8 Mistakes Everyone Makes Training For An Ironman

Ironman is a monster of a race. It exposes every weakness, physical, mental and logistical. That's why getting your training right really matters. But what if the key isn't a perfect training plan? What if instead it's about making your mistakes early in training? In this episode we break down the build of an athlete. Peter, who was training for the Ironman at Port Macquarie last weekend and he had something go wrong every single week in training. But instead of letting it derail him, it became the exact preparation he needed. Because by race day he had already faced every single challenge he needed and it all came together. So this is a case study episode in why your training for an Ironman needs to be where you screw things up. So race day isn't the place where it happens. So let's dive into it. Peter, he had done with an Ironman with us before. He did actually one of the fastest or the fastest course in Australia, Ironman Busso. But took some time away from training and from us in the sport, which often happens after an Ironman. It's such a big event to do. We'll touch on this lesson in a second. But came back and wanted to have another crack at the Ironman and to see if he could conquer some unfinished business where he blew up a little bit in the run. So dad, welcome to this case study episode. And let's start with the main story from Port Mac before we get into Peter. The Ironman and the 70.3 were both held. The athletes woke up in the morning and the swim was cancelled, which just throws everything into chaos and turmoil. So how did you respond to this as the coach? Because we had 16 athletes racing across the Ironman in 70.3.

Yeah, good introduction, Jordan. You're right. Ironman is one of the hardest things you'll ever try to prepare for. And there's all variations of preparation, isn't there? People who get to the race are so underprepared it's almost embarrassing and people overdo it and they're actually worse off. And it's no different to the experiences of life, isn't it? I'm a big hater of extreme behavior. I love people to be more balanced and too much training and too little training, that's extreme behavior to me. And this is the same with an Ironman. It's really just trying to get the training right so that you can actually have an enjoyable day and enjoyable inverted columns. How do you enjoy an Ironman? It's brutal, but if you. If you actually measure your effort, you'll actually Have a really enjoyable day where you're in control and you don't want to lose control in these events. The minute you've lost control on the bike, where you are starting to fade, it's like, oh, why did I do this to myself? You know, and you want to sell your bike, you want to stop and throw it over the cliff. And in the run, when you've lost control of the run, it's the same thing. You're on the walk of death. So. So we're trying to stay in control of these events. That's our goal, so that we can finish with a big smile and get down that finish shoot so well. But, yeah, there's so many things that can happen. And the first thing that happened was, you know, we send out a video during the week saying to our athletes, look, expect anything to happen on the day, because it will. Inevitably it will. And who was to know that on the morning they were all getting text messages saying, unfortunately, we had to cancel the swim due to the poor water quality, which is fair and reasonable. And so how do, how do athletes react like that? And those who are ready for anything to happen, they're the ones who are calm and start to think logically about what that means to their race. And look, in a summary, we were really adamant that if your swim is canceled short, that's actually going to change a little bit of your nutrition strategy, but it's not going to really change how you ride and how you run. You'll have less fatigue. That's obvious because you haven't swam from between 50 minutes to an hour 40, depending on what your level is. So that's what affects your nutrition. You actually start the bike where your nutrition isn't depleted like it would have been from the swim. So that's about the only major thing that's going to actually change. And obviously, you'll ride the bike with less fatigue from the swim. So you'll carry. You'll carry a lot more freshness on the bike. So they're the things that we try to get through to our athletes of the morning when we got that information was, you know, let's not deviate from our actual speed and power plans on the bike and from our running pace as a runner. But we might need to, you know, adjust down the nutrition requirements and especially when the weather was really bad. Rain, cool conditions, almost cold. And so your nutrition doesn't need that much attention when the conditions are quite cool and cold as compared to an incredibly hot day with a high humidity where you need to get that hydration level really right or you'll have a really bad experience. So to start with, to get the swim cancelled was one of those curve balls that would and could possibly just throw people's mindset into turmoil about, you know, oh, what do I do now? I should actually ride harder now because I'm fresher and that's just not true. You shouldn't think like that. You should think like this is an opportunity. Well, I'll actually be able to ride more comfortably than ever if I stay in my ranges and possibly I could move my ranges, my power to the near the higher end of the ranges maybe, but that's not something we would recommend. We would still recommend staying with the original plan and just adjusting your nutrition.

Yeah. And then it also just means that you potentially you're going to be able to run at a, at a, the top end of your, of your potential running range. I mean you could just get a faster run than maybe you're expecting because you won't be as fatigued heading into the marathon. But the same thing that doesn't mean you try and push the pace or change your run plan. The message was quite simple. It's, it's keep the plan the same except for two people and that was our pro athletes. And for them they were the only athletes who had to have a different message. And that was in your own words. I love that you said this. You boys are now in a bike race because you're all exiting the transition with all the pros together and you need to treat it like a bike race and we're going to get the boys back on because everyone loved the first episode of the Turning Pro series from them and their first pro race, Geelong. And episode two is going to come with a bit of a review from Port Mac where it turned into a bike run race, which is very interesting for both of them considering the swim is where they drop off the pro pack. So we'll be doing a different episode on that. But back to the Ironman. So that was the message. The swim was cancelled. It becomes a 180 kilometer bike into a marathon run which coincidentally, if you're doing some good brick sessions, you'll have experienced something like this in training or you should have experienced something very similar to this in training. But just mentally I want to touch on that. There becomes a notion of. A few of our athletes felt a little bit cheated about the event because you do all this training for the Ironman and eventually you go, oh, this isn't technically a Full Ironman. And how do you approach that as a coach? You know, beforehand, don't worry about it, do the best. But afterwards, when an athlete says, oh, you know, I really, I really wanted to take this Ironman off. And especially for people doing their first one, it doesn't really feel like they've done their first one. But you can't take away from the fact that this is still a monster 10 to 12 hour plus event. You know, it's, it's, it's massive what you've done and so I don't think it should be undermined at all. But how do you approach that, that concept of you feel like you kind of, you didn't get the swimming, you didn't get the full event.

