10 Must Do’s Before Your Next Ironman

As we all know, the surf's only near the shore, so when you're at the back, you probably won't have to encounter that. So for the swimming section, you need to practice outdoor in an environment that's similar to what's going to happen on race day. If you're going to swim in a river, practice swimming in a river. If you're going to be in a lake, practice swimming in a lake if you can. And if your race is in the ocean, practice swimming in the ocean. So we're trying to all the time replicate the feelings we're going to have on race day. And I've said that probably 20 times in this podcast already.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Gerard Donnelly. Dad, the Ironman. I've never done one. You've done it on the world stage. In one sentence, just how hard is it?

It ranks with the top three hardest things I've ever done in sport. And at the time I would have said it's the hardest thing, but I have actually done a few other endurance events that have equaled it. But it's in the top three hardest things I've ever done. And for those of you who want to take it flippantly, be very, very aware that that's not a good plan.

You've said many times it's the event where every slight mistake in preparation hurts terribly. On race day, the more mistakes you make in the lead up, the more painful you are going to make the event. And it's an event by nature that is already painful enough. So today we're going to go through the 10 must do's in your training and preparation before your next ir. And on that note, dad, have you ever seen anyone perform at their peak in an Ironman without a sound nutrition plan?

I'm sure it's happened, Jordan, but it's in the small percentages. I did hear someone use Coke the whole way from start to finish and manage to finish the event, but my answer to that would be imagine if they actually had a sound nutrition plan and how much better they would go. So, no, not really.

Exactly. And in the endurance world, in the triathlon world, there's a wide range of nutrition options and the choices can be overwhelming. And for us, we choose sis their bar, gel and fueling options give us exactly what we need in training and racing. And dad, you're a big fan of taking in minimum food or gels, which isn't necessarily the right solution. That's just works for you and you love to be able to just get your fuel from bottles. So how does the SIS beta Fuel solution go for you?

Yeah, and look, I've got reasons for the way I've always done my insurance events because I actually don't want to have a stomach upset. And touch wood, I haven't had that with, with using the SAS BetaFuel drink solution and understanding that every time you do an endurance training session or event, you are going to have to have the right requirements at the right ratios. And this is something that I absolutely understand my body needs and I am so excited to have the same setup every time and with confidence going into a training session or a race situation, I don't have to actually think twice about have I got the right nutrition? Because I know I have. And in the right ratios.

Yeah. Someone who likes a mix of gels and bottles, I like having that kind of one gel to hour, an hour and a half depending on the intensity of the event. And my favorite, personal favorite is the Beta Fuel with Nootropics Energy gel. I call it the super gel. It's 40 grams of carbs with a huge hit of caffeine, which I love to take right before some of the shorter races. So for being a listener of this podcast for three more weeks, we're giving you access to 15 off SIS's range of products. All you need to do is go to scienceandsport.com and use the code travelo podcast capital sis when you check out. This episode is also brought to you by our proud sponsor, Giant Australia, for all your bike training and racing needs. Ride life. Ride Giant. All right, dad, let's get into the episode. An official welcome in. Let's go with our normal starting segment. What are you grateful for?

Thanks, Jordan. I don't want to embarrass you, but I've certainly missed you being away for a significant period of the year and it's great to have you back home. I know your mum's really happy to have you home and cooking for you and caring for you, even though you don't really want to be part of that. And we know you're only here for a short time, so it's great to have you back and yeah, really grateful you're back sound and safe and in, in good spirits after such a, an. An epic experience you've been having.

No, I Share the same sentiments. I haven't lived at home for a long time, a number of years and so it is nice to be coached in a four. My gratitude is along the same theme. I yeah, been traveling a lot. I have tasted a lot of different water around the world and I would say Melbourne water ranks up there with the absolute best. So I'm very grateful just to be home and drinking some nice cold, refreshing Melbourne water. And before we get into the Ironman must dos another segment we always have and we always love to quickly chat about is anything that's happening in the triathlon, cycling or running world. So dad, has anything caught your attention?

Yeah, quite a few things. Obviously the welter is on at the moment. We just had the end of the World Athletics Championships. We had the end of the World Cycling Championships. There's so many big events that are. That are have been and gone. We are halfway through the welter and interestingly enough what we saw last week and our predictions were that you know, how. How is anybody going to beat the Jumbo. The Jumbo train if we can call it that. And, and how ironic to see Seppi, our favorite man, Sepp Kuss in red as the leader of the. Of the welter. And what a, what a great opportunity this is for Jumbo to have a wild card that, that they can throw out at any point and to make all the other teams have to chase because he's literally a couple of minutes ahead of everybody that really matters. And I'm talking about Remco and, and even Roglic his, his own teammate and vinegar. So it's, it's, it's quite an interesting phase that we're up to and we just had the individual time trial and, and he's not renowned for being a gun time trial and he's have never had to have that pressure on himself to time trial well to hold on to the red jersey and here he is, he's come out and ridden unbelievably well to, to secure the red J. A few more days could go for a lot longer if he, if he plays his cards right. But I was really impressed with his maturity and his ability to time trial under pressure and that would have been tough for him because he had to not lose I think 45 seconds to solo from, from UAE. So it was a, it was a really well, well executed time trial. I just love his attitude. Yeah, he's a, he's a great bike rider and he would be probably a leader in any other team but when you're in amongst vinegar and Roglich. It's, it's a bit tough. And there's, you know, there's five other riders who are just as good, you know, Paris Roubaix, winner in their, in their team, riding 50k on the front, chasing a group of 24 last night, stage solo. It's pretty impressive.

I love that we actually called that in the last episode and that was before, you know, any of this had played out. And, and Jumbo haven't even actually come out and said that they're riding with a 3 liter strategy. I mean, it's obvious that they are, but they haven't confirmed it. And Remco and his interviews are still going. I don't know exactly what their plan is, and I can't see how, you know, this is going to work, but it's hard for him. He's basically competing against three GC contenders and. But yeah, I am, I am stoked we called it, but we do want to talk about. Remco did something that is just exceptional, exceptional execution on a day where he didn't have the legs. He couldn't keep up with them, he was losing time, and he did something that you are so adamant about, especially for triathletes. And that's limiting your losses. And, you know, you said that's how to have a bad day, where he managed to salvage the day and only lose 30 seconds. So talk us through what you saw there and what the term limiting your losses actually means.

