Destroying PBs By Training & Racing To Data [CASE STUDY]

Welcome back to another case study episode where we review one of our athletes and break down exactly what we did with them to get an improvement, a PB or a great race result. Today's case study is 30 year old athlete Dane from Melbourne. Like most athletes, his goal was simple. He just wanted to improve and race better. The goal is simple, but the path to get there isn't always. And Dane was already an above average athlete. He'd done a 447 half ironman before coming to us and he could run in the 100/30, high 100/30 for a half marathon. So as always, we'll take you through the key changes he needed to make to get more out of himself. So, dad, welcome into another case study. Take us through where Dane was when he started.

I was thinking about the case studies during the week, Jordan. I would be wondering how can we keep coming up with case study after case study about people improving and you and I are just randomly selecting people and having a look and seeing where they've started and where they're at now and what we've done, what we've done together as an athlete and a coach to enable them to be a better version of what they were when they first came. So it's a fun podcast to do because every time you open up a file on an athlete, you're just blown away by how far they've come and you can't smile off your face when you see someone who's improving possibly 15 minutes from, from what they were a year ago. And that's the exciting part. And there's more to come because they're just starting to hit their straps now and really understanding the, the process of what, what sessions are really going to be beneficial. And, and this particular athlete, Dane, is. Oh, he's one of the standout athletes as a training athlete. He just does not miss. His attention to detail is a leader in our group. If everybody could follow what he does, we would have much more improved athletes, more than we've got because he is a standout the way he's attention to detail and you know, he works hard just like everybody else does, but he's, he's working hard, but he's understanding what he's working hard for. What are the numbers he's trying to achieve in any session that he's doing? He knows and he's well aware of what he did last week and what he's, what he's capable of doing this week and what he wants to do next week and why he did or didn't achieve the goals. And that's how he goes about all of his training sessions. And you know, it's just a young guy with a, you know, family and just like everybody else, he's got a really busy job and, you know, time consuming job and his young, young baby takes, takes a lot of the time away from him as well. So, you know, he has to really prioritize his time. So he's, he's up at the crack of dawn doing his sessions and off to work and then home and, you know, doing all the right things and you know, some of the, the race plans that we ask our athletes to give us prior to race day. His are just, you know, world class. They've just got every detail that you would, you would want to see. And what do I mean by that? I mean he's gone back and found in his own spreadsheets that he keeps, he's found every session that he's done that would be proof or evidence to tell us that he can ride at this power. He's got every single run that he's ever done that tells him he can run at this pace. And the same with the swim. And so these are the things that, that's attention to detail and that gives you confidence going into the race. When you stand on the beach thinking, how am I going to go today? Which is the majority of people who are around you, the majority of the 500 other people or a thousand other people are standing there going, boy, I don't know what's going to happen today. I hope it goes well. Whereas, you know, Dane standing there going, all I have to do is execute in the moment these actual pieces of information that I know I've done many times. Just replicate that today and I'll get the result I want. What a calming thing that must be to think about when you're standing there.

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to talk to you about the conversation you had with him before the race and afterwards as well, because it was one for the memory bank, I think. But let's start off by going through the data and one of the easiest things we can do is compare apples with apples and we compare his two Melbourne results a year apart. So he actually, he, he had done Melbourne half iron man in 2022, which was the co year when it was in March, and then he did it again at the end of 2022, which is in November, and then a year later he just started with us in August, I think, so a couple months before Melbourne and then November 2023. So a year later he did it again and look, it was a, it was a 26 minute improvement from half iron man to half iron man. But the big caveat there is the swimmers short at Melbourne number two. It was a thousand meters seven nineteen hundred. So you've got to wipe off, you got to add an extra approximately 15 minutes based on his swim time of 140 per 100 for that extra 900 meters. So his time was 4:21. But his goal was to go under 440. 4 hours 40. He was 4:47 the year before and he really wanted to go under 440. That was his big goal for the race and the same course, relatively similar conditions and so it's just been a couple of nice days at Melbourne the last few years. So he did it, he smashed it, but getting 4 hours 21. But we want to add the 15 minutes of what the swim would be which at his pace would have added that. So that gives him about a 4 hour 36 time. So he still broke that 4:40, which is a great result. And funnily enough you talk about his attention to detail. His race plan predicted him at 4 hours 36 exactly. So that is quite incredible from him and just from all the data. And that's why the data is so good because you can get a race plan and basically if all goes to plan of the day, predict your exact time, you can get your swim bucket run and your transitions. And he knew how long the transitions should take because he'd done the race before. So that's a big help. But it's a great start, isn't it?

