ATC: Plan The Perfect Ironman Taper, Improve Your Downhill Running, Bike Buying on a Tight Budget and More

Foreign's planet. This is your host, Tawny Przak, welcoming you to this edition of Ask the Coaches with Lucho. A couple quick announcements before we get started. Actually, Lucha and I recorded this show early on Wednesday yesterday, and we both felt the need at that time to make mention of the Boston Marathon and the bombings that took place on Monday, of course, because we had yet to do so on any of the podcasts. Then, as it turns out, right after I recorded that show with Lucho, I was able to link up with Dr. Freddie so, who was actually at the Boston Marathon and ran the race. And he graciously came on the show to share his story on the podcast, which I posted yesterday. And you can now download, whether from itunes or at our website@EndurancePlanet.com so. So all in all, we do have a couple tributes and our thoughts that go out to Boston this week. And on that note, one more quick announcement before we get to today's show.

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All right, we're back with Lucho. Lucho, how you doing?

I'm doing good.

I probably sound like a broken record, but, man, how are you surviving over there in the snow?

We're getting hammered.

You literally guys are getting hammered, huh?

Biggest snowstorm of the year, and we're probably gonna have 25 over 2ft of snow by the end of the day.

So do you talk to any of your triathlete friends or do you have any triathlete friends or athlete friends out there right now?

I don't. Yeah. For the last few months, I haven't talked to anybody, but yeah, I mean, it's Boulder, it's Colorado. You just. It's just part of it.

You just deal with it.

Yeah, that's, you know, trainer rides, a lot of swim workouts, a lot of gym time. You know, you can run in this all, all the time. But, yeah, I remember even last year training for lead man. Just, you know, you go out and you bike in the snow, you go out and you bike in the cold. It's just what it is.

Yeah.

Doesn't bother me. I don't. I'm, I'm fine with it.

Good. Well, I wouldn't. So hands off to you. I'd like to talk a little bit about Boston. It's been a few days since it happened and, you know, you know, it's pretty much sunk in for all of us at this point. We've had time to sort through our thoughts and, you know, read the stories and maybe shed some tears and everything, but, you know, just being that we're an endurance sports podcast, I don't think it should go unmentioned on here. And obviously, you can't say enough how much our hearts go out to everyone who is affected, you know, whether directly or indirectly through loved ones. Lucho, how do you feel right now about everything?

Yeah, I mean, I remember September 11th. I remember Timothy McVeigh. I remember all those bombings. And I don't know, it makes me sad for the future. But at the same time, when you see so many people pull together and really support each other, watching the finish line footage when the bomb blew up, watching, you know, people who had just run 26 miles rush over and start helping, they weren't running away from the bombs. Not everybody was. A lot of people were running towards the explosions trying to help people. And that's the stuff that I look at. It's, you know, it's a. It's a horrible and shitty thing that, that whatever the people did, or whoever they were, what they did, but at the same time, it gives us a chance to really show, you know, how strong we are.

It's true. It's sad that, you know, tragedy has to happen, but it does show that there is goodness in humanity. And you're right. I mean, the stories you've heard of people going out, putting themselves at ultimate risk, and everything to help one another is just incredible. And that also brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it.

Mm. I saw a tweet. It was actually on the Colbert Report. I was telling you about the opening. If you watch the first 60 seconds of the Colbert Report from yesterday, it's one of the best wrap ups or comments or responses to the bombings that I've seen yet. And he said on there that people had run across the finish line and then continued to run all the way to the main hospital. To donate blood. That was pretty cool. I mean, two horrible, horrible, or however many people did this, but it brought out thousands of good things. That's what I want to dwell on. And, you know, it's gonna happen again. You can count on it. You can guarantee it.

And that said though, you know, I've read a couple articles and you even mentioned like someone like Timothy McVeigh and everything and things like terrorism versus, you know, you have recently Sandy Hook. That took place where two very similar yet very different situations where something like Sandy Hook, it takes a person who's deeply psychologically disturbed and has issues and, you know, maybe does something not to instill fear. Whereas terrorism is direct, it's calculated, it's, you know, said to be highly intelligent planning and whatnot to instill fear. And then with the result hoping to be that the people affected, you know, namely the endurance sports community and all Americans at this point to be fearful for then continuing on with such activities like marathons, Boston, whatever it may be. And that's been the coolest thing I've seen come out of this. Or one of the coolest things is that, you know, especially just following my particular Twitter feed that I've built up is how people are saying, f you, we are not gonna let this make us scared to continue on living our lives, participating in races and doing the things we love. You know, I think the day after everyone was banding together to get out there on a run. And I know I ran two, two times, but that's what I like to see when people, you know, in the light of tragedy, stand up and continue to show their strength and not give in to what these terrorists want.

Absolutely. That's well put. It's good.

Thank you. But yeah, I know we also had some Endurance Planet listeners out there running. We've had a couple emails come in which it looks like our guys were pretty fast. You know, PR's close to three hour finishing times for some. So thankfully, I mean, as we most know that the bomb happened around the four hour mark. So it sounds like anyone that is a fan of the podcast that's chimed in is totally safe as is. You know, a lot of friends that I've have in the endurance sport communities think, thankfully I've all been safe and sound. But yeah, yeah, yeah, heavy stuff. So if anyone has any input or anything they want to share, please just, you know, let us know your thoughts on our Facebook page. That would be great. And it's always important just to kind of band together in these situations to talk about It. So, yeah, leave us a note if you want to talk any more about it. But in the meantime, let's go ahead and get to our questions. We have quite a few and they're really good set of questions today. I think a lot of them are kind of all over the place, which always makes it fun and, you know, not just about math. Let's start off with Ron. And Ron is kind of funny. I like this little interaction that you guys had going on on Facebook yesterday. He says, I made. I'm mainly an ultra runner who does a lot of cross training to keep things fresh and fun. I do get in three key runs a week, tempo, interval, and hills. And I have a slight inkling to do a triathlon in the future. He's eyeing the Olympic distance, it looks like. However, he says, I'm not a cyclist and know nothing about it. I do not own a bike. So what should I look for in any of the bikes I can get at a quote unquote big box sports store like your Dick's Sports Authority, etc. And he wants to know if it's possible to get a decent bike from a place like that or should he hit up the bike shops? He doesn't meant that he's a little afraid of how bike shops can be a little intimidating, which is true. And then the best line of this is he says, I know Lucho is cheap and it will tell me to just get one from the thrift shop, but I'd like one that is somewhat decent and not a cast off. Not willing to break the bank, though. Budget would be under 500, which that's kind of a limiting factor.

500 is. That's the one that jumped out at me big time.

Lucha, though, you. In your own defense, I like your response. He's, you know, I'm not cheap. I'm a thrifty man.

I'm thrifty. I don't spend money on stuff that I don't need.

That's exactly how I like to live my life too.

Yeah, Yeah. I buy shoes from the thrift store because I don't need $110 shoes.

