How To Guarantee You PB Your Next Race

Welcome back to another case study episode where we dissect the training and racing of our athletes. And today we are looking at the Noosa Olympic Distance Triathlon, which was held a few weeks ago and we had some fantastic results and PBS from this and we want to show you how we got there. So we'll focus on what athletes did well to improve in this race because different athletes need different areas of focus. So we'll go through very specific examples. And we love the NUSA Triathlon as a comparison race because it's one of the few races where it is basically very repeatable conditions year on year. It's generally the same course, but mainly the climate is pretty much the same apart from the swim currents. So we had 12 athletes race, and from an overall perspective, especially looking at the run, we had 10 out of 12 athletes have a really good negative split on the run and not such a negative split. That is too big. And two athletes with pretty much an equal split, which is just golden for us to see. So going to go through some things just. Dad. From an overall perspective, go through kind of what we noticed from Noosa, and then we'll go through some really specific athlete examples and what the listener can take as learnings and lessons.

We say it every time. The execution is key. And Noosa is no doubt. It's not any different than any other race, except that it's one of the harder bike courses and it's a surf swim and the run is always in the heat of the day with really bad, humid conditions. So it's probably one of the tougher races. It is the biggest race with the amount of people who enter the race in Australia, and it's right up there worldwide with, you know, the amount of people who actually do this event. So it's a pretty busy event to try to navigate. And for anybody who's been in a race where there's. There's a lot of people in your race, it is hard to ride an individual time trial in your own space and concentrating on your own numbers because inadvertently there will be people you're passing, you'll be being passed by others, and you could end up in a pack. So. So this is one of those races where it's got everything. It's. It's got the surf, possibly some current, maybe a wave or two, and the wind picks up. So those people who start at 6am Compared to those who started at 8, 30 or 9, the conditions were actually different in the water. It was. It was really smooth for the early athletes. And then the chop picked up a bit for the athletes who are unlucky enough to start later. And of course, the wind picks up and the humidity and the temperature picks up. So it's a really unique event where there's such a long period between starting for the majority of the field, it can be two and a half to three hours because there's so many people in this race. And therefore you've got you if the organizers are trying to spread the race out so that you don't have 3,000 people on the course at the one time. So they do a good job considering the amount of people who are entered into this event. So I'm thinking people who are running at 11 o' clock compared to those who are running at 8:30, they're getting a different condition to compete in. And they're the things that you actually have to take note of when you're doing your race strategy. What part of the day am I actually competing? And I know a lot of people, you can actually pay a little bit extra to start early, and that's a huge advantage for those people. And it does make a difference when you're looking at how heat affects people's performance. And we know that from Kona a couple of weeks ago, how, how significant the heat was, which is there all the time, and so is Noosa. But you've got to actually account for it. And if you don't do that and allow for that in your race strategy, then you're going to be found out.

Yeah, that's one thing that is definitely always the case with Noosa is it's always guaranteed is the heat. And even though it's an Olympic distance, like you just said, the heat is a big factor. So one of the key questions that we're looking to answer today and to help you with is how do you run better in the triathlon? And like I mentioned in the introduction, it's we had 12 athletes race and all of them ran a really good run, with majority of them running a negative split, which is just phenomenal to see in pretty tough conditions. And we'd love to talk about all 12 athletes today because there's good lessons in every single athlete, including three athletes who were sick or had Covid and tried to race the race. But there's not enough time in one podcast to go through them all. So we're just going to highlight some of the biggest key lessons you can take from some of what these athletes needed to focus on in training and racing. And the first one we want to talk about is our own coach at Trovello coaching Matt. And Matt, you know, for this race he's done, he's a local boy up into. Up in North Queensland, which is where Noosa is, and that's why the conditions are so guaranteed to be hot up there. And yeah, for someone who. He's found himself stagnating a little bit in races and with the help of the Trivelo system and more specific and direct coaching from yourself and great discussion with him. He knew that he needed to fix his execution in races to find more time gains, and he really worked on that in the final periods leading to this race and absolutely nailed it and had a performance that he was just so, so happy with.

