5 Do’s and Don’ts For Your Training in 2026

Happy New Year! We are glad to have you back, and we're here to help you get your training off to the best possible start this year. And as always with these lists, we don't want to give you anything generic like do more base training or just be consistent, even though Dad, consistency is the number one rule. Instead, we're going to give you our absolute best nuggets we think you need to focus on for this year. So Dad, welcome back to our first proper episode of the year. How are you feeling about 2026?

Uh, I hate to use the clichés, but I just can't wait for another year to see what happens. Um, there's just so many moving parts to everybody's life, isn't there? And, uh, you never know what's going to happen next, good and bad. And, um, so I— that's what I love about, uh, about, um, sport is you do your best to, to prepare for the challenges that you put in front of yourself and And this is exciting because you, you get a chance to reset the year that you've just done and have a, have a good think about how well you did or things you could improve on. And now you reset to say, okay, I've got another opportunity this year to, to challenge myself again in some ways that, uh, you know, I feel that I can actually achieve some things. So I'm super excited. Even at my age, I'm, I still have excitement about some challenges that I'm putting in front of myself. And, uh, yeah, this, uh, it's I can't wait to get into it, actually.

Yeah, I actually had an athlete say to me that, um, they hate to say it, I hate to admit it, but they're feeling really motivated by the new year and the cliché January 1st. And of course, we always say, you know, don't wait until January 1st to start your training, or don't wait till Monday, don't wait till Feb 1st, whatever month it is. But also to that athlete, I said, lean in, you know, I absolutely love that. Like, if whatever thing you can use to give you some motivation to get going, You know, if you're, if you've got a burst of motivation, it's not going to be there all year. So, so lean into it and embrace it. And if, if the fresh year and the fresh new you has kind of got you going, then embrace it, get some momentum, and hopefully that carries through.

The only problem is, Gerard, it's the, uh, try too hard. Just like the analogy of, uh, in a race, you know, going too hard early. Um, you know, don't go too hard in January. You've got, you got 12 more months, you know. Measure your effort, and get excited, but, but don't blow yourself up in first 2 weeks, and, that's easy to do as well.

I tell you who didn't have a good start to the new year, Jayco Alula. Well, they had a 50% good start because the Australian Road Nationals was just on, the Australian Road Championships, the women's and men's, and Jayco Alula, which is the Australian pro tour team, which should theoretically, you You know, they are absolutely the favorites to win, uh, both the women's and men's race each year, and they should win it because they've got potentially the best, you know, 8 to 10 Australian riders, um, in the field. It is, it is technically an individual race because it's a national championship, but with a team like that, you know, it's expected that they win. And with the right tactics, they won the women's race. Mackenzie Copeland, 20-year-old, um, absolutely unbelievable effort to take both the, um, national title, national champion, and the under-23 national title. Uh, but the next day in the men's race, sorry, the next race in that afternoon, uh, Jacob Lula absolutely mucked it up. And if you, um, have been watching any kind of cycling highlights the last few days since the race, uh, you'll have seen the scathing reviews of how Jacob had a rider up front and then Luke Plapp did the, what is known as just the most blasphemy tactics of all time. And when you have a teammate overhead, you don't chase down and he chased down because you'd assume he wanted to win the title himself. Uh, so I'm very keen to hear your thoughts on this and, and, and how you saw it all unfold.

Well, I could be blunt or I could be, uh, kind. Um, and it's easy sitting in the armchair, isn't it? You know, let's, let's just get some perspective here. They don't have race radio, so that would be a huge impact when the whole of their career they've got someone in their ear saying, what's happening in the race? What's happening up the road? What should you be doing? And in this event, the only opportunity they have is to drop back to the car, and they can still get information. But in the heat of the moment, when things happening so quickly and people go so quickly over a, a long race like that, it's not that quick, but it is. It's, uh, things change quite quickly. And, um, and look, you get it, you get it right a lot, and then you, and then you make a mistake and people just are slamming you. Um, let's look at a little bit of history. Um, JCO Lula have won, I think, the last 3 straight. Uh, Flaps won, uh, 2, and Durbridge won last year. So this, they were going for their 4th. And now, so I think they've done a very good job of getting it, getting it right a lot of the time. And let's face it, the women JCO team absolutely nailed it. I think they were first and second, George, you can correct me. And so I think they did a fantastic job. So really, what are we doing? Just picking on one race, some dodgy tactics, which I'm sure they'll all learn from. But let's just break down the tactics so the people who understand what exactly did they do wrong. So Luke Durbridge got a break and he won the race last year, but it was gifted to him by Luke Plapp, who did an incredible job to gift him that race when he could have won 3 in a row. Last year. So just give that perspective. And so I imagine he was in great shape and he loves to be wearing the Australian jersey. And that is super important to all the Australian Pro Tour riders to be the one wearing that Australian jersey for the whole of this 2026 year. And so it means a lot to them. Jay Vine was there, Ben O'Connor. You've got some of the best riders in the world Pro Tour who are, you know, who are right up there with the elite riders coming to do the national race. In January, it doesn't suit them at all. It just does not suit their program. They're having to peak in January for a year where they're wanting to peak at the Giro in May or the Tour in July. And so the spring classics don't really play a part in these type of riders like Ben O'Connor or Jay Vine or even Luke Plapp to a certain degree. He could be a you know, a real gun, uh, classics rider. But I'm just giving some perspective of, uh, of what this means to some of the riders. So, so when it comes to Plap, you know, he is probably one of the favorites. Jay Vine is probably the best rider in that race, um, and look, no one's commenting about his tactics. And to be fair, he had no teammates to rely on. So when, when the race goes up the road, he would normally have a teammate to help get him across, and And when you're only one rider against 7, um, and there's plenty of other local Australian teams in the race who are also working together, Jay Vine was isolated. And you could say that he made a mistake, a big mistake. He probably was the rider who was the favorite. Um, um, he just won the time trial, and so he really wanted that jersey, and he would be very disappointed. But no one's talking about that. Um, he made some mistakes tactically as well. But they're not getting highlighted, which to me, if you're going to criticize tactics, you need to criticize all the tactics in the race. Don't highlight them, especially when he is, you know, probably more favorite than any of the Jayco guys, in my opinion. This guy came second in the World Individual Time Trial Championships, and I know it's not a road race, but he's, you know, Pogačar's man in some of those Grand Tour rides where, you know, he can ride. The course wasn't suited to him. As he said, he'd rather ride up Borbore than, you know, Kings Park Hill. For those who don't know what Borbore is, it's a 5K climb that averages something like 14 or 15% and it goes up to 22% in sections. It is a brutal climb and a lot of the races used to go up there, but it's actually too hard for them to go there. I am talking a lot on this, but it is important that we get the message across. What were the mistakes that they made? They had Durbridge up the road who, if the Jayco guys had just left it like that, he would have gone on and won his second, uh, Australian title, which would have been absolutely brilliant. But I know each rider individually wants that opportunity to win this jersey. I hope I've set that scene properly. Um, and so Luke felt, uh, that he was probably going to win, and then, uh, Plappie thought that, well, I've given you this race last year, I'm still in great form, I think I can bridge across and, and get, get the win that I handed to you last year. And I think Ben O'Connor was in the same feeling that he felt that he was in great form. So they made a couple of mistakes. They had the one was they, the, the, the main scenario was leave the race alone. No one's gonna bridge across and, and Luke Durbridge is gonna win. That's the first scenario.

