Army Ironman Tactics with Kat Matthews

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding. And I'm laura siddall and this is the tribathlon podcast.

Just work really hard in the third quarter because obviously that's the hardest bit because the last quarter is the easy bit. So I've always stuck with that mentality.

That was Cat Matthews and this episode is Army Ironman Tactics. Hey, Sid, how you doing?

I'm very good, how are you? Well, actually, I think it's the battle of who is less wiped out at the moment. Between the two of us. How have you been?

Well, I have. I'm feeling better now than I was, but maybe you can explain why we're both feeling highly wiped out.

Yeah, well, I mean, I've just got back to Spain from two weeks in the uk, which were fairly full on, not like not hugely demanding, but just like mentally and then challenging. And then a lot of traveling for me and a very limited sleep, which isn't the best. We should go back to the sleep. Sleep episodes. And then. And I did have was fortunate enough to get my first COVID vaccine in the middle of that week. And then I did a long drive back, like back to Spain, which I think was like the nail in the coffin of just me losing the will to live. It just seemed. I don't mind the drive from Spain to the uk, but coming back this way, it just seems to go forever. And I even stopped. I had a run to do on Monday because I was originally meant to fly, but that's a whole nother story. So ended up driving. I drove down to Folkestone on Sunday night, stayed in a hotel and then got like an early train on the Eurotunnel across and then I looked on like Strava or on Google and I thought because I wanted to stop somewhere to run and you go through beautiful countryside, but you just. When you just don't know towns or places. I didn't know if I could just like rock up in a town and then go for a run down the street. So I found that on the south coast of France, just south of Bezier, that looked like there was a cycle path that looked a lot like it went along the beach and like along sand dunes. I was like, oh, that'll be nice. But realizing it was pretty much at the end of my drive, I think it was like two hours to speak, like back to Girona after that stop. So I still had this sort of 8, 9, 10 hour drive to get to this location. And I was really struggling on the drive. Just again, like just super tired, long Day just. It was. It just seemed to be lasting forever. Anyway, finally got to this place to stop for, go for my run. And I was so, like, looking forward to it because I was just like, I need to. I need to get out the car and do something and stretch my legs. And it was like, oh, my gosh, it was like a movie. It was like the zombie Acropolis movie. This town was. Well, one the weather came in, so it was gray, rainy, just eerily or eerie. And then the town was just like part closed up, obviously, because of, you know, just the tourism industry has been decimated. So all the hotels were either boarded up, run down, just looked scruffy. There was not a soul about in this place. I was like, worried that I'm either gonna get like, the police are gonna turn up and be like, what are you doing here? No one's. No one's alive in this town. Or I left my car in like a car park and it was the only car. And then I was so paranoid that someone was gonna, like, break in and steal everything in my car that I never ran more than five minutes away from the. Started running along this beach path and then got like that paranoia of going, oh, what if someone breaks into my car and steals everything? Right, I'll go back to the car. Then like a couple of laps around the car park and then went back along. Back along the bike path again, like maybe seven minutes, and then came back all in the rain, all in this. Just like, really. I just. It was like the zombie movie. And they were going to come around the corner at any minute. But in terms of feeling better, it did. I did feel better for doing the run. The last two hours of the drive were still a struggle, and I think I'm still kind of like recovering from that.

But.

Yeah, but you've. And then, well, and we. So we met up on Saturday as well.

I was going to say that's the straw that broke the camels back.

Yeah, that's right. Well, we met up on Saturday, but you. And when we met up, you hadn't had your Covid jab. But then we were able to get it that night, I think, weren't you?

Yes. So, yeah. So this was. This was breaking news, wasn't it? Having spent God knows how many hours on Zoom together doing podcasts and talking about podcasts, we actually got to meet in person for the first time at Cafe Von 2, didn't we? So.

So that was really busy. Super busy that day.

Really, really busy, wasn't it?

But. Which is kind of nice to see. Although, you know, it was cold sitting outside.

Well, particularly for you, that's come from Spain. I was, I seem to remember I was absolutely fine.

You were there in your short sleeves and I was like wanting a big hoodie.

Yeah.

And I. And I'm a big jessie when it comes to the cold, so you really must have been feeling it. But yeah, so the Cafe One Two was. I mean, it was great to see it busy and it was great for us to catch up in person finally. But yes, that evening I managed to get my first Covid jab and I woke up on Sunday morning having you'd said, oh, you know, a few side effects. Not sure whether it was because I'm tired or because of the jab. And I'd heard a few other people saying similar things. I woke up on Sunday morning and.

It was funny because as we left and as you said when you messaged me that night saying, oh yeah, thanks for the tip. I got my jab and I was like, good, hope you like, I think. I don't know what I said, but, you know, you're okay the next few days, but you know, just be careful. And you're like, yeah, it's fine. I've got a long run tomorrow. I'm going to be. I don't feel anything at the moment.

I'm so all over this and so I didn't.

So Sunday morning I woke up. Little bit of a sore throat, but that's nothing. And I've got. My coaches sent me a long but slow run. I was like, well, you know, this is almost too slow. It's going to be easy. And then I just couldn't hit the numbers. When I came back, I looked at training peaks. I'd set several heart rate records, my really slow run. And then about half an hour afterwards it hit me and I was just arc. But it completely did me. And I'd had quite, quite a tough ride on the Saturday only because I was trying to keep up with the faster group and then to meet you on time, I was further away than I was expecting. So I was hammering that. And in fact my coach said, you know, looked at the numbers on training peaks and said you might. Maybe I'd overdone it. Yeah. And then for Monday and Tuesday I was just completely. I was like on a different planet. I was sitting in meetings with brain fog thinking, know, where am I? But thankfully I think the cloud has lifted now and I'm. But I mean, it is fantastic that we've both been able to get the job because I mean you've only got to look at the news today and see that. I think it's going to be a requirement for a lot of travel going forward. So it certainly should make life a bit easier.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, well, let's not go down that political conversation of traveling and what countries have different vaccine. Vaccine policies and stuff. But I think, you know, I was really grateful and lucky I think to have to get mine when I got back, came back to the UK and again, I think it's just a good message to send out to people that there are some people. So it's different for everybody. The side effects, I think from the jab and whether you're affected at all in the first job or the second jab. But I think as athletes as well, just don't be. You don't need to try and push through. Like I know I. Again, like I said, I had mine on Wednesday and I was so knackered anyway. I'm not sure whether it was from the jab or just from the week I'd had and all the driving. I did get an achy arm and I think I did notice a slightly elevated heart rate on some of my runs, but I didn't feel too bad. But I had a semi feeling of like tight chestedness on Thursday afternoon, but that was all. But it just, you know, I just felt like I needed to sort of take an extra breath every now and again. But then I was able to continue kind of training. But I did notice, but I had only got pretty easy sessions so. But I still noticed that my heart rate I think was a little bit higher than it probably would have been for those sessions that I've been doing. And just like you said, a bit of that sort of fatigue and wiped out and I think it just. As athlete, that's okay. I think just give yourself a few days for the benefits in the long term.

Yeah, and I think so. And I certainly had an aching back really until I could still feel a little bit now, particularly the base of my back. And if I'd been riding on the TT bike all Saturday morning, that wouldn't be such a great surprise. But I wasn't even on the TT bike so I can only put that down to the jab. Uh, and I. So I, I think, I think you're right. And I was chatting to my coach via training Peaks about, about this and he was saying that several of his athletes have said exactly the same thing. It's kind of taking them Three or four days just to kind of get through it. And, and yeah, and I did the typical thing of, well, I can't do my session on Monday, so I'll just shift it to another day this week. And the rest of the, the rest of the week is just getting busier and busier. So I've just, I just had to accept dropping a few sessions and, and.

That'S okay as well. I think, actually, there's some key points that have come out of this conversation. One is that you saw your training session for the long run and it was slower than you thought, you know, and you thought that was going to be boring. Welcome to training. Like, we don't always run fast. It is okay to go slow. And I think there's that preconception. I, I've got a couple of my athletes as well that I'm just trying to, like, you need to slow down. It's not all about going at that pace. And I think the other thing then is also like coming into your. When people are coming into having their second jab. Now, I know that we're not going to get huge amounts of choice in that you kind of, once you've had your first job, you've got your appointment booked in, or I certainly did for my second job. But I have heard from people in the States who have had their second jab, they've had much harsher or bigger side effects after their second jab. So it could be worth just having a look at your race calendar and just being wary that, okay, you're not likely to move the second jab and I don't think you should. I think you should have that second jab. But it might be that if it is a week before or a few days before that race that you've got, you're probably not going to be performing at that race. But that is okay because it's better that we all get vaccinated.

