From Near Death Crash to World Age Group Champion

Today's case study is an athlete who joined us back in 2018 and for years now has been eyeing off this specific target of the World Duathlon Age Group Champs, which was just held last week, where he wasn't just going for a PB or a certain time or an improvement, he was going for the win. And that's a bit more pressure than most age groupers would normally put on themselves for a race. And yes, last week, in a wild and weird coincidence, six years to the exact day since he joined us, which was August 18, 2018, August 18, 2024, it all came together and he became World Age Group champion. So today we're going to go into do a deep dive on his training preparation setbacks because there have been many, including being hit by a deer last year in Scotland and the execution of the World Champs race. So Stevie, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Now that you're a world champion, you must be drowning interviews. So big thanks to your agent for letting us chat to you.

No worries, Jordy, I managed to just sneak you in there, but no, thank you, thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure.

And dad, welcome to the episode. I know you're looking forward to chatting about this one.

Absolutely. This was one of the all time great journeys with an athlete, such a long period of time and Stevie is the quiet achiever. And I remember talking a lot on a podcast about how the post race conversation would always go with an athlete and for Stevie and I, it was the biggest screaming down the phone. Yeah, you know, it was, it was one of those moments where we were both sort of got goosebumps. I think about we just did it. And you know that that was one of, one of the career highlights for me as a coach to actually get someone who goes through such a long journey. And I want the listeners to actually understand how involved Steve's journey, the highs and the lows and we've got lots to talk about but that one moment was very special and I want to talk about that in detail.

Yeah, I can't, can't talk, wait to talk about the race but before we get into that, let's go back to a bit. The start of the journey and yeah, it was six years ago. Stevie, do you remember why you decided to reach out and join Trivella in the first place?

I do. I had done I think two sprint triathlons by then. My brother in law, who's also my apprentice who's working for me at the time, wanted to do a triathlon just Just one bucket list thing. Get it done, take it off. He's like, oh, you should do it too. And I was like, can't swim, mate. I'm not doing triathlon, it's ridiculous. And somehow he talked me into it and I did the entire swim with my head above water because I didn't know how to expel air underwater and yet somehow got absolutely hooked just from that one race. And I just got a new road bike fairly recently and started doing a bit of riding, but nothing much and started doing a bit of running and I was riding back from. Might be in Arthur's Seat, I don't know. Although I wasn't really doing hills then, so I probably wasn't. I was riding back from Safety beach and I just saw this big group of all in white turn right off Bruce Road and very famous road down our way and going along the esplanade. And I absolutely blew my doors off to get on the back. I think my heart rate was about 220. I just sort of asked this guy, you know, once I got my breath back, you know, is this a club? What's going on? Find out about Trivelo and went back home. I was, ah, not getting a coach. That's ridiculous. You know, I'm not doing this properly. And like most of my best decisions my adult life, my wife talked me into it and so I called Jerry and the rest is history.

That's incredible. And we, look, we, we are going to focus on the World Champs duathlon race. But you know, this is a triathlon journey and it's incredible that you start with that because you literally started the journey completely not been able to swim and you have, you grew up cycling, so you're talented cyclist and very fit runner from the start. But yeah, dad, what was your impression when, you know, you could see he was. He was able to ride 38, 39Ks an hour around a velodrome on the bike from the start, but literally couldn't swim.

Yeah, and it was interesting because Stevie is a very quietly determined human being and if he sets his mind to something, you can guarantee he's going to turn no stone on unturned to make sure that he's going to be best prepared. So that's one of his attributes. And look, the swimming thing. Both my parents are Scottish, so Stevie and I have a really a good link and I'm one of the few people who can understand him. So it was such a great combination of coach and athlete. And not a lot of swimming happens in Scotland when You're growing up and you're either playing football or you're playing rugby or, or you're a runner or you're a cyclist. And Stevie just was behind the eight ball right from the outset, just not having swam as a junior. And so it was the biggest challenge, wasn't it? And I kept saying to him right at the start, you're going to be a great Jew athlete, but swimming's going to be your Achilles heel in triathlon. Is that an accurate way, Steve, of describing it?

Yes, that is a very good summary. I did a lot of sports as a kid. Swimming was not one of them. We learned not to drown. That's about as far as it goes. So, yeah, no technique whatsoever. Yeah, so that's definitely a fair assessment.

You've come a long way since then because basically we're looking through your data and we have just so much data on all your swim tests, FTP tests, run tests, races, Zwift races. Just your specific spreadsheet in our files is absolutely massive and from basically not being able to swim. And there wasn't actually any swim test data for the first couple of years because that would have been, oh, I.

Think I was swimming like two, two 20 pace per hundred for 100. And I couldn't even really do more in 100.

Yes, exactly.

That's where I was starting from.

We couldn't, we couldn't do a 500 meters time trial because you couldn't swim more than 100, 200 meters. So the first recorded time trial of 500 meters, you got 205 pace. That was back in 2020 and four years on since even then. And that was two years into the journey. Your PB for 1500 now is one hundred and thirty eight. So that just shows how far you've come.

Yeah, yeah.

So in terms of that, what kind of athlete do you think you are, you know now, compared to where you were back then, what stands out for you?