Mm-hmm.

Um, which, and people were going, oh well, you know, they've done it again. And everybody would've been happy. Luke would've been happy. Uh, Durbridge would've been, Luke Durbridge would've been happy. But I reckon Ben O'Connor and, uh, Plappie would've been going, oh, I was in good form. Maybe I got that wrong. So they've actually risked everything by by being in some moves and chasing down Luke. And, uh, and unfortunately they dragged two really good riders, uh, Pat, Pat Eddy, and I can't remember the other teammate from Pat Eddy. But, but the, the first mistake was, uh, giving the other teams a chance because at that stage they had no chance. And Jay Vine was out of the race. He'd done 4 laps on the front to try and make a training session when he realized he couldn't ride across on his own. So, and he actually wasn't even in the, in the, in the race at that key point when all the, the attacks were happening with a lap to go, 2 laps to go. So, so what happens is Luke Platt takes someone across who happens to be Pat Eddy, and, and then you've got the situation where he should be sitting on, which he did for a, for a percentage of that, and not really close down Luke Durbridge's lead, which was 1 minute 10, I think. And then The next mistake they made was Ben O'Connor came across trying to come across to Plappie's group, but he brought a teammate of Pat Eddy. Had he brought anybody else, that would have been okay because that would have been a free ride for Ben and a free ride for Plappie with the other two riders. You know, they're not— they're going to have to chase down Luke Durbridge and they wouldn't have wanted to be on the front. So it would have been, you know, same scenario. But the fact that he brought a teammate of Pat Eddy, that was the problem. And so pretty much he's brought another teammate over who could now get on the front of the ride with literally 5K to go and absolutely drill it to bring Pat Eddy within striking range. And that was the main mistakes, those two mistakes that those two riders made. And Plappie, to be fair, had a real crack when he got past Durbridge. He had that last hill, he should have gapped, uh, Patrick Eddy, but it's easier said than done, isn't it? Um, he's giving it everything. He got a meter or two, he got a slight gap, but it just wasn't enough. And then Fat Eddie was able to get back on, and then he beat him in the sprint. So, so yeah, they made some mistakes, they didn't get the result they wanted, but it's only one race. And you know, everybody out there who's throwing, you know, throwing rocks at these guys, you know, if you haven't made a mistake in your life, then fair enough. But, uh, but I think, you know, to be fair you know, it's just one-off race.

What would the, the obvious biggest mistake is, is what the, the men did completely opposite to the women. So the women had basically the exact same scenario, JCO rider out in front, and then a little break formed away from the peloton to try and close it down. And Mackenzie Copeland, who's a teammate of the leader at the time, um, got across with another rider. And so there was two of them in between. And instead of doing what Platt did and getting on the front and closing the gap more, Mackenzie Coughlan just sat in and said, I have to do, I don't have to do any work here. I've got a teammate out front. If you want to bridge this gap, you do it. That's sort of what happened. So she saved her legs the whole time riding behind. And then by the time they got closer, she was able to accelerate away. And she reluctantly passed her own teammate in the lead because she did not, did not want to do that. But because she was so fresh from bridging the gap across by herself, um, she was able to take that lead. And so that's probably the biggest mistake that Plapp and O'Connor made. O'Connor was exhausted 'cause he's been in the break all day, but yeah, Plapp helping out. Um, he only kind of saved his legs once they were in striking zone of Derbridge. Uh, but what, when they came to that last kilometer, what would you have done differently if you were Plapp? Um, once the, um, um, team Brennan Conti teammate dropped, he did all that work to get them within striking distance. And then it was two Jayco riders, O'Connor and Flap, versus Pat Eddy with Durbridge still dangling off the front. But at that point, his race was very convincingly done because they closed the gap. What would you have done if you were Flap? Because he just tried to ride Pat Eddy off from the front, which is probably the hardest way to do it. He backed his legs.

Um, yeah, look, I think there's only two scenarios he had. The one that he chose, I think, was correct. Uh, and the second scenario would also have been correct, was to let Pat Eddy be on the front the whole time and then try and jump him. Um, and but I think a longer drag up that hill was a better outcome for Plapp, but it turned out it wasn't. I think Pat Eddy has a really good jump, and had, uh, Luke Plapp stayed behind him and tried to hit him two-thirds of the way up that, that last climb, which wasn't a very long climb, um, I think Pat Eddy would have been able to respond. But the peloton was coming, so Pat Eddy would have had to be knowing, instead of plap, knowing that, you know, if they mucked around, the whole peloton would have caught them, and then that would have been a disaster for everybody. So you have to play poker there a bit, and I think that was his two choices, and he chose the first one, which is to try and ride him off the wheel. Um, and I just think he might have underestimated, uh, his ability to do that, or, or Patrick Eddy's ability to hang on. And to be fair, looking at his face, Patrick Eddy was, he was almost gone. So He was 2 pedal strokes away.

