How To Prepare For A Marathon Properly

You've got to believe and trust that you've prepared yourself as best as you can. You have the right program, believe that you can do it and have the confidence. So we talked about this in the podcast the other day. Confidence is an amazing thing.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. In this episode, we are continuing our series on preparing for an event properly. And today's focus is on the marathon. And dad, there's nothing we love more than seeing our beloved sport of running grow. And I've had more and more friends reaching out over the last couple of years who have entered a half or full marathon and are looking for guidance. And since the pandemic, it seems more and more people have taken up running. So today we're taking you through how to tackle the monster that is the marathon, how to train properly for it, how to get through the actual race, how to stay uninjured, and much, much more. So, dad, welcome back to another episode.

Thanks, Jordan. Yeah, one thing the pandemic did do was got people thinking about what things they could do when they had all this time where they weren't going to work commuting or working from home or whatever. So yeah, I think there was a bit of a running boom happened due to Covid, which if you can always find a positive out of a negative, that was one.

Totally agree. So before we get into the topic, our normal starting segment of the podcast, what are you grateful for this week?

Yep, had a bit of a think about this one and I really think it's a little bit of a weird one as normal out of left field. I've really come to realize that especially over the conversations I've had in the last month, some of them on the podcast actually, about how important the network of support that you as a human being should have and how vital it is to your well being. And I'm grateful for the ability for me to have friends and people in our immediate family that I can bounce things off, who can just be there to listen mainly, probably not giving advice, but giving me perspective maybe. And I think you have to be willing to be open and honest about your feelings and you'll get the appropriate responses. And I think the support network is vital to our everyday well being and our continued growth as human beings. And I think if you need to Think about that yourself and who is that person and whether it's your coach and I'm happy to be that person, or whether it's just someone that is your best friend or you just really need to make sure that you're not keeping things in. And I'm grateful that I've got that many people that I can get that from. And I'm really reaching out to everybody else to make that something that is important in your life. And I think it'll make a world of difference too, making you feel better about a situation that you might find yourself in that's uncomfortable or you're not happy with or you want some perspective on. So yeah, that's my gratitude.

That's unreal. And I want to talk about that a little bit more. And it kind of ties in with my own gratitude where I have just finished the last few conversations we've had on the podcast. Just so grateful that we've, we've gotten to have them. And some of our guests have just been overwhelmingly inspiring, thought provoking. Some of the things that some of our guests have said have been so profound and I'm just so grateful that we get to have these conversations. We do say this a lot, but because of the podcast we've been able to access just some really cool people and cool conversations. And it's. The interviews we've had have just been quite special, especially some of the ones over the last month, and have really changed the way I've looked at training, training balance with life, life in general. We had Kel O' Brien just on and he's a young 24 year old who speaks like a 70 year old. And just his perspective was just so awesome to hear and so refreshing and really grateful for the vulnerability that people have to come on our show. And, and we don't know these people. You know, we, we meet them, we have a conversation before the podcast, we get to know each other a little bit and then they're so willing to share their stories on our platform with an audience. So I'm just super grateful for that.

I couldn't agree more. And I just want to add one more thing. I just think I've noticed my generation growing up, it wasn't a thing to say how you felt. It was almost showing your weakness. And I'm just so impressed with the next generation's ability to be willing to just talk about their feelings. And that's quite foreign to our generation. And I just find it so refreshing. And you're right, I've been really Highlighted from our podcasting with Jimmy Wheel and with Kel o' Brien with Lachlan Morton. Just guys who are incredible to talk to because they're willing to be vulnerable and talk about how good and bad they're feeling and being honest and open. And I just think. I think it's just helpful for your everyday well being.

We haven't actually, we've spoken about this a little bit because we do. Our conversations just in general, we do talk about gratitude and these kind of things off air, not just on air, but my, my memory growing up. And I don't know if this is just because we're. We were kids and you were the parent, but our level of conversation has definitely shifted from when you're a kid and you're the dad and you set the rules to what it is now. But do you think that's a product of the whole kind of world changing? And do you notice that across all generations, or do you think it's just because this is what the younger generation kind of does? What are your thoughts on that?

