Podiums for Positive Change with Leon Chevalier

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge and this is.

The tribe athlon podcast.

I get leaner and leaner the more I eat because it just means that my body knows it's going to get food all the time so it doesn't feel like it needs to store anything.

That was Leon Chevalier and this episode is Podiums for Positive Change. I met Leon Chevalier when I sat next to him on the flight on the way back from Kona, Hawaii after he finished seventh in the Ironman World Championships in a year where he's also completed his Masters in Chemical Engineering at B University. Liam's been racing long distance triathlons since 2021, so he's a new entrance to the professional world of long course and he's already won Ironman Yorker Embraer man came third at Ironman UK and in a stacked field actually and has risen from 420th to 22nd in the PTO world rankings. He is most definitely one to watch amongst the rising stars of the long course. Sir Clair and I wanted to chat to him about the incredible start he's had to his professional career. What chemical engineering can teach us in the world of triathlon, the unexpected of pressures of turning pro and also how he can use the sport to create positive change in the world. Leon is a really lovely guy. You won't believe that he is a staunch Frenchman because he sounds like he's probably from the west country in the uk. Absolutely lovely, genuine guy. So I know you're going to love this interview with Leon Chevalier. 33 Fuel Produce Award winning natural sports nutrition and everything they do is led by their fuel Osophy for performance, for health and for a fitter future. 33 Fuel's awesome products have been fueling triathletes worldwide since 2012 as well as many of the world's best athletes. So from the England football team to Tour de France winners and Triathlon world champions including four times Ironman world champ Chrissie Wellington who's been using 33 fuel for years. 33 fuel also leads sports nutrition sustainability with plant focused formulas for reduced environment impact, recyclable packaging and carbon neutral delivery on all orders which also got them rated by Runner's World as one of the top 50 eco hero companies worldwide. Another reason why I love what Warren and Erica are doing at 33 fuel. So to find out more about 33 for go to 33fuel.com and if you use the code tribathlon or click the link in the show notes, you'll get an extra special discount when you purchase your amazing stock of 33 fuel. So, Leon, welcome to the Tribe Athlon podcast. We've got Claire here as well and really looking forward to having sort of met you on the flight on the way out of Kona and got to chat to you there. I'm really looking forward to finding out more about you on this podcast. So to kick things off, why don't you tell us a bit about your story. How did you find your way into the world of triathlon?

Hi, Walt, thanks for having me. And yeah, I'm Leon, I'm 26. And yeah, I got into triathlon, I think it was about 10 or 11 years ago. I'd started off like I have a background of running around and playing football and I kind of did whatever I wanted when I was a kid. But then, yeah, when I was about, yeah, maybe 14, I switched from cross country running basically to triathlon just because back in September, as we started off again the new year running wise, I kind of blew both my Achilles tendons and one of the first runs back. I was probably going through a growth spurt at that point. But yeah, had to. I couldn't run for the next four to six months. I can't really remember. And I had friends telling me, oh, you should try out this new sport that we're doing. And there's the local club and basically it was just riding our mountain bikes in the forest and sometimes going in the pool and I really enjoyed it from the start and I guess I never looked back just because basically I was, I was good and then I got better and better and when you start being good at something, it's hard to. To let go. Yeah, absolutely.

So how did that progress into your. What your first triathlons look like?

Oh, it looked like nothing like what it is right now. I've got some funny photos from back then. So it was back in France and it's actually very well structured with the clubs and competitions and the rounds from the local level up to nationals and you qualify through. It's all very well done. And you start off usually the season with duathlons like at the end of the winter slash early spring and as it's, you go into the summer, that's when the triathlons kick off. But yeah, so started off with duathlons and it's yeah, riding a mountain bike or whatever you can find. Usually you're just running in your bib shorts and just cycling kit. It was, yeah, a sight to behold. And yeah, just did that and every year, basically, I, you know, qualify for national champs, National Youth Champs, and got better and better and started training a bit more, I guess. And, you know, you go from doing two hours of training a week to four hours, and all of a sudden you're doing sessions rather than just going out for fun. And, yeah, year after year, I was actually getting also placing higher up at National Champs. And I guess, yeah, 10 years later, when you start doing 30 hours of training week in, week out, actually you. You get to race at the biggest races in the world then. It's funny reflecting on it how I still feel like I'm just, you know, doing the same thing as I was five, six years ago, where I just trained during the week, and then at the weekend we'd get in the minivan and drive to a forgotten corner of France and do a duathlon. Except that now I have to fly, like 30 hours to get to Kona and I get to race the best in the world, but it's pretty much the same thing.

Fantastic. Awesome.

Slightly different temperatures as well.

Yeah, yeah. A lot has changed, but at the core it's still very similar. And I'm actually really almost struggling to wrap my head around the fact that it's a whole different stage. And in daily life, you have to make different choices and pour in so much more than I used to pour into it before so that I can be competitive at the highest level.

And for those people that don't know your background, obviously Leon Chevalier, you're, you know, it's a French name. You're right, you race for France. But those people, particularly those that are listening to this podcast, are probably thinking, this doesn't. This guy doesn't sound very French. So tell us a bit about your. Your background growing up and. And where you are now.

Yeah, so I've got two French parents, a French passport. I'm 100 French. There's no other nationalities in there yet. But When I was 2, we moved to the US and I grew up there basically from age 2 to 7, went to school, you know, totally American school. And by the time we came back, I was speaking English way better than I could speak French. And obviously then you spend 15 years in France and most of the time you're just speaking French. So you lose a bit of the English and the French comes out again. And then in 2018, I basically moved to Bath in the UK, where my. My girlfriend Flory was studying. Since 2017, I moved to Bath. I started a Master of Chemical Engineering here. And yes, I've been in the UK for just, just over four years now and my English has gotten better. The accent has transitioned a bit more from the American east coast to British. It's not totally British. I don't fool the, you know, everyone. But yeah, I've been here for four years. I've actually graduated from my masters this summer and going into 2023, I'll be a full time professional athlete.

Fantastic. And what was it? So you were previously in, I think in France. You, you move from. You were based in the Alps, weren't you?