Yes, you're right. But if you've got flexibility around when the job is. Because I haven't got my second appointment for the job yet.

Okay.

I have to arrange. I don't know. I'm quite worked that bit out yet, but it seems to be different in different counties.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm very conscious now of saying, well, I don't want that. Yeah, three days before a race, because that race is not going to. Not going to end well if I'm, if I'm. If I've just had similar side effects.

Yeah, I don't know.

I've heard of Some people having less. Certainly my wife had less extreme symptoms after the jab for the second one than the first. But then, but it's interesting that you've heard other things. So. But yeah, ultimately we all want to get, you know, it's a great thing to get this done and dusted and. Yeah, yeah, you just don't want it in the three days before your. Your A race of the year is. And also we've got some exciting news to add in. In that we now have a new podcast sponsor, don't we? So.

And it's sadly it is hydration based, but sadly not coffee or alcohol.

It's not New Zealand Pinot Noir, we tried for that one.

But it is still a really valuable, important hydration product sponsor.

It is in fact it's actually a good counter like counterbalance to the New Zealand Pinot Noir.

So are you saying it's a hangover cure? Because I'm pretty sure Andy didn't say that in the.

I think he did actually.

I think he did, I think offline conversation.

Yeah, he definitely said that it has been used. I don't think they sell it under that pretense.

But yeah.

So really excited that, you know, we obviously did the interview with Andy Blow from Precision Hydration last week. Brilliant guy. Got on with him really, really well. And I think there was a lot of really, you know, we've got clearly got very well aligned interests, both you, him and I. So really excited that Precision Hydration are now going to be the new sponsor of the podcast. Really looking forward to working with them some more and kind of sharing some of their content as well. Because I just think that it's a subject that just doesn't get talked about enough. And in fact, I've been following a. I've been in a Facebook group called Triathlon Nation, which is essentially lots of people asking questions about the triathlon world. And I would say almost probably a fifth of the questions seem to be related to hydration in one form or another. Often they don't know they're related to electrolytes and things like that. But I just think it's a really valuable topic and one that doesn't get talked about enough.

Yeah, I'm super excited. I can't wait to try to do the sweat testing. It's also pretty cool. They work with Claire Fudge, who you've had on the podcast from the fourth Discipline Nutritionist and I work with her for nutrition. So we're kind of gonna hook up all together and do the sweat testing. I'VE got some potentially hot, humid races coming up, so I'm keen to kind of get that done to make sure I can get my hydration dialed in. And I'm really excited about the fueling products that they've got coming out as well. You know, from talking to Andy, if the amount of research that they've put into the hydration products, if that's going into the fueling and then how you use the two and balance that out to match your race distance and conditions, I think that's really exciting. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's really cool that they come on board.

Yeah, really cool.

And almost makes us like a proper podcast now, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does, yeah. We're working in partnership with a proper triathlon brand. Fantastic. Yeah, but, but I really like that online sweat test. But what I'm really excited about in, because you just mentioned the nutrition piece is that the online stuff they're doing to work out the ratio of carbs to electrolytes to fluid. And I think that was a kind of key theme of that conversation from Andy. So I'm really looking forward to them releasing that. And if you wait to the end of this podcast, we've got a discount code, as you would expect, for precision hydration, which I will give you in.

After the teasing, everybody dragging them along.

So without further ado, let's dive into the interview with Kat Matthews. Kat Matthews is serving in the British army as a physiotherapist officer. While she's supported to pursue performance as an elite long distance triathlete. So having come into triathlon in just 2015, it wasn't long before she was winning races, including Ironman Florida in 2020, only her second attempt at full race distance. And not only did she win Ironman Florida, she also set a new course record for it. So clearly there's a lot to come from Kat given what she's achieved in just such a short time in the sport. So I really wanted to chat to her about being a full time athlete in the army. That bit I didn't understand, so I wanted to understand more about that. I wanted to dig in to the detail around the myths of heavy training weeks because Kat has said a few times that she trains a lot less than some other professional athletes and also the mental tactics she uses to achieve these incredible results. So I know you're going to really enjoy this chat with Kat. She's absolutely lovely and there's so much good advice in this interview. You want to be sitting There with a notepad at the ready. So I hope you enjoy the interview with Cat Matthews. So, Cat, welcome to the Tribeathlon podcast. I'm really excited to chat to you. How are you doing?

Hi, Charlie. Yeah, I'm actually really good today. Not every day, but today is a good day and I'm just really excited to be on and chat to you.

Fantastic. Well, I'm really looking forward to learning more. I like to always kick this, this podcast off by kind of for those people that don't know you that well, you know, maybe not focused on the ironman side of the sport. Can you tell us a bit about your story? How did you kind of get into triathlon? You know, where did it start? And what have been your successes on that journey?

Goodness. I started triathlon in 2015 when I joined the army. I had done a little local triathlon before university, but it wasn't something that I was too interested in because I played a lot of hockey as a kid and hockey then took the social scene at university. Wasn't going to be driving to the swimming pool or anything like that at uni. Whereas when I started my first job in the army as a physio, we had a swimming pool on site, a gym full of walk bikes, and I was in Surrey. So I sort of started riding then getting back into running after some injuries during my army training, and just decided to give it a go. We had the opportunity, again with work to take a Wednesday afternoon off to play sport. And so there were some races that were a couple of hours away that the army held that you could try and, you know, race everyone else in the army. And so I rocked up to one of those with a very, very sketchy bike, which I still now use to get to the. To the pub, into the pool sometimes. And I was, like, surprisingly good on a level that I was like, oh, this is. This is cool. I haven't really put much effort into this and I'm all right at it. So I think I then sort of got the bug a little bit. Spoke to one of the PTIs, the sort of exercise instructors who work, working at Headley Court, and he helped me set out, like, how many, roughly, you might do three bikes, you know, a week or three swims and maybe try and do a couple of runs. But I was still playing hockey quite competitively at the local club and for the army as well. So my Tuesday nights and Saturdays were absolutely smashed. And so I was finding it quite hard to train properly on a weekend with. Obviously, everyone knows you've got to get out for at least one long ride in a week. Um, so from there it transitioned that I just did this for another year or so and then looked at like what else do you do in triathlon? So went down the GBH group route, did a couple of qualifiers, did the Europeans and the world standard distance non drafting and they were really fun. So that sort of took me up until 2017.

And how did you get on when you were doing those?

I actually had broken my wrist a couple of weeks before the Europeans and so I honestly have no idea how I did. But I know that my swim was poor. I had it sort of taped up with zinc oxide tape and I was adamant that I was safe on the bike because I only had to get on and off it with my wrist. Whereas obviously you can use your tri bars for the rest. Whereas the worlds I came fourth in my age group. But most of all I was just really happy. I ran my first sub 40 minute 10k there off the bike. So that was like yay. Even if I missed out on a podium, I didn't matter. But I think from there I set my target sort of sights on the British age group champs. The standard distance still in 2018, but this was not to be and turned it into an opportunity. I was asked to deploy to Canada to be a physio out in the army base in the middle of nowhere. Quite fun, someone in medicine hat. And spent four months out there. And one of the things that I sort of committed to while I was out there was training for triathlon and there was actually a 70.32 hours down the road in Calgary. So that was my first middle distance which I'd arrived in Canada with not being able to walk. I was on, had a knee brace and I was using naproxen and I was not a very good physio patient. Trying to be a physio myself, which is always entertaining. And then left there with a yeah, overall age group win. There was no pro field, which was quite cool. So that sort of hit me on the middle distance and then came back to Wynn Vitruvian and then local race. Oh, it's so good. So me and my husband Mark were living in Oakham at the time.

Oh really? Oh, okay. Well that's yeah, just up the road for me.

Absolutely love it around there, but we really miss it. Mark's got a house there and obviously the military base up at Cottagemoor. So hopefully we're back there some sometime in the future.

