you were two hours on, two hours off, weren't you?

Yeah.

So you never slept for more than 90 minutes. 90 minutes, anyone? How, how did that work out? How did you guys deal with that? Did you adapt to it pretty quickly? Is there anything you did prior. Prior to it to prepare yourself for that?

Yeah, but I mean, basically the, the what you shift into the job, like day to day. What we would be doing most probably now is monophasic sleeping. We sleep for a block, we sleep for that seven, eight hours, whatever we can get. But that sort of idyllic number that gives us a good rest and recovery overnight. But it's in a solid block. Now. What we would do then on the row in the expeditions is you go into what's called a polyphasic sleep pattern. So for the row, it was like you say, it's that two hours on, two hours off. And we only slept during the dark hours. So we would keep it. You try and keep to your circadian rhythms of dark day and night. So daytime we're a bit more sort of. Obviously we're a bit more alert and awake and hormonal influence. And then you've. Yeah, nighttime influences, what our kind of hormones do to sort of help us switch off. So we kept to that. That in the daytime, our breaks, our two hours off would be fixing the boat, would be refueling, would be sorting stuff out, blogging, maintenance, whatever, and then we would, we would just do the sleep cycles. Two or three times over night time. And. And yeah, and you're right, we would only sleep. We'd get in, get our heads down and you. I mean, we would be out for the count straight away. I don't think there's anything. When you're that sort of physically tired, you just. Do. You just drop. So, yeah, you'd have a sleep cycle. We'd set an alarm that would go off and we'd make sure we got up and got onto the oars. And because you've got a demand of the other two on the, on the sleep seats, you know that you want to make sure. And we were really trying to be strict in that we got on yours at the time so that there was no loss in time. And I mean, if you're 30, if you're the one sitting on the seats and they're not ready yet, like, Even if it's 30 seconds over, I mean, that every second counts. You're like, you're eating into my rest time. Like, what are you doing? So it can be a real contentious issue in Ocean Row. So we were, we were pretty, pretty slick in making sure that we. We didn't overrun. I mean, you hear some stories of people not coming out for five, 10 minutes later and that. I mean, I would have hit the roof if that was the case. But you. Do you get into that pattern? Help. We adapted quite. I'd say we adapted very quickly. I classically, out of everybody in the team, hallucinated a lot. So I did. I mean, I thought that would go after a while and it really didn't. So if, I mean, if it was. If it was big seas and there was stuff to really make sure you had to keep your attention on, then I was, I was awake. There was no way I'd be drifting off. But if it was flat calm, you know, pretty mundane, sort of cruisy, in those twilight hours between sort of two and four, I could easily be rowing and then suddenly just hallucinating. My mind would start to just go. Even though I'm, like, trying to find focus, focus or I'll be talking to my other teammate on yours. I would. My.

So what were you seeing?