Yeah. And look, that's, that's just the cards that have been dealt on the day and I think you can't dwell on that. And if, you know the people who are only going to ever do one Ironman, if that's what ended up happening, that would be more disappointing. I think for the majority of people they are probably in the sport where they, you know, they'd like to do more than one. Most people after they've done one really want to have another go and do it better. But there would be people who are just going to do one and that's it. And I feel bad for those people. There's nothing they can do. But yeah, you know, for those people who are doing it and doing a lot of events, you know, it's just an asterisk. It's just, it's no different to a golf tournament that only has three rounds instead of four. No one, no one remembers in 1986 that that happened at one of the majors. They just remember who won that year and what their performance was. And you know, what you did on that day with your ride and run and probably you got slightly better results because you didn't swim because there was less fatigue. But that's about it. I think the challenge is still, you're still out there for, you know, let's have a look at the time you're spending in this race. You know, it's, it's somewhere between four hours if you're a pro for the full Ironman, up to, you know, seven hours on the bike. And then if you're a runner, it can be, you know, two hours, 30 to five hours as a runner. So they're looking at somewhere between 7 hours and 10 hours, 11 hours, 12 hours. And then if you add the swim in, it's Going to be an hour on top of it. So it's really, it's, you know, 90 of the race is done and the swim is 10. So. So you know, in terms of that, if they cut out the bike or the run, well that'd be a completely different scenario. It wouldn't really be an Ironman. But I think the fact that you've still got 90 of the event there, I think it's, you know, fair and reasonable to be pretty proud of the fact that you still endured the most enduring triathlon that's available.

So let's talk about the case study and Peter and then the Ironman racing and the training required because it still is just such a shock to athletes and it's hard to watch the volume required to get through an Ironman. Well and of course you could sign up and not get through it well and do the minimum. But when an athlete comes to us and says they want to do an Ironman, we take a deep breath in and say, okay, you ready for this? Because if you want to do it and you want to have a good experience on race day, it's a monster program. And not just a monster program, it's a monster day. It's as hard a day as you can get. And I love hearing you talk about the Ironman and what it takes. It's still a special event and the journey itself is still very special. You've got to be up for it mentally and physically, both the training and the race, don't you? Yeah.

And look, it's so easy when you're sitting around having a coffee or you've just done an event and maybe it's a half Ironman or Olympic and you're there with your mates, you know, celebrating your achievements. And this is inevitably when the decisions are made quite ironically after a big event. And then you know, the group that you might be with has all said, hey, let's go and do this, this Ironman together. And before you know it, you've joined up to an Ironman without you actually thinking it through. And that always worries me when you've been coerced almost into signing up for this massive event where it doesn't probably suit your lifestyle, your family or your work or yourself. And that always worries us as a coaching group. We have a care factor for people's well being and for their mental state where it's just so stressful knowing that you're, that you're training for a huge endurance event when you're still trying to live your life with work and family. And I really think that, you know, for anybody out there considering it, you know, it seems like it's an easy thing to do because so many people have done it now. And that doesn't mean that it's easy. It just means that a lot of people are really up for that challenge.

Or have suffered through it. Yeah.

Or have suffered badly through it. So I really believe that, you know, it's a decision you should come to, but it has to be well thought through.

And I will say that it's not just a little bit of sacrifice. In the last six to 12 weeks, you really can't afford much else outside of training and recovery. If you're doing a program that's going to get you there in good shape, it really starts to become all consuming. In your base period and your build period, you can still have a little bit of mix. It's still a lot of volume while you build that up. But come the race ready period, you're doing absolutely massive weekends. You're spending all week recovering from it. You don't have time for anything else. And you really do have to make social sacrifices. You can't afford to not be sleeping well and recovering because you won't get through your sessions. You can't afford to do any social sessions because you've got really key sessions that you need to hit. You can't afford to go with other people because they're going to be too hard. Most of your midweek stuff is zone one, maybe zone two. So it really does become a mental sacrifice. And watching athletes go through it, it's quite tough because you just know that that last six weeks, it can become pretty lonely and you're borderline, you know, burning out mentally from training just to get to the race.

Yeah, it takes a toll and you have to have the right mindset, you know, and mentally you have to be so up for it and be okay with all those sacrifices that you just mentioned. And if you're not, it's probably not the event for you. And there's so much other fun things you can do in the sport that are less enduring. But if you want to be in for this challenge like Peter has and many others that we've coached doing it, then that's a whole new level is getting the whole preparation and planning so that you can go out and execute the training as, as well as you can, so that by the time you get to race day, you've experienced every scenario pretty much that's going to happen on the day and you just have to have one job, go and execute. And that seems pretty simple. But boy, most people, and I don't use that term Generally most people, 90% or more are not getting it right.

Let's talk about Peter and his training prep and I want to start by saying this was one of the most impressive, consistent, diligent and disciplined training preps I've witnessed from an athlete his last 12 weeks. In terms of the race ready phase, it's just all green on training peaks. There's not a missed session, there's, there's not a missed day. You did absolutely everything right. As we said, it's unbelievably hard to train for an Ironman. And Peter can safely say he essentially left no stone unturned in giving everything you had to the training plan. Now, does that mean the training plan went perfect? Absolutely not. That's the premise of this episode, that in those sessions a lot of mistakes were made and a lot of things went wrong. But he himself kept turning up session after session, week after week to keep getting it right and to keep coming back. And yeah, I've spoken about how hard Ironman training is, but I honestly just find it hard to watch Ironman athletes train. I find it hard. I just feel for them so much because of the volume that they're doing and, and how, how much, how fatigued they, they are getting from training and, and honestly we can safely say we're not, we're not over training them either. You know, in the last six weeks, majority of the time the training during the week is as light as possible with the minimum amount of volume we think we can give them safely to not overtrain them or get sick or injured with the weekend sessions being really, really big volume Iron man sessions, that's generally the way it goes. But yeah, to have that, to be able to get to race morning and look back at the preparation and go, okay, I made a lot of mistakes but I'm here now and now my job is to execute is a pretty good starting place for a race.

