200 Episodes Summarised in 60 Minutes

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo 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, Jared Donnelly. Happy New Year and welcome back to the podcast for 2024. It's a special episode today as it's our 200th episode, which is funny because at this point we've probably done closer to. Or if it's like 250 episodes when you include all the case studies, the bonus episodes, the deleted episodes, the episodes that were recorded but never made it live to the public. But regardless, according to our official episode counter, we are at 200. So thank you for making it through here with us. Our aim for today's episode is just to pack the most amount of gold nuggets we can fit into about a 50 or 60 minute episode, or however long it takes. And this journey of podcasting has resulted in tons of research from us, researching guests in interviewing them, conversations before and after the recordings with their guests, which we hate to say sometimes are the best parts, where they come up with absolute gold nuggets. New training and racing science. We're always looking into episode preparation over the journey. We have what feels like an infinite list of wisdom, training and coaching and racing wisdom. So we want to give you as much of it in one key episode as possible. So dad, welcome to the 200th episode, one we're very proud of. Let's start with our normal segment. What are you grateful for?

Who would have thought that we could actually nail 200 episodes over this long journey? I've been talking about it for a few episodes now. I can't wait to see the 200th episode. So now we're finally here. Well done. A big shout out to you, Jord, because you do pretty much all the work and I just turn up and you ask me a lot of questions and hopefully I give you some decent answers. And yeah, really kudos to you because you really make this happen and you've made it happen from day one. And yeah, really, we're really proud of what we do and we absolutely love giving tips to people for free, for people who can't afford coaching. And the gratitude we get when we go to events or even emails or texting or Instagram notes we get really make it worthwhile because people are so grateful and telling us that they based their whole program for their event on our training tips. And so we must be giving Some decent, detailed information which people have been able to use to their advantage. So, yeah, really, really grateful for that.

It is nice when someone messages and says, I used all your tips from your podcast and it helped me train and race the race perfectly to their goal. So we go, we must be doing okay then if they can get all that from the podcast. So, yeah, look, my gratitude is very similar. Just grateful to have an audience. When we started this, it was more for our own athletes benefit. I started interviewing you to help really just get more concepts across. We wanted all our athletes to understand, but we made the episodes public because we thought, why not? And it's not lost on me that we now have a massive audience that we get to do these episodes for. And so we put a lot of preparation into them. Yeah. And we put a lot of thought into our coaching and racing tips. And yeah, yeah, that's because we value your time as a listener. So thank you very much for listening. And now let's get into the lessons because this is going to be a pretty big episode of lessons that we're going to try and get through and not rush them, but also just try and get through some of the best ones we've had over this journey. So we've learned many lessons from all these interviews. Here's about one or two key lessons from our best episodes and guests and what we think are our most important coaching tips to help you improve. And we can kind of tell what the best episodes are by the ones that are most downloaded so we can see which headlines people want to learn more information about and which guests people really love. So now I'm going to start with probably the godfather of coaching and training and someone we love, Joe Friel. We interviewed Joe Friel, the founder of TrainingPeaks, the main app we use. And my favorite lesson from him was that age groupers are just training too hard. And we talk a lot about training hard, training easy, but he just basically said, back it off. And he gets a lot of his age groupers to train one high intensity session a week and that's it. For a lot of triathletes, that would be blasphemy and the rest is easy. But he just wants athletes to be able to recover and have a good lifestyle.

Yeah, and I know we want to not harp on too many individual podcasts here, and so we want to make sure we get through. I think we've got about 30 or 40 lined up comments on it, but yeah, there's no doubt about it. The motivated athlete is, is a Hard one to coach because they just want to do more and they think more is always going to be better. But you know, our motto is train smarter to race faster. And that is one of the things that he pushes is, you know, recover well, train hard, but don't train hard all the time.

Perfect. Louise Burke, one of our favorite guests and one of our most listened to episodes Professor Louise Burke Nutritionist and we're really excited to say that we've got her on for early 2024 again, which is going to be really exciting. And my lesson from her was we kind of do our diet backwards. We have no protein throughout the day and we all have a big cow as she put it on the table at nighttime. And I just love that simplified concept of start, think, don't just, don't just do the traditional western diet of cereal in the morning, something random for lunch, and then a whole bunch of protein and meat at night. You really want to spread your day out evenly between the carbs, fats and proteins that you need. What did you take from Louise Burke?

Yep, she absolutely predicted what I do and have done for many years, and it just keeps reinforcing and re emphasizes how much better I would be if I actually looked at my diet and took the advice. And I absolutely try to make changes to make that happen. And her balance of just not being extreme, either way too much or too little, I just found just so refreshing. And it's amazing how the people who are the highest experts in their field have a really good way of making it simple. And I just, it, it just was uncomplicated and stop doing that style of eating and just try to be more balanced and you'll probably find that you'll have more energy. And with more energy comes more ability to train the way you want to.

Yeah, I'll count you in in that category as well. To add your ability to explain concepts in a simple way is what really helps athletes understand what they need to do. One of the next guests that we loved interviewing was pro triathlete Emmett Jeffcoat. She came on to talk a lot about her journey through injury as well.

A lot.

But one of the key things was understanding fueling properly. And she said that she's battled with weight throughout her career and wanting to try and cut weight to try. And it's a bit of a myth and a misconception that just going lighter will make you go faster all the time. Obviously it is true that a better watts per kilo would improve you going faster, but it's not true. For all athletes. And her big lesson was that her deciding to fuel properly for her days and for her training far outweighed her performance than trying to cut calories to lean up to get a better watts per kilo.

I've got a lot of examples of athletes who get too lean and lose a lot of their energy because they're not fueling properly. And of course, what we just said previously with Louise Burke was your performance basically will suck if you, if you don't have the strength and the energy to, to train and race properly. So a question I always ask people when I'm interviewing them for prospective clients to join our coaching group is what's your optimal weights that you want to achieve? And the majority of people say, oh, I'm too heavy, I want to be a lot lighter. But my question, that's not what my question is. My question is, in your experience, what weight do you perform best at? And that's where you should be targeting.

Spot on. And Christian Blumenfeld was another great example of that. And we didn't interview his coach on this, but he's, you know, really clearly said in, in interviews that Christian is someone that performs much better, a few kilos heavier than most people would expect. You know, and they have leaned him up before, and they've leaned him up, you know, six kilos lighter than what he currently races at. And they just said his numbers plummeted. They, he just could not perform as well. And he's someone that looks like a quote unquote bulkier athlete. And when you first look at him, you think he's too heavy for triathlon and long distance triathlon. But they just say his strength, his numbers are far, far better when he's got that quote unquote weight on. And so, yeah, it's an interesting subject and one that doesn't get talked about heaps, but they're two awesome examples of, you know, lighter doesn't necessarily automatically equal better.

