#8: Execute Your Perfect Time Trial

Welcome to another edition of the Trivelo Coaching Podcast. Unfortunately, this podcast experienced some audio issues. Fortunately, it's mostly when I was talking. So that means that the audio, when Jarrod is talking, which is the most important part, is actually pretty good. You might just have to turn the audio up a little bit to make sure you hear everything clearly. On that note, this was one of the best podcasts we have recorded, despite the audio problems, mostly because the advice given by Jared on time trials, I think, is absolutely world class and it's one of my favorite ones I've done so far. So, without further ado, enjoy the podcast. All right. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Trivalo Coaching podcast, Tribalo Coaching, where we specialize in helping cyclists and triathletes improve their performance and enjoy the sport. While I'm with the mastermind behind Trivalo Coaching, Jarrod, how are you doing?

Great, Jordan. Thanks for having me on board.

Well, it's good to be back. We've had a bit of a break between podcasts, but we do plan to be back more consistently with podcasts because we know that everyone enjoys them and we've got a lot of exciting things coming up with what we want to talk about. And today we're going to be talking about everything. Time trialling, the art of time trialling, because it is a specific art. So we're going to be covering how to train, how to perform in a time trial, how to perform well on race day, the big do's and don'ts, and we're going to get into some nuggets that have helped multiple time trial athletes from Tribello actually win the national championship. So it's going to be an exciting one.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it and it is one of my passions, the time trial. So section of cycling. It's a very unique and individual part of cycling. Unlike the other aspects of cycling, which is more related to bunch riding and tactics, there are tactics in time trialling, but it is you against the clock.

It is very unique and it's something that's become extremely popular. You know, almost every cyclist on beach road has a road bike and a time trial bike. So why do you think this is?

Yeah, I think possibly people really do like to see themselves against others. Whereas in a road race or a criterium, you're really in a bunch situation and there's so many variables that can change the outcome, whereas in a time trial, generally the best rider will win. So that's actually one of the things that is Appealing to people that they actually get to find out where they sit in the ladder of first to last. So it's really, you know, everybody knows what it stands for. You're riding against the clock and the fastest person is the winner. And you know, how you get from the start to the finish is a lot more involved than most people think.

So why do you love them? You say that you have a big passion for them. Why do you love them?

I suppose my triathlon background where you are actually time trialling in a triathlon and I just like to take out all the variables that can happen that you might be in a wrong position in a bunch, be, you know, crashed, someone crashes in front of you. So many things can happen in a, in an actual road race and that also is appealing to others as well because you have to actually manage a road race so much more with sophistication compared to a time trial where you just go as hard as you can for as long as you can to a degree. So I think, I think the pure, there's no other variable except your performance. It can't be influenced by what someone else did. And I think that's what attracts me to the time trialing. It's unique in its entirety.

So I see a lot of people love the speed aspect of time trial and the fact that you can get a really good bike and you can go 40 plus kilometers an hour and just feel like you're flying. I'm sure that's a big reason why it's popular.

Yeah, that is absolutely. You can just for the same power output, comparing a road bike to a time trial bike, you can go so much faster and you know, we're still kids at heart, we love to do things at, you know, max speed. So that, that's the adrenaline rushes and it's so much fun riding past people, you know, 10 kilometers an hour faster than they're riding. Yeah, definitely. That's an attraction is to, is to, you know, get on your bike and ride as fast as possible.

And part of that attraction is the, its own sport really, the individual time trial, but the team time trial aspect as well, which comes in training and getting to do a race. We won't go into the team time trial racing today. That is another factor that people love to do. But let's get into it in terms of the individual TT time trial training and then preparing for ideally a race. Not everyone that trains is preparing for a race, but most people are either doing an individual time trial or doing it in a triathlon of Some sort, yeah.

And time trialling, people think should be very unique and specific, but it's, it's only got a little bit of tweaking to do from normal cycling training. Obviously you need to have good threshold, a good motor, and it's not all about hard, high, intense bursts with recovery, which is what cycling is more about. Time trialing is being able to sustain an effort. And I think that's actually one of the things that attracts people is how long can I sustain this high, high effort for? And yeah, the training side of time trialing has to have what the race requirements are, and that is you riding as high a power as you can for as long as you can repeatedly with no, no rest. And, and that takes people away from the sport as well because, oh, stuff that, it's just too hard and, you know, you have to have a really good mental approach to putting yourself through some pain for a long period of time. And, you know, some people love it. I certainly. It's a great test of understanding your numbers and executing them in an event. And as we'll talk about in a moment, there's a whole lot of things that come into getting the right outcome.

So is that a mistake a lot of people make is that they get too TT focused and try and do too many TT sessions when you don't need to tweak it that much?

