2022 Review: Performances and Lessons of the Year

So my rule is, before you move on, get perspective, then move on. So what does that mean? Move on means what's the next race? Perspective means where did I come from? To where I am today. And enjoy that smell the roses, be happy, and then aim for your next race.

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 Trivelo coaching, Jared Donnelly. Well, here we are. It is the final podcast of the year. We're really excited to bring you the final episode. I love this episode. It's one of my favorite ones to do each year. We've done it a few years in a row now where it's the year in review and you get to reflect on the year that was. You think about everything that happened. And when you really do think back over the last 12 months, so much does happen. And so it's really exciting to think about things that worked, things that you've changed in training, things that we've tried, things that we've learned, and some of the really cool moments that have happened in sports. So really excited for that, dad. We'll get straight into it, and we're going to start off with a bang. On every episode, we do our Gratitudes of the Week. Now we're going to do what are you grateful for this year?

There's so many options here, which I'm hesitating on because I really had to think deeply about what is the most grateful thing I'm here to say, and I suppose the fact that we can have the opportunity to run this podcast and we can reach so many people and the emails and texts we get to say how grateful they are that we're giving out information that's helping them on their journey. And so I think the reason why we started podcasting was to get as many expert guests and to give as much information from not only ourselves, but from other experts in their fields out to the masses so that they can actually get something and some value from this. And with all the amount of replies we get of gratitude, I am grateful for the fact that we can actually get this out and help people on their journey, because that is actually the goal of what trivalent coaching stands for, which is to really help people on their journey. And whether they are part of our program or whether they are just listening to it on a podcast, that doesn't matter to us. We just want to make sure people are learning and improving and being a better version of themselves. And if this platform can do that, then I'm extremely grateful that we have the opportunity.

That's a great one. You always do put a lot of pressure on the gratitudes and you tend to deliver.

Sorry about that.

And yeah, I totally agree. It's everything we hoped it would be. It's been great to month on month break our own records for the amount of listeners we're getting, the amount of messages we get. It's just awesome. And it makes the podcast really worth it. And we always say we just get to talk about the things we're talking about anyways. We just, we're reviewing races, reviewing athlete programs, we're talking about training programs, and we do that anyway all week. It's just good to sit down on a formal podcast and record it and talk about the best stuff of the week. So I share that gratitude. My gratitude is I'm gonna open up a little bit here and talk about my year, which I haven't done. We don't do heaps on this podcast. We tend to not make it as much about us when there's something notable, we might say it. And I spent half the year in the form of my life and half a year miserable and sick and not training, which is just two very contrasting things to have throughout the year. And I kind of wanted to touch on that experience. And it's a bit of vulnerability on this podcast. But mid year I trained really hard for some key races and I was running and riding the best I ever have, best numbers, best speed, best times in time, trialling and running. And I was at peak fitness level. And I decided to go and spend some time traveling at that point, knowing that it would cost a bit of sacrifice when you're traveling, you don't have a bike. And really enjoyed some time traveling knowing that it willingly put me backwards. But then that combined with this year getting. I got sick so many times this year that I started to lose count. And for someone that never gets sick, just luckily my whole adult life I just haven't gotten sick. And that's kind of the case for a lot of people, I think, just catching roundabouts. The flu, it was Covid a couple of times, but the other times it was just flu, just run down. Super frustrating. But it really made me reflect on the message that we had talked about so many times this year. And for me, towards the back end of this year just hit home so much about why we're doing this. And as Much as I love aiming for a goal and aiming for a race, I really realized this year that I find so much more fulfillment and enjoyment when I focus on the day to day and I focus on the process and enjoying what the days and weeks actually look like because of where that's taken away a little bit. And you keep relying on goals and events and races to work for, work towards. You just end up really in a poor mental place because those goals and races are taken away from you because you're sick or injured or something. And so I had to find a lot more enjoyment in just getting back to training again and building it and working towards that. And so that message, as simple as it is and as cliche as it is, and as many times we've said it this year, just being grateful for what we get to do each day and waking up and getting to train and sticking to a training program has given me so much mental strength and enjoyment. I still want to aim for races and those kind of things. And it's awesome when you go to a race and you achieve the goal you set, and that was one of my peak moments of this year, is having my best races. But you've got to be careful because when that goal is taken away from you and you've relied everything on that, I find that that's not a good place to be. Whereas if you can do that at the same time as enjoying what you're doing day to day, I find that's a much better place to be. So, yeah, that's a good insight.