The image of an athlete that looks overweight too. Jordan, is a worry to me. You know, people are determining the fitness levels by looking at someone, and I just don't think that's fair. And you should be looking at their performance first and then looking at, oh, what, what does a person who can perform like, Christian can look like? And what does a person who looks like Gustav, what does he perform like? And they're two completely different looking athletes. You know, we talk about Jakob Ingebritzen a lot, you know, look at him compared to other athletes. You know, what they all look like is really not an indicator of how they're going to perform. The performance is clear. That's the thing we should be looking at. And then maybe have a look at, you know, what their somatotype looks like.

Yeah, yeah, spot on. We're going to sprinkle in some key coaching tips in here as well and not just talk about our best lessons from guests because we kind of looked at some of our top episodes and there's some clear episodes that were winners and there's some clear lessons in there that we just think are so important throughout the journey that if you can just pick up a bunch of these and do these properly, you will train smarter, race faster, you will improve. And one of them is for me, I think having really clear and well defined seasons and off seasons. So we speak a lot about, and now it is so well known about us that one, you need ample time to prepare for a race and you need to really prepare that season properly. And then you need a really clear off season. But this is the big but. So you cannot take that lesson on its own. It's. You cannot undo the hard work that you do. And too many people are so, too hardcore on and off. You know, they, they train right up to a race and then they have complete off period. And a clear off season means you're backing off the volume, you're probably backing off the intensity or race specific sessions. But there is a training structure you need to follow so that you're not undoing all your hard work. And we see athletes go too far one way or the other. They either don't have an off season, they burn out or they have too much of an off season and they're constantly just going back and forth between getting fit and not getting fit and they're not actually improving year on year.

The classic example I can use is based on myself and it wasn't me wanting to have an off season, it was having back surgery where I was forced to have 10 weeks off. And normally people say 10 weeks off, you have the equivalent 10 weeks to get back. So that's a 20 week period. So it's nearly half a year. Well, I'm over half a year now post back operation and I'm still not near where I was the week before my operation and that's 26 weeks. And so that's an example of a forced rest period of 10 weeks of pretty much no training whatsoever. And the detraining, the de load that happened to my fitness, my aerobic capacity, my fitness was astronomically, outstandingly poor. I really have had trouble and have had to work really hard to get my fitness back. And I've been quite determined, as you know, to try to train as well as I possibly can. But it is taking a long time. And that's the thing we're trying to prevent. Everybody who's, who's got themselves a really good fitness level and then just takes too many weeks off with that idea that I deserve an off season, which is doing nothing. And that's the thing we're trying to prevent, is just maintain, have enjoyment in your training and maintain some training. It doesn't have to be totally structured, but I guarantee that people say to me, I just want to have maybe two or three months where I'll just do my own thing. They come back to our program 50 or 60% worse off than when they left. So they now take six more weeks to get back to where they were before. And that's without actually improving again. So it's really detrimental mentally and physically to just do it. Too extreme.

Yeah. I can tell you I had the experience this year. I spent most of the year off the bike, and that was a conscious choice, and I knew the price I would have to pay for that. And I was explaining to you that I jump back on the bike and the first session just sucks, and then that next six weeks, you just know it sucks because you know what you can do and you just nowhere near that. And it's just so humbling and you just have to get through and suffer through each session trying to get yourself back to that level that you, you know, you're at. And six weeks is even conservative, but it takes longer. But I just find, because you start to cross a threshold where you start to get back to your normal self and find your legs again a little bit. But to get back to that peak form you work so hard for, it's so frustrating in those, those first few weeks to be doing sessions and numbers that are just so far below what you, you know, you're capable of. And it is a sucky feeling. And look, it happens sometimes, but the more you can avoid that, probably the better.

We're not really talking, Jord, about the people who have been sick or injured here. And we're talking about people's conscious decision to just take chunks of time away from. And that might be a fair and reasonable thing to do because you are mentally burned out or physically burned out. And that could be a good reason. That's as good a reason as being sick or injured. But the people who are Just actually trying to rest because they feel like doing that. They're the people we're trying to encourage to not do nothing. That's the point we're making.

Yeah. Next one is we interviewed, speaking of the Norwegians before, we interviewed the founder of the, basically the Norwegian Triathlon program and the person responsible for training all these gun triathlon Norwegians coming through, like Gustav and Christian. And we had a great interview with him. It was great to get an insight. And we've spoken about the Norwegians too many times on this podcast, to be honest, but we just love it. But he's. One of his biggest lessons was intensity control. Obviously that's what the Norwegians are known for, but then finding those methods that they're known for, but making sure it's applicable to you. So they're really famous for their altitude camps, but you can't just go do an altitude camp. And this was a huge eye open for me because I just assumed that you go train at altitude camp, you're going to get a benefit because of the thin air. You know, just logically, to me, it made sense that you go up there, you train your body responds really well. And he made a really clear point that Christian doesn't respond well. Augusta, one of them doesn't respond well to VO2 max training up there. In fact, they would go a bit backwards. You know, they need, when they're up there, they need to do a lot more. Less intensity and they need to keep all their VO2 max intensity down, whereas the other one, I can't remember who was. Who was the opposite. You know, they were fine with VO2 Max up there and didn't need to worry about just doing zone two. So just because something might work, you know, a specific training method out there, you need to make sure it's appropriate to you, appropriate to your program and your goals, and it's going to actually work for you.

Yeah, and that's spot on because it's very individual and going to altitude doesn't necessarily give the best outcome. You can go to altitude and train as hard as you possibly can, and if you're one of those people doesn't respond to that, you know, the, the air is thinner, it's harder to breathe, it's harder to train with intensity, it's harder to perform at altitude. That's why you're there, because you're trying to reproduce hemoglobin at a higher level by training with. With limited oxygen. And if you train too hard there, you could actually end up in a.

Hole yeah, yeah, yeah. I just. I totally agree. And obviously it seemed obvious that you can't train too hard. But even just their standard, you know, VO2 max training. And VO2 max is the wrong word. Cause it sounds like they're maxing out. But just that intensity above that LT2 threshold was still too much. So that was fascinating. We had a great chat with Andy Blow from Precision Hydration. It's probably a company that's taking over the triathlon world in terms of hydration, one of the most competitive companies out there. And my biggest learning from that was understanding total sweat loss volume. So the amount of fluid you're losing and versus the salt concentration in that sweat. So that was eye opening for me that you could be a low sweater, but salt might be really high, or you could be a high sweater, you lose a lot of fluid and that's also high. Or you could lose a lot of fluid, but you're not losing that much salt. And so all those things depict actually how much fluid replacement you need and how much salt replacement you need.