And I think you've hit the nail on the head. Jordan, what is training about? It's preparing yourself for what's going to happen on the day. And so everything we do in training is trying to replicate some of those scenarios that we could expect. And at the end of the day, that's actually what's going to happen in these training sessions. It's practice. We're practicing for the big dance, the big day, and when you practice you make mistakes and that's actually expected that you'll get things wrong and then you can have a discussion with your coach. After that weekend's long day. You might have done say 140k with maybe 2 or 3 hour run and you got, got the ranges wrong on the, on the bike and your course selection was wrong. There's too many downhills and not enough pressure on the pedals. And so all those things, you know, you under consumed the fueling or you got stomach ache because you over consumed or the temperature was so extreme that you actually, you know, it was dangerous to run. Every one of those scenarios is what is what happened to Peter and many other athletes in Australia. This is probably the wettest period for the, the area of middle Australia to the north was the wettest period we'd had in a long time. And those people who were south of that region in Australia had the driest period. They had no interruptions, they had perfect weather. And believe it or not, the weather has an impact on everything we do because we can't spend every long ride on our trainer. Five or six, seven hour rides on our trainer for six or seven weeks. You can if you have to, but we choose not to do that because it's actually not replicating the real experience of training outside with the gradient changes, the wind and the temperature. So all of these things were really what our athletes were facing. And Peter was no different to this. And so having to really deal with finding correct courses and people who live in cities, you live in New York, if you live in Sydney, you live in London. It's really hard to find a course where you're not forever ever stopping every two or three minutes due to a traffic signal. And that takes a lot of planning and preparation and going out and finding a course out in the countryside where the hills aren't so steep because we're after this Port Macquarie course is very undulating. So we're trying to replicate that in training. But to go out and find a course that's similar to that, other than going to Port Mac, which is near impossible for most people because not near a city, you know, you are really struggling to find a course where you're not actually freewheeling on the downhills and, and the pressures off the pedal. So all of these things you have to take into consideration. I think Peter had experienced all these issues that we've just spoken about and really struggled with a lot of the training sessions to get that right and to get to the end of that long 180k ride or 160k ride or whatever. Ride he was doing and really have spent the right amount, appropriate amount of time with pressure on the pedals. And if you don't do that in training, when it comes to race day, you're going to be really found out because you're not used to doing it. We're trying to replicate, remember, that's our golden rule, replicate in training what the conditions are going to be like on race day. And if you're stopping and starting on race day, sure, let's do that in our training. But there isn't a lot of stopping and starting, so you need to have some training sessions where you're going to have pressure on the pedals for an extended period of time.

So when Peter came back to us and he wanted to start training again for an Ironman, it was great for us because we already had great data from him from his 2023 busto attempt. We keep really diligent data on all our athletes about their key training sessions and their races and the power they push and the speed. And so we knew what his FTP was back then and interestingly, by the time he got back to us, we had, this is probably mistake number one we want to talk about. And we had a conversation in March last year where he said he's going to go for it, he's going to go for Port Mac this year, which seems like a long time. He's doing the right thing by really giving himself as much preparation as possible. But he hadn't really trained consistently or done maintained his volume or his good form that he worked so hard for Basso in 2023. Look, he only had a few months off. There wasn't much of a gap between the end of the year in 2023 and restarting in March. But we had a bit of a conversation. He might laugh and I don't know if he remembers this clearly, but I remember it clearly where he said, I'm just going to start in July. I'm going to come back and start in July. And I said to him, that's not a good idea. You need to start as soon as possible. I know it seems like a long time, but you need every single week, especially for an Ironman. And to his credit, he agreed. He said, I know that's the case, I know what you're saying is right, but I'm just not ready to start yet. And we were laughing on the phone because I said, I don't know what to tell you because I think you're making a big mistake here and you need to get going. And we agreed to disagree. And you can't force anyone to start a program. And to his credit, he knows how hard Ironman training is, so he knew what to expect and that's why you kind of might hesitate to start. But he did end up starting in July, which is still a long time before the Port Mac Ironman. But when he came back, his form was way down from, from what his data was in December. For Busso, he'd gone backwards a fair bit. And so it just takes a long time to regain all the fitness you already had. And so that's one point we want to touch on. And it's hard for people. It's a long thing to commit to. And so we don't want to force anything on anyone, but we just want people to understand and have an informed decision that every single week that you leave, it is just more time on the back end that you don't have to improve your fitness.

We do talk a lot on the previous podcast about athletes who might come into the program at a level 4 or 5 and get to a really good level 6 or 7 out of 10. We talk about that as a ceiling point where, you know, once you get to nine or 10, you know, you haven't got much more room to improve, but the majority of people have got lots of room to improve when they come to us. And he worked really well before that 2023 Busselton Ironman event and got his level up to probably, you know, six or seven. And by the time he started in July, this is what hits home, is he was back at a level five. And so he spent the next almost three to four, five months getting himself back to level six. And then, you know, took him another six months to get back to level seven. And really all we did was get him back to where he was before he had that big, big long break. And, and that's the point you were trying to get across to him, was, look, don't let yourself slide backwards so far. And everybody says, no, I'll be fine, I'll do some work, I'll keep the training going. But inevitably things happen and you don't have the structure and the accountability and, and yeah, it doesn't matter if I miss one or two here, and all of a sudden you're missing more than you're doing. And the next thing you know, you know, your FTP has gone from 300 back to 270, your running pace has gone from, you know, 44 minute 10K to 49. And, and so you're forever fighting this battle to get back, and you will get back if you do the right training. And he did, but it took him that long. And instead of starting earlier, he would have not dropped back so far, and he would have been at Level eight or nine by the time he got to the race instead of being back to Level seven. And I know that's hard to hear for people, but that's the reality, and there's no sugar coating that. That's actually what happens. And as long as you're okay with that, then we're okay with it as well. But don't come to us with the expectation that I should improve my time when in actual fact, you haven't prepared properly to allow that to happen.