Yeah, absolutely right. If you look at the professionals, the best Tour riders are the GC guys. And guess what? They're the best time trialers as well. They may not be the best sprinters, but they are everything except for that. They are really good climbers, really good time trialers. They can go solo, they can attack, they can roll turns. They may not be the best sprinter, but that's about all they're not good at. So you don't see a lot of Tour riders, professionals, spending all of their time just doing time trialing because they need to be good at almost everything to be a good GC rider. But they're the best time trialers at the end of the day. And it's really because they're doing a lot of climbing, a lot of strength work, which is very similar to what you do as a time trial holding threshold for long periods of time, which is what hill climbing is. So it's no coincidence that the best hill climbers are the best time trialers. So, you know, specific things that you should be doing as a time trialer is lots of threshold work. And whether it's on a TT bike or whether it's on a mountain, they've both got the same benefit. And you actually become a better bike rider if you do some of them in the hills. So that when you do some road races that have hills in it, you can use that advantage that you've got where you can ride threshold for a long period of time against guys who are so used to just effort recover. Effort, recover, which is what criterion racing or road racing is hiding, protecting yourself and giving one or two or three big efforts to try and break up the bunch and attack. Whereas for time trialing, that's just not important at all.

So based on that, how many TT specific sessions would you do a week? Because you said you need to do those long, sustained threshold efforts either on a TT bike or the mountains or something similar.

Yeah. Well, the more times you ride the TT bike, whether you're doing a general cycling session or not is important. So spending time on the TT bike. So if a lot of our program doesn't repeat sessions, that's one of the things that we really want to make sure people understand. You wouldn't want to be doing four threshold sessions a week to be a better time trialist. You actually won't be better if you do that. You need to do a combination of, obviously some endurance riding, some threshold riding, some over under threshold riding, and they can also be specific cycling training sessions. But if you did them on your time trial bike, you're actually going to be better time trials because you're used to the position that you're riding in and the muscles work slightly different because you're on a different angle. So it's really important that you actually do spend time on the bike doing general cycling sessions. And of course, it's not ideal to ride your time trial bike in the mountains, but I do have some athletes who can do it, but I wouldn't be recommending that. A specific bike for a specific style of training. But the more you can spend on the time trial bike, I can't emphasise that enough, the better time trials you'll be.

So, to clarify that we don't repeat the same sessions within the week, but we repeat the same sessions over a cycle of.

That's right, yeah. So in any given week, we would want to do one threshold session and you can do that on your road bike in the mountains, or you can do that on your time trial bike on a slight rise of a hill, or indoor trainer, or a flat bit of road or a velodrome. You're still putting the same output, the same wattage, but you're just doing it on the bike that you're going to race on. So yes, we repeat the same sessions weekly, but not during the week do we repeat the same sessions.

So you might do the same threshold session three weeks in a row, but you're not going to do that four times in one week?

That's right, yeah. We certainly need to be to be testing other aspects of the aerobic conditioning, anaerobic conditioning.

So generally speaking, you do want to be on the time trial bike more to get used to the position, to everything you just said. But if someone was looking for a number and everyone's different, you can't give an exact number. But how many times would you want to be on a TT bike a week at least, compared to just if you're going for a bunch ride or any other stuff?

I'm a bit biased because I would spend during the time trial season for us, it happens to be in winter. I would spend probably out of seven days, I would be on my time trial bike five, five days out of seven. So on your recovery days, is it important to ride the time trial bike? It's actually a really good idea to ride the time trial bike on the recovery days. Just to get used to the position, get your body used to that position with no intensity. The threshold days, the tempo days, the bunch ride. Obviously you need to be on your road bike, the hills, you need to be on your road bike. So if you're doing one bunch ride and one hill ride, there are two days where you need to be on your road bike. The other days you can do the recovery days on your road bike. So there's four and the other three days you should be on your TT bike. But I'm doing recovery days and three days, which is five plus two road bike days.

And that's even if you're indoor as well, correct?

Yes. Yeah. I'm riding a TT bike indoor for my threshold sessions and for my over under sessions.

Yep. Cool. So more specifically, when you're doing these over under sessions, these hard sessions, what are the keys to that? To make sure that you are, you are getting really specific for the individual time trial event because yes, it's time trial season. So you're training for most people, you assume if they're on the time trial bike, they're training for a time trial, but they might be doing it for destiny. ITT or an ITT as part of a tour or a championship.

Yep. So you've answered the question. It depends on what the event is. Is it a One alone standalone time trial, or is it part of a tour? So if it's part of a tour, then you've got to work out is the over under session. And the second thing about that is, what is the time trial course like? Has it got lots of steep climbs or is it pancake flat? So that'll determine what over under session you're doing. So if you've got lots of little rolling hills, then you won't be riding above threshold much or below threshold. You'll be in that window between 95 to 105%. But if you're on a course that's got quite some steep hills, you could be riding at 120% on the uphills and 50 or 60% on the downhills because they're so steep. So you would identify the course requirements, then appropriate training sessions to match that course, so you would tweak it. So if the race that's coming up has got lots of little undulations that require me to ride 110, 120%, my over under will have that in it.