Well, Lyon, which is one of the closer airports, but it's not quite the Alps. It's. Yeah, it's like a two hour drive to most ski resorts. And that's actually one of the reasons why I started studying Leon, because I lived most of my childhood near Paris. But when it was time to go to uni at 18, I went to Lyon, started studying engineering there. And one of the reasons was because I wanted to be a professional free ski skier, freestyle ski or whatever it was. And yeah, being two hours away from the mountains, you, you get that opportunity to ski at the weekends and all of that. And yeah, and I obviously changed paths after a while and went more into the triathlon and duathlon at the time. But in 2018 I really made the switch to triathlon, was starting to race internationally on the short distance circuit and moving to Bath was one of the steps towards, you know, upping my training and having a bit more of a structure and training, training with some of the best athletes in the world. Back at the, back in the day, Vicky Holland was here and she was, I think she was ITU world champion that year. So yeah, whole new environment and that was definitely a big change for me and probably why I'm now racing at the level I'm racing because of that step.

Yeah, there's the. Was the move to Bath Uni for the degree or for the triathlon or a bit of both.

It was a bit of everything. I wasn't feeling great back in Lyon. I felt like I'd been there for long enough and I wanted a real change of scenery. I was really missing speaking English too. And so I wanted a change and it was both brought about with some results that I had in international racing. I did my first ITU race and came forth at that race which was a bit of a mind boggling moment and I was like, oh, actually maybe I'm not that bad. And moving to Bath would enable me to join a great squad with amazing facilities and the infrastructure on campus is just crazy. And on top of that, I could still continue my studies and it's a really good degree here and I actually really enjoyed the, the studying part in Bath, whereas I wasn't enjoying it back in Lyon. So. Yeah. And also Florrie was living here and it was better to be close to Florida rather than. Yeah. In a different country.

How did all that, you know, set up in terms of. At Bath work in terms of sort of coaching. And you talked about the squad and the other people obviously that were there training with you. Knowing, knowing Bath, myself and working with Bath, I know that. How fantastic those facilities are. But tell us a little bit about sort of how that works, like when you first get into that kind of squad environment. Because I guess coming from where you were in France and coming to Bath, how did it, what did it all look like?

Well, it was very, very different back in France. I was kind of left to my own devices. I had some sort of an agreement with the engineering school where I had slightly less contact hours and it would just take longer to do the degree, but it wasn't quite a split year degree and I still had about 25 or 30 hours of contact time. And there was no squad, there was no swimming pool on campus, there was nothing. Whereas in Bath there's. Well, first of all, you have less contact hours. So you're free to kind of structure your day and your week the way you like it. And you can integrate much more training in the day and say do more of the uni stuff at home on. On catch up basically. And yeah, we, I just joined the, the university squad. They had some sort of recreational squad and then a more of a performance development squad with athletes racing the Bucs event. And I actually won that first Bucs duathlon, which was my first Bucs race back then and we also won as a university. And yeah, it was kind of a mix with some professional athletes, full time athletes, either doing ITU or long distance and some performance students, I guess. And yeah, just joined that. And I was going to the swim sessions, going to the track sessions, a bit of gym sessions and obviously some more support with physio and massage. And over the years, because we've had that success at the Bucs level, the university and British Triathlon have kind of paid more attention and pulled in a bit more resources and now it's a bit of a new, different setup with a new coach and loads of new students have come in. I've obviously moved from being a student to being a full time athlete. And I still get to enjoy the facilities and just the environment. You see so many GBR tracksuits and coaches and everything. You just feel like there's some this sort of aura of performance and. Yeah, it's a great, I don't know, motivational environment. It just makes you feel like you can do it too.

You be supported by that kind of big team as well. Is important, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. You become.

They say that you become the average of the people you hang out with.

Yeah.

To a university or you're surrounded by people like Susie Cheetham and Vicky Hollands and all that lot. It's just amazing how it can pull you forward, isn't it?

It just normalizes that sort of level of performance because you get to see these people day in, day out and you come to realize that there's not much difference. Actually. I used to think that the people, you know, going to Kona and winning Kona were superhuman. And then. Yeah, and kind of. I'm in that sort of area now and. Yeah, the only difference, I guess, is just years and years of dedicated work and proper training and you need some sort of, I guess, physical potential when you start off. But there's so much that goes into your work ethic. Well, I mean, the work you put in is pretty much the deciding factor. And then there's stuff like aerodynamics and resilience, but all you have to do is show up every day. And yeah, some people get results a bit quicker than other but. Than others. But yeah, I ended up getting those results after showing up day in, day out. And yeah, that's it. It's.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because you kind of allude to it there. But there's this. There's this Talk of the 10,000 hours rule. I don't know if you've kind of heard before, but yeah, it's. It strikes me that, you know, when I first started, you know, it's first introduced to you by Susie and then started finding out more about you, was like, this guy's absolutely crashed onto the scene. He's just, you know, he's turned up in Morocco racing ITU race, he's come forth and everyone's like, oh, you know, we're. But actually what we don't know is everything that led up to that beforehand. So can we. Can you talk a little bit about that sort of 10,000 hours rule or maybe the, you know, did you just crash onto the scene and suddenly we're amazing at triathlon or is it a Culmination of years and years of work.

I mean, the 10,000 hour rule, it's been bandied about a lot and there's definitely truth to it. I just think depending on individuals it could be, you know, some people it might only take 5,000 hours and other people they might need 30,000 hours. And I think that's down to, I guess, like your genetic makeup, which will give you that sort of fast track towards that level of performance. And yeah, when you look at the Norwegians, for example, they started off, I think it was back in 2012, they said, we're going to win the Olympics in 2020. And so from eight years out, they were already going into that sort of program where they're so dedicated and they're doing everything to a T. And so I don't know how many hours that is, but that's probably a lot of hours. And that's why nowadays they're kind of ahead of the game. And for me, I kind of crashed onto the scene in terms of visibility and results, but nothing had changed back. Back at home, I guess I'd been doing some training and it's just that France has got such a great pool of talent that you can be good, but unless you're exceptional, you just won't rise above the other guys. Or like the federation will have a list of individuals that have passed their tests in terms of swimming and running on the track. And so, you know, you could be the seventh best. I definitely wasn't. I was probably like the 30th best. But yeah, you just won't be in that team and you won't get the opportunities of racing those big races and having that sort of support. And for me, it was just kind of also, I was so focused on duathlon and just. And doing my studies that I just didn't do enough swimming and enough training in general to be at that sort of level of competition. And then all of a sudden when I started going to the pool five days a week while, you know, I went from swimming 125 per hundred for my fastest hundred to swimming 115 115s in a. In a threshold set. So, yeah, I guess the, the thing for me was that progress came quickly, but I also had 20 years of being active and doing all sorts of stuff as a kid and then just being a bit obsessive. And when I want to get better, I'll just do everything I can to work on those little bits that can make me go faster.

Sorry, sorry.