Well, I think it's a really good one. And funnily enough, today we're actually, we're not combining our notes. We've made some topics where I don't know what you're going to say and you don't know what I'm going to say, but you've already touched on one of the things that I'm going to say and, and we'll get to that in the next part of it. But it's a really well said. You just don't know what's going to happen next. And if you're defining yourself by a final outcome, then if you don't achieve that outcome, what's it been for? It could be then you're depressed and miserable because you didn't achieve that outcome, because you're defining yourself by that. Whereas what you're saying is the journey is important and each day and thinking about what you want to achieve each day is actually more important than the final destination. We have Said that a lot, but that is really well said. You can't be. You need goals. Everybody needs to have something to reach towards and work towards, and they're good things. But at the end of the day, you really must focus on the day to day to get to that part. And the fun part is what's going to happen today. And because you could wake up tomorrow and you've, you know, dare I say it, two athletes we coach are in hospital right now from being hit by a car, and one's going to be possibly six months before he rides again and. Or rides to the same level. And that's a journey that we don't want to be on. So. So be grateful for. For your health and for everything that's. That you. You're able to do each day because you just don't know what's going to happen next.

And.

And that's a really sobering thought. We are a very vulnerable species because we've got so many things that could happen to us with the technology we have. And so it's really good that we do the gratitude. And I really love this part of our podcast, and I don't want to spend too much more time on it because we've got to get a lot through things that we're going to talk about. But the gratitude, if more people thought about what they're doing, they're happy about each day. And because we do this, it makes me think about, what am I grateful for? And it makes me a better person because I have to think about. And, you know, you've been doing this for a long time yourself. When you did it with Jordi Moncrief, every morning at boot camp, you would ask the group, what are they grateful for? And everybody had to think and set their day up. You know, five days a week, you were meeting these people, and they were very simple gratitudes, but it made people think differently about their day. And I think if we all started to do that a bit more in our lives, we would have more meaning in each day, and I think that's a really good thing. Totally agree.

Absolutely agree. So for the rest of the episode, we're going to go through our performances of the year, our favorite performances from pro races around the world. We're going to go through our biggest lessons and our biggest challenges as well that we want to pass on. And, yeah, I'm really excited as well, because we haven't compared notes, so I'll be interested to see what we've done. Yeah, exactly. Which I imagine will Be the case. Performances. Performance of the year. Hold off on your number one. And I just want to go through a couple of notable mentions because we said we've got a lot to get from this podcast. We don't want to go over time. But we just both couldn't help ourselves. I know we've probably got more than a couple.

Yeah, well, okay, I've got three, but I'll. I'll give them in three, two, one.

Okay.

But I'll hold off on the one.

Yeah.

So three years. Jonas Vinagard winning the Tour de France and beating Pagaccia, which was. That was just pretty impressive.

Yeah.

And Picachu was odds on to win easily.

That was a notable for me. It was the greatest Tour de France I've ever seen combined with the first women's Tour de France. I think that whole spectacle was incredible.

It was fantastic. Second was Jake Whiteman beating Jakob Ingridson in the world 1500 meter title and a time of 3. Stunning time of 3. 29. And Ingrid Bitson was unbeatable. And Jake Whiteman threw down the gauntlet, risked everything. And it was pretty impressive.

It was unbelievable. It was one of the races of the year, to be honest. And you could say that the domination of Jakob this year was up there with. He was one of the athletes of the year.

He absolutely was.

Yeah. And he won his first world championship title in the 5000 meters, but he didn't do the double in the 1500 because of Jake Lightman. All right, we'll hold off there. And I just thought I'd touch on a few that we just couldn't go without mentioning. You know, I don't even know what your number one is, so I won't do the normal mentions until after. I couldn't split these two for me. So I've got two number ones. I just couldn't help it. The first is Sydney McLachlan, 400 meter hurdler in the athletics. If you didn't know her story this year, what she did was just unbelievably remarkable. I still can't grasp how dominant she was. She's now running 400 meter hurdle times that are faster than the top eight women in the world running 400 meters. I equate what she's doing to the level of what Usain Bolt has done in his career and he's arguably one of the greatest athletes of all time. I think she has already established herself as that. It was spine tingling watching her turning up to races this year and just dominate the way she has And I hope she turns to 400 meters because. And we see her dominate that sport like no one has before. Just. Yeah. Her races this year, breaking her own world record multiple times. She kept breaking the 53 second barrier. The 52 second barrier is just absolutely incredible. So I just have to say her in athletics, my. My athlete of the year. And I'll let you go number one. And I'll say my number one. We might have the same one.

All right, so I'm very biased on this. A is Belgium and it's Remco Evan Nepal. And the reason is because he had the most horrific crash and. And he was more than likely never going to ride a bike again.

Yeah.

And yet I think it's 18 months since his crash.

If you've seen the footage of him not being able to walk. Yeah, it's incredible. He's literally in hospital bed and then he's learning how to walk again with full assistance. And then there's footage of him learning how to single leg or double leg hop first. Single leg hop.

It's just amazing where he's come from. And then what happened? He started racing and started really putting himself out there in races and going into brakes and almost with no care. It was almost like he had nothing to lose and testing himself. He comes out and wins the welter and then he comes out to Australia and wins the world title and rode away from the field. I just think that is the most outstanding thing. The comeback is pretty impressive. But to be world champion after that, wow.