Yeah, the data really just confirms what should have happened and what did happen. And I remember vividly I'd just been helping some of the guys do the dirty warning which is a 10 hour endurance mount gravel bike race. And I was driving home from there and we were talking to a lot of the athletes on the way home on the phone about their Melbourne half iron man the next day. And it was a great conversation to have with Dane and I was really pushing him hard on his expectation for that half ironman run and, and I just felt that he just lacked a little bit of self belief in him and, and I was, you know, really almost pleading with him to say, you know, you have to have a crack tomorrow. If you ride properly like you have been riding, you will be so much fresher than you've ever experienced before. And he's got this scar from, from previous races where he's, you know, Blown up in the run from riding, riding too hard. And yet now he's riding the same, you know. No, he's not. He's riding better now than he was before. He's riding, you know, lot. A lot less intensity. His, his graph, which we'll talk about later, looks completely different. And so he's not as gassed when he gets off the bike. And he's obviously fitter. There's, there's never one reason why this is happening. He's got great endur. Great strength. You know, as I said, he does not miss a session unless, you know, he's actually sick. Which is, which is, you know, should be a lot when you've got a little child who's, who's catching everything. But, but yeah, he's, he's really, you know, understanding that I can do this. I think he ran a 4:39 pace in his first Melbourne in 2022. Yeah, and he ended up running 2022, March 22nd. Ended up running. So it was March 22nd then, then November 22nd. Then this race was November 23rd. So, so he's ended up running 4:19. So from 4:39 to 4:19, that's, that's 20 seconds per kilometer faster. And you know, that's a long way to come back from. That's literally nine minutes faster than what you did before. And that's the difference. That's why he improved. His bike and his swim were very similar. But, but the bike, don't be confused by that. The bike time and the power was actually 30 watts higher, but the bike time was similar, but he got off the bike way fresher because of the way he rode. He rode within himself in the, in the zones we got him to ride in. And that's what actually gave him the, the ability to run like that. And, and, you know, it was almost like he was saying to me on the phone before the race, you think I can do that? And I'm, and I'm saying, I wouldn't say this to you if I didn't think you could do it. I'm not going to tell you things that I don't think are possible. That's not how I coach. I'm going to tell you exactly what I think you can do. And if you just believe and trust in yourself, you can pull this off. And the conversation post race was one of those fantastic phone calls you have where, yeah, I did it. And, and that's, that's what, you know, that's what you want to hear afterwards. You know, it was almost speechless. He's going, I can't believe I did that. But I, I just did that.

Yeah, yeah, like you said,439 pace to 419. That middle, that, that Melbourne half at the end of 2022 was 4:34 pace. So it improved a little bit, but still that monster improvement from year to year. And the bike, like you said, was similar. It was 2 hours 32 to 2 hours 28. So a 4 minute improvement. But the big difference is the wattage increase, which is great, but also the execution, like you said. And we're going to go through some real detail on that in a second. But I kind of wanted you to just dive into that confidence thing for a second a little bit more because it's a big aspect of execution. He had all the data there, he had the entire race plan, yet he was still hesitant of what he was capable of. You know, the goal time, the goal pace of the half marathon was 4:23 pace. And he ended up beating that and going 4:19. But it took a bit of self belief to get there.