As a girl, you will never catch me getting a pedicure, a manicure, or any of that crap, because to me that's just like, I will be cheap there. Like, why?

Anyways, so, yeah, the $500 price point, really, that's. It's not very realistic. So I actually went in, I looked at Dick's Sporting Goods and Sports Authority and God, it's hard for me to Say that those bikes are okay.

What were the brands? Do you remember?

Don't even remember. I never heard of them. There was a Fuji and that was the one that I was going to point out. There was a Fuji 3.0, I think that looked kind of okay. The other brands I never heard of and the components on them is what you're looking at. Rinky dinky, very, very much. It's definitely not meant to be put into a triathlon and raced, but that's, you know, that could be snobby and elitist of me. So one of my first jobs out of college was working in a bike shop. And for years that was my go to job is I could go into any bike shop and get a job as a salesman or a mechanic. Um, so I've, you know, years and years of bike experience. Um, but I did go in and look at performance bike.

I was gonna bring up performance and.

If, I don't know if there's one in your area, but they have like, they have a bike now that was regularly $1,000 and it's on sale almost 50% off. So that puts you, I think it was like $599. So. Right. You know, $100 off your price point. But it's a thousand dollar bike. That's what you're looking for. I wouldn't.

Oh, go ahead.

I wouldn't walk into Dick's Sporting Goods and buy a $299 bike. What I would do is go find a thousand dollar bike for 500. And then I looked on. I'm on ebay every day. I love ebay. And that's, you know, I bought a lot of stuff on ebay for my own bikes. You know, my cyclocross bike is a, I bought it on eBay for $99 the frame and then I built it up in parts. You're probably not, you can't do that. But there's some really good deals on there.

Even Craigslist.

Yeah, Craigslist. Craigslist is a little different though, because they're, they're setting the price. They're just saying, I want, you know, $700 for this bike on ebay. There's actually bidding.

Oh, that's true.

It'll start at 99 cents and the highest bidder gets it. Not all the time, but, you know, that's, that's, you know, the, the thing with ebay.

So I agree that if you're gonna take the leap, at least go to something at the level of a performance bike shop. It's to me, performance is like the Costco of bike shops where, you know, they're, they're a quality name. You may not be getting the customer service that you will at a true bike shop just because you're gonna have to expand, you know, the employees there to maybe not know as much as I would disagree. Would you?

Yeah, absolutely. I've been into performance a lot because we have, I mean, there's a bunch of them in Colorado. So you know, if I need a chain and I, I'm not going to buy it on ebay, so I rush down and I buy a chain. The mechanics in there have always been really, really good. They're cyclists themselves and I think, you know, they, they absolutely have experience. They, they're going to be able to fit you on the bike. And the thing that you'll get from a place like Performance versus Dick's Sporting Goods is that you do get to go in and talk to a mechanic and somebody who rides bikes and somebody very experienced with that. You're gonna get a warranty. You're gonna get, you know, a free tune up one month after you buy the bike. Probably if anything goes wrong with the bike, you've got them to sit there and say, you know, we can fix this in Dick's. It's not gonna happen.

That's okay.

Yeah, that's Sports Authority. It's not gonna happen. The guy who's selling you the bike doesn't know anything about it. If it breaks, he doesn't know how to fix it. They don't have a mechanic working at Sports Authority. So no, the big bucks sports stores are not where I would go.

No. And if anything, what I always tell a lot of my clients too that are looking for a bike, or anyone for that matter, is that if you're willing to be a little more flexible with your budget and get something a little bit nicer, you're going to probably end up seeing saving money in the end because it's not going to break down as quickly. You're not going to have to take it in for those tune ups and random things busting.

That's a great point too. I mean, the 299, but you're going to get to what you pay for. I guarantee it. You get what you pay for and it's going to break and it's not going to last and it's going to, you know, it's not going to stay. The gears aren't going to stay tuned up. It's going to go out of shifting really easily. You're gonna have to constantly take it back and have it fixed. So yeah, you get what you pay for. So if you buy a $300 bike, don't expect it to last.

Yeah. Also just ask around. I mean, if you're an ultra runner, you obviously have athletic friends. I know. That's how my boyfriend got his first bike. Was through just kind of knowing someone and was able to get a good deal on someone who was just kind of over that bike and needed to move on to another one or something.

Or you know, see if there's. You have a friend who has a bike in his garage and he doesn't ride. Yeah, borrow, borrow it and see. And that's, you know, one thing that you don't want to do is go out and spend five grand on a bike and then realize that you don't like it, you don't like cycling. So starting off with. And this is what you're saying is your budget's 500, so you don't want to commit. But you know, borrowing a bike would be the ultimate lack of commitment.

Yeah.

You know, you train on it, ride it, and if you don't like biking, then you just hand it back and you haven't lost a dime.

Yeah, I think I spent about 11001200 dollars on my first bike, which for me that at that time was the biggest purchase I've ever made. And it was a big deal. But you know, it was from, I got it from like a Trek store. It was a Trek bike and it was awesome. You know, my first bike was a Trek 400.

Really got it for 300, but that was back in 94. A little inflation since then.

Mine was 2007. 6. 2006. So not bad.

Now I've got bikes sitting in my shed that are worth $8,000. Several of them.

Why don't you give one to Ron?

And I earned that bike.

I noticed. Okay, hopefully that helps. Ron, Peter wants to know this question is directed for you, Lucho, but I actually have a boyfriend, so I can at least have some leg shaving. Did you do it? Do you do it? Why or why not?

Hell yeah, I did. Hell yeah. Any self respecting triathlete shaves his legs.

Self respected man. I don't care who.

But I didn't do it year round. So like in the wintertime I didn't. Most guys don't, but yeah, absolutely. And towards the end I would just use clippers. I wouldn't use a razor, so.

And why did you do it?

Because it looked good.

It's an aesthetic thing. Your legs look sexy when they're all clean and you get to see all the veins and muscles and everything bulging.

Yeah. Tanned, shaved legs versus, you know, big, gnarly black hair all over.

Yeah.

And then. Yeah. So the ego part of it, definitely, you could argue that there's a performance aspect to it. I think physically there's not as much a performance factor to it as mentally. So, you know, if you feel good about how you look and feel, then you're gonna. You're gonna feel better.

And that's why I feel fresh. You want to feel clean. I know. Like, even as a girl, like, I'll kind of make sure to plan, like, a good, you know, shave my legs. Everything before a race, you just kind of want to go into something feeling that, like, fresh, like, all right, body's prepped on all levels, sort of.

Yeah, there's. That's the psychological part is.

Yeah.

You know, and also, like, my wife doesn't like hair.

Amen to that. And yeah, as a girl, I will say on my end, yeah, guys with shaved legs, way better. Even if you're not even an athlete, way better.

Yeah. So there you go. Ego.

