How Australia's #1 Triathlete Trains: Sam Appleton

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. Today's episode, we have Australia's number one male 70.3 triathlete at the moment, especially with his performances of late, including fifth at the Professional Triathlete Organization Collins cup last year, ninth at the world title race in St. George. But overall, someone that has had an incredibly successful Ironman 70.3 career, winning 15 professional races. Now, 16 races after his Geelong 70.3 win on Sunday, which was his third win at Geelong, this guest is Sam Appleton, our Aussie gun triathlete. He's also had multiple top 10 finishes at the world 70.3 as high as 4 4th. We're so grateful he joined us on the podcast, especially after his big win on Sunday, and we had a great chat to him, really diving into the behind the scenes of his training program and structure and how he plans to improve himself and what he focuses on specifically in a training week, as well as many more great insights into Sam as a professional athlete. And I think, dad, the listeners are going to get a lot out of getting to hear what Sam Appleton's pro training schedule looks like.

Yeah, and it's really great that, you know, so many of the pros are really willing and generous and as he said, you know, as long as he's able to help be kind to people every day, that's one of his goals. And he's definitely done that with his podcast. He's really open and not hiding anything that he does in training. And for the listeners, this is unbelievably good information and even an insight into where he's, you know, the success he's had and how he's got that success and changing coaches and changing a little bit of focus about the way he goes about some of his sessions and now the change in direction which might be be from not so much 70.3 to more towards Ironman. So, you know, watch this space to see how successful he can be if he keeps the same philosophy that he's had, you know, earning those, you know, what an incredible palmares to have 16 70.3 victories that, you know, not a lot of people can say they've had more than one or two. So he's doing a lot of things well and I can't wait to see how he goes as an Ironman Triathlete with his plan to do possibly Cairns and then go to Kona. So really looking forward to seeing how he progresses and getting him back on the program, which would be a lot of fun because he really does give a lot of really good tips for the, for the age grouper.

Without further ado, here is the episode with Sam Appleton. Sam Appleton, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for joining us. The first question that we love to ask an athlete like you is what does the sport of triathlon mean to you?

It's something that's given me my, my whole career, my life, and it's almost what I like. I don't like to kind of attach an identity to myself. It kind of is my identity really, triathlon and things. So it's, yeah, I mean, it's super important. It's, it's my way of life. It's what I love doing. It's pretty much, you know, everything in my life encompasses triathlon. I guess so. So, yeah, I would, I would say that it's pretty important to me in that, in that respect.

We must congratulate you. It's really great that you've been available to speak to us coming off your most recent 70.3 win at the, at the Geelong race over the weekend. So congratulations. And you must be pretty pumped about that victory.

Yeah, thanks very much. Yeah, I mean, starting the season off with a win in Geelong is, is great. I love that race down there. I've, I've won it three times now and it's, I love starting my season there and yeah, I mean, to win the race and start 2022 on such a high note is a huge confidence booster going forward because I changed coaches at the end of last year. I'm now coached by Tim Reed and it kind of validates what we've been doing in training and yeah, we can use that kind of momentum going forward into the rest of the training and the rest of the year. So, yeah, super, super pumped.

For those who didn't see the results, take us through how the race panned out for you. And I know the listeners, you know, a lot of the age groupers are really always intrigued by how the pros see how their race panned out and, and what you did well and what you would like to improve on. Just, just give us a brief run through of the swim, the bike and the run.

So I think we, we kind of race pretty well together. We've got a similar kind of race dynamic and race tactic and we didn't even really need to say say anything to each other. We knew what we needed to do and that was to swim, swim fast, bike up fast and yeah, try and close it out with a run. And yeah, that's, that's kind of what we did because we, we, we don't want to get off with it. Well, I don't want to get off with a group of five, six, seven guys and leave it up to a running race. I'd prefer to kind of stretch it out, play to my strengths, which is the swimming bike and, and fortunately I had good running legs on the day, so, so yeah, Josh and I were able to swim and bike and create a little gap to the, to the rest of the guys chasing. And then, yeah, like I said, I had good running legs and I was able to close it out with, with a good run, which is last year in 2021. The run kind of let me down a little bit. So that's something we've been working on over this, over this off season. So to start 2022 with a, with a strong result and feel, feel really good in the run is a super positive for me. And yeah, I'm going to be carrying that momentum leading forward into the, into the rest of the year.

It was really good to see and I know in 2020 you were in a similar position with Josh. You got off the bike together and he just got you in the run and you've round. That must have been really satisfying.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like the last couple of years my run has been a little bit hit or miss, mostly misses unfortunately. And it's something that I've, I've vowed to, to make changes to and to improve because a lot of races are coming down to the run leg. You can't, you can't afford to have a weakness in any of the three disciplines. You have to be world class at the swim, the bike and the run. And that was kind of the, the missing piece for me last year. Um, I feel like my swim and bike were right there and yeah, this year it's all about the run and getting that run up to scratch. So, yeah, really, really happy.