Yeah, it was a real standout performance. And to come third overall and win his age group by so much. And it's not all about results. As we say many times, if you execute well on the day, the result will take care of itself. And this is a class example of that. And it comes down to many things. We always say there's not one reason why you get an improvement. And as we talk through all the athletes that we're going to mention, you know, you do a lot of things well, you'll get a lot of better improvements. And at the end of the day, that's what Matt's done in training, in preparation, his race strategies, race planning, and then on the day going about his job and we talk about, you know, you've only got one job to do and that's execute. And he's done that really well. And, you know, you couldn't take the smile off his. So it was great to hear Matt say that for the first time, he was passing people with such speed and confidence that it was just a reinforcement of how well you can execute. Your bike session, your bike riding in this event will enable you to run so much better. And the confidence he's got from that, and he'll be able to instill that into every race that he does from that point on. It's just such a good experience to know that you are able to fulfill the running potential that you have if you execute well. And even in my position as an athlete, I know that I've had some very average races where I haven't performed well with the execution, even though I've been prepared brilliantly, I just haven't executed well. So it was really exciting to see Matt go from a 159. For those who have done Noosa know that anybody who competes that event under 2 hours to a 155. How does someone at that extremely good level get a five minute gain? And this is the fun part for us is, is getting this information out to you all and showing you that it is possible no matter where you are at any level, even at that elite level at the front of the pointy end of the race, to get a five minute improvement is, is quite. It's unheard of. And, and he's done a lot of things well and that was his goal for this year is to really be better at executing and see how much it can help his running. And wow, what a difference. It was executing the bike the way he knows he can and then he was losing confidence in his running. But now look at the way he's run at this event. He's absolutely nailed his run. I think he was 3 or 4 minutes faster over 10k somewhere around there. You could pick me up on the exact amount, but it was, it was pretty, pretty big margin that he improved.

Yeah, yeah, it was about three minutes. But more importantly, and he was laughing about this, he goes, I've just ran in the 10k 36:40, which is 340 pace. He goes, I've almost ran my fresh 10k PB. He was like 15 seconds of his fresh 10kpb, which, which when we say that question at the start, you know, the key question is how do you run better in triathlon? This is how, when you execute better on the bike leg, which he really did in terms of his power distribution. That's what we're talking about with execution is, is how even do you ride to your correct zones, you're able to run better. So that's a theme with all these athletes. So yeah, it was great for the coach to show that example and show that, yeah, when you say placings don't matter, that's definitely our mantra. But when you are at the pointing end, it's on the back of your mind for sure. You're placing. And for him to get top three of the race and win his age group was just phenomenal and leading by example, which we really love to see. The next athlete we want to touch on is is athlete called Luke, who basically came to us and had been stagnant for two nooses in a row, two years in a row, basically race the same time or within a minute and just said, I don't want to be stagnant, I want to improve. This year. My, my main goal is a, is a Noosa pb and one of he. One of the cool things for him was even before the race he just knew how well his, his bike had been coming along. And he was, he just said, I just can't believe I found you guys sooner because I um, I just, I'm flying on the bike right now. And then did the race and after two years of stagnation had a six minute pb. So that was absolutely phenomenal to see it. And really, you know, we, we want to look at what was the, what was the key focus for some of these athletes. And for him it was definitely all the, all the normal things we talk about, but it was, it was race specific training intensity. And he really learned some valuable lessons in training about his bike intensity, uh, how he's doing the race ready sessions and then he's running tensity off the bike. And I want to tell a really specific story about, about him. And one really good thing he did was we, we, we spoke quite in detail about course selection for the race ready sessions and, and looked at a few different venues and he, he really found a course that had had some elevation in it which was really, it's really relevant for Noosa because it's got quite a big climb in it. But it, it had no stops in it either. So he was doing these sub threshold race ready efforts where he was on a really, really good course, wasn't getting interrupted, it wasn't just around a velodrome either, wasn't just dead flat where he was really getting that specific confidence in his ability to hold certain power that by the time we got to the race we just knew exactly what he was able to hold for every section of the course which was unbelievable. But then one of the key things which this is a really cool story, was the running intensity of the bike. And he's running was getting faster and faster. But he had one specific session where he completely blew up on the run and he was really disappointed with the session and it's not a good feeling blowing up on the run. And he was really pushing the limit of what he could do off the bike. And that's what training is for, is to try and find your limits. And the session we had set him for a pace of 405 to 415 off the bike. And he came out and he ran sub four minutes to start his effort off the bike. And so he was running 355s, 358s and his whole, I think it was 2 by 15 he did off the bike and he hit the whole first 10 minutes under four or definitely under 4:05 first 15 minutes average under 405 and completely blew up in the second half. And so that shatters your confidence a bit when you're training for a 10k. We're doing 30 minutes off the bike trying to run right at that race pace. He's going, oh, I don't really know what happened here. And it's this classic case of understanding your lactate threshold points and knowing that your threshold is right at that LT2. That's what your threshold is. And, and for him, we really said, without even going into a lab, we can probably safely assume that from this session and from what he's done previously, he was really holding just above 4 or 5 really well in other sessions. But in this session he's gone over it and that's crossed the threshold for him. Put him into the red zone and he couldn't run the second 15 minute lot. And so explaining that and understanding that matter of a couple of seconds really, really does matter. And this is a really good learning that you can't afford to go above this pace. This is really where your race pace is at and you, you have to come out a lot more conservative and be aggressively conservative and come home stronger. And then a week later he did the session and apps and came out more conservative and absolutely flew home and found he had more in him and actually was running sub four minutes at the back end. But he'd done the whole session at a much higher average pace and a completely different way to execute and he was able to execute in the actual race with a 2 minute 10k PB on top of 4 minutes on the bike. So yeah, just that focus of that LT2 knowledge and that threshold knowledge and how your pacing matters really makes a difference.

