How Does A Triathlon Coach React To This Years Olympics?

This podcast is brought to you by Trivalo 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, Gerard Donnelly. A big welcome to this episode of the podcast. We have heaps to get through today because the Olympics is on. And whenever there's a major sporting event on, whether it be the Tour de France, whether it be any pro cycling triathlon race or something as big as the Olympics, we want to talk about it. And there's good reason for that because we can learn so much from watching athletes perform at the top of their level at a once in a four year event. And props to Channel 7. They're giving such good insight behind the scenes insight into a lot of the athletes training schedules, their life around training, their life around the Olympics. You get such a good insight into the mindset of the athletes, their preparation, the pressure they're feeling. There's been a lot of talk and controversy around pressure these Olympics, and we love it all, we love soaking it all up because there is so much to learn. There's little bits of tips or tricks you can pick up, there's little training habits or race preparation habits that you could pick up. A whole bunch of lessons you can learn from watching pro athletes at the top of their game, no matter what sport it is. You know, I love watching the really obscure sports in Olympics and learning from people at the top of their game, you know, even in the shooting, just how they stay so relaxed and how can they be so composed that they have to stay dead still. So a lot to talk about in today's podcast. Just a reminder that if you like our podcast, the best thing you can do for us is to leave a five star review and a positive comment on Apple Podcasts. We would really appreciate that. So, dad, welcome to the episode. Before we dive into the Olympics, our starting segment, what are you grateful for?

Yes, thanks, Jord. Good introduction. Today's episode is going to be really, really good and I think there's a lot of valuable information that we can learn from what you've just said. So what am I grateful for? I got enormous gratitude for summer and I hate winter. The only reason I get through winter is because I know it's a European summer and the rest of the world's having incredible sporting events on and the Tour de France is on every year normally, and that's the only thing that gets me through winter. So I'm very grateful for that. And then every four years we get Tour de France straight away, followed by the Olympics. And oh, I love, I love, I love this. This year, every four years, it's, it's just jam packed with the best sport in the world. So I'm grateful to, to get to see another year of another cycle of four years.

And I know you're lying because you don't hate winter that much. I know you love the base training that you get from spending all of winter on the trainer and I know you love the reward that gets you when you come out into summer.

That's so true. But, but yeah, I still love riding with the wind in my face and the sun on my back. Don't worry about that.

Yeah, absolutely. My gratitude this week is I'm actually really grateful for the fact that this job that we have allows us to have the flexibility to train like professional athletes. I wanted to be a professional athlete growing up, didn't quite make it, but now still have the job lifestyle where we get to do some really cool things. And we did some Pretty high tech VO2 max and lactate testing yesterday. We got the opportunity to do that, which we will talk about in another episode on the podcast. And it just, it's really nice to be able to train like a pro athlete and often train on pro hours. You know, the pro hours that if the quotation marks doesn't have to be before or after set work hours. I am super grateful for that and I never ever take that for granted because I enjoy it so much. And just a reminder for yourself to ask, what are you grateful for this week it's a big theme of our podcast. We've been doing it for a while now and it's something that we find really beneficial and we know the listeners out there find rest really beneficial as well. And we get people messaging us their gratitudes, which is quite nice as well. Some people send in their gratitudes because we do ask what you're grateful for. Moving on, we're just going to go straight into the Olympics because there is so much to talk about. We just want to chat. Everything to do with the Olympics like I said in the intro. But just before we do that, a quick question from a listener. Someone sent in a question about your percentage of FTP and training. So they asked what percentage of FTP should I use during workouts on the trainer compared to outside? As they find that most people they know, and this is somewhat indicative of most people, is that they can't hold as much power on the trainer, they actually said, I know I should do a 20 minute test on the trainer, but is there a guide that you use, a general guide for what you should you can perform indoor compared to outdoor?

Yes, the guide is do the test.

It's a very simple answer.

So look, we have athletes both sides of the coin here. Some can ride better indoors, some can ride worse indoors. So there's no general rule that is kind of, you know, one answer doesn't fit every athlete. So we've got some people who ride exactly the same indoors outdoor. We've got some people who ride worse indoor than the outdoor. Some people ride better indoor. So. So the only way to make sure that you're training properly is to test yourself indoor and test yourself outdoor. And that's as simple as it needs to be.

Because why, why would you try and guess when you can just do a test and get it as accurate as possible?

Yeah, I suppose the reason you wouldn't is because you're fearful of the test and, and when you reasons for the test. And also the reason is to find out what your number is. But also the second reason is it is an unbelievably good training session at Threshold so that you need to be doing that anyway because that's what your race is going to be.

Yeah. And this is hypocritical for me because I'm sitting here saying, well, why can't this person just needs to do the test yet? I was planning on asking you, do I really have to do my new outdoor test tomorrow? Because I've got a new bike and have to test the new power meter into an outdoor. I've done the indoor test and I really wasn't feeling like doing another outdoor test tomorrow because so many tests you just get a bit sick of it. And so I was planning on asking you, do I really have to do it? And I already know what your answer is going to be.

The only reason you wouldn't is if it's blowing a gale, which funnily enough it is supposed to be 90 kilometer hour winds. So that would be a reason not to do a test outdoors or sideways sleeting rain.

So I might be let off the hook in.

You really do need reasonably good conditions to do the test properly and accurately. So you get the best outcome. Because we are, what are we doing it for? We're reminding ourselves that this is what we're going to train to. And if we do an inaccurate test well, we're going to be training inaccurately for the next block of Training.