What did you actually change specifically in the off season to improve that run? Because we talk about a lot on this podcast, you know, trying to improve a weakness, but it means maybe potentially some other areas you don't work on as much.

So.

Yeah. What did you change with, with your new coaching, Rudy?

So I think we didn't change too much. We didn't want to drastically overhaul my training. We knew that I was onto something good and I was training well. We just needed to make some, some refinements and a couple of key things that we've, we've kind of implemented over the last couple of months is some bigger volume running weeks but also giving the chance to absorb that running. So we've kind of backed off the swimming and biking for perhaps a week and loaded the running up to maybe 80km of running per week, which is quite a bit more than what I used to do. I would say I probably average somewhere between 40 to 50 kilometers. So you know, it's quite a significant increase. But it's important to also absorb that running. And so yeah, we've kind of had a couple of section, a couple of periods there where we back off the swim and the bike volume and focus on that run for yeah, like I said, a week or so and then you know, the following week it might be a bit of an easier run week and bring that swim bike back up. So yeah, that was one, one aspect that we changed and another thing that we've changed as well is kind of shifted away from that really, really slow running. Um, for me, when I run quite slow at that kind of five minute kilometer pace, I've got quite bad biomechanics and I don't actually move very well when I'm running that slow. So we've kind of shifted away from that and still making sure we're keeping in those heart rate zones. But some of my kind of endurance runs and they're more focused on kind of 4 to 415 kilometer pace instead of that really slow time on your feet running. And I think having that bit of a quicker pace but still keeping it in that endurance zone has allowed me to kind of open up and really activate and recruit all those muscles that you use when you're running fast. Because when you run slow you can kind of get a little bit lazy and, and you know, parts of your body turn off and you just kind of getting through and going through the motion. So yeah, we've kind of moved away and transitioned away from that really slow running into something a little bit more focused in terms of, yeah, pace and things like that.

That's a great answer and I'm, I'm sure the listeners would actually love to hear that because we're a big believer in getting a really good endurance base into you so that you can fast when it counts. And, and you've almost done eight or nine year endurance base really and, and now you're, you're turning your endurance runs into A little bit quicker. Which, you know, that is one way of looking at it. If you, if you really wanted to dissect it, we, we wouldn't be pushing our age groupers to just to run their endurance run fast. They would need to have the skeletal structure that you've built up over a long period of running to enable you to do these endurance runs a lot fast. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I'm not sitting here and saying, oh, you know, people are training too slow or things like that. I think there is definitely a time and a place for those, and I still have those where I just go out and I don't even worry about pace or anything. I'm just, I'm just doing time. But yeah, there has been a little bit more of a focus on keeping within kind of heart rate zones. And just because it's an endurance run doesn't necessarily mean it's an easy run, if that makes sense. Um, you know, endurance can be quite a broad range of heart rate between anywhere from 120 to, you know, 145 for me. So, yeah, I've shifted perhaps away from that kind of really slow endurance running to, yeah, something a little bit more focused.

I'd be very interested to know what the heart rate difference is between 4 to 415 pace for you and 5 minute pace. Does it vary that much?

It kind of depends how I'm feeling. Um, you know, some days four to 4:15 feels great and you feel, you know, you get that run as high and you just kind of in that flow state. You know, it feels like you could run that pace all day. Other times it requires a little bit more effort. Um, and also because I train most of the year in Boulder, my, which is at altitude, my heart rate generally skews a little bit higher as well. But yeah, depending on kind of what, what the, the outcome of the session is, I might run, you know, anywhere from around 140 to 145 heart rate in that kind of 4 to 415 kilometer pace. So I, I do have quite a high heart rate. Like, you know, when I've trained with someone like Reedy in the past who has a really low heart rate. You know, we compare heart rates and there could be a huge 20 to 30 beat difference, you know, so, yeah, it's very individual, but I feel like that's the importance of having a coach that really can, can dial in and knows you as an athlete. And that's something that Reedy has with me. You know, he really knows Me as an athlete, he knows me as a person, he knows exactly kind of the stimulus that I respond to. So yeah, that's unreal.

We love looking at all data here. We're really obsessed with it, to be honest. So just to clarify, I mean, if you're running 5 minute K pace, your heart rate's going to be around the 120 mark, quite significantly lower, up to 20 beats and obviously depending on the conditions where you are and how you're feeling. But is that right?

Yeah, yeah, probably. And I would say in the past I've kind of just been, I've never really taken a, you know, I've used heart rate before, but I've never kind of based my whole program around it and it's kind of just been a data point that I've kind of looked at after training and been like, oh, you know, that's interesting. But now I've really started to incorporate heart rate and heart rate zones more in my training. Kind of even more so than, than pace and power on the bike even. It's. Yeah, heart rate zones has become kind of a staple for me.