It's a great story and one of the points I want to bring up about that story and this can be related to anybody who's had that experience of a really bad session where it's nothing to do with your current fitness, it's all to do with how you actually went out and started the run. And you know that week that he blew up compared to the week that he didn't. The only difference was seven days that you're not going to be worse or better in seven days, you're going to be relatively the same. So the difference has to be how did you start that run? And I don't think a lot of people still give that the credit that it deserves. Sure. We keep saying in our podcast, if you execute well on the bike, then you'll have A better run. But if you execute well on the bike and you still run above your pace at the start, you won't have a better run. You'll still have a poor run like most people are experiencing. And you know, I go to a lot of races where I see people still charging out of T2 for their run way above the pace they're going to average for the whole run, whether it's a 5k sprint, a 10k Olympic distance or a half marathon and a 70.3 and even unfortunately a marathon in an Ironman, people are still running well above what they're going to average for the whole day. And if you don't actually know what you're going to average for the whole day, that's a poor starting point. So you need to actually have that as a strategy before you do this event. What can I do? And make sure it is realistic. And if you go ahead of that, there's only one way it's going to finish and that's slower. So I don't know how else to say that, Jordan, but it is so clear in my mind that if people continue to ignore that advice, you're going to have the same outcome every time.

Yeah, spot on. And that was the conversation we needed to have with him and wanted to have was you're putting by going out in sub 4 minute pace for him specifically, you're just immediately putting your body under that pressure because it's above your threshold and it's hard to come back from that. And so we keep hammering this message home. The next athlete who had a really the specific point we wanted to touch on was Emma, who had done Noosa the year before and found a 10 minute improvement from last year and she found 3 minutes on the bike and even more massively an 8 minute improvement on the run. So what for you were the key differences here?