Yeah. So it's very specific.

Yeah, absolutely. And don't underestimate understanding what the course requirements are. That is really crucial to working backwards to what the training is going to look like. The basic training session is there, but you can manipulate that to replicate the condition of the race.

I guess that's something you've said all along with time trials. And he said at the start of this podcast that even though it's not a race, there is so many factors involved, so many things to think about tactically. And you can start with the actual course itself, but there's a whole lot of things you have to consider.

Yeah. And look, while we're talking about the course, the wind as well as the terrain, they're the two elements that are crucial to the decisions that you make as to what power you're going to ride throughout the ride. And, you know, knowing what your power number is crucial, but knowing when to use it on that ride on the hills, the downhills, the uphills, the headwind, the tailwind, etcetera, they're the decisions you have to make before you start that ride. There is an app called Best Bike Split that does actually do that for you. Breaks down the actual ride and the wind of that day. And it's quite a valuable tool if you wanted to really go specifically like that. And one of the things we do as a coaching business is the event that you're doing. We have the information of what is the Requirements from either Strava or from any of the apps that are available, or from physically going and reconning the actual course, which we've done many times. So we know how to go about the training sessions. So knowing all of that information is kind of primary. That's the number one thing.

So if you think about that, you start to think, wow, you can see a big disparity between the quality of training program. If you're not thinking about all these things, you know, yeah, someone might be just doing a pretty general TT program, which will be way behind a person who is thinking about all these factors and doing this specific training for the exact course that they're training for.

The example, we just had our local state titles and it was 50 to 80 kilometer hour winds. And look, most people would think, logically, it's a time trial, I'll just go as hard as I can for as long as I can. But if you did that, you would actually get the worst outcome on a day where the conditions are extreme. If you did that on a day where it's calm and there's no hills, that would be actually nearly okay. But the minute things change, if you're not willing to adapt to it, you will get a really poor outcome. So if you start straight into a headwind or a crosswind and ride too slow and then turn around to the tailwind, the gains are in the hardest periods. And if you think that you're going to ride better in the tailwind, think again. Because you can't ride as fast downhill, as fast as you can uphill against people who are struggling. So everybody's going to ride similar speed with the tailwind or downhill. The margins are minimal. But if you're struggling into an uphill or headwind, the margins are great where it's hardest. So if you ride with the mentality, I was going to ride as hard as I can the whole way without taking into the terrain or the wind, you're going to get a very average result.

That's a really, really big point. And before we get too much into the actual racing, there's a lot to talk about, about that. It's just highlighting the key point that if you're wanting to get the best out of yourself in a training program, you need to be thinking this specifically about your event and work backwards from there and create a training program and create sessions that are as close to identical as that as possible. And they can't be generic, correct?

That's exactly right. There isn't two time trial courses that have been the same unless it's repeated the same course year after year, which generally goes. The nationals go from state to state so they're never repeating the same course. And the requirements are completely different every year. So the person who's doing the most diligent reconnaissance is going to get the best result. And it's no coincidence that, you know, at the state titles we pretty much won every race because we all knew the requirements and all our training was based around that. And the harder the wind blew, the better it was for us because we had a plan to use in those conditions.

So my next question was going to be what makes the difference in a training program, A sex successful training program and a non successful one. And I think you could answer it again. But you've kind of summed it up.

Yeah, just being attention to detail about the specifics of what is going to happen on race day. That is, if you don't pay attention to that, then you're just going to be like everybody else. You're just going to go with the approach of whatever the conditions are. I'll just ride as hard as I can. And that logically sounds right, but unless it's, as I said, no wind and pancake flat. I have never ridden on a day like that where there's no wind and it's pancake flat. In 200 time trials I've done. I reckon I might have had one of those days where it didn't matter. I was just going to ride the threshold for that period and, you know, didn't matter whether it was turning left or going up or back. That was the power. Was the power. But that doesn't exist in a racing situation. So the less preparation you do, the worse the outcome. So from a coaching business point of view, we are adamant about being as well prepared as we can. And an example of that would be the nationals this year in Adelaide. So we went to Adelaide and we've been over the course and come back with all of that knowledge so that I can tell the athletes who are going to do that event what the requirements are and I give them the specific training sessions that relate to that course.

Yeah, absolutely. So that's the training aspect side, which really is dictated by the actual race itself. So let's get into the race preparing for the race. The lead up to the race pretty much from the tapering period all the way through to the completion of the race is a lot to think about.