What about. And we're jumping backwards and forwards a bit here, but when we're specifically talking about, you know, using your pace and using your power on the bike and using heart rate using average speed, and we know that, you know, taking your lactate levels is, is something that is also really valuable whilst you're training and obviously you can't do that whilst you're racing. But have you had a look at that at all in your training program?

Not lactic? No. I know that it's been kind of, it's kind of coming really popular now. I noticed a lot of athletes doing it. Well, the athletes I'm following on social media, it seems like everyone's, everyone's doing it these days. And I mean, I'm sure it has its, has its merits and things, but it's not something that I've used in my training. And you know, that's not to say I'm not ruling it out. Perhaps, you know, lactate tests and things are really good to establish, you know, data points and things like that, but it's not something that I've done yet.

So we want to touch on Boulder, Colorado, kind of your home and training ground in a second. But just before that, I mean, you live there. So what makes you come back to Australia for Geelong? I mean, you love racing. You said you've won it three times. Yeah. What makes you make that trip over?

Yeah, like I said, I love the race and it's important to me to keep racing in Australia. It's, it's my home. You know, I've been in Boulder now for, for a long time, but Australia is always my home and I love racing here and it's, yeah, it's important to me to race and maintain a presence here in Australia and I've got, I don't want to kind. I didn't want to be one of those athletes that kind of leaves Australia, never comes back. You know, does his career kind of overseas? It's, it's something that I've always, always maintained in my mind and you know, I realize I've got family, friends, sponsors and things here in Australia that I, that I like to race for as well. So it's, yeah, it's kind of a no brainer for me. It does obviously make, you know, a long trip. I came all the way from the US Just for Geelong, but yeah, that's how important it is to me and to have a good race kind of makes the whole trip worthwhile. It's, I was actually thinking that before the race this is a long, a long way to come to, you know, to have a bad race. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And that's, that's fantastic to hear and I'm sure, yeah, a lot of, a lot of Australians would love, love to hear that you still call Australia home and the successes you've had as an athlete over the, over the journey, you know, you're right up there with the best, with the best athletes. Is there any other events that take your fancy and, and in Australia that you would look to try and do or is it just sort of getting something really early in the season that's in the middle of a cooler period where you are in Boulder and then getting back there and, and just jumping back into the, the local races. Is that, is that sort of the plan that you look at each year?

Yeah. So it is, it is kind of nice to, to leave Boulder. It's, it's pretty cold there at the moment. I think it was minus 19 degrees, which is a freak day. That's not a, that's not a normal Boulder winter. So that don't think that that's what I living in all the time. But yeah, it is nice to leave for a little bit and come to summer here and kind of breaks it up a little bit. But in terms of racing again, I'm going to head back next week, do a couple of races in the US because that US season is kicking off, you know, I feel like that's getting earlier and earlier every year. It used to be, used to be the first race Oceanside in April, but now I think there's, you know, some races even before that now. So yeah, I'm going to head back, do a couple of U.S. races and then I've also still got my eye on doing Ironman Cairns in, in June. So that's not, it's not a set in stone yet. It's just penciled in. But that's kind of where I feel like I would, I'd like to go and because I want to do Kona this year, I want to try and qualify for Kona and I think Ironman Cairns is a good race for me. I've watched it play out the last few years and I think I've done the 70.3 there. It's a great race, a great course and I think something that can really suit me. So yeah, that's kind of in my mind a little bit there. I've been kind of mulling it over a little bit with Tim and having a discussion about that, but I think that's kind of where we're leaning to.

That's great. That's very interesting. And look, Jordan and I both commented that you are really a specific triathlete who has really honed in your craft as a 70.3 and for us to hear you say you want to go to Kona, that's really interesting. And is that something you've specifically just focused on? Look, I'm really good at 70.3. Let's concentrate on the stuff that I do well at. And you've steered away from Ironman or is there any reason why you've, you've mainly not done a lot of Ironmans over the journey?

Yeah, I think I was good at 70.3s and I think with 70.3s you can race at a high level. You can do 8, 9, 10 70.3s a year at a really high level. And I was also quite young when I first got into 70.3. It's like I'm 31 now and I didn't want to rush into to Ironman because in my opinion doing Ironman, focusing on Ironman definitely detracts from your 70.3 performance. And I was always focused on, well for the last kind of, you know, five, six, seven years doing well at 70.3. And the 70.3 World Championships, that was always my biggest goal every year and to me it just made sense to kind of stay in that 70.3 wheelhouse because I didn't want to go into Ironman too soon. I didn't want to sacrifice anything in 70.3 because racing well at the World Championships was always my kind of a goal every year. But now that I'm 31 and I think it's time to kind of branch out into something new. It's. I, I think it was always going to be Kona. It was just a matter of when it was. I was never doing 70.3, thinking, oh, I'm never going to do Ironman and Kona. It was kind of just biding our time almost and I didn't want to be one of those guys that jumped in too early and, and kind of lost that 70.3 speed. I always used thought of that as kind of a big asset of mine and something that I wanted to keep honing in on. So. But yeah, as I said, now I'm 31, it kind of feels like the right time to, to do Ironman and, and yeah, maybe give Kona a crack.

