From Overweight To Finishing An Olympic Triathlon [CASE STUDY]

Welcome back to the Get Fast podcast. We're back with our first case study of the year. In these shorter episodes, we review one of our athletes performances and what we did to help them get there and get an improvement. And that could be in a pb, it could be testing improvements, could be race results and much more. But before we get into the episode, we want to remind you of the athletes unwritten rule. Endurance athletes, we have this mark of respect for each other. There's just a code out there that when you see another endurance athlete out training a cyclist or runner on the road, you give a single finger salute or a wave or even just a little nod, a mark of respect that you're both training, you're both on the grind, on the endurance journey together. And so another part of this athlete's unwritten rule is for us, as you know, we do this podcast for free and we give you all our best information and tips to help you train smarter and race faster. And we love doing it. And the only thing we ask you to do is if you listen to an episode that you enjoy or love or you find is really helpful or you get something out of, you can really help us by making sure you subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to it on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen or share it on your socials. Go to your Instagram or go to your Facebook and share a photo of the episode, put it on your story, put up your post up. It's something we really appreciate athlete to athlete. So getting into this case study, this is just an absolutely inspiring story from a beginner athlete, Marcus. Marcus came to us in a position where he wanted to make a big change in his life and lifestyle. He was 132 kilos and his goal and dream was just to complete a triathlon. He asked us if we thought it was possible with limited ability to swim or run to start with, but he was able to jump on the bike and, and, and start riding. We started his journey. So dad, take the story from here.

Thanks Jordan. A great introduction. And right from the outset I want to make it clear that Marcus is one of the most enjoyable athletes that I've ever had to deal with. His determination and focus is kind of unrivaled and I, I suppose that's where I should start because when we first started training him, I learned so much about coaching. I completely misunderstood where his level was and where his ability was. And I was so keen to help him that I really needed to rethink. After a few weeks of training about how I was going to help him the best way. And the way I started was me being too, too excited almost to get him going. And that wasn't the way to treat him. And so we established very quickly that he was going to get very tired because of his low level of fitness that he started with. He was going to get very tired every day that we were doing something and we needed to account for that. And that's the thing. I wasn't accounting for that. He wasn't able to back up day after day. And I'm not talking about a normal triathlon program. I'm talking about stripping it right back so that our goal and focus was just to get him moving each day. And that, that was not how I started coaching him. I was actually trying to coach him like a triathlete. And that was my mistake. And I learned a lot about coaching in that first month of coaching Marcus. So I really, really grateful for that opportunity to learn myself as a coach. And so I set him the target of early on was let's just do 30 days in a row of training and make this a habit. Make your body get used to it. And I set the rule as you had to do something that was about 15 minutes or more. If it didn't get to 15 minutes, it didn't count as a session. And I, I said you can do whatever you like. You could walk, you could, you could run, you could just do some exercises as long as it went for 15 minutes. You could swim, you could cycle, whatever you felt that you had time for. And if you, if you didn't have time and you didn't want to set up your bike and you only had 15 minutes, well, don't do that. Just go for a walk and, and that would tick off a session for the day. So I said the other rule is if you miss one of those consecutive days, you have to start again. You have to start your 30 days again. Anyway, we fast tracking it, we eventually got there with a few hiccups here and there. And look, you know, his immune system was really being stressed because he wasn't used to doing activities each day. You know, he had a family, young kids, a wife and, and he ran his own business. So he had a full on schedule anyway in his, in his day to day activities. So to, to add some more, you know, exercise, to add exercise into his activity was going to create some adjustments that he had to make. And look, not only did his body have to adjust, but his whole planning structure of what he did day to Day had to change as well to fit in this relentless thing of doing some sort of activity or exercise every day for 30 days to make this. And we're doing this for a reason. We're doing it trying to, you know, I get the body used to doing some exercise. And for your mind to know that each day I'm going to do something and get your head around that, that, you know, he was in a position previously where he would do maybe two or three days and then have four days of nothing, then have another one day or two days, then have six days of nothing. So this is a cycle he'd been doing for decades.