Yeah. All right, let's dive into the Olympics. The first thing we want to talk about is the theme of the Olympics for us so far and there are so many examples of this across different sports and that is pacing and watching. The amount of different tactics with regards to pacing through different sports has been quite mind blowing. And I want to start with a story of I was out to dinner with mates the other night and we were at dinner watching the Olympics. It was really nice because we had a lockdown. It was really good to be able to watch the Olympics as a group together and all pretend to be experts on different sports. And we're watching the swimming and one of the guys said the commentators talk so much about pacing and execution. And he said, it can't be that complicated, can it? I mean, I don't understand what the tactic. There can't be that many tactics, surely. And I said, well, funny enough, they actually have quite specific tactics and plans going into their pacing. If you look at the split of the first 50 compared to the last 50 and the second third 50, they're all quite different and athletes are trying to hit certain times per 50. And he said, so what? Surely the Aussie people seem to be going a bit more conservative. And then Ariana Tipmis one goal by coming through strong. He's like, surely that's as obvious as it needs to be. I said, that is a million dollar point and you'd be surprised that that is our whole podcast. And you'd be surprised at how no athlete in the world seems to understand that. And he said, so is that the tactic? And I said, yeah, pretty much. It's probably the best tactic you can do. He said, it doesn't seem that hard. And I said, you should try and.

Tell every single athlete that and try and execute it.

Yeah.

Yourself. It's all very well saying this is what I'm planning to do, go out and try and do it. And there's so many examples. And look, you, you are at the highest level of your sport in the world, right at the Olympics, there's, you know, except for world titles, world championships, there's no other competition that's got more pressure and it's just very difficult to execute a plan when you've got the world watching you, your whole country's behind you, you don't look foolish. Imagine if you dived into the water and you wanted to swim a 30 second 50 and the rest of the field swam 24, you're six seconds behind. But knowing that if it's a 1500. You ended up winning by 10 seconds because you swam 15 or 30, 50s at 30 seconds and everybody faded to 36. But at the start you were literally 40 meters behind. People don't want to put themselves in that position of, of looking embarrassingly out of kilter. It's the sheep mentality, I suppose. But there's so many examples. And look, you know, in the swimming, we saw that with Arianna Titmus absolutely execute well, where she, she just let the others, you know, really, you know, blast off and fade and she came through. And, and it's interesting how you and I discussed this about know what pace she's swimming. As a swimmer, you don't have any feedback. And you know, unless she's got form goggles, which will tell her her pace in a, in her eyes, which I don't think is legal in, in the Olympics anyway. I'm not quite sure about that.

But, but asking why, why aren't athletes wearing them? And the only logical reason would be this. They're illegal because otherwise it's worth wearing them.

Yes. And, and you would just be relying on the pace of other swimmers. And you know that the American girl does swim fast, early and would just pick her pace and sit off it a bit, but that's putting your trust in another person's pace. Maybe she changed her pace, you know, and, and swam slower. So that could backfire. So it is interesting that swimmers talk about, you know, having a plan and a tactic, but I'm, I'm interested to know what they're basing it on, what feedback they're getting as they're doing it and going to feel is the obvious thing that they're, they're doing. But with the adrenaline and the excitement of the final of the Olympics, the thing you've trained for five years, you know, in the past, Olympic to Olympic, how are you measuring that? Because of course you're tapered, of course everything's going well. Yeah. You know, you're going to feel. I know in every other sport that we talk about racing, to feel is completely a different result. When you actually uncover the data as you're doing it, you think you're holding back and then you look down at your watch if you're doing a, an 800 and you know, you're supposed to get to the first 200 in 30 seconds and you get there in 26. But it felt easy. And so running to feel, you know, is the same as swimming to feel as to riding. To feel what you feel may not absolutely replicate what the data is. And you still could be going too fast. So I'm interested. I love the fact that that's the tactics we were using. It was excellent. But I'm really wondering what it was based on.

Yeah, you're spot on with that point because there was a great interview with Arianna Tipnus coach, who by the way, she executed a. If that was her race plan, she executed it perfectly in both races and came through in the last 50 and 1. And he said that in the interview. He said we had a clear race plan, we knew exactly what she wanted to do every 50 and she executed it under pressure. And like you're saying there is, you're at the highest level of race possible. You've been building for this race for four years, five years for these athletes and she executed it so well. You have to be so cool, calm and collected to execute like that. But like you're saying it can't have been that well because you don't know what pace you're doing. And yes, these athletes train so disciplined that they probably could swim, you know, a 55 second lap with their eyes closed because they know their pace so well. But once you add in the fact that this is an Olympic final, there's so much adrenaline, there's way more nerves than you could ever replicate in training swimmers around. You are doing different things, you just can't possibly know for sure. You are more tapered leading into the race. You can't possibly know for sure. And you said this, I don't care how good an athlete you are, you can't possibly know for sure that that's the exact time you're running because you can't see it or time you're swimming because you can't see it. So it's a bit of a mixed bag here because on one hand it was clearly a well executed race, but on the other hand you are racing blind. So it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Yeah, it's spot on and I'm not really sure about the answer, but at the end of the day the job was well done. And there is a lot of other examples that we just saw the 800 meter heat for the women and one of the Moroccan girls was 25 meters off the back after 200 meters and it looked embarrassingly bad. You know, how did this girl get into the event? And then she qualified for fastest.

The commentators were saying, what is this girl doing? Because they were saying she's a really good runner. How did something happen?

Why is she 25 meters off the back.

They were absolutely baffled. And we've spoken about this exact scenario. I mean, you just mentioned it before, but we've spoken about this exact scenario in running. It's either you run evenly and be 20 meters off the back and look ridiculous, or you just go with the race. And that's. Most people just tend to go with the race. And in fact, we've never seen this happen on a world stage. And we were both shocked seeing this race happen where this Moroccan girl did this tactic and then she just because the girls ended up running 2:00 or 2:01, which is 4 times 30 seconds per 200 and yet they all went through in 27. She went through 3 seconds behind. So 20 meters behind, 25 meters behind in 30. And she ran 30, 30, 30, 30. And ran evenly. And we also know, we just came across a recent study that says that the stress response and the lactate response in the body is so much worse when you go out too hard and, and fade compared to going out evenly. And it's not just about the race itself. It's about how this Moroccan girl is going to feel in her semi, final and final over the next couple of days compared and how much of an effort she had to exert in this heat. And it was just an absolutely brilliant example of someone not caring about the ego, not caring about being 25 meters off the back of the race. And then I think she came third in the heat. So it was an automatic qualifier.