All sorts of stuff. I mean, I mean, to this day, it's. The girls found it a bit of a standard joke and found it hilarious. I was mortified half the time. I mean, there were loads of things I. I apparently. Apparently I was. I was rowing and I vividly can see myself doing it that I'd sort of. I'd sort of had this Thing we kept seeing just random fenders or buoys out in the sea, you know, that obviously come off ships. And I don't know why, but I was daydreaming, my head went off on one and I was like, oh, my God, could you. I mean, obviously I don't do this just for legality's point of view, but I was like, could you imagine, like, you could stash loads of money, like off of a buoy and just put a tracker on it and it could be out here in the Pacific, like, I wonder if people do, you know. And it went off on a tangent. But then in the middle of the night, when I was. When I was rowing, apparently, I just stopped and I started like doing stuff underneath the boat, like to the side of the boat and I'm leaving the oars, like flapping around and that sort of said to me, laura, what are you doing? And I was like, just stashing the money. Shh. Don't tell anybody. And in my mind I'm like, apparently put. Pulling in stuff and I'm like moving and I can visually see it that I'm like putting money, so to speak. It was really weird so that I would do things like that or I would see a fender and I thought it was actually because it was a white one, you like. I jumped feet because I thought it was a person, like, you know, so there was a bit not so nice things I saw, like big ships, they weren't there. I. I thought somebody was sitting on the roof of our, like the top of the cabin and I was passing them a set of gloves and I mean, there's tons. I could go on for hours, but unfortunately far too many than I should have had. But so hallucinations were quite. Yeah, were quite strong for me, not for the others. There was one other. Lizanne did have some. But that being said, your original question, how quickly do we. We got into it straight away. And I would say the row's a bit more straightforward because. Because it is pretty much you row, you eat, you sleep, repeat, and you just constantly on that cycle. Whereas Mark's cycle is a lot harder, you know, because you need to be a bit more cognitively aware. There's a lot more decision making, safety aspects. So keeping yourself cognitively switched on is. Is a lot more important. And I would, in all honesty, I mean, I've. I've not got kids, but you've got two young girls, to be honest. You would have gone into most probably a sleep depot sort of stage of only getting 90 minutes when you're two were young. So that sort of. You do it, don't you just do it because you have to, because there's no other choice about it. And then you come out the other side. It's only when you come out the other side and you start to get solid sleep again do you realize what a fog you basically have been functioning in. But you can function. It's just your functions are very limited to being, okay, I can just pick up that cup of tea. I can make a cup of tea, I can step over here. But you can only do one thing at one time. Rather than the natural sort of multitasking that we might do, that. That multitasking soon goes out the window. I would say.

Did you. Did you use caffeine in a strategic way or was it just. No needs must.

Yeah, no, so it's a good point. I actually really wanted to try and avoid caffeine on the road particularly. I took it with us for sure and I did end up needing to use it through those twilight hours, for instance, because of me hallucinating and I'm really sensitive to caffeine so I know kind of what it does. It does really act as a strong stimulant for me. But. Yeah, but I very much was like, I really don't want to rely on caffeine because as soon as you start doing. Doing that, you then have to. As you get more and more sleep deprived, you just need more caffeine. You need more. And then you're going into sort of the tablets and sort of the right dosing of it. With Mark Cycle. Yes, we use caffeine in a very dosed way because I wanted to ensure that we maintained that cognitive stimulus with him and it was really important. So, yes, we did do caffeine dosing for him, but for us on the row. No, no, I didn't draw in it until certain stages where. Yeah, that hallucinating sort of side of things was becoming a problem then.

So you. Rather than it being kind of a standard use, it's using it and then I expect that exaggerates the benefit from it anyway if you're not using it regularly anyway, doesn't it?

Exactly. It just makes you a bit more sensitive to it. I mean, I'm open to that though there'll be some physiologists to say it doesn't make any difference. I think there's. Again, it's a psychological. It's your own belief systems. I don't. Don't really care. I know personally it does make. I become, I am sensitive to caffeine and therefore if I don't have it for a while and I then do dose it at the right time and space that it has, I can utilize it in a really beneficial way. Other people aren't like, you know, there's, there's sort of, I can't remember what the percentages are, but there's a good percentage of us that do not get the stimulant effect from caffeine. So therefore, you know, but that's just our physiology. So again it's, you can't apply a one size fits all to sort of say, right, that 5Ks into the last bit of your 5Ks to go in a race, you take caffeine because it's going to have this effect now you need to trial it, you need to understand what your body, how it tolerates it and look at the bigger picture of how much you consume and the impact it has.

Brilliant. And so what would you think your greatest lesson or your greatest lessons were from that row? That, I mean there must have been so much that you could take away, but particularly as you went in wanting it to be kind of the way of being able to empathize with your athletes more. What were the greatest lessons that you took away from it?