It was, yeah. Truly incredible. And the best part about the story is that he was touted as a 17, 18, 19 year old to be the next world champion. And then the crash happened and everyone thought, is that it? Is that his career done? Like, was he. Will he ever come back? And for him to do that and become world champ, win the Volta, just unbelievable. I totally agree with that. I couldn't go past Australian. First Australian ever to win Giro d', Italia, one of the three big grand tours. Jai Hindley. That was as remarkable as a, as a race and performance you can get from an Aussie. And just so proud to watch that and still can't really believe it happened. It was just unbelievable the way it unfolded.

So that's a really good. That's a really good selection. And you know, being in Australian podcasting, you know, people quickly forget. Races come and go, but that was an outstanding achievement. You know, he had. He had to throw the gauntlet down and he was. Everybody was attacking him and that was pretty impressive.

Yeah. I just want to throw out some other notable ones because we have to talk about them. Ollie Hoare winning gold medal, 1500 metre Commonwealth Games. Freaking phenomenal. First time it's happened for Australia in 50 years. As well as Jess Stanson winning the marathon. I thought the Kona performances, the underdog who was not expected to win, Chelsea Starr, her Kona win was remarkable. Two Aussies winning stages in the Tour de France. So Michael Matthews, his epic stage win, just so memorable. As well as Simon Clark's return, his stage win, just freaking ridiculous. And we put a video of that on our Instagram, if you want to go look at it because it was just so awesome. And Ash. Gentle.

Took the words out of my mouth.

Yeah.

I was about to say don't forget as gentle if you had finished there. That was what I was about to say.

Yeah.

When the Canadian Open. The US Open.

If it was. It was Dallas or it was three PTO events.

Yeah, Three PTO events, plus the Collins Cup.

Yeah.

Team.

Yeah.

And she.

Plus her ninth Noosa in a row.

That was. I forgot about that. But. But the thing was the last. The US Open pto, she was nine minutes behind at the end of the bike for an 18k run and she won by a minute. Something that is impressive. That. That's she has some future.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Cannot wait to see how she goes because she's in flying form. She actually just put an Instagram post up yesterday of how she. After Noosa, she went and got married, went on their honeymoon and she's come back and she posted first day back in training.

Going to be.

Going to be a long journey back to fitness. And I thought that's such a funny comment because only four weeks ago she's. She's one of the best athletes in the world. Yeah. I'm sure it's not gonna be that long for her, but I guess to a pro athlete, when you have a weeks off, it feels like forever could.

Be the best thing for it.

Yeah, exactly. Quick side note, a friend of mine recently was just feeling so burnt out and they took two weeks off training, just needed the rest, needed the break and they've come back and hit PBS and everything. After two weeks off, after a year of pretty stagnant results. I thought that was again, just anecdotal story, but I thought that's a very interesting thing to happen. Mentally, they were just burnt out and they just said stuff that. I'm not training for anything specific. I'm just going to take two weeks off and they could not believe that they hit two PBS in one week. They like, I just feel so fresh and amazing.

That should be their next taper.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. A full two weeks and we didn't touch on the Norwegian boys, but Christian and Gustav, their performances. Christian, you said to me the other day, when you really think about it, since the Olympics, he won the Olympic Games World Champion itu. He did win the Ironman World Championship, even though it was in St. George and he won 70.3 world championship in St. George. So he has tipped off all four in a calendar year. Incredible. Didn't win Kona, but still he won the World champ that was available to him.

So yeah, you can't go past that. Yeah, there's pretty outstanding results there. So well done.

A great year in sport. We couldn't not go through it. But let's go into our lessons of the year now. What we're going to do here is there's six. We've chosen six biggest lessons each. We're going to go one by one and a wonderful double up. And again we're going to try and get through these pretty quickly. I feel like the biggest liar in the world every time I say that because we ended up just end up overdoing it every time. But lesson number one, go for it.

Okay, I'm gonna go with this one because I'm just switching my order around, get the balance right. That would be one of the things that you would actually agree with the balance is I want to do all these things, but I still want to enjoy my, my athletics, my sport. But I want to have a social life. I want to have a life outside of training. I wanted to be good at my job, I want to be good with my family.

Just.

I want to eat well. There's so many things I'm saying here that all go back to balance. Just getting the balance of your life in order and just watch things go better. That's, you know, you only have to tweak things a little bit. Should I do that? And how the consequence word consequences are going to happen for every decision you make. So keep your mindset on. Is this helping my balance? Because if it's not, the consequences could be quite detrimental and you could get injured or sick or even worse if you're quite depressed about things because things aren't going well. So your aim every day should be to get a really good balance of everything. And that's probably one of my number one things.

It was a funny experience for us this year because you, you really are My coach and I was the worst type of athlete that we talked about on the podcast because I just wanted to do too many things at once, too many varied things, too many contrasting goals and it ended up in the results that it did. And yeah, it's a good learning experience because that it still happens in it. And a lot of people have that. You know, some people are very single mindedly focused on something.