Yeah. And it's amazing once you do it once. And I was saying to him, you know, when you ran that 4:34 pace, that was already a confidence booster to you and you know, you believed you could run 4:30 from that point on. And then, you know, getting you to run 4:23 pace in some of these training sessions where you've done, you know, two, three hour rides at race pace and then I've got you off the bike and ask you to run 8k or 10k or 14k at this 4:23 pace and you've been able to do it, you know, the evidence is there, so you've got to back yourself in a bit more. And, and he, he is a trusting person. So if, if I, if he thinks I, I can do, I believe he can do it, then he's going to believe that himself. And I want the athlete to, to have a little bit more of that. And, and I think most people only get that confidence once they've achieved the stepping stone. And, and I'm saying to him, you know, now we've done 4:19, our next goal is to break that. We want to be a 4:15 runner. Um, and you know, it's almost like, oh, how's that going to be possible? It's the same confidence thing. Well, you didn't think 419 was possible and now, you know, now you've done it and you're another, you know, six months down the track into into your next campaign to the next event. And these are the things that we're practicing in training so that you get that self belief, but you only get self belief and confidence from, from outside sources or from you actually performing those things. So people can tell you whatever they like, but if you don't actually believe that, you won't follow through with it. So having the data in training and having your coach tell you they're two confirming things that he really trusted. And I think that's a game changer.

Yeah, I can't stress that enough. I mean, triathletes, endurance athletes are very mentally tough, just naturally, but it is so. Yeah, what's the word? I just. Confidence boosting. And, and just such a nice thing to hear when someone externally just says objectively, no, you can definitely do this, you can definitely run at that. And you just kind of, you stand up a little bit taller and you put your shoulders back and you go, yeah, the coaches said that. So I can do it. And it can't be underestimated how much of an impact that has on the day when you're nervous, when you've put all this effort in, when you're getting pretty tired halfway through. And then the co, you've got the coach's voice in his head that says, no, no, no, you've got the strength to run this in the back end. That really does give you a lot of belief.

Yeah. And I think also Jord, having the strategy and the race plan to not try and run 4:19 right from the outset, you know, that is the big thing that people get wrong. You know, it's easy for someone to say, well, I want to run 419pace for today's half marathon in this 70.3 event. Well, that doesn't mean you start there. And you know, a lot of people will get away with that, but they're in a small percentage. You know, I believe if you started it, you know, the first, the first kilometer, if you went 10 seconds slower, if you ran 4:30 in an hour 29 or an hour 30 run, what difference does that 10 seconds make? Someone will say, well, that could be the difference between winning and losing. Well, if it is, you know, that's a rarity when there's 4 hours 36 other minutes that could contribute other than those 10 seconds. So be happy to sacrifice 10 or 15 seconds in the first kilometre and then start to get your legs back from the bike and then you can start to concentrate on, okay, let's see if I can run 425. Okay, let's see if I can run 422. And you just keep asking yourself how you're coping. And of course, because it's the start of a half marathon, you should be feeling very good. But just ask yourself, at 4:25 pace, at 14k, is it going to feel exactly the same as it is now? So that's the reason why you don't run off at 4:10 pace or 4:15 and end up at 4:30. Not only is it a slower way to run, but it is a shocking experience mentally to do that, because you are getting passed by, you know, some trivalo athletes who are running properly and coming home like steam trains where you're fading. And it's worse when people are passing you, when you're feeling bad. But, yeah, start to get people passing you. That's when it actually compounds. And you think, oh, I'm just crap at this. It's actually your execution that you're crap at. You're not actually a bad runner. You're actually crap at executing it.

