Breaking A World Record Training Just 1-Hour A Day

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. In today's episode, we were joined by one of our most remarkable and unique guests we've had yet to date. Her name is Anna Davis and she's a cyclist from here in Australia. And she is the current world record holder in the one hour individual time trial on the track in two age group categories, the 50 to 54 age and the 55 to 59. She just broke her own world record last Friday. She has had four attempts at a one hour world record and broken the world record every single time in her age group. But don't let the age group category make this feat any less because only one rider now in Australia has ever actually gone faster than her in one hour around the track. That is former elite professional cyclist Bry Odonnell. And she's currently ninth fastest in the world of all age groups for one hour around the track. And as you'll hear in this story, her feats are absolutely incredible. And I don't, I don't want to say for her age at 57 years of age because she could be 28 and these feats would be absolutely incredible. But the fact that she's doing it at 57, that does make it more remarkable. Yeah, today we got to speak to her and she is. Not only is she the world record holder for the one hour attempt, she also holds four world record titles in in masters category, as well as eight national titles across different events in at all, individual time trial, road races, crit races. And attached to all these feats is a very modest, quiet character in Anna Davis. And as you hear in the interview, she doesn't say any more words than she needs to, but as a listener, you want to pay attention to every single word that she says because underneath that quiet, modest resolve is a steely, absolute warrior and competitor and someone who you would not want to mess with on the track. And it was such a fascinating interview today, dad, wasn't it? And we got such an insight into what it takes to be as successful as she's been.

Yes, her single mindedness, Jordan, is the one thing that stands out to me. Her willingness to do whatever it takes and her love for what she does. She absolutely loves doing it. She can't wait for the next training session. And they're all the ingredients for a successful athlete, no matter what sport you do. And she's come from horse riding background, windsurfing background, and she's only been riding a bike for seven years. Imagine if she started riding a bike when she was 20, she would have been the Marianne Vos of women's cycling. I have no doubt she has such an engine. And, you know, she's beaten many males individual time trials, including myself. And she caught my attention the very first time she smashed me in one of the individual time trials outdoors. And I was just shaking my head saying, who is this woman? She is a demon of a writer. And you go and talk to her and you just, you can't see that. She's so quiet, she's so humble, yet she has a fierce determination to put all of her actions out on the track, so to speak. So she doesn't leave anything, you know, untouched. And I just love talking to her because she's inspirational for, but not only for older athletes who, who wonder whether they, their form is going to decline. And hers from 50 to 57 has got better. You know, she, her first attempt at this was 43 kilometers an hour and now she, last Friday did 45 ks an hour plus. Think about that. That's, that's very fast writing. I can't do 45ks an hour for 5 minutes, never mind an hour. So putting that in perspective just gives you, the listener, an idea of the sort of caliber that Anna Davis is as a world class cyclist and time trials. And it's a real pleasure to have her on and, you know, I'm really grateful that she gave us her time and was open and willing to share her secrets.

Without further ado, here is Anna Davis and her story about her world record feats. All right, Anna Davis, welcome very much to the episode. Firstly, congratulations on a fourth world record that you just completed no less than six days ago.

Thanks, Jordan. Really, really happy with that one.

It's. Yeah, we're going to get right into it. It's really exciting for you. This is going to be a great episode because there's so much to explore with you and what you've been able to achieve. The first question we want to ask, we ask all our guests, is depending on their score, sport. What does cycling mean to you?

It's fundamentally health. That's, that's the number one. I came into the sport seven years ago for health reasons and that's still the priority. Everything above that is just a bonus.

So you didn't cycle five or seven years ago?

No, that is amazing because I came through a couple of other sports and the other sports were fairly harsh on the body. And it got to the point where having had a lot of knee surgery, the surgeon sat me down and said you have to take up golf or cycling. So cycling it was.

You're not a very good golfer.

I wasn't ready for golf.

And look, just for the listeners, Ann has also had a knee reconstruction prior to her latest. How's that coming along?

Really well. It's just a year and three months ago and apparently it's still improving but it feels really good now.

What were the other sports? I'm curious, what were you doing before cycling?

Show jumping when I was up to about the age of 21 and then windsurfing, traveled around the world. Windsurfing.

Well that is the strangest combination to get to a bike rider of your talent.

You think about it, they're all balanced sports, they're all individual sports, they're all power to weight sports. So there is a bit of a link there.

So dad, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you came across Anna in cycling Because I actually didn't know that about you, Anna. I thought you'd been in it for a long time, but that is such a short amount of time to have the amount of records that you have.