That's. That's unbelievable. It's. It. Would, Would that change your. As you said just earlier, your focus most years has been to do well at the 70.3 world championship. So knowing that you could possibly be doing two Ironmans, one in June and one in October with the 70.3 in September, is that, is that sort of what the plan is still?

Yeah, I think so. So 70.3 worlds this year is actually after Kona. It's at the end of October. So we've got Kona at the.

Yes.

Sorry, what is it? October 7th or 8th and then a couple of weeks later 70.3 world. So it's going to make it very difficult to do both, I would say. And if I qualify for Kona and I go to Kona, everything will be focused on that. And then I would probably make the decision after. After Kona Whether to race 70.3 Worlds or not, because I did. I did get my qualification slot for 70.3 worlds over the weekend at Geelong. So it's nice to kind of tie that up. Yeah, and. And have that kind of as a back, a backup. But yeah, I think that's going to be something. I'm gonna have to play by year a little bit and, and see where I'm at if I get to Kona and yeah. Make the decision after that.

Do you know of any of the other pros that are thinking of doing both as well? Have you heard any word?

No one that I've spoken to. I mean, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people that are, but I just think the level of competition these days is so high that not many people have really good success at Both Ironman and 70.3. I think five or six years ago you could get away with doing both because it was kind of a similar skill set. But now 70.3 has really carved out its own kind of niche and it's really, really hard to focus on both. You can't just roll through to a 70.3 with Ironman training like perhaps you could five or six years ago. It requires training a specific build for sure. So yeah, I mean I don't think there's going to be too many people having great success at both, but I'm sure there's going to be people that are going to try.

Just on that topic, and that's intriguing to both Jordan and I, is you've been doing specific 70.3 training for swim, bike and run. Let's just look at for example, the bike. What things would you change differently now that you're considering, you know, racing the bike really hard for four hours as compared to two? What, what things would you do different in your training?

I mean the obvious one is probably more volume. Um, the bike is probably the thing that you would need to train the most for, for, for an Ironman. Like it might, it might surprise some viewers, but I don't really ride that often over three hours for my 70.3 training. Um, you know, I think some people get obsessed with, you know, having to do these four or five hour rides. I barely ride over three hours in training. But moving into Ironman, you're not going to be able to get away with three hour rides. You're going to have to bump that up to the four to the five hours for sure. So, so yeah, volume and I think as well dialing back the power a little bit and focusing more on those really long sustained kind of time trial intervals in, in training. So you know, for example, a ride that I would do training for 70.3 is I might do, you know, go out and do three hours with 4 by 15 minutes and that's kind of my 70.3 workout. Whereas you know, that might change to 4 by 30 or 4 by 40 minutes. But you know, you're not going to be holding that same power that you would in that 15 minutes training for a 70.3. So yeah, a couple of little differences there, but I am sure that the 70.3 workouts are still going to be there because you do still want to tap into that, that top end stuff because Ironman is just getting harder and harder and faster and faster and I think having that kind of higher power at my disposal will be a big, a big benefit as well. Even in Ironman racing.

For the listener who might be a 2 1/2 hour 70.3 bike rider or a 3 hour 70.3 bike rider and maybe a 6 hour iron and the endurance volume you're doing is specific to the time you are in the event. So don't think that, you know, if you are a 3 hour 70.3 bike rider you can get away with doing, you know, two and a half to three hours you need to be doing over the time. That's, that's kind of what you're saying, isn't it? You know, you're a two hour bike rider for 70.3 and your endurance ride is equivalent to what time over you're going to spend on it.

Yep. So I rode two hours, two minutes at, at Geelong on the weekend. So I mean, yeah, I'm not, I'm not telling anybody how to train. This is just kind of how, how I'm training. Donna, don't message me when your next race goes bad because you weren't doing enough training. It's the co, it's the coach and.

Jared that has to just make sure the listeners understand that. Don't just follow the pro just because that's what they said they're doing.

And I've, I've, I've never been, and I've never been a guy that responds to really, really big volume. I've never, you know, I don't, I don't respond well to big 30, 35 hour weeks. It doesn't, it just makes me tired and I lose that, that spark that I have. I'm, I'm kind of more of an athlete that thrives on the more specific, shorter stuff, recovering from that and then going again. So I'm not a huge volume guy. Like my, my weeks are around 20 hours, give or take an hour or two here and there. So I mean to some people that's quite low. So. Yeah, just keep that in mind as well.