I mean, the thing that, you know, Jerry says every time you speak to him, every podcast, you know, consistency is king. And I did not believe that for ages. I was like, nah, I'm all about hero sessions. I just want to absolutely smash it. And, you know, and if you look at my. I'm sure if you look at my training peaks for the first six months, if not a year, just read everywhere. And not just like red here, red there, like three days in a row of red. And yeah, and it's, it's just so true, especially for triathlon, especially for endurance sports. Just that layering of consistency is it just tops everything and that's what makes you a really good athlete. And it's, you know, back then I was like, that's so boring. I just want to absolutely smash myself. But yeah, consistency is definitely.

There's no fun, is there, Steve, in just doing the required session when, you know, if it's a three hour ride, you can, you can top that and go six. Or if it's a, if it's a, you know, a steady state run with a few efforts. Yeah, I can do my best 5k in the middle of a steady state run and, and, and not run for three more days because you're so sore. And, and for everybody listening, this is, this is just, this is normal. This is exactly how people start that they want to have fun and if you take away the fun factor, it makes it a very boring existence. But unfortunately in endurance sport, that's what get you. The result is, is staying a little bit boring and staying in your ranges and making sure you can front up for the week's training and the month's training. And, and boy, you know, a lot of your injuries and issues were related to some of that unfortunate too hard, too, too much, too soon. But others were out of your control, like, yeah, like getting hit by a deer or, you know, or just pulling up sore for no particular reason and not being able to run again. So we had a lot of lessons that, we had a lot of setbacks and I just want you to kind of talk to us a little bit about some of the things that have happened to you and if you can remember any of those episodes and how much time you took off and let's start with going for a lovely bike ride and the moors of Scotland on a holiday and ended up, know, knocking yourself out and nearly dying out there.

Yeah, that's a fairly recent one and I would like to say that, think I can say that with no fault of my own. I would, yeah, just real deserted Highland country road that, you know, I used to knew from back in the day from growing up and just came bottom of a little descent around the corner and I, I did not even see it, didn't even break. Just the first thing I knew that I just hit a deer. It was because I was six feet up in the air and yeah, came down and landed and I borrowed like my friends, like Pinarello Dogma, you know, it's like a, I don't know, 30 grand bike and luckily it landed on top of me and bounced off and wasn't damaged and that's incredible. No phone reception, it's quite remote. And I just knew it was a 50, 50 shot because this was sort of in the evening of a car actually coming for the next day. You know, it wouldn't be outrageous that one just didn't pass until tomor. So I had to ride right out. And so I rolled out for about 5k, eventually got reception, called my good lady wife and promptly passed out the side of the road. And turns out it smashed up my pelvis pretty good.

Oh, horrific. Do you remember much of that 5k ride?

Yeah, I was pretty sore. I was trying to, I was trying to tell myself, ah, you know, it might just be superficial damage because I was at the start of a five week holiday where, you know, I'm planning to have a good time. My family do a lot of riding. We were going over to France. We're staying at the Fruit of the out, you know, so I was like, hopefully I'll be all right in a couple of days. That's what I remember thinking. And yeah, I went to hospital and it soon became clear that I would not be fine a couple of days.

How long were you actually injured for, Steve, before you could train properly again?

Like, I was back in the pool with a pool boy fairly quickly without doing any turns. But like riding and running, it was pretty much 12 weeks, I think, before I could do anything, you know, that you could call training. So, yeah, it was a, it was a fair amount. And you know, once I got back on the bike, I came back pretty quick. But running, yeah, it took a while to get back to running.

Yeah.

And so I think all up, it was probably 12 weeks before I was doing anything you could really call training. So. And the bike after that came back really quickly. But it was good while after that before it could actually run properly.

Was this, was this start of Northern Hemisphere summer last year, 2023.

Two years ago?

2022.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it would have been July 22nd.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So look you, that's just one example and it's a recent example of a major setback. But you have had very consistent injuries, especially from running over the whole journey. So how do you personally go about it mentally getting back from a setback and, and that frustration of feeling like you're losing work and you're undoing work, especially you just had a very consistent running injuries the whole time. What's, what's your mindset around it?

Yeah, it was, it was challenging. Like I've, I've never been A runner. So it was, you know, I've done the odd little bit here and there, but I've never really been a runner. So it's not since I started triathlon that I've really done any proper running. And I just don't have the muscular skeletal strength that, you know, someone like Jordy, who's been running since before he could walk, has. And turns out I'm quite good at running. But. And because I became quite fit, my muscles, my bones just couldn't handle it. They just could not handle. Initially we thought it was speed and definitely to a degree that was. But laterally it started, you know, big increases in volume, struggled with. But probably about a year and a half ago I started lifting weights. Before that I was just doing sort of body strength stuff, you know, with bands, that kind of stuff. And maybe even nearer a year ago, but I just started religiously twice a week doing heavy lifting. So, you know, max six reps, sort of three sets, deadlifts, squats, seated calf raises on the sinister machine. And I think that has made a huge difference. Like this run into this, the race we're going to talk about, you know, it's been my most consistent spell of running for quite some time. And I also, you know, like all triathletes who are sort of motivated to train, if it's in training, peaks must do it. No questions, have to do it. And I kind of eventually realized that it was actually good for me to miss a run here and there, especially like the end if we're doing a three week block, I would just start missing that Tuesday easy run off the bike because, you know, weighing up the risk and reward, what's the fitness benefit of that run versus the reward of me giving my body an extra two days without running towards the end of a real heavy block? And it just allowed me to hit all the key sessions. So just, you know, still hitting the interval session, still hitting the long run, which, you know, are the important ones to hit. And I think that made a big difference as well.