I reckon if the hill was 15 meters longer, I reckon, uh, if you look at Pogačar in that situation, he just keeps going.

Um, when they got to the turn at the top of the hill, I think Plapp had to just keep the pressure on, and I think he might have gapped him. Um, but it's easy in hindsight as well, you know. But yeah, I think that was the only options he had. The damage had already been done, George. The decisions that they got wrong caused that last situation to be 50-50. Um, whereas had they got those decisions a bit better earlier, they shouldn't have been in that position. They should have been doing exactly what Mackenzie Copeland was able to do.

So that was a clear do and don't from a Jaco Olula perspective to start the year. Now we're going to go through the dos and don'ts for your own training this year. And the first one, Dad, is the first do for the year is do have a plan for the year. Set up your race schedule properly now because Races too close together or with mixed goals can result in an unhappy season or an unhappy year. So explain this one.

Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily mean what you think about on January 1st or the first week of January is going to be set in concrete. So that's the first message, that you can change your mind. Things happen throughout, you know, what happens if you actually get sick in January or have a crash? And, you know, we've got plenty of examples that are already, we've got people who are in that situation where they've got a a race that they're planning for from way back that's happened to be in March or, or April or June, and already they're so injured that those races are in jeopardy. So, so have a plan, but be flexible with the plan. Um, and don't make this as, you know, this is my be-all and end-all for my whole career. This is just another year where we're trying to strive to really, uh, put together a strategy that's going to have an enjoyable outcome for the year.

Yeah. And I think the other part of planning a good year is to respect the recovery required from certain events. And, and I, I do think we see a common mistake of people scheduling in, um, too many races, um, or, um, scheduling in Ironman or marathons too close together or too close to even half Ironmans where you have to respect the recovery required from a lot of these events. They are monster events and if you don't do that, then you could just put yourself in a hole that lasts, you know, 3 or 6 months and, and ends up meaning you just keep doing averages, uh, races really poorly rather than, um, having some really key races that you want to work towards.

And one of the key things that, uh, we see a lot of athletes doing it— we've had the example, uh, in 2025 where, uh, Sydney became one of the major marathons, um, in the world, which is absolutely brilliant for Australia to get to be known as having a marathon that's a major. And that's a big thing now, uh, for a lot of the marathon runners out there is to go and tick off the major marathons. It's such a bit of a journey now, um, for, for a lot of, uh, for a lot of marathon runners and, and the impact that that race had on a lot of our triathletes who got in the, in the marathon race because they wanted to be a part of it, it really ruined their season. And I'm not generalizing here. Um, we had so many people who are kind of a little bit underprepared for that actual Sydney Marathon. They ended up coming out of it fatigued massively and couldn't really, really train for properly for 4 to 6 weeks, or they picked up an injury. They were the two outcomes we had. So respecting events like Ironman and marathon, you just can't throw them in there without understanding the consequences of doing it.

And the opposite of this next point is, so we want you to have a plan for the year, But don't avoid racing. Do more races. Okay? And so this is a bit of a, uh, juxtaposition in terms of advice, but, um, we want you to, uh, race more. Just you have to plan your calendar, um, accordingly and, and respect the events and respect the recovery you need. But, but why do we say do more races?

Yeah, there's nothing better in training than replicating the race. That's one of our philosophies from TriValo is to try to replicate. When we talk to new athletes, The first thing I say to them is whatever happens on race day, we're gonna try and replicate that in your training. Whether it's the same bike you ride, the same power meter, you know, using the same running shoes, the race suit, goggles, every single aspect is trying to replicate what's gonna happen on race day. The nutrition, the sleep, you know, everything that happens on the weekend of your race, we wanna have lots of practice sessions doing that. So Getting more races in means that, like, I did use the example of, uh, one of our pro athletes, Tom Page, who used to be a rower, and he raced every Saturday for something like 6 months out of the 12 months of the year. And so I would say to him, you know, you're a little bit nervous about the race coming up? He's going, hell no, I'm just used to racing. Um, I just understand that I've got to have, uh, be ready when the, you know, when I'm sitting on the start line, I've got my game thought brain going, and, and I'm ready to race. And, and there's less anxiety when you race once or twice a year. You actually get anxiety about, oh, I can't remember how I felt, what I'm supposed to feel the night before, the day of, what should I be eating. The more times you can replicate that in training, that the so much, uh, more relaxed you are when it comes to race day. But the key thing is you can practice the execution in these, if it's a C race or a B race. We sure, we wanna, we wanna race them as hard as we can, but you're not gonna be in the same form as your A race. So you have to actually race to that form of that week that might be 12 weeks away from your A race. But might, for example, you might be a 4:30, uh, 5K runner at the moment, um, aiming to be a 4:15 come 12 weeks away, but you have to race this race at 4:30 pace. And the same with the power. You might wanna be a 250 rider on race day, but at the moment you're 220. You have to have a race strategy based around 2:20, not what you think you can do in 12 weeks' time. So practicing execution is super important to, to these practice races. So the more parkruns you can get in, 10Ks, half marathons before your big, your big dance event will give you such an advantage for just ease of mind. Your body's used to the intensity and you practice execution.