Yeah. And I, I think to be fair, there is an Olympic gold medal in the 800 meter has been won by the American who did exactly that tactic. I think it was 24 years ago maybe, and he was way off the back and this is the Olympic 800 final. And he wasn't one of the favorites and, and he was way off the back ran even splits M1. And it's worth looking up that YouTube video to find that the only American to ever have won an 800, I think at an Olympics. And, and you know, just that plan of execution and, and we talked about championship races compared to running a time trial. You know, we'll, I think we'll talk about this later in the program. But, but certainly, you know, knowing what your ability is, and if you, if you don't have a kick and the race is really slow, you're not going to qualify in, in the heats to get to the final. You need to run a time trial so that you can run even splits the whole way around. So to make sure you in the girls Situation, you know, run 2 minute 800. You know, if, if you are not someone who can afford to jog around and then be a part of the finished sprint, then you're not going to qualify, no matter how good a runner you are. So understanding your own ability is, is kind of key to your race plan. And you know Ariana Titnus in swim, you know, if, if that, she's obviously learned that because she is an even swimmer and doesn't have the, the ability to change pace and sprint sort of, sort of at the finish where it looks like she is, but she's actually swimming this, you know, similar pace what she did on the, on the lap, on the way down. If we're talking about the hundred meters, it's not like her splits were massively faster in the second half. It's just that everybody else is fading, so it looks like you're swimming faster. And you know the feeling and the enjoyment factor is horrendous when you do it the other way. And you know, that research paper that you, you're alluding to, you know the feeling when you're, you know, as a runner, you got a piano on your back coming down the last 80 meters of an 800 or 400 meters with lactate so heavy. You just hate the world. And the same as a time trialer, you know, if you're coming home as a time trialer and you've got enough power to be, you know, picking up places as you go, it's, you know, you love it. You know, you can't wait for the next event, whereas if you're doing the opposite and fading, you want to sell your bike. I've said that many times to a lot of the athletes I coach. You know, execute well and you won't want to sell your bike. You'll just say, this is great fun. I enjoy, I enjoy it. It's good.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, with that in mind, I have been watching a lot of the swim events that are 200, 400 and paying attention to the first 50 compared to the second, third and fourth 50. And it's, it's uncanny how almost every single swimmer is going through that first split two to four seconds ahead of their last 50, you know, or especially ahead of the third 50. And they're all doing it to stay together as a group, but, you know, from everything we know, it's just a worse way to perform.

Yeah. And that's so true. And it just, it only suits one person, the person who has that style of pacing that's the, the, the. That they're successful at. And, you know, so I can't. I can't imagine every single event in the pool that everybody has. That's, that's the way they, you know, that's the way they've achieved their results in the past in championship trials at their own country. They've got it. They've got away with it that way. But does that mean that it's 100% right? That's where I'm questioning if they had another tactic. Would they be better swimmers? Would they get better results? Sure. They're successful because at the top of their, the top of their game in their country and in the world. So that's, that's the reason and logic they use behind. Well, you know, I'm pretty good at this, so I must know what I'm doing. But I'm, I'm saying, no, you could be better if you executed just like the Australians seemingly have decided to do, which I think is, you know, we haven't been this successful for a long time and, you know, something has changed. And I think it's. I think it's the execution. And they, I've never heard them talk about it. They must have been listening to our podcast. I've never heard them talk about it so much. You know, even the commentaries and Channel 7 had to be, you know, congratulated because they have gone and got the. The best commentators from each sport, and they are experts in their field, and it's really good hearing their knowledge and take on how each. You know, I watch the canoeing and the kayaking. You know, just listening to the experts, it's. You just get such an insight into what they should be doing, and all of a sudden we all become experts instantly, which is quite hilarious, but part.

Of the fun of the Olympics, isn't it?

It is. But, yeah, look, definitely the. I think the mindset in the pool will change, hopefully because of success of, you know, when people start winning, people want to emulate their style. And, and if the style has been, you got to swim flat out, and then just hang on, that's what we've been doing for the last 30 years, and that's what everybody does. And the minute someone changes that and does a new method and wins, then it gets kudos, it gets credibility, and, and then people will adapt it. And we are in the minority. We're fighting hard, George, to make it a majority, to, to get everybody to actually start to not be sheep and, and to be running their own races or swimming their own swims. So, you know, it will be interesting.

Yeah, there's. There's another race example we wanted to highlight and Jakob Igibritsson, the Norwegian runner, one of the best runners in the world. High chance of a gold medal in both the 1500 and 5000 at this Olympics. He's definitely one to watch. You'll be racing against our very own Stuart McSwain and hopefully Dave McNeil in the 5K, if he can make the final. But he did a race in the Diamond League a month or so ago, maybe six to eight weeks ago, where he was sitting maybe six to eighth position, I think, off the lead pack. And he's one of the best runners in the world. He can run with the pace of the lead pack, but he's a very paced runner and he does all his training very meticulously. Very structured, very along this line. Never going too far above his threshold. He's just really good at staying at threshold. Anyway, the runner in front of him made a mistake. Slash was getting fatigued and started to lose a gap between the front four to five guys. And suddenly Ingebritson, who was sitting behind this guy, was 10 to 15 meters behind the lead pack. This is a big problem because he's now 10 to 15 meters behind. Has to do a big effort to catch up to that group. Go way over his threshold and put him in a lot of in the red zone coming into the end stages of the race. And instead of doing that, we just watched that lap after lap. He just stayed the same pace but slightly increased and he caught up two and a half meters per lap, you know, and four laps later he was back onto the pack without going into the red zone. And it was just an incredible example of disciplined pacing and he ended up winning the race.