Yeah. And funnily enough, that was his exact race plan. Kilometer 1 4, 3 5, you know, and people that are trying to average 423 would panic about that. Exactly what you're saying. But he's gone. No, kilometer 14 35, which we grill into all our athletes. If you think we drill it on here, you know, in this podcast, think about how much you drill it in into an actual athlete's race plan, who's going to race with Trevelo. And then kilometer 2, 3, 430, you know, not even coming down that much, then up to kilometer 13, still building towards that 423 goal. And then from there it was picking up in the last 3km was go for it, which was your exact word. So I just really wanted to point out that that was his exact race strategy. And the next bit of data I wanted to touch on was comparing to that Melbourne 2022 day, because it was two Melbourne half Ironmans in 2022. But start of the year, in the end, that first one was a pretty interesting point of data. And we never want to pick and choose data when we're doing these case studies because we always want to show the full story and not exaggerate any numbers. And we're really, really big on that and we want full transparency. And you mentioned that he rode, has ridden similar times across the three half Ironmans at Melbourne, all on the same course. A227 was numbered the first one, then a232 the second one and then 228 this last one. And although that's a four minute bike improvement plus an extra 20 watts and that kind of makes sense, comparing conditions on the day is really important. And there's something about even though the conditions the last two races have been very similar, very little wind, a great perfect sunny day, there's something about air temperature, air density. And we know this when we interviewed, I forgot her name. The hour world record holder that going around the velodrome they actually measure the air density before they do the world record just to make sure the conditions aren't super unfavorable. They'll probably go through with it no matter what, but they're not going to. But if it's really bad, they will actually not attempt the record because the ED has such an impact. And so there was something about that Melbourne 2022 day, that first one where we just had a lot of athletes and a lot of athletes across the board just ride outlier times that are just not representative of what their potential ability is. And we had our own athletes where we kind of had to say to them, look, this, this is a great time, but this has a bit of an asterisk against it because we don't know what the ca. What happened here today that the distance was the same. There was something about the course that was way faster and a lot of people, if going forward they made that their pb, they might not get close to that again. There was something about that day that was really fast. And so for Dane, he rode at 36Ks an hour in that first one for 177Power. He's basically ridden almost the same time within 20 or 30 seconds this last one, but he's 30 watts higher. So it's important to point that out and go, well, he's ridden. And the key point for us is he's ridden similar time but he's executed so much better the way he rode that power. He's ridden higher power should be harder, but he's fresher and he's run better off the back of it.

Yeah, there's a lot you've crossed there, Jordan, to pick apart. I can tell you that out of all I think we had 15 or 20 trivalo athletes in that race and the majority of athletes were riding up to 15 minutes quicker than their previous PB on that day. And of course the beautiful weather conditions contributed to it. But there were a lot of packs in that particular day with the ride and you can't Underestimate. You can't actually help it if you're in a bunch of 30 people and, you know, no matter how hard you try to get away, 30 people are always going to gobble up one person who's just written off the front. And, you know, that has a huge impact on that day and that's unavoidable. But as you said, you can't use that as a comparison because that is an inflated time due to outside circumstances other than your own individual effort. And so that's why total times aren't that brilliant an idea. And we're more about, you know, what, what can you average for the speed on a bike? What's your average 100 pace in the swim, and what's your average running pace per kilometer? That's going to give you a more accurate identity of what actually happened on the day.

Yeah, I did forget about that. There was just monstrous packs we saw going past that day, like just packs of 30, 40. It was actually laughable and I remember that now. And the same thing happened up in Sunshine Coast, I think as well. Yeah, it can definitely inflate those times.

It does happen a lot. Yeah. But, you know, we just want to point that out. And so, so what the, the main point I want to get it across with this was the way he rode that, that 2 hours 28 or 2 hours 27 in those two comparison years, you know, a year apart, the time was similar. But. But if we looked at, at a power profile with zone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, you would see that he had a lot of time in every zone, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. And when you looked at his power profile in a year later with similar time, but he had 30 watts more, his power profile had virtually nothing in zone one and two and virtually nothing in zone five and six. And we're going to show that in the, in the graph that's Jordan's just shown now. That's great. Showing these graphs. The power profile is something that a lot of people probably wouldn't take much notice of. And just have a look at those two graphs. And for the person who's not used to looking at this, zone one is the first bar graph. Bar graph, Zone two, zone three, zone four, zone five, zone six. So we've got six on the top one. You can see there's a heap of time in zone one and zone two. A little bit less time in zone three, a little bit less time in zone four and a little bit less time zone five and six.

So to clarify that He's. According to his power, he should be riding at an average somewhere between Zone 2 and 3 for most of the day, depending on the uphill, downhill and wind. But somewhere between Zone two and three. And if you actually look at the minutes spent, he spent over 30 minutes in zone one, just almost 20 minutes in zone four, and then almost 10, 15 minutes in zone five and six. That's. That's the first time. So overall, he spent over an hour in zones 1, 4, 5 and 6, where he's supposed to be spending most of the time in Zone two and three.