Yeah. And it's just a classic case, isn't it? Obviously, you know, we talk about the period of training, it's frequency first, then volume, then intensity. And the more beginner you are, the more that is important to stick to, the more that frequency is important and the more experienced you are, if you've got some experience in training, then you're going to be a lot more used to that frequency and you can go to volume and intensity at a faster rate. But in this case, it was literally the goal was frequency and the volume, intensity just did not matter. In fact, you really had to make sure that you weren't overdoing any volume or intensity.

Yeah, that's the key thing that we had to really come to grips with was, of course, we've got data and how everybody in listening to this podcast, understands how driven we are with data. But we did use the data to sort of set guidelines. And, you know, his ability to do any running was very limited with the weight that he was at. And it was quite kind of waiting for an injury to happen or, you know, almost dangerous for his health to push his heart rate too high. And. And swimming was a challenge as well. And of course, in that year, in 2021, we started in February, we had Covid, you know, almost start straight away. So. So there was a lot of challenges thrown up at him, but. But our goal was really just to get him into routine and structure. And right from the outset, I said, you know, this could take a long time. You need to be patient and you need to just tick off day after day and don't think too far ahead and don't think how, how slow I'm improving. Don't think like that. Change your mindset to, I'm better than I was a week ago, I'm better than I was yesterday. And then after three or four months, look back at where you were at the start and all of a sudden you're four months further down the journey. And small incremental improvements were definitely occurring, but not at the rate that you would expect because we couldn't really push much intensity. Our focus, as you said, was purely on frequency of training, which is that day after day after day, consistent backing up. And so the duration and the intensity was really in the background. And, and of course we tried to do some overload where we were, you know, if you could do 15 minutes, let's try 16 minutes, you know, just add time in small increments. But, but that was, that was really the crux of our starting point.

Yeah. And we are very data driven. So we do have great data from when he started back in February 2021. It's now almost February 2024, you're in January, it's almost three years down the track. And you really talk about this journey a lot about you have to be patient. And this was a great example of, of being patient. But we still looked at data. I mean, the goal at the start was frequency and completion of training and completion of the event. And we do talk about what is your goal for the event? You know, what is your goal for the race? And there's kind of three types of goals and this applies a lot for any distance triathlon, especially half ironman or Ironman. Is your goal just to complete it and just get through it and you're just trying to get good enough to get through it, or is it to complete it comfortably? And that's a, that's a different scenario where you're trying to give yourself enough time so that you're not suffering unimaginably because you're under prepared? Or is your goal a race time you're really training to aim for for a certain time? And in this case, you know, the first target was could I complete a Olympic distance triathlon? That was the real big stretch goal. And then this first step in between, you said, oh, let's just get to a sprint first. And so in February 2021, when he started his first FTP test was 214 watts, I think for somewhere around the 30 kilometer an hour mark. And then just recently, October last year, that, that had gone up to 237 watts for 35.2 kilometers an hour. So it took a while to get there, but that's a massive improvement. And then just today actually, which coincidentally we're planning to record this anyway, but he's just done 252 watts for 38 kilometers an hour. So that is riding 38 kilometers an hour. You are riding, you know, and he did a pretty conservative test today. You know, there was a, there was a 40 watt difference between his first 10 minutes and his second 10 minutes. So he did 233 for the first 10 minutes, 270 for the second 10 minutes. So he's really come home strong. And that's great. That's great execution. We love that. But as you say, that probably shows that it was too conservative. He's probably got more in him in terms of what. So dad, from where he started to riding 38Ks an hour, you're just, you're just laughing today. Yeah.

And look, there's probably been a couple of power meter changes there. So the data, you know, might be misleading as well. You know, it could possibly that 250 could have been compared to his old power meter. Could have been, you know, 270. So, so the really important point.