Yeah. And when you know that you don't quite have the legs on any particular day, and that can happen to anybody, as we're proving these are the best cyclists in the world. And, you know, whether you're a marathon runner or a triathlete, you may turn up on the day that you're a race and all of a sudden you're not feeling the way you want to, and you don't actually have to drop your bundle and take your bat and ball and go home, that's the extreme example of someone who's not willing to limit their losses. The person who's understanding that they're not in the form that they want to be. And a stage race like the Tour or the Giro or the Welter, you're going to have to have experiences where you're not feeling good on some day out of 21 days in the history of the Tours, there's not a lot of riders who can have a great day every day for 21 days. So you've got to think like that. You've Got to limit your losses is if I'm having a bad day, just not make it worse by dropping my bundle and, you know, crying, woe is me. What we saw there was him get attacked and not, you know, not be able to respond. And it's like vultures with a dead carcass on the road. You know, they're just attacking him when they see that he's vulnerable. And to his credit, he didn't do anything but just tried to ride to his limit limitation on the day. And I was looking at the time for the last 2 1/2 K, he actually caught 8 seconds back on the front riders who are, you know, still trying to put more time into him. He. He didn't go beyond his red zone. He stayed where he could control it. And then he actually was able to keep riding just that threshold. And he didn't lose. He lost a chunk of time right at the start, but then he clawed a little bit back, and instead of losing a minute 30, two minutes or two minutes 30, or in the worst case, scenari, five minutes and be out of the Tour, he only ended up losing 30 seconds. And at the end of the stage, he was still ahead of Roglich and Vinegar, which is. Which is a great outcome. Even though you rode poorly, you'd have to finish that ride going well. You know, it's not all lost here. I had a bad day, and I'm still. I'm still ahead of the guys that are. That are trying to beat me.

It's a great example. And it's. You know, it can happen so often in any sort of triathlon distance, whether it's an Iron man or something even smaller. You know, you. You might have a really bad patch in the middle, and if you just kind of get through that period and maybe ease up or relax a little bit, you might. You become good at the back end, and you might lose that time in the middle, but when you do it properly and you, quote, unquote, limit your losses in the back end, you can potentially make up some time or salvage the race a little bit. Whereas if you just throw the towel in, if you mentally and physically give up, you've ruined the race. And we've both had examples of that where we've suffered from cramping a lot in races, and you can easily just give it away or you can just try and get through that period. And Christian Blummerfeld's done this a few times in races recently where he's going through a really bad patch. He's lost Some time he just kind of tries to relax and get through it and then salvage the race. So some pretty key examples there. Yeah.

And I think that at the end of the day, that's what you've got to keep in mind. You've done all this work for it. Don't just be too quick to give it away. And that's one of the things that I really want to emphasize to age group is because it's so easy to go, oh, look, I'll. I'll live to fight another day. Well, no, this is your day, so you've still got an opportunity to get something out of it. And that's what your whole mental approach should be. I'm not going the best that I want to, but I can still perform to a level that I'll be happy with. And you'll probably be more proud of yourself by doing that than just going through the motions of getting to the end and saying, I just had a bad day.

On that note, let's get into the topic of today. So you've signed up for an Ironman Dad. You love this event, but there's some mixed feelings from you because you love when people sign up and are willing to, as we say, pin a number on and take on this challenge. But. But you also don't want people to disrespect the event that is the Ironman. You said at the very start of the episode, don't take this lightly. If you come into this taking it lightly, you will probably suffer the consequences.

Yeah. I'm having this discussion a lot with a lot of the athletes that are in our Trivalo coaching group. And the worst situation or scenario to have is a group of guys who have just finished an event and they're sitting around having beers and coffee and celebrating. And then some bright spark says, right, what's the next one we're doing? And so they all agree to do another race that's really close and they don't have the proper recovery period, or they're picking an event that's beyond their reach. And so someone else at that table would say, oh, I want to be a part of that, because of the euphoria that everybody's talking about post race and the excitement that people are feeling who have never done it. Just want to sign up for this event because they just want to be a part of that experience. And I'm all for that, and I think that's a great goal. But you've got to not take it lightly. You've got to understand what you are actually signing up for. And that's flippant for people to go, well, I'll get through it. And you probably can with poor preparation, planning and poor performing, you'll get through there, but it's not an enjoyable way to do it. And they're the things that always worry me and frustrate me a bit because people don't give it the respect that it needs and they're not actually willing to do the work properly to get the outcome that they should get. And so call me a stickler for detail, but I would rather people have a great experience for the one big event that they're going to actually test themselves over rather than just saying, yeah, I'm going to enter this event and I'll do my best at training and I won't have a, a, a race plan and, and see what happens on the day. And, and that's just a, that's just a recipe for nothing good's going to happen on that day. Nothing's good's going to happen in your training preparation. So, yeah, so, yeah, that, that's kind of where I'm sitting as a coach. I'm really wanting someone who says, yes, I'm going to do this, you know, and I've got enough time and I'm willing to do the work and I can't wait to start. That's kind of the athlete I'm after.

Yeah. So there's a lot to get through in this episode. I mean, we've done an episode before on how to prepare for an Ironman properly, but we could do tons of episodes on this. We've tried to. That are absolute must dos before you sign up for your next one. And of course, we're always. While we're focused on the Ironman for this episode, these ten lessons apply to any triathlon, distance, or any endurance cycling or running race. So point number one, and you just mentioned it then, is have you given yourself enough time? How far away is the race? Because before you even think about undertaking this journey, if the race is too close, we would strongly consider you reconsider this event and potentially pick a different one.