Yeah. And look, you can go back a step too, Jord. You know how much time do you need to prepare for a nationals or a state title? So we can talk about the tapering and the pre race and stuff that's really important. But all of that is irrelevant if you haven't done what we just talked about the work before. So how long do you need to prepare for a race? If you've got good General Fitness, a 12 week program would be perfect to prepare you for a specific time trial if you've already got the fitness there from a really well rounded training program. So I could use myself as an example. 12 weeks ago I was not in very good time trial form so we started to do specific stuff that was going to make me a better time trial in this period. And of course week one my threshold might have been 270. And now week 12 it is 295. So we have done exactly what we want to do with all of our athletes trying to get the eight to 12 weeks program specific training. So they're progressing their FTP. So the number is important. And if you ride to the wrong number on the day, you're going to get the wrong result as well, no matter how well prepared you are. And that is one of the problems with the best rider should win, but the best rider with the smartest information will beat the other guy.

So that's a massive factor. Thinking about the race is knowing your numbers. Yeah.

The more information you can have, the better decision making you can make throughout the ride. And it's only 20 minutes. How many decisions do you have to make? Some of them are 30 minutes. You can't possibly make that many decisions. But every time you come to a rise, you've got to decide whether you're going to ride 105% of your threshold or 120 or 100 or 95. Every single next 20 meters you're making another decision about what pressure should I be putting on the pedals. So if you have intimate knowledge of your power number, then that decision making is so much easier. If you don't really know what your number is, it's just perceived exertion. I'm feeling really good. I'm going to go hard. Of course you're feeling good. You tapered. It's the start of the race. So you're going to actually destroy yourself. Because I felt, but I felt so good. Well, three quarters of the way through the ride, when you feel like you've got a piano on your back, it's too late. The race is done. So power is to stop you from going too hard at the start. But it's also to enable you to understand what to ride uphill and downhill into the headwind and with the tailwind. So use, it's like, I think I used the example of the. You know, the Formula one is the elite of car racing. You've got. You got 15 guys in a garage with computers all getting information from the car. The brakes, the tyres, the speed, the aerodynamics, the lift, the. Well, the information that's on your screen in front of your eyes. It's like the gromp Formula one shed with all the experts. You've got that in front of you and the more knowledgeable you are about your own information, data, the better decisions you'll make. And of course you make better decisions to get better outcomes. If you haven't got any information, it's like looking at a blank page. I can see numbers, but so what? I don't know what they mean. So I really take the numbers seriously. And the athletes understanding their own numbers, it's not for me to know all their numbers. They need to know all their numbers and that is really important. And I'm forever giving feedback and you've seen me sending off emails with all the data of their previous race, what their numbers were, what their heart rate was, what their timeout was, what their power back was, their best 20 minutes, their average speed, their average cadence. Just reams of data that they can use to say last time for a 24 minute ride. This is the number I rode to. Today's ride is going to be 28, so I need to be a little bit more conservative so I might need to knock off a watt or two. So having all that information gold to when you are so confident on the start line because you've got this bank of information that's in your brain and on your screen that you're going to execute with and you can make a mistake still, but you're highly less likely to do that compared to the guy who has no idea who's just going to ride. As we said, we keep using that example as hard as you can for as long as you can. And that's what people think time trialing is. And that's the big mistake.

And I know your rule is you won't let any tribal athletes get to the start line not having a plan for their numbers.

Yeah. Yep. And if you don't know what you're doing, that's like self sabotage to me. You're preparing to fail.

There is another side of that though. You can freak out about the information in the data. Use the data too much.

That's a good point. And also the point that we were going to really hone in on is what happens if your power meter is not reading correctly. And it does happen if it's not calibrated. And this has happened many times. The calibration has been 10% out, so you could actually be. If it's 10% higher, you're actually looking at numbers going, whoa, they're too high. So you pull back and therefore you're actually riding slower than you should be. Or if the number's too low, you're pushing harder than you should be because it's calibrated 10% lower. So it can actually affect your outcome if you rely too much on the data. We use it as a reference all the time. We still have to race the race. And, you know, the example of a 5K runner, you know, I know what the pace I should be running at, but there's two guys who are running one or two seconds quicker than me per kilometer. Should I just let them go because I'm not allowed to go over this pace? Absolutely not. You run with those guys because they'll drag you to an improved personal best performance. Time trialling is the same, but there's a line where you can't cross that's, you know, that's the feel of it.

I had that exact experience, 5k run not long ago where I was looking at the wrong screen in my watch and so I couldn't work out why it wasn't coming down my pace, and so I was pushing harder and harder and it wasn't coming down. It was because I was looking at the wrong pace. And then I ended up blowing up after a K because I was running 20 seconds faster than my K should be. Yeah, I just forgot to run and I was just looking at my watch.