There you go. I Was just gonna say. I was just gonna say. I was just gonna say about, like, that's that speed of improvement and also the, you know, you talk about kind of that, those sort of obsessive traits. And I guess, you know, sometimes athletes being obsessive about things isn't always a bad thing because it helps us do that repetitive nature, doesn't it, of training. But, you know, do you think with, you know, you talk about the swimming and how, how quickly you progressed with that. Do you think some of that was literally time in the pool and then a target of what you could reach? Like, how did you, you know, was there an aim, I guess, to kind of improving that time and, you know, did you, did you have some sort of aim or goal?

Well, I think first off, I'm really lucky in terms of my build. I've. I'm quite flexible and yeah, I've got good reach and for some reason I've got more or less of a good catch and good timing. So that's why I was able to make those gains quickly. But also because, as you say, I did have that goal basically once I realized. So that first time I swam 125, 400. I think it's because I actually looked at the clock and up to that point I'd just go to the swimming pool, then kind of just float about and try and follow people or whatever it was. And one side actually looked at the clock and had that sort of reference point. Then you can work off of that. And I was like, okay, Leon, just stop just floating about. You're gonna try and get a second quicker. A week, for example. And that's pretty much what happened, because I could do. We would do similar sets every week. And I could see, I was like, well, this week I'm gonna go for 120 rather than 121. And I was lucky that I was actually hitting those targets, but I was setting those targets for myself, which I wasn't prior to that. And also because I was seeing the improvements, it motivated me to go back and keep working at it.

So one of the things that the 10,000 hour rule talks about is that it was actually originally Anders Ericsson, wasn't it? Of became more popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, but Anders Erickson kind of talked about it was 10,000 hours, but it's 10,000 hours of purposeful practice. I. E. Like, you don't become a Formula One driver by driving out, you know, 10,000 hours in your own car around the, you know, the streets of London. So are there Any specific. So that's. That's one that you've given us for swimming. Are there any things that stand out that really kind of made a marked change on those improvements when you went from kind of just doing triathlon to really doing it, you know, much smarter?

Yeah, there's. When you put purpose to something, there's definitely a change, because I've. I've been riding bikes my whole life and riding them for fun and everything. But then, say when you start using a power meter, what you get to compare because you just see the power, so you can't. There's no external factors, such as wind speed or whatever, that will affect the time on a given course. So you can just, like, at every given time, any given time in your bike ride, you can see if you're pushing harder than you used to or something like that. And for me, like, the breakthrough in terms of cycling performance was the first lockdown here in the UK when we were. We were only allowed out once a day, but there was no sort of cap on the time you were allowed to go out. And I just took that opportunity to basically ride every day for, like, four to five hours. And I did about three weeks straight of riding over 25 hours a week. And because in my mind, I was like, you know what, Leon? You'd love to be, I don't know, a professional cyclist or something like that, but those guys, they ride five hours a day. So how. How do you think you're gonna be as good as them if you're not doing that, or if you're only doing, like, two hours here, five hours there, three hours here? So I was like, all right, I'm just gonna go out and also, like, I'm gonna try and hit this target power, say 200 watts for the whole ride, and put my mind to it. And when it was harder, what I just, like, try harder. But at least I had that goal or, like, that target to achieve, and I could come back after every ride and see whether or not I'd hit it. And, yeah, I just actually made so much progress throughout those three weeks, just because I'd gone from basically not training much to training a lot. And all of a sudden, of course, you're going to get big gains from that. Yeah.

Did you get any Strava boots for that? I remember Joe Skipper saying that he put a post on and Strava, see, yeah, only one exercise a day. Better make it a good one. And he did a lap of Norfolk, and he had to come off Strava for It. Because he got so much abuse.

Well, the thing, I probably had four followers back in the day, so it probably went unnoticed. So. So.

So tell us a bit about your transition. So you went off and did, I think interlong course, that is, you went off and did Emberman, Iron Manorca and Ironman UK and podiumed on all three. I think one, two of the three. Is that right? That's a pretty. So how was your transition from kind of short course into long course? And tell us a bit about the. The. Yeah, incredible early success.

Yeah, it's. It's funny when you put it that way because that 2021 was my first year, I guess as a professional on the long distance scene and it was immediately crowned with success. And I think that's because back in training I could see the numbers that I was doing and also I was looking at the performances that the people that the pros were putting out there and I was thinking, well, I can do that or I can do better. Obviously I'd not done it before, so I wasn't sure, but there was a part of me that thought that I could do it too. No disrespect to these guys, but when I lined up for Ironman UK and Joe Skipper was going, I was like, why would Joe Skipper be any better than me? And then he, he ran like 15 minutes quicker than I did on the marathon. But I out swam him and I out biked him.

So an out biking Joe Skipper is quite something.

Yeah. When you look back at Ironman uk. So Skipper one and then Sam Laylo finished seven seconds ahead of me. That was a very underrated race, I think when you look back, because all three of us were in the top seven in Kona this year, so that's quite, quite good. But yeah, I just, I mean I, I trained really hard basically from September, from December 2020 into the, the start of 2021 season. And throughout that season I just started being coached by Rob Cheetham basically. And he said that with Suzy and their sponsors, they would support me as if I were a fully fledged pro and I'd be on the best equipment, I'd have one of the best training plans and all the support I needed to be on equal footing when I was on the start line with all these other guys. And it just motivated me throughout that winter from 2020 to 2021 to do everything that Rob was setting me in training and doing even better. And yeah, I just, I guess I was lucky because I was managing the sessions and I wasn't Getting injured and, but I, I, I had to work bloody hard for it and, and I think that's why I was successful quite quickly. One, because I, I believed I could and two, because I then put in the work to, to try and achieve it.

How did you manage that with doing your, your Masters as well? Because I know there was just listening to some other podcasts you've been on. You know, there was talk of you doing your PhD as well. So I know, I think at the time some of the things I'd listened to you were finishing your Masters. So how, how did you sort of manage that and manage training and, and everything else?

Well, things have changed this year and I, I won't be doing a PhD. Well, I've not started one obviously, and that's because this year was actually way tougher than I anticipated it to be. 2021, well, basically the winter from 2020 to 2021, I was told all I had to do was do the online lectures because I think everyone was, everything was online back then due to Covid and do the training. So there was, and we couldn't do much. It was still quite limited, so I didn't really have much like different things to focus on. It was just those two little big things, but I could do them. And then actually coming into this year, on top of doing the training and the studies well, there's all sorts of stuff like contract negotiations with sponsors, some media obligations, and on top of that, preparing for world champs in early, when was it? Early May. It's very different to just preparing for potential 70.3 in April, which was the case in 2021. So the fact that this year I had to do extremely high level racing and the final year of my master's degree was just almost too difficult to do. Both I somehow managed, but it was extremely difficult.