Yeah, as you said, you put it perfectly. You know, one of the best ways to get race fit is to race. You know, the races are the best environments to get race ready and race fit. And we, we just wanna encourage athletes to say we don't just train to train. You know, we are training towards a race, uh, if that is your goal. And a good example is, uh, what, what the cyclocross athletes do over winter, specifically Mathieu van der Poel. His winter cyclocross schedule over this, um, Christmas and New Year break was he did 8 races in 16 days. And there's just so many cyclocross races you can do and If you want to see some awesome racing, then I would encourage that. But, um, it's basically 1-hour races every second day. So he's race one day, rest day, recovery day in between, race one day. So it's, he's basically doing 8 60-minute all-out FTP tests, threshold efforts in a race across 16 days. Now he's a bit of an outlier. We wouldn't recommend that kind of training, but, but that is the kind of example of what makes him such a strong, powerful threshold rider. And so Of course, training is important. It's not all about racing either, but we don't want to get it mixed up when we say, you know, respect your calendar and respect your racing schedule and the fatigue it'll take. That doesn't mean for us not race. That means race as much as you can, but just allow for the stuff in between.

And also, Gerard, you know, the, the distance of the event has a huge impact on your decision-making. So don't do regular marathons, don't do regular Ironmans, you know, do them spread out. Do regular 5Ks and 10Ks if you're a marathon runner. Do regular sprints and Olympic distance if you're a triathlete. Do regular criteriums and, and shorter road races if, and time trials if you're a cyclist. But don't do Three Peaks or something that's a 9-hour race, you know, once a month. They're, they're things that need proper preparation for and recovery, uh, from. So, so the bigger the event, the more recovery time you need. That's the thing about that asterisk around doing more races.

The next one is don't try and reinvent the wheel this year. Stick to what, stick to what works. And, and every year we get new developments in, in training principles and, and new, new studies of what's working and new insight from the pros about what's working and what's not working. But we really risk buying into a lot of hype about things and we can't forget the fundamentals.

Oh, this is such a good point. And that doesn't mean that you just replicate what you do every year, year after year, the same program. You are evolving as an athlete. You may have had a period where you are absolutely flying, so your program needs to be a little bit harder each year. You might have a period where you didn't have such a good year, where your fitness base has dropped 20%, so you have to do a completely different looking program. So, so when we're talking about, uh, changing up the program, yes, it's good to be stable and follow some structure and some, some theory that works for you, but it can't be replicating it the same thing year after year. Just because you did this in January last year, that doesn't necessarily— that's going to work for you, uh, in January this year. Um, and, and you got to pick the things that really you think and your coach thinks that helped you lift your game. And get rid of the things that you think prevented you from improving. They're the things we're trying to get across to you.

A really great example is we saw a great video of this marathon runner who'd done 50 marathons, and he said in the interview that his last one was one of his worst ones, and he had gotten so comfortable with the distance and experience, uh, that he decided that he really wanted to improve his speed, and he, he got really arrogant with his base training and stopped doing so much base and started doing way more speed work. And then performed horribly. And he just said, I just went away from the absolute fundamental of the marathon. I didn't do any long runs, you know. And, and it's just a reminder of, yes, you can tweak things and try and improve on certain areas, but you've always got to keep the fundamentals.

Look, to his credit, he'd done 49 previous marathons, so he would think that, you know. But, but, but what he said was— this guy's a 2:22 marathon runner, by the way— and when he's come to his 48th and then he wanted to do his 49th, he's not 2:22 runner anymore. He's more like a 2:50 to 3-hour runner, which is brilliant running, by the way. And he's in his mid-60s now, and he's— and he's 10 years ago since he did that last marathon. That's how much it affected him. He, he absolutely walked the last section. He, he had a horrible experience, but he just didn't respect, uh, you know, what it entailed, even though he'd done 49 previous races.

Yeah, yeah. And look, the The other example we've spoken about in this podcast is, you know, this, this hype and, and almost the myth of Zone 2, where there's been all this hype around Zone 2, which, which you would understand if you think about the fundamentals. It just means that, you know, um, there's huge value in just doing a lot more volume at Zone 2 because you can recover from it. But a lot of people have taken this hype and, and, and, and thought it meant stop doing high intensity training, just do Zone 2. And so a lot of, a lot of people have, have just been doing all Zone 2 all week and no high intensity. And it's, You know, the fundamentals have been working for, for 60 years, let alone what, whatever, you know, we, we've learned in the last 5 or 10 years or, or last year. It's, it's do as much high-intensity work as your body can handle and the rest is, is easy volume. But as, as we speak about, there's a whole rabbit hole we won't go down. Like there's huge value in zone 3 and 4 as well, sub, sub-threshold work. But it's just a reminder that the fundamentals don't haven't changed that much.

It's so true. And just get— getting on this fads, as we can call them, um, the fad is zone 2, the fad is HIIT sessions, the fad, you know, they just come and go, Jordan. Um, since I've been a follower from reading books in the 1970s that my dad handed down to me about, uh, Ron Clark and Herb Elliott and Percy Serenity's, you know, training regime, and I, I just couldn't get enough of that information as a, as ridiculous as it sounds, as a 12 to 14, 15-year-old, just wanting to improve, but seeing how good these guys were at the world stage. And that was what my aspirations were. And, and, you know, they weren't just doing zone 2 ever. And these were guys at the top of their level. And you look at the guys across that 50-year period that I'm talking about, the guys at the top of the level are just not doing one thing. They're doing a mixture of training, whether it be, you know, if you're a pro cyclist, you would do a lot of zone 2 because you're riding 30 hours a week. But if you're a, uh, an average amateur cyclist, you might be riding 7 hours a week. You can't afford to do a lot of zone 2. You need to do some VO2, some threshold, some zone 2, and some recovery. So their program would look completely different. And so So that's what we're trying to say here. It really depends on, um, the time you have available to train, but you need a mixture of all of the programs that are available to you. Not just jumping on the bandwagon of Zone 2 or jumping on the HIIT session. You just can't do, you know, 5 HIIT sessions a week and people try to do that. You can't do 5 Zone 2 sessions and expect to have changes in your improvement. And that's the fundamental thing we're trying to do here is be better version than we were last week or last year.