Yeah, and this is kind of along the same theme and we for the sake of not repeating ourselves, but if you do bike within your ranges and you actually understand how to pace the run, you will, you'll have an opportunity to run so, so much better. And she's just proved that, you know, getting everything right with all of the training sessions and understanding where the ranges are and riding the course properly, you know, the hard bits of the hills and the headwind and then you get off, you're not gassed, you haven't burnt the matches, you can run the way you're supposed to run and it's such a great experience. And you know, you and I have had so many messages over the last couple of weeks between all the events that have been going on around the world where people are just so over the moon, just almost yelling at, this is how it said. This is how you guys told me it was going to be on the podcast. You told me I'll be running past people who are walking and I feel like yelling out. You know, you're all idiots. You're not executing like you should be. And that's the bit that we love. If you just put it into practice, you will experience the same outcome. You have to have done the training, there's no doubt about that. But understanding where your form is and getting your race plan right and then making sure you stay in those ranges and you know, I don't know how many times we say this about even at the pro level, people are still making lots of mistakes and suffering the consequences. And it's okay to make these mistakes, but you have to understand the reason why you're suffering the consequences. And if you don't understand exactly what you did wrong, then you can't fix it next time. You'll keep making the same mistakes. So this is part of what this case study we're trying to get across is if you just stay in your range and be disciplined and it takes a lot of discipline. When someone comes up alongside you, we are all competitive, and then puts 5 or 10 meters into you, your natural reaction is to not let that happen. You want to stay with that person on the bike. And if someone does that at the start of a run when, when you've just come off, off the bike and you see people running away from you, your natural inclination is to not let that happen. You want to actually lift your pace so that you're not feeling like you're being left behind, but you have to stay disciplined to stay in your ranges. And, and you will probably end up catching them again at some point and end up passing them. And that is the satisfying part, is that, you know, if you come to me at the end or come to you, Jordan at the end, saying, oh, I left a little bit out there. Well, you probably do leave a little bit out there, but you wouldn't have if you hadn't have run this way. And you're probably still better off time wise than you would have had you have done it the other way.

Yeah, absolutely. And I, I do want to mention that a 10 minute improvement in Olympic distance is, is really big. And to not only find a lot of people would say, oh, it's a year later you know, you might expect improvement. I think that's that kind of the expectation of PBS I sometime frustrated with among athletes because PBS are really hard and lots of people work year on year and don't improve. And especially the more you reach the pinnacle of your fitness, you know, you definitely can look back and go, it's hard to be as peak as I was potentially two years ago. And so you have to do the work for a full year to see that 10 minute gain. It just doesn't happen naturally, it doesn't happen with no effort. And so I really want to highlight that 10 minute improvement and go. That's nothing to shirk at. And to ride faster than the year before and then run even faster than that shows that improvement in what you're talking about with learning how to time trial and stay in the ranges and complete the race ready sessions necessary to be able to run well and allow you to run better and I think to finish. It's worth mentioning that we just love her love of the sport overall and her enthusiasm for the sport of triathlon.

Yeah, she's just one of those dream athletes to coach who is, you know, never complaining about any of the sessions and it's got a smile on her face every time you see her. And you know, even though it's hard work, she's out there doing it under all conditions and like everybody is of course, but the attitude that some athletes have, the positivity, it just, it will, it will just lead to more success. If you're, if you're hating life and, and not happy about doing your next training session, then you're probably not going to be in it for very long. You have to have the mindset of, you know, if I do these sessions this week, if I actually nail what I'm asked to do in this training session, go into the detail, where are my, my running paces? Where is my SW pace? Where's my power? Get that session right. Do that consistently for a long period of time. And over a year Emma has been able to do this and there's been some very crappy sessions like everybody has. But the idea is that your goal is you're excited about getting everything you can out of yourself in the right sessions, in the right week, in the right phase of your build and you will end up getting a result like this. And it doesn't happen in six weeks or 12 weeks. It happens over 50 weeks and for some people over 100 weeks. But to get 10 minutes in the space of a year is pretty phenomenal. And the conditions obviously have a factor in this, but overall we've got people who are genuinely improving no matter what event they're going to. And you can't keep saying the conditions are easier than the previous year. There will be some events where the conditions aren't easier or they're the same or they're worse, but we still have athletes continuing to improve regardless of the conditions. So. And a lot of the time we eliminate, when we talk about improvement, we eliminate the swim because the swim is so variable. The distance can be anything from 2 or 300 meters out or people can be in rougher conditions or colder conditions. Whereas the ride, when you're comparing events to events, I'm only comparing Noosa to Noosa to Noosa. And that's the best way to compare. The ride is the same course and the run is the same course, whereas the swim can be variable. So we eliminate that in our, in a lot of our assessment of how people improve. And we talk about bike and run improvement and we want to talk about swimming, but the variables are it could be shorter or longer, so it's very hard to measure that.