Well, the first sort of recollection I have of Anna was when she beat me in Tantra. That's when I first got first. My attention was drawn to wow, that's. I'm not big noting myself here but a lot of. I don't lose to a lot of age group women and, and I know that Anna's beaten. I was talking to somebody else about Anna and they'd also lost to Anna in a time trial. So it's not like it's just a one off thing. She's regularly matching it with the guys in the masters category and that's how good a time trial she is. And, and I was always impressed with the way she went about it. Her maturity about her training and her modesty. She never big noted herself. You wouldn't have known who she was because she just quietly went about her racing and obviously she's a weapon on the bike and the training and she just impressed me as a person. So yeah, I've always had a lot of time for Anna and have followed her results and couldn't be happier with what she's been doing in the last four years on the track in the, in the her next chosen sort of area of expertise.

So let's go through it then. Anna, take us back to the first time you decided you were going to have a crack at the one hour world record. What was the thought process behind that decision and how did you go about it?

The inspiration was really Brady o' Donnell having the same coach. We used to share a lot of the same training and we'd be doing 20 minute tests at the same time and we're very competitive. And she went out and rode an unbelievably impressive one hour record, which was then the world record. And I've always followed two steps behind Brydie and I think I just fell into wanting to do that myself. Told the coach and he just said, well, you'll have to go and find someone else. But I eventually talked him around and he helped me that first world effort.

And Bryony is, for those who haven't been watching any of the Tours, is a doctor and she's a competitive cyclist. And Anna's times are still in Australia. The only person who's faster than Anna is Bridie's time, which was done in 2016. So that shows you how good an athlete Anna is. And you always like to compare yourself to the very best. And Bry was the very best in the world and as an elite cyclist. And Anna is doing pretty much as a, as an age grouper and you got to be congratulated on that. That's just an incredible achievement. Is that something you're proud of?

Yeah, very much, yeah.

The talk is through then. What are the requirements to attempt a world record? What are all the hoops that you have to jump through to make this happen?

Well, there's quite a lot of administrative hoops that you jump through. You have to liaise with your Australia auscycling and using them to get the go ahead through the world body at the UCI. So a date has to be locked in three months ahead of time. And as an age group competitor rather than an open world record, I don't have to go through a process of 12 months of drug testing. I only have to do a drug test on the day of successful record. But then I guess the next serious hope is the training that's involved. And that to me was a 12 month project. And the training after the knee reconstruction was at a point where I thought I was going to be in a position to better my own previous record, which was always the aim. So 12 months just ramped up. It's a very slow ramp and locking in the date three months ago. That gave us then a final focus for the last three months of training.

So it was your fourth attempt and again, like you said, you're beating your own world record this time. 12 months out. Where were you after your knee reconstruction? Fitness wise, how far back were you? Where were you starting from?

I dropped a long, long way after the surgery and was allowed on the bike, of course. Is the rehabilitation. A week and a half after surgery, you're back on the bike for three months. I wasn't allowed to push more than 100 watts. I wasn't allowed out off the trainer for four months. So at the four month mark, I started to go to the road and I think I competed at Ballarat in the Masters time trial last year at the four month mark. And I realized that my power actually was significantly good at that point. So Covid hit and we sort of went into a bit of a Covid winter and we all stayed inside on our trainers and power continued to climb. And I think about 6 months ago I realized that my power was close to its best ever that I'd had in the last my seven years of cycling. So I had to set a goal. And given that there weren't a lot of events outside, I thought a realistic goal was to do the hour record.

Do you think that the knee replacement had anything to do with you getting that recovery that you needed so you could almost start again? Do you think that played a significant positive role rather than a negative role?

Yeah, very much. My ability to push power on the bike hadn't changed that much. Slightly for the better, but my ability to do it more often was definitely a lot better. I could train more consistently. There was less pain and there was less doubting myself that I was actually doing damage. So psychologically I could push a lot harder as well.

And how much did you think the rest period contributed you to freshening up as a. As we get older, obviously the medical practice, they're always telling us that you will decrease your ability as you get older. And you are absolutely proving this to be not the case. And just to give everybody an insight, your first effort was in 2017. Your second effort was 2018, then 2020, then 2021, is that correct? Your first one?

Yep.

Yeah. 17, 18, 20 and now 22.

22. Yep. Sorry. And your average speed in 2017, when you were literally four years younger, was 43.2, something like that.

Yeah.

And you just did last Friday, 45.3. Four years older.

Yeah.

What do you put that down to?

I think a lot of it is Experience at the hour. It's a very difficult event to get right. There are so many factors that have to line up on the day and throughout the training. Not getting injured, being a big one. Experience of riding on the track and getting the pacing is quite a feat. You not allowed a Garmin on the day. You have to just go by lap times, and that's very difficult for someone like yourself who stares at the power meter and rides to power every maybe four or five seconds. Have that taken away from you. You're literally blindfolded when you ride. Overcoming those hurdles was something, I think. Experience your line around the track, being able to hold the black line and not drift around too much, you certainly save a lot of time. I think also as you get older, there's an article recently on Rafa Nadal, why he was able to win a tournament at his age, beating someone significantly younger. And they put it down to efficiency of movement. And I think as a cyclist, that's definitely what we're contending with. Also that I become more efficient on the bike, both in the power that I can put out, but also my position on the bike, the aerodynamics, the knowledge of where to set my bike up to get the maximal performance out of myself.