Yeah, and that sounds like a party pooper really, doesn't it? So I think the message I want to get across is yes, it's okay to give yourself less time than I think you should as long as you're okay with the consequences of that decision. And so if you're okay with that, the example would be if someone had 12 weeks for preparation for an Ironman and I was suggesting they had 20 weeks, they would be a better athlete in 20 weeks than they are in week 12. So the outcome on week 12 is going to be different to the outcome if they had say 20 weeks preparation or 30 or 40. The longer time you give yourself to prepare for this event, the better the outcome is going to be. But if you're okay with the outcome being whatever your fitness level is at 12 weeks, then fine, I'm on board. Let's make the most of what we can with the time we've got. But there are a whole lot of consequences of that decision. It is hard to get your endurance volume up that quick in 12 weeks and that is the key to preparation of Ironman. So the decision you make really should be based around giving yourself enough time. And if you don't do that, you're going to get a different outcome for the same human being. A different result will happen with 12 weeks preparation compared to 20.

As we're going to say a lot through this episode, I feel like the less prepared you are, the more it's going to hurt on the day. So it's just exactly what you're saying. If you're prepared for that, then so be it. But if you'd like to prepare yourself in the best way possible, the more time is required. And of course the question would be, well, how much time was required? And you know, that depends on so many factors that you know, we could go into in detail here in terms of your training history, your current fitness level, how many triathlons have you done, your triathlon experience. But regardless, you know, anywhere from six months to a year, depending on all those factors, would, would generally, we have to say, we say generally very loosely, be ideal and in most cases 12 weeks, even if you're an experienced athlete, 12 weeks is not g yourself much time to prepare for an Ironman.

Yeah, and a lot of the very experienced Ironman competitors who have done, you know, 5 to 10 Ironman still need to give themselves a really good preparation period, even though they've got a long history of endurance. It's really important that you understand that there are specific things you have to do in the base period, in the building period, and in the race ready period. So giving yourself short amount of time in those periods will, will leave you a little bit short on race day. So, so that's where the time really comes to the fore when you're just. If you're one of those people who've done a lot of Ironmans, you could be better off. But if you've done none and you're quite novice at it, then you really are putting yourself under the pump. And as I say, you will probably get through it, but the experience and the enjoyment will be a lot less. As if you were comparing yourself to someone who had given yourself enough time.

Point number two is once you've signed up, you need to make sure you get yourself the right equipment as soon as possible so you can start training on it. So the first things are a bike, you got a bike, and if you don't, what bike are you going to get? And we often talk about the argument between a road bike and a time trial bike in this podcast. And for the shorter triathlons, you can sort of a sprinter, Olympic, you can sort of get away with a road bike, but once it starts getting up to half ironman and Ironman, you really don't want to be spending time on a road bike for those distances, you really want to get yourself on a time trial bike. And this is each to their own, you know, depending on what's available to you, whether you can buy a new bike, if you've already got a road bike, but that's, that's the first one and I'll just list the rest of them and, or the rest of the key ones and you can chat through it. But you know, you need to get a proper running watch, you need to get a head unit for your bike or aka, you know, a black computer that reads all your settings, a heart rate strap, a proper heart rate strap, power meter bot for your bike so you can read your power. A bike fit to make sure you're in the most comfortable position that's also aero. A shoe fits. You're in the best shoes possible and you can start wearing them and getting used to them. Wetsuit for the swim, goggles for the swim, a tri suit for the race. All these are the kind of, the main key things that you need to start looking at to get yourself prepared.

And it's just a given. The more up to date your equipment is, the more enjoyable the day is going to be. And if you can get yourself all those things that you just listed, you're pretty much set to absolutely train well and then have a good day on race day, compromise on any of those things and then the consequences are obvious. If you don't have a decent bike that's fitted to you, then you're going to be possibly 10%, 20% slower on race day. And if that's not a problem, you don't care about the time Fine. Don't invest in something that's going to be faster than the one you've got. But I would not be going into races without having data to look to and to be understanding how I'm going throughout the whole race. So some sort of computer, whether it's a risk watch or a bike head unit computer, a heart rate strap is really helpful. And also having, you know, having a power meter on your bike, I just think going into a race like this without a power meter, especially for an age group athlete, it's the one thing that you can rely on that's going to actually help you guide yourself so you're not going to overcook it. And that's one of the mistakes you could make very easily in an ironman because you've been tapered so well and you're fresh. You start off the bike leg of the, of the event way too hard. And if you had a bike computer with a power meter attached to it, that's probably a low possibility of happening if you've understood how to train to the numbers and you've got a race plan on race day. So the equipment can be the difference between having an absolute shocking day or having the day that you want. And there's a lot of things you listed there. Even having the tri suit fitting you properly and knowing that on a hot day it's not, not all black, you know, it's a, it's a light colored one that's you're not going to sweat too much on and you've been using it in training so you feel comfortable with it even down to the, the wetsuit that you, you know, you don't get that the week before, you have it well in advance. So you've been practicing in it. And even if you don't live near the ocean and you're only, you've only got a pool available, that's what you do. You have some sessions, you know, in the wetsuit, in the pool, getting the goggles that, you know, you know, don't leak and don't fog it up. You know, all of these things, the bike fit and making sure that, you know, you are comfortable in that position that you're going to have to be able to hold for six hours or four hours if you're a gun.

And one other thing we didn't mention is stuff like the actual bike shoes or the running shoe shoelaces, you know, actually running in tri shoe shoelaces compared to just tying up your shoes and practicing that or the normal helmet versus an aero helmet. You know, if you're always wearing a normal helmet, you can't just jump to race day in an aero helmet because you haven't practiced it. And we're with. Any one of these factors could be new to you. And the earlier that you can get started practicing with them, the better off you're going to be because you're giving yourself time to actually prepare. So if you've never used a bike head unit before, if you've never used a power meter before, you want to give yourself as much time as possible to get used to it. So it becomes second nature by race day.

