How Much Triathletes Should Train For A Half-Ironman 70.3

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined as always by your host, former Australian Ironman champion Jared Donnelly. And I am Jordan Donnelly. Before we get into the episode, just a reminder, if you want to download our expert secrets cheat sheet, that's a cheat sheet of the very best tips and advice the expert guests offer on our podcast have said to help you train smarter and race faster. Go to getfastpodcast.com that's getfastpodcast.com so in this episode we're asking the question, how much should a triathlete train to finish a half Ironman 70.3 fast. And by fast, we mean fast in terms of your own comparison. How can you finish, how can you train to finish a half Ironman 70.3 to your best ability? And really the broader questions are how do you train for a 70.3? And how do you have a well balanced training program, which is the key to training well? So I'll ask that question straight away. What is the key to a well balanced half Ironman training program?

The most important aspect of any program doesn't matter whether it's Olympic half Ironman or Ironman is hitting the key components of what the event requirements are. So once you've established that, and we know a half Ironman is very specific. 1900 meter swim, 90k ride, half marathon run. So already we're deciding what sort of time we're going to throw at those three individual sports.

So what kind of time is that?

So if we break it up into percentages, we're going to spend 15% swimming, we're going to spend 50% riding, and we're possibly going to spend 35% running. And there have variable percentages, give or take. So once we've established that, then it's clear in our mind how much time during that program, each week, each day that we're going to spend doing those individual sports.

How do you get to those numbers and those percentages? How does that work?

Because if you break down the actual results that we've achieved over a number of years of coaching, that is the breakdown of the race. So we're relating everything about the aspects of the race into our training, including the percentage of time spent in the race in that actual activity.

So if we break that down mathematically, let's take a five hour half Ironman athlete, those percentages work out to be the amount of time spent per discipline. Is that Correct.

Yeah, exactly. So the example would be, you know, for a five hour, you're probably gonna spend around 30 minutes swimming. You're going to probably ride around two hours to two hours 30 to possibly two hours 45. You're going to possibly run one hour 45 to one hour 55. That would end up with a five hour plus your transition. So those percentages are almost replicated in our training percentages. 15%, 50%, 35%.

And like you said, they're approximate. But that's about the typical range of.

And there's obviously people who are, who are needing more work in various areas where they've got weaknesses and strengths. So the percentage for runners who are weak might be closer to 40%. The runners who are really on top of their game, they might be able to drop down to low 30s and work more on their swim and ride. So of course there are variables to that. But that's the general rule that we would use in preparing an athlete to get to his goal where he knows that I've, I've actually done the requirement in swimming, riding and running.

So this is a big surprise for a lot of people anytime we talk about the fact that you don't have to swim train as much as most people think. Because swimming is most often the weakest leg and the one where it is the scariest because you are the weakest and most people want to spend more time there to feel more comfortable. And you're saying even if you aren't a good swimmer, you still won't be spending that much more than 15% of your week on swimming.

Well, if you break down the numbers again, and that's what we try to do, we try to work out what value we are going to achieve from spending more time. So if I change my program from swimming to from two hours a week to six hours a week, and that possibly would mean I have to swim six times a week in my program. And if I add those sessions in, I've got to take away some other time because I can't actually do that without being full time. If I'm going to do six swims, I've already got four rides and four runs. All of a sudden I'm now doing a lot of sessions. So what value is an extra six swims or four swims going to give me? And unless you're, unless you're doing specific stroke technique, which is going to give you the biggest gains in order to swim faster, you have to have a better, a better technique, of course you have to Be fit in the water to be able to be able to achieve a rough finishing time that you're comfortable with and you're happy with. So to spend an extra four sessions, you might gain two minutes. If you've got a really well developed swimming program, you might gain three. If it's incredibly poor level you start with, the gains are much bigger. But normally it would be under a minute to add extra swimming sessions for those gains. So when you look at it like that, boy, that's a lot of time to gain two or three minutes in an event that goes for five hours. So instead of swimming 30 minutes, you might end up with a really good result. 27 minutes. Fantastic. But let's look at it the other way. If I spent extra time running, I could possibly knock off 10 minutes in my run. So which are you going to choose, three minutes or ten? Well, already there's a seven minute gain and if I continue to keep swimming at 2 and add more time to my riding, I could get another 10 or 15 minutes there. So the potential to add more time and training to riding and running, the gains are far more greater. So therefore it would be obvious to anybody that you would want to be a competent swimmer to get through the event not exhausted and within two or three minutes of, of your predicted time to gain 10 minutes on the bike and possibly five minutes on the run, just by spending more focus on those two disciplines could get you an outcome of 15 minutes minimum. So that's really obvious to me that you would, that you would spend more time doing something you're going to get better gains for.