Well, and then I was talking to my boyfriend a little bit about this, too, asking why he shaved his legs. And actually he started shaving his legs when we started dating and when he started getting into triathlon more seriously. And he hasn't. He loves it. But. But, you know, he mentioned things that were, like, practical things, like if you were to crash or something and like, you had, you know, gashes all over your legs. Having hair is just going to make it nastier and messier to, you know.

And I've experienced that firsthand.

Yeah, with the hair.

Yeah. Yeah, with that. I wrecked it. I crashed pretty bad at Silver Rush 50 last year. 50 mile mountain bike. I'm really bad. Put in the hospital and. And I had. I hadn't shaved my legs for the race, and I had this giant scab that was like. Oh, it was like the size of. I don't know. I mean, it was huge. I can't think of anything, but I mean, it was a really big. Yeah, it was like a big island on my leg. And it was just this black, gnarly scab. And the hair just was terrible on there.

And then the other thing, too. I know we use Compex at our house, and I don't know if compact. You can use Compex with hairy legs.

Right. And massage. If you ever get massaged.

Yeah.

With a hairy hair, it Hurts if it's smooth. And, and that's, I've heard cyclists say that, like elite pro cyclists who talk about, you know, they get massages every day.

Yeah.

And, you know, without having hair on it, it's, it's a lot smoother and a lot more comfortable. So there's, you know, you can, you can come up with a hundred reasons to do it.

There's not one bad reason. There's not one argument. Keeping the hair on your legs at this point. Go for it.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I would agree with that.

Flaunt it. We're getting that time of year, at least in a lot of parts of the country. Maybe not your part, where it is time to flaunt those legs.

Yeah.

All right. Our friend George wants to know our take or your take? Our take, whatever. On downhill repeats for runners, things like the benefit, the risk, how frequently, what grade, how hard.

We talk about this a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah. He listens. There's obviously a huge benefit. I think if you go out and you're, if you have a really hard race coming up that's got a lot of vertical and you're not pushing the downhills, then you're not pushing yourself to get better on the downhills. From a muscular perspective and a skill perspective, you know, jogging really lightly down this technical single track isn't going to make you better. You know, taking some risk and a good risk and pushing yourself down those single tracks to, you know, from a technique standpoint is pretty important. You're not going to run fast in a race if you don't run fast in training on the downhills. So frequency as often as your legs can handle it. You know, I don't think you need to run hard every day, but if you're, if you're recovering well and you feel good, then let it fly sometimes. I know I did specific downhill interval work as part of a bigger workout, but I'd time myself on the descents and try to push it, you know, sub five minute pace on two and three mile grades to really beat myself down. Because you don't, you don't get stronger if you don't break your muscle down. And that's kind of what you have to do. That's the name of the game. So. And absolutely there's risks with it, band and knee issues, but you have to work into it and build up to that.

And yeah, you're more likely to heel strike running downhill.

And that's fine. Yeah, I think that's totally fine. You know, you do need A breaking action. If you're going down a fairly steep hill, you need to break. You have to break. You just get totally out of control and hit a tree. Um, so you, you do have to stay in control. And heel striking is perfect for that.

I know that last year, a couple years ago, whatever it was, you know, when I was doing a lot of trail running and I kind of did to the point where I hurt my knee for a while. I think part of that was going down grades so that were too steep and trying to like shuffle, slash. Like it was so steep that I couldn't just. You know, sometimes when you're running down, you commit to it and you can just go.

Yeah.

There's some hills that are so steep that if you did that, you literally probably topple over yourself.

Right, right.

I think in that case, you know, if you're at risk for any sort of knee injury, like if you've been feeling a niggle or something, I'd stay away from like the super, super steep grades on the downhills because you could aggravate something. You know, just.

Yeah, there's a tremendous amount of force coming down. You're running whatever eight minute pace and you weigh 160 pounds and you're going down a steep hill. There's a huge amount of stress on your knees, your quads, your IT band. And so, yeah, you got to watch it and be smart.

I mean, we've said it before, downhill running is what causes soreness the next day. That eccentric contraction is even though it doesn't hurt as bad as climbing hills, it technically is worse on your muscles and much worse damaging.

But the, the good thing is that you can work that build resistance. You can absolutely build resistance, but it doesn't take easy downhills. It takes hard downhills. You have to push it. And you know, I remember I've given workouts recently to runners where I'm like, I want you to try and get sore tomorrow. I want you to be sore tomorrow. Push the downhills hard and break some tissue down and really, really work that eccentric contraction so that you are sore.

It's definitely a skill though. I mean, because I think some people sometimes take downhill running for granted and they just think like, oh, it's downhill. That means I get a break and free speed. But to maximize the free speed, there is the art of it.

Yeah, you have to be able to handle it. And George is training for pikes, so he's got 13 mile downhill. So within his situation. Can't emphasize it enough. I would emphasize it Almost more than the uphills. Now you could. You could power hike and fast hike the ups and be and get everything you need out of that. But the downhills, where you're really going to see the biggest drop off in performance.

13 miles straight downhill.

It's 13 miles uphill and 13 miles downhill.

That's awesome.

14,000Ft altitude. So, um, yeah. How hard? I think you need to push hard enough that you do break down, you do get better. Um, so just jogging down Green Mountain ain't gonna do it. You can. You need to try to get, you know, push those FKT descents fastest times down. Try to get worry more about those than the climbs. So in the grade, you know, like Tawny said, if you get too steep, you know, you're like Fernando. George will know what Fern Canyon is. He's the one who showed me that. That damn thing. But you can't push down that. If you run down that hard, you die. It's ridiculous. You could catch a toe and face plant and actually, I think George did that when we ran that day. So, yeah, you got to be smart about it.

And that's when you want to know that your legs are shaved.

Right? Right. If it's a 30% downhill and it's technical, you're risking more by pushing it in terms of a trip and a fall. So you got to be careful of that. You don't want to break a collarbone or a wrist or something. So. But, you know, whatever the grade, that you can control yourself and run with some semblance of form is good. Even 1%, 2% downhill is great. You could do mild repeats down or whatever, 800 repeats down a 2% grade and run faster than you're used to. So cool.

Amy wants to know how often she should foam roll. Good question.

I'll let you answer this one because I don't foam roll, so. But I know the answer. But you foam roll, so you tell her.

You know, I think as much as you think you need it, I wouldn't get to the point where you're, you know, making yourself maybe sore from it or anything.

I would think, though, the more you foam roll, the less sore you would get from it.

Yeah, but maybe I'm talking about just like in one session, you don't want to.

Oh, okay. I was thinking more. I was thinking more frequency.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm thinking about one isolated session. Like, you don't need to do it for like 30 minutes or something where you're like, it band like for 15 minutes straight and you're cringing. You know, I think a little bit, you know, couple minutes each area before, even before a workout can help kind of loosen up your tissue and work out any adhesions or anything like that. But it's funny, I actually was thinking about this a little bit more, too, and there was a couple blogs that people have posted about how pain is bad and foam rolling causes pain and therefore you shouldn't foam roll sort of argument. And I was like, really? And then there was a response to that. Saying like, that, of course, is bull, because, you know, if you look at any sort of technique that is supposed to help soft tissues and muscles and all that, I mean, there's going to be a little bit of pain and discomfort. Um, but that actually promotes the healing process, which is what we're looking to get from foam rolling.