Yeah, it's interesting from my own experience, one of my key races for the year is the Melbourne Marathon at the end of the year. And we started my marathon preparation in November last year. You know, and when I've been telling people, they say, oh, what's your A race? And I'll say, oh, this one. They go, oh, you've got plenty of time. And they're still saying that now you got plenty of time. And I'm going, no, I started in November and I still feel like there's not enough, you know, just because the enormity of the event and that's just a marathon on its own, let alone an Ironman. So going through Peter's disciplines, I want to touch on the swim quickly. He came back to us at the start of his Prep as a 205 swimmer for a 1500 meter time trial. I just want to mention that his last open water swim time trial of 3,000 meters that he did before the race was at 147 pace. So that's an unbelievable improvement for him for double the distance. And I really just want to say big credit to him in terms of not leaving any stone unturned. He got really specific with his swimming and he went and got specific technique help. You know, he got an actual, you know, technique analysis coach on him. And. And that really helped him as well as he was going to the open water almost every week for the last 12 weeks leading into the race. And that makes a big difference. You know, as long as the weather was permitting and he could get there, he was doing it. So his swim was really in a good spot. And it was just a bit of a shame that the swim didn't happen. But, yeah, I wanted to touch on that, but going into the bike. So, you know, unfortunately, the last week Before Busselton he got his FTP to 300. When he came back to us he was at 250 watts. You know, it was actually high 290, sorry, before Busleton. So 292 or something or 295 and then these tests when he first joined us back was 250. So that's like he's saying a 45 watt decrease from, from that period and the week before Port Mac, just last week he retested and he went, he hit over 300 watts, 301 watts for his FTP which is a 20 minute number of 316. So a 51 watt improvement again over nine months, which is just absolutely massive. That is just for someone already up there, it's bit easy to go from 150 to 200 watts compared to 250 to over that 301 watt mark. That's really, really good. But again, we just spoke about this. That is mistake number one is that it is an insane improvement. But he kind of spent a lot of that time getting back to where he was pre buso and he managed to surpass that. But I think one key thing that explains this a little bit more was he actually had a holiday over Christmas which was pre booked, plenty of advance and this is a very normal thing to happen. And you have to think about this and consider this factor. If you're doing Ironman training and it was three to four weeks where he couldn't ride the bike, no bike training, so he managed to keep up his running, but he got his FTP up to 295 before Christmas. So actually a lot quicker than we're in May now. But that three to four weeks actually lost him over 20 watts. When he came back and retested after all that time off the bike, he was 23, lots lower in the FTP test again and that's really frustrating. It took him again another six weeks to get back to that 295 he was before Christmas and then keep building on that to the 316 he got before the race. So you can see here how this just can quickly blow out. That's a 12 week turnaround of, of getting back to where he wanted to be. And that's just unfortunate. And again that's credit to his consistency that he got himself there and made the use of every single session. But you know, the three to four week holiday, you got to do that part of his life. It's part of life, but it's just frustrating to go, oh, I've done all this work and this is really taking me back a bit.

And sometimes when you go on these holidays, unless there is just impossible to hire a bike or to go to a local gym and get on a spin bike, these are things that we would be pushing. And in some situations you, you know, you might go to an island where there's just no gym facilities, there's no way to hire a bike and you know, you're there just on a vacation, the only thing you can do is go for a run or a swim. And so, you know, you're trying to find answers that will help you get around these roadblocks. And if that, if you, if you tried everything, then you know that's the situation you've been dealt. But you know, they're the things in the planning stage where you would decide like I'm going to do Port Mac Ironman in May of 2025 and I'm going to have this holiday where I've got no bike available in December. You know, is that going to have much impact? And that'd be the question you would ask in your planning. And the coach would say, you bet it's going to have some impact because we just showed you, you know now in hindsight what impact it had. And as long as you're okay with that, and we always say that a lot, as long as you're okay with the consequences, then there's no harm. But it's the minute people get frustrated with their performance on the day they expect that they should have done better and then you have to go back and say yes, but you chose to do this period of training where you couldn't write, so that's impacted your result. And you know that's hard to hear, but that's actually the truth. And so these are the things that you know that are the roadblocks along the journey that you have to overcome. And you know to, to get to the day is hard enough, but to get to the day with this roller coaster of highs and lows, of your forms going up and down, which we know happens. But if your program and your planning is so well thought through that all you're doing is progressing the whole way through instead of going up, then coming back down, then missing some stuff where you are, if you just progress gently compared to hard blocks and easy blocks, the result is chalk and cheese. You know, that steady progression over that 12 month period is so superior to trying to cram things in. And that's the same in anything in life. You try to cram for an exam in the last minute. All you've got to do is do the work over a period of eight months and you'll know all the information. But do nothing during that eight month period and then try and cram it in the last two weeks. The outcome's not going to be good. Your brain can't actually recall the information. So it's a story we tell a lot, but it needs to be heard. And we're doing this to help you make better decisions around should I be doing this event and the consequences of your decision making.