There's nothing wrong with that either, but, but anything that's extreme is going to be unsustainable in my opinion. And I've done that. I've been extreme and you can't keep doing it. Something has to go, something has to give. So just try and be more balanced.

My first lesson is of a similar note, but it's the getting the nuances right between the frequency, volume and intensity. And that was just so apparent to me this year in so many different contexts, but too quickly. People aim for getting the intensity right before they get the consistency of training right and getting their volume up. And that doesn't mean that you can only do one at a time. You always, at the start of your program, you still have intensity, but you just can't handle that much early. And I've just watched myself and so many other people just try and go too hard too early because maybe we've been able to do that before or we're just excited about getting those other two right first and getting that, that, that balance right and really taking care of that part of your programming. So how frequently are you training? How much volume are you introducing? How much intensity are you introducing? Is a really important point.

Presuming the intensity too hard and resuming at a number that you could do previously after an injury or illness is a huge mistake that people continue to make.

Lesson number two.

So one of the best lessons I've kind of learned was, which is what you talked about in your gratitude, which was in enjoy the journey as much as you enjoy the destination. So I kind of touched on it already. So for me, yeah, there's lots of things happened this year for me as well with some injury issues and I've had goals that have just come and gone and I haven't even. Unlike you, you've reached some goals which has given you such good feedback or, or release of dopamine. Satisfaction, satisfaction. So when you talk about setting goals, if your whole year is based on the outcome of that one goal and you don't actually get to compete in those events or don't achieve the goal that you're aiming for, you're going to be quite a miserable human being. So the lesson I've learned is, is really enjoying the journey and the training and the finding out how well I'm going each day and loving the fact that I am improving along that period of whether it's a 20 week program or 30 weeks where I'm aiming towards this one goal. So when I get to the day, I've already had 95% of my experience. The actual race day is 5%. Fantastic day. But it's only making up 5% of, of my fun, my fun factor. And I think that's a really good lesson that I've learned this year, is that the races I've missed, I've gone, oh, it doesn't matter, there'll always be another goal. Because I've had a great experience along the way. I'm really happy with the way I've trained. My form's good. Unfortunately I got Covid, so, so I couldn't, I couldn't do anything about it. But, but if I, if I thought the other way, this is the one thing I'm aiming for for this year. Oh my God, I can't do that race. What was the point of the year? Well, I'm not thinking like that at all. I'm thinking I had a really good year. My fitness is still good. I'm happy with the form. I could always be better. But, but there's a different way of thinking about things, I think. And that's, that's one of the things I've definitely learned.

I think the thought that comes to mind is the mistake mindset of I will be happy when I achieve X. You know, I, I will be happy when I do X rays in this time or, and you will be, don't.

Forget, you will be happy.

Yeah, but it's. If your happiness is dependent on that, then that's the problem. Yeah. Because if that's taken away, well then you're in trouble. And I was listening to this psychologist speak about this and he said that if that's the way you're going to live life, then you're in trouble. Because that satisfied feeling will last all of 1, 2, 3, maybe five days after, after the event happens, you know, and it happens in any context of life. I'll be happy when I get X job or I'll happy when I, when I do this thing. Um, and a race is a little bit different cause you can always reflect on good races you had and you'll always have that satisfaction. But, but the strong feeling of Happiness that you're looking for won't be there the week after. You'll be left feeling a little bit empty because it's like, what's next? And if you've got a routine that you enjoy and you've set training up so that you enjoy it, then that you can keep doing that regardless of the race. So, yeah, I really love that point. Um, my second point is a point from Professor Louise Burke, who came on the podcast, and it's just really stuck with me. Uh, and she was super conscious having really balanced food throughout the day for energy levels. Are you laughing?

Because you said in another context.

Yeah, yeah, she just spoke about. You know, we just. We get into traps of eating one massive meal here or one massive, massive amount of meat for dinner. Um, and since you told me that, I've noticed a. A major difference in my own energy levels. I've just been conscious of even meals throughout the day, even protein intake and levels throughout the day, and I've really enjoyed that. So that's really stuck with me. And I think that's a really valuable nutrition lesson.

Your number three, surround yourself with people who are going to challenge you and help you. So there's a little bit about the big fish in the little pond sort of thing. I want to make sure that I'm being challenged in the way I'm thinking, in the way I'm behaving, in the way I'm training, in the way I'm living. And I want to surround myself with people who I like and I get on with, but are also challenging me. And I don't mean in a physical way. I just mean challenging me to be a better person. And I think that's one of the things I've learned from so many people that we've interviewed on the podcast and so many athletes that I've coached. I'm learning so much from them. And when I have to justify the reasons why they're doing a certain thing, that's a challenge to me, because if I don't explain it very well, they're not gonna be happy with that. And they won't train as well because they're not. They're not trusting that what I'm saying is making much sense. So. So I have to be really. I like being challenged. Whether it's through that or challenged in a race situation, doing something that that's going to really put me to my limit. I. I quite enjoy that. And it might be a masochist way of living, but. But I don't want to be on easy street. I want to each, I think I will be, I'll be able to live longer and be a better human if I'm challenging myself along, along the journey rather than getting to 65 which I'm almost there and saying, oh, I've done okay, let's just rest on that. I want to be really pushing myself at 85 and, and you know, that sounds ridiculous to some people but, but that's my challenge is how, how long can I keep my, my enthusiasm, my motivation and helping other people? So, so yeah, I want to be surrounding myself with people who are going to keep me interested in life and challenge me. Perfect.