As endurance athletes, we really need to understand how we cope with heat and cooler temperatures. And there's so many examples of training benefits from training with no fans on, in particular in an indoor training session and going into saunas. And how does your body respond to these changes in conditions when you may be training in really cool climates and go to your a race that happens to be in a really hot environment. And the example classically would be the Kona Ironman, where the humidity and heat is quite exceptional on race day. And if you haven't prepared your body accordingly, you can't do the numbers that you've been doing at home because you haven't understood how your body reacts to the heat and obviously sweat loss and salt losses. So this is almost as important as training sessions, I think, because if you don't get this right, doesn't matter how fit you are, you actually will not be able to perform on the day.

Yeah, spot on. The next one we want to talk about is probably one of my favorite conversations I've ever had, not just on the podcast, but just in life. And that was Lockie Morton. And we got to speak to him for two and a half hours on the podcast. He was very generous with his time and he's a bit of an enigma in the cycling world. He's just a fascinating character. He's just done some remarkable things. What. What did you take from Locky?

I just thought he's. I've watched a whole lot of his videos on YouTube. We, we drove back from the, the Melbourne to Warnie Classic with him for, for three hours. One of those race days, we had him as a guest. I just thought he's a, a really intriguing personality and I loved his journey that he's been on through his cycling career. And it's based around his love of riding. And that came through so much more than his competitiveness. Yes, he's a very talented bike rider who is achieved a lot of success, but first and foremost he must enjoy what he's doing, otherwise he can't actually do the things that he's wanting to achieve. And I think that's the lesson I learned. You've got to love what you're doing enough. And example today, just out there training and the heavens opened up in the, you know, a summer's day and I start laughing, thinking, it's absolutely bucketing on me here. And I'm still actually got a smile on my face going, this is great. If it had it been raining when I started, I would never have gone out. But that was an example of I just love out there training. And he really brought that home to me and reminded me of why we do it.

Yeah, spot on. I couldn't summarize that any better. I just think he was able to portray the lesson that enjoyment is more important than anything else. I say that with a little bit of extra, which doesn't really make sense, but for him it was more important than his pro career. You know, he was just, he was not happy in his pro career. And if he's willing to give that up to make sure that he's enjoying it, and enjoying it doesn't mean this is the asterisk. Enjoyment doesn't mean you're having fun 100% of the time. Exactly. Your example with the rain, you know, it's obviously not fun riding in the rain, but you can find enjoyment in that, in that moment. And you can find enjoyment in the suffering of training. You know, training is hard. It's not when you're in the middle of a VO2 set, when it's you're doing a three minute effort and you want to vomit. You wouldn't say that's enjoyable necessarily the time, but the enjoyment comes from the after effect and the feeling you get and the satisfaction you get because you push yourself. So that's when I say enjoyment is more important than anything else. That's what I mean. It's that you're enjoying the whole experience, not necessarily you're enjoying every single part of the Entire process.

I think the enjoyment also comes, Jordan, in those hard sessions from the fact that, you know, you're improving. That is so enjoyable to know that if I do this today, in the next three weeks, I'm going to be a better athlete. And that's the enjoyable part.

Yeah. The next lesson is a bit of a coaching lesson you wanted to touch on. It's something that's just a repeated theme that you think is so important between for an athlete to know about a coach.

I think trusting the process is an underrated phrase because people say that, but they still want to do their own version. And I'm forever asking the question to my athletes, if you strayed from what we agreed on to do in this block of training or in this day or in this one session, in this week, you've got to wear the consequences of the fact that you may not be able to front up 2, 3, 4, 5 days later to actually perform the way you want to. And that comes back to trusting the process. If I just do a bit more, I'll get fitter quicker. And that just doesn't happen all the time. And so trusting the process means absolutely being 100% on board with what you and your coach have decided. And if you change that in any day or week, that's okay, as long as you can cope with the consequences of poor outcome or the risk that you've done too many hours or too much climbing on a bike or too much hard training when you should have been actually recovering or during this holiday period we're talking about right now, this is the key time where people are straying from their routine and doing, you know, extras by three times more than they would normally. So we always had that rule of, you know, adding 5 or 10% over a progressive period. But people are, you know, adding 50%, averaging 200 kilometers on a bike on an average week to doing 5 or 600. And the festive 500 that Strava do is one of those things that really gets up my nose. You know, it's, let's just go from 200k a week to 500 plus and see what happens.

To my level, the festive 500 is for those that don't know what it is.

Well, the festive 500 is something invented by Strava to see who could do the most kilometers or really, it was trying to get people to ride the bike that their. Their goal was. Their goal was admirable. It was trying to get. Trying to get people to ride more.

But if I really looked at it. I think their goal was marketing, but that's right, but that's okay.

Yeah, so I'm being generous and I think, you know, people, as always, will take things to the extreme. And, you know, we had guys not only doing 500k for the week, but doing 2500k for the week. Doing 500k a day to get the title of doing the most kilometers in that seven days. And people around the world were hiding their sessions till 1 minute before 12 and uploading it on Strava so that no one could do more kilometers than they did that day. That's how serious it got. And it put people in such a hole from being so fatigued for doing way too much training. It was a classic example of, yeah, let's do this and see how you go in the next month. Yeah, the next month is the worst you've ever performed because you did 2000km in one week and you have not still recovered from it. And yet you had an A race that was four weeks later and you thought that was a good idea.

And your friend Boyd crashed his bike because he was so exhausted trying to max out kilometers.

Yeah. And you know, he actually nearly died because he was on a bike track just trying to clock up a few more kilometers to make sure he'd done 250 for the day. And some, some pedestrians were coming the other way and he. And he just lost concentration, put his front wheel off the concrete path onto the dirt, flipped over his bike and sent his handlebars through his inside of his leg, which just missed his main artery in his leg. He could have bled to death there and then. And, you know, that was quite a serious injury he had. And he didn't end up riding his bike for six or seven weeks after that. That was an example of, you know, just delirious athlete with showing so much fatigue that they weren't thinking properly.

Yeah, I guess coming back to the main point of your lesson is that, you know, trusting the process, that includes this holiday period, but just overall just trusting the process and know that, yeah, if you're trying to cheat your way to get more K's in our training, it's not going to happen. And it's just that lesson could be more reiterated by more experts. Next one is a combined lesson with what we say often. And we actually had Ken Bhouse, expert bikefitter on the podcast. He's one of the most sought after bike fitters in the world right now amongst pro athletes for his technology around certain bars and mechanics and aerodynamic Improvements. But the lesson is you've got free speed there that you can get. Your position is so much on the bike and go get it.