And I guess even if you are a really swimming is your weakest leg and you're a 40 minute swimmer and you might have the possibility of improving five minutes, which you say is really extreme circumstances, five plus minutes to do that, you're going to have to take away, like you said, training time from riding and running. So even that, that best gain of five or six or even if it's something like seven minutes, which you say you don't see, it's still not going to match riding and running.

And plus the improvement in riding and running won't be like 10 or 15 minutes, it will be lower than that. So add your swimming gain, you know, five minutes, plus you might get four or five minutes on the run because you've reduced your running to do more swimming. You might get five or six minutes on the bike because you've reduced your bike to get more swimming, you end up with, you know, 10 minute gain instead of you know, potentially we were talking 15 minimum to 25 to 30 minutes gained by concentrating more percentage of time in areas where you can get the biggest gains. That's the only thing that I'm saying. And from my experience in all of my triathlon career, and I wasn't an outstanding swimmer, but I was competent enough. You know, the majority of people we're talking to here are people who are wanting to do pbs. Sure that the top age groupers would want to spend some more time honing their weaknesses. The elite athletes would definitely want to improve their swim, but they've got the time to do it. They can throw all sorts of times at because they're full time. So it's a different scenario to what we're talking about. So the middle of the pack, the bottom end of the beginner range, we're talking about those people who could be absolute shocking swimmers. But you know, it is not okay to spend too much time on something that could take two, three, four years to develop a really good technique and a fitness base in, whereas the gains can be really quick on the bike and in the run.

It's probably a problem, you see, isn't it, that it's great to try and model success and model the pros and the elite athletes, but your circumstances are different, so you shouldn't model them in this aspect.

No, you want to take the really good things that you can apply that work for you and unfortunately the things that aren't practical, which is throwing more time at things because, you know, the difference between a professional and an amateur, you know, which is an everyday triathlete is everyday triathlete has work and family and training. A lot of pro triathletes do do some work when they should be doing a little bit of work anyway just to keep their mind focused. But, but really we want to concentrate on where the biggest gains are. And that's the question at the start is, you know, how do you get faster in a 70.3. Well, understanding what the requirements of the race are in terms of time and percentage and equating that to your training is going to be the number one thing that I could advocate to people to get that understanding in your mind and then you can understand that, right? In the two swim sessions I'm going to do, I, I'm going to make the most of these swim sessions.

So what if I say to you, coach, I know what you're saying, but I am really a poor swimmer. I would feel more comfortable doing three to four sessions, not six. Not totally taken Away from my rider run, but I just don't feel like a couple sessions a week is enough.

Yeah, I would be encouraging people if they have the time to do it, but the minute they have to drop other things to enable that to happen, then then I would discourage that. So if you can throw two more sessions at it and it doesn't inhibit the ride or run sessions that we're doing, not only in time factor having cut them short, but in fatigue. Because as a poor swimmer, it is very tiring to swim. It is one of the most tiring things you do because of the energy you're expanding because you actually got such a poor technique. It is really energy sapping.

Okay, so what, what else is. If you think about a well balanced training program and a half ironman program that's going to give you the best chance of a pb. What, what are things that you most commonly see people not doing, not giving.

Sessions the correct value, that would be the next key thing. So understanding what percentages you need to spend time in each session like we just talked about and now understanding the importance of the sessions in that well balanced program that we talk about.

So explain that to me.