Well, really want to dig into that a little bit more. In the program. I did sort of brush over the average speed. For the majority of people who are listening, 45.3 ks an hour is something that most people can hold for one lap. And you did it for an hour, which is how many laps, by the way, is one hour, 180 laps. So you can hold 45 plus K's an hour, 180 laps. And. And so that puts it in perspective. And if you've ever gone to the velodrome and try and do one lap at 45ks an hour and see how you go, it is a enormously fast pace to be holding. So I just want to get that out there to. For people to put it in perspective, what Anna's actually doing. And sure, the velodrome has some added things, you know, compared to the road. And I explain the difference between how you can ride on the road compared in a velodrome.

I think the main difference is out on the road, you get some rest, you're going up slight inclines, even if it's a flat course or you're going into the wind, or you're getting a tailwind, and you're able to ride to those and get rest in periods where you have either a tailwind or going Downhill and the velodrome, it's not possible. It's a sustained effort that doesn't change. And I think I've spent probably four years perfecting that. And that's also one of the reasons why I've been able to ride the record faster this time. So being able to acknowledge that's going to happen and find a way of training to maximize that has been very important.

When I found out that you had to do it without a bike computer, my jaw was on the floor because I just thought you would be so dialed into your numbers. And then to find out that you have not only no power, no speed, but not even time, you can't even have.

In front of me, you have laptop. You're allowed one person standing on the side of the track, and they're allowed to report to you lap times.

But even then, you're relying on that external voice to hear it. Every lap, you have to be extremely mentally tough. So, yes, talk to us a little bit about your mental toughness and the fact that you keep going back to it because it is as grueling as event as you could possibly imagine. And that's why training on the velodrome is so hard. Exactly what you're saying. There's no. There's no rest, you know, there's no respite. You just. You kind of cheat a little bit on the road with those, like, you're saying, little bits of downhill, a little bit up here, a little bit tailwind. How mentally tough you have to be to get through this one hour.

It'S Probably, I think 50% of the success is your ability to be able to withstand what you have to go through to do an hour. I've done four. Two of them have been what I consider successful. Two of them have been what I consider disasters. In that I've gone out very at the pace that's needed and blown up, but yet had to continue. And those have been what I describe as maybe the hardest things I've ever done. Because you can't stop, you can't let up, you can't complain to anybody. You're in this very lonely, solitary place, and time goes incredibly slowly when you're suffering that amount. I actually have a training program to overcome two things. One is the heat. You have to. Because you're in a tucked position indoors, there's the potential to overheat. So I do a lot of sauna training, and I go into a sauna at 85 degrees, and I don't let myself out for 30 minutes. And you get to 20 minutes and you're quite desperate to escape, but you just say to yourself, no, I'm staying here for another 10 minutes. And you figure out ways of talking yourself through that. And I think that flows onto what you go through on the bike. And that's been a very useful tool to go through that sort of training.

As replicating the experience on the track on race day or, you know, the world record attempt day. How significant is replicating that in training for you?

Reasonably important. I never replicate 60 minutes. I work to 45 minutes instead of 60 because going from 45 to 60 is mind breaking. And to do that too often, I think I'd run into a problem on the day that I'd go into such negative territory that it would be detrimental. So I tend to base my training around 45 minutes, which I know is sustainable and doable and still significantly worthwhile in terms of training load. And that was one of my strategies also, to not do those 60 minute.

Efforts just for the listeners. Tell us how often you would be doing those threshold efforts and were you sitting bang on the. Obviously you had worked out the power that relates to the time per lap that you needed to do. How often would you be doing that in your buildup?

Once a week I'd go to the velodrome and do my 45 minute effort initially.

How many weeks did you do that prior to the event? Was that three months? Six months?

12 months.

12 months of that?

Yeah. Well, actually no, because it was interrupted by Covid. So it was. Yeah, it should have been 12 months, but it wasn't.

You've really just highlighting. And this is why I asked the question the absolute mental strength required and the gravity of the event to go and do a 45 minute threshold effort every week for up to 12 months. And obviously Covid interrupted that. But we just spoke on the podcast last week about how grueling a threshold session is and how you probably can't do it week in, week out. Yet the person that can do it is you, and that's why you're a world record holder. And, and the. The gravity of. Again, I just can't get my head around, you know, not having that data and having to hear someone yell the lap time at you for 180 laps in a row. And to make that really clear, there's a really small margin. You're trying to hit every single lap. I think it was 19 to 20 seconds. And the person's just yelling out if you're on track or not. Is that Correct.