Yeah, it's a really good example, isn't it? One of the things I wanted to highlight and being the coach is he should not have allowed that to happen in the first place. He should have been more vigilant in what was happening ahead of him. And you know, that can happen in a bike race where you're behind someone who drops the wheel and all of a sudden there's a 10 meter gap to make up. Well, you know, you've got to notice these things before they happen or as they're happening so that you don't put yourself in that position but to his. You know, the point we're making here is that, you know, you've got two choices. Close the gap quickly and burn some matches or do what he did and he ended up going on and ran an incredible time. And you know, you've got to know your ability, like I was saying before. And if, if you, if you give yourself a task that's above your ability, it's going to end in tears. Normally, of course, we break world records and Olympic records and PBS by, by not going the traditional method, by going the planned executed method is the way to do those results. And we've seen examples that right from Kipchoge in the World Marathon to run, you know, two 2 minute 51 kilometer splits for 41 of those kilometers and then run the last one at 2:48 to break the world record. And you know, that's a classic example of, you know, doing it exactly right. So you can, you can lift to do a PB and that's all you need to do, lift marginally, but you can't do that many times in a race. And then that's one of the things I was kind of keen on talking about was the difference between championship races and normal every everyday races and cause.

It will be interesting to see how Ingrid goes in these championship races, which is so much high and low and you know, we talk about it in Ironman and 70.3 is that you want to spend as minimal time as possible going over the red zone because you just don't need to in a four to eight hour event, you know, four to 12 hour event, sorry, you want as minimal time as possible. And Ingrid applies that even to a 5k level at the world, at the top of the world, where he just refuses to go into that red zone. He just wants to run at his best pace the whole time. But yeah, you're right, when it's a championship you have to change tactics, right?

Yeah. Well, do you have to change tactics? And that's the question I'm asking because all of the African nations, the Ethiopians, Kenyans, Moroccans, they all have this great ability to change pace and that's their secret weapon. And the, the European style riot runner, even the Australian style runner, we are used to time trial running and it's probably because we don't have the depth. And in the African trials there's literally 25 blokes who can win. So you have to, you know, everybody's absolutely running at their max from start to finish. Whereas, you know, where there's less depth in an event, you can dictate the terms of how the race is going to be run more. So the unpredictable nature that, that the Africans bring to races is the thing that makes it fantastic. And, and that's why they win so many races because they throw everybody else off their race plan, because they're putting people into the red zone. And that, and that is what championship races are all about is, and they're very different to any other race. And, and you know, if you actually get to qualify by running a time trial. So let's just pick the 5000 which we're talking about. You know, if you want to, if you wanted to qualify in the 13 minutes seconds, you would plan each lap, each 200, each hundred almost down to, you know, to its within an inch of each, each sector so that you are not burning matches and you can lift at the finish to qualify. But come championship races, the first 200 could be run in 24 seconds and then the next one could be run in 40 seconds. That's the nature of championships. You could get a lap in the middle where they're running a 60 and then all of a sudden someone throws in a 56, you know, what are you going to do? How are you going to respond to this? And this is where the Africans have it over the rest of the world because they can do that and then recover and do it again. So I'm saying you need to adapt your training to championship possibilities. And it's all very well training like that and training to lactate threshold and making sure you stay within your ranges. But when it comes to a championship race, if someone throws a curveball at you by changing the pace, if you go with that, you are going to probably be the demise of your result. So can you be patient and hold your pace and then allow yourself to lose 10 meters and then take 800 meters to get that back and then have it happen to you again and then, and then you know, get crawl yourself back again? You know, these are things that I, I would be getting athletes to be doing both styles of racing training so that when the race, the championship race comes, they're ready for anything. And, and I don't think a lot of athletes and coaches have given this much thought. It's, it's the style they've trained at to get them to be successful is what they stick with the true and tried method and they're not flexible enough. And that's why you get so much disappointment in results at championship races where people underperform because the race has had a curveball thrown at them and they can't react to it or they don't know what to do and they just go with the flow and it ends up being detrimental because their body can't cope. And you know, it sounds very controversial because I'm actually contradicting some coaches and athletes at the highest level. But I'm sure they would be better athletes if they had thought about it this way and there wouldn't be so many disappointed athletes coming away from these championship events.

So let's talk about training specificity for the event and we'll move into the triathlon because that was a wild two races in the men's and women's for different reasons. And we were speaking about the fact that, you know, the triathlon at the Olympics is almost a totally different sport in terms of triathlon. It's definitely different to a 70.3 or Ironman. Completely different. And even it's different to a standard Olympic distance. You know, it's draft legal cycling. And the whole nature of all three disciplines inside the Olympic triathlon creates a very interesting and fun to watch dynamic. But it's. You have to train very specifically for this type of event.

That's a really good lead into the to this point because the Olympic draft legal triathlon is nothing like triathlon. It is a. You might as well be talking about. The only similarities are you swim, bike and run, but you don't do them the same way as you would do a normal sprint Olympic half ironman and ironman because of the draft legalness of the ride, it changes the whole event. So all of a sudden the swim becomes important because if you don't get in the lead pack, you are going to have to fight to get across to the pack on the bike. And the pack on the bike aren't riding that hard, but they're riding it completely different to a threshold time trial. They're riding it like a criterium race. And the courses that are selected are all very technical with lots of cornering. And I think the bike course was, I don't know, five or six laps. I can't remember exact details, but each lap had eight corners which is, you know, up between 30 and 40 accelerations out of a corner. So that's very criterium like style bike riding. And if you just trained threshold and didn't train Zone 6 and 7 at 120, 140, 150%, you would be caught out in this particular event. So you need to practice riding a completely different style of time trial bike riding. You need to be riding like a criterium rider, training like a criterium rider, where you're doing lots of accelerations at high Power. And then, you know, if we. We did look at the winner's profile, it was great to see his. His power stats.

Yeah, it's so good of him to release his power because he needs to tell the pro cyclist to do that.

Yeah. And. And I think 43% of his ride was in zone one, which is technically.

Active recovery, you know.