My number three is making sure that you're getting an objective view on your performance and whether that's from a coach, which is probably the most applicable and, and appropriate because they should know how to analyze your race and your data. But even if it's from a friend or family who knows you as well, for the purpose of making sure that you're appreciating your performances and your wins. And we've spoken about this a lot this year, but as athletes we have really lofty goals and we really, we always want to get better. And we have a principle at Trivelo that you must appreciate your wins. Because when you get a 55 watt FTP improvement or you get a 50 watt or you get a small PB in, in your time running time trial or your race, you've done the best place you've ever gotten or the best time you've ever done, you've got to stop and appreciate that. And because athletes are so competitive, we just notice this pattern of so many athletes not doing it and you're constantly grabbing athletes and saying stop for a second, like look what you just did, you know. And you have to think about the fact that when you finally do 4 hours 29 for the 70.3 because that's been your goal for a while, suddenly you're in that category and you think well if 429 is possible, 420 is possible. And so I want to get there. And so suddenly 429 doesn't seem good enough. Cause you're already thinking about the next thing, which is, which is good. But the flip side of that coin is you were a 450 athlete or you were a five hour athlete and that athlete at the time, you have to think about that person. They would have if you told them that in 12 months you're going to do a 4 hour 29 70.3, they would have been jumping through the moon, but because their perspective and their standards have changed, 429 suddenly doesn't seem so good because they know they could probably do a little bit better. So it's just a really key point, I think.

Spot on. I could not agree more. And the key things that I've implemented is because I'm having this conversation a lot with people just completed their a race and they have done incredibly well. And I'm actually feeling like I'm talking them into being happy because we've motivated them so well that they're straight away thinking, I can do better.

Exactly.

And that's the conversation I'm having. I could have done this, I could have done that. And they're taking a post race analysis too far too quickly. So my rule is before you move on, get perspective, then move on. So what does that mean? Move on means what's the next race? Perspective means where did I come from? To where I am today? And enjoy that. Smell the roses, be happy and then aim for your next race.

Perfect point number four.

This is a bit humbling. I want to learn more through listening more. So I've got a lot of ideas in my head, but I think that there's a lot more I could learn if I was more of a listener. So listen more. That's one of the things I think I've learned this year is the more I listen, the more my brain is scrambling with more ideas. And I think that makes for a better coach. So I can't wait to go for walks and just tune into certain people that I really rate and I want to hear what their perspective is and then I'm forming opinions about what they're saying. So it is hard when your mind's so busy trying to help people that you could be stopping the learning process. And so I want to continue to learn more. And the only way you can do that is by listening to people who have more information than you have.

So, yeah, spot on. My number four was the value of training outside of the main sports of your discipline. And that big one there is strength and conditioning. I've gone through a big. I started from a strength and conditioning background, but I've gone through a big phase of. Of not varying that as much. Then this year that's really come back. Just a lot of people have just continued to reiterate that and so much so that I just think, yeah, it really has to become a part of most endurance athletes programs is the strength and conditioning. But not just that having a variety in your Training. Because what I personally realized is since stopping playing a lot of other sports and really focusing on, on specific sports. Specific sports, yeah, you. They're very, very one dimensional. Cycling and running is just full front and back, you know, not even back, it's a pull up in the park, but it's just full frontal plane. So I found, I was just, I lost so much ability through all my lateral movement and functionality. Yeah, functionality. And that's really important to me still, as much as you love the other sports and training and so adding a variety in and getting to the gym and doing, you know, power stuff and bounding stuff and sideways movement and lateral jumps and even in my drills before a running warm up, even though I don't need to do side to side stuff, including that in and making that integral part because, um, again, it's not necessary for the session, but it's just good for functionality. So that's been a really big lesson for me this year and something I really want to keep promoting and doing myself.

It's funny, I've got a little story of back in the 60s, 50s, 40s, calisthenics was huge. It's like the aerobics or pilates of the 2000s. And, and I've got all these images of, you know, 40 kids in a classroom all dressed in the same uniform, all white top, white pants, white socks, white shoes, all doing in time, calisthenics, left movement, right movement. And I'm as a modern person, I'm looking back and saying, how crazy is that? But they were doing sideways movements, they were doing jumps and backwards and forwards. It was actually good for them and that was giving them a whole rounded physical experience each day. And that's what some. That was the PE class of those era. So it's a really good point.