Also, for the first three athletes we've spoken about, Matt, Luke and Emma, the swim was pretty much within 30 seconds of each other or something, something around there. So, yeah, and the last point I wanted to make is, you know, if you take a 10 minute improvement in an Olympic, you know, for a half ironman, that's a 20 minute improvement, you know, you double the distance, which is just phenomenal when you, when you break it down like that.

Yeah, it's super exciting for Emma and, you know, she's had a couple of dabbles at a half Ironman and some summer races ahead with some shorter races, which is what I'm excited about because she now understands how to execute and at her current form, which is what she's learned so well.

And yeah, she's got a little squad of traveller friends as well who she trains with. And Caitlin, her partner in crime, was up there at Noosa, but unfortunately had Covid. So it was, was, was racing through that, which is always, you know, it's almost against our advice to start the race, let alone try and push through it. But it's another story.

Yes, well, we had three people who had Covid who didn't really know it, Amy and Daniel or unwell. And Caitlin found out she had Covid literally, you know, that week, which was super disappointing. And the big dilemma was, will she be well enough to actually just go out and compete and to her credit, she, she, she was not at her best. But yeah, she was able to actually get around the course and not to be too far away from what she'd done when she, you know, in previous times. So. And I love, I love the fact that, you know, you do make great friends when you're competing and, and that's the good part about being in this sport is, you know, that the preparation and the seriousness of the event and the actual competing. But afterwards, this is something I love about Emma is, you know, she's always telling me she can't wait to the after, the after race celebration. And that's where she, she normally enters her next race when she's had a margarita or two under her belt and she's got some more Dutch courage to do a big race. But I love that way that, you know, she's having fun with the sport and that's, that's, she's going to be in it for a long time because she's really enjoying it. And her and Caitlin and Amy met them as well. So, so they're getting a little group and, you know, that's the fun, that's the bit I love is people are really getting to really enjoy the sport for what it is in the seriousness of improvement is what we push a lot. But, but if you, if you can get enjoyment from the fact that you are improving, then you can't wait for your next training session, you can't wait for your next race. That's the part we're trying to push.

The next athlete is Marcus, who is someone else who had another 11 minute improvement. And we actually did a case study on him last year after Noosa, but he just keeps going and just keeps improving because he's. His big challenge last year was just getting to the event. And the case, the summary of the case study last year was he came to us wanting to do a sprint triathlon and he didn't think he could do a sprint and he did that and he didn't think he could do an Olympic, but he did that at Noosa last year and now he's done his second Olympic and improved 11 minutes. And so, yeah, the next goal for him is stepping up to a half ironman, which is just amazing. But what was Marcus's focus?