Yep. It's just not free speed, but fatigue from being in a poor position and then being more comfortable creates less fatigue. So you can perform at a higher level for longer. As a triathlete, you could actually run off the bike by being more comfortable on the bike. As a cyclist, you can hold your form for longer, hold higher power in a cycling race or a time trial. But absolutely you can be faster if you get yourself set up properly on a bike. So it's great to get a brand new bike or upgrade your bike from, from what you've been previously riding. And you might not have had a bike fit for five or six years. You know, your body shape changes as you grow. If you're a young 20 year old, you're, you could be still in a growth spurt so you could actually get taller. So the position you get fitted in at 20 might not be the same or shouldn't be the same as when you're 24. And the same thing as you're a 40 year old to a 60 year old, you know, the body somehow shrinks. So you should be, you should be actually getting, you know, continually check to see if you're in the right position and if you're getting uncomfortable or getting some pain, you know, or some injury, some knee injuries because your cleats are incorrectly positioned or, you know, the crank length's too long for your size and the seats too high or too low, you're sitting too far back or too far forward, you're extending your hands out too far, your head, stems too long or too short. There's so many things you can do to get more comfortable and get more power and to be in a better position to generate more power, which in turn will make you able to ride the bike faster. And that's the goal.

Yeah, I love that. That's a great one. Taryn Richardson from the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, we've had her on a couple of times. One of my biggest lessons and takeaways from her is just how important variety is in our foods on a day to day basis. It's just really highlighted how we all eat the same sort of foods most of the time and it's not a quite well, not a wide variety. And I thought about that with my own diet and went, oh, well, that's actually true. I think I eat very well. But it's just kind of the same foods all the time. And you really need to mix it up throughout your whole day and week with. With a variety of foods to get all the right nutrients, vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, micronutrients. And that was a really big tip for me. What did you take from her?

Yeah, I love the color on your plate. Having at least five vegetables, I think that was really helpful to me. I also was really keen on her idea that if you're on a recovery day, you don't need to eat as much. If you're in a hard endurance day, you need to supply more nutrition to your body. So we just tend to eat the same each day. And I think that was a great point she made. We don't, we shouldn't. And it's important that we change that mindset to, you know, if I'm having an easy day or I just need to eat according to the energy that I'm going to expend.

The next guest lesson was a guy who. I can't wait to see how he goes at the nationals this year. The story of perseverance, Jimmy Wheel, and boy, that was an awesome story with such a happy ending this year when it really looked like he might not get a happy ending.

Yep. He had lost his contract with EF Education and was looking for a new contract to be continuing as a professional bike rider. And we really tried to get behind his. His challenge of trying to find a team to ride with. And. And we spent a lot of time with him to try and promote him as a rider and the value that he could give to a team. And it came down. It was about this time last year, it came down to, you know, it was listos.

It was five months ago.

Yeah, five months ago. Yeah. And it came down to, you know, just. Just almost running out of time to get a contract. And then he was thrown a lifeline. And I don't know what got him that contract, but it could have been a combination of many things, like we say about everything, but the fact that he got that and he could not have been happier and his life would have been so much different had he not got that contract. But he spent the rest of the year training and racing really well and. And he's in great form. Right. For those who don't know, the Australian Road Championships is on next week here at Buninyong in Ballarat in Victoria. And most of the other national Jersey Road Championships are in the middle of July for every other country in the Northern Hemisphere. But for Australia, it's January. And, you know, the Coveted green and gold jersey is something that every Australian rider wants to wear. Obviously, every rider from every country would love to wear that and represent that in all the World Tour races that go on throughout the year. But I can't wait to see how Jimmy goes in this race. He's. He's looking like he's got some good form and he did ride a good race last year to be overrun by Luke Plapp at the end. So it's going to be a great race next week. Looking forward to it. And I love the fact that Jimmy got. Got another contract.

Yeah. And you touched on the story there. But basically he was doing everything he could to get into a pro team and he was living overseas. And when we were speaking to him, he basically had a month left. He said, until I run out of funds and I have to give up the dream. And he said, I just don't want to do that. And he was just leaving no stone unturned. And he got it. So just a great story of persevering right into the last second. He was willing to go right into the last second, which I just absolutely love. One of our most popular episodes on YouTube was our episode with Dr. Steven Sahler. And it's going to wonder why. He's just a mastermind for coaching ethos and principles and we just love what he's all about and we're just so aligned with his coaching principles. And yeah, for us, the big lesson was just simplify the program, just simplify it back and keep it simple and you can easily succeed that way.

Yeah. And if you don't. For those who don't remember our interview with him, he is kind of the guru of the 80:20 rule, where, you know, and that really simplified things. Doesn't we always talk about this five or six zone system? We use zone one, recovery, zone two, you know, some endurance, zone three, tempo, zone four, threshold, zone five, VO2, and zone six is anaerobic. So that is quite a complicated way to train, but he's basically simplified it. And as I said earlier, all these experts can make it so easy to understand. So 20% of your time should be spent with some intensity and 80% of the time should be spent trying to build your endurance capacity. And if you base that around, you know, how often you train, the actual time you spend out there training and the intensity, that's the simple three things you should be thinking about. And I just think, you know, if we all followed that system, which is what we base our program around, then we'll get Some really good improvement in our performance.

Brendan Trickey Johnson, one of Australia's best off road cyclists, Australian mountain bike champion, just went and did the lifetime Grand Prix series, the gravel series over in America this year. We interviewed him a few weeks ago and yeah, a great lesson. And he got his program quite wrong and it had disastrous effects on his year. And then some slight adjustments completely turned it around. And I think there's a really key lesson for athletes in that.

Yeah. And it, it's an example of someone at, at World Tour level who is also making some mistakes on, on, on racing and training. And so as, as us age groupers, we shouldn't get too hard on down on ourselves about poor performance because it happens to even the best. You know, Pocket Char had a poor Tour de France in his, by his standards. So that's the, that's someone at the highest level as a bike rider. You know, Gustav Eden, who won Kona, has had the worst season for a variety of reasons since he won that race. He hasn't actually done much since he won the world title. Ironman. They're examples of, of people who are professionally doing a sport getting it wrong. And this is not a criticism of them. It's just an awareness that everybody needs to be a little bit kinder to themselves and think long and hard about what they're going to do each day so they don't make mistakes in training too hard or too easy or going down the wrong track or getting things completely askew so that their performance is actually worse than it is better. And so, you know, my message is to, to keep, to keep measuring how you think you're going and if you're not happy with it, change it and talk to your coach about that. And, and you know, if you think you've got ideas that, that you, that you think would help, then you know, talk about those things. Don't just keep doing the same thing even though it's going disastrously. You need to change things up to get a better outcome.