That's a good question. I think as a parent, you want to give your children boundaries, so it's harder to be as open to each other. And I think I struggled with that a bit as a parent, being too harsh and. But wanting to make sure that you knew where the boundaries were. And I laughed a lot. Your mum and I laughed a lot at how the boundaries were getting pushed and how we were being challenged by you guys. And I definitely learned that, that if I could be vulnerable to you, you responded in a better way. And I would always say to you, as an example, we were going, I was taking you to a party and I would say to you, and I did this with your older brother, lan, to start with. I'd say, tonight there's going to be alcohol. It's going to be having a fun time. I hope you have a fun time. You can do what I did and drink too much and make a fool of yourself, or you can just drink enough and enjoy yourself and have a good time. You choose which one you want. And I was just trying to give you perspective because I'd made those mistakes myself and regretted being, you know, acting silly and under the influence of alcohol when I shouldn't have been doing things that were really, I regretted, you know, they weren't major catastrophes, but, you know, stupid things. And I, rather than telling you not to drink as a. As a dictatorship, I wanted to reason with you as to the experiences I'd had to make you Think about the choices you were going to make and the consequences. That worked so much better than when I first started with Liam was I don't want you to drink. And I think I learned that changing my ways of communication. You all responded so much better.

That's an interesting take. And I think you've used the words different generation and you're impressed with the generation of young athletes and you see it in the footy world as well. You know, there's a lot of footy podcasts out now where a lot of AFL players are coming on and talking with vulnerability, which you wouldn't see from footy players in the, I guess, 80s or 90s. And that's a really good point. I didn't want to dive into that too much. It's not a family therapy session. But I was definitely very, very interested. Moving on to our next segment, and in terms of what has caught our attention in the world of triathlon cycling or running, dad, what's caught your eye?

Well, there's a lot to catch the eye at the moment, Jordan. It is the, I don't know, maybe there's, there's three or four peak periods during a year in sport and, and we happen to be focusing on cycling at the moment. You know, we had the World Cross Country Championships recently and you know, there's, there's just so much stuff happening, you know, when it's an Olympic year or is it Commonwealth Games year? You know, when the Tour de France is on, when the Giro's on the welter and the World Championships are running and there's just so much happening. But right now we are in the preparation for the big season, the summer season in Europe, which is the Giro, the Tour de France and the, and the welter and the World Road Championships. They're the four kind of key things. It's not an Olympic year, so, you know, as we've talked about in the last couple of weeks, the Spring Classics. And so we've got two groups of people training for the Spring Classics and the other group are training for the Giro. So we've got the stage races happening, such as the Torino Adriatica, the Paris Nice and now the Volta Catalunya is in Spain, which is an epic race. I just love this race. They couldn't make it any harder if they tried.

It's basically just seven days of climbing.

Well, actually stage, I think last night.

Stage was a sprint stage, but stage.

Four was it last night stage four and it was a sprint stage, which. Kelvin Grove one, which is good for the Aussies and New Zealand, they got third. So first and third and that's back down. That's about the only chance they've got of getting a sprint. So. So what I want to say about what's caught my attention on the Volta is the Remco Roglich Challenge. Remco Evanopole. And Roglich, he's in, he's in the latest jersey. It's halfway through. So by the time this podcast comes out, it'll be all done and we'll be able to see who, who is winning and who is losing. Interestingly, Remco won ST3.

Yeah.

And he threw his arms up in the air and it was a real well deserved victory because stage two, he got rolled on the line by Roglic and the other guy, I've forgotten his.

Name and same as stage one.

Yes. Anyway, it turns out that he had a two second gap on Roglic at the, at the end of that mountain stage, but he sat up with his hands in the air. Had he kept driving it through to the finish line, he would have in jersey. And I thought, the thought crossed my mind was maybe he's not worried about winning this Tour, but I doubt that very much. I think he would be wanting to win every race he goes into. Of course he won the stage, but it just, you know, even the pros, I think, I think he made a mistake. I think he needed to think about the overall race and not just the here and now and drive it to the line. He only needed one more second because guess what, they're on the same time. And because Roglic, there's one, two stages better than him, he's got more, more finishing places ahead of him, gets the jersey. So, yeah, you know, just minor stuff like that. I think if he had his time again, he would drive it to the line, then put his hand up and.