I think Stevie's spot on there and having to learn about what suits each athlete is a really hard thing to do. And because you came from a sport where you're on a bike, and for those who don't know, Stevie grew up riding his bike as a junior at a really high level on the velodrome. And he probably won't tell anybody that, but that's where he, you know, before he had the hiatus of no sport, he was a very talented track cyclist. And so his body Was never used to that. Day in day, out of the pounding that running gives you, where you really build up that strong skeletal system and muscular system around running, whereas on the bike, we're being held up all the time. It's not the action that your body's used to. So in the early days, it wouldn't have probably mattered what we did in the training. It was. The load was always too much and, and, and whether we, you know, we, we. We sussed out that we shouldn't be running fast. We sussed out that we shouldn't be running long just yet. And, and then finally you suggested that we don't run consecutive days ever. And we just go Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and possibly on a short day, Saturday and a run on a Sunday. So only one once per in the week, we would run back to back, and the rest of the time we'd have a break in between. And I think that allowed your body to cope much better than doing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday runs, Saturday, Sunday runs. Where, because you came from an era of cycling, we needed to fix your swimming and get your body used to the load of running. And so naturally, we would try to do a lot more easy runs, which is logic. We're not trying to run fast, we're not trying to. Not trying to. But we're trying to run frequently for shorter runs and that your body still couldn't cope with that. So I think over a period of years of a. You running longer and doing some strength stuff, but getting used to the load and having more break in between, I think that was a big game changer. And I think, you know, in the last two years, you've hardly had any real problems except for when you ran the Melbourne Marathon last year. And, you know, you ran beautifully that day, Ran to the structure, ran to the plan, did everything right, and then pulled up sore and, and you know, that was kind of weird.

I thought, I thought I got away with it because it was a full 48 hours afterwards before I, Before I pulled up sore. Yeah.

And that was, that was so frustrating because you were heading to your Ironman at Busselton, and that was October, I think we had six weeks to go. And you. Yeah, pretty damn fit. You were pretty ready for that race. And that's just another fittest.

Fittest I'd ever been without a shadow of a diet, I reckon.

Yeah. And I felt. How did you know? I felt bad that you weren't able to do that race. You know, how did you handle that setback again? What things were you doing that were getting you to not slit your wrists and say, what the hell?

Well, initially when I did the injury, like I went to see Mitch, I got misdiagnosed a bit by physio, is. Is the story of my life. But I went to see Mitch and he was like, whoa. And initially we thought it was a tendon injury and there was a tendon injury. The tendon sheath at the bottom of the. The amphib tendon was just leaking fluid. And it was like, when I moved my ankle, it was crunching. So he's like, we put steroid injection in it, put him in a moon boot for a week. And he was like, look, you're not going to be able to run between now and Bustle, but there is still a chance you might be able to race. And I was like, okay, great, I'm in a moon boot. What can I do? I'm so fit. I'm going to hang on to that fitness. So I swam. I swam every single day for a week and a half. And I've been swimming probably quite a lot because it was an ironman build, but, you know, maybe 12k a week. And I did a 30k a week and then another half a week building towards a 30k a week of swimming and absolutely destroyed my shoulder. And one day I just went to the pool and I was like, I. I just, I can't even swim. And it was the same day I got the MRI results back to say I had bone stress in the, in the tibia. So that was a low point, it would be fair to say. But I, yeah, just went home. You know, I think I got drunk for a couple of days and then I was like, you know, look, I'm not a professional athlete. It's not my livelihood. You know, I'm doing this for fun, so get over it. It's not the end of the world. Happens. And yeah, just sort of moved on to the, to the next target.

Yeah, yeah. And to be fair, straight after, after you were able to train again, you were back at it. And. And I think it was the middle of December where you were able to. It was after the busso race, I think you were actually able to swim, ride and run, you know, slowly. And that's only eight months ago, so.

Yeah, true.

So that in itself, you know, from the lowest of low to August, eight months later, winning a world title. Looking back now, what could you say to people listening?

Well, I don't give up the bit of a cliche, but I just. Yeah, you're gonna have setbacks it's triathlon. Especially as age groupers, you know, most of us aren't spring chickens and you're gonna get injuries. It's almost impossible not to. But yeah, you've just gotta, I guess have the mindset of, you know, it's happened, deal with it, get over it. What can I do? Can't run, can I ride, can I swim? And you know, what is the next race after this one I've just missed? Okay, let's focus on that and let's build up a timeline of, you know, getting back to, to full training and yeah, just crack on. I mean it sucks it and it's all right to feel sorry for yourself for a little while, but yeah, I guess you just got to, got to move on and do what you can do.