And poor old Vitruvian Is. Well, certainly in its current format, is no more. I'm hoping it might emerge like a phoenix from the flames at some point. But it is a fantastic race, isn't it?

Absolutely. It's one of my favorites. I mean, when sat, I mean, was a bit cringe, but me and my husband were both racing. It was also the army versus the Navy versus the RF there, so they held the end services there as well. And. And so there was so many positive memories from that race. It was just. Yeah, it was amazing. I really hope they bring it back too.

Yeah, it is. Well, it's such a. It's such a. I mean, I'm lucky enough to be. That's my. That's my training runs and my cycling and, you know, everything else. So I don't swim in it very often, but. But maybe more this year. Who knows? So. So where did you go from. From there. So you. I. Sorry, I interrupted you. So you got into 70.3, came back, did the Vitruvian. What happened next?

Just trained really hard for a winter. I had my eyes then sort of thought, well, if I can win this, which was the national middle distance champs. I think I was like, well, why not, you know, look at some bigger races next year and see what the sketches for racing as a professional. And it wasn't that I wanted to be a professional athlete. I've never, never had that as a goal ever. Not even really when I was like transitioning to be a professional athlete, it was more about the opportunity to race the best in the sport and the pro license gave me the opportunity. So I thought, why not, you know, look at some other races in 2019 that I can then build up a portfolio to go back to British triathlon with. So my first race in 2019 was Challenge Gran Canaria and at this point I had just started to reduce my clinical hours. So I've been really fortunate at the start of 2019 that my boss, Jo Ferguson, who does triathlon herself, I had sort of put together a business case of how can I justify my hours needed for recovery at this level of performance versus my clinical requirements at the moment in this job, which were a little bit low. Luckily it just seemed to all tie in. So, yeah, I was doing 25 hours rather than 35 hours of physio in a hospital at that time. Race Gran Canaria did really well.

When you say did really well, I think you were first amateur, weren't you?

Yeah, first amateur. I think I came like maybe 12th in the men as well, but I was 15 minutes ahead of the second amateur and two minutes behind Emma Pallence. So. Or two or three, I can't remember. So for me that was like, oh, cool. Okay.

And this. So let's just be clear, that's your first Iron man, isn't it?

No, no, sorry, that's a middle distance.

Oh, sorry, that's the middle distance.

Yes. So third middle distance. Um, yeah, I was. Ironman was not on my radar at all. I still to this day I'm not sure how I fell into it. Um, yeah, no, middle distance was definitely long enough. And then in 2019 I raced a couple of pro races. Staffordshire, Finland, the world champs. Um, and somewhere in between there I decided to do an Ironman. And that was Australia. Same one as Ruth Astle at the end of 2019.

And Laura Siddal as well. She's got some good. She's got a good track. She didn't do it that year maybe, but yeah, she's got a pretty good track record at Australia. And so what made you go up to the long distance?

Honestly, it was. I went out to support the army team at Ironman Tallinn in the summer, in August. And this was before the world champ 70.3s. And I saw all my friends doing it and I thought, wow, you know, the classic. Well, it doesn't look that hard. This is, you know, probably a couple of beers down the line. And I have found that the way I deal with stress is to sort of one of the ways is to project a future goal. And so I think I was getting quite nervous about the world champ 70.3s. You know, I'd been a professional athlete for four months and I was trying to stand up to the best in the world at a ridiculous course in Nice. And so I thought, why not target something else in the future? And it sort of offloaded it a little bit. It definitely didn't affect my performance and I would never let something like that affect my performance. But it was something mentally to think, well, it's not the end of the world, there's always something afterwards.

Fantastic. And then you went on to do your second Iron Man. You're one of the few people that managed to do an Ironman last year, aren't you?

Yeah, yeah.

Tell us about your Ironman last year because that went rather well for you, didn't it?

Yes. So it was the third one that this last year to get cancelled on me, I say on me, on everyone. I was actually meant to be racing Portugal that weekend but that got canceled two weeks before. So me and Ruth Both switched fire and I think we spent half the time at the computer trying to work out the admin to get out to Florida. Um, and it was amazing to travel and race with Ruth as well. So I won that race, which was the goal. Uh, but it was one of those starry eyed goals that I thought this is ridiculous. Can't believe I'm, I'm thinking about this. And I also got the course record so I knew that the. I knew what the record was going into the race and I knew it was achievable if I ran a sub 3 off a good bike. Uh, and so yeah, I just completed, I guess so you second.

Second ever Ironman. And you, you. And you won it.

Yeah. That's cool, isn't it? My Kona slot. That's.

That's.

That.

That's very cool. And you also went and won the TAL in 70.3 last year as well, didn't you? And actually I'll ask you that now because I was supposed to race the Tallinn Ironman last year and then I didn't manage to do the rearranged date. So I've got it lined up for this August. How is, what's the race like at Tallinn? I mean it's. I always think of Tallinn being the home of stag do's and I missed it on the stag do circuit. So going back and doing an Ironman there seems like a very different way of seeing it. But what was the race like?

I honestly, I love it and it's one of. I mean I haven't done that many races but the city and generally is up there with the best in my experience. So that was the race that I said I went out to watch the year before to like motivate me to do an Ironman. And I spent most of it watching it on a screen still because the bike course is so sort of out there. It's fun. The bike course is quite flat. So yeah, if you like that sort of thing, it's just constant. But the run, there's so much support and even in the sort of regulated times last year they managed to do such a good job out there in Estonia. It's one of those races where you fly into the local airport, everything's within half an hour. The accommodation is great, the food's great, you can get on the mini scooters to go to prize giving. Like it's just a really great event.

Fantastic. Excellent. I'm really looking forward to doing it. Thank you. So talk to me. And then what was so 2020 was an amazing year for you, given that. And you also qualified for Kona as well, didn't you, by doing that? So 2020 was an amazing year in some respects, but also a very challenging year in other respects. Talk me through how that was for you psychologically.

Everyone's had a lot of time to reflect on this, haven't they? I think I. It really threw me for the first couple of weeks. I. I think it was just a crack on, you know, no, no difference here. I. One race was canceled. I wasn't too bothered because I actually didn't feel like I wanted to race yet. Um, and then I think this sort of significance of the situation started to hit home. And for me personally as a physio, I started to feel very, very selfish in my sort of day to day goal of just training to be a better athlete in myself. There was also a lot of sort of incoming communication from my army chain of command through the clinical route, as in training, that we needed to do online to make sure that we were ready if we wanted, I mean, if we wanted, if we were needed, to be deployed into the bigger hospitals or the Nightingale hospitals, which was something that threw me to start with. And I think I was suddenly quite protective of the little athlete bubble that I'd created. And then it didn't take me long to realize that I'd just been feeling selfish and if there was an opportunity to do something to use my skills to help the wider good, like, absolutely, I'm going to jump at that opportunity as I needed, obviously. But that didn't come to fruition and I just cracked on with trying to be the best I could every day. And I think I didn't seem to have this requirement in myself to have a break or, you know, take a holiday. I just sort of cracked on something my dad said to me, actually quite early on. He's a bit of a. I don't know, I guess he's a bit of a mentor to me. He said, the person who is winning at the end of this year is the person who's coped with this the best. And I think I saw that as like a mental challenge to be like, well, I'm. I'm going to prove that I cope with it the best. And obviously it's not a competition of how you mentally cope and process these difficult situations. But it was definitely a motivator for me. So I was lucky. I had the support of my husband. He was working from home, I was able to train. We have a good indoor setup and we had a good local lake in the summer. So I actually committed more to open water swimming than I ever have done, which was a massive bonus at the end of the year.

And do you think I've said a few times on this podcast, you know, open water swimming, it's got to be one of the great positives that came out of 2020 in that, you know, I was swimming in the, in the River Nene with friends and actually it was, it was brilliant fun. Is that something that you'll carry on now? Did it, does it help in your training or is it kind of just more enjoyable than going up and down a pool? You know, how will it feature in the future?

I think I honestly, I found my love for swimming over the summer last year. Like I've never had that before in a pool. I now have the dread of the swimming pool again and I think if, if I did have access to a local lake that was so easy, then I would definitely put that into my training more. I don't at the moment where I am, we move around with the army, so it's not something that I will go out of my way to travel over an hour to open water swim when the swimming pools two minutes down the road, unfortunately. But it's definitely made me more confident with longer distance because obviously with the pool, even though you're swimming maybe 3 or 4k, I don't know, some people do 5 or 6, but you've got the pool edge every 25 meters. Whereas obviously when you're in open water there is something about, well, I've got to finish this 800 meter lap, so just crack on. And that's definitely helped me as a, as an athlete.