Yep. And why does that matter? It does matter, because you are going to actually probably ride too hard to ride too easy. So what does that mean? Well, any time in Zone five and six means you're going to spend more time in Zone one and two. And on that day, remember, we said there was a lot of drafting, so that could actually account for a fair bit of time in Zone two where he's actually not able to pedal because he's in the middle of a bunch. So that could account for that. But the main reason is to not be in Zone five and six is to not be in Zone one and two. That's the main reason. The second main reason is if you're spending time in Zone five and six, you are actually burning through nutrition quicker, which means you're going to actually run out of fuel quicker than you would if you were running normally with a normal bike ride, like we're going to show you in the second graph, and you'll run worse, your heart rate will probably be higher and you'll feel like you've actually done more than you have in a normal ride because you've spent so much time in zone 5 and 6, or actually 4, 5 and 6. And if you look at the second graph, there's virtually no time in Zone one. There's virtually no time in five and six. Like, I can barely see a purple line. And that's the biggest lesson that he's taken out of that whole year's training. Do not ride in Zone one, five or six. And what an incredible difference. The time. The time was the same. The power was 30 watts higher, and he was able to run literally 10 minutes quicker than he did that year to that year.

If you look at this, I encourage anyone to jump onto the video and look at this, if you're listening in audio. But he's. He's lapped his own time. So when he started pedaling and stopped pedaling, and it's hilarious that you Know, two races later, they're two seconds apart. The lap time, even though the gun time was probably 20 or 30 seconds, it's hilarious to see almost the exact same time and completely different power profile and how he got there. And if we added it up, it would literally be 10 or 11 minutes total in zone 1, 4 or 5 compared to spending over an hour in zones 1, 4, 5 and, and, and 1, 4, 5 and 6 in the first race. And that's another key point is in that first race there was, you know, eight minutes or so in zone six. In this second race or this latest race, zero time spent in zone six. He just never went above that, which is, that is really what we want to see in an athlete. You know, it's, it's not even just a little bit, you know, not coming out of a corner and gassing yourself. It's absolutely zero time in zone six. So that makes a big difference. And, and the exaggerated example is we just did a crit race on a couple of days ago and I was comparing data with a mate and at the end of the crit race it was only 50 minutes and it was averaged 290 watts or so for the 50 minutes and we were absolutely gassed. I had nothing left in my legs after that because this crit race is just super over, under, you know, massive effort in zone six and then massive. And then kind of trying to recover in zone one. After 50 minutes of that, you are absolutely cooked and there's no way you can get off a run at a good pace. And that's an exaggerated example. But for us, we were joking that, you know, the Average power was 290 watts and we could hold that for a couple of hours, you know, if it was written evenly. But it's so funny for us to see that number and go. We feel way more cooked and that what, what that average was. And that's just an exaggerated example of this. You know, if you're so up and down, you're going to be just absolutely gassing your legs.

And the normalized power is something that a lot of people still don't fully understand. You know, the race you just did yesterday, your average might have been 290, but I can guarantee, I haven't seen your file, but I can guarantee you it would have been at least 330 or more for that, for that 45 minutes.

It was, yeah, it was bang on. 3:30 for normalized. Yep.

And looking at Dane's graph, I can guarantee that his normalized power for that first Race, the top graph we're showing, That's I think what would happen. So why is that important? That tells us that you're riding over under just like you explained in that criterion race, you're riding too many times higher. And why is that more important? Because you are burning matches. And as I said before, that's what's going to prevent you from running the way you want to run. And that's the key. The triathlon is a triathlon, it's not a bike race. It's got a run after it that's make or break. And if you find you're not running well, you might have to look at how you're riding. And this is why we're talking in such detail and giving away so many of our trivelo really top, top secrets about how to time trial properly. And, and I know we're telling everybody how to do it, but this takes enormous practice to get this right. And if you're not practicing this in training, don't expect to do it on race day.