It's probably one of the themes I really wanted to make clear from this just whole story is that firstly, dad, you're a big proponent of that, of just letting people have their moment if they're injured and just saying, yeah, just have a few days where you, you know, crack the sads. And that's totally acceptable. And then after that you're really good at directing athletes to okay, what's the next goal? What's the next step from here? What's the short term goal of getting back and what's the point plan for that and then what's the longer term goal? And I think you really were pushing Stevie to have that longer term goal of the drathlon world champs in his head to, to get back to. And the second part of that is what you mentioned, Stevie, just then, is that you're going to have setbacks. And over this journey of six years, it has been far from smooth. But at the same time, given all that you've had, yeah, no understatement of the year, far from smooth. But you've had a lot of success. You know, you've. In between all those, those downs you've had a lot of ups, which has been amazing to see. And I think that's really important for you to understand is that it's never a linear progress. You'll have really good patches of potentially six to eight months like you just had where you've gotten yourself to as fit as you could possibly be and absolutely flying. But around the corner something might happen. It might not be an injury, it might be something else. And you might have a low period that you have to work through as well. And so these are all going to happen. It's really important for age group is to ride the Highs when they're there, but be ready to get through the low points as well. And I guess, yeah, I wanted to ask next is, before we get into the world champs is you've now had a lot of titles to your name. You've you know, been podium on Geelong 70.3 for basically three years in a row, two firsts and a third, multiple duathlon titles, sprint age group, Australian titles at the 2times U series. So throughout all these kind of races and moments over this journey, I think an insane PB this year of 386 watts for 20 minutes. Um, six years ago, by the way, your, your very first FTP test on a different bike, different power meter was 236 watts. So all these years later to ride at 386 watts for 20 minutes, which by the way with your weight is an astonishing 5.3, 5.4 watts per kilo. I just wanted to point all these things out and just ask you.

I was on a hill. Just to clarify.

It still counts, Stevie, it still counts. What are some of your proudest moments that stand out for you and kind of proudest results or improvements or moments that stand out to yourself about kind of successful moments in your head?

The thing that I, and that just shocks my wife. When I used to race when I was younger, I raced from when I was 12 till I was 20 is all I did. I hated training, I really hated training. But I loved racing and even more so I loved winning. And so training was just a means to an end to do well racing. And you know, I was a track rider and the nearest track was a six hour round trip and it didn't have a roof and it was in Scotland. So once they built the indoor Veldrome in Manchester, even with scholar squad training we went down there. So that's six hours each way. So the majority of my training was on a wind trainer. You know, there's no Zwift in those days staring at a wall, doing like VO2 or neuromuscular intervals, you know, it was pretty grim. Yeah. But yeah, I really just did not enjoy training at all. And now it's the polar opposite. Like I still love racing and I still love being competitive and love to win, but I just love training now. It's, it's almost, you know, it's on a par. I enjoy it as much as the, the racing and the winning. Like I just with triathlon, just the variety you get from the sports. Yeah. Like from that perspective I'm a changed man and my wife and My parents just find it shocking and surprising. So that's, for me, that's been the.

Biggest thing because you're seeing data now compared to the good old days where there was no data. Do you think that's helped with the training and you seeing that, hey, if I go and do this training session and I can hit these numbers and the days where you're getting tested and you've got a free roam to, to run, swim and ride as hard as you can, basically in those testing, do you think that's the incentive, the motivation? That's been one of the little catalysts that's helped you to become a better trainer?

Yeah, I think that's definitely a big part of it because, yeah, you know, back then there was, you know, power meters were in the infancy and you know, certainly the masses did not have them. And yeah, just having all that data for training is, is, yeah, it's a huge, it's a huge benefit. And yeah, just being able to see yourself incrementally improve like that. Yeah, for sure.

So I want to talk about the World Champs race last week. You wanted this one so bad. Like we said, this is one of those ones where you were going for the win. You love racing and that's probably what being a cornerstone of your actual training program is that you're always putting your hand up to race and you race very consistent, which dad, I think you would agree, really helps athletes improve just when they're willing to show up, no matter what fitness level, just consistently show up. That's a really big part of it. But you really wanted to get top of the podium. So talk us through your preparation these last couple of months and yeah, talk us through the lead up to race day, how you found it all.

Yeah, it was definitely a big target and I probably didn't really see it out loud to many if, if any, but yeah, I wanted to win. Like, yeah, yeah. I mean, if someone asked me, probably said, yeah, poor doing, be great, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was there to win. And you know, I, when I first started looking at it, you know, you can look at results, world triathlon, publish all the results from previous years and you know, it's, it's a runner's game duathlon at that level and there's some really fast runners and I started looking at the 10k times for the first race and I was like, whoa, I don't actually know if I can be competitive here. These guys run pretty fast. But then I started looking at the bike times and started looking at the second run times, I was like, oh, maybe I could be. And yeah, my build up was great. You know, nothing went wrong. Injury wise, it was the best. I've been the most consistent running period I've probably ever had. I was running faster than I've ever run before. You know, across all distances. I, you know, we hit the, the TT bike hard at the right time in the build. Started doing a lot of threshold efforts, which in the past has taken me a while to get into. And I just find for me, like, I cannot ride. I do a lot of training on my road bike because it's just what I love to do. I just love smashing hills in the road bike. It's just good fun. But I have to get on my TT bike quite a while before the race and if I haven't been in it for a while, I can jump on and do a four hours on two ride, no problem. But when I try to ride threshold, it's, it's, I've got to build up to it. It's, you know, it's a different skill set riding threshold on a time trial bike for me. And we just did a lot of, a lot of work on that. It was down the velodrome all the time. And yeah, when I fronted up for the race, I was, had a fair amount of, you know, confidence that if I executed a race as well as I could, I would definitely be competitive.

And dad, what were your thoughts kind of around the whole preparation leading in and his.