And what did, what degree did you end up with?

A Master of Chemical Engineering. Yeah, so yeah. And basically I didn't have time or energy or anything to then even look into trying to get a PhD. I kind of got the ball rolling on several fronts. But then we were like, Flora and I were thinking, well, we don't want to live another year like this where it's so stressful and tiring. So it's out of the question to even be doing a PhD and triathlon next year. I think once triathlon, you know, has worked out and I'm operating at a steady state of, you know, everything doesn't have to be renegotiated all the time and there's not A world champs early May then potentially I can look into doing a PhD then.

So has any of your. Because that's pretty full on degree, isn't it? Has any of that kind of like helped you in terms of how you look at triathlon or training for triathlon. So do you. I guess kind of mindset maybe does as well.

But yeah, the engineering part has definitely helped because it meant that from the start I bought into the whole concept of aerodynamics and having a plan and I basically look at every ironman as a, a new project that we're going to work on and I had a module called project management and just apply everything I know from that and then, then it's just numbers and two sides of an equation and you just put everything together and it's very much, you know, I've got some Excel spreadsheets and everything and yeah, it just feels like ego racing and it's like any other engineering project that you're going to work on. Yeah, so it's definitely helped a lot.

Does that mean you're digging into all the data that you've got in from Garmin and on training piece?

Well, it's funny because I don't, I didn't even use a heart rate monitor this year so. Because yeah, I just, my, I was totally fried this year. I was on autopilot and just breaking down every other day just trying to do the degree and the training and so I didn't think. I just do whatever came up. But when it comes to racing in terms especially the nutrition, the fuel and hydration. So especially working with my sponsor, Precision fuel and hydration, we get to really look before the race at the demands of the race and then how we can make sure that with a plan we're not going to be at any point playing catch up or anything. We can just. I just know what to take on and when and then it just takes out the thinking from the racing. Yeah, I think maybe I went off topic there.

No, no, no.

It's all about being prepared in numbers.

Yeah, it's basically front end it, front load it as much as you can so that by the end. Well, it's what I learned in engineering. If when you start a project, if you put in all the work at the start, then usually at the end it gets closer to what you were hoping. Whereas if you don't do it at the start then you're playing catch up and you've got massive costs at the end. So yeah, just trying to apply. Yeah, yeah.

Well, as you're Speaking to two planners. I think you're all singing off the same imagery here, but yeah, absolutely. I think, I think that's, I think that's great advice. And you mentioned nutrition. I couldn't help but mention nutrition or ask you about nutrition. Obviously we've got Claire here, so we have to hear about your approach to nutrition. But having listened to you on a podcast, I remember hearing you refer to having a Snickers bar while, while racing and having sat next to you on the airplane and looked at your post race nutrition, which was a massive bag of Doritos. I think I. How has your approach to nutrition changed? And like you mentioned precision fuel and hydration.

Who.

We've, you know, we've had Andy on the podcast. They used to sponsor the podcast actually. So kind of talk us a little bit more about the big gains that you've made in the. Of nutrition.

Well, the big gain is on race day, if we look at the, the plans that we did with PF and H for Ironman UK and those first few races and compare with the, for example, the one I executed in Kona, the best being Alp D', Huez, because I did that in 2021 and in 2022 and I think I was up by about 50% in terms of carb intake and sodium intake every hour. And that's definitely had a massive impact on performance because it just means that because I'm taking on so much more fuel, well, I can afford to burn off a lot more and operate at a higher threshold basically during the race. And it also means that in training I've really focused on just getting as many calories per hour as I can. So it's on the one hand, it's trained my gut to absorb it all and also means that I can do the training, like much harder training without bonking. Well, but that's not the word I should be using.

Yeah, we use that word.

It's got a double term, so. Double meaning? Yeah, just meaning that I don't have those energy dips and I can basically operate at a high level most of the time. And yeah, just otherwise outside of training, I just make sure that I'm eating almost more than I want to eat. And it turns out that I've actually, I get leaner and leaner the more I eat because it just means that my body knows it's going to get food all the time, so it doesn't feel like it needs to store anything. I don't know if there's any science behind that, but it's what I've observed.

Certainly, you're absolutely right. Certainly by, by, by fueling enough for the, for the actual amount of training you're doing. You're absolutely, you're absolutely right. And it's interesting with your, your sodium because you, I noticed actually from the. Working with ph as well, I noticed your sodium sweat concentration is quite high as well. So.

Yeah.

How, how did that work out in Kona and hot environments?

Well, I never thought I'd, I never thought I was a salty sweater or heavy sweater or anything, but it turns out, yeah, I'm on the higher end of sodium concentration in sweat. I don't think I sweat that much though. So I guess the, the concentration is kind of offset by the amount that I'm. So the total amount I'm losing is probably not as high as in other cases, maybe. But in Kona just, I don't know, I just take on pretty much the amount that I lose in an hour. And I mean, I feel absolutely fine at the end of races. I do feel it if I've, if I've missed. If I've lost a bottle, for example, and therefore lose some of the, the sodium that I was planning on taking on. I can feel it in post race usually a bit of cramping and stuff like that, but in Kona, I just did what I usually do. Now we've got this formula that we. That works and yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. Yeah.

And you know what roughly that formula looks like? You know roughly how much you're, you know, what's your target? Do you remember what your target amount to drink was or how much it was to eat?

Yeah. So I more than roughly, I know exactly what I take on pretty much because obviously everything that I'm going to take on is I put on the bike or in my bags for, for the run. So anything that I take outside of that is just plain water from aid stations. And so plain water I just do to thirst. And basically in Kona, that was every time on the bike I'd go through an aid station, I'd grab two bottles, one to drink basically until I got to the next aid station and the other one to pour over myself and try and get as much cooling as I could. And yeah, that pretty much meant that I wasn't thirsty and I felt like I was getting enough. But yeah, just try and get as much as I can. And on the bike it's a mixture of gels and sodium powder that I put in my, my bottles. I also Have a few extra gels, some caffeine. But yeah, so I know, yeah. And the Snickers, I, I don't even know really where, where I got that idea from. I do remember that for Bolton, Iron man uk. So that was going to be my first Iron Man. I, I wanted some solid food and so I think I had two Snickers during that race and the whole idea was to kind of front load the bike, have a Snickers like some solids in the first half of the bike and it's just something nice to look forward to and a bit of a change. Yeah, I, I don't use them for 70.3s anymore and for Ironmans I, I think I just use it out of habit now. But yeah, it's, it tastes nice. It's, it's good to have in training.