This one is just a continuation of that, but it's, it's do the simple but hard things. And, and that's, that's the key to it is that what you need to do is actually quite simple, but it is hard to do it over and over again.

Absolutely. Um, as dad used to tell me all the time, just keep it simple, stupid. Well, you know, I don't know. I never really understood that. I thought he was having a crack at my intelligence that I was stupid, but it was, it was just you know, just do the sessions. Just do the sessions there. No hero sessions. Just go and do what's done, what's set out for you. And if you're feeling good, be at the top of the range. You know, if the example would be, I'm going to give you 8x200s on the track. You know, you remember this as a junior, Gerard. And each Thursday we would do that. And I would say to you, you know, last week you did between 30 and 34 seconds per 200, you know. Start off a little bit slower and you would say to me halfway through, I feel really great. And I'd say, okay, last one, you can try and break 30. And you would smash it. You'd do 28. But I wouldn't let you do that for effort 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, because we still had to worry about what you're going to do the next day and on Saturday and on Sunday. And so, so keeping it simple is really hard to do when you feel great and you feel motivated, you know, and you're really flying. It's just like if you're not feeling great, or you would say to me, I'm not feeling really good today. I'd say, do them all, 34. Let's stay there. And, and if you feel like picking up on the last one, and inevitably you would, and I know I feel, I feel better after the third or fourth. And so really listening to your body and just doing the simple things right, understanding how your body feels and then implementing that to your day and, and People go, that's straightforward. It's not. It's really being in tune with, am I good today? Am I average today? Or am I poor today? And if you're so poor, you shouldn't actually think about training. And if you're average, you should try to start conservative and try and build through it. If you're feeling great, just don't go outside. You know, don't be, don't be flamboyant and, and disrespectful to your overall program. 'cause that's how you sabotage yourself by, by going outside the ranges, and that's just as bad as being inconsistent.

Yeah. And for me, it just, it just means, you know, you've got a chance to practice your execution and, and the goal of the session over and over. And every session, is a chance to practice something. You know, for zone 2, it's a really good chance just to practice your pressure on the pedals and how even can you keep it. For if you've got an endurance, you know, where, where we're aiming for, elevation, you know, it's, it's making sure that you get the full elevation required. You know, if it's, if If it's a long ride, you're not just getting 500 meters, you're getting 2,000 meters or whatever, you know, your coach is aiming you for. For the VO2 sets, like you just said, staying in the VO2 range and don't start so hard and then fail the second set and or fade the second set, which is just one of the most common things we see. If it's a time trial practice, you know, you, you're really getting to practice your race-ready execution. That's, that's all the things that are quite simple, but, but hard to, to do.

Even the time of the session, Gerard, if you're asked to do you know, 3 to 4 hours and you end up with 2 hours 30, you kind of miss that, that target, you know. And then you can't progress the next week to 3 hours 30 to 4 hours because that's an hour more than you did last week. And the same thing practicing— people go, oh, recovery, what's the point? Well, there is a huge point in recovery training, you know, just a little bit of blood flow without fatigue creation. So the things that we did talk about a lot in the early podcast was I would jump on my recovery ride on the, on the on, uh, the rollers and ride 100 watts at 100 RPM at 100 heart rate. It was my 100-100-100 session, and I would have great practice in trying to ride between 98 watts to 102 and try to keep the pressure on the pedals. And that was just creating really good blood flow, which was allowing my body to recover, and it wasn't hurting me, wasn't creating fatigue. Um, and you know, there's the value in that simple session. There's a— you've got to work out what's the goal of this session, um, and then making sure that you do that and not do something else. In, in, on— there has to be purpose each day, and if you go away from that, that's where you end up confused.

Yeah, we had a funny example, you and I, on last Friday. We went for a ride. We both needed a recovery ride, and you live in the hills, and you sort of said, I don't, I don't know if we can actually stay in recovery zone in the hills, and— but it was such a nice day outside, we thought, oh, let's ride outside anyway. And, and we were absolutely crawling up, up the climbs and we, we couldn't go be in an easier gear or, trying to just tap away and not be grinding away. But we're kind of saying, we're glad we're outside, but it is, it's very hard to, stay in that. You can't do 100 watts, you know, up these hills. You, you're minimum doing 160 to 180 and, and we're lucky that we could just, just tap away in the right zone and not be too fatiguing, but we have to really slow it down and, and yeah, the importance of getting that, that course right is, is key.

And is it important that you, have a balance between enjoyment and what is the session today. And that doesn't mean you're so strict and regimented that you don't have some days where you flip it. That just means you change the next couple of days. And so for you and I, it was like, oh, far out, you know, we're in the bottom of zone 2. Um, you know, we just got to be careful the next couple of days that we don't, don't destroy ourselves. But, but yeah, in the moment, you know, it doesn't mean every session you keep flipping, um, to another, to another plan. Um, but now and then it's absolutely fine.

Well, there's just no way on that day we wanted to ride indoors, you know, it was such a nice day outside. So the next one, you mentioned this in the, in the intro story about, you know, the Oz National Champs, but, and for the pro riders doing that race, but don't expect to be in good form all year. And, and we just want to get the message across, stop expecting it. You know, pro athletes don't expect it, but, but age groupers seem to expect it. Um, stop expecting it.