Yeah, good question. My biggest, biggest lesson was self awareness, kind of. We were a very diverse team and like I said, I'd done a lot of work with Keith, psychologist on how do I, I just understand myself, what my triggers are, how I control those triggers from an emotional state perspective. How do I sort of control that? It's not my lens that I see things through, that I create a different perspective. I can see it from my other teammates and therefore I can adapt to suit and make sure we get the best out of each other. So that depth and understanding of self awareness was big for me, I would say. And I was really open to get the girls to constantly give me feedback as well. They, I think in again, I hadn't realized that in the sport world or my career to date, we've always. Because you're trying to get that real percentage gain, you're trying to be the best, you've got to deliver your best to the best athletes. You know, it's all this sort of approach. We're really, there's a lot of critical feedback given on a daily basis. Like all, you know, why are you doing that? Tell me exactly why are you putting your hands there and doing that type of treatment? For what effect? What do you really believe is going on physiologically, you know, underneath your hands? And why are you dosing that exercise in that way? And why that many reps? That many, you know, everything's why, why, why, why, why? To really sort of keep drawing us to are we doing exactly the right thing, the right choices for this particular athlete? And so I'm used to that constantly. But being then with a team that are not exposed to any performance and then I'm doing that to them feels quite confrontational. And so we had to really work on actually my approach with that type of stuff and to sort of see it from a different perspective and also to get people a bit more comfortable with how do we give feedback in a constructive way to keep us moving forward, forwards and keep us developing without it being very personal.

And was there any particular tricks to that?

Yeah, no, there's some great. I mean, there's some great stuff Keith got us to do. One of the things were we had. We designed our own sort of value system. For us, it was all about team spirit that we approach things with.

Oh, you had spirit, I think written.

On the boat, didn't you? Exactly, yeah. No, Great memory. Yeah. And spirit for us actually meant strength, whether that was physical, mental strength as an individual, as a team, it meant perseverance. Again, individually and as a team collective, it meant inspiration. Both kind of how we drawing on inspiration from others to be where we were and kind of the reason why we were there, as well as how do we share our story to inspire others that are kind of supporting our journey. It meant resilience and resilience both individually and as a team. It meant integrity, like how were we open and honest with other, each each other and transparent in our approach with each other. And fundamentally it meant trust as our tea for spirit. So we had to obviously trust each other that one, we'd pull each other in out of that boat. If we didn't trust one of the other teammates to do that, then they shouldn't be on the boat, obviously. But also that we trusted that we could be open and we could be honest. So how we then enabled spirit to become embodied into how we gave feedback was once a week on the boat. We still tried to create like a weekly system. You know, time goes out there, it's just two hour shifts and it's daytime, it's night time and above that, you have no idea. And so we kind of worked on a, you know what on a weekend, like we're going to do a five days and then we'll do something different. We'll team shift at the weekend, we'll have it.

So you weren't always the same too, for the whole.

Yeah.

You'd mix it up, would you?

Definitely, yeah. Because I didn't want two teams because that becomes, that can become quite poisonous in a way. And even after five days I would have rode with that person, but I'd still automatically start being critical and vice versa. You know, it was, it was across the board. So mixing it up was really important. But we try and keep it a weekend which might just be that you had a different breakfast or, you know, you had a chocolate pot. The weekend like that was the highlight, you know, spot small gains. But also we would do a little 10 minute kind of crossover in the boat. So whilst two were rowing, the other two would come out, sit on the, try and sit on the deck or stand and we'd have a bit of a round table debrief whilst we're still rowing. And that would be like, I would set that up with sort of saying, right, okay, say for instance, ems is a good example. I'd be like, right, Ems, I'll kick this off. Mentally you're showing that you're, you know, strength wise, you're really trying to draw on some mental strength right now. Your perseverance and your resilience is really strong. So you're showing great strong behaviors in that. But your red behaviors, the things that are letting you down within the team are the three things at the minute is that I'm not seeing that you're open and honest about actually how you feel. Because I think you're really struggling right now and therefore you're not trusting us with how, you know, we can support you. And fundamentally, you know, we want you to both draw on the inspiration from others. But your journey right now is natural. It's normal to go through a dip. And you know, you need to share that journey with the outside world, like blog about it, capture it on video. But it needs to be open and honest and trust in us that we're supporting you. So that's how we used our split spirit to our values to structure conversations that made it slightly one steps removed from it being like, Emma, you know, your, your behavior right now really sucks. Sort of, you know, like that type of pointing the finger and being very personal was the thing that I needed to step away from. So therefore we use spirit as the kind of platform and we also did it to each other and it always had to be, I would say, right, give me, because I was used to it and I could take it and I would see it as more of a businessy space than I would a personal. And for sure, you get a bit of a hit when you're like, yeah, Laura, you know, you're just being really assertive at the minute, and that's rubbing us up the wrong way. And. But then it would make me think, and I go, okay, cool. I need to adapt. I need to think about how I can do this in a different way. So it gave us really good construction, constructive approach to how we can formulate discussions and conversation, particularly with people that didn't like confrontation. You know, they. Instead of them saying, oh, everything's great, you know, it's all great. It's not great. We all know it's not. It can be better. So how. How can we formulate a constructive conversation without it being personal?