Okay, so we know that this is an endurance event. So it is unlike anything else in triathlon, in any other sports around the world. Endurance is something that you need to practice endurance to be a better endurance runner or triathlete or rider or swimmer. So that's one aspect of this program that can't be compromised is making sure that that aspect of your training is not missed in the program. Every session has weight and we like to give weight to each day and to each session. And the endurance is probably the key. For example, in a 20, 30, 50 week program, you've only got probably 16 weeks out of 20 where you can actually practice your endurance each week. In a 30 week program you probably have 26 weeks. So it's not a lot of sessions. 16 sessions to practice getting you for race day ready to be able to last the distance that the endurance event such as a 70.3 and let's face it, the fast guys are doing 350 or better. The middle of the packers good age groupers are doing just over 4, 4, 10, 4, 20 depending on what age group you're in. And the rest of the field are doing four and a half plus two, six to seven. So in hindsight, the endurance aspect for an elite or a really well credentialed age grouper, it's not as long as an endurance event as it is for the back of the field beginner or mid packer, it's a longer event for them than it is for the fast guys. So they need more endurance. Because if you're a 110 or a 120 or 130 half marathon runner, the time you spend training for the long endurance run could be around an hour and a half to an hour 45. But if you're, if you're a 155, 210, 220 runner, your long run needs to be closer to that. Two hours, 2:10, 2:20. So getting that understanding of, you know, is my bike 3 hours as compared to the pros at 2 hours. So therefore my long endurance ride needs to be longer than the pros, even though the pros will still be doing three, four, five hours in their endurance session. But you know, this is an example of how reverse it is for the beginner triathlete.

I love this concept of waiting sessions because, yeah, not every session is created equal. And if you think about that, it's very logical and it makes sense. But when I go to do a training program, I don't think that. I just think I'm trying to complete every session. I'm not thinking that sessions are necessarily weighted more than others. And once you have that understanding, then you really start to pay attention to the sessions. Like you just said, the endurance sessions or the other sessions that are weighted with more value. And that's not to say that you just don't do some sessions because they're not as valuable. But how do you explain that concept to an athlete to make sure they really understand the different value of each session?

It's a really interesting question, and it's one that I get asked a lot is I can't do this particular session, can I just catch it up? And it's really hard to catch up the endurance session because of the way we live in society. Majority of the triathletes we're talking about have full time jobs. So the only opportunity they have is when they have a day off or two days off. And that may be for a normal nine to five, Monday to Friday person is a Saturday, Sunday. But people who work shift, they might have a Tuesday and a Thursday or a Monday and a, you know, a random day where they've, they've got the time off. And that's the only opportunity they get to do a three to four hour ride or a, you know, a one and a half to two and a half hour run. So you're only able really to do those sessions when you've got the time. So, so not missing those sessions in your program is probably the key. The key weighted sessions. So. So you've just got to manufacture a method, depending on what your work schedule and family schedule is, to make sure that that is the key session that doesn't get missed.

What else is valuable in the week in comparison?

Obviously, the process that we like to specifically talk about is riding and running together. So the event is a swim bike run, and there's no gaps in between. It's really impractical to swim and then go training on the bike, mainly because you have to drive to a pool and that's time out of your day, then drive home or drive to work wherever you're going. So it's really almost impossible to practice that unless you're a professional or unless you've got, you know, a weekend where you can actually throw a swim in. And we do advise that so that people do get used to swimming and then riding once or twice in, you know, in the program. So. And of course, on the practice races, you're getting that practice all the time. So. So definitely making sure that the ride run session is the thing that you have the next weighted value to. So whenever you do your ride sessions, we need to have at least two of those sessions. Out of the four bike sessions, three is the ideal and four is fantastic. So four run sessions that are off the bike will make you on race day feel like you're just running normally fresh. One session off the bike, you'll feel like a little bit uncomfortable for the majority of the run because you've only done it once a week. That's probably 16 times as compared to someone who does it four times a week, which is what, 96 times or some. My math is not that good, but It's a lot. 64. 64 times. So. So look at that. You know, 16 to to 64 is incredible amount of time spent doing something that is so replicating the race. So that's the second thing that we really want to hone in on as almost not negotiable, as I say, you know, a couple of those runs midweek, very short, they're not that hard, but they just get the body adapted to the feeling of running off the bike. The key session, obviously is the endurance run on the weekend. And a lot of people tend not to do this off the bike. And the session that we use is quite a short session around the hour, but it's at race pace. At your race pace, intensity and you get the feeling exactly of what it's like to run off the bike after riding at race pace.