Are there any other things that doing more open water swimming has helped you, whether it be sort of technique or psychologically or anything else that it's helped you with?

Yeah, definitely. So, and I guess haven't really reflected on this, but it's, it's made me better at drafting. So I swam a lot with my husband when he was able to get away from his, his work from home office and I would just sit on his feet for the majority of the sessions. There was very few where I could take that front roll and also just the rhythm of being able to sight. I think we don't practice that enough in the swimming pool and I have had some difficulties in some races where I have been near the front or trying to site through a pack of people. And actually having this practice has definitely made me more confident in the sort of My settling into a stroke rate with a site every three or six strokes.

Fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I, I couldn't quite decide. There's definitely things to do with sighting that improved in my technique over last summer. I also think that because there was so much banter around racing up and down the river, I actually think my technique went backwards. But now I'm trying to correct that as we speak.

So.

Okay. And so, so, yeah, I mean, those race, those races have gone incredibly well for you. How? I mean, it doesn't sound like, you know, it sounds like you came in from a hockey background, but it sounds like you've come into this sport and had incredible success very quickly. What do you, what do you put that down to?

Firstly, to be honest, I did play hockey, but I also played a lot of other sports. So I think there's an element of sort of a baseline of fitness there. So I also played basketball. I did do swimming for the first sort of. What was it? I don't know till maybe 15, I was swimming two or three times a week. Uh, and I also did a lot of cross country running because my dad was a runner. So, yeah, I nearly made the national team in running as a 15 year old, but I didn't. And I think there was a little bit of that. That was me like, right, okay, I'm gonna do it one day. Um, so I have got a big base generally in, in the skill of swimming and, you know, a moderate base and also endurance. So I guess it's not entirely the, you know, coming into it as a new person, but I do think there's a big element of it is the support that I've had in from outside, through the army sort of education side. But also me, I want to know more about training load. My background as a physio. I think I understand when to back off and how important recovery is and generally just like things like tissue healing times and how adaptation works. And I think there's a lot of that that I didn't realize was actually really useful to start with. And now I'm appreciating it a lot more. But I've definitely had a lot of guidance. I have to name drop him again. My husband Mark did a lot of triathlon as a kid and he still loves it. So he's been a massive influence in my sort of trajectory, as you call it.

But I think, I think that's really interesting because I'm really pleased that you said that because it's very easy for people to sort of look in from from outside and go, well, she's new to sport, she's suddenly knocking out, winning this, that and the other. And maybe she's just naturally talented at it. But normally whether you read sort of Matthew Syed books like Bounce or Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, normally when you dig a bit deeper, you realize actually, okay, you maybe weren't doing triathlon, but it's all the other stuff that's accumulated that's given you this springboard. So I think that's, that's really brilliant to hear. I find it really interesting how it works with you being in the army but training as a full time athlete. Can you explain how all of that works for those of us that are kind of trying to work out how that sits together?

Yeah, absolutely. It's a question I get a lot. I think I've maybe honed in a good answer by now. So the Army Sports Control Board, which is like a part of the Army, I guess they, they have a sort of tier system in place where it supports from the grassroots up until elite level at World Championship and Olympics. So coming into the sport you get X amount of support through your local unit. As such as you progress and you get better, the army sports side of things starts to take note of you performing at a certain level and therefore supports you more. So this might be through your chain of command or it might be where I'm at now is that the army sort of sports side of things liaises with my chain of command to say chain of command as in my physio boss and then also my officer boss. They're all saying this person's good enough to be racing at the World Championship level. We need to support her to train full time. And then on the side of that, the, they have a big focus on the army being like a dual career. So you have the opportunity to participate in elite level sport with, whilst you're still serving. So what the lessons that you're learning from your sport you're then able to bring back at some point in the future or vice versa. So at the moment I participate in group discussions about, I don't know, wearable technology advances with the army or recovery tools that we might use for our soldiers, for example. So I'm learning things in my sphere and then bringing them back, back into the wider community of the army physio group and then, yeah, it's not complicated, it's just a very supportive system. I think there's 12 of us now on this full time scheme in the Army. I know the RAF have A lot more and it's focused towards the Olympics and they've been very good to support me at this endurance triathlon side of things, which is new for the sport in the army actually.

Fantastic. So the idea being that you can concentrate on being a full time athlete and the benefit to the army is that the hope is that once you finish that you come back to the army as a more valuable member of the army because of what you've learned in that process as well as helping them on that while you're in it. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean I don't see it as coming back to. I see it as a role that I'm in at the moment and me participating in that role is me, like I said, engaging with the lessons that I've learned in elite sport and bringing them back into the physiocada. What that looks like in the future I can't say at the moment, but I know that the army, they genuinely just want the best for you. It's not about obligations.

That's fantastic. And I'm really interested to know which technologies transfer well, what technologies are in the triathlon world that would be applicable to the army and vice versa.

Well, just on that note, we were discussing things like heart rate variability and what was the other one we were looking. I guess it's just general monitoring of heart rate with wearable technology steps, for example, for athletes, soldiers who realize aren't realizing just how much load they are doing during the day, whereas then the physio could be like, well, you've just done 25,000 steps and I've told you to have a rest day, for example. So I think I am actually more skeptical about it than positive. I think that there's a lot of data issues there as well with soldiers not necessarily wanting their data to be used in their work because obviously their recovery is still their work. And I think that there's a lot of technology out there, personally that is just technology for the sake of technology. And I think we're better off listening to our bodies.

Well, there was me and I was thinking, right, super sapiens on their arms ratio and glucose levels, Incas no, on their neck. You've got these like cyborgs in my head thinking but, but I suppose ultimately, you know, it's interesting that those technologies are transferable one way or another. Whether they're a good thing or not is a, is maybe a different story. So talk to me about being a physio whilst also being an athlete. Are you your own physio does that make you your own best friend or own worst enemy? You know, how does that work?

So I think firstly I'm. I do my competencies in line with like the healthcare professionals. So I am a qualified physiotherapist rather than just some people might just have a physio degree that they rely on or utilize. And this is in line with my, my job still. And so I pre Covid, I was working a short day, a week in a local army clinic. And so that was nice to be able to do physio for other people. However, since COVID I haven't had any clinical contact and I do find that quite hard. But how it reflects on me is that I find that I then become like you say, my own physio. And I spent a lot of the free time I had because I wasn't swimming in lockdown where I was researching everything and anything, whether it was specific to physio, whether it was sort of side tangent. So maybe I don't know, a hip, if I had a slightly sore hip, I'd delve into, you know, labral tears. And at the moment I'm sort of. I spent quite a while looking at altitude as well. Whereas that doesn't necessarily sound like physio. Whereas actually while I was doing my respiratory competencies again for Covid, it was actually that, that triggered the. Okay, so you know, mitochondria, right? How can we, how can we optimize this in elite sport? So there's lots of little things that I utilize from my studies and then it just gives me access to that higher level of learning, I guess. But in terms of the other side, the practical side of it, I think I'm really aware of what is dangerous pain as such, as in, that's not good, I need to rest that. And what is. Oh, that's a bit of a niggle. That's fine. I'll just crack on and finish the session. And if it's sore tomorrow, then I'll, I'll recover. You know, I'll rest up the day off the two days after, for example. So I think that awareness is really useful. Does it come and bite me sometimes? Well, I haven't had any issues this year, so maybe I'm learning, maybe I'm getting a better physio as well as an athlete.

I remember Tim Don saying that he was the, you know, any slight niggle, he just takes cuts down or stops training because, you know, he knows his body well enough now, I suppose this seem in my conversations, I found that some People would use me in particular would use physio. If I've pulled something, I've done some damage, it's like, right, do I need to go, I need to go to physio now. Whereas I think for probably more, more of the professionals maybe would use, and particularly maybe in America more use a physio as a regular treatment. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, so I've actually had quite a few conversations with this recently because I've been around some European athletes a lot more and they have physio, as they call it, twice a week. And I'm like, I don't know what you would, why would you go to the physio? But they mean sports massage. And I don't know whether the physios generally outside of the UK do a lot more of this than they do sort of, you know, like we, like you say something's a problem. So if I had access to a sports therapist that I knew and trusted, would I go and see them? Maybe I actually do. Obviously everyone enjoys a massage.