The preparation part, this is what this is. There's no training in this. This is just you preparing to meet the requirements of the race. And that's, that's all we're trying to get across here, is getting your equipment as early as possible right from the start. If you've decided you're going to do a race, an Ironman race, you should have already been thinking about, have I got the right equipment and the things we've listed, that's what you need to have on board straight away before you start your training program.

Number three, we're a little bit biased on this one. It's a nice, quick, easy one, but it's getting a coach and. Or a structured training program.

Yeah. What can we say about that? You know, if, if you're trying to wing it yourself, you may have some success, you may not. If you get a trusted coaching group on board that you know have had some success coaching athletes of age group ability, then that's who you should try to engage. And getting that information of what to do and when to do it is the key to getting yourself prepared for race day. And then once you get to race day, having a conversation with your coach about what is the plan today and understanding that based on your current level of fitness, and that's, that's the golden egg almost for why you would have a coach, is to get you the right sessions, when to do them, when to have the recovery, what to do in those sessions, and then getting your race strategy organized before race day. And then all that's left to do is you have to go out and execute. And so that is as simple as I can say how valuable a coach is to a person lining up for an ironman. Because the mistakes that happen over 12 hours are really hard to deal with compared to the mistakes that happen over an event that goes for one hour or two hours. It's a long time to be on Your own knowing that you've made some horrendous decisions on the day in training and in your planning and on the day.

So on that note, let's get into some more specifics. Point number four and when I asked you about this topic and I said, you know, let's we chat through the topic, we chat through some main points of, you know, what's most important. I asked you the question, you know, what do you, what do you want want triathletes to understand? What do you want anyone that's going to undertake an Ironman to understand? And one of the main points you, you brought up was, or the, one of the first things you brought up was just this notion of they have to understand the requirements of the distance of the event and understanding how big an event this is. You know, it's potentially one of the longest swims you'll do in a race. It's potentially the longest individual bike ride time trial you'll ever do and then you're doing a marathon at the end. And so the cornerstone of any Ironman program needs to be building up your endurance in each discipline to be able to complete the event and complete the distance.

So talk us this, this is the one that I call the no brainer. If you don't have the time in your busy schedule at work and family and you sign up for an Ironman and you don't have the time to do the endurance training, then you're going to be found out in a hugely disappointing way when it comes to race day. And it'll probably happen about, I don't know, 120k into the bike ride and then from that point on it's going to be like hell on earth and it won't be enjoyable. You'll be wishing you'd never signed up for it and you'll be hating life and you know, you can't wait to get off the bike and you'll have to spend another two hours on the bike from 120 to 180k. And then once you get off the bike you'll think thank goodness for that. And then you last two or three kilometers in the run and then you're gonna have to basically walk, run for the next 40km and that could take you anything from five hours to seven hours. And that's not an outcome that I think is enjoyable for some people. That's their pace and I'm not saying that's bad. I and for people who that is their pace and they've trained for it, that's Fantastic. But I'm saying for the everyday age grouper who can't do the preparation in the endurance, then you want to think twice about entering this event. And what do we mean by that? Well, there's going to be some sessions that seem extreme and the reason they are is because they're specific to the requirements of the race. You can't just go and do 80k rides and 90k rides and 110k rides week in, week out with your mates, you know, stopping at traffic lights and, and stopping at coffee shops and then come on race day expecting to ride 180, 180km without a break because there's no stopping and, and you haven't done that in training. So what do you think's going to happen on race day? You're going to be found out. And the same with your endurance running, you know, it's 42km, it's not a 25k run run because most people would do 15-25k in their training and be really happy, but they're still half the distance short. So we need to understand before you start this training campaign that you need to do some sessions that are going to replicate what's going to happen on race day. And so therefore that is the key to this program. All the other sessions you're going to be asked to be doing from your coach are really important sessions, but they're not as important as the endurance aspect of the coaching program. So if you're asked to do a three hour ride and you continually do an hour 52 hours 10, and then you're asked to step up to four hours and then you're getting to two hours 30 instead of four hours, you're just not doing the program justice. And come race day, as I keep saying, it will come undone so quickly because your body is just not adapted to what it's supposed to be doing and you don't. It's like going into an exam and not studying anything and then just winging it and hopefully your brilliance will get you through. It just doesn't happen. Your talent doesn't get you through. It's an endurance event. And I use an example, Rachel, who's just gone to the UTMB over in Mont Blanc and it's a 40 hour race that is the ultimate endurance race. And it's not a mixture of sports, it's just, it's a running trail race, you know, for 170 kilometers. If you can just think about that, you know, you're going to continuously run for 170km. So if you haven't done the preparation and you're just not going to make it, 900 people didn't finish out of the two and a half thousand people who entered. That's well over a third of the people who entered didn't finish. And whether they missed the cutoff time or whether they were just exhausted, these are examples of not being prepared properly for an event requiring such extreme endurance. And an example would be she was doing 10 and 12 hour training runs starting at 6pm at night, going into the hills locally around Melbourne in the Dandenongs and finishing her run 12 hours later. So she run all night with a head torch on her own in the freezing cold, cold rain and you know, come race day there was nothing that was going to stop her. And that's an example of someone who's done the work and you know, got to the finish line and was just so pleased with her outcome.

And there's actually so much more to that story and we're really excited to be bringing you that story in a few weeks in the podcast we'll go right into the details of that. But that's an example of, you know, some of the specific sessions that we do for the Ironman are extreme. And one example is, is we build up to athletes to be able to do a potentially 150 kilometer time trial into a 30 kilometer endurance run. And that is just a monster day to do in training. That just seems absurd. You're going, well, you might, you're basically doing the Iron man without the swim. But that's the point is you want to build up to be able to do that because you can't expect to get through it on the race day if you haven't done it once before. And yeah, I think that, I mean I, I, as a coach, you, you are, you are saying constantly to athletes your endurance rides just aren't long enough and you're, or your endurance runs aren't just aren't long enough. And people seem to like you saying get halfway or three quarters of the way and it's the longest they've ever done and that that can be potentially seem like it's enough but you're really stressing to people that it's not. And I think, you know, depending on your ability, if you can't cope with the volume, there's ways to get around it, you know, splitting the, the endurance up a little bit or splitting the run up, but regardless, the total volume has to be there at some point.