Sorry, sorry to interrupt, but I think that is, you know, when you're looking at the data that those notes are in there, that when he got his new power meter, he was actually running lower power for the same speed. So it shows that the new one is actually lower. So in this regard, we were, I was just comparing then 240 to 252 with a lower power meter now. So you are right.

Yeah. And the speed, that's where data from speed is really helpful, isn't it? Because, you know, no matter what the power meter reads, our goal in a triathlon is to ride faster than we have before. And if we, if we ride 50 watts to get 38ks an hour, and next week we ride 400 watts to get 38ks an hour,. Our actual goal is 38ks an hour, regardless of what the power is. The power is the thing that gets us the speed. So we're really, you know, we're driven by, at the end of the day, by how fast can we ride from A to B? And that's what racing a bike is. And so I'm just, I can't almost believe my eyes when I saw 38Ks an hour. When I look back at February 2021. And, you know, 30Ks an hour was pretty much all he could do. And you know, if I think you're about in distance, I know that he was a kilometer faster at 35ks an hour. In the last test he did, he was actually a kilometer further up the road. So I think he did 10.7 kilometers in those 20 minutes. And this time he did 11.7. So that shows you he's a kilometer an hour further up the road. If you, you know, Marcus was rac against Marcus, you know, new Marcus is a cut k up the road for, in 20 minutes. Imagine that in, in a 40K, you know, you'd be literally kilometers ahead of yourself.

Well, that math works out perfect because he's 3km an hour, an hour faster. So over 20 minutes it's a kilometer. And so more data points we want to just touch on before we kind of really dive into the key changes. And what got here is I have to swim, you know, really struggled to swim even 600 meters at the start. And the first 1k time trial he was able to do is swimming at 2:30 pace. And he did a sprint triathlon just a couple of months ago and he swam159pace. So that is a great effort to come down. And then running his, his first sprint he ever did back in 2021, which he got to was 5km at 6:30 pace and then just two months ago he ran 5k at 6 minute pace. So 30 seconds per km down in the triathlon. And, and this is just, you know, we've just glossed over the fact that he got to the sprint distance, you know, he's doing a triathlon. Not only is he improving these times massively, he's swimming, riding and running a completed triathlon. And the big kicker is that you got to Noosa Tri last year. So take us through that journey a little bit.