Yeah. And also the fact that you know, doing 30 to 35 hours can actually make you worse. It doesn't necessarily make you better if you can do some more quality in the time you've got available. And for those listening out there, you know, it's not all about volume. It's about how you are doing your program and what specific things are you trying to achieve in terms of weaknesses and strengths. And that's something that you've obviously done a bit of work on. For example, you're now working on your running and you've already told us that doing something different has enabled you to actually knock your time down from 115s, 114s, 116s to hopefully getting to that one 11, 112 mark where you can be really competitive with Gustav and, and the guys who are running that pace. And that means you're going to move on the podium from, you know, being 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th where you've come in on previous World Championship events. And that must be something you're, you know, be excited about, knowing that, that this is now a game changer for you.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you look at like, it's all kind of right there, you know, it's not the, the leap isn't massive for me and, you know, I think I ran three 28 kilometer pace at, at Geelong on the weekend and, you know, perhaps I could have found another 30 seconds if I, you know, was running shoulder to shoulder with someone.

Yeah.

But yeah, to bring that down to a 111, it only, I only need to find four seconds a kilometer. You know, I need to bring that down to that 323, 324, and that's a 111. It doesn't take these monumental changes, you know, to knock a minute or two off, off, off the run time. So, yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm in a really good place as well because coming into Geelong, while I did train hard for Geelong and I really wanted to do well, it's also only February as well. The big races for me are falling in that back half of the year. So I wouldn't say that I came in in 100% tip top fitness because, you know, I want to save that for the middle of the year. So, yeah, it is very encouraging that we still found improvements, but we've still, you know, got time to find even more improvements.

Yeah, to find that improvement at the start of the season, like you said, is phenomenal, mentally. Such a good start. On that note, with your coach, how far in advance are you planning out your training blocks? I mean, are you looking all the way to the goal of October right now and planning out obviously, the races you want to hit and the types of training you're going to do, or do you just do the next block at a time? How do you guys work that out?

So generally in kind of the training There's a rough kind of, you know, dates of the races and, and Tim and I have a chat about, you know, we want to hit big run weeks here and here and here. But in, in terms of what's actually in the program, there's not any kind of training ahead of say we usually plan like a week in a week ahead. So I've got my training for kind of through all of next week as well. But I don't have training, you know, scheduled in there for the next couple of months. But we've definitely spoken about what we need to do and yeah, kind of the, the sessions that we need to be hitting and the volume. So we've had those discussions. It's just not kind of inked in on paper at the moment, which especially.

I mean things change so much depending on how you're feeling. So you need to adjust it anyway. But you did say that a normal week is around about 20 hours. Could you break down what that normal week entails? You know, how many hours in each discipline and how many hard sessions, how many easier sessions or endurance?

Yeah, so I usually swim, I swim most days actually. I really like swimming a lot because I feel like it's good to maintain feel of the water. I'm not really one of those guys that goes and bashes out 5k sessions. I kind of prefer to swim less but more frequently if that makes sense. Um, so I usually swim, I try and hit 20k a week, maybe a little bit more leading into something like a world champs where I really know my swim needs to be kind of in tip top shape. Um, but yeah, I usually swim five or six days a week and riding time wise, probably anywhere from, you know, 10 to 12 hours on a normal week. Obviously that's going to fluctuate. Like I might have a bike focused week where I do more, I might do, you know, I might do 500k in a week or something. But yeah, I would say it probably averages out to that 10 to 12 hours usually. Probably three key sessions in there, you know, usually two shorter ones during the week and then a longer session on the weekend and then running like I said, anywhere from that kind of 40 to 50k a week, all the way up to 80 and then I think I've got a couple of 90k plus run weeks coming at me for this, for this Ironman block. So that's, yeah, kind of alludes to my, what I was saying before in the previous question. Tim and I've already spoken about, you know, we're going to have to hit some of these big, big run weeks. And I would say I've probably done two to three key run sessions a week. But, but by key run session, that doesn't always mean it's really, really hard. You know, a key run session might be 90 minute long run, but I'm trying to average 4 to 410 pace. So you know, it's still solid. But it's not like just cause I say key run session, it doesn't mean I'm going to the track and doing 10 by 1k at 3 minutes, you know what I mean? So. And I think that that kind of breaks down to about 20 hours a week with you know, five hours swimming, five hours running and 10 to 12 hours of riding, I would say. And then I throw in some gym here and there and yeah, two or three times a week gym, just keeping everything engaged and turned on and kind of that injury prevention stuff as well. So I know that that kind of adds up to a little bit more than 20 hours a week. But yeah, that's kind of just off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah. A kind of rough training week I would say.

Oh yeah, I was just gonna say that's such a great insight and thanks for sharing that. You know, every listener will just hang on every word of, you know, exactly what a pro week looks like because, because as we were talking about before, you know, you just want to try and copy it or emulate it or whatever. So thinking about where you're actually training, you're living in Boulder, Colorado. How long have you lived there now?