Yeah, you don't break up scar tissue painlessly.

Yeah, exactly.

You don't get a psoas massage and have it feel good.

I remember one of my triathlete friends, though, told me that he was foam rolling so much that he literally was getting sore wrists from it. Because, you know, you kind of have to, like, put all your weight on your wrist and then the rest of your weights on that one body part that you're foam rolling. That, to me, seems a little excessive if you're causing, like, sore soreness, you know. So I know for us, I just had the foam roller in our living room, and it's one of those things where every now and then I'll just go jump on it if I'm feeling a little soreness somewhere. Like, I'll work it on it, you know, several times throughout the day. Like, I don't really think about it. I guess that's my point is, like, I don't really think about it, and I don't really set a goal or a limit or anything. It's just kind of part of the normal routine. Just like when it, you know, it's the same thing, like sitting at a desk for most people who are working all day. You know, you want to take time to make sure you stand up and move around, stretch your hip flexors, things like that. I don't really put, like a timer on or anything. It's just sort of an automatic. Just make sure you're not sitting still for five hours straight or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say five to six days a week for 15 minutes a day.

Probably a better answer that would be.

You know, just throwing it out there. Like, that would be probably adequate philanthropical. If you're targeting a certain muscle though, like if you're just targeting your soleus and calves, then, you know, three or four minutes each leg would be a good place to start. And then I would, you know, if you could build up to five to six minutes at a time. But I don't think you need to, like Tawny said, you don't need to do a half hour on your calves. That probably hurt you more than help. Yeah, I mean the point of it, outside of working on an injury, the point of it is to loosen up the tissue and get increased blood flow, break up maybe some scar tissue and that doesn't take a tremendous amount of time. If you go to a massage therapist or have a massage, they're not going to spend 20 minutes on just your calves.

Exactly.

It's going to be hitting each area, each muscle group briefly enough.

It's also about the pain tolerance too like that, you know, you mentioned massage. I also think art, where art arguably is a little more intense, can be painful for some. So therefore you'll find technicians who are spending even less time. Like actually a lot of local appointments that we have around here, the sessions are only like 30, 40 minutes or so, whereas massage is usually longer than that. Because you know your body, you only want to put so much on your body at one time before it kind of like, alright, that's enough. We don't need to like straight up kill you here.

You're not looking for tissue breakdown, but.

Yeah, definitely keep it part of the regular routine.

It's good maintenance.

And you know too when you're doing it consistently and you are on, you know, your IT bands, for example, first time versus 50th time, you'll feel like you know the difference, you know, it's working.

So anyway, yeah, the first time's gonna hurt like hell.

I know. I always love watching people for the first time in the foam roller. It's like, yep, there you go.

Yeah.

Chris says I just finished a hundred mile attempt this past weekend and I'm looking to take a month away from running to give my mind and body a time to rest. Any advice on things to do to get my body ready for the return coming mid May.

You could, you know, if you're one month off, you could, you could give it two weeks off. And I applaud you for doing this by the way. You give it, you know, two weeks off and then you could start doing some, you know, some 15 to 20 minute hikes and jogs, you know, I mean a 20 minute run is not going to hurt you. And if your brain, the time off is more for your brain. You don't need four weeks to heal from the hundred unless you're injured. So four weeks is going to be enough time to give your body plenty of rest. You know, really 14 days would be enough. The mental aspect is what you're really looking at. So listen to your brain and what it's telling you. If after two weeks you go out and you go for a hike and you're like, man, I feel really good. I want to go for a jog. I just want to jog, then do it. It's not going to hurt your body. And that would be the one thing you could. I don't. You could do weights, but I wouldn't say that in a, in a break, in a, in a rest period, a four week break period. I wouldn't lift weights because that's really going to hurt your body starting out. Um, yeah, I mean getting your body ready for the return, you know, going out for a little 15, 20 minute jogs will, will do wonders.

I usually, when I'm taking time away or recommending time away for an athlete who just finished a big race or something, you know, just try to avoid your typical routines and routes. If you are gonna get out there and get any sort of exercise in is like switch it up, do something different.

Yeah. Depending on what you have available. Like you surf, right?

Exactly, exactly.

And you can't.

It could be like snowboarding or like skate skiing or something for someone else where you are, you know.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, but you also have to keep it very stress free.

Yeah.

I mean the point of taking four weeks off is to heal your mind and your body. You know, if you launch into a heavy weight training program. Well, that's not doing it. That's not what you should be doing. You should be doing something really fun and gentle and having fun like hiking with your kids and surfing and, and stuff that's really pretty mellow and fun and taking the, the performance aspect out of it.

I was going to say hiking, but I'm assuming Chris has spent a lot of time on trails lately with Miler, so.

But that's what. He obviously loves it. So that's what, you know, that would be the first thing I would say is go for hikes after, after two weeks or once your brain really is starting to come back and motivated and you're really starting to think about getting back into shape, then that to me is a sign.

And hiking for me too. I always try to involve people. I mean, obviously the hundred miler, while you probably had a crew, it was still a solo effort to some degree. If you have like, you know, I like to go with my mom and sister and we'll go on a hike and just catch up and things like that. And you know, our heart rates may be what would I consider, not even zone one. But it's, you know, kind of a social thing too, while you're still kind of getting some health benefits from it.

So from a physical perspective, the things that you want to do to get your body ready for a return would be, like I said, take the performance aspect out of it. You're not out there to run for three hours. 15 to 20 minutes is adequate. And all you're trying to do is keep the muscles loose, you know, keep that muscle memory of what running is and keep it really mellow and relaxed. From a mental perspective, that's where the performance aspect you want to leave out. Because, you know, if you're wanting to take four weeks off, then your brain is fried and it's probably fried from strict structure. So keep it non structured. If you feel like going for a 15, 20 minute jog, then go for it, but don't. Why? I wouldn't wear a garment or heart rate monitor or anything.

No, totally not. That's cool though. But you're right, it's good that he's doing that and hopefully I wonder. I'd be curious to see what he has on top for the rest of the year because if he is returning mid May, I'm assuming that there is something else on his schedule.

So probably another hundred.

Probably.

If he finished an attempt at 100, that means he, he wants redemption.

Yes. Looking into those words, that is a good point. That is a good point. Kevin says, when I was back in Houston, I saw a guy sprinting up hills backwards. Why do some people do it? And is there a good reason to run up hills backwards when it could be inserted into a workout schedule and he's a distance runner and cyclist.

Yeah. So I've used one of the plyometric drills that we do is backwards running.

Yeah.