Yeah, everything Stevie mentioned is bang on. And he did a lot of work getting his position right. So when Stevie, when I first met him on the bike, what he looked like to Stevie, who looks, it's just you would not recognize the same rider. He's sitting so different. He spent a lot of effort going to get his bike fit right and the bike to be, you know, and his equipment, if you can see that bike and for those who are watching this on YouTube, you can see behind him is the bike that he rode. And it's, it's, you know, state of the art. You know, the guys in the Tour would be loving to ride that bike and you've got to still be able to sit properly on it and then still push the power. So Steve has done a lot of work in getting himself to be able to do that. And, you know, he never, ever hesitates when I say, this is what you're doing today. And, you know, sure, that's what I'm doing. And I do remember a Quick conversation about two weeks out, he said to me, oh, are you sure about all this work so close to the event? And I don't know if you remember that conversation, Steve. I love it when it's not.

It's pretty rare. It's pretty rare question. But yeah, when I do, it's because.

I've been thinking about, you know, am I getting this taper right? And, and you know, we talked beforehand, before the taper period, about what we need to do. We need to get. Because the events are 40k time trial and, you know, we need to get you to be as fast as you can because that's going to be your trump card. You are one of the best cyclists in the world. You know, in your age group. You are the best cyclist as a duo athlete in the world. You, you smashed them on that bike. You, you gave them a head. Smashed them. It was, it was exciting to see you use your skill as a, as a as. Because that course is very technical and it had the straight stretches where you could use your threshold power. So you were going to, you know, we talked about that a lot about railing the corners and, you know, not actually given a centimeter here or there, but, but before, before the week, we, we, we wanted you to, to train a lot harder than you had before because it seems to me that you go better when you've, you've really kept the training up and, and that asking you, sure this isn't too much? And I gave you the answer and you just went, yep, if that's what you think, that's what we're doing. And even on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday before the race, a couple of times I was saying, how's your fatigue? Are you feeling? You're saying, oh, not quite there yet. And by Wednesday, Thursday, you were saying, yeah, yeah, starting to feel good. And I think we got the taper right and I think that's important. We got the preparation right earlier of getting you to ride some really, you know, hard, hard threshold sessions that would make most people cringe that they had to line up again and again and again. And, and we definitely improved your running. I mean, you ran a half marathon, 75 minute, 115 half marathon, literally three or four weeks out from that race. And, you know, that's a hard run to do so close to an event yet. Yet that gave you so much confidence, that performance you did in that race, and that's where we talked about in the race plan was your second run. I don't know if there's anybody stronger than you, they beat you quite comfortably in the first run, but no one beat you in the second run. And that's kind of the strategy that we had. And I don't want to summarize too much, I want to let you talk about this, but we had a little duathlon, the local state championships a couple of weeks earlier, where you learned some good lessons against one of the fellow Trivalo athletes. Actually, Tom, tell us about that experience and how you used, used that on race day for your final world championship title.

Yeah, I'd, I'd done that exactly. Same race, same course the year previously. And just as a, an experiment, I thought, I'm going to try and run with Paige and see if I can hang on to him for the 5k and then draft him on, you know, legally draft him on the bike. And I did that for about three and a half K and I was like, ah, this is going to break me. And I just backed off a bit, but it still hurt me on the bike. You know, I got on the bike and, you know, I rode all right, but I felt, you know, it definitely I was hurting from the run. And so this year I just, I let them go in the, in the first run and, you know, I reckon the first kilometer there was like 25 guys ahead of me and just, you know, run the, ran the run very consistently, just even pace, you know, all 5K and jump on the bike and just felt great. Like, just eased into it and was able to catch, you know, the guys ahead of me put in some pretty solid surges when I passed them, so they didn't come with me. And then before I knew it, you know, I saw Tom up ahead and I managed to catch him with like half a lap to go and just start on. And, you know, he's one of the best age group bike riders in the country, I would think it would be fair to say. You know, there's, there's not many people who are catching on a bike ride. So that definitely gave me a lot of confidence. Absolutely. My door, I've been swear on this, absolutely messed it up when I came into T2, but I just couldn't get my shoe on because I numb fingers. So anyway, I finished. Yeah, that, that bike performance and it gave me a real good, not just confidence in my bike ride, but confidence in letting people go in that first run and how much extra that is going to, you know, give me on the bike. You know, that letting them go by 30 seconds in that sprint distance probably, you know, gave me two minutes. Back on the bike, you know, it's, it's a. But it's a bit of a scary thing to do. Let the race just disappear up the road in front of you. But yeah, having done that in that race made me a lot more confident about doing it on the, on the.

Big day because you had to do it on the big day. You had to let them all go because they were going to run a lot quicker than you for the first 10k, which it's easier, like you just said, to say in your head than to do in practice. How was that experience, that first 10k? Just staying in your lane, letting all the guys go ahead of you that you're trying to take the win from? You were, you were okay with that after doing it a couple weeks before?

I was because I'd done it, we talked about it so much and I'd really mentally prepared myself for it. And I was prepared to, to come off that first run a minute and a half down. Like that's kind of what I was expecting, to be honest. And in the end, it was pretty much a minute. And there was two days, a four lap course. There was two dead turns on each course. So I always had an idea of how many people were ahead of me and how far ahead of me. And after the first kilometer, you know, that's as. Apart from the lead runner, you know. No, they didn't put much more time into me after that and I started catching a lot of them because the group broke up. So yeah, it's, it was scary thinking about doing it, but actually I was, I was prepared to do it and you know, I looked at all the results and it seems like they treat this race like a 10k time trial that happens to have a 40k bike ride and another 5k run after it, like some of the paces, you know, and if you like Jerry was saying if you look at the 10k times and then look at the second run times, like, I don't think anyone came within a win a minute of me in the second run. And I ran at the same speed, the same pace I'd run in the first run. So yeah, because I knew all that in advance, it was a lot easier to do it.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. So your 9th or 10th off the first run in terms of run, like you just said, you're. Yeah, the same pace and quickest in the second round. And then so you get on the bike feeling good, you end up doing the fastest bike legs a bit by a mile. What was that bike leg like?