Yeah, that's number five.

Be prepared to adapt and accept change is for improvement. And as humans, we're not really keen on changing things. We like routine and we like things to be running smoothly. And what do I mean by be prepared to change? If things aren't going the way you want them, stop doing the same things. And that's the biggest lesson I think, is being open to accept that change will be better for you. And that takes a lot as a human because we just don't like that. We like to be routine. I've never done it that way before. Why am I going to do that? No, I want you to do this, Jordan. Don't do those same reps you've done before. Try this and see what outcome we have there, I think you might improve from that. No, no, no, Dad, I don't want to do that. I want to stay with what I'm used to, because I know that works. Well, it might work, but at the moment, you're not improving. It might keep you at a certain level, but we're always striving to improve. So let's just try this. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons is, you know, Mona Getty's done the same sessions for 30 years, and he does a variety of them, though people think it's just the same sessions, but each week he's tweaking it somehow a little bit faster, a little bit slower, next week a little bit more intensity. But being willing to change and not just be the same person week in, week out, because you will be the same person week in, week out. You know, the analogy we use is you. You race, how you train. Well, that's the same thing in life. If you just do the same stuff all the time, you will be the same person. And that's not what I'm achieving, aspiring to achieve.

That's a really good point. And that actually kind of leads into my point from a different kind of perspective. But understanding that training and sports science is still so young, and we get to speak to a lot of experts, we get to speak to a lot of coaches, experts in the field, both on the podcast, but also in private, which is awesome. We get a lot of valuable information and we're still learning so many things. And a lot of the main principles still apply. But so often, month on month now, new things are coming out about what people are doing and trialing, and that's keyword is trialing and learning that the top pro athletes are willing to be. So experimentational has been really big lesson for me, especially the athletes we've gotten to interview. And then a lot of athletes are just sharing their journey online now. And you're really seeing, you know, these are the top athletes in the world, and a lot of the time they're just guessing, like, let's try this for this block, you know, which you'd think you're a pro athlete, you don't have time to guess about things, but they're willing to. And their coaching team and their staff are willing to. And the Norwegians are doing it from a very scientific point of view. But a lot of other coaches, where we really understand that coaching and training is an art form because you're just trying it based on the person's responses and Seeing what works. I think that's a really important point to remember, because as amateur athletes, we want the perfect program. We want the perfect thing given to us that's going to be the most effective. And we have really good answers for that. But also understand that if the pros aren't even doing that, then we can be a little bit nicer to ourselves and say that our program might not be perfect. And that's okay. We can still get really good results from what we know.

That's interesting because you said we don't have time for that. And really, that's kind of. If you're going to just do something for four years straight, that's actually wasting time. So why wouldn't you? Well, I've done it this way for six weeks, and this is the outcome I got what's going to happen if I do it slightly different. And that's kind of what I'm doing to myself a lot. I've done that for 30 years in my athletic career. And, you know, I'm always saying to you, you know, this is a session we're meant to do, but just tinker a bit here and try something different. Then straight away we get a little bit of an improvement. And that's how we learn, is by not just doing the same stuff every day and expecting a different result, because it's not going to really happen. If you just keep doing the same stuff, you will be the same athlete.

Last point each. I left my best point to last.

I wonder if yours is going to be the same as mine. Trust the process.

Mine's a little bit more training specific, but that's a good one.

So I've just said be willing to be flexible, and now I'm saying trust the process. They seem to be in conflict with each other, but they're not really. Trust the process means that there is a certain way to do things, but there's also a certain way to make it better. And you've got to be all in with that. And what you've said before about the experts in their field, the expert physiologists. Physiologists who are in charge of the. For example, the Norwegians. And Ingebritzen's in charge. You know, the family does. Does his program for. And they've been incredibly successful. But the common theme is that all the athletes are trusting in the coach. And the coach might change things from one week to another. And the athletes, they should be asking why? And that's a good thing. But they should also trust that this guy is doing a lot of effort in understanding this is going to be the best thing for you. And once she's explained that to you and the reasons, then you need to be all in. You need to be 100% in, not 90, not 30. You need to be all in. And otherwise you're not going to know whether it's worked. If you half do it, then you're not going to know whether it worked or not because you didn't do it properly. If you do it properly and you don't get a good outcome, then you know that that didn't work. So trusting the process is really difficult as humans, because we've always got a better way to do things. In hindsight, it's always easier as well. Why didn't he do that? He should have done training like this. Or she should have. She shouldn't have done that race before, that race. So, you know, not everybody's going to get it right. It's almost what you said before. But you still have to have some trust in the plan you've got. You know, it might not be the best plan, but it is a plan that's going to have some positive and some negative. So. But trusting the process and then understanding that, you know, that didn't work and making it adaptations or adaptations afterwards is kind of what I'm saying.