And so I will say the difference this time because he gave us a lot more time compared to Busso the first time. It just meant because he gave us that much time, even though the FTP took that time to get back and then eventually get past his old FTP, that was just the 20 minute number. But the big difference here, which is what the time he chose to give allowed him to do was he had such a good base when he came to the race ready phase with 12 weeks to go. He got to that base period with just such a strong bit of strength in terms of cycling and running, where by the time he got to 12 weeks out, he was already comfortable doing five to six hour rides and long runs, two hours plus. And that is a really great position to be in when you're heading into the race ready phase because it means you can handle Ironman volume. So it's not just the 51 improvement he got, which is unbelievable, we cannot shirk over that. It's the strength he now had to hit a race ready phase. And I believe that getting into that position allowed him to really get through the Ironman race ready phase. If you don't have that base under you, athletes really risk breaking down, getting sick, getting injured over training because they just don't have the strength and the fitness to get through it. So that's a really, really key point.

Yeah, the fitness in the bank, don't underestimate that. And the fact that he'd been on our program with us already 2022 to 2023, you can't take that away. We talk about the bank. The bank is supposed to be in the world, the safest place to have your investment. And so fitness, we talk about our fitness investment in our body. So that's in our bank. Every day we do some training, it's more money into the bank, more fitness into your body and so that's there for life sort of thing. They're experiences that your body's used to. So the More of that you can do over the journey. And I think people who come back have got this, still got this base that they can recall to improve quicker over the next period. So if they start with us with no base and no experience on this program, it does take a long time. But if you've actually been on it and come back and restart again, you can actually get to where you were a lot quicker than had you started from scratch, basically.

So he was in a great spot. And I want to talk about what happened in all the key Ironman sessions because over this period our goal is to do 120, 140, 160, 180 kilometer bike sessions and get them right and get them in Ironman range to get your body really used to exactly what you said at the start of the episode, the specificity of the race. But this is quite a unique race because in your own words, it is the toughest bike course in Australia. And that and Cairns would be, you know, close to very closely matched. But I think your own opinion is that port Mac, it's 1800 meters of elevation over the 180 kilometers. That's for anyone in the northern hemisphere. It's 6000ft. It's a monster rolling course with some, with some serious pinches in there. So you've got to try and replicate that in training, which is really hard. And especially for Peter, he was in Sydney, you can't ride around. They have a great park there, but it's hard to ride around that park which is a 3 to 5 kilometer loop for that long, for 180 kilometer session. You kind of want a proper course which is more out and back. But you can't really ride around Sydney. So you really have to make an effort to drive out somewhere to find a course, which he definitely did. But it's this constant battle of am I aiming for elevation in my session? But that means the course is a little bit harder. There's a great flat course outside of Sydney, but you're not getting the elevation. So this is a lot of the questions that you're kind of asking coming into this. And a lot of our Sydney athletes were asking and, and it's really, you have to be. This is why we talk about plan, prepare, perform. This planning stage is so important here to get this right. If you weren't doing this, if you're just kind of going out for a ride, you're not going to get the value of the session, which a lot of athletes make that mistake. And not getting the course right means you're not training as well as you could be for an ironman. Yeah.

And look, it doesn't matter what city you're in, the obstacles are the same. It's just trying to get a long ride where you're not recovering. And every time you stop at a traffic light, your heart rate drops. So if you looked at your analysis of your session, we use training peaks. If you looked at that, you would see your heart rate just doing this, then drop, then doing this, then drop. It just steadily increases, then drops, then steadily increases. And I would straightaway say less persons on a course where they're stopping a lot. And so even though it's only for 30 seconds or a minute or two minutes, your body gets this recovery time and that's not replicating what the race requirements are. You don't get to do that on the race day. So. So you've got to be really planned well and you have to make, you know, you have to make an effort and it's outside of your comfort zone. If you have to get up at 4 o' clock in the morning to drive to a course where you can actually ride properly without being, being recovering, that means stopping, you know, that's what you should be doing. And it's not like you're going to do this forever. It's just a eight to 12 week period of. So it's really eight weekends where you actually need to do something like that. You need to go outside your comfort zone and put the effort in and get to a course that's actually going to be relatively similar to what's going to happen on race day where you're not stopping and it's easy just to go to your local course and you stop 45 times and you still do the 180k, you still do the six hours and that's still a great session, but it's not as great as it could be. And that's what we're trying to get across. And I think to Peter's credit, he did a lot of that. But then there was rain and hail and where some weekends it was just crazy to go training in that. So now you're stuck on the trainer and so finding ways to make sure that you can still get the same value on the trainer, it's just mentally very draining.

So I'll list out how it kind of unfolded and this is why it's so important to give yourself a range of sessions to try and get this right. Because at first, you know, it was one of the mistakes. I'll Just kind of list them out. And it's not. It's not holding the right power for the range of the session for the big volume of Ironman. But then maybe he was. You average the right power, but it wasn't pressure on the pedals. You know, he actually ended up choosing a course that although he got to the end and he averaged his Ironman range, you know, it was a ride where it should have taken him five and a half to six hours because of the stop and start nature. He averaged the right power, but the ride took him seven and a half hours total with stops, with an hour and a half of stops in there. And therefore the pressure wasn't on the pedal. So you're losing a lot of value there. Then fixing that, you try to get some more elevation in, but realized that he doesn't actually have the right gearing on the bike. And he's got to change his gearing if he's going to ride Port Mac and be able to tap away up the hills and not be grinding at 60 RPM. So you change the cassette. All these things are great learnings and so good. You do it in training and not realize on race day that, oh, no, I don't have the wrong gearing. I don't have enough gears at the back to be able to tap away. And then once you start getting all these things right. He actually had some big nutrition problems where each week he was just trying to figure out what nutrition he needed. Per hour was 80 grams, enough was 100. He kind of felt like he was really afraid of bonking, which I think happened to him a little bit at Busselton. And so he was kind of overeating a lot and just kept feeling sick. But he kept trying to push limits and go to 100 grams, 120 grams, and kept making nutrition mistakes, which is quite frustrating because it stops you from figuring out, am I able to hold this power or not? Am I able to hold it, but I've got my nutrition wrong or am I pushing too hard? It's not actually the nutrition that's making me sick. So all these things are happening. And then Sydney, like you said, had some horrible weather. So one funny story is a lot of the athletes ended up doing their big key session indoors, which you do 140 kilometer on an indoor trainer. That's really, really hard. That's a long time to sit on a bike on the trainer for five hours, five and a half hours. We wouldn't recommend it repeatedly. But in this particular session, he completely was basically throwing up by the end of the bike and tried to run off the bike and do a marathon pace. Run off the bike. He was feeling so sick and having such GI issues. And we actually went through what actually happened here on the bike and it is something different on the trainer compared to riding outside. And turns out because he was at home and he didn't have to get up so early, he ended up having breakfast. And he ate a fair bit of breakfast and then tried to get on the bike and do his normal 80 grams or 90 grams per hour of bike nutrition in drink bottles. But we worked out that he'd actually had a monster breakfast in terms of carbs. And so when we worked out what he'd had per hour, on average, it ended up being between 150 to 180 grams of carbs per hour for his five hour bike ride on the trainer. And I just said that is now that we see that in hindsight, it's no wonder you felt so sick. That is absolutely outrageous. Your whole body was trying to get through this over consumption of carbs and you couldn't ride the bike and no wonder you couldn't run. So some key lessons here that you're so glad you make that mistake in training, but had you done that on race day, your whole race is ruined. Yeah.