And you'll notice, I mean, obviously it's a completely different thing. You're using all different muscles. I don't know why this guy was doing it uphill. He might have been trying to switch it up and do a different kind of muscle activation with hamstrings and whatever posterior chain muscles. One thing that I have seen is people who are injured will ocd about it can go out and run backwards because it hurts to run forward. So if you've got an overuse injury from running forward all the time, and if you turn around and run backwards, you might not be affecting the injured area at all.

I've heard that, but I haven't actually heard like true testimonials from.

Yeah, I don't. And that's a hearsay thing.

Yeah.

So I don't. I've never really seen somebody take it to that extreme.

Imagine doing like a five mile backward run. Like gnarly.

Yeah. I know. The plyometrics that I was doing earlier this year, doing the backwards running, really we would do them at the end of a hard track session and my hamstrings would almost cramp. Like, it really worked my hamstrings hard. Only in like 50 meters. So from that, from using it for that, I think you use it as a drill.

That's what I do. Like when I teach my classes. Usually a warmup thing that we do for, you know, muscular activation, balance, kind of stimulating your brain for. To not fall over because you don't want to look over your shoulder because that kind of tweaks things. So I mean, as long as you're in an area that you. It's controlled. Like I'll have people do it like on a track or asphalt or something like that. But a track might be different or hills might be different. You know, just really overall kind of en. Heightens your senses and awareness in your muscles, the feeling of them. So. So I like it for that sense to full on backwards running, though. That's.

I don't. I don't see any reason to do it because if you're trying to be a good runner, then it's not specific at all to that. And the one thing that I would. The only thing that I could come up with that would argue that would be balancing strength or if you have a strength imbalance. If you did it, if you did do a lot of backwards running, you could in theory balance out some weaker muscle groups for sure, actually. But I think there's a better way to do it than backwards running.

Yeah, I was, you know, going even back to Chris's question. I did a hike with my mom and sister after I did Oceanside, just as kind of like a recovery fun thing. And I was just messing around on trails and actually just for whatever reason started doing some backwards running. Jogging more like I wouldn't consider running. But then I got scared because the trail was kind of unpredictable and I didn't want to eat Shit. It's fun. It's kind of fun to just kind of turn around. Like, if you're not just chilling and trying to mix things up a little bit, just to turn around, see how your body reacts. I mean, it's kind of like taking away one of your senses and other senses come into play to, you know, to pick up where the sight, for example, is not coming into the picture there.

Mm. I know in Rocky, Apollo Creed, when he was racing Rocky on the beach and they were sprinting, Apollo turned around and ran backwards. So that's. That's what. So, yeah, so if you want to be like Apollo Creed, then go for it with that.

There you go.

There's my Rocky reference for the day.

Oh, God. I'm not a Rocky person, so sorry. I don't really have any followers.

Rocky 4 is the greatest movie ever made.

I don't even. I honestly, I've never even seen one. I mean, I know, like, the. I've never seen one. I've seen.

I'm putting that on your schedule for tomorrow.

Oh, great. Yeah. Treadmill run. Actually, it's funny. I gave one of my athletes a long run the other night, and he ran on the treadmill. I was like, you know, I'd really prefer if you had done that outside. He's like, yeah, but the Laker game was on. I was like, all right, I get it.

Kill two birds.

Jeff says, what would your taper look like for an Ironman training plan for all of the three sports? Man, this is a loaded question. I know that you added this one. Did Jeff send you this directly?

Yeah.

Okay. And then so he's meaning, when would you start the taper and how quickly would your mileage and training drop? Also, what would your peak mileage be for all three? When he says peak mileage, does he mean in the taper or otherwise?

I don't know. I can't answer that question. Anyway, what would my. My peak mileage be? I can tell you what my peak mileage would be, but that's not anything that you should be doing. So that's a tough question. I mean, with the peak mileage, and I always say this, and I always go back to, you know, people ask, how. How many miles a week should I run? Well, it's up to your body, you know, in. And you've got limit. You got limitations to that. So if you. If you've only got 14 hours a week to train, well, you know, you can't. You can't go out and do a 300 mile bike week with a 10k swim and a 20 mile run. You know, you don't have time so you, you, that's a very individual thing. But the peak mileage should be what you can safely handle, should be as much as you can and that's it. You're training for Ironman, so as much as you can. Man, if that's you know, 300 miles on the bike, then go for it, do it. Um, and so with the taper, you know, just a rough outline, what I would do would be a four week taper. And the fourth week out you cut your run volume, right? So you, you keep your swim volume the same, you keep your cycling volume the same because those two are much less damaging. So you cut your run volume by say 20%. Maybe do your longest run that week, but reduce the overall volume of the week. And then the third week out you're going to reduce the run again, reduce the bike by about 20% and you could do your longest bike that week.

And then the second Ironman, right? Just kidding.

No, that would be stupid.

That would be me.

Anybody who would do that is just insane freaking retarded. God, no way would I ever, ever do that. So sorry, just kidding. Yeah. If you're gonna do a half Ironman, a third week out would be acceptable. Um, second week out you're reducing the run again, you're reducing the bike again and then you're reducing the swim.

At what point are you at say for run for example, to like 50%?

Third week, like so if you're dropping at 20%, then four week, four weeks out you'd be at 80. Okay, three weeks out you'd be at 60. Second week out you'd be at 40%. And then the week of the race, I mean, geez, run twice, three miles each, that's it. So you're running six miles, hopefully. That's a huge, that should be, you know, huge, huge reduction. Um, you just can't, you just can't rest enough. The week of the race. Um, one rule of thumb is to not run every day. You run every other day, um, counting back from the day of the race. And then um, yeah, so you, the fourth week out you reduce just the run. Third week out you reduce the run again and start reducing the bike. Second week out you're reducing all three. And so you're, you're seeing some big drop offs there in terms of overall time. But yeah, by the third week you should be almost in full on shutdown mode. Um, the other, the other strategy that you could do is a reverse taper where your fifth week out you do an 80% reduction across the board. So if you're, you know, if you're training, you know, I mean you reduce your entire training volume by 80%. So it's this monstrous drop off and that's generally what is going to make an athlete feel like crap is when you do a severe reduction immediately, too quickly and that's going to make you feel horrible. Um, loss of blood, volume, endorphins, shut down, all these things. And then for the next four weeks you're actually bringing your volume up. So cut it by 80% and then the next week you do like maybe 50% and then that second week out or third week out you're doing like 60% and then second week out I would keep it around 60% and then the week of the race, drop it. So instead of doing a four week reduction in volume, you're actually doing a five week taper, the fifth week really low and then you're actually bringing your volume back up so that your body's back into the rhythm of training and you feel good and everything's clicking.

Now a couple options as a coach. Then it comes in deciding one of those two, obviously most people are going to go with the more traditional taper of just gradually decreasing week, week, week up until the race versus the opposite. Um, what are some signs as you know, an athlete when you would choose one way or the other on how.