Well, if If someone is able to write, to be at the top of their range for 52 weeks in a year, I want them to message us in the comments section because, because it's just not possible. You have highs and lows. You want the trajectory to continually build towards wherever your race may be. It could be July, it could be August, it could be December, but it could be March. So if it's March, you want to be on your way right now. If it's July, you've got more time. If it's December, you've got a great amount of time. So, so when people panic, I can give some examples at the World Road and Time Trial Championships that happened to be in Australia this year, back in September of 2025. And we had lots of local, uh, TriVelo riders enter. And I had lots of people at 6 weeks out, 8 weeks out saying, oh, I'm really worried. I don't feel like I'm in good form. And, and I had to have some good conversations. I really had to calm them down. You know, I don't want you to hold form for 8 weeks. That's impossible. You know, we know that most of the pros can only hold form for 6, maybe some can do 8, but generally the amateur can only hold it for 4 weeks and then they're too tired. Um, so let's just not panic yet. We're on a good trajectory here. And as it turned out, we We ended up with 3 world champions, and a couple of those guys were actually, you know, not questioning, but rightly so, asking questions about, are you happy with where I'm at? Um, and, you know, unless I can explain what our intentions are, then I'm not a good coach. Um, and as it turned out, you know, happy days. So it's important that you understand that, you know, we want to build towards our key races, and, and as much as you want to get you want to be fast every time. You can't do a PB every week. And I think that's the problem with testing athletes is what the thing that we've come across. People have this mental expectation that I should be better than I was last month. And that's a fair and reasonable expectation if you're on that trajectory of improvement. But if you've actually just done a race where you've just peaked and you're coming down from that race, how would you possibly expect 4 weeks later where you've done a recovery period to be better than you were prior to your highest point in the season. That, that doesn't, that defies logic to me. Um, and that's what I'm trying to say, uh, that, you know, and you've experienced that many times where I'm saying to you, you know, you've just got to trust the process and, you know, if there's things that you think, let's discuss it. Let's, let's have a conversation so that, uh, everybody's clear.

It also doesn't mean you're going to be, you know, super high and super low all the time. The idea is, like you're saying, when you stay consistent, that, that gap and that balance is a little bit better. You know, you're at your absolute peak for your A race, you have some recovery, but then you get back to form fairly quickly. We're not saying we're aiming for super highs and super lows. That's not ideal. And the example is what Jay Vine just said after he won the, um, Australian time trial, um, on the weekend. And his comment was great after. He said, I'm actually, I'm really pleased to get a result now because I just am not in peak form. You know, and it's so early in the season. And his A-race goal is the Giro d'Italia in May. Um, and he said, I, I shouldn't be expecting to race well now, but I want to put my best foot forward. And it just so happened to be that his best foot forward still won him the Australian title, which he's absolutely chuffed with. But if he didn't get a result, he would have been okay with it because he's going, I just can't be in peak form now and for the next 5 months.

And look, uh, Luke Plapp, who he was racing again, again, the same conversation as we had at the start of the program, He had a poor time trial result, and well, I don't know the ins and outs of how he executed, but it could be that he's just not in time trial form at the moment. We don't know that information, but Jay was against a guy who is in the top 10. Jay's second best in the world, and Luke Plapp is in the top 10 best in the world time trial. So Jay comes here knowing that he's got really good competition if Luke Plapp's on his game. But, you know, so he's trying to prepare himself as best he can, but he knows that It's got to be a little mini peak taper area because the main thing is July or May.

Yeah. So don't expect to be in form all year, but do, the next one is do peak for your A race and really make sure you're peaking at the right time. And you did just speak about this then, but don't try and peak, you know, 16 weeks out, 10 weeks out, 6 weeks out, you know, peak in the last couple of weeks. That's the whole point.

Yeah, I can't say much more than that. Um, you know. Have those key races in your program and make sure that you're doing everything you can to make sure that you're in your best form on that, that 2 to 3 week period. Um, it's so important. It's not one day. Peak form takes that last taper period, takes 2 or 3 weeks of getting that right. You get, you do all the hard work and you can actually blow it by training too hard, uh, to that last 2 or 3 week period or not training hard enough. They're just as bad as each other. So you've got to learn a little bit for that. Learn from what you've done in previous A races where you've done well and use that example in your preparation for the next one. And every race is different, of course, but, but yeah, it's super important that you do plan to peak well for that race. Yeah.

And that comes from, you know, really focusing on it. If you're doing a 28-week program, you know, the work has got to be done all the way to that, that 12-week mark and then your race-ready phase starts and then you, you start getting yourself in form, building up to that, that last 2 or 3 weeks where you're peaking. So that's, that's how the structure really looks. The next one is, is don't do yourself, um, a disservice by sticking with the same methods if it's not working. And if it's, if you're actually not improving, you know, don't just try and grind it out doing the same thing over and over. Uh, if you don't, if you're not improving.

Yeah, and there's a few ways to measure how you're not improving. Uh, if you ride, you know, with a local group or a local bunch ride, you know, But that's a little bit hit and miss because riders in your group could be better or worse themselves. So for you, measuring yourself against others is a hard way. So the best way really is to measure yourself against yourself, and that's why testing is so important. So if you feel that the testing tells you that you have lost a bit of form, that's great. It's a great wake-up call. What have we been doing in the last 2 or 3 weeks that have caused this situation? And it could be as simple as I got sick or I was injured. But it could be that you train well and you're not actually in good form. That could be that you just didn't have a good sleep the last couple of days, or your nutrition was poor, or you were coming down with something. So that's why heart rate is good to take each week. That's why heart rate variability is good to have a look at. So it could be a lot of reasons why, you know, you're not improving. But to just expect to, I think, stick with the same method all the time is a recipe waiting for disaster to happen. You need to have variation and pick on the things that are going to improve you.

But more specifically, it's, it's, you know, those— the reason why you want to test regularly is so you get good consistent data. And if you have big gaps, then you can't really measure where you're improving or not improving. And so your example there is perfect. If you do a test and you're a little bit out of form, let's just look at what happened with the training. Maybe it was a one-off period. If you do another cycle and you test again, you're not improving, you go, okay, what's happening here? And then if that keeps happening, you might start asking questions or you need to start asking questions about, okay, something about the way I'm training or going about this means I'm not objectively improving. And, and trust us, there is better and smarter ways to train that do get you to improve and get those improvements in measurements. So that's the whole point is don't do yourself a disservice by sticking with the same thing if it's not working. Yeah.