That's right. So pretty much what they were doing was maximal acceleration out of every corner, then minimal pedaling into the next corner, which. Which gives that so much time in zone one or zero. So. So you were doing 450 watts out of the corner, then zero watts into the next corner. And in between each of those corners, they were doing something like tempo, because they could have been sitting in the middle of the pack, where they're barely touching the pedals because of the drafting effect. And the only people who are working were the ones on the front. And I'd love to see the files of every one of the athletes and the ones who did the most work. And we noticed that difference between the women in the male race, where the male race seemed to be a lot of guys doing a lot of work and a lot of guys sitting in, whereas the female race, the lead pack, seemed to be shared more. So what does that mean? Well, it means when you run, if you've sat in the male race in the middle of the pack, you've swum brilliantly. The only difference is who's going to run the best. And. And that's why, if you trained on the bike properly as a criterium rider, then you got off and run the best 10k. That is the way you should have structured your program to. To enable you to be the best runner after that type of riding.

Yeah, exactly. And if you broke down his power zones, it was, yeah, above 40% in that active recovery and then about 30% above VO2 max. What you're saying is 5, 6 and 7. That is a long time to be doing those big bursts and then 30% in between. Whereas if we look at a 70.3, you know, it should be 95% of the time at zone 4, sub threshold.

Yeah, 80 to 90% of your FTP. And that is a remark. And if you looked at an Olympic distance, a 40k time trial, you would try to be riding between 92 to 100% of your FTP, not anywhere at 105 or 100. You know, these guys were riding 120% above their FTP for 30% of the race. So, you know, looking at that Analysis. If you're a coach and you're trying to get your athlete to the next Olympics, that's what you should be doing. You should be doing efforts like that. You still need to be a good threshold rider, but you need to be doing those, those way over efforts, 120% plus or more, which is what makes a good criterion road racer.

And we were laughing at a lot of the guys that were just getting a free sit the whole time and just hiding right in the middle of the pack and the guys that were doing all the work at the front. And you're just thinking, why would you ever do any work in the front? And there was some specific examples of some countrymen sacrificing their race for their fellow countrymen and getting on the front and doing some work. But. And then again, it's the nature of the race because unfortunately two of our Aussie women weren't there in the swim, weren't the lead packs. And then they were doing a mountain of work on the ride, but just couldn't even catch the lead packs. And the lead packs actually got to the run and got back on the course before they finished their bike. And so they were, they had to be told to get off the course. You know, 20 of the 60 elite women didn't finish the race because the lead pack runners got there too quickly. So, yeah, depending on where you end up in the race, it's a totally different event. And these tactics of hiding, etc. Are all really good if you're good at Criterion racing. And it quickly reminded me of. We saw a photo last week of a travelo rider, again, one of your friends at a crit. And a photo came up, just the standard. They released photos of all the crit racing and the traveler rider was on the front in the middle of the race. And you just said, what the hell are you doing on the front? You know, I don't ever want to see a tribal rider on the front because it means you're doing all the work.

Yeah. And everything you've just said is spot on. And a cat can't criticize anything you've said. And, and it's just lesson after lesson after lesson.

Well, we'll move into the kind of the run leg for both the men's and the women's. In the men, I was so impressed that he decided to kick where it hurt. You know, he seven 7K mark, he just put his head down, said, I'm going now. And that was where it was really hurting for them. And they're almost hanging on for the finish at that point.

Yeah, well, I, I said to you, I think each one of those three guys were the best runners. After that particular style of racing, the cream had risen to the top. Everybody else, I think there was eight or nine in the male race at the end of the bike leg that realistically were a chance. After one or two k's of running, the rest had already dropped off. And slowly but surely that eight went down to three and those three could not be separated. And they were all, they were all a chance to win the gold medal. And the remarkable thing for me was the guy who won was the least best looking runner out of the three of them. He looked like he was struggling the most and yet he out foxed out tactician. It was an incredible exponent of how to win a race. I was so impressed with what he did. And he just put the hammer down with 3K to go and shock them and, and he bluffed them. You know, he started sprinting, literally sprinting for about 150 meters to 200 meters and got 5 meters on them and split them. Split the three of them. Mind you, he'd made them do a turn as a runner prior to that. You know, come on, let's work together. And I could see him talking to them and he slopped, he jumped back and let someone else go to the front and take the wind. And you know, he outfoxed them there. Someone says to me, do a turn in a running race. You don't want to hear what my answer's going to be, you know, besides get stuffed. If you're so smart, you know, you do it, but you're not telling me how to run my race. And the other two guys, they were like sheep. They did a turn and then he accelerated past them. They'd done a turn. I was like, oh my goodness, this is, this is bike riding as a runner. So I just take my hat off to him. It was execution 101. And he just put the hammer down, got them bluffed and kept that gap. And then they couldn't bridge the gap because he had, you know, the mindset he had was on, you know, when you, when you, it's like having the yellow jersey, he's in front and you can see the gold medal and the other guys are then already have lost the race, you know, with 3K out. Whereas they're all pretty equal. I thought, in fact he was the worst out of the three.

I thought the amazing thing about the bluff was he cruised the last K. It was the most enjoyable last K for him. The last 700 meters. He was smiling, laughing, it was done. He could relax the pace. He was waving. My housemate said to me, when he kicked, he said, has he gone too early? I said, well, two things are going to happen here. One is that he has gone too early and he's going to blow up. But at least, I said, at least he's taking an opportunity and he's just going for it. He wants his goal and he's not racing for second or third, which I kind of thought that the other two were happy with the podium, plus they couldn't just go with him. But I said, secondly, this might be an amazing move because often if you go when it's hardest, you know, he's gone at 3k to go. He only has to put in that effort for, yeah, a K and a half, two K. And then the race is one that will crack because they think the race is gone. And then the last K is actually easier compared to. If you're all sit there holding that tempo right to the last K. It's an extremely painful last, last K. Because they've held the same temper, then they have to try and sprint at the finish.