Yeah, it's, it's a great lesson for just a minor adjustment can make all the difference. And you speak about this a lot as well, is being able to objectively understand your, your situation. Because he was kind of asking that question, I love this. He was going, I, I should be super fit. What is going on? And he just needed a bit more rest. He just needed a bit more freshening up. Once that happened, his fitness was able to be, to show through. And he goes, I was right. I was as fit as I thought. But Those doubts can creep in when the results aren't there. And so, yeah, just those minor adjustments to figure out what's actually going on. And you might have the same thing if you are doing some tests or going. My numbers say one thing, but my results are saying something else. What do we need to change here to get this right? That's a really important conversation to have with your coach. The next almost favorite interview of the year was our interview with Rachel Bording, one of our athletes who came onto the podcast graciously and really went to detail about her experience at the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc, the world championships of Ultra Trail. She took her 42 hours with insane, insane elevation, uphill running and downhill running. And the story was epic of the actual race, but the preparation was even more epic.

Yeah, and it's another example of someone picking an incredibly hard challenge. And I'm up for that, but I'm not up for people who do that, pick that hard challenge and then don't do anything about the preparation properly. And that's the thing that I loved about Rachel. She just did the preparation and she implemented it. Her everyday schedule, so work, her social life and her training, she mixed them all beautifully. She managed to set up a situation where she was either riding or running to work every day, regardless of the weather. And that, to me, showed absolute commitment and dedication to her preparation. And that's the part I loved. And come race day, she reaped the rewards no matter how hard it got. It couldn't have been any harder than the training she was doing.

A really enjoyable interview we had was with Kel o', Brien, current pro rider for Jaco Alula. And we just enjoyed this conversation because it always reminds me of something you talk about and you talk about the importance of your character and you're really trying to be a good and kind person and that will take you further in life and in your results as well. And he just showed that his attitude, enthusiasm just makes such a difference in the way he's able to train and race and get some great success at World Tour level so far.

And his willingness to learn off others. And that's the thing, even at my age, at 65, I can't wait to learn something today about, you know, something that's going to contribute to me being a better human being. And I that that was such an eye opener to listen to Cal talk about. You know, we were talking about his first experiences at the Spring Classics, and he just loves the Spring Classics. Growing up in Australia, we watch the Spring Classics. And he's done the same and he just could not. He was like a sponge. He was soaking up all the advice he was getting from the pro riders around him. And once, once people know that someone is actually listening and taking on your advice, people are more willing to give you more advice that, you know, and, and he was just that he exudes that enthusiastic rider who just wants to learn and become better. And I, you know, his attitude was brilliant.

The next interview guest is very memorable for us for different reasons, because it's one of the most emotional interviews we've probably done. That was with my cousin and your niece in Shauna Donnelly. And that, that was an interview we did with her because she had a pretty crazy cancer journey, which came back from very serious stage 4 cancer and made a full recovery. And she was a runner beforehand. She really wasn't sure if she's going to be able to run again. And then got to the point where she was doing better 10k times than pre cancer. And that whole journey was super emotional. But for me, it was the, the process between you and her coach and athlete, where the smallest, tiniest, most incremental margin was what you were aiming for and that was okay. And the patience it took for that. I just, I think if anyone wants to learn patience about trying to get fitter faster, go listen to this episode. Because her goals from when she started back from scratch, when she was completely on her deathbed after cancer and her muscles and body just wouldn't work, her goal was to walk 10 meters a day. You know, that was where she was starting from, to build from that, you know, each day potentially going 10 more meters at a time, building that up to running 10 KPBS. That is just an incredible lesson for me.

Yeah, talk about when we, I mean, I get emotional thinking about that one, but for sure, the journey is so much more important than the destination. And that could not be more emphasized in, in that story with her was, you know, each day, each week, each month, she just improved slightly. And they were victories, they were the things that got her up again the next day because look how far I've gone. I've doubled the distance I did last week from 100 meters to 200 meters. And those small, tiny, marginal gains what was driving her. And she was a really solid athlete as schoolgirl, you know, in, in one of the top, top college athletics. She won, you know, the 1500 Olympic park and went in a local, you know, APS system, which is, you know, equivalent to anywhere in the world where you've got the best runners lining up, and, you know, that's the talent she had. And to be back at square one, you know, through what she'd experienced and her determination to. To try to be as fit and healthy as she can, that. That to me was an incredible story.

Talking about running the balanced runner we had on, and I just really liked how he really refuses to look at the body in isolation and he look at everything as a whole. So if someone's got some. Some sort of injury popping up or flare up, you know, he's not looking at that area and just going, oh, you need to fix that. He's looking at the whole body and going, what's happening? And all the mechanics that we're trying to fix and trying to look at and trying to improve on. And I just think that's a really important point for everyone to, you know, if you've got a sore foot or sore calf or something, you know, that's generally not the only problem here. There's. There's something else going on. And I really like that concept of the looking at the body mechanics as a whole. Yeah.

And I. I think Dr. Jordan Moncrief could be brought into this one as well. And, and that's the big thing that he really pushes, is the body is. Is. Should be looked at as in its entirety, and everything should be functioning together. You can't just develop really great biceps, you know, in isolation. You need. You need to have a strong back to, you know, to be able to be able to make the biceps function prop a lot better than they are. You know, you need to have good core and, and all the muscles will work in unison better if they're. If they're kind of communicating to each other. And I think that's what. That's what the balance runner was actually talking about was, was getting the efficiency part of your running. And everybody's running style is different. You know, there is not one right way to run. Believe me, there isn't. It's what suits your biomechanics, your structure, your bones and your muscles. And if you can get that to be as efficient as possible, you will be able to run faster with less effort.

Talk about efficiency. We've had exercise physiologist Ryan Warner a few times, and they're just great in depth interviews, they're talking about a lot about efficiency and economy, and they're kind of these expert topics. But one of the main things that stood out for me was not around. That was more around strength and plyometric training and he just really spoke about the value of some easy to do exercises and plyometric training for runners and triathletes, and especially the aging triathlete. You know, it's just something we, we go more and more away from. The younger we are, the more sprinting we do, the more change of direction stuff we do, potentially the more sport we play and we go away from that. And just his tip on getting that back included in your program in warmups or a couple of times a week, I think is so valuable. And I've seen some great older athletes still do sprinting as part of their program as 60 plus year olds, and they obviously safely have built up for that, have kept that consistency, which has allowed them to do it. And it's just awesome to see, yeah.

That, that jumping up and down action, that's really what we're talking about, is getting your muscles and bones to stay strong. At 20, they're bulletproof, you know, 30, they start to get a little bit sorer and tighter. At 40, 50, 60, it really deteriorates very quickly. And if, if you can keep that as part of your, your routine where you're actually, especially if you're desk bound in your job, you need to be getting your bones to be having some sort of resistance during the day. And whether that's walking or skipping or jumping up and down from box to the ground, that's what plyometrics is, getting the bones and muscles to be awake and not be in a slumber. And that is something that will keep you strong and healthy into your 60s, 70s, and 80s.