I'm not sure if I'm sure I enjoy sports massages.

If I'm doing it wrong, it should make you feel better, not worse like most training sessions. But in terms of seeking help when I need it, I'm not too proud to. I'm chatting to a physio at the moment to investigate something that I'm a little bit concerned about for the future rather than an immediate concern, but I definitely have to spend less on. I've got a strained calf, I've got a sore ankle, I've got a sore toe, oh, my back's a bit sore, I just self treat that and it's absolutely fine. When I say self treat, I, I don't think you need hands on treatment. I think it's more about management of load.

So where do you stand in terms of people going, do you think a sports massage once or twice a week when you're on a heavy training week is important or does it differ with the athlete or do you think it's overkill?

So I did a five week camp in Lanzarote a couple of months ago and I had the privilege of having a massage every four or five days as part of the team package. And while it was first three weeks of the camp and I paid for a massage on the fourth week when it wasn't part of the package. So take from that what you will, I don't think I would. I think it's about rapport as well. I think if you feel a Benefit, then great. If you, if that's worth it to you, then it's absolutely worth it. If you go and you don't feel like it's worth your money, then obviously it's not worth your money. I think there's. The biggest part of it is, is the psychological feel good factor rather than any physiological benefit of, you know, the idea of flushing the tissue I think is ridiculous.

Okay, well that's, that's good to hear. So if we're not enjoying it, save our money and yeah, just do it.

Yourself with a foam roller.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Fantastic advice. I remember listening to interview of yours on another podcast and you were talking about how your training week compared to somebody like Ruth is significantly less. I think at that point you were doing or at some point in the past you were training 11 hours a week as a typical week. So talk to me about what typical week looks like now and why you can get away with training less hours than somebody like Ruth Astle.

Yeah, and I know Ruth wouldn't mind me talking about it as she has before. I think we've had lots of good chats about it and good friends. Now to have the banter of being like, we're completely different athletes, which is really interesting. Again, about the Ironman distance. It doesn't have to be one way. So obviously, like I said, I came into triathlon itself as a formed sport quite late. So 2015, I was 24 and I think I took time to build up any sort of resilience alongside my job. I think the emotional out outlay I had in terms of cognitive stress. So like total load was very high at the start and I was picking up injuries a lot, mostly in running, but some of them biking as well and a shoulder injury. So I think for me, I steadily built up that load and because I was playing hockey, like I said as well, I didn't rush into it. And so for the first few years I was just doing maybe eight hours or maybe 10 hours if I had a long bike at the weekend, if I managed to get that in. And yes, I counted the 90 minutes I'd play hockey. And then as I looked towards this Ironman, so I turned professional as such as, and I started training full time and started racing professionally at the same time. I didn't really change my training load. And at this point I've been working with a coach called Damian Littlewood who owned Tri First Coaching and Bike Shop in Birmingham. And he was so good at basically just saying like, calm down, like, you know, there's there's no rush to just suddenly whack in an extra three hours on the bike every day. I think I did maybe an extra swim and a couple of extra hours on the bike in that first six months. And then building up into the Ironman, I did a couple of longer runs, but at this point my calves were still quite fragile. I was picking up niggles and, and a couple of longer bike rides and bricks. And he actually told me, looking back on it after Ironman, Western Australia and Busselton, that first one, that I had only averaged 11 hours or something. I think one of my biggest weeks might have been 18. So that's where the low volume piece comes from. And if I'm honest, since then it's increased a little bit in 2020. For one month at the beginning of the year, I averaged 30 hours a week on a training camp, which I was overly proud with. And then it dropped back to what would be a normal for me, which is like around 20. And if, if I do a little bit less, that doesn't bother me. I don't, I don't look at hours. I don't think, oh, I've only done four hours of running this week or whatever it was. I don't count kilometers. It's all. I've had a training sort of input from my, from a coach and they've looked at intensity and they've looked at acute versus chronic load. And I think that's really important. That's something that I, I would sort of keep an eye on. Um, and I wouldn't just set myself like I'm just going to go for an extra run today. I just think there's no point. And especially when I was working full time, it was more important for me to sleep from, I don't know, maybe half nine till 5am to get in the pool rather than cramming an extra two hours in the evening or whatever it was on the bike.

And with that training, I remember hearing you saying that a lot of people, a lot of age groupers, amateurs, train too fast. Is that, is, is that something that you still buy into in that a lot of people. Do you train, I think you said, I heard you say you trained slower than a lot of people that are running a marathon, say an hour slower than you talk us through that principle and what a typical training week might look like.

So I wouldn't want, firstly, I wouldn't want to be somebody who judged other people. If, if, if that's how you want to train, like that's great. If that makes you happy then. Brilliant. I think if you're trying to optimize your training to be the best you can, I think there is value in monitoring the intensity of your, of your training. So if you're doing a lot, that's in that middle zone as such, quite fast running, just tempo all the time, you're never going to have the energy or capacity to load yourself at the very high end because you're either too tired or you've picked up niggles. Whereas if you're trying to look at endurance sport from a sort of super basic level, you either want to increase the number of mitochondria or you want to increase the function of the mitochondria that you have. So at that end of the spectrum, you've got long, steady endurance and you've got high intensity. It's obviously not that basic, but that would be a model that I've bought into, that sort of polarized approach since 2020, I guess, which I wasn't very happy about to start with. But I had a very good mentor, like I said, Damo.

And so that's been paying dividends, is it?

Absolutely. I've picked up way less injuries personally and I'm running faster than I ever have, but I don't do massive volume. So you. So actually, in the last few months, I've probably done a lot more in the middle zone, which is interesting and it's not hypocritical because I. I honestly, I think you learn and develop and what's right for you at the time. So at the moment I'm probably doing well. I am doing a lot more of that tempo and threshold work than I ever did last year. And I guess I won't know until Hawaii whether that's good or bad for me, but I'm training much better than I have, so we'll see if I can pull it off in a race. And I think that's about resilience as well. So if you can, if you aren't getting those injuries, you can maybe push to the upper end of your zone too, rather than just be in that really steady aerobic base. And so you are building a little bit more fatigue in that session. So then over the course of three or four days, you are actually accumulating more training stress, giving you the opportunity to adapt better as long as you have the time to recover, which is where I'm at at the moment. And I know that a lot of people don't have that time to recover.

And so what would a typical training week look like for you at the moment? I mean, I know that that will vary depending on where you are in the training cycle, but is there a typical week?

I don't really have a typical week, which isn't a cop out. It's just, I guess if I was to put one down on paper, it would be swimming as much as I physically can in terms of frequency. So at least five times a week, but only maybe three to four K. Nothing crazy. Uh, one of those might even be two and a half K. One might be four and a half K or something like that. Um, and lots of it. Drill focused. And then riding. I might ride. I don't know. It really doesn't matter on the day of the week. That's the thing because obviously it's all blurs into one. But I might do three or four days in a row and then have a rest day. So I might have two rest days in one week. Or Anna might do a really heavy. And they're full rest days. Like they're not like, oh, I'm going for a swim and I'm going to the gym. Like that is me not doing any exercise, which is quite hard. And again, that's quite new. I would, would not have that last year. This year I've yeah, had a lot more intensity. So I might have a bike and a run in one day over those three days, like bike run, bike run, bike run, bike run, swim, whatever it is, and then a day off. So that bike might be hour and a half to three hours with I don't know, three times six minutes of tempo or something like that. And then running might just be an hour easy or it might be 75 minutes with some threshold work or something like that. So I've done a lot more of my training in the last three months which has had intensity in it rather than either being a hard session or being an easy session, which is quite interesting.

And what would typically be your longest run in the lead up to. Or you know, what's this, what's as long as you would run in training.