Yeah, I love when you use examples like that. That maths example just then really highlights the difference in doing run. One run off the bike per week is 16 total compared to 64. Like the comparison just isn't even, you just can't even compare it. And I also love how sometimes we use a number value to each session. So each session might be worth a certain fitness value and it's just whatever we decided to be. But a high intensity session might be worth a fitness value of 10, and an endurance run might be worth a fitness value of 15, and a recovery run or recovery ride or a swim session might be a fitness gain of 5. So when you add up all 10 or 12 sessions for the week, you might have a score out of 100. And if you do all the really good sessions and make sure you get them done and you miss the not so important sessions, you still might end up with a fitness score of 80 out of 100, which we prefer 100, but 80 is still okay. But if you miss those big sessions and just do the smaller sessions and the less valuable sessions, you'll end up with a fitness score of 50. And when you combine that over a 20 week program, person A, who does all the sessions and gets a score of 80 or 100, is up at the 1600-2000 fitness gain mark. And person B, who misses the valuable sessions and only gets A score of 50 each week is going to be half the fitness gain. They're going to be at a score at about 1000. And so you think about how it just adds up each week and you get to the race and you've gained half as much fitness as you probably could had you done the valuable sessions properly.

Yeah, it's what you've just explained is really the key concept that we work on. And it is so valuable for people to, to really grasp what you've just said, that the weighted value to the endurance. And we're not, we're not diminishing the value of the other sessions, but the fitness gains we're trying to achieve. Come race day, we want you to be at your peak fitness. And the form is another thing, which is for another day possibly, but your peak fitness is what you want to be on race day. And if you've missed those longer weighted sessions like you just mentioned, you will be on race day at a weight percentage lower than you should be. And why is fitness so important? Well, in Order to achieve the desired result on race day. If your fitness is below par, as you know, whether you play basketball, play football, play soccer, if you start to run out of steam at the three quarter mark of the, of the event, then it's all downhill from there. And we want the opposite for our triathletes. We want them to becoming stronger home. In actual fact, maintaining is what we're after. But it looks like they're running stronger because everybody else is falling apart. So having the optimum fitness is going to be so valuable in the second half of the back half of that half marathon, in the 70.3 where you can maintain the pace you started with and possibly negative split, which is something that we really push to achieve for each of our athletes.

If you negative split, it really shows good fitness level, doesn't it?

Yeah, obviously great execution, but it shows that you have the fitness and strength to carry on the event because you've trained. Understanding the value of all your training sessions and if we can get anything across today, that is the key point. You need variety in your program. You know, that would be something we can talk about. But understanding the weight of each session and how it contributes to the overall general fitness that you're trying to achieve is really the next best thing to understand.

So let's touch on variety then. What is important about that variety and what kind of variety is needed in a training program?

So if you thought about this logically, the requirements of the event are that you would in a, in a 70.3, the age grouper can, can, can swim around, you know, 80 to 90% of his of his best 100 meter pace, he can ride around 80 to 90% of his FTP and he can run around 85% of his best 10K. So, so logically thinking from what we've said when we bang on about replicating the race, you should do that training the whole time in your program just trying to those, just trying at those percentages. But we don't do that. We never do that. That is a really bad program. We do that one of those days for each of those sessions each week. So we replicate what we think is going to happen in our race on the other days. And the reason why we don't do the same sessions is because we'll stay the same athlete. Unless you overload yourself and test yourself and put yourself up against higher intensities, you're not going to improve the fitness time. The gains in fitness throughout through duration are always there. You will slowly improve, but you won't improve at the rate by putting in intensity. So the three requirements of general fitness are frequency, duration and intensity. And if you only have one of those, which is duration, you're going to be the same athlete the whole way through. If you throw in intensity, you're going to. The example we use all the time is the gymnast who's doing 50 kilogram barbell curls and he stays doing that for six months compared to the guy next to him who does 50, then 60, then 70 kg all the way up to 100. Come the last day when they're testing, the guy's going to struggle to lift more than 50kg because he's brilliant at that.