Yeah. My threshold was 0.1 of a second per lap in terms of variation. I was actually aiming for 20.2. And I came out on the day and the track was a little bit faster than expected and I felt a little bit better than expected. And hence my lap average ended up to be 19.9. So I was trying to sit on 19.8. So to me, a lap that was blown out was 20.0 and I had to recover that and then get my pace back onto the 19.8, 19.9 threshold that was set. And that was exhausting in itself because sometimes you just don't feel able to lift. And yet you had to know that you're going to stay on target.

You told me when we were discussing your success just yesterday that you had attempted different styles of attacking the, you know, a different race plan. You'd tried a little bit of over under threshold where you would use the bends to get more speed into the straights to get recovery. Tell us about how you decided which method to use on, on the day. And you've tried both?

Yeah. Taking it back even further, deciding to do 45 minute efforts instead of. And obviously they started off my threshold was less than it ended up. So they started off at less power than they eventuated. Rather than doing 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes efforts, and combining those with rest periods, I decided to go with a 45 minute block and be consistent with that. But then when you're actually riding the track, you can choose to ride at a sustained, even power throughout the 250 meters of the velodrome, or you can attack it in a way where you power through the corners and try and get some sort of 3 second rest in the straight, or you can try and accelerate through the straight in order to maintain your speed through the corners. And I played with all of those. Even lifting up through the straight so that you drop down into the corner to make it more like a hill to get some extra speed. I played with all of those and to me, I'm really good at just holding power. So my number one strategy was always going to be just to try and sit on a sustained power for the 250 meters and hopefully that I would last 60 minutes doing that. And it turned out on the day that I could. I couldn't always do that in training, but I had a very good day.

The conditions you just mentioned, the track was faster. Tell us about what's involved in those conditions.

Well, basically you're pushing into, even though it's not outdoors. You're still pushing into air, and the density of that air will determine whether it's considered a fast track. Three things determine the density, and that's the number. One is the temperature of the velodrome. The higher, the faster, the pressure of the air. The atmospheric pressure, 1022 millibars, is very heavy and slow in Melbourne. Occasionally you get a storm come through and it gets down to 1,000 millibars. That's very, very fast because the air has less particles that you have to push into. And the humidity, the sign that a higher humidity is faster. So the combination of those three, you can work out the air density, and that will determine whether it's actually a little bit faster or a little bit slower on the day.

So your strategy when you're planning out this event is the date of the calendar month is determined by a lot of those three things. So you wouldn't want to do that in Melbourne in June.

No, obviously you. You're picking summer. But the determination of the date comes down to when are your officials available? They're doing lots of other tour down Unders and nationals and lots of track meets. And you have to get people who are fairly scarce resources and lock them into a date where they can all attend together and are willing to do so. So the date is actually more determined by the availability of the officials on the track. And ideally, you do it through summer because it's. Yes, it's going to be faster.

Those three factors you mentioned, how much do they vary? I don't have no reference to those numbers. So 10, 22 to a thousand, I think you said. What. How much difference does that make in terms of how fast it is?

Well, you could be, after half a second elapsed, you had a bad day, you're pushing uphill, basically.

Yeah. Do you consider going. If it's that bad, do you consider going? Well, there's no point attempting today because it's. It's just so extreme because you've locked it in.

But you've locked it in. You. You. And you're committed financially to paying the officials, and you don't like letting people down. So you generally, you go, yeah, so you.

With the condition on the third, you get in there on the day and measure. Measure those three things. And so you.

Okay, yeah, yeah. And during your warmup, you've got your garmin for your warmup. So you look at the power and you look at the lap time that that's giving you, and you've done the figures. You know what the air density is and you can start to put all those factors together and then you make a decision on what gearing you were going to use. If it was a horrendously slow day, I may have changed my gearing into something slightly smaller and that would be my only out in terms of atmospheric conditions.

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of the listeners would love to know what your cadence was for the hour.

Very, very slow.

You're pushing a bigger gear than normal.

Yes. I've always been a rider who likes to ride in grinding gears and it's thought that 100 RPM is what you should be trying to. To replicate during an hour record. And to me, I'm not good at riding high cadence. It's very tiring for me and my heart rate tends to go to extremes and therefore the overheating factor comes in as well. So I like to ride an enormous gear and slow my cadence down to 90 RPM. And I can push. I have the leg strength to push through that and keep a lower heart rate, which I find is more sustainable.