Yeah, and you know, as you've just summarized beautifully, now that he's completed his challenges, he now was, okay, how much faster can I do this event? And that was the thing that was, that was his focus was I need, tell me what I need to do. In these training sessions I now have got myself to a point where I'm confident that I can complete the event. Now I want to take a few risks and see if I can ride and swim and run faster. And you know, our focus was really on his running and, and you know, we talked about Marcus being one of the bigger guys in our group and the amount of weight that Marcus has lost over the journey is phenomenal. And that's all from his hard work. And you know, the lighter you are and I'm not pushing that you need to lose weight to improve, but it certainly helps if you. I think Marcus has come from 130 kilo down to, you know, the low 100. So that is going to make it so much easier to, to be the athlete that he wants to be. And he won't mind me saying that because he's so proud of improvement in his ability to find out how to be a fitter athlete. By training well and eating well and getting the right food into him that's going to enable him to train properly. And here he is now running. I think he ran seven minutes faster. Jordan, was it six or seven minutes faster than last year? Probably four minutes on the bike I think. And so yeah, he's running was the thing that's the big change. And, and he's now super confident that, that if he can keep working towards and I think geelong is something that he would like to do. But it's going to take a lot of, a lot of hard work to get to get himself ready to run a half marathon. And it's something that, you know, 10K is probably, you know, that's the longer runs he's ever done. So we've got to, you know, got a lot of work for him to get to get himself across to a big event like a half ironman. But, but you know, improvement across the board in, in all the things where, especially in the last three or four months where he was really concentrating on his running and getting his race ready sessions more dialed, getting on a better TT position, training in the TT position more than he ever did before. Before he was sitting up a lot because it was uncomfortable and now he's, he's, you know, dialing in that and, and really drop, you know, the, you're going to drop power when you go from sitting up training to getting into TT position. Your power is going to be less until you get used to that position. Anybody who's trained like that will know that, that you can push more power sitting up high because the Angle of your hip allows you to have more leverage. And the minute you close that down by being in a really aggressive time trial position, it is harder to push the power. And so the reason we get people to do that is because you can ride faster in that aerodynamic position with lower power, lower watts. So the goal is to get comfortable in that TT position, sacrifice the power and then get used to being in that TT position and then start to build your power back up. And he's done that really well. We looked at some of his velodrome sessions where he, you know, sitting up in a poor TT position, higher power but not such fast speed. And now he can. He literally did an FTP test yesterday since he's done Noosa and he actually rode a lot lower power for really good speed because he's now able to sit in that comfortable TT position. So he worked on that and all these little things, as we say, it's never one thing, they all add up to a better outcome. So once you're able to ride the power in a more aggressive position, then you're actually going to be fresher to run. And of course he worked hard on his running, but it's because he's worked hard on his bike position as well.

Yeah, I'm just loving all these little differences that athletes were focusing on to get their improvement. And there's a lot of common themes, of course, where there's so many common things you need to do to improve, but that is such a specific one that we do see a big mistake in is athletes being really good at sitting up in position, especially on the indoor trainer and not fixing that. And for him making that change resulting in faster speed, which is the end goal. And another athlete that was similar to that, and we'll discuss this was Craig, who had a 7 minute PB from 2023 and was actually 22 minutes up from 2022. And his actual A race goal was 70.3 a couple of months back and he smashed his goal there. But he wanted to do Noosa again as the Olympic distance to use that great fitness he'd had from the 70.3 and see how much he could improve and take us through his focus.

Yeah, what a great story Craig is. And again, he was very similar, getting him used to training in the TT position and expl. And once people understand that, yes, I can push more power, but it's not always about the power, is it? It's about how fast we go from A to B. That is actually what we're trying to improve. And by, by riding higher power, we should be able to ride faster from A to B. But if you're riding higher power in A, in a non aero position, you're going to be slower. So that is the key principle we're trying to get across. And Craig eventually got that and really started to be disciplined even though he felt uncomfortable. We talked about changing his bike position and he got a lot of adjustments so that he was able to stay in the T position for longer. And it takes a long time for your body to adapt to that TT position. If you haven't been doing it for you know, three or four, five years, if you've just started to train like this, it is an uncomfortable position to start with. But the more it's like an interval session. If you spend 10 minutes in it and then sit up for 2 minutes, then spend another 10 minutes, then next time you ride, spend 15 minutes, etc, etc, until you can ride it for 180k and not have to move out of that position. So that's the sort of goal we were focusing on. And he had to drop the power. And that is for everybody, including myself. It's a real blow to your ego that I used to be able to do this 250 watts and now I'm down to 220. But I keep saying, well if, if you rode 60 watts and you rode 40Ks an hour and, and when you were riding 300 watts, you're riding 35Ks an hour, which would you be happier with? I would be happier with 60 watts at 40ks an hour. And that's an extreme example, which is not true. But, but that's the point I'm trying to make. The watts are important, but they're not as important as the actual average speed that you're riding at. So getting him to practice this position was, was absolutely key. And he could ride, you know, when he went outdoors he could not ride the power that he could ride indoors. And that's probably the opposite to what should happen. It's easier to ride power outdoor from all the data that we have, than it is to ride it indoor power. And, and that's because he was sitting up in the TT position. And when you go outside, you obviously go into the TT position because you know it's faster. You have the feel of it when you're indoor. It's a stereotypical non real experience where you're not getting the speed. You're only dealing with cadence, heart rate and power. And there's no wind, there's no Temperature and there's no average speed that you can. That you can think about. And there's no much. There's not much more fun than being out on your bike, on your TT bike. Whether you're on the velodrome or on a road somewhere where you look down and you're doing 40ks an hour or 38ks an hour, it's fun to go fast. You know, you don't get that feeling indoors, you don't get that feeling of fast riding.