He'll be really good at lifting 50 kilograms.

Yeah. The other guy, he can push 100, 120, possibly because he's overloaded himself. So we need sessions where we're going to push ourselves so that we improve our FTP, we improve our running pace, we improve our swimming pace. So come race day, especially when you've been training at harder intensities, come race day when you're. We talked about 80 to 90% on the bike, it feels comfortable and you could be able to do that all day. And it's really a matter of you just staying in the range so you can run properly. So they're really key things that, that the variety in our program enable. And we do have sessions that are weighted lower, but they are just as important in terms of getting them done at the right intensities. They don't carry the fitness weight that an endurance session does, but they certainly improve you intensity wise to be able to participate at a more comfortable rate and a higher rate than you would have had you not done those intensity sessions. And intensity is really important no matter what program you're doing, whether it's an Ironman or a sprint, you still need to have overload through intensity.

There has to be something said about that feeling of being able to run, ride or swim faster than your threshold pace or under threshold, which you're going to hold in a half. Ironman 70.3. When you have that ability to do that and you experience that feeling, then going back to a slower pace is you just feel really good.

Yeah, you're in the zone. And that's how it should be on race day. You shouldn't be uncomfortable on race day. It means you haven't trained well or you're riding or running or swimming above your level. So there's the two reasons. If you're feeling pretty average on the day, you know you would have to question, am I at the right pace here? And then the second question, which is nothing you can do about the first one you can change by slowing down. The second one you can't change. It's because you haven't trained properly. You haven't got the desired fitness to enable you to get through the event comfortably. And don't think when I say comfortably, I mean that it's a walk in the park. I mean that the fatigue levels will slowly grow to a point where come the last possible 5k that you are now questioning, you know, mentally, can I push through in the last probably 10k of the bike? You know, am I comfortable enough to run? Well? So of course you can ride faster on any given day, but can you run fast your fastest half marathon in a race after riding that fast? Well, the answer is definitely no. You need to be conservative, but ride to the best numbers you can without causing the marathon to be a disaster.

It's a bit of a confusing one when you say I'm going to ride at 80 to 90% of my threshold because you think, oh well, what, why, why those numbers and what you just said makes sense. It's, it's the maximum percentage that you can hold without over fatiguing this.

There's a great example. Again, we don't use names, but Guy so excited after his triathlon on the weekend, swam fantastic, second fastest bike split on the day and, and just so happy to tell everybody how well he rode, what power he pushed out, what his time was. And that was the end of his conversation. And I said, oh, how did you go in the run? He goes, oh no, I had to walk. And I'm saying, but it's a triathlon. You just proud of the fact that you got the second fastest bike. I want you to be proud that you executed all three events and you finished where you wanted to finish. So you basically went into the event just trying to achieve the second fastest bike time. You might as well go and do a recycling event if that's what you were trying to do. Because this is a triathlon where if it was like that, it would be easy for people to ride harder, but the reason they don't is so that they can run. And that's a great example of someone who totally misunderstands what the event's about. And to say that you got the best or second best riding in a particular section of the event is great as long as you achieved what you were trying to do and were enabled to finish the event strongly and along the way you got best time on the bike or best running time. I would be much more prouder of the best running time if I've ridden hard and swam hard.

Because you can't just go easy in the swimming ride so that you're still.

Not going to get the result you want. You've got to push yourself to a point where you can actually enable the run to be what you want it to be. And that is the, the hidden gem in all triathlon training programs which have been missed by the majority of the world. And that sounds like a big statement, but at the end of the day, why do we see so many people walk? It's because they've got it totally wrong. And just because 90% of the people train like that and 90% of the people walk in the, in the half marathon, in the run or in the Ironman run, it doesn't mean that that's, that's what should happen. We want to change that thinking. It's got to be, that's got to be outdated. And the new, the new run method is run the whole run.