That's great because for any of the listeners and our athletes are definitely guilty of this and me as well, you say really low, but for a lot of athletes, getting above 90 seems super fast. So that is good to hear that that is the goal. You should be getting up there and sitting low. 80s is probably far too low for you in a time trial.

Yeah, well, track might be slightly different than being on the road as well.

As you would say, dad, though for triathletes, it's the high cadence will help with the run after.

So, absolutely. You want to protect your legs as much as possible and grinding. And this is a completely different topic. But, you know, we were talking to Anna about the track and that, you know, I'm. I'm intrigued myself as to. Because I've seen the elite males ride a high cadence and I don't look at 90rpm as being a grinding gear. I think that's, you know, that's perfect for the age group because exactly what you just said. And keeping your heart rate in control is really key to keeping your body temperature down and not really blowing up. So that's a great way of. And you've probably measured yourself over 100 RPM, 95 RPM and worked out what's more efficient for you and what is.

More sustainable to get into good shape when you hit 45 minutes is key. High cadence on generally blown away.

At that point, I did get to see some video. Video footage, and there is some on YouTube of some of your attempts. And it did look slow. And when you said just then it was going to be a cadence wise, not speed wise, you speed, you were absolutely flying. But cadence wise, it did look slow. And I did wonder when you said, yeah, you go for slow. I was expecting you to say something around maybe 80, but it didn't look like 90. So that's interesting. Although one of the funniest parts of the video for me, maybe not so funny for you, is when you finished, you were absolutely exhausted, as you could expect. You barely could get off the bike and your partner came over and you literally gave him a kiss and then forwarded into the bin at the same second.

This is the attempt before this one? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

This one I walked away quite with a smile on my face.

Yeah, great.

The two extremes.

Yeah, yeah. Someone had. You're sitting there and someone put a bin in front of you and you went kiss and then bang straight into the. So I mean, the next topic we want to explore is the bike equipment. Yeah. You, you are clearly extremely thorough in all of this. And so talk us through the setup and the testing it takes to get that right and what you've manipulated.

Starting with a basic track bike, I have the red Cervelo T4 and I put some ceramic bearings on that and I lengthened the cranks to 170 because I think it had 165 on it. When I bought it, I bought some Mavic wheels, which probably the most important piece of the equipment. And the aero bars, the position of those, changing the angle is something I do quite frequently to try. And the equation of trying to be aerodynamic versus trying to be comfortable, trying to be most powerful is. It's like a three way wrestle. And trying to maximize your final outcome is dependent on where you sit with aerodynamics versus comfort versus power. So I spent a lot of time adjusting the head end of my bike, working out how low or how high to place the bars, and eventually I had to come up much higher than I would on the road in a time trial because I found if I was low down, I became too dizzy and nauseous. And it also cut down the power, even though I was at my most aerodynamic.

So you were going faster in a lower, aggressive position, but you couldn't ride really as fast. Sustained.

I couldn't sustain it. No.

That's the key to the solution, isn't it?

Yeah.

So it's a compromise, isn't it? You've got to just find that happy medium. What about Your seat. Did you play around much with lowering and raising?

A little. A little. Not much. I've played around in the past with that mostly on the road bike. And I tend to replicate my position on the road bike, on the track bike as well. Obviously you want to try and get the bulk of your body as low as possible, but it comes at a compromise. If you're bending your knees too much, you're probably not going to be getting smooth pedaling or the greatest amount of power. So I tend to have found my seat height and that tends to be a locked in position. And literally playing with the front end of the bike is only something I would do now, leaving the seat height alone.

Well, that's the benefit of doing those grueling 45 minutes every single week, is that you get to test this every single week. As mentally tough as that is and how brutal that sounds to the program, you do get to make these slight adjustments. And I guess you're testing literally week to week about what's different.

Yeah. And what's fast. Exactly.

You mentioned that you spent a lot of time adjusting to the heat with some training in the sauna. Tell me a little bit about your altitude preparation.

I set up an altitude tent at home and back at the 12 month mark, I was doing weekly sessions in the altitude tent. If you read the literature, it's probably advisable to be sleeping in an altitude tent for longer periods of time in order to get the best adaptation out of altitude. But that wasn't something I was prepared to do. So I used it initially as a cardiovascular training, if you like, because training it, I was going about 3,000 meters, 3,300 meters of altitude where your power is drastically reduced. And that was effectively taking the load off my legs. When they needed recovery from the surgery, I was training my cardiovascular system beyond where I would have been able to had I had legs that hadn't come through surgery. I continued doing that once a week and I used it as a recovery session for my legs. And of course you were overheating in there and your heart rate was about 20 beats a minute higher than it would have been outside of the altitude. Just another way of varying the training and adding that little bit more, I think, to what you could do day in, day out, otherwise just on a trainer.