We've used this podcast before, dad, as a bit of accountability, especially post back surgery. You did a great job of just opening up on that journey for the listener. We had a lot of people write in and say that they really appreciate that because it shows a much more vulnerable side of trying to come from scratch. And I reckon that can be 2024 for you as well. You've often said on this podcast that it's an area that you haven't paid attention to and we both wanted to develop more. So I think that's going to be Our challenge for 2024 is Keep Listeners updated on that progress and how much it benefits us.

Absolutely. And I, the first person to put my hand up and I'm. And I'm really good at giving advice, but not so good at actually implementing some of the time. So that is an area that I need to really work on. And I'm determined to make sure that I have lots of areas of arthritis already in my body at the moment. And if I can slow that process down, and that's what plyometrics is, it is going to slow down that onset of the inevitable arthritis that the body will have some measurement in as you get to 70, 80, 90 years of age. And for that, most of the listeners aren't in that category. But you don't want to experience that if you do the right things early on and keep that as part of your daily routine.

And that shouldn't sound too harsh on you. Most people that know you personally know that your discipline around training is unparalleled and unmatched no matter what age you've been. So it's not about that. But there's always areas to improve and last guest on the running factor was a special shoe specialist, Mitch Lorcan from the running company. This lesson I just think I just tell everyone now, I just say, well Mitch, his biggest principle is that most people are wearing shoes too small and it's having a major impact on their ability to run well. And most people, and it's not a black and white rule. But he's, you know, he says majority of people could afford to go a size or a size and a half up and watch the difference it makes for injury prevention and running performance.

That's a great tip, wasn't it? And it's one that I hadn't even considered. And then when I thought about it, you know, that is something that I also did wrong. You know, people are getting toenails disappearing because their, their toes are crunched up against the end of their shoe. Especially when you're doing trail running where you've got lots of uphill and downhill and, and you know, for those guys who are running on the track, you know, you're really, really intensity of your running action is really forcing your foot to jam up against the front of your shoes. So. So having the right amount of room in your shoe can prevent a lot of issues.

One of our most popular episodes for the year was who would win out of a VO2 max based program versus a zone 2 program? Because we've seen incredible improvements in both. And now the answer is very interesting and very non surprising. The fact that the first thing you say is, well, it's a mix of both but we had a very anecdotal non scientific lab tested experiment with two of us who wanted more zone 2 based and one did more just VO2 based because they didn't have time of zone 2 and both had incredible improvements. But that you can't draw any crazy conclusions from that. But we just want to make the point that a mix of both is going to give you the outcome. But the more point was that if you just did a VO2 max program because you're short on training, you'll still get great benefit from that. And if for some reason you just want to do some zone two training and you want to have some time off, some real high intensity, you will get great benefit from that. And our point is, we have athletes in both camps getting great improvements and doing PBS from both.

And look, it's determined by what your actual event is as well. You know, if you want to improve your ceiling and your capacity to be a faster, stronger, more improved athlete, then certainly VO2 is going to contribute to that. If your event doesn't require you to lift your ceiling, then more zone two is going to be more beneficial to you. So, you know, the measuring of which is going to be more beneficial is it's got so many asterisks to it. But yeah, it was an interesting experiment. Even though we knew that, you know, basically, 80, 20, you need a mixture of, you know, VO2 and zone two is the way to go anyway. So doing more VO2, did it, did it make that person better? Probably slightly, but it was just marginal.

Yeah. A really cool tip from Dylan Johnson, a guy we really love and who's got a great profile online with great science back videos. My favorite thing about his tip was strength training is not a 1 percenter. Stop calling it a 1 percenter. You know, he calls it a major percenter. And I think that's, you know, we just spoke about this a couple minutes ago on the importance of it, but yeah, that's just a big reminder to everyone. Yeah.

And I still get a lot of people saying, you know, I want to do strength training in my program. Is that okay? And as if they're asking that. We don't think it should be part of your program. It should be. Everything you do should be based around how strong and robust your body can be to enable it to withstand the requirements of your event, no matter what event that is. The thing that we push is that you can't just be strong. You have to be fit and be specific in your event. So it can't be strength training if you're. If you're a weightlifter. Strength training is the dominant part of that sport. If you're an endurance athlete, strength is important, but your endurance is more important, so it has to be a part of your endurance program. So that's the thing that we're trying to get the percentages right. And it's certainly not 1%. It's, you know, the stronger and more robust you are as an athlete for your chosen sport, the more efficient you will be and your performances will replicate that.

And it's also a conversation around when to include it in the program. A beginner triathlete needs to learn how to swim, bike and run, you know, because that's the sport. So they're probably, probably not going to prioritize putting a strength program in there straight away. But then when you have an athlete who's got a fair bit of experience, got a bit of fair bit of training under their belt, can handle the load, can handle the frequency, you can handle the intensity, they're going to be able to fit a strength training program in without detracting from their program too much or at a detrimental level.

I was just going to add one more thing. If you've got a strength program and you've just started a new triathlon program or marathon endurance program and your fatigue levels are too high, then you have to reduce something so that you can actually continue to improve. And so, you know, you've got to identify what is the key component of the event you're in. If the event you're in is based around strength, then, then drop some other things and keep the strength going. But if the key component is endurance, then you need to reduce the strength work so that you can get through the program first and then implement more overload with the strength as your body can adapt to the program.

We had a great conversation with Drs. Toozle and Amy Tuzle and Huginan about stress fractures, stress fracture prevent tension and stress fracture rehab. And that's because stress fractures are quite common among the age group athlete. And a whole bunch of tips they gave about both those scenarios. But one really simple rule to remember was the 10% rule. And they just said, when you're overloading, pay attention to the 10% rule. Try not to overload your total volume or intensity by more than 10% per session or per week. And that can play a huge role in preventing stress fractures.

And interestingly enough, we talked about that with the festive 500 example before. That is, you know, you know, people say, oh, you know, the risk is, is minimal if you, if you do too much. Well, no, it's not. If you end up with a stress fracture, you will be so angry with yourself for overdoing it. And those examples we gave earlier in, in the podcast are leading to this, leading to stress fractures. You can have a stress fracture that could put you out for six months and, and that is not a position you want to be in. When you've worked so hard to get to a fitness level and just sit there waiting for something to heal and not be able to do any training, then you get a realization of overloading and just blatantly doing way too much is going to cost you dearly in the long run.

Brenton Ford from Effortless Swimming, our go to guru for swimming tips and technique advice to help you improve. My favorite tip from him is focus a block of training on one to three things at a time and really improve those one to three things and get them down and then add some things on top of that. What's your biggest tip from Brenton?

Yeah, absolutely. Swimming is one of those skill acquisitions that the fitness side of it is so important. But if you get to a maximal fitness level and you don't improve your technique, you'll still swim the same time. And it's one of those few sports that that happens. It's the same with, you know, another example would be golf if, if you just keep swinging poorly, you will still hook the ball no matter if you train eight hours a day training the wrong swing technique. And this is the same with swimming. You need to improve your technique to enable you to go faster. And of course you need to be fit in the water. But if you don't concentrate on the technique of the sport, then you will be holding yourself back. And so that is the key for me.