Yeah, yeah.

And so the minute you go outside, you're happy to go in the TT position and you're happy to sacrifice a bit of power because you just know you're going fast and doesn't really matter about the power anymore. That's what I want you to think, like when you're training the whole time.

Yeah.

So, yeah. So they were really key things.

I resonate with the, with the. Almost the ego element of the indoor training. And I've. I've been victim to this myself, honestly, many times where exactly what you're describing, when you're going fast, fast outside, you don't care as much about the power. But indoors, when you don't have that feeling, it's a crappy feeling to feel like you're pressuring less power because that's the only thing you're going off indoors. And I have definitely in training sessions, kind of cracked a dummy a little bit because I'm really frustrated about the lack of power and got just sat up myself just to give myself almost a little bit of reward. But you're only cheating yourself because the power doesn't matter in that indoor training session. The power matters when you go out to the race. And so, yeah, I've definitely felt that myself sometimes where you just go, oh. Stuff is. I'm sick of. Sick of seeing this, this lower number than I'm used to, but also just touching on his running. Did you want to mention something else there?

No, no. I was just going to ask you touched on his running next?

Yeah, yeah, I think he's one. He's endurance training for the half marathon and the 70.3 really helped the 10k distance. But there's a really big lesson here that we're seeing more and more with athletes, which we think is really helpful to pass on to get more running consistency.

Yeah, for sure. Getting the long runs in and it'll help with every aspect of your running, whether you're running 5Ks, 8 hundreds and marathons. Getting the long run is one of the key things for running and it's true for swimming and it is also true for bike riding, but it is, that is the main thing for running. If you can nail your endurance, you know, consistently over years, you will be the runner you want to be. But if you do some good training sessions that are short and fast and have intensity, but you don't do that endurance, then you are really limiting yourself to getting the improvement that you so want as a runner. And it is so much fun to run better than the people around you in a triathlon when people are dying a slow death and you're not, you're running the pace that you are capable of. And sure that endurance training he had for the 70.3 at Sunny coast earlier in the season really helped him with his 10k running, but it also, what helped him was he was dealing over the period with a lot of injuries where you don't get that consistency of week in, week out, month in, month out. And years of not being injured will really help you become a better runner just because your body is able to cope with the load and therefore you can train a little bit harder because your body's not going to break down. And that's where you lose the consistency which is going to prevent you from being the runner you want to be. So, so you know, making sure that we, we dealt with his injuries and then started again where we, we had a new strategy where we, we definitely didn't want to do back to back running. We wanted to split the runs into a run a rest, a run a rest. And so only having two back to back runs in a seven day period was a real game changer for Craig. And, and yeah, he started to run the way he knows he can and some of the, the runs off the bike he was beating his fresh 5k and 10k runs. So that's how far he'd come. And that's exciting when you, when you're actually, you know, look back at your journey over one year where you can actually now run faster off the bike than you can when you were fresh when you first started.