Do you have dad, any more questions about equipment or aerodynamics? Because I want to chat a little bit more about the training.

Yes, just, just finishing off the helmet, the skin suit, the wheels, the tires, the gearing, they all play a little bit of a role, don't they? And what's the, what's the order of, of priority?

I think the wheels were very important. They had to. But once, of course, once you've purchased those, then you take that out of the equation and the things you can play with, the aero helmet. But again, it's a significant investment, buying an aero helmet. And I tend to buy that and then not look elsewhere for something that might be considered faster. I've actually got an aero helmet that makes a lot of noise and I find that quite good because the lower I've got my head, the less noise it's making. So it's a nice little reminder also that my head's not in the right position and it starts screaming and whistling at me, if you like. Yes, all those aerodynamic factors are very important, but I think fundamentally your head position overrides anything that you can buy or play with on the bike.

Yeah, the body position. I'm so happy you've said that because the things that I mentioned, you know, the, the wheels, the suit, the helmet, the, the tires, the gearing, they are all important. We're not dismissing that. But if you don't get your body in the right position, you've just wasted all that, all that effort.

Absolutely.

And, you know, just putting, you know, the significance of dropping your head slightly can be the difference between 0.1 or 0.2 per lap, can't it?

Oh, possibly more. Possibly more, yeah. But also being able to ride in that position, if you drop your head too low, it might cause you to be veering around and not holding a straight line, so you've probably lost that advantage. But fundamentally, I still maintain that your head position is key for aerodynamics.

So I'm super curious to know what was the rest of your week like based around that, that 45 minute threshold session. When would you do that? Would you do that on a weekend or.

It was locked in. Friday morning. We had an ongoing booking at the Velodrobe on a Friday morning, so that was locked in. I had another session that was locked in on a Tuesday, which was also a second threshold session. And everything beyond that was entirely how I felt. So feeling good, I would maybe have even five really hard sessions a week on a good week. The other weeks it would be just down to two. I tended to ride seven days a week. If I don't ride every day, my knee gets swollen and I get very sore. So I found even riding the bike was better than having a day off in terms of recovery.

Give me an example of A week where you had five hard sessions, what would that be made up of?

Because I was trying to do these 45 minute sessions. I would do maybe a session on the velodrome at 45, a session on maybe doing a 40 minute effort over threshold, if I could even. And then maybe three extra sessions at one hour at what I was intending to ride for the hour. The power that I was hoping to achieve, which I might add the trainer on, the power on the trainer was less or easier to produce than the power on the track. And it probably comes down to the fact that I don't spend a lot of time in an aerodynamic position on the trainer. And hence your power tends to be a little bit higher.

So that is a significant point you're making there. So I'm intrigued that when you were on your trainer, you weren't sitting in your race position, you were sitting up a bit, is that what you're saying?

Yeah, yeah. Sitting, Sitting on a normal road bike?

Yes. Okay, so you're riding a different bike. Do you think it would have been more advantageous to ride a bike that was set up similar to your track bike?

I'm sure with less experience that that would be the case. But I tend to find that I could adapt instantly to being on the track bike and into the air rack position. But the neck and being in that position I found very hard on the neck and the shoulders. And I think if maybe you did that more often, you may ended up with an injury around the neck or the head position. So I was fairly cautious about not doing it too often, knowing that I could sustain it for 60 minutes for me was enough. Therefore, adopting a different training position was important to prevent an injury occurring.

And endurance wise, how, how big were any of your endurance rides? Any long rides you were doing, how big were you getting with them?

About an hour and one minute.

I thought you were going to answer that and I, I still didn't believe it, but.

I just up the intensity rather than in the time spent on the bike.

This is fascinating. So you, everything was basically geared around 45 minutes to 1 hour or 1 hour, 1 minute.

I think, I think all my friends joke that all my, all my times on the bike are one hour and one minute or one hour and two minutes.

And that is all your training? This is. Yeah, it's definitely fascinating because you, you know, you, you'd be aware of the entire world's, you know, coaching philosophy at the moment is around, based around 80, 20 and it's 20% hard and 80% easy. In terms of your week and so your model of training to feel and when you can train hard, train hard, completely defies that.

Yeah. I think you've got to remember that I am 57 years old, I've had 16 knee operations and I think that that becomes what you model your training around, avoiding injury with what you've been through in the past. And therefore I've worked out a regime that my body can cope with and I know I'm not going to get injured with, and therefore why would I experiment with trying to push that beyond the boundary where I may get injured? And that would be catastrophic in terms of preparation for an event like the.

Owen, Consistency is definitely the key to it, isn't it? Getting to the start line without having missed any of your training and finding.

What works for you. I think I found the formula that works for me and I think other people will be different. But finding what works for each person is the key. When you become an older athlete, a mature athlete is fundamentally the important thing to tick off.