It works for you.

So that works. And eight hours is a long time to go on an empty stomach. I remember during that marathon at Ironman uk I was so hungry and they'd make us run through town center and they had Gregg's and McDonald's and all the bakeries and it was coming up to. Yeah, it was obviously it was like around lunchtime I was starving and all this, the smell was so I had to stop to have a banana or two at the aid stations because I was just so hungry.

Well, with the Snickers you're in good company because Flora College, the ex, ex try athlete always swears by racing with, with Snickers bars. So, so that I, I can see that I might speak to my nutritionalist about introducing that into the, into the race plan. So one of the things that you've.

One of the, one of the things.

You talked about is the importance of consistency. You mentioned that earlier on. How do you, how do you measure that? And kind of like is that more important than having though, you know, you talked about also having that big three week session in lockdown, which is more important. The, you know, try and hit it out the park in a short period or the consistency.

It's definitely consistency. You know, if you can take every week off like around 30 hours, then you're in a really good place. So much more than if you're doing 40 hours one week and then you're knackered and then you have to do 17 hours the next week and then you try and build back up to 25. If you can just get that just under the limit basically amount of time and, and not just time but also energy output then, and just stay at that, that level For a long period of time, then you're gonna see improvements. And I, in that three week block, I think it was because every day I was going out and doing it, not smashing myself every day, but almost smashing myself every day. And so I did have that consistency throughout the three weeks rather than smash it for three days and then I can't move for the next too. It was pretty much every day just go out and do it. And yeah, I mean now with, with my coach Rob, he, I, I just check that Training Peaks is all green. If Training Peaks is all green, then it means that I've been really consistent and it's up to Rob to adjust training going forward in terms of the fatigue that I've built up and yeah, where we're aiming to be at. So I just, all I have to do is make Training Peaks green this year. It's, it's not really been the case just because of everything going on. And so for that reason I'd rate like my World Champs Preps at maybe 7 out of 10 or something like that just because I've not had that consistency in training.

Yeah, but I mean, so tell us a bit about Kona because we haven't actually talked about this yet.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, like, I thought, you know, your performance at Kona was fantastic and it. So tell us what it was like to get to race Kona and to come into the top ten. I think you were six, weren't you?

I think I might seventh. I was six in St. George. Yeah.

Oh, that's right, yeah. And so tell us about your first Kona experience.

Yeah, well, thanks for saying it was good because when you come seventh and you're. Well, I was like 13 minutes down on the win. I think it, it's still tough and like you wish you could, you were further up the ranks and. But yeah, you need someone from the outside to say no, actually that was a really good result and you should take it. And that's something that I've struggled a bit with this year, is actually enjoying the fact that I had those really good results and I think that's because last year I, I won two big races and I was always on the podium last year and this year I'm not on the podium as often, but they're much, much, much bigger races. So, yeah, I mean, Kona, I came, I came seventh. Yeah, when I think about it, it's not bad at all, but I want, I want more now, obviously and I kind of also wanted more when I went there, but so much can happen on race day that you just have to be, you know, I gave everything I had. Like I finished, I was, I was tired and there's obviously loads that I think that I can do better and that's what I'll work on throughout the winter and in the years to come because I think I can do better than what I did.

What are those, what are those things that you'll do differently next time to do better at Kona?

One, consistency and two, swimming consistency. Basically like that's something, especially swimming this year I've not been consistent and yeah, my swim this year at all the races I've done has just been subpar and that's really putting me out of the race, out of contention from, from get go. And it just means you're playing catch up the whole time and you can only hope for maybe fifth place or basically from places five to 10 at world champs, which, which isn't good enough for me, I guess. And yeah, so I'll just get, be more consistent in swimming and also actually learn how to swim because that's something I've never done. I've just, you know, got in the pool and gotten on with it and tried to hit the target times where it's such a technical sport that you need to learn how to do it because there's no reason why 11 year old kids would be faster than me at an endurance sport in terms of strength and endurance and everything. You'd think that I'd be quicker, but because there's that technical aspect to it and the feel for the water and all of that, it's something that you really need to learn how to do and that's something that, that I need to do for, to hope to be better in the next, the next years.

Brilliant. And one of, one of the things you mentioned when we were chatting on the, on the plane was the, the impact of motorbikes and refereeing on races. So tell us a little bit about your thoughts on that, both from Kona, other races and kind of what you think the sport needs to do to improve this.

Yeah, I mean there's a reason why we've got anti doping controls. It's because we want a fair sport and yeah, you want fair racing. Not just because individuals are clean, but also because everyone gets the same opportunity once the gun goes off. And when you add in moto well, vehicles and say poor questionable refereeing and all of that, it just influences the race beyond what athletes can control and what should be. It just means that the playing field isn't quite equal. I mean, I don't think the sport needs to be where everyone races the same on the same bike and with the same helmet and the same shoes. I think it's good to have some sort of technological side to the sport, but in terms of the rules and how they're. They're. I don't know how they're respected from basically race organizers, it's good to have a fair sport where things. Yeah. Where outside factors don't influence the race when they're not affecting the race equally. When. When it's bad weather, everyone's affected. When it's really hot, everyone's affected. But when there's eight motorbikes around two athletes and no motorbikes around five athletes, well, that has a big influence in terms of the speed of the race in different sectors of the race.

Just. Just explain for those people that don't quite grasp this, how big an impact would having those motorbikes have around the. Those two cyclists?

Say. Well, say five minutes on a course like Coda, like. Yeah, the fastest bike, the bike split was four or five minutes quicker than the second bike split. And when you've got data such as power from Strava and stuff like that, then there's one thing missing. To be able to go that sort of speed. And it's basically some sort of thing that reduces the aerodynamic demands. And the only difference there is motorbikes. So, yeah, I mean, it makes a big, big difference. Maybe. Maybe it's not five minutes, but I reckon. I don't know. I. I don't want to be. I don't know what I want to say. It makes a big difference. When you're sat behind a motorbike, say at 10 meters, you're doing 50 to 100 watts less than if you had clean air in front of you. And that's, you know, when that's a quarter or half of the power that you're putting down, that makes a big difference in terms of speed.