Yeah, and I think that comes down to the implementation of drills as well. And it's something that we just really force on the athletes is you've got to be doing way more drills in your training sessions, which aren't a part of everyone's program and they should be talking about skills. One you're really reiterating and focusing on, especially at the moment. But it's just so important is learning the bike and learning the skill of pedaling action.

Yep. And I think that our most recent podcast was exactly on this topic and sounds like a broken record, but if you don't actually learn how to apply pressure evenly in a pedaling action, then there's so many things you're missing out on. And number one is you're going to ride slower. And so if you think about that as your main focus, if I pedal better, I will ride faster with the same fitness level. And that's the thing I'm trying to get across to people Learn, understand how to pedal properly. And if you want to know more about that, go back to that podcast that we've just done and re listen to it. And the tips we give you there about how to engage the correct muscle groups at the correct time will give you a faster bike speed with the same fitness level.

One of our most, our most popular series is how to prepare for a specific event properly. So we've done a whole bunch of episodes on how to prepare for an ironman properly, prepare for a half ironman properly, prepare for an Olympic distance properly, a marathon properly. And so in those episodes we give a whole range of tips. Some are similar for the event and some differences for depending on the event about what your training has to include, what sessions are key for that specific event, how to get race ready, how to execute on race day. So I just wanted to go through each of those things and maybe just pick out one each of what you think is most important given that the nature of a lot of them are the same. If you think about an Ironman, what do you think your biggest tip is?

Definitely we would say that it is one of the all time hardest things to do. So understanding how the enormity of that event. But you know, if you want to do an Ironman, don't sit at a coffee shop and just agree with everybody else saying I'm going to do this next Ironman. Understand what the requirements are and the endurance training that you need to do. And I think if you understand that and are willing to like the Rachel Balding example, you'll be fine. But if you don't want to do the preparation, don't do the event.

Yeah, I'd tie into that and just say also look at not just your willingness to do the training, but how does the training actually fit in with your lifestyle? Have you got the hours available in the week? Because some people don't. Some people's work schedules are just so hectic they physically couldn't fit the training volume required in or the training volume required to do it properly, which is the whole nature of the series. So yes, you could get away with doing it not properly and just getting through. But that's that tip there. Half Ironman. My biggest tip for that or my biggest point is that I think the race specific sessions, training sessions are the key in that race and getting those race specific because it's really quite a specific zone. You want to try and swim right and run in. And so doing those longer race specific sessions for me, the ones we've spoken about on many episodes are really key. What about you?

Yeah, look, unlike the Ironman, where it's more about volume, the half Ironman is. Is half the volume of an Ironman. So therefore we've got the opportunity to ride at an intensity that's really uncomfortable. That sweet spot, Zone 3 is so uncomfortable to, to train at and to race at. And that takes very specific training. So I would agree entirely with what you just said. Look, the Ironman is also, you know, every, every single sport that we talk about, Iron man, half ironman, marathon, Olympic distance, you know, has a specific intensity that you need to train at that meet the requirements of that session. But the half ironman is. It's, it's not easy and it's not hard and it's that uncomfortable period that you have to train in, which I find really hard.

The Olympic distance. What's your. What's one of your biggest tips around that?

Yeah, you know, it is, it is the next step up, isn't it? You need to be really training a lot harder than you would for an Ironman and for a half ironman because you're training in that uncomfortable threshold zone because that's what Olympic distance is. You're swimming at threshold, you're riding at threshold and you're running at threshold. So it is probably the hardest thing to do, I think in all of the triathlons. When I'm talking about intensity, intensity in the Olympic distance is the hardest to get right.

Yeah. And I would say off that in any triathlon event, the running off the bike training is super important. But, but you can afford to get off the bike in a half ironman or ironman training program and just do some zone two running and you can do that frequently and it really can be a party program without over fatiguing you. But to become good at the Olympic distance, you need to be able to get off and run at threshold or run just under threshold for that 10k. And that's one such a hard session to fit in your week because it's fatiguing and it's really tough. So you can't do it too many times. You're going to get too tired. So two, it's hard to train for, but it's the most important to train for because you really need to get that specificity right. So it's a bit of a tough one there. And then one of our next most popular ones was the marathon. How to prepare for a marathon properly. So we've harped on this all year and I hope that the listener if you've been listening to episodes all year, you can guess what the tip is. But dad, I'll let you drum roll it out and let us know.

Well, of course execution is everything in the marathon. And look, it's everything in every sport, isn't it? Execution. So that's a pretty generous thing to say. But if you get the marathon wrong, oh, it's an uncomfortable last 12k, 8k, 5k, even 3k at the 3, 4 hour mark to actually have to run another 10 or 15 minutes more than you should because you got the execution wrong and didn't pay attention to our biggest tip, which is to try to even split or negative split if possible. And that is one of the biggest tips we give to marathon runners is just understand your ability and train and race to that rather than your ambition, which is 10 minutes faster than you're capable of.

We've spoken a little bit about some of our Internet wars we've had online. We put a lot of our content out there online and some videos really get some interesting and opinionated responses which we welcome. I personally welcome. I love these conversations. I love seeing what everyone else has to say. And one video just sparked some hilarious debate online where I spoke about the, the notion of how important negative splitting is, how much the common average runner or triathlete doesn't do it, how not even the pros do it properly. And it sparked huge debates. Some people were saying, everyone knows this, this is basic advice, like why are you saying this? Like everyone know, everyone does this. Which we just know is so absurd. But then we had people saying the other, the other way, saying, you're an idiot, that's not the best way to run. You know, it's not possible to do that in advance. You shouldn't aim for that. So within the comment section there were people arguing hardcore both ways, which I think is just very funny. But we'll die on this hill and it's, it's something that we will never, we'll never give up.

Yep. The only thing I can say is all the world records around the world are held by negative splits or, or even splitting. It's not a positive split.

Yeah, yeah. So last few here, one really cool interview we did was with marathon runner Sarah Klein. And if you don't know her story, she was incorrectly banned for four years, reduced to two. Not for a negative drug testing sample, but because there was a mix up in the actual testing protocol, which she thought, again, we won't go into it. We can listen to the interview. But she Thought she was fine to leave. They let her leave and they slapped her with a four year ban after saying you weren't supposed to leave the testing protocol. And that absolutely destroyed her. Her whole identity was running. She was preparing to make it to the Olympics and then her whole career was taken away from her. And that interview I just found incredible where she. Her identity was taken away from her and she had to find it elsewhere. And she went and taught overseas for a couple of years. She went completely away from running. And then because of that, she was able to come back and she was able to find enjoyment in her running again. And she made it back to the world chance, which is just such a peak comeback story to get back to that top level again. And I thought that was awesome. It was back to the Lockheed Morton principle almost where, you know, she, it was almost. She said it's a blessing in disguise that her identity was all running. And now it's, it's more liberating because it's not. She loves it so much. She does it because she loves it and it's not everything she needs to do.