Yeah. And in preparation for the episode I went back and looked at his. We always get an athlete to fill out a form before they start with us and get them to pick out their key goals and some minor goals. And one of his key goals was he just, he actually said the words I want to be able to hold consistent power on the bike with minimal fluctuations. And this just proves that he absolutely has achieved that. And so I want to go through some last data points and then just finish with some of the other changes we made in training. We've gone really into detail about this whole aspect which is where his biggest improvements have come. But we want to go through some other things that really helped his improvement and what he needed to work on. But just in terms of some raw data improvements. His indoor FTP, his 20 minute test went from 235 to 275. That's a 40 watt improvement. Indoor, his outdoor went from 252 to 280. So that's a 28 watt improvement. A key note there is that we generally the reason that the outdoor slightly less improvement than the indoor is because we generally start with the indoor. So that's when they're right at the beginner and we don't generally test them outdoor depending on the person and the context. But generally they do their first few tests indoor while they're getting used to the bike and it's a lot easier to control the execution indoor before they do their first outdoor test. By the time he'd done his first one, he'd already improved a bit. But the big key there is that his speed outdoor and his first test was 38.7 and his latest test was 43 kilometers an hour. That is a five kilometer an hour difference. But one final bit of data here that I really want to point out is that his 60 minute time trial has gone from 33 K's an hour to 37. So a 4 kilometer increase over 60 minutes. And then really interestingly, his power from the 60 minutes has gone from 190 watts to 240. So that's a 50 watt improvement over an hour compared to his 20 minutes has only increased 28 watts. And that's really worth noting because again, he's doing half Ironmans. We're not trying to get. We test him over 20 minutes, but that's just a test for some data to see where he's at. But we're not trying to improve his 20 minute power, we're trying to improve his 90 kilometer power. And so it's so great to see that with the specificity of training, his 60 minute improvement was 50 watts where his 20 minute improvement was only 28. I say only 28 with quotation marks. It's a great improvement itself. But the fact that the 60 minute time trial was a whopping bigger improvement.

Well, don't forget Jordy's 90 kilometer improvement was 30 kilometers, 30 watts. So you know that that's compounding the fact that he's got great endurance. And before we leave the bike stats, where did he get that from? And for those of you who haven't listened to any of the 200 episodes that we've done, it is principally the endurance ride in the hills. And Dane's a local Melbourne guy and most cities around the world will have somewhere where there's some hills. And if there aren't, you need to do something extraordinary and get in your car and drive closer to where the hills are. Because this is where he's got the strength to hold the power that he wants from the start to the end. And not only doing those hill sessions has enabled him to have the strength, it's actually made him a faster bike rider without actually going faster. It's just because you're, you're all day doing up and down, you know, climbing efforts out of the seat, in the seat, low cadence work, you are really building that resilience. And then when it comes to holding, you know, thinking about holding speed and power for 90k, you know, that's a long time to be holding two and a half hours for some people, three hours for others, two hours for the really fast guys. Still a long time to be holding that power. And you need to have some really good aerobic endurance with strength efforts in it. And that's what he's done unbelievably well.

So what changes do we make in his training? I think the first thing was, you know, you really just wanted to teach him how to ride the bike better, how to ride the power better because he had a power meter, which was great because we had some data from that first race he did, which was a few months before he saw us, but he hadn't used it as well. And so yeah, one of his key goals was to get better at riding consistent power. And that came with those consistent race specific sessions where you were just hammering him to stay out of zone one four and five and six of course, but stay out of zone one four and five. And in these relentless race ready sessions, you know, two by 15 minute blocks, two by 30 minute blocks, 60 kilometer time trial with one hour efforts. Stay in the right zones, hold the right zones. It took him a while to get there, but his last race really shows came off.