I guess it especially does on some. Some courses that are really windy. For example, you're gonna. It's gonna be greater, isn't it, in terms of possibly that. That effect of having those. Those motorbikes.

Bikes. Yeah. If you're kind of riding in a bubble of air that's moving fast, you're gonna travel at the same speed as that bubble of air, whereas if no bubble is being created, then you have to fend for yourself. Yeah. And it's never the fault of the athletes. Any athlete will take anything on the course to try and maximize their speed, whether it's riding on a smoother part of the tarmac or trying to shelter behind the trees or whatever it is. So it's up to race organizers to make sure that they're not adding things on the course that can influence some athletes and not influence others.

Is there anything that the athletes can do to try and make sure that this is fairer?

Yeah, I think it's just keep on telling race organizers and that they need to do something about it because once, once it's there, it's going to affect the race. Whether an athlete takes advantage of it or not, it's still going to influence it. When there's four or five motorbikes in within 50 meters of each other, they're going to create that bubble of air that's going to, that's going to travel faster. Yeah.

Now you say on your, on your website that you're. One of those other hobbies that you have is surfing. Did you get to surf while out in, in Hawaii? Did you go down to Kaulua Kailua and see the blue church that Mark Allen talks about and catch any waves?

I, I don't think I had the best Kona experience. There's definitely a lot that I can build upon. I was just, I was so exhausted by the time I got to Kona from the whole year that. Yeah. And then on top of that, you had the travel and a bit of pressure for trying to do well in the race. And also we were staying quite far out from Kona just due to the price of accommodation and availability of accommodation that I didn't get to experience. Maybe the whole spiritual thing that Mark Allen has been talking about. I just went out, stayed in a, in a air conditioned condo for two weeks, raced and flew back to the uk and that's pretty much what my Kona experience was like. Oh. And I did a lot of riding and running on a motorway. That, that's, that's, that's pretty much how I see it. Yeah.

So. So will you, will you make more of next, next year? Assuming you're there next year, which I'm sure you will be, then.

Yeah, I need to qualify first. Yeah, that's the big thing.

Where are you planning to qualify?

So hopefully in South Africa, early March. Yeah, well, we get that.

I think I'll see you there. I think I might see you there as well.

Perfect. I look forward. No, I really look forward to going to South Africa and I look forward to having a training build. Not interrupted by university or. Yeah, that sort of pressure and energy grabber, I guess. Yeah.

Fantastic. Now we always ask every, everybody on the podcast about books that have influenced them find, you know, books that they found really helpful or books that they find themselves recommending to other people. It doesn't have to be a triathlon based book. It can be anything. Any book recommendations that you found to be particularly helpful for you?

Well, right now I'm actually finishing a book called A Gentleman in Moscow and it's really good. It's probably one of the best books I've written, I've read so far. So it's nothing to do with triathlon, nothing to do with anything. It's just really enjoyable.

So I don't know this book and it doesn't sound.

Yeah, it's so odd because I. The title and the COVID and everything, you, you never know, but you start to read it and it just really clicks with me. It's just like a delight to, to read. Like nothing really happens yet a lot of stuff really like happens, which is very interesting. It's just basically a man trapped in a hotel. Well, not trapped, but he's consigned to this hotel he's living in. It's. It's under the Bolsheviks at the start of, of the 20th century in, under the USSR. The start of the USSR. And it's this guy who has to stay and live in a hotel and obviously he's not allowed to go out and he just has to find a way of making life interesting and, and he does. And for some reason it's great to read. Yeah.

Well, I can safely say nobody has recommended that book previously.

What books are usually recommended? Like motivational stuff.

Motivational stuff, biographies, everything isn't. Yeah, we've had all sorts. But that sounds really. I'm going to look that up.

That's definitely just a novel. It's just, it's just pleasant, pleasant to read. It's great.

Very good. Now one of the things that we also do is we ask the previous guest to ask the few, the next guest a question without knowing who that guest is going to be. So previous guest was Sabrina Pace Humphreys who's a. A successful ultra runner and founder of the Black Trail running community. And her question is, what positive change do you hope to make the. To hope to make to the world through your sport?

Yeah, that's a tough one, isn't it? Because. And also I never thought that I'd kind of be in this position. I think Maybe, you know, 18 months ago I probably had 400 followers on Instagram all of them that I knew. And now I've got like 8,000 and growing. And when you look at people like Jan Frodeno or got hundreds of thousands of followers, then all of a sudden your platform just explodes and the influence that you have on people is way greater than, than you might think. So, yeah, I'm in that. I guess I'm in that medium position now where I've not got a massive following, but I still have a platform. And I've already noticed, you know, how I've. My family or friends and people have picked up running or exercising again by following my racing. And I just, like, I'm glad that I can create that sort of motivation for people to make changes in terms in their lifestyle and just enjoy being outside again and, you know, try something new. And, you know, the more people I can encourage to do that is great. But beyond that, there's a lot of, you know, I was in Hawaii and I was watching Frozen Planet 2 from David Attenborough. And every episode I'm thinking, leon, are you just wasting your time doing triathlon when you could be, you know, an engineer, put your degree to use to solve some, you know, basically the climate issue, which I think is one of the greater issues, is that in some sort of political instability, I guess. But yeah, I mean, I. My career as a triathlete will be, well, not too short, but it'll be 10, 15 years. And through my sport, hopefully I can build some sort of platform to influence people to make the right choices. And, you know, if it means a small change in habits and lifestyle, you know, if people start walking to work or riding their bikes to work or going for a walk rather than, say, drive to the shopping center at the weekends, I'd really, you know, I'd really appreciate if that made a bit of a positive change.

I completely agree. I think that's absolutely brilliant. And it's a, it's a topic that I'm very passionate about. One question that I can hear people bouncing around in people's minds is, how do you kind of offset the fact that, you know, you're, you're, you. You know, it'd be great if people are doing that. And I completely agree with that. But equally, we're based in a sport where we're flying to Hawaii for a race. How do you kind of equalize that?

Yeah, it's a, it's a real problem because on the one hand, yeah, I'm saying stuff like that, but then I've got, you know, I get new kit all the time and bikes. And, yeah, like when I'm riding my bike, I'm say riding my bike to the swimming pool rather than driving there. It's got less of an impact on climate. But when you've got five bikes, well, the carbon impact of building those bikes and shipping them all over the place is. Is huge. And. And then you're flying it to races all over the world. So I'm really grateful to have Enduro as a sponsor. They make loads of cycling kit and they're. They're actually going to be carbon negative by 2024. They're already carbon neutral now as a company and they want to be carbon negative. And one of the things in my contract with them is that they will offset all my carbon emissions linked to training and racing with them. So that means basically paying charities to then do projects such as planting trees or whatever it is. But, I mean, there's a price put on the kilogram with a ton of CO2 that you emit and they've agreed to offset those emissions. So that's. I mean, that's a little thing that you can do. But obviously, you know, just riding to the swimming pool rather than driving is one of the little things that I can do daily to try and minimize the impact that I might have on the environment.