I just thought it was one of the best stories I'd ever heard for resilience and not being bitter and twisted. And she just exudes that fact that she loves running first and foremost. And originally she was running for the wrong reasons and now she found her why, and she's just a better person because of it. And sometimes through adversity you get, you know, some positive outcomes. And this was a classic case of.

That last couple here. Stu McSane was another interview we loved. He's one of Australia's best and fastest middle distance runners right now. And he has had huge periods of form swings, which again, is just another great lesson for all age groups out there.

Yeah. And again, we talked about, you know, I talked about Pocket Char's example where, you know, you just don't always win races. And Stewie's been at the top of the tree. He's been, you know, rivaling Inger Britzen in races. And, you know, for variety of reasons, his form deteriorated so much so that he couldn't even get into some of the Diamond League races. He was actually the pacemaker for the race. And so understand that you won't be at your best all the time and you will have swings from being inform and being out of form and that, you know, the timing of that is what you want to get right, don't you? And, and so sometimes you, you know, Tricky Johnson's example, you know, getting it wrong at the right time at the wrong time. And you know, Stu is another example, you know, and I think that's it really important for the listener to understand that, you know, it is a hard thing to get right and, and you can make mistakes and as long as you learn from those for your next campaign then you've got some value out of it.

Understanding training zones is one of the last coaching lessons we wanted to talk about. We spoke about just before Sid and Salah saying don't over complicate it, just keep quite simple. But we also want to understand what you're trying to achieve in a session. And understanding what training zones mean and what you're aiming for per session is a really valuable thing you can do to get the most out of your training. Because one day's training zone targets at completely different to the next day and the goals for the session are really different. And once you start to understand that, you get way more value out of your week.

Yeah, just I had a great example on my own two days ago where, because I live in the hills and there is no flat road where I live and I intentionally moved here 35 years ago for that reason because I wanted to get stronger. And trying to do a zone 2 ride when you're on a 10% gradient, it's not easy but it takes a lot of patience and a lot of determination to stay in the right zone. And my heart rate was 135. That's the number I wasn't allowed to go over for that session for that two hour ride. And boy, some of the hills, I was just creeping up some of the hills so badly that you almost felt like you're going to stop at one stage. And people say well why, why do a zone two in that, in that particular course? And that's a really good question. The fact is time restraints prevented me from driving a half an hour away from the hills to go to a flat road and do the session there. I still actually wanted to get some strength benefit. And you can do that by having good gear ratios on your bike so that you can still spin and keep your heart rate below the threshold. And I avoid really really steep hills where my heart rate can't do anything but go above that 135 beats per minute. So I selected a course where I could actually nail the session. But looking at the course after I'd done the event really proved to me that you can ride any zone anywhere as long as you're willing to pay attention to the data.

On that Note, this is the last lesson we want to talk about and it's understanding what you're talking about. There is riding properly. And it's one of the biggest things we've seen in our athletes this year is the difference in execution, specifically on the bike. Riding the bike properly and riding our course properly and executing the course properly produces wildly different results for no difference in potentially fitness levels. So the basic principle is, can be summarized as this, if you learn how to ride better, you will go faster without needing to get any fitter. And, and that's just not true for anything else. It's just not true for swimming. Swimming is more technical based. And running, it's definitely fitness based as obviously there's strength in there, there's running efficiency, et cetera. But the bike, if you understand execution and course and how to ride a course, you will ride faster without needing to get fitter.

Yeah, we talk about a bike fit being free speed. Understanding how to ride courses, how to ride wind, how to ride hills is going to give you free speed. If you can learn those lessons in training and then implement it on race day, you will get a faster average speed for the same fitness level. We've said that many times, but people, I don't know whether they understand what we just said or they're refusing to believe that that's true. But we have proven it with so many examples of riders that we've taken from who they thought were okay at bike riding. But then when we taught them how to ride this particular style of riding, they are, you know, knocking 10, 15 minutes off a 90k time trial with similar fitness, but just riding the course differently.

That's it for this episode of lessons. We could keep going infinitely. Like we said, I feel like we might do this more regularly because we could easily just sit here and come up with another 50 lessons that are really super beneficial. And the best way is to keep listening to the episodes and if you want to get the best tips, then all these episodes are packed with them and you can go back and listen to any of the episodes we've mentioned. But I want to finish off with my one of my final lessons from the entire podcast and it ties in nicely with a theme we've spoken about since day one on the podcast. And Dad, I think it was pretty generous from you at the start of the episode to say that I do all the work behind the scenes and stuff. It's just not true. Yes, I prepare the questions for you, but we both do a lot of work in preparing what we're going to say and the topics. And it does take some preparation, so it's not all on me. And I think a big lesson I've learned from you is consistency. And it's taken more than 200 episodes for it to be as drummed into me as it is now. So I can only imagine for the listener what it's like. But it's hard to do the podcast each week. It's a lot of effort. It's a lot of time. The entire process, from thought of the actual episode to production to editing to posting, takes a lot. And there's some weeks where we are really stretched for time. And it's hard to fit this, this block in around all coaching that we want to do and everything involved in the actual business. And it's been really beneficial to have someone there who preaches consistency. For us to go, no, we've made the rule, you know, we've got to do it every single week, no matter how busy we're getting. You know, it's just got to be a priority. And that's just hold us in really good stead. And it's. It's crazy how that theme applies just everywhere in the world, and that includes training. So I just wanted to finish on that consistency note and go, yep, that's just a reminder of. Out of all the principles, that's just the number one thing.

Yep. I couldn't have said it any better. And, you know, we've said so much about training, consistency, but, you know, even, even in our podcasting, consistency, viewer audience has grown from, you know, 40, 400, 4,000 to now 30,000. And, you know, that's good content, that's good information, but most importantly, it's turning up each week. And that's what consistency is about. We're there reliably every week for our listeners who've been on board with us for the last however many years. This has been three years. They are looking forward to some more information. And that's the. That's kind of an example of how valuable consistency can be in just podcasting. So you implement that into any other aspect of your life, and you will start to reap benefits just by being consistent. And that means turning up each day.

That's a good way to finish. Thank you. As always, being a listener, especially a thank you for your help in the 200 episodes. We've celebrated it today, and we'll be back with our normal posting schedule, especially with the case studies from 2024 onwards. And like we said, we're. We can't wait to keep bringing you more episodes of quality interviews and guests of Quality to help you train smarter and race faster. So thanks again. We'll see you in the next episode.