Ah, the, the bike was good. Like I, I probably was slightly slower on the second lap. I don't think there's too much in it, which is maybe, you know, it's not what we say is ideal thing to do. But in the first lap I was racing, I was catching people and like I knew like a cop, a lot of people in just the technical section in about the first three k's because there just wasn't a minute where there wasn't a roundabout, there was a speed hump, there was a corner and I just made up so much time there. And then I knew one of my big rivals would be the Brazilian guy because he finished third in the younger age group last year. And I saw him ahead of me and I caught him and just put in a massive surge just so he didn't come with me because I don't want to take him with me. And just railed a couple of corners to the point where one more millimeter and I was in the cones. This Marshall was standing in the corner. I saw the look of horror in his face because he thought it was coming down. Got Ryan and yeah, so just for me, when I do a triathlon, it's just a time trial. I'm so far behind in the swim, I'm just, I'm playing catch up. It's just how hard can I go for the duration of the race? But in duathlon I get to race it. You know, there's, make tactical decisions, punch it past people on the bike. It's just, I mean it's hard, but it's so much fun. So yeah, the bike was, bike was great.

I think it's a really great story where you have to understand the course and the situation and the fact that that's your strength. We talked about that in the pre race plan. You know, I'm saying to you, unlike every other triathlon where it's a 90k time trial where we gotta, we've gotta stay a little bit in our lane here and not overcook it. So you still gotta run a half marathon. But on this, our scenario, best case scenario was going to be you've got to absolutely go for this. And when you get, if you can get near the front, you've got to put time into them and get as much time off that bike as possible because we don't actually know how much they've spent already. But we know that you will run just the same way no matter how hard you ride. And that proved to be exactly right. You know, that's probably the hardest you've ridden yet. You got off the bike and I know you're hurting running, but it didn't slow you down. Is that a fair summary?

Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. Like, yeah, I pretty much rode as hard as I could after that. I caught the guy who ultimately finished second, and I didn't see him for a while at the start of the second lap, and I. He's a really good runner, you know, he's like a 33 flat, you know, 10k runner. So I do not want to get off the bike with him. So I put another big surge to pass him and then it was basically just the, you know, the long straight bit and I just, yeah, stay arrow as possible. Just empty the tank and. Yeah, then it was in for the second run and I thought there was still a Kiwi guy ahead of me. I did not think I'd passed him. Turns out I had so even, you know, a big long straight, I couldn't see him. And I was thinking, he's that far ahead of me. Fair play to him. He's. He's gonna win. But then when I got off the bike and then I went to the run course, you know, people are shouting stuff at you. And it seemed like I might be in the lead, but I just. I know. I didn't know for sure. I didn't know.

Sure.

And then on the. The last lap, there's a guy who obviously knew who I was because he was like, go on, Stephen, you've got this. You're well ahead. I'm like, must be winning. And then literally went round a dead turn and back up. And the same guy said to me, oh, the American's coming fast. You've got to go. He's going to catch you. And I was like, I lapped it coming out my ears. I was, you know, I was going as hard as I could. I was like, I don't want to hear this. I was thinking, American guy come from. That's the American guy. Like the start of the first lap. So that was the last time up. So I started freaking out then. Just made me angry and actually made me just completely empty the tank last time up the hill. But it wasn't until I literally crossed the finish line I heard the. I think it was Pete Murray and he was. Luckily, the PA system was really good. And I could hear you saying, and this is the world champion for the, you know, for it. And I was like, but that it wasn't. Until then I actually knew I definitely won.

That's a great Story. And for Those listening, Steve, 45 to 49 is your category.

Yeah.

And you were, over the whole day, you were the second fastest duo athlete on the day out of every age group.

Yes, I believe so. Yeah.

Yeah. And. And that shows you at your age, I mean, there were 20 to 25 year olds, 25 to 29, etc. Etc. All the way up. And that shows you how competitive you are. You, you pretty much would have won every age group, bar one. And, you know, that's kudos to you. And I know you hate talking about this and especially on a podcast, but I just want everybody out there to listen and understand that, you know, it doesn't happen in a month or six months or a year. This has been six years in the making almost. And that's why it's more satisfying. And that's why the conversation we have on the phone after the race means so much. Because. Because there's so much gone into that journey. And I think what makes it even more special is your humility about the whole thing and never promoting yourself and doing everything you possibly can to be that athlete that you want to be. So you have no regrets when you look back about your preparation, when you stand on the start line and you've got a race strategy and a plan that you feel is full, safe. And if you just follow that strategy, if someone's better than you, like you said, if the guy, the Kiwi guy's up the road, well, hats off to him, he's better. But at the end of the day, if you compete the way you want to, with a plan and a strategy and you do the best on the day, if it ends up being a win, absolutely brilliant. But if you've done the best, you've got to be happy with that. And, you know, we had another couple of guys also. One guy won the duathlon championships, Matt Clarkson. And in the Aquabike, we had Greg Alderson, who got rolled over 3 hours 42 by a minute and a half. And, you know, our conversation with him is, you know, did you do everything you possibly could? Could you have gone any harder? He said, no, I would. That's the best race I've ever had. That's as hard as I could ride and swim and just, I just missed out. And he, he's probably the same. He was about the second or third fastest Aquabike. He's a 50 odd year old guy. His time is right up there in the top five with the whole day as well. And so at the end of the Day. That's what's more important, Steve, isn't it? That journey and that execution of doing your best. And if the victory is there, it's a bonus. Would that be a fair summary of how you go about your program?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like the win is the icing on the cake. It's great. But yeah, just fronting up, knowing you've done the training, knowing you've done everything you can and executing the race you plan to and wanted to, I mean, yeah, you can't do more than that. And I think that feels pretty good for whatever the outcome because, you know, you can't win them all. I get rolled and traffic all the time, so, you know, but, you know, if you put down the best race you can, then yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. It feels pretty good.