I went there in 2015 with one of my buddies, Tim Burkle. Actually we went there and I met my now wife who's from Boulder. Well, from the U.S. and so yeah, I mean, I guess after that it was all kind of all over for me. So yeah, about six or seven years I've been there now. It goes. Yeah, it just. Time just goes so quick really when you think of it like that. But yeah, Boulder's a great spot. The training is great and it's easy for me to go about my job and it's easy for me to get out the door and do and do what I need to do in training. So I love it there.

So for those who are not across it, Boulder's a mile high, is that right? 1600 meters above sea level?

Yep.

Would you spend a majority of your training at that point or do you at various times in the year go up to two and a half, 3,000 meters on some of your riding and Running sessions or. And how are you structuring the fact that you have altitude actually where you live and you don't have to travel to Sierra Nevada or to somewhere that's got, you know, facilities like we know that the Norwegians do. So do you have, have periods where you stay at 1600 meters or do you have periods where you go down to sea level? How are you structuring that altitude aspect of your training?

Boulder has access to these canyons that you can go up and you can get up to 2,500, 3,000 meters pretty quickly. So often a long ride, I would hit one of those canyons and there is definitely training that you can do where you can spend a few hours higher. And there's a famous run as well called Magnolia Road or Mags, which is really popular for running. It's, it's. It's probably about 2,000 to. Yeah, about 2,000 meters above sea level. And that's another really popular running. Running road for, for people to, to run on. If you head up there, you're always going to see big groups of people running. Um, but in terms of coming down for, to sea level for training, I never, I never really schedule that in. I find Boulder actually quite a good. That happy medium where you can still really hit that, that really hard, intense stuff and, and you know, you can heal, still hit that speed work, but you're still also getting that benefit of the altitude at 1600 meters. So, yeah, I've kind of found it the happy medium. And I haven't really found the need to be like, oh, I need a, I need a block at sea level to kind of, you know, really hit that. Those, those really high hard sessions. I found that boulders was perfect for me for that.

You would have of course, adapted your body to that anyway, that, you know, people who haven't been at altitude really struggle early on and then there is an adaptation period. But you've been there that long, your body thinks that that's normal, probably, and, and now you can actually train at an intensity that you want to, which most of us who aren't at that level would struggle with, I would imagine.

Yeah, I mean, I think I forget about it sometimes because, you know, someone, my family member comes over or something and they're, you know, they're struggling to walk upstairs and I'm like, what's wrong with you? It's all right.

I've had that exact experience. I actually went to Colorado once and the day I got there, I just randomly kicking a soccer ball with someone and I was out of breath straight away. And you go, what is going on? And you actually forget. We've actually had Tim Burgle on the podcast and we know that he lives down here now. And so do you have any other training partners there now or do you train in a group or is it all solo training?

I do a lot by myself, but I do definitely have people and friends that I. I can reach out to and train with. I've got a couple of guys that swim at the same pool as me. So, yeah, we might flick each other and text and be like, I am swimming today at 1. You want to join? It's kind of a little bit more impromptu. That's not huge structured sessions that I do. I do. I do do a lot by myself, which I. It's kind of by choice, really. I'm not forced to do it by myself. I just like it. I like being in my own zone. And yeah, I don't. I don't have any issue going out and getting the work done, but I do also have people there if I've got a long. A longer ride or something or an easy ride. Generally, it's the. It's the harder training that I like doing by myself because I just get in my own zone. But if I'm going out for a couple of hours easy or something, I like to reach out to a friend and yeah, just have a bit of a yarn. But. But yeah, if I. If I don't have anyone, then I'm fine to go out solo as well.

So. You've given us a great insight into the training side of your life. And thanks for giving us so much detail into the types of sessions. Again, we know that everyone will love it. Give us an insight into life outside of training and triathlon for Sam. I mean, yeah. What do you do in your downtime? What do you like doing outside of that, you know, outside of recovery even? Because a lot of your time would be spent recovering from training.

Yeah, I always feel a little bit lame when I get asked this question, but just the kind of. The everyday stuff. I like hanging out with my wife, Sarah, and, yeah, just hanging out. I actually really like craft beer as well. Living in Colorado, it's like the craft beer capital of the world, but that's not really something I do year round. It's kind of something I have to say for off season or after a hard week of training. Training. But yeah, I really like watching movies, playing video games, things like that. Kind of some nerdy stuff there. But yeah, I mean, just the average stuff really. There's nothing, kind of, nothing too, too exciting, I guess.

No weird idiosyncrasies that some, some athletes have that they do?

No, not really. Yeah. The simple things. I like hanging out with my wife and my dog and going out to eat. I like going out to eat. I love coffee, but generally I don't go out for coffee because I'm a bit of a snob. I feel like I make better coffee at home than I do, than I get when I go out.

That's a very Australianism, isn't it?

Yep, yep, absolutely. Yeah.