The question you can ask yourself as a lesson is what do you need to do with your running to get more consistency? Is it change up the frequency? Is it change up the volume, does it change up the intensity? And what levers can you pull to get your running consistent? Because that is the big goal. So our last example we want to touch is actually frank and this is an interesting one because this isn't a PB and it was actually someone who didn't Race as well. And you can think, well, why is that something that you want to share? Well, we want to share all results, we don't want to just share positive things all the time. But, but the reason is he had really poor training leading into the race. And that was various factors that always happen with age groupers, you know, external life things happening. But he still managed to be only two minutes off, you know, his, his race last year. And I guess what's the lesson here? What do we want to get across?

Yeah, Frank's a great example of someone who ever since we've been coaching him has been super dedicated and it was quite strange for him to not be able to fulfill the training program that he wanted to and doesn't matter the reason there are, you know, it could be, and I can give examples, I'm not going to give examples of what his reasons are, but it could be illness, it could be injury, it could be family, it could be, you know, a holiday period, you've got long service. There could be a hundred reasons why you can't get the consistency in. And the lesson here is going to the race, understanding where your current level is. And that's what Frank's done really well. And so he was not as fit as he was the previous year when we lined up for this event. He trained the house down and his improvement was through the roof from the previous years of him doing triathlon. So the story's always been good, but this is even better for me because he understands that he's not at the same level and now he understands what level he's at. And so he's gone into the race with that plan and he's gone and executed accordingly. And he's ended up being pretty damn close to what he did last year, but principally because he understands his current form and executed according to that. And that's the lesson I want to get across.

Yeah, it's a really simple one, but yeah, with the general level of fitness and an understanding of how to execute, you can perform really well. And yeah, you might not be blowing out 8 to 10 minute PBS, but to be able to still back that up with a preparation that, you know, I use the word poor, it's a really aggressive word. I don't mean it to come across as super negative, but a preparation, like you said, that you're not, isn't what you wanted or isn't as ideal as you want, that's a great, that's a great takeaway. So look, like I said, we'd love to go through all 12 athletes in detail. We'll probably leave this case study there. We're super proud of all our athletes and, and that main part is the question we're always asking, like we said at the start is how do you run well in a triathlon? And for us to see these athletes execute so well, see so many PBS across the board, but see such great run executions even for the athletes that were sick, we're still executing really well on either equal splitting or negative splitting the run. That's what we're really proud of. So any final notes on that?

No. I hope that the message gets across that you can run the way you want to if you're prepared to take these lessons on board and be super disciplined about everything in the sport. If you let your ego dictate your competitiveness to go outside your ranges. I think that's the key lesson that we have to do in our thought process so that when we come to our next race we understand that the only way we're going to run to our potential is if we do a lot of things before we get to the run well. And that's the key lesson. And of course when you get to the run you have to still execute your race plan by starting conservatively, but you have to do a lot of things well before you get to the run to enable yourself to run well.

If you would like to learn how to run well in the triathlon or if you'd like to see any sort of improvement or pb, you can get coached by us. And we have coaching spots available. So some frequently asked questions we get are, do you coach international athletes? Yes, we are Australia based but we are totally online. So we coach everything online and all our services are online and so we coach athletes from all around the globe. At the moment that's been really exciting for us to get more and more different countries signing up for our coaching services. The next one we always get is do you coach beginner athletes? And absolutely. We don't require to be a certain level. We do get a lot of top end podium results. We coach those athletes as well. But that's not what we coach. We coach beginner, absolute beginner. And we just did a case study a couple of weeks ago you can listen to of someone brand new to triathlon training for their first 70.3 right through the top end. And, and we always say but can you help me? That's kind of a question. We get a lot and we have a guarantee that we can help you improve your FTP. In the first eight weeks. And if you don't, it's money back and money on us. That's our guarantee. So if that's what you want, go apply@trivalocoaching.com that's trivalocoaching.com you can apply to be coached and we'll have a chat to you there. Thanks as always, for listening. This has been another case study and we'll see you on the next episode. Sam.