Yeah. And and people are a little bit flippant with, you know, if it says on your program that you need to do up to four hours and you can do more if, if you have time, don't do two hours, 50, you know, if you keep doing that continuously, you're going to be so under prepared. And if you didn't do all the other training sessions and you only did the endurance training, you would still be better off if you did the endurance training to the letter. And that's one of my frustrations as a coach, is people are really a bit flippant with, you know, near enough's good enough with the endurance. It's a progressive step by step, week by week program that's building your body to adapt and cope to the load that we're giving it. And you can't do four weeks of two and a half hours to three hours, to three and a half to four if you haven't done that stuff first, the basic building blocks so that your body can cope and then be able to train the next week. And if you jump from two and a half hours and all of a sudden you do the program right, and it's meant to be a four hour session you did, but you only did two and a half hours. And then the next week is five hours, you're jumping from two and a half hours to five hours. You're going to suffer four or five days after that because the jump is too quick. You're going from half the distance to double the distance. And that's not how we want to progress. And so these are the things, as a coach, I'm all the time trying to get on top of people saying, oh, look, you were a bit short last week. So this week we have to actually adjust backwards again. So before you know it, we're continually adjusting because you haven't been able to commit the time. And you know, it sounds like we're being really harsh here, but you are signing up for a really challenging event. And my whole goal around, what I'm trying to tell everybody on this podcast is that I care about you having a great day and getting the outcome you want. So I really want you to understand that what I'm saying is it's just not words. It's actually real fourth life things that you have to do to get ready for it.

Yeah. And that ties in perfectly with point number five. And I mean, actually firstly, it reiterates that point of you have to give yourself enough time to build that up and build it up properly. And that Brings us to point number five, which is you must monitor your training volume increase. Because depending on where you come from, building up to the requirements of this ironman and these kind of distances can be a major jump for you. And if you do it too quickly, you will get injured. So we need to at a conservative pace. And we had two stress fracture specialists come on the podcast last year and talk about a safe volume increase. And they used the very generic 10 rule. But they said if athletes can kind of abide by this 10 rule of volume increase, where week to week you don't want to be increasing your total volume of training more than that, you know, that kind of implies that potentially it's going to take you a lot of weeks to build up to the volume that you need to for an ironman. And that's quite conservative. But, you know, that's what they're saying is the safest way to try and prevent, you know, stress fracture injuries from happening, which can be so common. Common in this, in this type of training.

Yeah, so that's a really good point. With injury, but with your immune system, you have to really look after your immune system and make sure that the jumps aren't too quick because you know, you are on the edge of training over the top sort of thing. If you're sitting on a fence and you're trying to, trying to build your progressive endurance load and you jump too quickly, you are going to stress your endurance system way beyond where it should be because you haven't progressed slowly and enough. And that's one of the consequences of starting a program that's only got 12 or 14 weeks. Instead of giving yourself, the athlete who gives themselves a year for this, they're gonna be able to progress really well. And the risk of injury, stress, fracture, immune deficient illnesses, not catching just the common cold that comes into your family, which happens almost every day of every year. If you've got good resilience because you haven't been overloading yourself with jumping too many hours too quickly, then you won't get sick, you won't get injured. And we always say the consistency is king, so don't get any of those things happen to you and you'll be able to just keep chipping away. And come race day, you've had no issues about the preparation and you'll be as fit as you'll ever be because you've been maintaining the consistency that's so desired for an ironman.

Yeah, it's a really important point to make that there are things that are out of control that could cause you, as you mentioned, to get sick or injured. But the point we're making is we want you to do everything in your power that you can control to not get sick or injured. And that, that is the whole goal of this preparation, to be able to actually get to the start line healthy. And I think that kind of brings up another point that we should really mention, is that we are throwing around some numbers here of example training sessions or, or volume of training sessions, but it is so dependent on your ability and, and your background. You know, if you're potentially going to run four and a half or five hours for a marathon at the back of an iron man. We're not saying that you, you go and do a five hour run necessarily like, like the example Rachel we use with Rachel, where she's gone and done a 10 or 12 hour run. She's built up to that over the course of three or four plus years. So depending on what you can handle, you might have to split up the volume a little bit and just do a two hour run split with a one hour run in the afternoon, that kind of thing. But we're just giving examples here of how to get yourself to the level that you are preparing your body for what's to come.

And ironically, Jord, the people who need the most preparation and endurance are going to be the ones who are doing the 11, 12, 13, 14 hours in the Ironman. And someone who's going to be doing nine, 10 hours, they're going to be out there less time. So their body doesn't need to cope with such long periods of training time. Obviously, the more time you spend out there, the better off you're going to be. But, but in terms of being able to do a 3 hour 30 marathon compared to a 5 hour marathon, the training will look slightly different because it's time on your feet specific to the time you're going to be out there on races.

Yeah, so we were talking about some of these extreme examples of training sessions. This brings us to point number six, which is you must prioritize recovery from these big sessions. So the more the program goes on and you start to build up these big endurance sessions, the midweek training becomes much less of a priority in terms of intensity. It becomes more about recovery and you know, really prioritizing the making sure that you're getting through these monster endurance weekend sessions. And we say weekend sessions because generally that's when people have time to fit these in. You know, if you're a shift worker, if you're on a different schedule. You might be fitting in these, these endurance sessions midweek, but just for general sake, we're saying that the endurance sessions on the weekend, but kind of the, the intensity is, is coming in the early parts of the program and then later it's more race specific sessions. But you know, you need, you really do need to prioritize this recovery.