And look just on that with, with. Is there anything you've done differently with your nutrition that's, that's helped you that, that might be useful for the, for the listeners to hear that, that you know, you know, have you got a nice balanced nutrition plan that's, that's to do with general eating and with your training and is it something you've had to really work hard at, working out what works for you?

I eat a fairly, I don't subscribe to any diets or anything like that. I wouldn't, Yeah, I don't fall into any of those categories. I just try and eat pretty healthy. I eat generally whole foods when I can, you know, try and stay away from kind of the packages and the artificial stuff and all that. But I mean, I think over the years I've just honed in on what works for me and what my body likes. I probably, I wouldn't say that I'm. Yeah, I mean I don't fall into any of those categories, but I probably split, you know, maybe a one third protein, one third fats, one third carbohydrates, kind of, kind of deal if I had to kind of break it up like that. Yeah. And it's just I generally eat what I, what looks good and I mean there is times where I have to say no to ice cream or something. I do really like ice cream. I'm a bit of a sweet tooth in that respect. But I usually have to try and save that after a hard day or after a race or something. But yeah, in terms of nutrition, I try not to complicate it too much. I just eat whole foods. I eat relatively naturally and yeah, that seems to, seems to work for me.

What about training days prior to a key session? Again like you said, key session doesn't have to be really hard session. But what are you having in the morning and before, before training and then what do you, what do you go.

To straight after if it's a shortish session that doesn't require it. Like it's just an easy or an endurance ride or an endurance run. Often I'll do it faster. I'll just wake up, have a coffee and head out the door. But if it's a longer session, kind of anything over two hours, or if it has intervals in it or something that requires me to kind of get the power or the pace up, I'd eat something. Generally, I have like a bowl of porridge or something with some yogurt, granola and berries or something like that, or. Yeah, or maybe even just some avocado on toast or something. You're getting good fats, you're getting good carbohydrates there and, and things like that. But, yeah, I try not to complicate it either. I've found what I can tolerate before a session and fortunately I've got a pretty good stomach. I don't, I don't get too upset with, you know, I could eat a bowl of yogurt and granola and berries and go out and, and ride and start doing efforts 30 minutes later. And that seems to sit fine with me. But. But I know other people can be different, might have, you know, more sensitive guts and things like that. But. But yeah, I'm generally a creature of habit. I eat similar things most days. Um, so that's usually my go to.

It's actually really good because so many athletes give very similar answers and it kind of, you know, we can overcomplicate things really easy, but it does come down to just eating simply and finding what works for you. I mean, last one on nutrition, what do you do? Race morning? What works for you to make sure that, yeah, you've got no gut issues.

So this is a little bit unorthodox, probably. I eat, generally I eat like a, a muffin or something because it's quite dense in calories and at 4am or 3:30am or whatever time it is, I don't want to get up and eat, you know, eggs on toast or something like that, or, or a bowl of porridge. So, yeah, I usually buy a muffin the day before. I think before Geelong, it was a white chalk raspberry muffin, which actually tasted pretty good at 4am it hits your sweet tooth. Yeah, exactly. And also it's got about 500 calories as well, which is important, which is good. And it's, you know, a muffin. They're dense, but they don't sit heavy in my stomach, so I could eat it and, and feel fine. And even because before racing, because I've got, you know, a lot of nerves and things, my body isn't really digesting as efficiently as it would be just before training as well. So perhaps something like porridge with, with yogurt and berries would sit a little bit heavier before a race. Um. So yeah, I like the old muffin trick. It's caloric and it tastes good.

At 4am you've got a really great career so far to this date. You know, it's such an impressive Palmares that you have the next two years, five years. Where do you see yourself in triathlon? You're extremely motivated, you're passionate, you're very well organized. From what we're hearing. You have some good structure, you have good people around you. Where do you see yourself?

So I'd like to take kind of the success that I've had over the 70.3 distance and transition into Ironman and have the same amount of success I want to now. I think this is kind of a turning point for me in focusing on Ironman and Kona and things like that. Kind of like how focused on 70.3 is the last four, five, six years. I now want to take that and focus on Ironman and Ironman World Championships. And you know, I think it will take a little bit more this, you know, it's perhaps a little bit more experimental going into Ironman and it can take a few more years for people to kind of really dial it in than the 70.3. But that kind of excites me. That new challenge and those new goals. It really has excites me and it's really motivating for me. So yeah, I feel like having this change and having this change of direction is really exciting.

Is there anything that you feel it's unfinished business in 70.3 that's really burning before that happens. Is there anything in your mind?