Yeah, I still can't figure out Remco's personality because he just, he's just an animal. And you can just tell that he, he doesn't want anything else but to win. And when Roglich beat him in stage one, he was filthy, he was smashing his bike, slammed his hands on the handlebars and he was so. So it was almost like an angry celebration. When he won stage three, he just sat up and he just went kind of, yes, like, I'm the best. It's almost like he, it's almost like he feels like he deserves to win, or not even deserves, but he should win. That's the result that should happen. And if anything else other than that happens, he won't have a bar of it. And I almost feel like that was part of his celebration, was he knew he'd won it. He didn't. Almost like he forgot about the seven stage race and just said, yes, I'm the best today. I can't figure out his personality. I love him. He's just an animal of a rider. He's amazing to watch. He could be the greatest rider of all time in the over the next 10 years, but can't figure him out.

Well, what a battle. I mean, you know, Pugach is not even there.

Yeah.

You know, there's so many good riders. We've got.

Well, we've spoken. We've spoken a lot about form, and we're going to keep speaking about it all the way to the Giro, because these guys are six weeks out. Who's writing well now? Who's going to be riding well in six weeks? Because this, this, the vault of Catalonia is stacked with every Giro rider. It's as you're saying, Rebco, Roglich, Carapaz Chavez, Thomas, Grant Thomas, Adam Yates, Mikel Lander. There's even more that I'm forgetting. But Roman Bardet, it's absolutely stacked with some of the best climbers. And so it's amazing to watch. You know, Carabaz is getting spat out the back. Geraint Thomas is absolutely hiding, and he actually just put a tweet out today with a picture of him in the bunch saying, you will not see me out of here for this race. But he did say, but I've got a longer term vision. So that's him indicating that this isn't his race to be absolutely shining. But it's fascinating to watch unfold.

Yeah. And you know, we have talked about form and it is a hard thing to hold. And Remco is in unbelievable form. Or is this just his normal? Because his form can be better by the time the Giro comes. I'm just unsure because he's sitting on the front driving it and Roglic is getting a free ride. And all the commentators are telling us how the tactics are really poor from Remco, but, you know, he's got that ability and he could be using this as a training session to build his form by sitting on the front. And sure, you said earlier, you know, click, he wants to win. So there's a hard, There's a compromise going on here. I want to win, but I still want to get the training session out of it. Because you could Sit in and just snipe the victory, which is, you know, which is absolutely okay. But you've got a big goal as well. The Volta Catalini is not. Not the Giro.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and so we don't know what. What the underlining thing that's going on with their. With their training and preparations, but it's really riveting to watch because for someone to sit on the front and then still sprint and R. That takes some form to do that against the best riders in the world.

Yeah, it's. It's awesome because. And that's what makes these races so interesting. One, they're great races. But two, this is awesome for any age grouper or athlete. That. Where that is our audience to think about is this is their B race, this is their C race, it's not their A race. So how do they tackle it? And Remco, in that Stage three victory, probably had what you'd think is the wrong tactics. Where it was, him and Roglic were away. Roglich was. Remco was definitely stronger. Rocklace was just hanging on to him, and Remco just did basically the entire pool for the last 12 or 15k or whatever it was. And in a race where it's your A race, he probably wouldn't do that because he probably needed smarter tactics to conserve himself and not let Roglich get a free ride to the end. But maybe because it's B race, he's doing exactly what you're saying. He's just doing a 12 or 15k effort, like he needs to be able to do in the Giro, doesn't care if Rockledge is on his wheel or not. I mean, again, we don't know because we don't have the inside access to their exact tactics. But it's fascinating to watch knowing that this is their B race and it could be a training session for them, but also it's a professional race and they do want to win. And. Yeah, it's. It's this funny balance, isn't it?

Yeah. And. And tactics. You know, you've got form plus tactics. Form's just not the only thing that's going to get you to win. Look at Vinegard and Pogacha. You know, we could say that Vinegar won because Poga employed poor tactics at the Tour de France last year. Both. The form. Form of both riders was at their peak, but the tactics of Vinegar were substantially better on certain stages. And, you know, and things that Pogachar did early in stages could have affected him down the track, which was funnily enough, what we said when we were doing our podcast in the middle of the tour. We were going, well, I don't know what he did there was a really good idea, maybe it's going to come and bite him again later on. And those we couldn't have been more exact with that. But form is one thing and then your ability to read the race is so important. And yeah, it's an intriguing period of sport going on at the moment.