And that's again when we said earlier in the podcast, practice is what we're trying to do, practice so that we can learn from the practice session what works and what doesn't. And look, one of the other athletes, his name's Peter, also he's been using sis. And for whatever reason, there was none available the week of the race. And all of a sudden we were in a bit of a panic mode where his order couldn't be filled because there was none in the country. And you know, that's another dilemma that you're facing with, you know, making a decision about what do I do now? I'm not used to any other product. I'm used to this. And luckily the night before he did find some at Port Mac, he found some sis, which was, he sent me a photo. It was like, this is gold. But that's the things that can happen is, you know, simple thing like the nutrition is not available that you're used to having. And there's not a lot you can do if the actual brand runs out of the product. And that's what you've been training for, for eight months. Training with for eight months. So, yeah, these are stories that can happen anytime, any day. And Any period of your preparation. And it's better, as you're trying to allude to, that we happen now in training rather than you find out all these things on race day and. And you pay a big price on race day, whereas, sure, you can deal with the disappointment of the training session, but at least you're learning that that didn't work. This is the wrong gearing, you know, this is the wrong course. I shouldn't have had breakfast. All these things you learn from these things. And by the time you get to race day, you've made every mistake possible and it's just not possible to make anymore.

And that's.

That's the good thing about, you know, the fact that we're picking Peter as our case study is because clearly he had a great day.

Yeah. And I will say to his credit, each week he learned a lesson and he fixed it for the next week. And then we got to a couple of weeks out. He had a great day on the bike where he held the right power for the range. He had good pressure on the pedals. It was a good course selection. He had the right gearing of what he needed. He got his nutrition right. And it was 180 kilometer session. And what happened? His legs blew up in the last hour. And so why would that happen when we've got everything right?

Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it, that he hadn't experienced that pressure on the pedal so come that practice day where he got everything right. And the thing that was letting him down was he hadn't experienced that in the previous eight weeks. And. And that would be a moment for him to go, you're right, far out. How important is it that we get the course selection right where I have pressure on the pedals and all these things? You know, you get these aha moments. And, you know, it feels like the coach is being really harsh, you know, being particular about getting things right. And then, you know, there's no other reason to explain this than it's just your body's not used to coping with it.

There's no doubt in my mind that the reason he was able to execute so well and feel so good on race day was that he did all those sessions where a key mistake was made, and then he was able to have that key session where no mistakes were made. It's just his legs weren't used to it. But that session would have got him through it on race day and giving him that strength. Really, really important. And so talking about the run, the last thing that was Happening was once he was getting a few, you know, bike rides really well sorted. We just, he was doing some really good runs on their own. You know, fresh runs, you know, really long marathon, kind of Progressive runs over 30k. We did 3 runs over 30k at marathon pace. He was getting those all right. But we just couldn't get the bike and the run to match up where we'd get a really good bike and a really good run. And so we've kind of seen beforehand you've done really good bike sessions now before race day, you've got that trust in the bike, you've got the trust in the run legs. But, you know, we were really fighting to the end to try and try and put them together. And so just as some quick data, you know, he really improved his run across all areas. Got his 5k time down from 440 pace to 418. And we're not training for 5k, we just use it as a field test. That's two minutes faster over 5k. But again, it was sort of this story of he's got, he got his run in terms of his marathon pace runs back to where it was pre Buso. But the difference here is his level of strength and fitness and his ability to execute from all the right training was a stark contrast to bussome. And so he didn't have the base before Busso to put together a great marathon off the bike. And he had a tough experience where he really went out of his marathon pace and couldn't hold it. I think there's a bit of nutrition problem like we spoke about, but he ended up blowing up. And it's not a fun way to blow up in an ironman. And that's just that lack of base that he was missing. And so instead he went into this race Port Mac with similar peak marathon training numbers and race numbers, but a totally different base. And that means a totally better race day experience because of his execution, because of his strength, because of his discipline. And like I said, we weren't quite getting the run off the bike. Riding, training, his run off the bike numbers were different to his fresh numbers. But once he fixed up nutrition, once he fixed up how to ride on the bike, and once he rode properly at Port Mac on race day, he got off and he just had, in his own words, the absolute best experience. He just went out his marathon pace and held it. And it was a perfect negative split of the average 6:03 pace for the first half, an average 602 pace for the second half. Not slowing down. And in fact he did what we almost say is impossible in a marathon, let alone an ironman. You know, we say that a negative split is holding your pace. You know, we say lift, but that doesn't mean lift the pace. We say lift your effort so that you can maintain the same pace. He actually lifted the pace. His last 3km was at 5:40 pace. And for anyone that's doing an ironman, that is coming home like a train and that is fitness.