I mean, of course I would have really have loved to get on the podium at 70.3 worlds. That was always my goal for so many years. But you know, I keep improving and I feel like I keep getting further and further away from that almost. But you know, it's not. I try not to set those external goals like, oh, I'm not going to be happy unless I get this position. For me, it's all about internal and how I race and how I perform and. And you know, if I put down my best race and my best race is six, then I'm really happy with that. You know what I mean? It's. I know that If I race to my ability, the results will take care of itself. So that's. I'm. I'm very internally driven. Some of my best races that I've had have come off races that I haven't won, you know, and some of the races I'm most proud of a races that I haven't won. So, yeah, I mean, of course I would have loved a podium, but in terms of unfinished business, I don't think there's anything there. I've achieved a lot and I'm really, really proud of what I've achieved.

That's a really great answer. And a lot of the people that we coach, we've been drumming exactly that method of thought process into them. So that be proud of the way you go about the event rather than the end result. And generally the end result will take care of itself. Itself if you do everything well. And whether that means a PB or a podium, it shouldn't matter. It should be the actual journey to get to the end. So it's fantastic you've actually said that. It's exactly the message we're trying to get across.

My next question on that was going to be, what is your proudest race or win? And you said then that some of yours weren't even the ones that you won. So can you give us an example of a race win that you're really proud of? That, yeah. You didn't get the necessary podium finish or win?

I feel like I've hashed this story a few times, but one that really sticks out for me is 2015 Geelong, actually. I raced and got second to Craig Alexander and it's. I think that was almost like a turning point, like a catalyst in my career where I was like, hang on a sec. This is, you know, I can be. I can be good at this, at this sport. I think previously before that, I was always, you know, I was like, oh, I'd be happy with the top five or. And this is, you know, Australian domestic races and being able to go toe to toe with Craig, I think we, you know, he only broke away from me in that last 6, 700 meters of the race to take the win. And I was second, I think about 12 seconds behind or something. And that was kind of a turning point in my career where I really started to believe that I could, I could be good. And. Yeah, and then I think after that race, I went on to win in four or five races that year, including a couple of international races. So that was kind of a turning point for me in my Career. And then another one that I'm actually really proud of is 2018, 70.3 worlds. I was six. It was in. In Port Elizabeth, in. In South Africa. And I. I had a really bad bout of like, chronic fatigue throughout the year and the month leading into that race. Um, you know, nothing was going well. Training was terrible. Uh, I almost didn't get on the flight before the race. Cause I just didn't want to go. I thought I was going to be terrible. Um, but to come out and race pretty well and get six while not being perhaps my most athletically best performance, it was something that I'm actually really proud of, that I got on the start line and actually still raced pretty well given the circumstances leading into the race. So, yeah, probably those two are. Are ones that stick out to me.

On the opposite side of the coin are there races that you look back and you're really not proud of and they kind of sting a little bit. And how did you get through that?

I mean, yeah, there's probably plenty of races. I think another 70.3 Worlds in Chattanooga. I was fourth in that race, and I actually think I raced quite well, but I was. I missed that kind of front little. Those Ben Knut and Javier Gomez off the front of the swim. And there's kind of no excuse for me not to be with those guys. And Ben went on to get second, Javier one, and I should have been there for sure. And I think I was fourth, and I think that was probably my best opportunity at a podium at the 70.3 world champs. And yeah, so looking back on that one, it kind of stings. While I still raced well and I'm happy with four, I. Sometimes I think about, oh, what if. What if I, you know, got out with those guys in the water? Because I am just as good as a swimmer as those guys, and I've shown that over the last few years. But it was kind of one of those things where I was a little bit complacent and. Yeah, so that one stings a little bit. But, yeah, I've tried to move on from that.

You say that you've probably learned and you basically never come out of the swim. Not with the lead pack now. Right?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I. I grew up swimming, so it's something that comes naturally to me. And I think before that race, I always just did the bare minimum to swim because I'm a. I'm a decent swimmer that I can just do the bare minimum. But after that race, it really kind of was a bit of an eye opener that I shouldn't just do the bare minimum. I should actually train my strengths and use them as a weapon rather than just. Just get.

Yeah.

Kind of rest on my laurels a little bit.

Well, Sam, you've given us some unbelievable insights, so we thank you very much for coming on the podcast. A couple of final questions. One thing we like to ask is, outside of sport and triathlon, what's a life lesson that you've learned in the last year that you'd like to pass on to others?

Ooh, it's a life lesson.

I mean, it does take people a second sometimes.

It does. I just think, you know, this isn't something I've just learned in the last year, but just be good to each other. I think that's something that I really try and embody every single day. And just being a good person, being excellent to others is something that I try and live and die by.

Well, we certainly appreciate you being kind to our listeners and giving us your time, which is you've got pretty much a small amount of time with your family there in Port Macquarie and you've got to get on a plane back to Colorado. So we really appreciate every insight you've given and really delved into your training plan and things you do. And I know the listeners will get a lot out of this. So I really appreciate you giving us your time. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Always. Always a pleasure to. To have a chat. So, yeah, thanks.

Cheers, Sam. Thanks for jumping on the episode.

We'll finish it there.

We hope you enjoyed it listening. We'll see you on the next one.

Sam.