And I couldn't agree more. And, uh, but But, you know, we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater as well. You've got to trust the process for a little bit of a period. And then, and if you, as you said, if you, if we don't get feedback from perspective, we don't actually know how we're going. We could, we could go for 6 months without testing ourselves and we actually don't know whether we're improving. So as much as people say they hate testing, it is the only way to work out whether you're on the right track. And, and that's a key reason why you do it.

Yeah, and the, the only other mistake we see on the other side of this is, is incorrect reading of your testing. You know, someone, an athlete might say, I haven't improved, you know, the last 2 or 3 testing periods, the program's not working. And there might be circumstances where we say that's actually not correct. You know, that first month where you didn't improve, you were sick that whole time. So of course you're not going to improve. That second month, um, your power meter didn't work or, or something. And so that was an invalid test. And so the third month, You know, maybe you haven't improved from that second test, but that was still an incorrect result, but you're still trying to base your test off that. You know, it was whatever. The examples can happen where you have to read the testing right and the context and the story behind the testing right before you come to or potentially jump to incorrect conclusions. That is also a mistake we see. Yeah.

And, you know, getting the data right and you can interpret data any way you like. Uh, we know that in, in the world today, you know, um, with, with people on the news telling us this statistic, you know, that, but you can read data negatively and positively. So it is important to get that right.

Yeah. The next one is, uh, this is probably, uh, the biggest one for me on this list. Um, and my personal favorite on this list is do more of training and racing to how you feel. And, and coming from the biggest data proponents in us possible, we just do everything based on data, but we want to encourage people this year to really train and race more to how you feel.

Yeah, and people think this is new for us. This is not. We, we have been pushing from day one using all the information at your disposal to make better decisions. And, you know, the technology from when I very first started back in the '70s is just leaps and bounds ahead where it is now in the 2026 year. So we've got, you know, watches and power meters and running shoes and, um, breathing machines, lactate measurers, uh, you name it, we, we've got it. Um, so, so use all that information, but we've always had, how do I feel? We've always had that. And in fact, that's all we had at the start when I first was competing. I don't feel so good at three-quarters of the way through this half marathon. Oops, I've made a mistake with my pacing. And that's why the other components of, uh, of the metrics we use stop us from having that feeling 3/4 of the way through any event that we're in that we've blown it. And the reason we've blown it is because we didn't have that guidance from the, the power meter or the running pace watch or the heart rate. Um, but the how you feel is the basis of everything. And if you've got this plan that 4-minute K pace is what you want to do for this parkrun and you start off the first 500 meters and you're going, whoa, 4-minute K pace, that's going out the window. Don't be an idiot and try and keep doing 4-minute K pace for the next 3K and then end up running 4:30s. Pull back straight away. That's using how you feel against the metrics of the data you see. I can't make that clearer.

Yep. We're not saying train and race how you feel without data anymore. That's not what we're saying. We're saying use the data. But train and race and use that data to how you're feeling. And Jimmy Whelan spoke about this on the podcast last week, uh, he, and he's really good at now, he's such a professional that he's deciding most mornings, you know, what training he's up for. He's not reinventing the whole program, but he's got the session ahead and he's going out of this session, what am I up for today? And that's what we're saying, train for what's happening in your life. You know, if you, if you got no sleep last night for whatever reason, and the next day is a really, really hard session, you know, maybe it's the biggest session of the week, maybe that's not the day to push through and attempt that biggest session of the week.

You know, maybe that day you need to switch to a zone 2.

And then try and figure out another day to do that session. Um, or maybe you need to do it but just lower into the range. You know, it's really getting in tune with yourself without just relying on them.

And that's the big issue with getting a coaching plan that's coached as compared to getting an online, um, you know, ChatGPT or, or just a, you know, a webline coaching program that's got no flexibility for how you're feeling. So, you know, getting in contact with your coach to say, oh, I'm really struggling, that coach should be adjusting those next few training sessions. And that's what we think we pride ourselves in with our program is making it flexible so that we are constantly asking you to make a comment in TrainingPeaks about how you cope with that session. And that will give the coach instant information about what to do next. And just because you've got a 20-week program to the Ironman doesn't mean you have to do exactly what's in those 20-week sessions for that whole period. You should have flexibility according to how you feel each day.

Second last one is don't talk yourself out of things early. So, uh, again, we just keep going back and forth with these little nuances in, in things because we just said rely on how you feel. But also the opposite of that is don't talk yourself out of things too early. You know, don't talk yourself out of a poor performance too early. You know, if the numbers look a little bit wrong get in tune with how you're feeling, but, but know that you might actually come good.

Oh, I just happened to talk to one of our coaches about an athlete exactly this morning on this topic, you know, um, just really feeling mentally done two-thirds or a third of the way through a session and really mentally giving up. Whereas the reason they were like that is because they actually started too hard. Um, and you know, it's happened to a few people recently in their testing is they've just got ahead of themselves, uh, start at the wrong number and then mentally given up, which I can understand if you start too hard, but, but you don't have to do that to yourself. Um, so you never know what's going to happen. So give yourself more of an opportunity to successfully complete any training session, whether it's a time trial, whether it's just an individual training session or it's a race. You never know what's going to happen. Don't talk yourself out of things that, that you could possibly talk yourself back into it. Think of it the other way. How do I just, how do I manage this so I can actually get the best outcome here? That's what you should be saying rather than going, I'm done and I just shut it down. You know, there would be an exception for that to happen, but it shouldn't be the normal. It should be 1 out of 1,000 that that should be happening. Otherwise, the other way to look at it is you should be talking yourself into continuing. There has to be a very good reason. I can use the example of people would be horrified at this. Rachel Paulding did the London Marathon, and at 20, at the 20-mile mark, she actually felt like her left leg got injured. She wasn't sure what happened, but all of a sudden she could barely run. She was on target to run a PB. It was, she was absolutely flying, loving it. She went to hospital afterwards because she couldn't walk when she finished. It turns out she'd, she'd fractured a femur. In the run. And that's someone who's got the mental capacity— oh, this is hurting, but I'm still finishing this no matter what happens. And she would have been within her rights to lie down on the ground there and then, um, and it took her months to recover from that. So she probably did more damage than she needed to. But that's an example of someone who's got a really strong mental capacity to just push on regardless of what's happening. We're not telling you to do that, but that's an extreme example of where you can be mentally.