Yeah. And the data is dictating you. We don't want that. As much as I've been really harping on about how important it is to know all this information, you could have a flat battery in your power meter at the start line, or it's calibrated wrong, or it's actually the gap your actual Garmin won't turn on. All these things have happened to me in time trials and you're standing there going, oh, shit, what am I going to do? And I've done okay by writing to feel, but you just got such less information to make better decisions. And, you know, I've already got to the finish struggling, or I've got to the finish with too much left. And both of those scenarios are not ideal. You want to execute the right numbers at the right time. So what do you do in that situation? Well, you have to just go by feel, not panic. And so, okay, I've got no cadence, I've got no heart rate, I've got no power. I don't even know what my average speed is. Let's go right to fuel. But if some of the things aren't working like power isn't working, but you've still got speed and cadence and heart rate, then you drop back to those three things. So you've got to use your brain in those panic situations. I think I was telling you at the start line, I was in the big. Should have been in the big chain ring and I was in the small chain ring. For some reason I started and then I couldn't get it to change after 20 seconds and instant panic. How can I ride a time trial on a small chainring? But just relax, let the bike chain go over to the big chain ring and away we go. So not panicking in a lot of situations is really crucial. So having that information at the start line, making sure everything's working before you get to the start line. So if your start time is 12 o', clock, you need to work backwards from that. And that's something we need to talk about.

Yeah, well, that's race day preparation. That starts. You always say that starts the number four. Yep.

So we talked about the training for to get to, you know, the 12 weeks out and doing all the correct stuff and specifically training more specifically for the time trial. But the week out or the two weeks out, we start to taper. That doesn't mean we stop riding. It means we do less volume and probably some higher intensity stuff, but not as long. So people just think, oh, the taper is an easy period. Well, it's actually, if you do that, you'll be asleep by the time you get to race day and probably unlikely to perform very well. Everybody needs a different taper because everybody responds differently. But the general rule is that you reduce the volume but keep the intensity going to a certain degree, not just ride easy the whole time. So that's an important aspect before you get to the, you know, the week out or two weeks out, going to the area, if it's a hot area. I'll use the example of Kona for the Ironman. Yeah, people go there two or three days before the race. That's actually not giving you the best opportunity to acclimatize to the heat I would be, you know, and then they say, oh, but I needed two or three weeks after to have a holiday. Well, I'd be saying, no, this is my big race, let's go two or three weeks before, get acclimatised and then leave straight away and get on with your life again. Getting used to whether it's too hot or too cold is really important. And don't underestimate the travel as well. So if you're driving to an event, if it's a long drive, go the night before. So you're not spending eight hours in the car or fly the day before. So they're things that are really important. Just before the race, the night before, you need to have all your equipment out, have your shoes, your kit, your bike should be sparkling clean, everything should be functioning. The gears, get all that checked beforehand. That's all the important stuff which people overlook.

Yeah, but that stops you getting to the start line.

If you've got your race numbers already, which some some competitions do but some don't. Some you have to get it on race day. So you need to allow more time before your warm up. To get to the registration, get your number on your kit and you need a transponder on your bike and a number on the back of your bike that takes 15 minutes. Have you allowed for that? So you start times 12 o'. Clock. Like we talked about before, you work backwards. My warm up should be minimum of 40 minutes, but I recommend to all of my guys that if they can get there two hours before and ride the course if it's only a 20k or less or drive it if it's more. So you already know the course, but you need to go and feel the wind conditions. That's the reason. Plus it's a really good warm up. You get to feel where the wind is and every angle of the course and it could change throughout the day, but at least you've got a heads up from the start so you work backwards. So if I need to be starting my warm up and I've just had to ride the course, I need to be on the bike at quarter to 11 and then ride for 40 minutes to do the warm up. Get off. I've already got my number, all that stuff ready for my bike. So quarter to 11 is my riding time, so I need to get there by 10 o' clock to make sure that I can get to registration, get the trainer set up so that everything's ready. My helmet, my shoes, my heart rate strap, all of that stuff. Needs to be all set up and then I can then get on my bike, ride the course, then get off, get on my trainer, ride the time trial, the pre time trial important high intensity ride that is very specific to the race to get you ready and we can talk about that if you want.

Yeah. What is that? Because that's something that you do specifically with a lot of the traveller people.

Yes.

And carton to go high intensity.