So this will not be the norm. So before the last couple of Ironmans, I've done 22 kilometers, maybe an hour 45. I did do some longer runs at some point in training in early 2019, but I've basically worked out that anything over an hour and a half for me at the moment is, is a bit of a, an overload of training and it takes me quite a long time to recover from. So even though it might have some mental benefit from being able to be like, yeah, I've run for a long period of time and I'm okay. Actually, the impact on the whole week isn't actually that beneficial. So I will plan to do maybe an hour, hour 40, something like that before my Ironman in a couple of weeks. And this will be a progressive run, so it might start out slightly easier. It won't be off the bike and it will be building into race pace and maybe a bit above race pa. But I think actually speaking to quite a lot of professionals in the last year because I've had like the available, like the access to this isn't. It's not that abnormal. I know a lot of male pros that have said to me that, oh, I only run an hour 45. See, they're running a bit faster. But I think we do have a bit of a hype about 2 hour, 2 hour, 33 hour runs. And I'm not sure where that, where that comes from or really the benefit.

I remember Joe Skipper saying the same thing in the furthest he'll run in training is a half marathon. So.

Yeah.

When did you run your first marathon? It wasn't in your first Ironman, was it?

Yep.

How did you deal with that mentally? I know when I was going into my first Ironman, I had not run a marathon and I was like, I've got to have run a marathon beforehand. I cannot get off the bike and then think I've got to run further than ever run. So how did you deal with that mentally?

I definitely thought that I had the same anxiety. I did two hours on the treadmill, I think before Busselton. And that was me like, oh yeah, two hours on the treadmill with carbon plated shoes as an extra sort of added bonus. I didn't actually race in them in the end, but I wanted to try them out. I sort of switched between two. How did I deal with it? Well, I know how I dealt with it before Florida because I voiced this concern to my coach and he said, cap, you'll be fine as long as you can cope with the pain. And so I said, I can get with the pain. I think it was about just composure. I'm honestly, I think part of me, I've done a lot of running as a kid and I think I've got good efficiency already, so that part isn't a problem for me. And I know that's not necessarily normal, but I think if you fueled the bike well, the marathon isn't that bad and there's a massive mental Battle. So I set off, I was really proud of this. For my first race, the Busselton Ironman, I set off to run 4:30s and I have like the most beautiful, the most beautiful flat graph of 4/30s for the whole thing. And I did stop for a minute to go to the loo, which I was a bit annoyed about, but I've sorted those issues and so, yeah, I think it's about pacing and not you feel. Everyone feels so great when they get off. And a classic example of me, last weekend at Grand Canary, I got. I've been running really well in training and I was like, I can, I can run 3 40s, got off the bike around 3 K's at 3 minute 30s and I was like, this is brilliant. Obviously it was too hard and I struggled a little bit and I paid for it. So I think it's just about having a really good understanding of where your race pace actually is. And this can come from, like, for me, it's heart rate. So I trust the heart rate that I'm running out and I know that if I start tipping over or starts creeping, then I need to focus on breathing, folks on, you know, form, relax, all this sort of stuff to try and keep my heart rate down because I. Maybe it's going to be a limiter one day, but I trust that a lot and I know that if I start going into the 1-80s, then I need to be near the end of the race.

Actually, that's, that's. I forgotten about using that as my barometer at the. I think that was. I was told that by a friend of mine before I did my first half, which was the Vitruvian, actually, and, and yes, I'd completely forgotten that. So that is a good way of keeping you, keeping you from. Because it is so. Particularly at the start of a. The run off an iron man. You know, you are supercharged, aren't you? But it's very easy to. To do too much damage there.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's what gave me a lot of confidence for Florida actually, was that, like I said, I hadn't, I didn't have the run sort of tolerance in me, but I, as soon as I got off the bike, I felt great, as I always do. I just think, oh, yay, running. There's no, nothing can go wrong now. And the girl behind me, I had been leading the whole race and she had caught me just in transition and she came storming up behind me and I sort of had a quick peek at my watch and I was running 4 tens. And I was like. And my heart rate was, you know, 1 165. And I was like, sweet, she can run. You know, she can. She. She was breathing really heavily and I was like, I'm so comfortable at this pace, I'm going to stick at it. And she just dropped straight off and got to the 30k point and my heart rate was still in the 170. So I was like, cool, I'm going to push on. And did like a negative split last 10k, which is quite fun.

Fantastic. That's just amazing. And I remember hearing you talking about strategies that you use when you're struggling on the bike mentally. Can you talk us through those? Because I thought they, they sounded fantastic.

So I think you're referring to Florida. Even though it was a great race. I had some, I had a, had a really horrible bike. Um, there was nothing actually wrong. I just, I think I just lost my head. I've never been at the front of a race before and it, I think it just got to me. I. There was also a little bit of confusion with some sort of bike penalty from my husband's side, but let's not go into that. And I basically just decided that, you know, just get to the next point, get to the next point. Luckily it was one of those courses you couldn't drop out and I think, I don't think I would have because I was obviously in good form. But it crosses your mind. But with a race where it's, you know, a big out and back loop, that's not an option. You've got to get to the finish or to T2. And so I just set myself little targets. So this stretch of road, I'm just going to lap my bike computer and I make sure I have one of the little screen screens as lap average power. So for this course, because it was quite flat, you could quite consistently put down a nice average power. And I just, instead of seeing my overall average power dropping every 10km, I could just refocus on a new number for that lap. And I found that really beneficial. So it sort of wiped out the fact that I had spent 20, 30 minutes above my. Well, it wasn't above, it was my targeted race was I just couldn't hold it for the whole time. Um, what was annoying with that was that for me personally it felt like it was effort level because my heart rate was down as well. So that was why I have was having to sort of create new challenges to try and get my effort level sort of up, like to Work harder on the bike rather than just sort of be lazy and hope. I don't know, maybe I got some friends coming from behind.

And how, how long typically would be. Would you be creating a new lap for yourself?

Oh, it really depended. Um, sometimes honestly it was like two minutes because I was like, oh, I'll scrap that one, do it again because it dropped under 200 or something. And then I'd be like, oh, I can't, I can't see that number. I can't deal with it. Or, or it might have been, I think one of them was maybe 10 or 15, 20 minutes. Maybe it was like a whole stretch of road. Or I'm going it for this, for this out and this back and see whether I can match it. Just little things to try and stimulate my mind, I think.

And is that something that you do? I've heard people chunking down the run quite a lot, but not so much on the bike. Is that something you do on the run as well?

Yeah, definitely. Um, I'll always be thinking in my head, so Gran Canaria last weekend, for example, I'll always be thinking, okay, this section of road is really rubbish, but I've only got to run it three more times. Okay, right, I've done a lap and a half. I've only got to, you know, I've got two more of these laps. Just get through the next lap and then you're on your last lap and it's fine. Last laps always really easy. So it's always the penultimate lap. And actually I'll go back to my dad again, which is seeing a thread here, is that I was doing a swimming race once, I did many of these local galas and he, I think I was racing like this really big race, it might have been a 200 meters and. And he was like, just work really hard in the third quarter because obviously that's the hardest bit because the last quarter is the easy bit. So I've always stuck with that mentality, I think for any distance or anything like that. Even if it's just, I don't know, an 800 meters, I'd probably still break it down into 200 meter blocks.

I think that's really interesting advice. And I think it is the third quarter that's hardest. So if you're working hardest in that, that's going to kind of mentally defeat a lot of the people you're competing against as well, isn't it?

Yeah, and sometimes I'll even try and trick myself and say it's the second quarter because Then by the time you've done the second quarter, it's like, oh, the third quarter. And so it just continues.

Okay, fantastic.

Mind games.

Mind games. But it's about, you know, reframing it, isn't it? And. And, you know, the more of these I've done, the more I've understood that 50% of endurance sport is about mental as much as it is physical. So if you've got mental strategies to improve your performance, then that's fantastic. I seem to remember hearing you say that you listen to audiobooks when you're on the bike or. Yeah. So any. I always ask, have you got any books that you particularly recommend regularly or particularly helped you? So what type of audiobooks?

I'm.

I'm a massive audiobook listener. I listen to them on the bike, on. On the run. I've even started. I can't listen in the pool, but I can listen to podcasts in the pool, so. But, well, not in the pool. I've now got one of these swim spas, so I need anything I can to break the monotony. But what books are you listening to when you're out on the bike or running?