There's a bit of irony here in that it's harder for the beginner athlete to trust the process when, in our example, whenever a new athlete comes on, that's when we are most confident because we know that we can really help any athlete that comes to us really get big improvements fast. And it's funny that the athletes that have been with us the longest trust the most, even when you're experimenting more, and they're the athletes that you're experimenting more with, and they should be least trusting because they're getting the newest thing, you know, and you're saying to them, I want to try this with you, this block, and here's why. And they're so trusting because of everything that's happened before. So the irony is that people at the start should find it easy to trust the process because it's so proven, you know, and the people who have been here for ages should be more skeptical. But it just happens the other way around, which we get. You know, when people come in, it's a new thing that they're trying. So they have to learn to trust that.

I think that's the important point is the ones who have been on the Journey for a long time, have experienced the success in improvement. I don't mean success in winning, think I. I mean success in them being a better version of athlete. The people are new. They haven't experienced that yet. So anything we say to them, they're going to question. But they've already reached out because they're not happy with the way they're traveling anyway. So they should be trusting more. Because I've tried it my way. It sucks. Anything is better than my way. So let's trust the process. And I have that conversation a lot with the people who join us is, you know, I'm only going to coach you if you actually trust what I'm going to give you 100%, not do a version of it. I normally do it this way. Jared on Tuesday. Well, I'm saying, well, forget that. Do it this way from now on. And then if it doesn't work, then we can have a discussion. But let's just try the process and trust it first.

Yeah, absolutely. Spot on.

Yeah.

My last point was a little bit more training specific, but I just found this probably one of the most valuable points of the year, and that is the value of pushing yourself within. And the key word here is within your zone two training. So we know the value of zone two training, but I think this year we really stepped that up to another level and we went, okay, what is the top amount of zone two that we can aim for? And I think previously we were. We were more conservative on that. And I definitely, I definitely, you know, people always say, do your easy sessions. Easy and hard sessions hard. I think that's something that we're really good at. And I was probably too good at that. I was probably doing the easy sessions a little bit too easy. Because with a lot of training experience and with a good fitness level under your belt, you. You can afford to push that zone two right to the top limit without affecting the rest of your week. And when I started doing that, I really noticed a big change because I'd spent so many years doing a lot of lower end zone two top of zone one, which is basically recovery sessions. Cause I was too afraid of pushing that too hard. I wanted to make sure my easy sessions were easy. And so this doesn't apply as much to beginner athletes. You should be at the low end of zone two when you have a zone two specific training slash. Maybe just getting your frequency up. So just doing recovery sessions. Um, but for those athletes with a bit more experience under your belt. Yeah, really pushing to that top of Zone two. And sometimes I accidentally, you know, we're doing up to Wears on Zwift, where it's supposed to be a zone two ride and you get competitive because you want to do a PB at the end and you, you might sprint the last K and it's definitely above zone two. Um, but I still found that I could handle that when, when things were going well. And you couldn't do that every week because you would eventually burn out. Um, but I just found that, yeah, doing that combined with everything we know about hard training made a massive difference this year.

Yeah, that's a really good point to finish on and, and look, there is no denying that our body can absorb more load the longer we train. So if you've been training for five minutes and comparing yourself to someone who's been training for 10 years, you can't handle the same load. And there are consequences for you trying to ride with someone who's been riding for 10 years and you're just new to it, that the outcome from that Zone 2 session will be catastrophic for one and a piece of cake for the other. If you try and ride like the experienced person, they have no consequences from that. They can line up the next day, their bodies absorb the load, they line up for their high intensity session the next day and cope, no problem. The new person, the load is way too high, they can't recover from it and they're barely able to ride the next day, nevermind do the session. So it's a great point you make. And I think that is one of the things that we've learned really big time this year is what your aerobic fitness bank is made up of. Is it made up of five minutes, five months, five years or 10 years? And that bank fitness, as we use that analogy, you can't take money out of the bank unless you rob it or unless you go and make a transaction. Otherwise it stays there forever. And your fitness is the same. You can't take your fitness away unless you're injured or sick. So it will be like a withdrawal, it'll slowly go down. But generally 10 years of training is a long base of fitness. So it takes a long time. But if you've been doing it for five weeks, you have no money in that bank, you have no fitness in that bank. So the minute you take a week off after five weeks, that's a fifth of your bank. Compared to one week after 10 years, it's like 0.0001 of your bank.

An example is in our triathlon programs. The runs off the bike for a long time. For a lot of athletes that start, and I'm talking six months plus sometimes 12 months plus sometimes two years, the runs off the bike are not in a specific training zone. You know, it's just getting used to running off the bike, which might seem counterproductive, but a lot of people just can't handle that. And then it moves into a zone to run off the bike, and then it moves into sometimes doing a 5k time trial off the bike after a big endurance ride, something like that. But again, athletes can't handle that straight away. So.

Yeah, well done. That's. I think they're really great lessons we've learned from this year. And I couldn't have summed it up any better. Well done.

Finish off. I did have Dan talking about our biggest challenge of the year. I've kind of touched on mine variously, so I don't have to say mine. But did you have anything extra?