Yeah. And you know, the mental enjoyment that he's getting while everybody around him is like a war zone. There's people, you know, stopping, you know, crying people, you know, vomiting, people just unable to continue with cramp, they're stuck in one spot. It's just, you know, you're running through this myriad of people at different states of fatigue and when you're running faster than you've run for the previous 38k, you have this euphoria feeling of what is going on. Here I am, it's like I've not done any, any of the previous race compared to everybody I'm looking around is, is just, you know, having an awful experience. And, and even those people having an awful experience are still got enough energy to say, oh, far out mate, way to go. Great, great running. And, and it is, it just can't help but bring a smile to your face when you're that person running through the field and you're in total control of your day. And that's the bit that, you know, you just get that aha moment of. This is what it's all about. This is the experience I wanted to have all the time I've done, all those hard weekends, all those hard training sessions and here I am actually executing properly and it's spine tingling moment. And while you're in the moment, it's like euphoric. You just think, I'm invincible here. And you're doing paces that you know, you couldn't even achieve in training. But here you are on race day because you've got this huge adrenaline rush. You're in a race situation. Everybody else around you is not running your pace and you're the only one doing it. And it's a wow moment.

And his race day experience was exactly what you dream of if you're going to put that much effort and that much discipline into a training program. And he reaped the rewards of his consistency and his learnings and he put it all together and had the most enjoyable experience. And he stuck to his numbers on both the bike he was super disciplined and that allowed him to run so well. And I will say, time wise, we really want to emphasize this message. He did say 12 weeks out from the race, I'd really love to smash my time on the bike and really do a big PB for the Ironman. I had to say to him straight up, I don't know if that's possible. Even though you'll be fitter and you'll be able to execute better, you could try to compare Busso to Port Mac and people will try and shrug it off and say, I'm fitter, I should be able to go faster. It's not the case. Busso is pancake flat and lightning fast. And you can't just get to a hilly course with 1800 meters of elevation. That's a Tour de France stage of elevation and expect that just because your fitter, you're going to be able to ride faster. And so we had to lessen that expectation and say, I don't think that should be the aim. The aim is to execute better and run as well as you can off that because your legs will be a lot heavier with all those hills compared to bustle as well. So even running faster will be tough. So you need to kind of let go of the time expectation. And so we're not going to shirk around it. He rode half an hour slower. Port Macta Basso, it was a half hour slower. But he's ridden so much better. So you think, is that really right? But it absolutely is. He has had the best bike ride of any ride he's done. And I said that to him after the race. That is the best bike execution you've put together in any training session or race you could have done. And that actually allowed him to. He flew on the run and he ran 4:27 at Busselton. He ran 4:14 at Port Mac. A 13 minute faster marathon at the end of a much tougher bike ride. Granted, you don't swim for sure. We have to take that into account. But that is impressive. That is a good race.

Yeah. And they're the things that he'll always remember is the experience of being controlled compared to where he was at Busso. And you know, as you said, you cannot compare courses. You've got to compare Port Mac with Port Mac and even then Port Mac have had really good conditions and they've had really bad conditions and then the course has changed. So it's really hard to use total time as your measurement. You know, sometimes it's really good to see where you finished in the field of your age group. And then again, that's fraught with danger as well, because people improve over the years and the journey and some people come into your age group and so you might be further down in the placing. It's really more personal. I think it's how did you feel and how did you experience the day? That's the measure for me for most age groupers, and that's the ones we're really concentrating on here, not concentrating on people who are in the pro ranks with the Tom and the Rolands and the Mats. This is about everyday age grouper who wants to be a better version of themselves. And this is the experience we want. We want you to have a fun experience on this day. And, you know, this is what Peter experienced by, by really staying disciplined. And sure, there would be a few people who'd say, oh, gee, I could have gone harder on the bike, but they're very much in the minority. The majority of people are absolutely spent. And as you said, you know, comparing Busso with Basso is fair enough, but not Busso with Port Mac. Busso is the fastest course in Australia. Basso is the slowest. And they're the things that I think that you can't just grab those stats and start comparing. And that's not us trying to sugarcoat anything. That's just, you know, if I looked at our guys who are winning the age groups, you know, we had guys who've won age group at Busso and one at Port Mac, so we have that data to tell us that they were much slower at Busso at Port Mac than they were at Basso, yet they still won the race. So, you know, that proves their point that they're just completely different events in terms of time.

Yeah, for sure. And I just want to tell a bit of a funny story about his experience, which made me laugh. He said that he remembers at Busso that he did override a little bit. He rode well. He wrote a pretty even split at Busso, but he definitely did override. And he said he had your voice in his ear at Busso saying, state of your numbers, state of your range. And he remembers coming out of T1 onto the bike and coming out and starting to do his numbers and riding nice and easy. And there's a volunteer on course early that looked at him and said, come on, mate, get going. So that really rattled him. And you kind of listened to the person went, oh, yeah, crap, maybe I'm going too slow here and started going, which don't listen to a random person on the side of the course about your numbers and what you've been training for. But he said that hilariously in the race at Port Mac, he came out of transition, hit one of the first hills and just stuck to his numbers. And people were flying past him on the first hill, as always happens, and people gassing it. And we had a big conversation about, you need to study your numbers. And it's going to feel silly, it always does. And it's just going to feel ridiculous how lightly you're tapping away. But this is what this race is. It's 180km of tapping away at your Ironman zone, which is really, really easy. You know, the hard part is doing it for 180km. And you have to. You have to be willing to do that. And to Peter's credit, he stuck to the plan. And on one of these first climbs, a volunteer said to him, that's it, mate, stick to your numbers. Because he was clearly going slow and everyone's flying past him. And he just went, yeah, you're right, stick to my numbers. And I just absolutely love that story. And sure enough, he said that he was, because he kept pressure on the pedals. He was doing what we always say. He was catching people over the crest and the downhill, and they were relatively even on the flat. And the only difference is he's building less matches on every single uphill. And that was our discussion. I said, you experienced what it's like to keep pressure on the pedals for 180km in that big training session. You saw how heavy your legs were. You can't afford for that to happen again and run the marathon off it. You need to stay in your ranges. And if you, if you don't do what we're saying and you're not willing to feel silly, you're going to have that same experience. You're not going to be able to run off it. And also, one minor thing is we realized in that session that the wattage was probably just 10 to 20 watts too high. And it was our first time we were able to kind of look at the full data with no major mistake in there. So we were able to dial it back for the race and just go, we need to go about 10 or 20 watts lower. And that's what's allowed him to run really well.