So I mix it up between audiobooks, podcasts, and music, definitely. I think I have to have the capacity to absorb information if I'm really tired. So, for example, the training camp I did in Lanzarote a few months ago, I didn't listen, read, or do any work for three weeks. And on the fourth week, I was like, oh, my goodness. I had had time to recover and I could think again, which is amazing. But audiobooks wise is. I'm one of those sad people. I feel like it's quite sad. I feel like it's sort of self help, but it's more. I think it's sports psychology. That's what I put it under. So I listen to, but I don't always learn everything from it, if that makes sense. I find it really interesting to listen to, but I don't necessarily absorb it, and I couldn't tell you all of the details in it. I'll just pick out little nuggets that will help me that day. Or I might. I don't know, I might think back on it a few weeks later. For example. So I'm reading, actually, Matthew McConaughey's book at the moment. I say reading audio, that's a difficult.

Thing to get your eye.

Not as intellectual as actually sitting down and reading Greenlights, which he's great. Like, I think he's a brilliant actor and he Reads this himself. So it's quite good fun. It's just a completely different perspective. Is not exactly sports psychology, but it's about high performance. Another one that I listened to when I first did my first middle distance and I was injured in Canada was the Subtle Art of Not Giving a. Oh, yes, that one I haven't listened. Is that Matthew Mark. Mark Manson. I am. He's got another book out recently. I haven't read that yet, which I think could be quite good. But then there's a load. There's like. I've actually been on my thing now, like peak. Dr. Mark Bubs. That one I found really good. Endure, Alex Hutchinson.

Oh, that's fantastic, isn't it? Yeah, Peak is good and Endure is brilliant.

The sports gene, like, basically anything like that. The brave athlete, Leslie someone. Anything like that I absolutely love. And then podcasts. There's a podcast called High Performance.

Yeah. The Highest Lifestyle.

Yeah. And that's about, you know, that's got sports stars. They've got. I think, actually I found Matthew McConaughey on there. They've got. Joe Malone was one I recently listened to.

I was listening to the Jo Malone interview while I was swimming last week.

So. Good. Yeah.

Isn't it?

Yeah. And that's the sort of thing I've. I've never. I have some of her products, but I would never have thought of her as a sort of a role model in business. And just listening to her story was. Yeah, it was really inspiring. There's always little bits and nuggets that. This sort of consistency and persistence and. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, I thought that was. I thought that was a really good interview, actually. And there was two or three things in it that just made me think, oh, that's. You know, we need to think about that slightly differently, both in business and in. In personal life.

Yeah. And there was actually one more. I think it's called Don't Tell Me the Score or something like that. Yes.

Another good one. Yes.

Yeah.

Any particular interviews on. I love Don't Tell Me the Score. Any particular interviews on that that you enjoyed?

I always save them if I think they're any good. I can't. I can't go back to it now.

Forgotten podcast. And, yeah, I. I particularly like the. The Gareth Thomas one actually was very, very good.

Okay.

If you haven't listened to the Gareth Thomas one, I would suggest you listen to that. And Chrissy Wellington's one is. Was very, very good. But that. So fantastic. And in terms of looking forward, what are your goals for I seem to remember hearing you talk about goals and saying that goals are important to you. Firstly, how do you use goals in your planning? And secondly, what are your goals for the future?

Easier to start with. What are my goals? I think little goals and big goals are important. So little goals are getting my head around the idea that every race has to be a perfect race or an A race. And that's something that I don't like. I definitely am a bit of a perfectionist by heart. So in a couple of weeks I've got an Ironman and it should go absolutely fine. There's no reason for it not to, but I won't be in 100% condition for it which is sort of exciting because it's nice to know that you can go into race and I'll probably do okay and I still won't be as good as I can be, for example. And so that's a little goal I'd say even though it's an Iron Man Ironman Tulsa. Yeah. Should attract a big field. Should be very good. And meant to be live streamed as well by Ironman which would be interesting. And then obviously the big goal is, has now and has been for the last 18 months is Hawaii. And that's where I think everything at the moment in the sport. I had never really appreciated it until I went out to watch my husband race last year before obviously. And yeah, like it makes me starry eyes to think that I get to line up there and race and just see how it goes the first year. But I honestly think that I can do well there. What that looks like in the first couple of years, I don't know. I know that it's a bit of a beast itself but I do think I've got the potential to podium at some point in the future. Like I'm. I've just turned 30 so I feel like I've got a lot of years ahead of me and whether that's in four or five years time. See it's. It's an exciting sort of focus for me which I don't think I've allowed myself to get excited about until after. I think Florida gave me a real confidence in what I can achieve. But how do I use them in sort of day to day? I guess it's just about like we've mentioned, breaking things down. I went into Florida with the idea that I had. Exactly. And actually my first Ironman. Exactly the splits that I wanted to swim, bike and run. Even how long I wanted to take in transition because I'd Looked it up from previous race results and I think I hit them. I. In the both Ironmans, I've hit them pretty accurately. So I think running a sub 3 off the bike was a massive goal. And I just made the conscious decision on the day in the middle of the run that I was going to do it. Um, and so, yeah, I think having little goals in the sport of triathlon, in terms of whether it's just ticking off all the training for the day, eating right, sleeping well, you can't always affect those every day. But I think the biggest scale of it, if I can put together a good training block and just turn up to the race, wanting to give it everything, I think that's a really nice one.

And do you write these goals down? I mean, obviously not. The day's training, I dare say, is documented in training Peaks or somewhere else. But do you write these goals down? And have you got. Do you have a system about rewriting them or anything like that? Or is it just more ad hoc clock and they float around in your head?

Actually over lockdown. Last year, I did chat to a sports psychologist, more out of interest, and I did actually write down, I think it might have been me, just before lockdown, I sort of did a flow, like a spider chart as I just put words on paper, basically, and with a little bit of very minimal, actually artistic talent. And they were things like my morals, like who I wanted to be, what was important to me, and then where I wanted to go with the sport, like why I was doing it. And out of that came Hawaii and what I need to achieve to podium. I need to be able to run this off the bike in Hawaii. And I think writing those down, it was actually a real leveler in terms of just de stressing like that's the ultimate goal. But that's not where I'm at at the moment. I'm at. I'm here at the moment. And prior to a race, I might write down a realistic time splits that I'm hoping for, but only I only write those down because I'm trying to plan out my fuel. It's not. I don't need to write them down. I could probably. I just. I guess I sort of hold them rather than writing it.

And was that that sports psychologist wasn't Hannah Davis, was it?

No, but I've heard her podcast the way.

Yes, she was on our podcast a while ago and it was just very similar stuff. I'm sure lots of sports psychologists do the same. Same thing. But it was because obviously she did Iron Mind with Lucy Gossage.

Yes.

So and I went through the kind of the online program of that and it's really, really valuable actually.

Okay. No, I think there's just a little tactic that I did learn and I never actually did, but it might help somebody is that I was talking about body weight and body image and not feeling as confident as I wanted to. And we talked about what it was that was stopping me from losing more weight. And I am quite resilient in the idea that I think I'm very healthy and I could lose more weight but it would increase the risk of injury. And I think I'm really firm in where my beliefs sit with this. And it was the idea of like the extra snack for somebody else so you could have a little post it note or something. And you. One side was what do I want? Like an ideal body image and the other side was the snack, for example. So you can sort of make that conscious decision every time you're missing a session eating something that you don't necessarily need because it's not fulfilling the bigger goal. So that was quite interesting.

Yeah, that is really interesting and I'm just trying to. Oh yeah, that was it. The goal that I was wondering whether you were going to say was a time trial goal. So you did have a crack at the end and won the time trial. Was, was last year, wasn't it?

20, 2100 mile national time trial. Yeah.

And so do you think you're going to do more of that and is there a, is there a target there if you did.

While triathlon is happening? Time trialing is a training tool for me and that race was exactly that. I thought it was really cool and some of my friends are doing it. We actually, me and Kim Morrison had arrived back from the Alps for two weeks the. On the Friday night. So we'd had, you know, a poor night's sleep and we just went into it pretty ropey. I thought it, I was rapey. Um, I had no expectation and obviously either altitude works well for me or I was fitted and I should do more bike volume than I am doing right now. Um, but yeah, it was just a training tool. I wanted to see how hard I could push myself. Like you said, it's like doing a marathon before an ironman. So you've got that mental. Like I just wanted to do a hard hundred miles to see what was actually, you know, where that limit was. So I would do some more. Like they're quite good fun, I guess, but only if it was useful for My triathlon training, I think this year's 100 mile clashes with a couple of events. I think there's an outlaw race and there's also Ironman Bolton I think is on the same weekend. So not necessarily. It's also in that period after an Ironman where I'm probably going to have some time off, but it looks like a fast course, so I don't know. I do.