Yeah. So you can overcook yourself which some of you guys have done. And a good example is if you do that warm up in the sun on your trainer where there's no wind, you can actually overcook it and get to the race and you, you're pretty much done. So I'm, I'm recommending that you be in shade if it's a hot day and if it's wet, be under shelter as well and have that all set up. So, so when you actually start the warm up you need to, if you've already written the course you, you've got the, everything in your body is warm. So then you can start. It's about a 20 minute to 28 minute actual. If you cut out the 10 minute warm up in the normal warm up it becomes a 20 minute warmup. So you would do a bit of a ramp so that you actually getting your heart rate to build a little bit as, as you're warming up and then you would actually do two minutes over threshold. So you do two minutes at 72 minutes, at 82 minutes at 92 minutes at 100 to 110 and that's kind of six minutes, eight minutes of that's kind of two or three minutes where you're riding at threshold race pace or more, which is absolutely perfect. Have a recovery. And then one of the key things I do is give the guys 3 by 30 second efforts at 120 to 150% in a really big gear. So they're really engaging their leg muscles like a little mini weight session for 30 seconds. So they're riding way over their race pace with lots of recovery, two minutes in between and that should finish about five minutes before the end of your actual warm up. And then there should be five minutes before that to the start line. So that would be 10 minutes, around.

10 minutes before you race.

Yep. So, so you've got to get off your bike and get your race bike going and for some people that means putting the wheel back in and that could take another two or three minutes and you've got to be very relaxed to do that. But why do we do those hard, high, intense sessions? Because we want to wake the body up so much that when it comes to the actual start of the race, whether it's an uphill start or a flat start, we are totally warmed up and we don't have to spend the first four or five minutes feeling like crap. And then all of a sudden, I'm feeling better now. You're already ready. The other main reason is if you ride way over threshold for a short period, when you start to ride at your race pace, it feels easy because you've done a couple of efforts that are really hard and you see that all over the world. In different sports, you might see the footballers run out onto the ground and do some speed sprints and just so they don't injure themselves and so their body's ready for the first contact of the game, the kick in the footy. You know, this is all the same reasons why we warm up for a time trial.

Yeah. So you do all this, you do it as preparation. You've given yourself the best chance of getting to the start line in the best condition possible and then you've got to face all the different elements of the actual race. And that is all the information you're going to be getting from your bike computer. So your power numbers, your speed, your heart rate, the conditions again, that you've got to factor in, and then also racing. So how you're feeling.

Yeah, you've summarised that really well. And. And let's just take a recent time trial. We started into a straight, headwind, uphill. So what power am I going to ride at? And that would be a fair enough question to ask me if I was. If I was an athlete and my coach was there. And I would have already taught you that the length of the hill, or the length of it riding into the wind, determines the power. So shorter periods of time, I'm talking 10 seconds, 20, 30 seconds. The percentage against your threshold is high, could be 110 to 120. The longer the period, say two minutes or four minutes, the percentage is lower. It might be 102%, 105. And as long as you understand that basic concept, you can make those decisions without even asking the coach, what happens when I get under the downhill? Do I keep trying as hard as I can at threshold? No, you don't, because why on the uphill, into the headwind, we're over threshold. You can't ride the whole race over threshold. That's what threshold is. That's Your best, you can't ride the whole thing. So on the downhill, you're going to ride under threshold, not because you want to, but because the hill won't allow you to push or the tailwind is too strong. You can't actually push enough power to keep up with the speed of the bike. And that's why it's okay to ride over threshold in the hard bits and under. So it equals itself out to hopefully 102% of your threshold, which means you've done a PB. So if you ride at 90% downhill and 110 uphill and 100 on the flat, you're going to do the same time as your previous. But if you can actually ride maybe 112% on the uphill and 92 on the downhill and 102 on the flat, you'll end up with 102 or 3%, which will give you a PB. So executing the ride and understanding that gives you so much more information about. Right. I should be doing this now.

And if you go too conservative up the hill, and maybe, maybe it's a short hill, but you only go 102%, you're not getting enough out of yourself, because in the downhill, you can't get any more.

That's right.

The max you can go is 90%.

Yeah. Yeah.

You can be averaging 95%. Yep.

And the biggest gains are always in the hardest times. That's my number one golden rule. Okay, guys, the biggest gains where it's hardest, headwind and uphill. The smallest gains you can still gain in a tailwind. And downhill, if you're very aero and you can get the bike speed going fast, you can still gain, but they're marginal. You know, if everybody's doing 60Ks an hour, how hard do you have to pedal? How much effort do you have to exert to do 61? Whereas if you're going uphill at 20ks an hour, if you put out 22ks an hour, you'll get 30 seconds on someone by putting a little bit more effort into it. The cadence is really important in what to ride and what you're used to riding. Everybody's cadence is different, and people overlook this aspect of time trialing. It is so important. I've got guys who ride best at 78 RPM. I've got guys who ride best at 100, and I'm not going to make them all ride at 90 because that's not the right answer. What you time trial best at is where your cadence should be. Your Revs per minute should be what your experience is. We try to train people so that they get used to riding high cadence, which engages the cardio. But in a time trial, you definitely want to have a lower cadence, to not get your cardio so into the red zone. So times where you're going uphill, obviously you don't want to be grinding uphill because that's going to really SAP the energy. You want to spin more when you're going downhill to keep the cardio down, get it into a bigger gear, and try and engage the strength. Also going over the top of a hill, people think, I got to the top of the hill, my hill's done well. No, the thing you've got to think about is the bike speed all the time. So if you can keep the bike speed and momentum going over the crest of the hill and on the downhill, and all of a sudden you feel the bike speed pick up, then that's the time you can actually have a little bit of relax. But don't take that as a relaxing time. You should be. No relaxing in a time trial. It's a time where you don't have to be riding at 110%. You can. It's okay to be riding at 95 again.