That's fantastic. I like that. And I'm not sure I've heard anybody else putting that into a contract, so.

So.

Well, there you go.

Well done. Enduro and all their stuff is carbon new, carbon neutral and everything. And it's great kit. It's the best kit I've had so far. So it's also bloody fast when you. When you get on course. So, yeah, go and try it out.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Leon, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you again. I really enjoyed sitting on a plane next to you, chatting about Kona and watching you eat your Doritos and pest the flight. Pester the flight attendant for more snacks. But then post race, I think you're absolutely justified in doing that, so. But it's been really great to catch up with you and, you know, I'm really excited about seeing you race next year. Hope. Well, I'll. I'll see you race in South Africa, assuming everything goes according to plan. Hopefully I'll have. We'll hopefully both get our slots for Kona as well there and then. And then we can all have a reconvene in Kona in 2023 as well, which would be very cool.

So lovely.

Really, really excited to see what you can do in the sport. And yeah, congratulations on where you've got to so far, but thank you again for joining us.

Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, it's been a pleasure to chat and hopefully I've not said anything stupid. Yeah. Walk to work. Cycle to work.

Cycle to work. Exactly. And get carbon neutrality in contracts in the contract. We like that. Brilliant. If you want to find out more about Leon, then you can head to leoneschevalier.com or on Instagram. He is L. Chevalier. So what did you make of the chat with Leon?

It was awesome. It was really good to speak to somebody. I was just trying to think if we've had anyone younger than him. Actually, I'm not sure if we have.

What are the. Morgan Peterson and Rudy von Berg.

I guess they're probably maybe around similar, similar, Similar ages. Yeah, it was, it's really fantastic. I, I think it was really interesting also that you know, where he is right now, you know, he was talking about actually a lot of the training that he has been doing. So whilst, you know, there's lots talked about him suddenly exploding onto the scene, which I guess to a certain degree he has, you know, it was really good to hear kind of his background story, wasn't it, and where he's come from and the training he's been doing.

I really like that part of the conversation. I think it is very easy to, for us to sort of look at it and go, oh, he's kind of just runaway success and, and you know, he's just a natural and I couldn't be like that. Well, I couldn't because I'm too old. But, you know, but for other people and yeah, actually it's really good to sort of uncover what has gone in on in the years and how he's kind of. How he has done his 10,000 hours. It's just behind, behind the, the. We were chatting to him afterwards, weren't we, and he mentioned a, A, a body armor advert, which he. Yes, probably should. He's meant to reference. It's what you do in the dark that pushes you into the light.

It's like.

Yeah, that's good. I like that. I like that. Anything else that you took from, from the chat with him?

I, I think, I think it's interesting to speak to somebody who's, you know, that age has been able to hold down and complete a Masters and actually with what he did as well. And he's. During that time he's gone and Race Kona and come away with seventh in the world. At Kona and completed his masters, but also how, how he's used or how he probably will use in the future as well that, that chemical engineering kind of, or that engineering kind of brain in terms of, you know, and I think in terms of the world of triathlon and sport in general, you know, there's going to always be so many advances, aren't there? So I really think that he'll probably put that to really good use. In terms of his training, you know, he's talking about his training then, wasn't he, about spreadsheets and numbers and. But yeah, and maybe in a slightly more kind of, you know, from a knowledge perspective, I'm sure, scientific way.

Yeah, I think he is going to be, I think for so many reasons, he's going to be one to watch, isn't he? I think, I think he's going to. It was interesting when he was talking about consistency and just turning training peaks green. Just not worrying too much about what was in it, just making sure that you hit the consistency. I thought that was, that was good advice, is just to kind of, you know, do, do what you need to do often. It's what you do often, not what you do occasionally that makes the big difference. So yeah, I can see, I can see his chemical engineering background being a good asset and, and really lovely how he's kind of brought that into.

Like.

The, the whole carbon neutral or even carbon negative contract and working with companies that, that are ecologically focused. I thought that was, that was interesting.

And I think, you know, that kind of made me think, actually I, I think, you know, more and more now, you know, as athletes we're going to need to consider how much we're traveling and what we're doing. But you know, when it's your career that you're traveling around the country. But not just that, you know, he was talking about, you know, bikes being made and the carbon footprint from that and you know, shipping and we're absolutely right. We're getting stuff from everywhere, aren't we? So, you know, and I know all these big companies are already thinking about how can they make things more. Or carbon offsetting now rather than carbon neutral. But yeah, I think, I guess that's all our responsibilities, isn't it, as sports people. How can, how can we do little things? I think probably is the place to start.

And it's definitely something that's played in on my mind this year having, having flown to, to, well, to watch actually, rather than to race. But next year flying to race is how, how can we kind of keep that, you know, how can we offset that in, in different ways? And I certainly want to, I've got on my list of things to do to, to offset that. I take, because I do think that is the right approach. What did you make of his approach to nutrition?

I think very considered actually. It's interesting actually. A lot, a lot of people have a little something that they just want a taste of and, and you know, I often say to people that's absolutely fine, do it. You know, I mean having a Snickers is actually, you know, would have a, you know, a carb, carbohydrate, I guess, kind of gift to the rest of your race plan. But actually sometimes it's not about even calculating in, you know, that's an extra bit of carbohydrate. It's actually just what somebody fancies and somebody wants. And that's absolutely fine. If that's going to pick you up when, you know, you're 80 miles into an Ironman race, then and you can tolerate it. Why not? And it's not melted. I was going to ask him that. Maybe, maybe with the American ones, they don't melt.

Or when you're 45 minutes, 45 miles into an ultramarathon and are craving salted peanuts and salt and vinegar crisps. Yeah.

Or a scotch pancake. I mean, that's what you need. It's true though, isn't it? It's like a little pick me up. And I think there's a lot of people that have, have a little something and it's got really nothing to do with the, with the kind of nutritional value of it or what it gives you, but it gives you, it gives you something. So it gives you something psychologically, doesn't it, at that point in time.