Yeah, and the first initial goal was just to do a fun try, which is, I think it's a 250 meter swim, 10k ride and a 2 1/2k run. And that's how we started. And the goal was to see if he could do a sprint triathlon, which is, you know, one step ahead of that, which is, you know, a lot of the sprint distances are quite varied around the world and for this particular race it was 500 meter swim, 20k ride and a 5k run. And his actual achievement of doing that was, you know, we don't want to gloss over that, that was, that was pretty, pretty challenging for him to get through that event. And, and you know, he was so motivated that he actually did it. Then, you know, he signed up for a lot more races over the next few years at sprint distance. And, and you days where he went better and, and days where he didn't go so good depending on how much preparation he'd done and, and how, how the consistency had gone in his training and there were lots of Things that were inhibiting or, or advancing that. And eventually last year, he said, I really want to do an Olympic distance. Do you think I'm capable of doing it? And I said, mate, there's no limit or ceiling to anybody I coach. If you want to do that, let's put our head together and work out a method that'll enable you to ride 40k and run 10k. And look, that's easy just to talk those words. Running 10k for Marcus was, you know, that is a challenge, like someone having to run a marathon who's, you know, the furthest they'd run as a half marathon. 5k to 10k is the same equivalent for, for Marcus and, And, you know, at 130 odd kilo, you know, it's not an easy challenge. And I don't think anybody can really understand that, the position he's in there. And, but his determination was what got me inspired the whole time is, you know, just keep chipping away. And all of a sudden he's down to 122 kilo. And, and then he reached out for some, for some help with Dr. Harry. And, you know, I just asked him this morning, what's your weight today? And he said, 105.9 kilo. And, and, you know, that's. It almost brings tears to your eyes how, how, how good an outcome that is. And it's not just about the weight. It's the, it's the way he did it. And, and he' trying to find out how he can improve himself. And, and, you know, I just love this, this trait that he has of, you know, setting targets. No matter what knocks him over, he gets back up again. I could list 10 things that have happened to him over the journey that anybody else would just go, oh, you know what? Forget it. I just don't do this anymore. I, I just can't get. Keep getting knocked down. But, but his resilience has been, you know, to me, outstanding. It's a great lesson. Even to me, it's a great lesson of, you know, suck it up sometimes when things aren't going your way, because if you just keep at it and that word, persevering, you will eventually succeed in the goals you're trying to do. And, and, you know, the middle of last year when he wanted to do Noosa so badly, he entered. It's a. For those of you don't know, Noosa is in the Sunshine coast, which is in Queensland. He lives in Melbourne. So it's, you know, it's a. You have to get A flight, get accommodation. It's quite an expensive thing to do. This is one of the biggest Olympic distance races in the world, and it's been going the longest. I think it started in. I first did it in 1985 or something. It's been going since 1981 or two. So it's one of the all time longest triathlons that's ever been going. So it's a really big event that's. That gets a lot of notoriety and there's. There's a real carnival atmosphere around it. So he wanted to be a part of that. You know, there's a criterion. There's a fun run, there's a swimming race, there's a teams race, and there's the Olympic triathlon. So it's a big event to go to, and he really wanted to make that line. And we had to change a few things in his program where, because he was struggling with his, you know, he runs his own electrical business and he's got a lot of kids now and, you know, a lot of busier lifestyle, he can't get the endurance rides in on the weekend because that's the time for his family. So, you know, he's trying to fit in some longer rides midweek now, and that really worked well. By just thinking about how he can manage this program better, came up with this. This plan to do more of his endurance riding on a Friday rather than a Saturday. And then all he had to do was do a. An endurance run on a Saturday morning. And that was his weekend, you know, sort of covered with endurance done. So, so things like that, you know, he was up for and, And. And manipulating the. Manipulating the program to best suit his needs is. Is what everybody should be doing. You, you know, if you. If you can't manage something on this day, then. Then, you know, contact your coach and ask for a swap and. And make it fit into your lifestyle rather than, you know, here's your program. This is the day you have to do it. And, you know, even though that is the structure that works best, there are ways to fix it. And. And so that was a great example of him just not letting any roadblock stop him from. From actually achieving that goal and getting to the Noosa start line, which he did incredibly well.

I love those lessons. And the reason we do these episodes is in every story, there's some key lessons that some will apply to you and some won't, but most of the time, there's been key lessons that can apply to every athlete, regardless of the context, and that that ability to, you know, find solutions to what's not working and figuring out that the endurance rides aren't working on Saturday. So let's change them to Friday. And yeah, take us through some of the other, the other key lessons because you just mentioned the fact that putting a goal in front of him and like you said, the Olympic distance was a fair stretch news. It was a big stretch. He wasn't fully ready but really forced him to go up another gear. Even though he was doing well, it really forced him to go up another gear and get himself ready for that. So take us through some of the other lessons that you think can apply to athletes that are really from this story.