To approach either the fitness, fitness coming in. So if you're, if you're super fit and you're on that edge, six weeks out and you're really tired and you feel like you might need a little more rest, then you do need a severe reduction immediately. If you're. Because I've, and I've been here, I've totally been here in 2004, just monster weeks. And I, you know, I got six weeks out from Ironman Hawaii and I was just so tired, I was just wasted. And so I started to do a taper and I just started to do a gradual reduction which wasn't doing shit for me. Like I was still tired. You know, reducing it by 20% didn't do anything. I needed, I needed an 80% reduction now. And, and I didn't do that. I did a traditional cut down. So tired. And that traditional cut down just never gave me the rest I needed.

I see what you're saying.

And so I went into Kona, completely fried my worst Ironman ever. And four weeks after Ironman Hawaii, my resting heart rate Was just gotten below 100. Four weeks after my endocrine system was completely fried. Yeah, four weeks after my heart rate finally got down under 100, I would wake up and it'd be at 105, 110. First thing in the morning I'd stand up and it wouldn't go anywhere. Like it wouldn't react at all. I could go out and sprint 400 meters and it would never go above 120, 130 if I would have done that. It was so depressed. So I mean that's, that's why you would, that's where I would make that call is if you, if you train really good, like really solid and huge volume, that's in your, that sixth week out, you're just totally tired and really fatigued. Then that, then that next week I would do, I wouldn't call it damage control, but I would do a very aggressive taper where you immediately shut it down and just chop it off. If you come into that fifth week out in your, your training hasn't been that great and you're not super fit, then I would do maybe the gradual reduction because that's going to actually give you more time to train. But it depends on where you reduce it. Like you don't, like I said, you cut the run first because that's the one that's going to hurt you the most. So you keep your swim volume high, you keep your bike volume high, get a squeeze out some more fitness in there and then you know, definitely once you got down into that 10 day period, that's when you chop it.

Yeah, definitely. And I'm a fan of keeping that swim volume rather high. I know with a lot of people I work with and myself included, you know, the more I'm in the pool, the more I swim, continue to swim better. And tapering off doesn't, isn't always the best thing because keep the frequency high. Yeah, it's like swimming thankfully is non impact like that. So you can afford to be a little more aggressive with it leading into a race.

And frequency and volume are different. I mean you could, you could, you could swim 6 days a week and only get 6k a week.

Exactly. Frequency huge. And that's actually for me even too. Like I don't have mega, mega crazy 4000 plus yard swims at least at this point of the year. But.

Oh, you just wait girl.

You know, leading into oceanside and everything, like I was definitely in the pool like at least five days a week for a good amount of weeks and it was that Was better that for me than doing like two days a week. But say it was the same volume, you know.

Absolutely. Yeah. Anyways, there you go.

Lots of ways to do it, but that's. I think that was a really good breakdown, Lucho. You know, and obviously Jeff has some good goals for himself if he wants to finish in the 10 to 11 hour range.

That's 10 hours is Kona range. Yeah. So depending on his age group. So, yeah, that's, that's a stout range.

So cool, man.

If you're gonna make a mistake, err on the side of caution for your taper.

Do you know what race he's doing?

No.

I'd be curious. Why do I just have a feeling it's Wisconsin? I don't know why. I just made that up and you.

Just pulled Wisconsin out. I think it's Wisconsin.

I want to tap into my future career of being a psychic.

What in that question makes you think Wisconsin?

I have no idea. Literally. I can't tell you. It's just a feeling, Lucho.

I think it's floral.

David says I have a 10k race coming up on May 5, which is an out and back course. The course basically has an average of 500ft gain per mile at an average of 9.5% grade. That's awesome, right? I was reading this question thinking same thing all the way up to the turnaround point. And then I have two questions. First, how do you. Or do you have any advice on how to race this? And secondly, when should I stop running the hills and downhills to ensure that I heal up in time? Good question. Yeah. And then can I keep using the bike to do hill work?

So with the, with the racing strategy, pace is kind of out the window unless you're able to train on course. You just, I mean it's, it's, it's not, it's not like a track where you can just dial in your goal pace and hold it. So it's going to be totally different with that. Um, experience will help tremendously. If you're training specifically for this race, then you should have an idea of what you can hold going up these long inclines. Um, but, but 10k effort is what you're looking at. So you're. It's effort based heart rate. I would use heart rate if you know how to use it correctly. With the 10K. The thing you're looking at here is not completely blowing up by halfway. You need to be able to turn around and run three miles back solid. You will be able to get away with pushing a little harder, because when you do turn around, you'll have a downhill, three miles downhill. You could turn, hit the turnaround on your. When you start down, just relax for just, you know, maybe 400 meters or a half mile. Catch your breath, get your heart rate down a little bit and then start working into the pace. But you, you know, on that first three, it's critical that you don't just blow up. So by heart rate, you know, threshold is right. At threshold, I wouldn't go over. Um, experience is going to be the biggest thing. If you can get out and do some mile repeats up hills like this and start getting a sense of effort, then that's going to be your biggest guide.

Yeah, but the problem is, I mean, we're already getting to a point talking about a second part of the, oh, May 5th.

Never mind.

Stop doing this. I mean, we're only. This weekend. It's not.

It's a 10k though. Let me change my calendar. It's still in March. So is it April? Really?

It's April 20th this weekend. It's a national holiday. Duh. 420. Just kidding.

So he's got a couple weeks. Well, the 10k, what you're looking at with the taper there is, you know, the longer the distance of the race, the more the taper. So with the 10K, if you're actually tapering, then 10 days is enough. If you're just going to rest for it and it's not a key race, then, you know, four days, four to five days, maybe reduce your training a load a little bit the week of the 21st, the week of the 22nd.

So maybe that week he can do like some harder, like a couple hill, harder hill, repeat efforts. But overall, less volume, less frequency.

Yeah, that could work. I mean, in 10k pace, 10k effort isn't flat out. So if you were going out and doing, you know, six times 800 up a hill at 10K effort, that's not that hard. I mean, that's threshold. It's, it's not a blowout killer, you know, hill replacement thing that's gonna just break you down. So the 10k effort for that short period of time is pretty moderate. So you can get away with doing some more specific stuff coming up. So, yeah, doing, figuring out, going out and doing some hill repeats this the rest of this week and next week. But keep, you know, keep in mind that you want to reduce the overall volume next week. And when should you stop running up and you stop running downhills next week for sure. The uphills, not so much. You could still use the uphil part of your training stimulus. But yeah, you're right, you do need to reduce that downhill a little bit just so you are healed. Uphill's not gonna beat you up. So the healing time from that is gonna be really minimal. So let's say the 5th is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Like the 25th, the 26th, I would really go easy on the downhills after that. It's about 10 days, I guess. Yeah, just um, give yourself that 10 day window. That's the standard. It seems to work well. So about 10 days out, reduce the downhill pounding still, you can't avoid it. But just go gentle on the downhills and make sure you're not getting sore from it. There you go. I don't know if I answered the question or not.