I can imagine that because you are, you know, we're hearing the attention to detail here. That's what all listeners are hearing. I can imagine in your mind in between sessions, you would be thinking, what if I could do a little bit more endurance, would I be stronger and be able to push more power? I'm sure that's crossed your mind, yet your total focus is, no, that could actually injure myself, so I'm going to stay away from that. Is that how you've come around to the program you've devised for yourself?

Yeah, very much. I meet people occasionally and they make suggestions and always that comes up, why don't you do some strength training? Why don't you train longer, do longer rides, do easier rides, have days off? And my attitude to that is, well, I've found what works for me. Why would I change it? I've managed over the years to attend the Nationals in peak form and attend the World Championships in peak form because I haven't been injured and therefore haven't I therefore been successful. Maybe I could be faster, fitter, better, but I may also be missing events because I'm injured.

It is harder to be faster than the world record, than your own world.

Record, and it's harder to argue with your results.

Exactly.

And what you said prior to my question was, everybody's different and you've got to find what works for you. And that's pretty much the battle that every athlete has to overcome, isn't it? And you're an example of this as.

I've done a bit of coaching in windsurfing and to me the aim of a coach was to try and make each athlete self sustainable. And that's how I've approached my cycling career, is to be self sustainable and I get information from people who know more than I do, but then I try and adapt it to what's going to work for me and that's always something. I guess I've been successful because I've been able to do that.

Well, on that exact note, I'd love to know what advice would you have for fellow age groupers? Because you said what works for you and it's absolutely shocked me that that is your training program but it is proven to be highly successful and you've just said as, as dad repeated, everyone is different. But what advice would you have for an age grouper training wise, but even mindset wise, tempting their goals?

Well, I think knowledge is key. I have a sports science background so that puts me at an advantage to use some of these theories. The hard thing is when someone you respect comes up to you and offers you counter advice saying, no, I'm not going to go with that because I know myself better. Being in a position to know what works for you and not go with somebody else's plan is difficult to do. But I guess you have to back yourself, but you have to put yourself in a position where you have the knowledge and the experience in order to do that. So it's a process of doing it for long enough, listening to people, taking their advice on evaluating it yourself and not accepting it just on face value.

And potentially being willing to experiment and fail.

Absolutely. Yeah. I've adopted some positions on the bike that I've been told are going to improve me and yes, they've not been good. And being able to evaluate that, recognise it and adopt something that that is shown to be. I collect a lot of data and I evaluate data frequently, so I do it. I'm not doing it through an emotional level, I'm doing it very objectively.

You couldn't have hit any more of the boxes that we love to tick. From the very start of the conversation you said, well, I have to have a goal, which is just so true for all athletes. Just fine. Athletes can't aimlessly train. You have to aim for something all the way through to training principles and even what you just said then looking at data objectively so that emotions don't get in the way. Yeah, you just couldn't be ticking more things. That has to be why Your attention to detail has led you to so much success.

Yeah, there's no doubt that that works. I'm sure you have to have some ability, but you have to be able to use that ability well.

It's, it's really great that a, we have someone who really understands their own body and what the capabilities are and is willing to back themselves and experiment and, and you know, eventually get success. And it, it's, you know, it's not happened in a minute. It's happened over a period of, you know, probably seven years of you working out from the, when you very first change sports from, you know, from horse riding to windsurfing to cycling. What's going to be best for Anna and, and it's a, it's a great example to everybody listening out there that, you know, there is no ceiling to what you can do if you're willing to prepare and plan and, and go and do the hard work. And I just love your story. It's, it's, you know, it's someone with so much self determination and goal setting and then backing yourself confidently that I will make mistakes, but I'm going to learn from them and be better next time. And that's what I love about the way you've gone about it is you're just so willing to put yourself on the line and have a crack and then work out what's going to be better for you. So I think it's such a good lesson for everybody listening that, that you know, anything's possible if, if you're willing to do what it, what the requirements are. And, and this is kind of up there with one of the massive goals that not many people attempt this because it is so difficult to, to achieve and you've done a lot of other things in your career that are equally as good or if not better. But this is quite, quite a unique thing and that's why it's, it highlights and exposes how detailed you are as a person. And I can't tell listeners enough about that is what will make the difference between average Anna and successful Anna is how much preparation you're willing to put in before you actually get to where you want to go. And this didn't happen in the first three months you've ridden the fastest you ever have in the fourth year of your attempt at this. So that's a reminder to everybody also listening that, you know, you just can't take up a sport and expect to be the best at it after eight months. What advice would you be giving to people who are just starting their chosen sport. I'm not talking world hour records, but you know, from your experience as an athlete in three different sports very successfully. What's your takeaway advice for everybody?