And just on that note, go on and tell us, what was the feeling crossing the line?

Oh, it was, it was great. Like, I, in all honesty, in the sort of, the longer lead up to this, I always had an eye on Bustle. Like I really got unfinished business with the Ironman to the point where I was honestly considering Bustle, my A race and this is my A plush race, if you like. But the closer we got it, I began to realize that I actually care about this quite a lot because I don't really get nervous too much for races anymore. Yeah, I got quite nervous before this one. And so, yeah, to cross the line and hear that I'd won and become an age group world champion, it was a great feeling, I'm not going to lie.

And in that call we had together, he managed to sneak in at the end of the call. And now let's concentrate on Busso. And I'm saying, hang on a minute, hang on. Just, let's just enjoy, smell the roses a little bit here. Let's enjoy what you've just done. He goes, yeah, I know that, but when are we getting going for Busso? And that's kind of. That sums it up. I think it's a great story and a great journey and yeah, it's a, it's been a pleasure coaching you, mate, because of all the things you do well, which. That's what I want the age group is out there to hear is there's no hero sessions. You summed it up really well. At the start, if you keep, if you keep training like that, you won't reach your potential.

I want to finish off with some data points. You know, you can versus a really good cyclist. Yeah, triathlon is still the goal and, And You've done insanely well at a lot of, you know, half.

I would argue you turned me into a very good cyclist. I think you're overstating how good I was when I first came to Trivel. I was going to drop like a hot potato every month ride. I was on the couch like facing for the entire afternoon afterwards. My wife said, you better get fit soon because this is not sustainable.

The Travelo Bunch ride itself is a bit of a rite of passage if anyone gets to do it. You do get humbled very quickly and I say you're a good triathlete because your first FTP test outdoor, you were already riding 40 plus ks an hour. That is exceptional writing. And early on 70.3s that you're doing, we're still writing 38, 39 ks an hour, which that's why I say you were very good, but you now know how much better you are for not just the speed or power, but for all aspects of execution. And I will say that, yeah, your peak 20 minute is now 46.8 or 47, something like that. And correct me if I've got any startup wrong and you're PB 70.3 90k was 41.8km an hour this year, so that's for 90km. So that's kind of just a bit of the journey of where you've gone from as well as what that actually means. That's the improvements in the numbers but how you execute. And same thing with running. You said you weren't a runner, but you were coming and you were. Your first 5Ks with us were the 340s already. You could already run pretty quick, but there was no way you could run 10k or half marathon or marathon at those equivalent paces. And over the years you have developed that strength. And yeah, to run a 115 three weeks ago to basically jog around last year in a 256 where it was just a training run, a 256 marathon. Realistically we know that your predicted time is probably closer to 245 or sub. That just shows the strength you have, which will obviously hold you in good stead for Busterton. But I just really want to mention all those points of just it seems like you're at a high level from the start, but you've continued to incrementally increase and suddenly when you look at for 20 minutes, 41 to 47 kilometers an hour, that's insane riding. But yeah, six years is a long time with a coach. So I kind of Want to finish by asking how come you've stayed with dad for so long?

Well, probably because of what you've just, you just said. You know, he keeps getting me better. I mean, as Jerry kindly pointed out a little while ago, I'm pretty old and I'm getting faster. Both cycling but running as well, which is, you know, when you get to being as old as me, a lot of people start to slow down. So to keep making significant gains as a, as a runner, I just, I love it. You know, I just, I really enjoy running. As I've said, I've never been a runner, but I, I love it. I really enjoy. And to be able to just keep getting faster is, it's awesome. It's. It's so good. You know, like when I did that half math and you're talking about it like you just, it was such a confidence boost because I don't think I'm that good a fresh runner compared to a triathlon runner. I think I'm good at triathlon because my triathlon times are not hugely slower than my first time. So when I run a good fresh time, I, I know I'm running well. And it's. Yeah, it was, it was great to do that so close to the race.

Dad.

Yeah, Jerry, he's, he's not a bad bloke. Having your partner.

That's right. So, dad, any take home messages from you, any comments you want to add?