Yeah. If you, if you talk yourself out of it too early, you just, you just risk finishing the race with a little bit of regret or finishing a time trial with a little bit of regret and going, oh, did I, did I need to give up there? And an easy example is you might, in any race, you know, endurance events are so long. They're, they're 20 or 30 minutes in terms of shorter time trials, but most races are an hour to 11 hours to 14 hours. You know, there is so much time to have peaks and troughs, so much time to have some, some lull periods where you're not going so well, to be in a rough patch. And you've just got to work through those and, and trust that you might still come good. And it happens so often where you might come out of the swim and start the bike leg and the, and the power feels tough. And if you can just ride that out a little bit, go to the bottom of the range, back off, um, trust your feelings, just ride that through that rough patch. You might hit 10 or 15K and go, actually, that was a bit of a rough start, but now I've come good. Now suddenly that wattage feels easy. Now I can increase it. And suddenly I'm, I can still do another 70K or 85 or 75K of this ride. In the range that I was really planning for and the ride comes good. But if you talked yourself out of it early, if you said, nah, race is done, I'm not on today, you know, that's a classic one. I'm just not on today. You know, when the race has just started, the bike leg's just started, you could be, you know, talking yourself out of it, still look at performance.

Yep. I can't agree more. There's so many examples we could give of people who have actually hung in there and ended up really happy at the end of their race or their training session because they've just literally hung in there. A quick example, Joe, who we talk about a fair bit, Joe Spano on our program, went for a long 250k bike ride with Tim Jamieson during the week. And Joe, halfway through, was feeling absolutely crap. And they had a quick stop, ironically had a Red Bull. He was a completely different rider for the next 4 hours. Um, it just can change like that, you know, a bit of nutrition, bit of sugar, and you know, you never know what's going to happen next.

And finally, the last point in this is one we always encourage. You've got to do what you're going to enjoy. Don't start 2026, uh, if the training or racing isn't something you want to do. Find what you want to do.

Yeah. And the enjoyment part is, is everything. And you just don't want to be entering races because that's what you do every year. It's no different to training the same way as what you do every year. You need to think about, am I, am I really up for this? And if it makes your life a misery leading into that race, you shouldn't be doing it. So ask yourself the question. Like we started at the start of this podcast was plan your year, but plan around the things that you love doing. Don't do events that are going to be causing distress in your life. Make sure that you're picking and selecting events that you really want to be a part of. And we know in life that anything you like doing, whether it's, you know, putting together Lego or taking yourself for a training session or going to the movies, anything you like doing, you'll enjoy. So if you're not enjoying the sessions and training, you know, that's, that's going to be a one-way ticket to giving up. So, so get things that you get value and enjoyment from. That's the key to it.

The fun part for us is, is we just love the constant little feedback, uh, of improvement. That's why we like to test so regularly. You do a training block, you want to see, get some feedback. Did you improve? Did you not improve? That's still a little bit of fun, you know, the constant little satisfaction you get from just consistency And good sessions and showing up each day is the fun. And I think, Dad, we want to finish with, uh, you just talking about a bit of your personal experience of rearranging your goals and, and not being so race-focused for yourself, even though you will do some races, but just enjoying the experience of being fit and healthy.

Yeah, and look, you know, everybody goes through certain, certain health periods in their life. It's inevitable. We all, we all will experience it, and some have more challenging periods than others. And I'm not saying mine is any more challenging than anybody else's, but, but my whole focus for the last 50 years has been to race. And, and now my challenge is, you know, it's hard. It's a hard one to get my head around, but it's just to be able to train fit and be, be training and be fit and healthy. Training normally leads to a race, but for me, my race is to basically try and stay alive. So, um, I'm, I'm being challenged by trying to do things that are going to keep my my body healthy enough to be able to enjoy the fact that I can train and I'm not, I'm not housebound or bedbound or, or incapacitated in some way. So, so that's my new challenge. And, and, you know, it takes a bit for you to pry that out of me, but I, I, you know, it's very personal. And, and for me, it's a completely different way of the way I've lived my sport. So, you know, I still raced in the local race on the weekend and, you know, had a ball because I've got my head around this is my level now. It's not what it was a year ago or 2 years ago or 3 years ago. It's, it's 40% lower. And, and as long as I'm comfortable with trying to be the best 40% lower rider that I can be, execute the way I want to and still have that challenge, I still had fun. And even though it's not the levels I'm used to, But that's my mental approach has to be different. And, and I really encourage other people to just do what you can do in your own and don't compare yourself to others. And that's, that's, that, you know, I'm comparing myself to my old self. That's been my challenge, um, is, is to get away from that, I think. Yeah.

And for you, it's, it's really learning to enjoy a more holistic way of training. You know, you've always, you've been able to be quite hyper-focused on your racing and cycling. but now, you know, your new version of health is, is to incorporate more different ways of training that you're not comfortable with and that you're not, as experienced with. And that's, that is your challenge. Um, but that's any, any new person coming into triathlon and cycling, it's, it's all new for them. And, and that's what they have to get used to. And that's the same thing for you now. It's a little bit new, the way of, the way of training and, and not being just kind of, I guess, one-dimensional in, from a cycling perspective, which was what, which is what your biggest strength was. Um, and, and that's the goal for, for 2026 for you. So that's it for this episode. Uh, we hope you enjoyed it. If you do want some help getting these dos and don'ts right for your own training in 2026, we have more personal coaching spots available. We've opened up for the new year. You can apply at triathletecoaching.com.au to get coached by us there. We're grateful to have you back. We're looking forward to another year of helping you on the podcast, and we'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.