Enjoyment. Fundamentally you have to love doing it. If it's an everyday thing like cycling is for me, you have to really look forward to your time on the bike. If you're going into competition, you have to want to be there, not because somebody else is pushing you into that. You can't overlook that either. The need to be selfish comes into it to some extent, as you said that it was. You have to be incredibly consistent with looking at how you're going to train and meeting every single one of those training sessions. And sometimes that does make you fairly self centered and other things going around you in family life sometimes have to. It's not a trade off that I was prepared to make easily. The training did override most other things, but that's at my level that doesn't have to be the case. But yeah, I think fundamentally you have to do it because you want to. You enjoy doing it. And from that flow the other benefits of the socialization, the health aspects of being fitter, stronger and hopefully mental health as well is improved also.

I guess one of our final questions is will you go again?

Absolutely. This age group has been ticked off.

No hesitation.

I sit ninth in the world of all time women currently, most of the ones who are above me are in their 30s. To think that the pipe dream is to go to altitude and have an attempt because I have no doubt I could add a kilometer or maybe a kilometer and a half up at altitude. I was scheduled to go to Bolivia in 2020 just after I'd done the record. But Covid hit at that point and that abandoned that plan. But I will go up in age group in a couple of years, so therefore I'll be obliged to have another go in the new age group.

What are you going to be doing in between 57 to 59 for those two years that you're waiting to go up? Have you got any other things on your mind that's going to keep you motivated?

I'll try and find a few time trials somewhere. I've also developed an interest in the 2 kilometer individual pursuit on the track, which to me is counter to everything that I'm good at. It's two and a half minutes of very high intensity off a standing start, which I take two minutes just to wind up and you've got 30 seconds and it's all over. So that an incredible challenge. But I also hold the world record for my age group in that. So I'd really like to knock some time off the 2 kilometer individual pursuit. So maybe the next couple of years I'll see if my knees can stand up to some very high, short efforts.

So just to clarify, going up to altitude to complete the world record, that makes it easier because of the air density?

Yeah, air density is drastically reduced, but of course the counter to that is there's less oxygen, so.

But you think the less air density makes up for the less oxygen if you're fit?

Oh, it does. I think I spent a lot of time looking at the records and there are very few exceptional records that aren't done at high altitude.

And the world record is able to be done anywhere as long as legal track with officials. Doesn't matter the altitude of it.

Yeah. Obviously you have to find an indoor velodrome somewhere.

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah. And Bolivia is the new go to place.

That's amazing. It is truly astounding what you've been able to achieve. It's remarkable beyond words. And as you said, to be ninth in the world fastest competing with elite women in their 30s, it's just beyond comprehension what you've been able to do. So congratulations again. One of the last questions we like to ask is, is what's a life lesson that you've learned in the last 12 months? Doesn't even have to be about cycling that you'd like to pass on to others.

Life lesson in Covid times, I guess that's really dominated, hasn't it? So patience, being able to be happy in your own body and content in your own company has been very important. Here we go. Meeting Will. He's finally chomping.

If anyone's watching the video, Anna did not address that. She has a pet bird that likes to come and say hello. Yeah, just said hello on your shoulder.

Walt's my coach. He sits on the bike handlebars. My sessions that I do. Number one fan of my coach.

That's great. Did you take Wal to the Billowdroom?

No, unfortunately we couldn't do that. He pre recorded a little pep talk.

That's really good. Any last questions for you, Dad?

I wonder, Anna, how long do you think you can keep improving for?

That's a really interesting question. I keep expecting to go downwards. This last year I've done as good a power over 20 minutes, over 45 minutes as I've ever done. I can't work out why. So I would have said that maybe at 45 years of age, you would reach your peak and it had to be a natural decline. But it seems at 57 I'm able to do more than I did at 50, which I'm still finding it hard to rationalize that I have to assume it comes down to experience and technique and efficiency of movement. There's no doubt, no reason why that shouldn't continue to improve. Obviously, it's a power to weight ratio sport you have to think about. If you dropped a kilo, you might find another 5 watts of power not necessary, and therefore that in a sense gives you an advantage. That's not something I've looked at in the past, but maybe that would be the only way to improve in the future. I don't know.

Incredibly inspiring, regardless, to be able to push in your best power ever. And dad, you're the same. I always talk about other podcasts, but basically kept pushing your best power ever into your 60s. It is an interesting question and we can't wait to see how you keep going with it, Anna, because it's done. Unbelievable. So congratulations again. Thank you very much for coming on this episode. We know that listeners will absolutely love this story and take a lot of inspiration from what you've been able to achieve.

My pleasure, and I'm happy to be in a position that is worth talking about.

No worries, we'll finish there. Thank you very much for listening to this episode and we'll see you all next time.

Sam.