No, no. Without embarrassing Steve anymore, it's great to have a conversation post event. And we're doing this because we want others out there to understand that you can do it. If you set your mind to anything, you can be a better version of yourself. And that's really what we're trying to do with our podcast, is help everybody improve and enjoy the journey. And a lot of the time the enjoyment doesn't come from having fun training. It's improving. That's the, that's the fun part, isn't it, Steve? When, when you're improving, it's so much more likely you'll keep training because you see that you're moving the goalposts to the way you want them. And I think that's, that's kind of the, the reason why we're interviewing Steven put in. And he's not one who wanted to be on this podcast. Let me tell everybody, he'd much rather us just talk about him than he'd have to talk about himself. And, and so, you know, I think the message is that, you know, if you love doing something, you'll do better at it. But if you're prepared to do the work like Stevie is, and you do all those 1 percenters, like getting the bike fit, getting your position right, spending time on the TT bike and doing those hard sessions and not changing his whole mindset from being Mr. Hero with sessions here or there to just being Mr. Consistent. And there's hardly a week or a month go by where I don't have to say anything to Steve because I just look at his sessions and he's just nailing them day after day. And it's only now and then when we have to have a conversation about, oh, what happened here. And, you know, normally there's something that's happened in family or work that's created it, but generally I could not have had. We've got plenty of them in Trivalo. I know that. But when I look across, you know, athletes who are in age groups, I don't think they could be, they could be as confident at their consistency that Stevie's been when he's been not injured or not getting hit by a deer or whatever. But, but certainly, you know, that's the thing that I've loved about the journey with Steve and, and yeah, I'm really grateful to have him as an athlete. It's, it's been a, it's been a really fun experience.

So, Stevie. Yeah. I'd like to pass to you just to. Do you have any final words that you'd like to potentially pass on to. To age groupers or anyone that's just aiming for more consistency and improvement in the sport?

Going fast, whether it's running or cycling, I can't talk about swimming, but going fast is fun. And all those things that Jerry's just said, you know, the consistency, it makes you fast. And there's just nothing better than just knowing that you can, you can be fast. Put that down a race course and, you know, it takes a while to realize, but yeah, just being consistent, that's what gets you there.

Yeah. And you really, you really, you know, contrasted that with the start of the program when it was a lot of red until now, and it's a lot of green. It's, it's what we really like.

Ah, yeah, like, like chalk and cheese. Like both my parents and my wife, you know, my, my dad was heavily involved in my cycling back in the day and he's like, I've got to meet this Jerry guy. I just can't believe what he's turned you into. It's just, it's literally incredible.

Amazing, amazing. No, that's great. And I think one last point I really wanted to talk about was that we're looking at this now and a very peak of this journey and looking back to see how far you've come. But that's because we're looking at a macro level and it's a good reminder for a lot of athletes. You've got to keep that long term, that macro kind of mindset in mind. Because let's say we picked any point along that journey. We could pick you at a very low point. We could pick you at the middle of your rehab post year crash or, or even December last year when you couldn't swim, bike or run or at some point in one of your running injuries in year three, where the fitness didn't seem to be there and it seemed like you'd been on the program for three years but you weren't where you wanted to be, you know, and the athlete needs to really just remember that macro level and just go, okay, we're injured right now, we're at a low point right now, we give it months to get back and you have a really good run like you have this year and you'll be back at that peak. But it does take that commitment to the consistency and commitment to the program over a long journey. That's, that's something that we really, really want to push for athletes and their mindset that, you know, it might not happen in a short time and it's not just going to happen as a once off, you know, one program to one race. The more you can stack these years on top of each other, the more you can look back in hindsight and go, wow, this is how far I've come. So that's how I wanted to finish. Anything else from you, dad?

No, I think it's just one more thing. There's always one more thing. Sorry. It's just that that time accumulation like building layer upon layer and I think, I think with Steve's running and that's, that's, you know, there's a lot of things he's doing well but I think the main thing is he's been able to just continually, to add that layer of running fitness into his body. I think, I think that that is the six or seven or ten years that you know that athletes who are, as an example where one of the local guys, Nick, went running with your uncle George, Paul last Sunday and, and Nick was, you know, Paul's 63 and Nick's 30 something. And Nick was astounded at how evenly Paul was running in that easy, long run and every time they came to a hill, Nick was 20, 30 meters up the road. And you know, then they go down and Porsche is staying the same pace and Nick's just looking at him going, am I doing something wrong here? Are we, are we meant to be running harder up the hill? And he's telling me today, you just learned so much from that one run with Paul where trying to run what you're after each. What is the goal and the aim of each session. And if it's just a long, easy run, you don't need to be putting in the hard efforts. You think that I have to keep improving in this one effort all the time. And I think six or seven years of doing that, and in Paul's case, 40 years of training like that, since he's a 20 year old, has taught him how to just stay evenly and consistent. And Paul's had really bad injuries as well. And, you know, he just qualified for Kona two or three years ago after having 20 years out of the sport. And that's because he's learned that consistency a long, long time ago when him and I both, when we both met as teenagers. So I think that's a great story, Steve, that, you know, at the end of the day, you've had to change your ways a lot and this is what change the outcome is. And you would look back now and go, far out. If I had known that earlier in my career, I probably would have been.

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, I probably could have short circuited this whole process by a year or two. But, you know, that's all part of the process. You know, you've got to make the mistakes to learn from them. And yeah, yeah, I think if it comes too easy, you know, if you learn the hard way, you really learn.

That's absolutely brilliant. And hopefully for anyone listening, we can help them take off one or two years of mistakes. And that's the whole point purpose of this podcast and this kind of episode. So thanks so much again, Stevie, for joining us. We really appreciate it. We know the listener will have loved this story. It's a great story. We're not always about podiums, but this was a really clear goal and you absolutely nailed it. So thanks, mate, for coming on.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

As always, we thank you for listening to this episode and if you do want to have same sort of journey and goals improvement as Stevie, you can go to our website, TravellerCoaching.com and apply to get coached there. Thanks as always. And we'll see you in the next episode.