On a serious note, how would it like a Snickers bar strikes me if you're going to eat something like a purely, you know, like a, a confectionery Snickers bar strikes me as being one of the better choices. But how would that, how would a Snickers bar compare to like an energy bar that you would normally be having in a race?

Well, it in, well one, the type and balance or ratio of the types of carbohydrates in there. So. And how quickly you can absorb and release that energy. So that would be a big factor. I mean some of the more natural style of cycling bars will have things like nuts in them, for example, and will have maybe some dark chocolate on them. So there's not going to be A great deal of difference in those more natural style kind of nut based bars. But there would be in more of the carbohydrates style bars that are different ratios of types of carbohydrates that help us absorb it more quickly. Does that answer your question? It would sit with that more natural style. Yeah.

Like the sort of velo forte type.

Yeah.

I'm sure forte would be having fits if they heard me compare.

But the nut side of things. Yes. Yeah.

And actually so, and so is that likely to, is something like that likely to help people with GI issues or is it likely to exaggerate them? Because I know you've kind of discouraged me from having nut based bars in my races. Depending on the athlete.

Absolutely individual. So that would be absolutely individual because some people, it wouldn't, you know, for some people actually it might help to a certain degree because if it stops them feeling hungry, it might actually help them take on more carbohydrates because they're just sick of taking on gels. I think it does very much come down to the individual and what you can tolerate, you know, and you know, as Liam was saying, you know, he's practiced and practiced and he can tolerate it. So I think to a certain degree can you tolerate it? Have you practiced it and therefore have trained your gut to be able to do it. But for a lot of people, longer distance that may not be helpful or may not work. But we are all individuals as athletes and you know, if it works then there's no reason not to use it.

And, and so something like, you know, you know we mentioned Velaforte, but, but the 33 fuel bars are kind of similar, aren't they? They're kind of very natural based kind of nuts in them. I, I actually think I, I completely agree with what he said. In terms of feeling hungry, I, I, I just, I know I can't race just on gels. I need to have, it's almost a mental thing as much as a physical thing. You kind of need that, that satisfaction of having eaten something.

It's interesting speaking though and working the whole time with a lot of athletes. Actually athletes don't say that that often with, with the large number of athletes that I've worked with. It's interesting how most athletes wouldn't mention it. Maybe I don't ask that question, but it's interesting, isn't it? And I think this comes down to the individual, doesn't it? And you know, at certain points, especially in longer racing, you know, we are going over, you know, Meal times. But you know, but also to look forward to something maybe is very helpful to that athlete as well. So if they do have Snickers bar to look forward to and they can tolerate it, then why couldn't it be part of a plan?

Yeah, I thought it was also interesting that he was saying that not just his fueling in races but he, the fact that he's now almost over fueling what in his training has helped him become more lean. And that comes back to what we talked about with Dr. Nikki K. Isn't essentially, you know, you're taking yourself away from that relative energy deficient syndrome. Is that right?

Yeah. Energy deficiency in sport. Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, that's it.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was close reds.

You were.

And so that, that was, that was interesting in the sense that, you know, like particularly as on Saturday, I didn't get my, my ride changed. I ended up having to skip the breakfast stop. Totally bonked and. Yeah. And then hoovered up ridiculous amounts of food when I finally made it home. But yeah, him over fueling that. One thing that, that did make me think was when I train I tend to stick to the bars and I quite often have those 33 fuel energy bar work really well for me. But should I on a long ride on my last bar, let's say an hour before I'm home, should I be switching to the 33 fuel protein bar for that last bar or should I be having the protein bar?

Are we talking just about training?

Yeah, just training.

Well, I guess if, if you, I guess what, I guess it depends on what, what are you going out to practice? So if you're going out to practice your race nutrition strategy, then the answer would be no because that's not what you're going to do when you are racing. If you're going out and you're riding and you're trying just to fuel that ride and when you get home you are going to be starting your recovery and you're going at an endurance pace, there'll be no reason not to have a protein based bar. So something like the 33 fuel bar that has energy in it plus protein, there wouldn't be any reason not to do that. So I think it depends on, to think, you know, what am I, what am I practicing here in terms of what am I setting out to do? But yeah, you know, and you know, some of the newer research and certainly over the last few years and more recently, you know, we're, we're actually realizing that recovery starts before our training completes. So we're not just thinking about recovery afterwards, we're actually thinking, well, actually this window of opportunity for recovery is actually pretty huge. So. Yeah, so I think for a long training ride, if you were just fueling it, you weren't going out to practice race nutrition and you're going at an aerobic level, there wouldn't be any reason not to have that. If you were kind of racing up hills and things where you were becoming quite anaerobic, it might be slightly different. But yeah, I don't see any reason why not. And with all of these things, try it out, see what happens. Does it work?

Well, it feels all right. I mean basically it's filling a hole at that point. Normally after four hours into a five hour ride, I'm happy to hoover up anything that's going so. But it just, it struck me, I can't remember where I read it, but I think, I think it was actually more. The Tour cyclists would always switch their last bar to a protein bar. I think that's where I got the idea from ages ago. And then. Yeah, but it seemed to make sense. But I, but yes, I agree.

And they're also not getting that important thing when they finish riding is their recovery for the next day, isn't it? So restocking glycogen and recovering as quickly and as best as they can ready for the next day. So yeah, it's, it's interesting but with all of these things you can try it out as long as you're, you try it out, you write down and reflect. Does it work? And in find, you know, thinking. What, what is your idea of trying something out? First of all, what's your, you know, what's your plan for it?

Yeah.

What's your goal ultimately?

Good advice, good advice. Well, thank you. Right, well, that's another episode done and good luck with your training over the winter and for South Africa. Have you signed thank you yet. Thank you.

It's. It's open. Ready to sign up.

It's on the to do list.

It's on the to do list lists. It's actually open. It's actually open on my. One of many tabs. Ready to sign up.

Excellent. Well, don't miss out on a place. It's going to be a blast, I'm sure. And for everybody else, keep on training. Remember, this podcast was sponsored by 33 fuel. So rethink your sports nutrition with 33 fuel award winning natural sports nutrition. For your performance, health and a fitter Future. It's the 33 Fuel Fuel Osophy. Get yours@33fuel.com and if you use the discount code Tribeathlon or the link in the show notes, you'll get a discount at the checkout. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do review it and share it because it helps other people find what we think is really valuable learning lessons from amazing athletes. So please do that. You can also find the whole back catalog@tribathlon.com and you can also find out about the Tribe Athlon app, which helps people find events, find people to train with and enjoy their events through their tribe. So check out tribathlon.com.