And that's where you. You say even in a lot of road races, you put gaps into people over the crest because people switch off.

Yeah. Because they think it's done.

So you can imagine in a time trial, the same thing's happening.

Yeah. And look, all of the guys that we coach, it's drummed into them. You know, I'm standing on the start line. If we're doing a trial, don't forget, ride over the crest of the hill, get the bike speed up, and then you can go back to your big chain, you know, your big chain ring and cadence. And that's the only time where you can actually have some sort of recovery time almost.

Yeah. So that's. I mean, there's a lot to think about there with the physical side of the race in terms of your own ability and then understanding the data. What about the mental side of staying focused in the race? And things aren't always going to go according to plan. And then getting the most out of yourself mentally, it's you against the clock. Yeah.

But one of the things that gives you real confidence in the mental side is having all that information. You just feel so prepared and it's confidence. Such a confidence booster. I know what my plan is. And you can, you know, you can stand around before the race, talking to some people and you get an instant idea of they've got no idea what they're going to do, whereas you've got a total, total plan. What power are you going to do? Everything about your day is planned. And these guys are rocking up late there, panicking. They haven't warmed up properly. The start times in two minutes, they're not even got their numbers on. There's just so many things that it's just chaos. And they ride like that. They get on the start line and they ride way too hard and they just crawl home and geez, I hated that. And it's all to do with your mental preparedness and the physical preparedness, obviously, but, you know, mentally being confident and happy and. Yeah, just knowing that you've got a plan, executing it takes a lot of effort because there's going to be hard times in the actual event where this is hurting me, but it's hurting everybody else as well at the same time. Am I going to be stronger than them right now? Well, that's the mental side of you. You need to actually be thinking like that. I hear some guys going, oh, I just drifted off. What? How could you possibly be drifting off with all the information that I'm giving you? You should be saying, what is my cadence? Is this a hill? What's my power? Am I too high? What's my heart rate? You should be repeating those things every time the terrain changes. Is there a headwind? Is this a tailwind? Is this the hardest part? Gerard says I should be riding hard when it's the hardest part. Am I riding hard or am I actually dawdling? There is no way you could be distracted or bored in a time trial. It's just got so many seconds where everything counts. And the minute you stop concentrating is the minute you lose the race. And you know that I've lost many races by one or two seconds.

Yes.

And that could be going into the roundabout too slow or not riding over the crest. And imagine if there's six turns in a race and you lose two seconds on all six turns and you lose the race by 12 seconds. That's an example of how important every aspect of cornering, riding over the hill, getting the bike speed up, every little segment counts towards the outcome, the end result.

Yeah, there's a lot to think about there. And even, I mean, we won't go too much more into details, but you have a lot. There's a lot to cover. And you also have a lot of little nuggets that are really important. For people. One being, I know you always talk about at the start, one guy's just got a gung ho, but two, looking at your lap power straight away.

Yeah, really good. You brought that up, Jordan. Because if you're trying to work out what your average lap power, so your average power for the whole ride is just. Let's just use 200 watts. If you're trying to do 200 watts when you start off, you're not doing 200 watts when you leave the start gate. You're trying to get your bike speed going. So it's going to be 400 watts or more, 500 watts for 10 seconds. So if you settle into your time trial position, you look down and Your average says 350. The coach has told me that's too high. What are you going to do, slow down? Well, no, if you slow down and wait for it to get to 200, you could have lost the race there and then. So to eliminate that out of your average push lap after 15 seconds and you've reset, eliminated the start, which is 450 watts for 10 seconds. And then you're going to ride properly at your 200 watts for the next change, which could be the turn. And as soon as you get out of the turn, you'll lose 5 watts. So if you don't push lap, you will try and catch those 5 watts up again or ride too hard. So keep pushing lap every time something changes and then you know that you're in the right area of power that you should be. They're little things that you should be doing throughout the race. Don't worry. And also, you have the average power for the whole ride on your screen. So what your screen showing is really important.