Yeah, and I think changing the distance of the race because once he got the hang of the sprint distance, I think that almost got to him to a point where he needed another challenge. Of course the challenge is you can run a sprint, you can complete a sprint distance faster all the time trying to do that race faster. But he needed in his own mind something that was going to help him with that. The physicalness of his, of the way his body was. He wanted to be leaner and obviously then faster, be an improved athlete, but he wanted to be fitter and have less weight and by doing a longer event, that was going to force him to train with more endurance. And so it was a really smart move. Push yourself to an event that's got way double the endurance that you've just done. And anything over an hour is definitely an endurance race. You know, if you have people think a sprint distance, ah, that's just a sprint, that's, you know, it's, it's not a two minute or a ten minute or a twenty minute race. It's, it's an hour to two hours for some people. And the minute you step up to an Olympic distance, that, that's straight away going to be, you know, for the average athlete that we're talking to, we're not talking about the elites, you know, it's, it's anything from two hours to three hours plus. So that's endurance. So you need to be prepared endurance wise for that. And if you're going to be able to run for your 10k an hour 20 or an hour 15, you know, that's quite an endurance run. And especially at a high weight, that's a big load to carry around for all that time. So they're the key things that we're going to force him to have to do more insurance type training and get his long run from, from 25 minutes or 30 minutes was his longer runs up to 40 to 45. And then, you know, eventually we had to get him to run 50 to 60 minutes and, and try and get him to run 70 minutes, which, you know, takes a long, progressive period of time because you can't just keep throwing 15 or 20 minutes onto a run from last week. You have to progress enough slowly that you don't actually create, you know, illness or sickness or, or injury. So, so the progression had to be steady. And, and his endurance ride definitely helped improve his ability and his fitness levels to a point where he felt so much stronger now because he had that aerobic fitness from the endurance ride. And, and I'm forcing him to ride some hills and, you know, you know, really get that weight up and down those hills. And of course, the more, the more you do of that, the weight starts to fall off and starting to eat, obviously more sensibly, a more balanced diet and just getting all those little things that we talk about, getting them to be part of your everyday routine. And then all of a sudden you get confidence because you start to see improvements and as you start testing, you see some more improvements and that motivates you again. So this cycle of getting excited about having a goal race, that's going to challenge you incredibly, for those of you who are out there listening, an Ironman is kind of the ultimate challenge. But perspective wise, for some people, a sprint triathlon is an ultimate challenge. And, and then from them to go to that, to an Olympic distance, that's, that's a huge step. So, so putting it into context, you know, he was able to think about what are the requirements for me to step up to this next challenge and make sure that I get there on race day. Noosa is a hot race. It's normally around 30, 25 to 30 degrees and reasonably high humidity. And you know, coming from a winter in, in the southern part of Australia, that's. You're not really prepared for that heat. So, so I'm drumming into him the whole time. You know, you can't just, you can't just get to this event and get to the start line. You have to be prepared. So you want to run the whole race. You don't want to be walking at any point. You know, you want to make sure that you're running, as you said, not just to complete the thing, but this is to enjoy it. And, and that's what he ended up doing. He. You could not wipe the smile off his face and it was great conversation to have. After he completed that event and, and you know, he swam and road and ran unbelievably well and you know, yeah, just one of those all time great performances from a guy who really deserved it because he just persevered and put his head down and stuck to the task and, and didn't drop his, drop his, you know, his bundle when things didn't go well. And, and yeah, I think that's the story that, that people should get from this and be inspired by someone not just because of being such a heavy guy and, and, and, and being able to, to, to complete these events, but more so about his mindset of, you know, no matter what the challenge was, if I told him to do something, you know, he would inevitably find a way to actually complete the tasks and, and doing that day in, day out made it possible on race day for him to believe that he could do it. And he actually went, we weren't talking about times we wanted him to complete it with a feeling that he was in control. And not only that, he started to race himself in the bike and on the run and that's how confident he got as he was going around the event. So, yeah, I know I've talked a lot here, but there's a lot to unpack when we're talking about case studies and I want everybody out there listening to just think about yourself, you know, am I shortchanging myself? Am I getting the most out of myself? You know, and do I get derailed by the smallest roadblock that's put in front of me? And that's not to say you push through, you know, brick walls that can't be overcome. You've got to be sensible and work things out and manage a program so that, you know, you've got a good plan that will get you to the start line and give yourself enough time and, and we're talking, you know, nearly two and a half years to get to that point. And that takes absolute patience to the max to, to not want to expect it to happen in two months. And, and yeah, I think that's, that's one of the biggest lessons that, that most people should get out of this.