No, I was good. You know, hopefully David listens to this ASAP so he can get that advice. Joe says he's registered for hi Joe. This guy to summit 50k in November. Super excited. Just though he lives in Central Flat, Florida. He says, I have a quarter mile steep hill that I do repeats on. I have a curved treadmill I do speed intervals on. And then I have long runs of up to or. He does low rep heavy weights for strength, high rep kettlebells for extra Cardio, elliptical workouts, 7 to 12 miles hard efforts, long trail runs up to 20 plus miles. Good amount of training going on already then. Still though, with all this, he doesn't think that it's going to prepare him adequately for the race. And his first question is, what looks good to me? I know, I, I don't know. We'll have to dig into it deeper. I think, I think it comes down to the terrain. If I'm gathering from him correctly, he's.

Worried about the downhills.

Yeah, I don't know exactly. I looked up sky to summit, but I couldn't find elevation gain for it. So his first question is, should he go up to the sky discoverment area, which is in Georgia? I believe if he's in Florida and get in some runs so he won't be miserable on race day, at least do this three times. And then also if so, should I take hiking sticks for those trips?

Without a doubt. If you got the opportunity to go up and run three times on the course, then hell yeah. Yeah, that alone might be enough to prepare you adequately, even just mentally because.

Again, it looks like your training is actually pretty good right now. Training is good and so I think Maybe a lot of it's like that mental, like I just don't know what to expect and am I doing the right things? And it's going to be very soothing and easing to actually get out there and experience it. Oh, that's not so bad after all, is what you're going to say.

Yeah. The thing that I wouldn't worry when he sounds like he's concerned about the climbing.

Yeah, yeah.

And once again, it always comes down to the descents. You've got, you've got the treadmill, you've got a quarter mile hill, you do weight training, you've got all the uphill covered, you're fine. The uphill isn't going to be the biggest limiter. What you're going to see is a huge breakdown in your quads as the race progresses. So by, you know, by mile 25, your quads might be so beat up that you can't run downhill hardly at all. You're just going to be hobbled and then that's going to carry over. Straight over to any flat terrain is going to hurt and even the climbs are going to hurt. Then because of the sense of destroyed it destroyed your quads. So three times on the course, I would do that for sure. And I would get out there and no different than George's question earlier, I would push the downhills. I wouldn't concern yourself too much with the climbs. You know, the difference between climbing hard and climbing moderate is only a few seconds a mile sometimes. But the difference between running downhill hard and running downhill Moderate can be 20, 30 seconds a mile. Much bigger difference in terms of expended effort on a climb versus a descent. So work that ascents, go do your, your 20 mile run, do it on the course and let go on the downhills. Push the downhills pretty hard and really focus on that. And in terms of using poles, yeah, absolutely. I mean that's always a good strategy. And it seems like it kind of comes down to not a matter of ethics as much as just a personal choice and the way people feel about them. You can't dispute that hiking poles are good. You just can't, you can't say that they don't help. They have to help, but you have.

To use them correctly in order to get. Yeah, right. I mean, it's, you have to practice with them and it's not, it's a technique. You even think about skiing and using poles. Like, you know, when you're teaching someone, you don't even give them poles until like what ways down the Line, so.

And you also need to build up some durability in your upper body. So if you've never used poles before and you go out with, on a 50k with them, you know you're gonna experience some breakdown in your shoulders, your arms, your neck from using the poles. So you do need to train with them. Um, but yeah, if you're doing that, then yeah, he's got a good strength.

Training routine going on though, it seems. So I don't think he's lacking too severely in upper body strength and all that, but it is different.

Oh, it looks like he's solid. I mean, it looks like just reading this, I'm like, oh, I wouldn't be worried.

Right.

A lot better than most people.

And you know, like, you've kind of at your advocate of, of those 20. 20 mile runs. I mean, at this point, if he's already doing 20 mile runs and he's not racing until November, that's the one.

Thing that jumped out at me first. Like all that, all that other stuff you said, the, the 20 miles plus is the one that jumped out at me as the one that's going to get him through the race. Um, if his long runs were 8 to 10 miles, that would be the first concern. But since he's ahead of the game with that, I think, I think you're ahead of the curve. Um, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't be too worried. But if you can get up on the course and, and really get a feel for it, look at the hardest sections and go do those. Don't go out and run the easy sections.

Right.

Run the hardest sections you can find and you'll be fine.

Force yourself to do it. Yeah. Maybe it just needs a little extra, you know, like, structure and how to then continue on this plan for the rest of the year leading up to the race, too.

November's a long time away.

Yeah. You don't want to have them peaking too early and then slowly start declining by November, you know?

Yeah, you'll. Yeah, you get flat in August.

And yeah, Chris says, how do I know if I have a naturally high heart rate? I raced Galveston 70.3 a few weekends ago, and while I did really well, especially in the run, my heart rate seemed really high. He did a 1:20 half marathon, which is good. Cause that's a hot race.

Fastest run.

Yeah. Um, it was the fastest run.

Mm.

For amateur.

Yeah. And probably one of the better overall.

Yeah, definitely. That's awesome though. Average heart rate 180. So he wants to know if this is high. Should he go back to actual base training?

Yeah, I emailed or private messaged Chris to find out a little bit more.

Oh, did you talk to me?

I did. So Chris is consistently the fastest runner by a ways. So I'm looking at his Texas results, and he just destroyed the field with his run. So with that said, why aren't you winning your age group? And I'm gonna kind of go off on a tangent here. The thing is, I'm gonna tell you is you're looking at the wrong numbers here. You're worried about your run, you're worried about your heart rate on the run, and if it's too high a. It's not too high. You're. You're not even 24 yet. Or you might be 24. You're young. I can average. I'm 41 and I can average 180 on. On a hard, long run. I know at Ironman Hawaii one year, I averaged 171 for the whole run. So 180 is not too high at all. And even if it is, so what? Doesn't matter. It's not like you're out there running, you know, 150 with a heart rate of 180. You're trucking, man. You're solid, you're fast, and it. All you're doing is showing that the output is there. But what I see is, I looked at his results is that you're consistently behind in the swim and you're consistently behind on the bike, and that's where you need to focus. You know, it got it. Texas. It was 13 minutes slower than the winner, but outran the winner by three minutes.

Right. So winner was 410. And he was 427. I just looked at the results.

Yeah, you've got a huge disparity in your ability. What I could see happening here is that you're going too easy on the bike. If you are able to hold 180 for an average on the run, then you might have left a little too much in the tank. I would expect a depressed heart rate coming off a hard bike, not able to get the heart rate up because you're tired. And so what I see is you need to either work on your bike a little bit more and relax on the run because that's what's hurting you. You're worrying about your heart rate on the run. Don't. You're fine. You're flying. 120 is just kick ass. That's fast.