Yeah, absolutely loving it. What's caught my attention is last year I said my performance, my standout performance of the year. Without a doubt, the number one performance was Sydney McLaughlin in the hurdles at the world champs. Broke the world record. First woman to go under 51 seconds for the 400 meter hurdles. And I just love this event. 400 minute hurdles is just epic. Her, her performance was so good. I spoke about this last year where the top three women in that race are the greatest three 400 meter women hurdlers of all time. They've all been running the fastest times of all time. It's unfortunate for second and third, which is Jalala Muhammad and Femke bowl, that they're competing against Sydney McLachlan because without her there they would be running two of the fastest times ever. But she has just dominated. And in this race she beat them by 1012 meters a second or just over a second in just a dominating performance. And that you just can't, I can't understate that enough how these are the three best runners the 400 meter hurdles have ever had. And she was that far clear of Femke and Delilah. But what caught my attention was World Athletics just released a video of her re watching the race for the first time in, in six months or whatever. And she's reacting to how the race unfolded and she's commentating on what she was thinking throughout the entire thing. And she talks about how she hits the last hundred and she's starting to stumble and she is so far clear of everyone but. And she, she runs with such perfect form. She looks like she's gliding, but in her head she's saying don't fall, don't fall. Because she's, her legs are that heavy, she feels like she's going to fall over. She said she only just made it over the last two hurdles. She really thought she might hit them. And the last 40 meters she just thought any step now she's going to fall over because her legs are so heavy. And she broke the world record. One of the Most incredible times it was 50.68 and then she lays on the ground for 10 minutes and she said everyone was wondering why I didn't do a lap of honor or something. She said, I couldn't move. I had lactic in every single cell of my body. And she said, honestly, looking back, I'm really proud of it. But she said, it also terrifies me because I just, I'm really scared of going through that pain again because that was just the hardest race I've ever done. And that was such an eye opener to me that, you know, that's what you think about these professional athletes. A lot of people looked at her and just said, you know, she's unbeatable, she's just so dominant, it's easy for her. Whereas in her head it was the most painful and hard race she's ever done and she's literally scared to give it a go. She hasn't done a, a big A race since then that she's obviously had an off season now building up again for this season. But to hear her kind of say that was kind of refreshing, to be honest, because we've spoken a lot about on the podcast about anxiety before a race and stress before a race and a lot of that comes from focusing on what kind of outcome you're going to get. And, but I definitely resonate with what Sidney said in that sometimes the nerves come from going, I know how much this is going to hurt and that's kind of scary, you know, and so it's, it's a good thing to be aware of and it's a good thing to work on it yourself and go, all right, I know it's going to hurt, but I'm willing and ready to go up for this battle and you really have to psych yourself up. And it's this arousal scale of going, this is going to be a tough day. And whether it's a, it's a 400 meter hurdle event or a marathon, you're going to, I'm about to go to war with this event and yeah, I've got to be ready for this. And no doubt that when she comes to her next a race, she'll be ready for it. But for now, when she's sitting in the comfort of her lounge room watching this race, it's uncomfortable feeling to think about, but I just thought that was fascinating.

Yeah, a really good point. It made me think of Kathy Freeman in 2,400 meter. Not the hurdles, but the 400 metre flat. And obviously when she finished that race it was interesting watching her body language. I still remember 23 years ago, I expected her to be over the moon, and she was maybe five or ten minutes later, but it looked to me like relief was the first feeling that she was having, and exhaustion, the two things that you've just talked about there. The weight of expectation she had on her would have been incredible. You know, people expecting her to, to do what she did, and I think those people who are the favorites all the time have that. And that would be a hard burden to carry, I reckon, because people are expecting you to perform. You know, thinking about Pogachar and Roglich and those guys as cyclists, you know, the expectation is they perform and if they have a bad day, everybody's going, what's wrong? What happened? What's wrong with you? And that's hard to deal with in itself. And, you know, if you start breaking world records like Sydney McLachlan has, and over the years as runners, you know, we look at Inger Britzen, you know, every time he races, the expectation is that he wins. And that's not easy, you know, and so therefore you have to be very careful about how much you can cope with and what races you should be doing. And at the same time, you don't want to be limited by weight of expectation. So therefore, I think it comes back to what we've been talking about in a podcast a lot is your love of your sport will override all of that. And if you just love racing, training, competing, you shouldn't give a shit about expectation. And if you have a bad day and there's a few athletes who are good at this, and I think Roglic is quite good at it because there's some races he's had such crap luck and some of it's his poor bike handling skills or whatever, but he's had so many races where he's crashing and chasing and, and he still smiles and, and doesn't blame anybody. And, you know, and his expectation is that he should win all the time and. But, but he's got a great attitude that I just love doing this and some days I'll win and some days I won't. Sagan was brilliant at this, absolutely brilliant at it. Anybody who's won three back to back world titles as a cyclist, you've got to have a pretty good personality.