I think that's fantastic. I've never heard that being being done in a team sport environment. We have, from my financial planning business, we have a clearly documented culture. It's how we recruit based on, you know, but also it's how we assess everybody. You know, the leadership team. We go through kind of essentially do the meeting that you've just done at our leadership meetings going around. Right. Okay, well, this is the great thing about what you're up to at the moment, but this is kind of not quite so good. And this is how it links into the company culture. Because. Because then it's the, you know, it's the culture that.

That's it.

That's almost telling you that they need something improved. Not the individual, which is. Which is brilliant. And. Yeah, but I've not heard it done in the sport environment before, so that's. That's fantastic. You've given us so much amazing advice here, but there's a couple of other questions I just wanted to finish off with.

Yeah, go for it.

Other than the book Endurance, which is clearly going to be a brilliant book that we're all going to learn lots from just from the, From. From what we got from the podcast. Are there any other books that you've read that you have really kind of helped, either you give to athletes regularly or that have really shaped your beliefs over the years?

Yeah, no, great question. God crike. There's tons. I should show you my. I should show you my bookcase. Yeah, it's full of them.

Well, you can. Another time I was going to say.

I've sent you a picky. You can weave them in. I would say one that stands out is a peak performance, is a great book. By Brad Stalberg. He's great on kind of more from a biographical sense. There's a couple of great ones. I mean, Chrissie Wellington. There's not many that. I mean, that sounds harsh, I suppose, because I've worked with a number of athletes. They're more kind of people I've worked with, if that makes sense. So I wouldn't necessarily put them, because you can't, because that's a bit of a weird relationship if I put them on a pedestal. Chrissie Wellington, I just love her approach and we've ended up becoming really good friends, which is the phenomenal thing. You never think that a role model is somebody you can access or, you know, get close to. But I mean, she's just got such a beautiful approach to things and is so open, so transparent. And her book. Oh, crikey.

I'm trying to think of what it is as well.

Life Without Limits. Yes.

Amazing book.

Thank God I remember that.

Otherwise. Yeah, she might have been doing this afterwards.

Yeah, yeah. No, she'd just laugh about it, I'm sure. But Life Without Limits is a book that I've highlighted through and through. I've got a number of quotes in that. The biggest one that stood out for me is, is never be left with what if? And that's kind of a, I guess, a theme that I've carried through and taken with me for all the decisions I've made of opportunities that have come in, where and then I've gone. If I, you know, if I went, this is my dream job, but I've got the row. If I don't do the row because I go after the dream job, like, how am I going to feel about not having done the row? If I go for the row and I haven't taken the dream job, how do I feel about that? And those were kind of key questions at the time, through those four years I had to make. And I was like, well, a job is always going to be there. Like it might be another four year cycle, Olympic cycle, but fundamentally I'll be able to get on that journey if I really wanted it. The row is not going to always be there, so I don't want to be left with what if I had done the row? And that kind of, you know, reading that book and that sort of clarity of one key question. Never being left with what if? Is. Is now something I carry through in my day to day practice, for sure.

Brilliant. And it is a fantastic book.

Yeah.

One of my favourites as well.

So.

Fantastic. And last question. You've Done all these incredible things so far, you know, with Mark and the cycle, with your row, with working with the women's number one tennis player and all the Olympians. What are you excited about in the future? What are you looking forward to?