Yeah, no, I'm happy with that.

Well, the last thing we wanted to talk about was our favorite podcast guest of the year and why. And that was just. We've done a lot of good episodes and if you hadn't heard these and go back and listen to them, if you had heard them, go back and listen again because we found these the most valuable. So I'll let you go first. What did you choose?

Look, I had two, and I'm gonna quickly skim on the first one, but the second one's, the one I want to make is my favorite. So Dr. Louise Burke was up there with my favorite because she made nutrition real. If you get a chance, go back and listen to that. And she had that balance, right? And she is such an expert in her field in the world, yet she made it simple and tried not to complicate nutrition. And I think nutrition should be simple and not complicated. So that was really a favorite. It's probably one you've picked. And look, Sarah Klein. Her story to me was quite incredible. Her resilience, her getting knocked down and then coming back and then getting to the world titles representing Australia after she'd been wrongly accused of being a drug cheat. And that was an eight year journey. And I found that story just up there with, you know, if I feel there's something bad happened in my life that is, you know, that could be the most disastrous thing. You know, your whole world is revolving around being an athlete and that's taken away from you unfairly. And yet to be not bitter and twisted and to get back up and. And get back to the top again and go to the world titles and do a pb. After all that. That happened to you, it's not about winning. It's about. It's about what you do when you get knocked down and what a. What a human being. Yeah, it was a. It was a really, really good story.

Yeah, that was up there. Couldn't agree more. And yeah, my answer was Louise Burke as well. Yeah, that was my favorite episode of the year.

Same thing.

I just found her advice so comforting and just so simple and achievable. And little bits of advice can make such a difference. We definitely try and complicate nutrition, and it's just so key for endurance athletes, and there's just not that much good, applicable advice. And she just broke it down to, here's some things to focus on. Here's some simple steps I did. A lot of them made a massive difference. So, yeah, I'd say go back and listen to that. That is it for the year. What a year it's been. We really enjoyed this. We really enjoyed bringing these podcast episodes to you, and we're always hoping to evolve and grow the episodes. We've got some big plans for next year about some directional things you want to do, but as always, we'd love to hear from you what you thought of the year, what things you enjoyed, what lessons you learned from the podcast, send us an email, reply to our emails, send us a message on Instagram or any of the social media platforms and tell us what was your favorite episode or what did you learn from the year? Or take away that if we haven't mentioned it today, because we're always interested to know. And the purpose of this podcast is to bring you valuable information so the more we can learn about what you're finding valuable or what you enjoy. It definitely helps us with. We know the direction we want to go. We've got ideas of the types of guests we want to get on for next year, which we're really excited about. But, yeah, that was pretty good year, dad. And yeah, I think the podcast has been a lot of fun and we're getting a lot out of it.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Jordan. Look, I really look forward to it, especially this last one where we're in the same building and in the studio doing a podcast for the first time in what seems like months. But. But I look forward to the podcast and I love the way you've brought. Brought the podcast because you do it all. So I want to thank you for that. I'm Just along here for the ride and trying to put my beat in when you ask me a question. But it is all your work, and you should be really happy with the way you've gone about this, because I am. It's. It's a. It's a really. It's a credit to you the way you've. You've worked hard at, you know, getting guests on. It's not easy to get people to agree to come on, and it takes a lot of preparation and to produce these podcasts. I don't know if people understand what goes into it. It isn't straightforward. And we've had a, you know, I've had one or two. And today was one of those where the technology can destroy the podcast and we've had to fight our way through it. And look, the one disappointing one was Joe Friel, one of the guru podcast persons that I wanted to listen to. We've had him on twice. Unfortunately, we could only have you, the listeners, hear him once because the whole hour and a half was lost and we both could not believe it. It's not something you can repeat. And so it does take a lot, and it is frustrating sometimes, but. But we really love bringing them, too. And we get. I get so chuffed when I'm at events and people come up and say, I'm really getting a lot out of your podcast because that's why we're doing it. We want to help people become better versions of themselves, and that's the only reason we're doing it. And we're looking for guests who can contribute to helping you understand what you should be doing to improve yourself. And if we've achieved that, then I'm a happy person.

The Joe Friel one was an absolute killer because it was. You can imagine an hour and a half talking to him, how much value was information, which we got to hear, which is. Was amazing for us. But unfortunately you guys didn't listen to it. But he was so kind about it and he did offer to come on again, so we will be able to get him back on. And yeah, sorry about today as well, with the first half of the episode. The audio is not as clean as we want because we had major audio. We lost the audio file from the main headphones. So hopefully the first half was bearable because I can't stand listening to poor audio. So it's going to grind my gears when this is out. But, yeah, that's what we have to do. So that's it for us. Thank you very much again for listening for the year. We do want to hear from you and we can't wait to see you next year. The first episode will be back in the first few days of January. We'll have a good Christmas and New year break. We can't wait to see and see you next year. Cheers, Sam.