The fact that he got to the Olympic. Yeah, triathlon is just, yeah, that's just the story in itself and so awesome. And as you just finished off with some of the key lessons that stood out for me with the story was, was the story of consistency and, and just that lesson of just getting something done. It's not about the perfect program. And for him that something started as 15 minutes and then it progressed to, you know, more consistent training. But for all of us, it's. Sometimes you just don't feel like doing a VO2 session. And if you, if you really mentally are not up for it, you know, just that lesson of getting on the bike and just doing zone two and just, you know, pedaling the legs over is enough. You know, that can apply to most people. And I loved your point when you told me how he's not the sort of person that says, oh, I'll start again on Monday once something happens. I think that's a really cool lesson, is that if you, if something comes up on Tuesday, Wednesday, and you're having a bad week, he was ready to start again on a Thursday. And most people kind of fall into this trap of, I'll start on the 1st of January, you know, I'll start in the new year, I'll start on Monday. And you're wasting half the week there. You know, you're missing out on four potential days of getting some consistency back. So.

But it also reinforces Jord the habit of it's okay to have four or five days off against reset, reset, reset all the time. Like a broken record. I'll just, I'll just miss these four days and then reset. And if you look back after six months, you've done that seven times and you've missed out on four days times. Seven times is 28. You've missed out on a month of training by, I'll just start on Monday and, you know, get out of that habit, you know, whatever's stopping you from training, sort it out and then, and then just get, get yourself back into the game and do something tiny, do some 15 minute walk or 20 minutes, anything to get the fact that you're getting that mindset of the habit. You get the habit of your body doing some sort of movement that's going to contribute to its improvement in fitness.

So in conclusion, what are the key lessons you'd like the listener to understand? Just to finish off this episode and, and finish off this awesome story?

I think giving yourself an opportunity to make sure that you can actually succeed at things if you're willing to put the time in and be patient. I think they're the two key things. If you set yourself a goal, it's got to be a realistic. And some people might have said they'd heard Marcus say, I want to do Olympic distance. They go, I just don't think that's in your, you know, possibilities. I think it's too, too much for you. But if you give yourself enough time and you're prepared to do the work. There is no ceiling to any, any goal that, that you put in front of yourself. And I've just learned that lesson so many times. You know, when I first met Marcus at the, at the triathlon, because, you know, majority of people we coach, I've never even met. And it's all, all of our coaching is communicating online and I've got people all over the world that we coach that I've never actually physically met.

Yeah, I like your point about, you know, no matter how uncomfortable he was at the start and how hard that starting process was, building that habit, his determination to improve and just be a better version of himself is what got him here. And I think you asked him at the start, you know, if you could, if you can be really patient and if you can say to yourself, in two years, I'll do an Olympic triathlon, what would that be like? And he said, that would be a dream come true. That just shows the patience you need. But his willingness to actually go through with the process and it's way easier said than done. It's way easier to say, oh, yeah, I'll do the work and do it, but to actually do the work is hard. I think that applies to every level of triathlete. We just always say that when you persevere for something for years and not expect results in 12 weeks or 24 weeks, you're going to get much more benefit. And even this applies to every level of athlete, even our top level athletes, you know, where they can really, if they get the right training structure, can find improvement very quickly. They still get the best improvement at that two year mark, at that three year mark and onwards when they get that consistency. So that's the lesson for me.

Yeah. But I think the final thing to say is he's just excited for more. He really wants to see where he can go to from here. And I think that's actually the most exciting part is he's still got the motivation to actually, you know, it's almost like he's just started now and now he's, he's, you know, can't wait for the, for the journey to continue.

Yeah, great story. Another case study is really inspiring. We hope this case study episode inspires you and we'll see you next week for our normal podcast episodes. And another case study, Sam.