Yeah, it's a really good point. And when we're starting the program early, we do do a lot of midweek stuff that's got high intensity, four hour Ironman training, training and that is really building the base building blocks so that we can get your VO2 numbers, your threshold numbers up to a reasonable level. And also the endurance riding and running on those particular sessions are not as long as when they get halfway through the program or three quarters of the way through the program. So you might have an endurance run that starts off with 15k in week 1, 2, 3. And so your fatigue level can cope with the high intensity sessions midweek. But once you start doing 30k runs, 35k runs, then the midweek stuff has to be a little bit of a recovery couple of days so that you can actually recover from those 30 or 35k training runs that you're doing. So we still need to have some intensity, but sometimes that gets dropped back to one session a week because you're still trying to cope from the weekends six hour ride and possibly three hour run. And not doing that in your program and just blindly blasting away each week is okay if you're an elite professional and that's your job. But as an age grouper, you are risking more potential injury and more illness by not getting the recovery that is required and everybody's going to recover different. So someone who's been doing this for 15 years has got such good endurance life capabilities that they'll be able to cope better, they'll be able to have more intensity during the week. But someone who's new to it, there's no way they can do that. You know, we're struggling to get them to do one high intensity session during the week. It's just getting them through those endurance sessions is actually more important.

And the prioritizing, the recovery doesn't just come down to the actual training, but it's everything outside the training. And you talk a lot about sacrifice and that if you are undertaking this event, you know you are sacrificing other parts you, your life. And if you're going to try and get through some of these monster endurance sessions does mean that Maybe other things in your life need to take less of a priority and that's a hard thing to hear for people. But potentially you need to really make sure you're focusing on sleep over social events or external things outside of your work and family life.

Yeah, we are really big components of having a balanced structure and putting yourself under pressure by not giving yourself enough time to prepare for an ironman causes you to have to become almost antisocial because there's no way you can still live the normal lifestyle when you have actually had a six or seven hour training day on Saturday and your expectation is that you're going out partying that night and then line up the next day for a three to three and a half hour run. So there has to be some sacrifice along the journey somewhere. But if you're a person who's given yourself a long preparation period, you know you will be able to cope with that load much better and still have the enjoyment of a social life. And so there are two contrasting journeys that we're talking about here. The person is more organized, more prepared, gives themselves more time, they will be able to cope with the load so much better. And therefore the expectation is they have more balance in their life. Whereas the person who's put themselves under the pump, they really have to actually pull their head in and try to eliminate things that are going to stop them from maintaining that consistency of the endurance event. And that might mean missing out on things that make it less balanced in your life, but knowing that it's only going to be for a short period of time into this, maybe it's a 20 week or 16 or 12 week period, then that's the sacrifice. You should think about the investment you're doing. You've got yourself a coach, you've entered a race that costs over $1,000, you have to travel interstate, that costs money. Plus airfares with accommodation and all the equipment. You've purch. So why wouldn't you be a little bit serious about the preparation for that big day that you've set yourself? You've set that goal, no one else has. You shouldn't have been talked into it. You should have been deciding that yourself. So these are the things that I'm trying to get across to people that there may be some point that you have to say, okay, I know that my coach wants me to have a balanced life, but there's going to be a few times where I actually have to pull my head in and go to bed early and get up for the next day's training session session and.

Talk about sacrifice point number seven. I really love this, this point you make. And you just, you just said that you want athletes and you implore athletes to be prepared to get outside their comfort zone and again make some sacrifices and do things that might not be as comfortable as normal and essentially not do the bare minimum. So can you explain what you mean by this and why this is such an important point for you?

Yeah. Well, if the bare minimum really a word that I dislike and I'm wanting people to ask me, can I do more, that's the athlete that we're kind of loving because our job then is to hold them back. But the person who's just doing the bare minimum, that's what's going to happen on race day. They're going to get the bare minimum outcome. And if your whole attitude towards this is just getting by with whatever I can fit in, then the outcome is going to be a reflection of that. And, and at the end of the day, if you're okay with that, that's fine, but I just don't see how you could be okay with doing the bare minimum requirements to get yourself to an event that has that, you know, it really needs a lot of respect and to dismiss that, you know, that you don't have to do as much as everybody's making out. I think you're going to be really, you're going to be shocked how uncomfortable you are on race day. And that's all I keep reminding people of. Think about what's going to happen on race day and that will make you motivated to go. Well, I don't want have that experience. I want to have an experience where I can remember and talk about saying I loved when I did that Ironman and it was one of my most proudest moments. Not because you had to crawl from 30k onwards, but because you're able to run properly and ride properly and swim properly.

So what do you really mean by this? You talk about it in terms of the context of training preparation, but what is an example of doing the bare minimum versus what is an example of what you're looking for an athlete to do with making sure that they're doing the right thing in their training sessions.

It's really looking after yourself that would be the biggest point. And doing the things that will enable you to train properly. And we all know what I'm talking about here. It's just being organized and planning your sessions and knowing what's happening today, tomorrow and next week. And at the start of the week, Knowing you've got these sessions to do already, deciding when you're going to do it, the times you're going to do it, the morning or the afternoon. Understanding what the session requirements are in terms of running pace, swimming pace and bike pace power. Knowing that you need some rehab, some recovery, some massage, some stretching, some strength and conditioning. Making sure that you're fueling yourself really well for the important sessions that you're training with, making sure you're getting enough calories into your body so that you're not actually starving yourself whilst you're going through this process. They're all the things that we're talking about that are, I think, the normal and, and I think the person who we're talking about who's doing the bare minimum is not thinking about that at any point. They're just waking up, looking at their training program and going, I'm doing that today. And they haven't really planned anything about it.

And you talk about going outside your comfort zone and being willing to be proactive in doing exactly what's required and not just finding a course that will do because that's closest to you, but finding a course or a training route or area that actually the. And we'll get you the best outcome. And you used Rachel, Rachel's example, who was doing 10 to 12 hour runs overnight in the Danny Nongs, you know, that's someone who's gone, what is the best training for me? I'm going to go do that rather than not driving out from, away from their home and just doing, you know, some endurance around their, their home. And I think this is a really important point you bring up a lot of the time is, you know, this is, this is where it's a bit uncomfortable to go. Well, maybe I have to drive half an hour, an hour or an hour and a half to a suitable course. But that's the thing you're looking for, that's going to, to get, get you the most value out of your training.