The new Tribalo run method.

Absolutely. And that's one of my, you know, my key determining things for most athletes that I coach is that they have a better outcome than they've ever had before. And majority of the time they swim and ride okay. It's just that they fall apart in the run.

If you've listened to any of our podcasts, you'll know that it is our trivelo goal to, to inform more triathletes that they don't have to, they shouldn't have to walk in, in the, in the run part of the triathlon. It's, everyone should be able to train well enough and have a good enough program that they are fit enough to run the whole way.

Yep, yep. So, so really talking about the weightedness of each session and, and the value of it really enables you to understand there what we're talking about here.

So on the topic of riding to your percentage and what percentage you are able to hold throughout all three disciplines, how should you be feeling in the race? What kind of feeling should you have when you're going into the half Ironman throughout the whole four or five hours, what are you subjectively feeling?

One of the key things I'm always telling all the athletes is build each leg. And what do I mean by that? I mean, don't start the swim as if you're doing your best 50 meter sprint. The rest of the field is doing that. But that doesn't mean it's right. We are trying to keep our heart rate as low as possible. And by doing the hardest 50 meter sprint at the start of a swim, leg is going to raise your heart rate, which is going to create lactate levels that you're uncomfortable with. And you're going to be swimming with bricks for arms for the rest of the, you know, this 18, 50 meters that you're going to swim. So that's a really key thing is understanding that you don't have to swim flat out in the swim from start to finish. And that's no different to when you get on the bike, jumping out of transition, pushing. If you, if your range of watts is 200 watts and you come out in the first four minutes, you're riding 310 watts, that's a recipe for disaster. You're building lactate in your legs through heart rate being raised through the roof. Same in the run. And I see it every time. People are so excited to get off the bike in transition and come charging out of the transition as a runner. And all their families, they're cheering and yelling, the adrenaline's flowing and they've run their best 1k at the start of the race and you know, go out and go out on the course and see them at kilometer 14 or 15 or 16 where it really counts, and they're possibly running two minutes slower than they did out of transition. They've raised their heart rate again, put the lactate levels too high, and the only way is down from that point onwards. So build the race. Go back to what I said three or four minutes ago. Start conservatively in each of the three legs. Start at a pace you think you can sustain for the whole swim leg and you don't need to go higher or lower in any part of the race. Unless you find that there's someone swimming near you that you need to accelerate to get onto their feet to get an advantage, to get the draft advantage in the bike. You've got your range of power that you need to ride to. If you see people flying past you at the start, wave to them. Just concentrate on what you're doing because I guarantee by kilometer 60, 70, 80, 90, you'll be passing them because you're still riding at the same tempo, pace, power that you started with. And if Your range is 200 to 220 for the, for the ride, start at 200 and, you know, reassess as you go. Build the ride. So reassess, keep thinking, I've got, okay, 60k to go I feel comfortable. Holding back is a feeling you should be feeling when you ask that question. I'm holding back. This seems too easy. But guarantee that is going to be the best winning tactic you can employ as you get through the ride. 45k reassess. If it's an out and back two laps, you get a really good view of what you've done. On the first first lap you might have done 210 watts. I feel really good. I can push to 220, the top of my range for the second lap, but is it going to interfere with my run? No, I feel great. You don't want to get to 75K and say, oh no, I'm not feeling so good now. So you've got to be really careful how you build the ride. So when you get off and run the same philosophy, build the run. The first case should be the slowest. And I use the example of if you're a. Let's just use 2 hour half marathon runner. If you run 5 minute whatever pace to get to 2 hours, if you sacrifice the first 5k by running 10 or 15 seconds slower, even 10 seconds slower per k in the first 5k, how much time you're losing 50 seconds. In the scheme of 2 hours, that means you're going to run a 1,59,10. If you ran flat out from the start or a 2 hour 50, there's literally no difference. So when you put it in that context, you'd be mad to try and run fast at the start and risk running possibly 6 minute k pace, 6:30 or 7 minute k pace for the last 5 or 8k and possibly walking at 10 minute k pace.

We run too fast at the start because we underestimate what you're saying. We underestimate how slow we'll run at the back end by going too fast.