So, yeah, and everybody's got a chance. You've let it, you've. You've given everybody, all three runners a chance by, by, you know, so many occasions in a race where with, you know, four or five minutes to go, you're thinking, I don't know if I can hang on here. And if someone puts in a little effort, that's it for you, you're done. You know, you're already at your maximum. But if, if you just hang on to the end. And it's amazing how you grow legs and the competitiveness of each person when you get a sniff, don't give a sucker an even chance he could come miraculously from the dead and beat you by giving him a chance and taking them to the line. So what a fantastic move. Risk reward 101 tick One thing I.

Will say about him, and I just have to make this point, was I could not believe that he won with the amount of water he took in. In on the Rhine. It was actually laughable for me. You know, there was. It was such a hot day there. The humidity was at extreme levels. And so the officials had set up water stations really regularly every 300 to 400 meters or so, like extremely regularly, way more regularly than another triathlon, a normal triathlon. And the athletes were quite worried about the heat so every athlete at the stations were grabbing bottles and throwing them over themselves, which is really important to cool down because if you overheat you can't perform. But watching him, he was taking a sip almost every time. And so he was going past grabbing water, taking a sip. Said he's taken in mouthfuls of water every 300 to 400 meters. I know in an Ironman or a 70.3 you need to hydrate consistently, but in a 29 minute run, which is what he's done at the end, I don't care what you're saying, you just do not need that much water. And it showed by. He vomited it all up. Once he crossed the line, his stomach would have been so full of water, he vomited pure water. The TVs only showed a slight part of it by accident because I normally look away when they vomit and I'm shocked. He ran so well by consuming that much water. I just thought it was way too regular and I really think it could derail. It is right.

Well, I, I tend to agree and you know, he competed so well. I think that, you know, it could have actually been detrimental had those guys not dropped off, you could have find, we could have found a different result. You know, he did everything right, so it didn't have to worry about that scenario. But I absolutely agree the over consumption of water is. Yeah, it could have been detrimental to the, to the outcome. And you know, we would now see, and this is something we talked about a long time ago on one of the podcasts where people see that that's what you do. That's the Olympic champion does. You keep drinking, you just keep drinking water. So every day triathletes now, they'll grab as much water as they possibly can and throw it down their throat because that's, that's what the winner does. It reminded me of the Commonwealth Games with Rob de Castella when he actually went to the toilet and grabbed in his pants in the middle of the marathon at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. And he kept grabbing sponges to wipe his legs because of using the embarrassment of following through, you know, as a runner. So he's wiping his legs from what was happening. And so from that point on.

Running down his legs.

That's right. And from that point on, runners were going in marathons, grabbing sponges and wiping their legs, just copying what de Costello was doing because that's what he did as a winner. And they didn't understand the reason he was doing it was to clean his leg, not any other reason. But you know, people will copy the most obscure tactics that people seem, seem like their tactics, but it's actually nothing to do with tactics. And I don't know why he was doing that, whether it was trying to put people off. I'm not sure whether he was trying to get water the other runners to think that, oh, this guy's struggling, he keeps taking water. I don't know whether that was his tactic. But anyway, kind of looked like it.

Was just a natural reaction. He just kept grabbing it. I just don't think he. I think he was so involved in the race he didn't realize how much water he was taking in. But it shocked me. And Iron man actually say blatantly that they have more problems with over hydration and people because you can get really sick from over hydrating drinks, drinking too much water. And I have more problems with that than dehydration in races, which really says something. It's so important to hydrate yourself. You can really take it too far. Last thing on the triathlon was I just thought that the British girl, Georgia Taylor Brown ran a great leg after getting a flat tire, an easy chance to panic off the bike. She's such a gun runner and you could see the podium slipping away when she just gets something so unfortunate like a flat tire. And she had a chance to compete well against Duffy because they're both absolutely gun runners. And Duffy ran an unbelievably strong leg to win, by the way. I didn't see Duffy take any water. I reckon she took. I reckon she took two sips for the whole 10k, you know, and she ran super well. So that proves that you didn't need the water to get through. She was just focused on. On running.

But it doesn't prove anything. Jordan proves that 5050 worked.

That's true. Yeah. But yeah, Taylor Brown I thought was really composed, didn't panic, just ran her race and ran solidly and got herself into second spot, which was a really good run. Disappointing because she would have been a chance for the gold, but that was a really standout run for me.

I would have loved to have seen her not get a puncture and challenge Duffy because Duffy ran an unbelievably consistent race from start to finish. She looked the strongest, she was the strongest. She won the gold medal. She deserved it. She did a lot of work on the bike. She looked awesome on the bike and obviously she's no slouch as a swimmer, but her run was outstanding and it would have been great to see the British girl Actually get off the bike with her and see what would have happened. Yeah, I would love to have seen her challenged, but she deserved to win that race. There's no doubt about it. She was the best on the day.

Absolutely. Moving on, we'll finish off with the cycling. We had the cycling road race to touch on the mountain bikes and the time trial. So, I mean, there's not heaps to say from the cycling road races. They were really exciting races to watch for different reasons. The men's road race was just wild. You know, we talked a lot about these riders over the course of the Tour de France. It was great to see them all go head to head. No real major learnings from the event other than the same sort of thing. You know, take your opportunity and the best rider doesn't always win. You know, Wood Van Art was definitely the strongest. He did the amount of work and I think definitely deserves second now. Man, I was absolutely gunning for him in that sprint. Screaming at the tv, but Carapaz with a breakaway moving win.

Yeah. Another example of. We've talked many times about how does one or two riders stay away from eight or 10 in a pack? It just happens, race after race, one day races. This is what happens every single time. Hesitation in the peloton. Guys taking their opportunities at the front and they win. It's just another reminder of, you know, guys not willing to work as teams because eight should beat two or one rider every time. Not, not one out of nine times, but 10 out of 10 times. And, you know, it's just baffles me that it just continues to happen and, and I think the coach in me would be screaming at the rest of the guys in the bunch. You know, you, you all riding for second. Or, or do you want to actually have a go here?

Yeah.