Yeah. And the reason why we want you to do this, because we want you to your body to experience something that's going to happen on race day. So if I live in the middle of the city and I've got, you know, 40 or 50 kilometers available to me, and in that 40 or 50 kilometers there's, there's no hills that replicate the course I'm going to do, there's 45 traffic lights and so I'm stopping probably every fourth or fifth minute for at least 30 seconds to a minute. That's not going to replicate what's going to happen in 180k bike ride on race day. So my advice is you get in your car at 4:30 in the morning if you've only got X amount of time. And I've had to do this regularly because I live in the Dandenongs and I want to do some time trial training on my time trial bike that's specific to the races I'm going to do. And there isn't one flat bit of road where I. So I actually can't do the session that I want where I live. So I have to drive 45 minutes from where I live to find the road that is suitable, replicating the requirements of the event that I'm doing. And that's 45 minutes there and 45 minutes back. So it's an hour and a half commuting for. Sometimes it's only an hour and a half session. But I'm willing to do that because I'm going to get the most value out of that. And when it comes to the endurance ride, I'm asking people to get out of the city if they live in the city. Find a course where there is no stop stopping. Find a group of people who don't want to have coffee every half hour. You've got to think about these things so that you're replicating what's going to happen on race day. On race day, if you had a coffee stop for Everybody for every 45 minutes, then fine, that's what we do. We replicate what's going to happen on race day. But on race day there's no stopping. So we don't want to go on a course where there's traffic lights. So let's eliminate that. What's wrong with stopping all the time in endurance ride? Isn't it okay to be on your bike for six hours? That's what you're after time on your bike, six hours. But you might have stopped for a total of. I've looked at some data on some of the sessions that some people have done on their endurance rides and they've clocked six hours of riding time. But it says actually five hours 30 of actual riding in 30 minutes of stopping. So every 30 seconds times 45 adds up to another half hour. So they're not getting that pressure on the pedals and that feeling of tired. Because every time you stop, you recover. You can see what your heart rate does. Your heart rate might be sitting at 140 at steady state when you've been riding for half an hour. The minute you stop for 30 seconds your heart rate drops from 145 to 120. That's not going to happen in the race. You're going to get an accumulation of fatigue by continuing to train without stopping. So we want to replicate that in our training. So the minute you stop every time you're getting a recovery which is not real in terms of what's going to happen on the race day. These are examples of you going outside your comfort zone to make sure you're getting the right race preparation. And if that means getting in your car and, and if I have to be home by 8:30 and I've got a two hour session, I'm going to get in the car at 4:30, do my 45 minute drive to the venue. I want to then allow myself enough time. These are the sacrifices I'm talking about that the well organized, goal orientated person will try and do to make sure that they get the right outcome.

And the other example is open water swimming. For a lot of people that don't live near the beach that takes an extra sacrifice where you can't afford to not do enough open water swims before the event. But then that means you're going to have to do some efforts where you really get yourself to the beach, get some real endurance swims in the open water and get yourself, you know, three to 4K sessions in that open water. And again it's just that sacrifice you make. So that's point number seven, point number eight. We've spoken about this already but it just cannot be understated. It's the nutrition and it's practicing the nutrition as early as possible to make sure that it's as honing as possible for race day.

Yep. And this is a no brainer except people still get it wrong and I can't believe a large percentage of people get it wrong. So you need to start this from day one. So when you've signed up for the Ironman, you need to start thinking about not only your equipment but what nutrition am I going to use on race day. And it's okay to experiment with variety of nutrition because you need to find out what your stomach can cope with and what your stomach can't cope with. So don't leave it to the last four weeks to and even that's better than stories I hear of. I hadn't really practiced my nutrition and I just used what was on the race course and I had no idea how it was going to affect my stomach but turns out it affected it so badly I couldn't even run. I had a stitch. For most of the actual run, you need to actually learn what your body likes and what it functions well on. And if that means experimenting with various products that are out there, then do that, that and keep taking notes as you do it. Take detailed notes about how the nutrition you took, the amount of nutrition you took, the brand it was, the type it was, how often you took it and the actual reaction you had. Did it affect me in terms of nausea or sitting poorly in my stomach? And did I function throughout the whole endurance ride with enough fuel to not feel that feeling of, of bonking or fading where you can't actually finish the training session? So these are, they're no brainers, but people just dismiss them as not important and knowing.

Yeah, that's a really niche point that you made there, but it's quite actually important of knowing what the nutrition is provided by the actual race. And although that might not be ideal to you, if you can look at that earlier, you've made this point before. Maybe you can just practice a couple of sessions taking in what the race will actually give you just in case something happens where you lose your bottle or you lose your nutrition or you out of nutrition and you need to use what the race gives you. If you've at least practiced with that before, then you know what reaction you, you might be getting. And if the, if that kind of nutrition has a really poor reaction with you, which it can happen to some athletes, then you maybe you know that that's going to be a disaster on race day. Instead you just need to stick to a water or a Coke or a Gatorade if that's there. So that's a really key little point as well.

Yep. And we always say don't do something on race day that you haven't done in training. So the point you've just made is go out, find out what the course nutrition is on the day, purchase some of it and have one session where you try it and that way you'll find out straight away whether it's palatable to you, whether it's efficient enough to give you enough fuel or not. And if it's not, then you know, on race day when you unfortunately something might happen, you know you can't take that nutrition or you know you can take that nutrition because you've tried it.

Point number nine, you must study and practice the course and the requirements of the course. So talk us through this. Must, must do. Yeah.