Absolutely. Yep. So the concept of building the event and if you put it in real terms, how much time am I going to lose if I slow down? Even if I. Even if I ran 1 minute slower for 3k at the start, I'm losing 3 minutes in 2 hours. But I could possibly lose 10 minutes in the last 3k if I'm running at 8 minute k pace instead of 5 because that's 3 times 3 minutes difference is 9 minutes difference if you're running that walking and running like that. So to sacrifice three minutes at the start and that's massive. Yeah, I'm talking exaggerated time here. But you, I'm not exaggerating. When you can lose nine minutes if you're walking at the end. So the turnaround there is a six minute difference in your run.

Yeah.

And it's possibly more than more likely to be eight.

Yeah.

Because you might lose one minute.

Yeah.

So no one's going to run a minute slower in the first K. That's just not going to happen. But that's what I'm trying to get people to do is to say, and you know, don't come at the end of the race saying, but I felt great, I felt really good. And that's just the most common thing when they've blown up. It's because they've run the first 5k too fast. They've got the fitness, they've got all the training under their belt. They can still execute it incorrectly and get a poor result. No matter how well drilled and trained they are, if they don't execute the way that their race plan specifies, then the result will be a disappointment.

And that's why you say the feeling should be holding back. Because you can't trust your feeling at the start because you're feeling fresher.

That's right. And you have tapered into the event, don't forget. So you're, you know, all through your training program, whether it be 20, 30 or 50 weeks, you have a feeling of fatigue a lot of the time. So come to your number one a race, you've tapered. So everything come race day will feel like it's easy. And don't get fooled by that feeling. You know, that's why we don't train or race to feel. Because it is a confusing thing. Because 5 minute K pace at the start of a half marathon feels really comfortable. 5 minute K pace at kilometers 16, 17 and 18 feels completely different even though it's the same pace. So that's why running to feel is such a really poor method of execution.

I had a friend of mine do their first half marathon last year and I was talking to them about this exact concept and they really took it on board and listened and they almost, they ran. They were well trained. They did, they did really good amount of running training. They were well prepared and they executed it really well. And it was so lucky that they didn't. And they said to me afterwards, they almost didn't make it because they felt really good, really good, really good, kept holding back. They felt really good right to kilometer 14, 15, 16, 17. They were kind of waiting for a bit of a wall to hit, but they thought maybe they were still feeling good but still kept their pace down. And then at kilometer 18 or 19, they just hit a wall and they were able to hold 5, 5, 10 because their pace was 455 to 5, but they started to really hit a wall and they said that at kilometer 20 they almost didn't make it. The, it was so sudden, just this, this fatigue. And they were able to hold 5, 10 for that last kilometer. But that is exactly what you're feeling. They were feeling so comfortable for 18k and had they fallen into that trap of going fast, going faster, it would have been a disaster because they saw how hard the last kilometer was, just from 21 kilometers of fatigue compared to that, they could have, they could have had a disaster and not gone 6 or 7 minute kilometer pace for the last 3k because they hit such a wall.

Yeah. So this, this concept that we're, we're talking about in how to achieve your best half marathon result is, this is a really key factor, is understanding that you need to conserve all the way through all three legs and keeping your heart rate down is one of those key things. And by riding, swimming or running above your threshold when the race doesn't require that at any stage. So, so why would you do that to yourself? It's self sabotage. And I'm drumming that into all the athletes we coach. Yet still we have people come at the end telling me, but I felt so good.

It's not an intense race, is it? No. Part of it is.

No, it's endurance. The fatigue levels grow on you and you know if, you know, if you're not looking after your nutrition and you've done everything else right, you will still have issues. So, so to get the best result, lots of things have to be really considered well in advance. And not only the training aspect, but the race execution is actually so much as important as every other aspect of, of the program.