And I know the verbal abuse I'd get coming back at me. You know, mind your own business. Yeah, but, you know, come on, guys, actually do something and have a crack. And I'd be certainly saying those people who don't want to be having a crack, you know, sit on the back for as long as you like, but don't you dare sprint at the finish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but, but, yeah, look, I just think, you know, the men's race was a standard one day, one day classic race. It was fantastic. The opportunist won. I love it. It was a course where he, he knew the course and he attacked when it counted. Relied on the hesitation. All the classic things. It's just the same race plan. Won again. The Women's race was incredible.

Just positively and negatively. Yeah.

The way that road cycling has gone where it's so scripted and so reliant on information and it, you know, the person listening to this podcast is an everyday cyclist or triathlete and they don't have the luxury of having someone in their ear telling them what to do next. And I think that is a really good lesson for the pro peloton to take a little bit more responsibility for what's happening in their race and to know what is going on around them and not rely on their DS in the car telling them, you know, who's up the road. Take notice, watch, be aware, be alert and take responsibility for your own outcome.

Just if you didn't see it, it was all over the news, but if you didn't see it, anime. Van Vooten was away from the peloton coming second, but didn't realize that she was coming second. She thought she was the solo breakaway, but there was a rider further up the road had been out most of the day and she came through the line and celebrated because she thought she won gold medal and forgot that there was someone up ahead or didn't know.

There was someone up ahead. She didn't forget. Yeah, so it's just, you know, we do say concentrate and whether you're a triathlete or a cyclist, you need to concentrate about what's happening around you and whether that's knowing how many people went in the break. And then when you catch them, one by one count, eight went away, seven came back. That means there's still one person, or if you catch the last person who thinks the last person, it's okay to say, is there anybody else up the road? You know, you can't ask that question.

Yeah.

And you know, as a triathlete, the same, you know, just, just making sure you are aware of what's going on where you are, you know, and you can see that when you go in an out and back course where you are in comparison to others. Not that it's going to change your race plan, but it just gives you an idea of how you're sitting. So understanding what's going on in the race is key to making different decisions. And clearly they would have made a lot more different decisions had they known there was still one more rider. The Dutch would have ridden completely different. It must have been interesting sitting in the car, watching the race unfold without being able to help them. Yeah, yeah. They must have been tearing their hair out. Why aren't you working together what is going on? Do you realize that someone stopped the road? Maybe they didn't realize either, I don't know. But yeah. So it was just another example of, you know, even the pros make catastrophic mistakes. And this is the Olympic Games. And it's not like there's going to be another Olympic Games in four months time, it's four years time. So, you know, and these riders won't probably be at the next Olympics because they're maybe too old. And that's your one chance. And we always talk about you only get one chance sometimes at, you know, take your opportunity when it's there. And to make a mistake like that, it's not to do with physicalness, it's to do with paying attention.

Yeah, absolutely. You want to touch on the mountain bikes quickly. You weren't happy with some of the.

I was not. I was not happy with the mountain bikers. I thought it was a great spectacle, it was a great course and they're a great set of riders. There's everything good about it was. And what was disappointing was the execution. Like, I know in mountain bike racing it is really important that you get a good start because it is a mass start with possibly 300 riders who are all trying to get to the, the first part of the single track near the front. And I get that and that is important. But The Olympics had 23 riders and there isn't as much pressure on getting to the front of the single track when it's a long race. And Pidcock did that very well. And he sat back and I think he was about 10th or 15th into the first section of the single track and he just steadily worked his way through. The other guys were just smashing themselves and, and talk about, you know, riding too hard early and fading. That's exactly what the whole women and men's races were about, riding too hard and fading. Everybody was riding way above their first lap, was so much faster than their middle laps and their last lap. So that was, you know, as great a spectacle was. I'm not sure whether people realized that's what was happening. When you look at the times for the lapse and just another example of, you know, at the, the highest level, they're still making, you know, I call them catastrophic mistakes because they are. It's the four year thing. And if you think you're a chance and you do that unless you've trained that way, where you're going to sprint for one lap out of seven or 10 or how many laps they did, and that's what you've trained to great. And that's. That's your strength. Awesome.

Yeah.

But I guarantee it's not.

And it's important to note that we're not trying to be couch coaches here where we're just picking on all the pressure athletes, because like you've said many times, these are the elite athletes. They're absolute superstars. Their athletic ability, especially these mountain bikers. Like you said, it's so great to watch and they're so good for so many reasons. You're just making this point to help the listener realize that you can still make mistakes even if you're doing really well, and there's still areas that you.

Can improve on 100%. And these are the elite people in their fields. And just because they're the elite doesn't mean that they're doing everything perfectly. They're doing a lot well to get to that level and they have incredible engines. But I'm just trying to give the listeners advice at a high level because we're watching. We're watching it at a high level. If we had footage of the local, you know, under 23 race and, you know, people wanted to have coaching tips on what was happening in the race, I'd be saying the same things and these guys would be making similar mistakes. Just because they, you know, a set of athletes do it one way doesn't make it right. And again, I'm. Yeah, I'm just trying to look for coaching tips so that the average athlete can learn from the fact that no one is perfect in this. And even at the professional level, they're still making errors which, which are costly.

Yeah. One of the last things we wanted to touch on was some unbelievable performance in the time trial, the cycling time trial. And as far as time trials go, what an exciting event. And I'll just say off the bat, the Aussies, Grace Brown coming fourth in that field was a surprising event. And I don't even think she was disappointed at being close to the third because she performed way out of her and well above where she expected. So although she was close to bronze, she would be in no way, nor should she be disappointed with that fourth result. It was a really epic result which showed her capability to mix it with the best in the world.

Yeah. And look, her form has been building as we've followed her through the summer season with Strada Bianca and the One Day Classics and the Gira Rosa. And she has been performing very well in the time troll and really attacking and putting herself out there and, and her form's been building. So it was fantastic to see her mixing it with the best in the world. And, you know, you can't go past the one, the winners. And look, I just thought her effort was outstanding. And of course, she'd be disappointed not to get a medal, but what. She represented herself and her country so well. Fantastic.