It could be a record.

Yeah. But I don't think I'll be in the bike shape for it. So I'd only really enter something like that. I think if I was actually in the shape to take the national record and I think that would require a little bit more bike commitment than run Focus.

Fantastic. And then final question. Other than Kona, which obviously is right up there, are there any other bucket list races that you think I'd really love to do that, you know, whether it's competitive or not. But just something that you think I would love to do. Go and race, you know, for, for the fun of it.

I will do the London Marathon one day. I. Every year I think, oh, I want to enter, I want to enter. And, and it just doesn't make any sense to do a standalone marathon in. In while you're training for a triathlon. Like there's just no look like as a professional athlete for someone who's looking at just for optimizing performance, there's no point. Which is really sad. So I think the year that I stopped triathlon, I'll probably then do the marathon that year to try and hold on to some sort of fitness and I'd absolutely. I think it's just such an iconic event. My grandma's done it, my dad's done. You know, I just think it's really cool. So. Yeah.

And what will be your target time when you do the London Marathon?

Ask me when I do it. I think at that point like a 2:30 something. I honestly, I don't know what I could run fresh at the moment, but if I start trying to aim towards 255 and 250 on the off the bike, there's no reason to say that I can't do significantly better fresh. So we'll see. Maybe that's a bit optimistic.

Fantastic. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you, Kat. I can't wait to see how you get on this year. You've achieved incredible things in what's already just a short career. But, but so I know there's amazing things to come. So thank you so much for. For Giving up your time. Good luck with Ironman, Tulsa and, and with Kona and with everything else that's on the horizon.

Thank you so. Much.

That was the amazing Kat Matthews. And if you want to find out more about Kat then go to Katrina. That's spelled with a K. KatrinaMatthews try.com all of her social media links are on there as well as well as a whole load more information about the amazing Kat Matthews.

So that was the interview with Kat. Unfortunately I wasn't able to join you Charlie, and we are now recording this. Just, I've just got back in and so we're having our catch up now. So give me your key points that you took away from that chat with Kat because I know Kat a little bit an athlete so I'm pretty sure she and I fascinated with her military background as well. So I'm pretty sure she'd have had some good, good nuggets of advice in there.

Yeah, and there was. I really enjoyed the interview with Kat. Loads of really good advice. Some, some things that I picked out that really interested me were I was really fascinated by how the army support her as an athlete. I just didn't know that that world existed. And so she's one of 12. The fact that she's one of 12 athletes from the army, I think, I think the navy do it a bit more. But yeah, I just thought that was really interesting and actually quite brilliant in a way. I also thought that her approach to training was quite interesting. She trained more than I understood she did from a previous podcast I'd listened to, but still nothing like as much as say a Ruth Astle for example. So the fact that I thought that was quite reassuring in that, you know, if you want to be good at Ironman, you don't have to be knocking out 35 hours a week.

Um, and it is a really good message that. Yeah.

And just out of curiosity, how would that compare to you? I mean how many at your peak at full fitness, what would, how many.

Hours would you typically be training again? So I'm, I'd probably sit around the 25 hours.

Okay.

On for a pretty solid week again. I like volume and stuff like that but I think it's funny sometimes like I've had big volume weeks but the way the sessions have been broke up, it hasn't felt like it's only like being at the end of the week when I've added up and going oh, that's like 25 hours plus kind of thing. But I know there are some pros that are like 28, 30 hours a week. And they don't think that is a lot and they don't think that's a lot of volume and they think that that is what you have to do to be the best. And so, you know, it was interesting because we talked about it before you interviewed her about. Yeah, this 10, 11 hours. And you know, as a professional, I don't think that's possible. So it was quite. I'm glad to hear that she says she does train a little bit more now, but I think that is totally possible as a amateur with a full time job and family commitments to still get incredible, a really great performance on 10 hours a week of training.

But yeah, and one of the other things I thought was, was really lovely to hear was the fact that, I mean she's obviously, she's only been in the sport relatively short period of time and she's had some amazing results in that short period of time. And it, and it would be very easy to sit there and say, well, she's just naturally gifted. You know, she's coming to the sport, she's got a naturally good engine, as you know, John McAvoy described himself and you know, isn't she lucky type thing. But actually when you dig a bit deeper, she was doing hockey, she was doing basketball, she'd done swimming to a high level as a kid, she'd done cross country running to a high level as a kid and you kind of add all of that in and actually she was coming into the sport fresh but with a great base level of fitness. And so I thought that was very interesting. She talked a lot about and clearly.

From that background, clearly is a talented athlete and a sports person. I mean, particularly if she's had that success in swimming and running as a junior coming up. I mean that's that foundation level. So, yes, she is really pretty new still into the sport and has had quite a rapid acceleration from age grouper to pro. And I think she does have an element of a lot of natural ability because she's had those years of playing sport to that level. And so, yeah, so it is actually.

More, you know, I think what I referred to the Matthew side book Bounce and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and just saying, you know, it is despite, you know, it's very easy to sit there and go like, oh, isn't Johnny Wilkinson lucky because he can just kick a ball amazingly.

But actually the reason, hours and hours.

Exactly.

Practice in and the tenacity and the level of detail, I mean, oh, let's talk about. Let's get Johnny Wilkinson on the podcast and I'll just sit and drool at him for the whole session. He is my total crush.

Well, I will leave it to you to line up Johnny Wilkinson from the podcast because I would be very happy to interview me, even if you are drooling all over the screen at the time.

I can, I can tell you exactly where I was. 2003 Rugby World Cup Final.

I think most of us would know.

Where most of us can.

That was.

Anyway, sorry, back to cap.

Sorry, captain. And another thing that I thought was really interesting was her technique of breaking, chunking down the bike. So I've heard lots of people chunking down the run mentally, but setting new laps and kind of just saying, right, okay, for the next 15 minutes I'm going to focus on this power and then kind of the script. When she's looking at her Garmin or whatever it is, she's looking at it and going, well, she's only seeing sort of the last three minutes or five minutes worth of power rather than the last hour and a half. And I thought that was, that was. That was good advice. And also I think I love the facts, which was some of her advice from her dad was that go hard in the third quarter. The third quarter of any part of the race is the toughest bit really, because you're tired but it's not exciting enough that you're near the finish. And so if you go hard in that, then a you, you know, you kind of achieve. Was almost convinced herself that it was. It wasn't the third quarter. But also if you go hard in that, that kind of psychologically defeats a lot of the people that you're against. So I thought it was a really interesting chat. Lovely to chat somebody that listens to audiobooks like I do on the bike and on the run. So there were some great book recommendations in there as well.

I will go back and listen for sure for the audiobook recommendation and also some. Any other tips I can pick up from Kat?

Yeah, I thought it was just really interesting. And of course the other aspect is the fact that she's a physio, so she's trying to go about this as somebody that also understands the physio side of things and just chatting to her around that concept. So, yeah, really good and loads of great advice from that. So just to finish off, as a reminder, this podcast is brought to you by Precision Hydration. I said at the start I was going to give you a discount code and I would be wrong of me not to do that. So the discount code for precision hydration is Tribeathlon 15. So it's Tribeathlon 15 and you'll get 15% off your first order@precision hydration.com and that's where you can also do things like the online sweat test. So for this week, that's us done. I think, Sid, you can go and chill out and recover and get some good sleep and maybe listen to the Charlotte Edelston podcast again and just kind.

Of all the Claire Fudge one, because my nutrition's out the window. Actually, Claire was really good. I am going to write a blog about this, like, for helping me plan my nutrition for my drive, like for a long drive. That was really useful, the work I did with Claire, but. Yeah, well, I mean, I was going to say you can go and relax now, but we were just having a conversation about my pieces of papers, of lists. Lists of lists that I've got to do.

The ever expanding to do list. Well, hopefully that isn't. There isn't too much more to do today.

No, that's it. And you too, as well. Brilliant.

Well, in the meantime, for everybody else, keep on training. Don't forget to download the tribe app. App for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete, and to build your tribe.