I still laugh at this because you've been telling me this lesson for 20 years and I still, I still stuff it up sometimes. Right from when we were six years old and started cross country races and right through to 18, still competing in cross country races start was the exact same every time. It was 100 meter sprint to get position. And you would implore us and beg us to not sprint at the start and you would just say to us over and over, I know everyone else does it, you don't have to do it. And we would listen and we would go a bit easier, but we're still sprinting. And because you just didn't want to be 70th at the start and you're saying it doesn't matter where you are, you will end up in the top 10 because you come at the normal pace. But it just, you just don't listen because you just, you just get so swept up at the start. And it's, it's so funny how hard a lesson is to learn.

It's a great example. And don't, don't be fooled. I'm doing the same mistake, everybody. Humans are competitive beasts, and anybody who is in this sport is competitive. And that's a really good attribute. But we just have to harness it a bit. And I'm the first one to jump out and race someone you know. But the experience and the shocking feeling of falling apart is overwhelmingly now dominating my thought process. There are times when I'll absolutely give it. But they're not in a triathlon. They're not as a cyclist, possibly, you know, but triathlon doesn't require that at any stage. So by doing that and running someone else's event rather than your own is a recipe for disaster. And the competitiveness is the good thing you have, because that's. If I say to you, would you rather have the glory of the finish line or coming out of the water first, getting off the bike first, or finishing the run first, then winning the first hundred meters in the sprint, being the fastest power for the first five minutes on the bike, or running the fastest k in your 1k and falling apart in all three legs? Which one would you rather? The great example is watching you guys run 8 hundreds or 15 hundreds and seeing the majority of the field be 10 meters ahead of you because they've run their first 100 meters in under 20 seconds. And I'm telling you guys to run it in 20, 21 seconds. And they might be running 14, 15 seconds, and you're literally 10 meters behind. And that is hard mentally to allow that to happen because you're competitive. And sure enough, after 300, you're now at the back of the field at the 400 meter mark, you're in the field at the 5, 600 meter mark. You're now moving around as people are slowing down, you're just maintaining the same pace. And then you're a chance now to sprint with less lactate. Heart rate is being kept at its right percentage. And you can come home with the best sprint possible and possibly podium, whereas the rest of the field is faded. And there's guys finishing 10, 20 meters behind who are 20 meters ahead of you after 100 meters. And that's a great example of what I'm Talking about competitiveness is great, but you have to use it and channel it in the right way.

Yeah. And that's example still work in an intense event like an 800 or 1500 or a 5k compared to an endurance event like triathlon. And I've said to you, even recently when I've gone and done a 5k or something and I went out even just 5 or 6 seconds faster than what my pace should be, and then 3K in, you're just so angry at yourself because you're fading and you can't hold it and you feel like crap and you're falling apart and you're just thinking, why did I bother? It's just. It's just a waste of it.

The two examples you've just used 800, it's two minutes, 5K, it's 15 to 20 minutes. We're talking about five hours. It's even going to be worse. Imagine having to run 18km because you've stuffed up the first 2km, running too hard, and you're now running 18km with lactate levels that are uncomfortable and you can hardly run. Imagine riding, you know, 80 more kilometers because your first 10k was a PB power number is really excruciatingly agonizingly difficult. And mentally, you're so angry because you know you shouldn't have done that and you've just sabotaged your race and the only way to get it back is to slow down, you know, and therefore you're going to lose big chunks of time.

Well, I think that's a good way to finish. We start with talking about the training programs of high fivemen. I think we always tend to move on to our favorite topic of execution just to make sure that people understand how to actually execute. Is there anything else you want to mention about?

It is a key concept in what we're trying to do because we're trying to get across that there are so many different key aspects in a program and to get you the best result. These are the key things. And the importance of understanding the requirements of the event. Like we talked about at the start, the weight of each training session, the combination of the sessions and understanding your data so you can execute. They all come together, so it's hard to not separate those things in a discussion.

Great. That's it for this episode. As always, if you want to get our expert secrets cheat sheet and. And that's a cheat sheet that gives you the best tips and advice to train smarter and race faster, go to getfastpodcast.com and if you want help with goal setting, if you want help with your programming, the best way is to get on our email list. You can go to our website, trivelocoaching.com au to check out our programs. Otherwise go to getfastpodcast.com you will get onto our email subscription and we email weekly and that's the best way to see our programs. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.