Yeah. If you're in that position, go out and try it yourself and give yourself an upper and lower range category where you're not allowed to go above and you're allowed to go below. Have, have instant power on your screen or 3 second either of those two and have your lap power on the screen. And every time you go for a straight stretch of whether it's a 15 minute effort or 20 or 5, you know, just have a look at what your lap power is and have a look at what your 3 second power is. And your 3 second will be jumping everywhere. But your lap power should be staying in the ranges that we're asking you to do, which is dependent on what race you're training for. If it's Olympic distance, you could be asking to be riding at zone four. If you're doing an ironman, you could be asked to be riding in zone two. So just understanding how to do that in training is actually what this is about.

Yeah. And in your own words, I like the wording used where you said the idea is just to not get off the bike and be a basket case. You know, it's to get off and feel good and have confidence that you can run well. And his fresh 10k time has come down from 4:12 pace to 346. And then that shows in his half marathon Strength as well as his strength on the bike that he's been able to improve in both of those. So I think we can leave it there. I mean, anything else you want to touch on about any changes or any conclusions about Dana? We've gone to some real epic data here, but it just shows the detail you can go into to get a massive improvement. Yeah.

And it wasn't like Dane wasn't a very competent athlete already, but he's just taken himself to the next level and you know, when you start to improve eight, nine minutes, that's, that's significant. And you know, I'm talking, I'm talking there's more room for him to go right at this minute because he's now understanding everything we've been drilling into him for the last year. It's always almost starting to click. And he's now practicing more and more how to execute these tasks in the training session. So I think that's the exciting part because, you know, his bike times will start to come down now from there.

Yeah.

And you know, he's still got more room to improve in his running, even though it's been unbelievably significant. But the next phase for him, now that he really comprehends how to train to those numbers and, and stay out of the numbers well down and stay out of the numbers well above it will start to pay dividends. So I can't wait to see how he goes.

Yeah, we can definitely see in the data already. You know, he's, he's quite strong over that hour to hour and a half mark in terms of his raw power critical numbers and that kind of shows that he can keep getting that up to the two and a half hour mark and bring down those times. So that's really exciting and we do not want to neglect the swim at all. But he's already very confident swimmer. His swim has improved marginally. But the point of why we haven't worked on it as much, this is the case from a lot of our athletes, not every athlete definitely, but a lot of our athletes is that he could, you know, work really hard in the pool and swim three or four times a week to wipe off another five or 10 seconds of his swim per hundred, maybe more. And that would wipe off, you know, a minute, 30 to three minutes across the half ironman. But the work we've done on the bike and running has wiped off 11, 12 plus minutes, you know, so that's where the focus has been to start with. And if he wants to take his swim to the Next level, that's definitely an option. But, you know, as a limited age grouper, you've got to really pick your battles and you don't have unlimited sessions to do. So you want to pick the, the, the, you want to find where the most time is to be gained and just work on that.

Yeah. When you've got limited time to train, and we have talked about that in other podcasts, you know, you have to actually sacrifice something and, and you're going to sacrifice the, the event that's going to give you the least return. And, and unfortunately, swimming is the one where you can work, you know, doubly as hard and only get up to possibly 2 minutes improvement. Whereas if you work the same intensity on the bike, you've got potential to do five or 10 minutes. And the same with the run. We've just proven, you know, he's actually improved nine minutes by us improving his bike. That is, that has improved his run. So, yeah, look, we're never trying to dismiss things, but, you know, his, his swimming has stayed the same because it's basically two sessions per week. It has improved from when he first started. He was a 153 swimmer and now he's in the 140s per 100. So, you know, there's, there's no denying he's improved, but it's, it's not an expectation with, you know, two sessions per week that you're going to, you know, get astronomical improvement.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that concludes this episode. It's been a really big and detailed one. We hope you've enjoyed it. I love doing these case studies, like you mentioned at the start, we just keep bringing them out and we'll keep them coming because we have what feels like an infinite amount of data of athletes improving over the years. So we'll keep telling these stories of how people improved. And if you want similar results to Dane and you want to get these improvements, then go to trivelocoaching.com you can fill out our form to apply to be coached there. And we do have a guarantee that if your FTP doesn't improve in the first eight weeks, then the coaching, coaching is on us because that's how confident we are in your improvement. So thanks, as always for listening and we'll see you in the next episode. Sam.