And I always often say to our athletes, are you going to be most proud about the fact that you rode, you know, really fantastic bike ride? Oh, yeah. But I had a shock and run or you're going to be more proud that you had a great race. And remember, it's a swim bike and runner. In this case, it was only a bike and run, but it's a. You've got to look at the overall picture and not be proud. The fact that you smashed the bike and I still hear people telling me, oh, I had a great ride at Port Mac or great ride here. And then if I ask the next question, how did your run go? Oh, not so good. I had a few issues and they'll fob it off at some reason that other than the real reason, they rode too hard. And you know, you want to be able to say, I had a great race. I really ran the way I wanted to because of the way I rode. So disciplined.

His post race message to us and the post race phone call was just unbelievable. He was just so elated. And it's what an experience to put all that work in and it all come together on race day and get the result that you want and, and you speak about the journey together to any race is so special. But with the Ironman, it's just, we said at the start of the episode, it's so, so hard. And we thank athletes for their gratitude and we feel really grateful when they express just how good the race was and how enjoyable the experience was, which is our aim. And he was really reiterating how important all those lessons were and all those mistakes that were made were so crucial in making sure he had an enjoyable experience on the day. And he was just, he was just so elated. And one of the last things was I sent him a screenshot of his power file in one of those key big sessions where it was just, honestly all over the shop, you know, if you could see the graph, it was just so up and down and erratic. And then six weeks later, when he does the race, the power is as much in the range as you could possibly be. It was just by far the best execution. And when I sent him those two screenshots, he was literally flabbergasted on the phone and, and he was looking at those photos going, I can't believe that difference. And I can't believe I did that. And I said, well, it's from all the work he did, it's from actually learning and listening. And he was saying in the training sessions, I don't know how to improve. I don't know what you're asking me. I just feel like it's impossible. I just can't ride in those ranges consistently. And just by turning up every week and improving and learning from the mistakes, he was able to do it. And he was just wondered at those power graphs and what he was able to do.

Yeah, and look, our job is just to guide people along that training journey so that they get the great experience on race day, which is what we bang on about here. But, you know, I've had so many athletes say the same thing, Jordan, what you're asking me to do, it's not possible. No one can do that. And then the minute I show one of our athletes on one of the videos we do for them, or even a screenshot showing them on the same course and that they've managed to do what we asked and then comparing, and that's the only way people go, oh, so someone can do it then. Therefore, I believe it can be done now. And rather than just, you know, letting us tell you that it can be done, you know, some people need visual proof that this can be done, and that's okay too. But as long as they get the message that that's what we're striving for and we're not trying to do something that's impossible, it is hard for everybody to do this and it's hard to practice this. And that's the beauty of the program we're given. You know, the guys, you know, I'm diverting a little bit here, but Tom and Roland and Matt, I think Roland had in the half ironman, the pro race, the fastest bike time in all the pros. And Matt Phillips was the fastest age group bike time of the whole day. All the age groupers and they got in the tent and it was like they were getting asked, how the hell are the trivalo athletes riding like this? And then that's at the pointy end, that's at the best level. And all the age groupers see the trivelo guys riding controlled uphill downhill, keeping the pressure on the pedals and then being able to run properly. And that is so good to hear from feedback from other athletes who are just bewildered at how they can ride the time trial bike so well, which enables them to run so well. And that's what we're striving for, trying to get our athletes who don't believe that it can be done, showing them it can be done visually by looking at other people's files, profiles. And then once you get on top of this, your whole world opens up and all of a sudden it becomes a completely different event. It's different because you're doing the opposite to what the majority of people around you are doing. And it's not so exaggerated. On a flat course like Hell of the west or Busselton or where it's really, there's no gradient changes at all. It's like 15 meters and all you've got is wind. You've got wind that's blowing a gale. You still have the same concept that you have in wind as you have in the hills. You still ride in the same disciplined areas of the ranges. And so they're the things that if you get that on board with your thought process, then you can practice that in your training and it'll become automatic on race day.

A huge congratulations to Peter and to every athlete that completed an Ironman over the weekend. And we said at the start it's just a monster campaign and, and it just makes us so happy to see someone put everything into their training and really do everything we ask, which is plan, prepare, perform and then turn up on race day. And it's just their job to perform and put into practice everything they've been practicing from their training. And for it all to come together and have such a positive experience just makes it all worth it. So well done, Peter. Props to you. That's just as good as we can ask for. So that's it for this episode. In this case study, we hope we have informed you of some key mistakes not to make for your next Ironman and these principles apply for all races. So that's it from us. If you would like to get the same sort of level of coaching and detail and get your race ready phase right for an Ironman or any race, you can apply to get coached@trivelocoaching.com au we guarantee your improvement. We guarantee you'll improve your FTP in the first block of training with us. Otherwise it's money back on us. We know we can help you. All the data is there, so go to troverlocoaching.com do it IU to apply. Otherwise we'll see you in the next episode.