Oh, nice. No, lovely question. I'm really excited about the future. Future. I mean, it's, it's a good timing to have this, this podcast because I've literally, you know, it is post Covid. I was supposed to be seeing British sailing through to the games and I was always going to be stepping out in October post post Tokyo 2020. But of course that, you know, got postponed, which we never thought was going to be the case. But I'd already made, I'd made plans, so I've still stepped out, but I feel like I've been able to make the impact that I wanted to with a great, great team. I can't wait to sort of watch them from afar to see how they get on at the games. But what does the next chapter mean? Well, yes, we've obviously got the book and we've got the podcast, but for me now, like, having worked in the. The bubble of sport. The bubble of sport is great, but it's a small bubble. Like, I wanna, I wanna see how we can impact, you know, what we've taken, what I've learned from there to impact much more. Bigger, bigger piece of the puzzle. The starting point of that is utilizing expeditions to really see how we can collect sort of depth and understanding of the human body in the extremes. Mark's a good example of that. The row, you know, I collected research during those two events. And so that is one of the underpinning things is I kind of want to keep my hand in applying performance in the expedition Ultra endurance space to really get some breadth and depth and understanding of our physiology, psychology, interaction and how, how we can get eek out the best best of ourselves. And then it's kind of, well, how do we then apply that to the rest of the world like, you know, and how do we keep ourselves healthy, happy, content and all of that stuff? So, yeah, future is exciting. I think. I can't wait to develop it. But it's still starts with my business now with adaptive performance. So applying the performance mindset and adapting it to get the best out of individuals, teams or businesses in that sense. And then beyond that will be the application of research to the bigger picture.

Fantastic. Well, I can't wait to see it because from what you've achieved so far, I know that you're going to go on to even bigger and better things. So it's going to be an amazing journey to watch. Where's the best place to find. Find out more about you?

Yeah, I mean, I'm on most social media sort of channels, so people can definitely contact me on Instagram or Twitter, Facebook. I. Yeah, my. My handle is just Laura Penhall, so it's spelled P E N H A U L. Or website is adaptive performance.com and that'll get updated. I haven't done anything on that website website for a couple of years, so that's. That's in the pipeline to sort out and put a bit more content on. But yeah, so you can head to adaptive performance.com to sort of see or connect me.

Brilliant. On email and obviously they can read the book Endurance, which I'm going to be doing shortly. Yeah, and they should definitely check out Losing Sight Shore, which is a brilliant documentary. So. So, Laura, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to. To. To chat to me and yeah, I wish you every success with. With these future endeavours.

Thank you. Thanks, Charlie.

Well, it was an absolute pleasure to chat to Laura, particularly as we could do it in person in the wonderful St. Agnes. Those. Those in person meetings have been few and far between in 2020 and certainly it still remains the only one on the Tri Bathlon podcast. But just brilliant. Chatting to Laura about the wealth of experience she's got in performance management and how she can get the best out of the athletes that she works with and also how she managed the team in the Rowing across the Pacific. I really encourage you to check out the documentary on that Losing Sight of From Shore. It's really brilliant. Watch. If you want to find out more about Laura, you can find her at adaptive-performance.com that's adaptive-performance.com and then you can contact there and that link is also in the show notes. So I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I know I really enjoyed that conversation and learned a lot from choice chatting to Laura. So in the meantime, until the next episode, keep on training. And remember, this podcast is brought to you by Brits Superfoods. You can find out more@britsuperfoods.co.uk but if you use the link in the show notes or you use the referral code of Tribeathlon, you'll get 10% off your orders. You'll get a free bag of juices worth £15 with every order. And those will happen forever as long as you buy from BritSuperfood having started with that referral code, you'll get those forever. In addition to that, you'll also benefit from that 110% money back guarantee. So if you don't see the value in it, then they'll give you your money back and an extra 10%. So go check out the link in the show notes or go to BritSuperfoods.co.uk and use the referral code Tribeathlon and you'll get that 10% off free shipping and free juice on every order. And don't forget to download the Tribathlon app for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete, and to build your tribe.