You could have eight screens to. What would you call them? Eight?

Yeah, Eight pieces of information.

Yeah, eight little squares on your screen. You need to choose what those eight things are going to be to give you some best information. Yep.

So lap power is really important. Knowing the distance of the race is probably the least important thing because you know the course, you've already reconened it, the time that you're taking. Yeah, it's okay to know that because you think you might be riding around 29 minutes, but you won't know that until you get to one minute to the end. So that's a waste. So having cadence, having your actual lap power, having your instant power, 3 second so that you don't look down and see 500 watts, because lap power won't show that. So you need to have that on the Screen as well. Heart rate. They're probably the four most important things. The other little things I would have is normalised. If it's normalised power, if it's a really undulating course, because the average won't take into consideration the downhills and the uphills, whereas normalized does. Average power just tells you the raw data, what you're averaging the whole ride, whereas normalized takes into consideration not pedaling as hard on the downhills. It gives you a more accurate indication. So I would have normalised and average power. Average power for the whole ride and lap power as you're going. So they're things that you really should have sorted out before you get to the start line.

There's a lot to think about. I can only imagine if someone's never heard of this before, that it would be a little bit scary to hear. Wow, this is what it really takes to.

I just thought you ride as fast as you can against the clock, which is true. And some people might say I'm over complicating it, but I'm just giving you the best opportunity to execute. And we talked about this earlier. It doesn't matter Whether you're doing 180 kilometer Ironman or a 20 kilometer time trial or a 5K best effort, you have to manage the 5K, the 20K and 180K. You have to manage it according to the information you have. And if you don't respect that number that you've worked and trained towards, then you could have a really poor outcome.

So, I mean, based on all that, you could say, I wanted to ask the question, what does it take to be successful? And Tribalo has had multiple time trial national champions and so you could say that. You can't say you're over complicating it when the proof's in the pudding and it's a winning formula.

Yeah. And look, I definitely like to keep things simple and our style of coaching is basic, but compared to other styles of coaching, it is so detailed. But it's common sense. The basic things we're telling everybody, and there's lots of them, are common sense. When you think about it, you know, oh, yeah, why wouldn't I have got rid of the start 15 seconds? Because I'm going to ride for two minutes at the wrong power waiting for my number to drop. You know, that makes sense, but until someone tells you, you just don't know that information. So we have experienced a lot of races to get this information and to fine tune it so that when our athletes get to the start line. We're giving them best opportunity to get a really great result. And at the end of the day, that's what everybody wants. If you don't, the podium is part of the process, but the process is more important. The outcome doesn't matter whether you're kicking a footy for goal. If you concentrate on the actual process of the kick, the goal will come. If you concentrate on all the aspects of the time trial, the result will be there. And that doesn't mean it has to be first place. A personal best performance is first place in our eyes. And if you've come from 15th to 10th and you've ridden 10 watts better half a kilometer an hour faster. I'm ecstatic. I'm more ecstatic probably than the guys on top of the podium because he's expected to win. Probably. So in our business, we're about not the podium. That's a result of all our work. We're about personal improvement, personal best and executing a really great day's training.

And that's right on. I mean, the nationals are next week and you'll be ecstatic if people execute the plan as best as they can, no matter what the result.

Yeah, and the state time trials were exactly that. And it just so happened that we won most races. And as I said to you earlier, the conditions suited us because the worse the conditions, the more important the plan and the structure and the strategy has to be.

Absolutely. Well, that's a pretty good spot to wrap it up on. That's a lot to take in. I hope everyone's gotten a lot of value out of everything to do with the art of time trialing. I mean, there is a lot to think about and hopefully this can help. If you do need more help, obviously reach out to us. We do coach people specifically for time trial events or time trialling as part of a triathlon. Is there anything else you'd like to add to finish off with for time trialists out there?

Yeah, look, one of the things that's really important is that you won't nail it every time. You will make mistakes and they're the biggest learning days. Hopefully that's not your A race. You've practised enough and made enough mistakes along the way so that when you get to your A race, but be well aware that it takes 50 time trials to get one that's perfect. It just doesn't happen. I've given you so much information to think about, it's confusing because what the hell am I thinking about? But once you do race after race, practice, exactly what we're talking about, and get the routine going, follow the process. Then you will get to a day where it will all work, and that day will be a fantastic experience. And that's what time trialling is all about.

Yeah. Perfect. So good luck to everyone that's competing at the nationals next week. I hope to see a lot of you there, to see a lot of Tribella athletes there executing the plan as well. And any other time trial events coming up in the next 12 months. Hopefully this can help people execute their race better. Yeah.

Looking forward to seeing everybody have a great day.

Awesome. Well, that's it for this episode of tribalo Coaching podcast. We'll see you on the next episode. Thank you very much for listening.