I know it's fast. And Actually, so here's what I want to say because actually one of my friends, Pedro Gomez, pro raced Galveston and he on his race report provided his Garmin files, which are always fun to look at. I love when pros do this. His average heart rate on that run was 155 and he ran a 115 50. So again, I think that goes back to potentially it's different of course, but I think it maybe goes back to what you were saying though with the swim and the bike. And that may be causing the heart rate to be higher than it could be otherwise.

If you, if you are completely fresh, you're going to be able to push your heart rate higher if you're really tired. And one of the first things you see in training is a depressed heart rate. It's one of the red flags. So fatigue is going to bring that down. If you go super easy in the swim and go super easy on the bike. Yeah, you're going to be able to crank the heart rate up on the run. But is that the, is that a cause for concern with the heart rate? No, it's not. And should you go back to base training? No, absolutely not. You don't go back to base.

Yeah. It's a waste of time at this point for him.

Absolutely. And he's got races coming up that are too close.

What else is he doing?

He is doing Rev3 Olympic first weekend of June.

Oh yeah. Definitely don't do base then.

So, Chris, I'm going to give all your information here, man. I'm just going to tell everybody about you. And he's got another rev3 at the end of June. And then so you do have a window here. You're doing another half in the middle of August and then nationals in October. So you could potentially, at the end of June after your A race, step back and do base training a little bit. That wouldn't hurt you. You've got enough time until October. You're going to be coming in really fit. So if you did, you know, if you did drop back and do maybe a four week period of focusing on base work, you might be better for it, but it's not necessarily going to mean that your heart rate is lower. I wouldn't put so much stock in the heart rate here. What I would tell you to do is cut your run a little bit because your run's going to be good no matter what. You could stop running for a month and probably still go out and bust at 125. What's holding you back is the swim and the bike. So you need, I would put a heavy focus on those two. Um, and then during your race, I don't know how hard you race the bike, but pick it up, go harder. Because if you're running. No, I've been there. I've done it, man. You know, I mean, I've, I've gone easy on the bike and had the fastest run. Um, I've gone all out on the bike and still didn't have the slowest run, you know, so you can, once you get to a certain point of strength and experience, you can hurt yourself on the bike a little bit more and still run well. Don't be too afraid of that. So I'm looking at Eagleman 70.3. Chris biked 227.

That's what he's biked in.

The winner of his age group biked 208. Yes. Um, I'm not, I'm not putting you down, Chris, at all.

I'm saying you have potential to.

Yeah, huge potential. And so the winner of that age group also swam 29 and Chris swam 35. So there's six minutes slower on the swim, you know, almost 20 minutes or almost 10 minutes slower on the bike. Um, no, 20 minutes slower on the bike. And then Chris ran 120 and had the fastest run split by a long ways. The guy who won his age group were in 135. Whoa. 15, 15 minutes slower than Chris, yet he still beat Chris by 10 minutes. So if you start looking at the, at the strategy of racing and this is what Chris has to do. Chris is racing now. He's not, he's not out there cruising through so he can feel good at the finish and, you know, get a medal. This is about going head to head with people. So making the, making the sacrifices in training, getting in the pool an extra two days a week, ramping up your, your 500 repeats, your 600 meter, your, your 700 meter repeats in the pool. That threshold effort that half Ironman requires on the bike, you've got to bring that up. You got to bring it up a lot. So I'm not answering the run question because I don't see it as a problem. You know, I think there's other things.

I'm hoping that he wasn't. Then during the race, focusing on that 180 heart rate being like, oh, shit, you know, like, yeah, we'll leave the.

Heart rate monitor off. I mean, it all comes down to the bike. You know, if you're going to use it, use it on the bike to get yourself not to. At the point that you're at, you have potential to. With a 120 run, you've got the potential to be really, really good in the sport. And what that's going to do is what that means is taking risks. So on the bike you're gonna use the heart rate, yes, a little bit to hold you back, but also a little bit more to push you harder. So yeah, I mean I've run at Boulder Peak one year. I came out of the water in last place out of the pros. Terrible as I was 33rd out of the water out of 30 pro. And I had the fastest bike split by over three minutes. And I came off the bike in second place behind Conrad Stoltz. I just went balls out. I put my head down and I literally time trialed like it was like I wasn't even going to run. Like I time trialed it like it was a max effort test.

That's how I one of my sprints a couple of weeks ago. I literally was biking. I'm like, I'm not running after this. I'm just biking right now.

All caution to the wind. And I came off the bike in second place from 33rd to second felt horrible. I was just trash. And I started the run next to Tim the Boom who only put a minute on me on the run. Yeah, I ran 34 flat for the, for the 10K. Still ran well. I placed fourth. But if I had gone easy on the bike, being that far back, I would have finished in 16th, 17th place probably. So you throw, you roll the dice and you take a risk and you, you go for it. So that's what it looks like just from your results, is that you're going too easy on the bike. I would, I would get the confidence and training to be able to really hammer that and push that and, and maybe you don't have the fastest run, but maybe you don't need it. Maybe you, you catch the guy that's leading your age group and he's going to end up running a 1:30 and you're capable of running a 1:23. 1:24. Totally shattered. You're going to win. So you're giving up too much time in the swimming bike is what I'm saying. Your base, your base training is not even relevant here. You've got the base. You don't run a 120 half in a half Ironman without having a really good base. So I would put that out of your mind.

That's really?

I'm done chastising.

No, like, this is what. I think one of the reasons why I love triathlon so much is because it's more than just swimming, biking, and running. It's a technique. It's a tactical thing. And especially at Chris's level, where it does become about, you know, energy put forth in each given sport, I feel like personally, too, like, I'm on the verge of kind of being on that level of, like, playing that game and being more competitive in my age group, too, and it's fun.

What I see with Chris, though, and I would bet money on it, is that if he can, if he pushed the bike really hard, he's only going to run about two minutes slower. Yeah, it's not like most people who crush themselves on the bike and they come off and they run, you know, five minutes, a mile slower. And you see that in, you know, beginners at Ironman who start, they bike too hard, and then they end up walking and end up, you know, running five hours. Once you get to a certain point, you can push the bike really hard and only lose a little bit on the run. And that comes from being a damn good runner like Chris is. So I think he's. I think he could sacrifice a little bit more.

Heck, yeah. All right, unfortunately, we're gonna have to save the last couple questions for next week. We're out of time for today, huh?

I got all worked up on that question.

I know. You're right. Now, if anyone's listening to this, that was Coach Lucho talking.

For real, like, yeah, I could go on, too. I could. I could push that a little harder.

That's the essence right there. It's good stuff, though.

Yeah.

All right, cool. Thanks for joining us, and we will be in touch next week.

Cool.

That's gonna do it for this episode of Ask the Coaches with lujo. Be sure to check out this week's Endurance Planet must have@EndurancePlanet.com wellness. Also, I encourage you to listen to the podcast on the Boston Marathon, the events at Boston Marathon that took place this Monday with Dr. Freddie so. Which is now available@EndurancePlanet.com or on iTunes. In the meantime, this is your host, Tawny Prasak, signing off, wishing you success in all your training and racing.