And then Rowan Dennis was able just to do one better by whopping 0.4 of a second and getting himself into a bronze. And what a finish to the time trial where 2nd to 4th or 2nd to 5th. Sorry. Are all within a second of each other. Imagine writing for 56 minutes, hard as you can, solo, and then it was a Gunner that came fourth to Dennis. Was it Philip Gunner? Stefan Kuhn, Sorry, Stephen Kun Garner was fifth. Yeah. Stefan Kuhn. Imagine riding that hard. And then you. You point four off, crossing the line for a bronze medal.

And, well, he had. He had third place with 500 to go. And Rowan Dennis's finish was exceptional. And he got a half a second back from 500 to the finish. That's the attention to detail. And Rowan Dennis is, you know, he rode that all the way to the line. Not saying Stephen Kong didn't, but Rowan lifted. And, you know, when you lose by half a second, you know, not talking about gold medal because Roglic was that far in front, but. But second, you know, Dumoulin, that's a story in itself. To come back, to come back after, you know, his mental illness and, you know, to get a second silver medal at two Olympics in a row, you know, to come from obscurity again, to get that result was incredible. But, you know, second, third, fourth, fifth, all finished within three seconds of each other at that level is unbelievable, especially when the winner is a minute ahead. Roglich was just outstanding. And I just wanted to mention so much about the men's time trial. Roglich, you know, so many disappointments, Tour de France crashes. You know, this year's Tour de France was so bad for him last year. He was winning until last time trial. Has the irony that he's now the time trial champion of the world. When he lost the Tour de France because his time trial was so poor. Is that someone who has absolutely taken two years and what karma to actually come back and take is now the Olympic champion time trialist. And, you know, I just think patience, never giving up on a dream.

Perseverance.

Perseverance.

Perseverance through adversity. Just.

Yeah, oh, incredible. And remain calm for two years. Never got flustered, never cracked it. Just put his head down, got back to work. What an outstanding story. And look, Dumoulin we just talked about, but certainly Rowan Dennis, who's had his ups and downs and you know, he's a, he's a world champion three times over. He would dearly have loved to have won that race. But you know, he, he fought to the very end and, and I think he's, he executed quite well and I think he would be very satisfied to be on the podium.

Absolutely. And the last thing we wanted to mention, which is not one of our main pain sports, but like you said at the start, I've definitely become a canoe slalom expert after watching the Olympics. I now know the difference between C1 and K1 and single paddle versus double paddle. And this is a great insight, getting to know Jess Fox even more and her story. And Channel 7 did a great job building that up over the, over the pre Olympic stuff and in the Olympics about how much pressure had been on her being the best in the world, but still hadn't won a gold medal. She'd been silver and bronze at previous two Olympics. For me, I have loved all our gold medals. I think Arianna Titmus gold medals were just goosebumps I had watching them, especially her coach's reaction, which went viral, her family reaction. But for me, this gold medal from Jess Fox, Taste the cake, is the best gold medal so far for the Aussies.

I absolutely agree with you. I know nothing about paddling and just the story that, that, that she has developed from 2012 to 2021. And you know, talk about Roglich. Two years, she's been doing this for nine and come so close. And then the event that she thought she was going to win, she was number one in the world. For in the first event she came third. That would have been a blow to her. And no, she re. Reevaluated. Reset, set. And she smashed them. She won. She won that. Clearly she was 10 seconds ahead of third and three seconds ahead of second. And that's a big margin in, in that sport from what I've seen as an expert already. And I just thought, you know, that gave me goosebumps. That was just, you know, the extreme level of perseverance, patience, persistence. Never giving up on a dream. Yeah. Taking your opportunity and, and being gracious in defeat and oh, what a, what an example she is. And that was the best podium national anthem. You know, it really was quite, I felt quite emotional for her. It was. Yeah, it was brilliant getting in the moment.

Yeah, yeah, I was the same. It was just before Our travellers with race last night. And I was pretty amped for the race after that, I tell you.

Very inspirational, very motivational. It doesn't have to be your sport, but you can. The point of the podcast is you can get so much inspiration from watching others and in adversity and in success. And we did skip the rowers and I wanted to quickly mention before we finish that I just think we've got a real good history in rowing and they've come through again. And it was a pretty special day the other day when they won two gold medals in the space of 15 minutes. And, and an event that we're. Everybody knows, the awesome foursome. And it happened to be both male and female fours winning, winning those races, so that was pretty special. And again, sticking to the process, working as a team, and they only just won, so it was very good.

Plenty of stories to come out of the Olympics. There's so much triumphs, so much painful lessons, so much disappointment. There's only one gold medal winner in each event, you know, and you do see the downsides of it and it's really hard to watch, but, you know, they're the important things to look at as well, because it happens to all of us. We do have really negative moments. And hopefully when it's your time to shine, it might not be in the Olympic stage getting a gold medal. But that's why we love this, talking about all this stuff in this podcast, because for us, you know, we get chances to shine in our chosen sport and our chosen event to even just aiming for a PB and improving ourselves. That's what inspires.

Exactly what I was going to say, George. You know, it's not all about the gold medal. It's about your personal improvement. And, you know, if you can manage to get a PB and you don't make the final of some event, you know, I, I would be ecstatic. I would be, you know, over the moon. If I've improved and performed on the day better than I have on any other day, then that's a, That's a victory and that's the way we should be looking at it as everyday athletes. And, and, you know, the Olympics are special. We, of course, we applaud victory, but we should also applaud pbs.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's it for this episode. The athletics has started. The major part of the Olympics for me. I cannot wait to watch all the athletics. So I'm sure we're going to be talking about it on one of the next few podcasts. Very exciting. On one of the next few podcasts as well, we have Brenton Ford coming back from Effortless Swimming. Everyone loved his first episode. He has great insight into swimming knowledge, so we're going to be asking him all about his thoughts on the Olympics, maybe things he he saw that athletes could improve on, what he thought things about all these tactics stuff we've been talking about. So we can't wait to have Brenton on. Thank you very much for listening and we'll see you next time. Sam.