And it's something that people really don't even consider. I think there's a really small percentage of people who are really honing in on this. And. And every race that you see on the race program has the course description, and it also has a map of the course and it has the elevation. And so that's particularly important in the bike leg and in the run leg. The swim leg will have the, you know, left and right turns, etc. But generally, you know, there's no variation. You're either turning left or right or heading straight back to shore. So, you know, the only variation would be if it's in a river with a current or whether it's in waves with surf. And generally, as we all know, the surf's only near the shore, so when you're out the back, you probably won't have to encounter that. So for the swimming section, you need to practice outdoor in an environment that's similar to what's going to happen on race day. If you're going to swim in a river, practice swimming in a river. If you're going to be in a lake, practice swimming in a lake if you can. And if your race is in the ocean, practice swimming in the ocean. So we're trying to all the time replicate the feelings we're going to have on race day, and I've said that probably 20 times in this podcast already. So what are we talking about with the bike? If we see on our profile for the particular event, and we can't actually just pinpoint one race here, because I think There are about 400 races a year with variations in terrain. Some have incredible wind, some have no wind, some have unbelievable temperature, some have really cold temperatures. Some have lots of climbing up to 5, 600 meters per lap, which ends up being a 1500 meters of elevation on a ride. Some courses have no elevation. It's 50 meters of elevation for the whole 180k. So understanding those things. Same with the run. You know, the run is a flat course or it's got hills or it's got one big hill. You need to know what is going to happen when you are confronted with. With the day. And if you've actually studied that and if you're lucky enough to be in the same country, the races that you're going to do, you could possibly go to that place and practice. But if you happen to be. If you're going to the World Championships at Nice next weekend, you're only going to be there flying in four or five days earlier. And then that's the only time you get to see the course, unless you live close in France somewhere. So for the majority of people around the world going to that event, they don't have the option. And so this is where you would think outside the square. And some of the, you know, the indoor platforms that are available, such as full gas, have almost every Ironman race on their, on their platform, which you can train on. So that would be something that I would be really using to my advantage. And you know, I've sent so many people to that platform, especially for doing the world championships in Kona, where it's near impossible. Not many people live in Hawaii, so mostly people are having to practice that on, on another platform. But that is as specific as you can get, you know, getting the actual course and training on it. And I know that's indoor and I know that's something that we're trying to get people to ride more outdoor and get to experience the wind and the hills. Whereas on an indoor you can only experience the undulations, you can't have the wind or the temperature because the temperature is controlled indoors. But the point here is knowing the course, where are the hills, how long are the hills, what power number should you be riding on the hills? And is the hill a 5 minute hill or is it a 30 minute hill with a gradient of 4% or 10%? And so knowing these requirements means you can train your body to be ready for when you hit this particular stage of the course. And the fact that it's indoor is still better than not actually seeing the.

Course brings us to our final point and when we were writing down notes for the episode, you just said this, this last point is everything. And we've spoken about it before, but you know, it's, it's a must have and it's, it's understanding your race plan and how you're going to execute on race day. And like you said, I love that point you said, when you said this is everything because all the training and everything you do is irrelevant because it all matters on race day. And basically you've just got to know what the pace is that you're going to stick to in the, in the swim and the run and then what, what power numbers you're going to stick to in the ride and you just basically, you cannot turn up without a plan.

Yep. Do all the training you like, be as prepared as you like. If you start that race without any idea of how you're going to manage the day, you're asking for trouble. And a lot goes into this plan, this race Plan is an accumulation of all the knowledge you've attained over the journey of your race preparation. You got a clear picture of what your capabilities are from the testing that you're coach should have been giving you and all the training sessions that are really specific to race day. You would have a whole wealth of knowledge about what you're capable of doing in terms of swim pace, ride power and ride pace and run pace. And so going into the race, knowing that these are the numbers I'm capable of doing across the 10 or 12 or 14 hours it's going to take me, that is one thing that's just going to be totally taken away from your stress levels and your worry. You've got confidence knowing that you've trained to these numbers and all you've got to do is go out there and execute. And that's why it's everything. And if you don't have that knowledge, I would be so scared on the beach on race day thinking about what's going to happen next because I actually don't know. Whereas I'm standing beside a person who's actually got a race plan. They've trained to it, they're well prepared, they totally understand what's going to happen the next 10 hours. And the difference in demeanor is, is for someone who's just standing there in fear compared to someone who's really quietly confident about. All I've got to do today is get my nutrition right and be patient enough to execute my numbers. And that's going to be the icing on the cake. You can do everything before that we've talked about, but if you don't actually do this part right, all the things you've done really well will come back and bite you because you've actually not listened to, to the things that are more important on race day.

And a bonus point you really wanted to mention was being the race day execution also comes down to how organized you are with your travels, wherever the race is, making sure that you are organized in advance. You know, booking your accommodation advance booking your flights in advance, you know how far out from the race you're going to fly in as well as down to the location of your accommodation. This is one that you're really, really keen on is, for example, booking accommodation that's as close to the start line as possible and making your race day as smooth as possible.

Yeah. Part of the race day plan is not only the paces that you're going to try to execute is, you know, it's a pain in the neck if you Got a hotel, it's 10km away from the race start, and you've got to then think about adding 10km of driving. Is there traffic? Am I going to be blocked by road closures that I didn't realize? And the panic that that creates can derail the whole race. You get there late or you get there with no wind, warm up, or you get there just in a panic. Whereas if you've got some, you know, opportunity to get some accommodation that's as close as possible, within walking distance. And, you know, your mum's brilliant at this. Over 40 years of going to races, she's the tour director, so to speak, and she knows, she looks up where the race start is and she finds the closest accommodation she can find as early as possible. So when she knows that I'm deciding to do this, this race, she will absolutely go into detail about where the closest hotel is. And, you know, half the time we end up across the road from the start, which is unbelievably brilliant because if you don't want to queue up at the toilets as an example, you can go back to your hotel and go to the toilet there in your own comfort. You can get there with five minutes of walking. To transition. There's so many positive things. The relaxation you feel with no commute on race morning can't be underestimated. And it seems like we're spending too long on this, but it is really part of your race plan.

Yeah. Mum is the Airbnb Queen and that's why she's the angel. That's why I'm happy to be home for this period. So that's a good way to finish this podcast. That was 10 must dos before your next Ironman, or just any race in general. As we said, the principles really apply. So thank you very much for listening to this episode, as always, and we'll see you on the next one. Sam.