Good.

Mindset, and, and he just loved riding his bike. And so I think, I think that one of the things I'm learning over my journey in interviewing people and watching sport, rather than being at the top end of it now is, is how the love of the. Whatever you're doing is almost the winning formula. You can, you can have a great program and, and that, you know, obviously that's going to contribute enormously to, to how you perform and your form of the day. But, but your act about, I don't care what happens today, I just love what I'm doing. I'm so grateful that I'm a part of this. And I just think that's the thing that'll get you further than. And so that example you just gave, then you realize how hard the actual event is when you hear someone say that. But when you look at it, it looks like they're doing it so fluently, so easily. And that's what's the mark of a good athlete, is that they make it look easy. You know, you look at Djokovic serve or any sport you're looking at, you just see them do it so fluently, you know, effortlessly. Inger Britzen, when he's just attacks, you know he's hurting, everybody forgets that it's hard. When Pogajar attacks the group on the last climb, it looks like he could do that. But you go on a climb and try and do that with your mates, you know, it takes all of your mind and physical attributes to push the pedals for 10 seconds harder, you know. So, yeah, it's a great example of what's caught your attention, but there's a lot to learn from the mindset, for sure.

Totally agree. Let's get into the topic that everyone wants to hear for this episode, and that's how to prepare for a marathon properly. And I want you, dad, to start off by describing just what the marathon event is and, and what makes up the marathon and what makes it so tough.

The history of marathon is ironic, obviously, because, you know, the true meaning of the marathon was the Greek runner sending a message which happened to be 26 miles. His message had to be sent. And so that was how the marathon started. So I think the irony of that is the pressure of that message to get to the finish or get his message delivered as fast as he could. And that's kind of what a marathon is. You're trying to get from start to finish as fast as you can, but because it's got such endurance in it, it's hard to. You just want to give your best right from the start, but unless you pace it, you're going to be destroyed. You're not going to get the outcome you want. You're going to be slower than you want. So the marathon is the most unique event where pacing is key and if you that up, the whole race is, is destroyed and it's absolute suicide to do anything other than that. And we've said many times the shorter the event, the less, the less the hardship or the pain you're going to endure. The longer the event you muck it up. And that pain and hardship you're going to endure is ingrained in your brain because you're out there enduring that pain that you've mucked up. And my description is you, you, you have to respect this more than anything that you ever do. And, and you know, whether it was 50K or 41 or 47 wouldn't matter. It's, it's just that it is 42.2 and, and it is, it is a distance and a time that, you know, we've got, obviously we've got someone doing it in two hours and we've got the majority of people doing it in 3 hours 30. So we've got a huge range of time spent out there. And all the guys who do it in 2 hours, 2 hours 10, 2 hours 20, whenever you ask them, they go, I don't know if I could run for 3 hours 30. I take my hat off to the person who's doing that.

So that up to five hours plus.

Yeah. And that kind of puts it in perspective, doesn't it? The marathon is just one of those unique events that is, is so tough and you can get it wrong so easily. And, and yet to get it right just takes some really simple good planning and preparation.

So before we dive into what specifically you need to do, what is your experience personally of the marathon being able to get your time down to 2:31 or 2:32 for a PB, what was your experience training and racing and getting through the mental toughness that it requires?

I don't know if I've ever told you this story, but I'm going to tell it on air now. And I'm not proud of this one, but I was a reasonably good runner growing up as a middle distance runner and I kind of liked the endurance sport, but I still loved as a junior running 800 and 1500 meters. But the marathon always attracted me and I couldn't wait to do it. But my dad always said you need to be a lot older and a lot more mature to be able to withstand the load that marathon requires. And I'm so happy that that was the advice I got by the time I got to Run a marathon. I'd run so many 10ks 5ks half marathons and not really done the correct marathon training but I was so fit for half marathon I just presumed wrongly that it would transfer across the marathon. And a couple of things on the day that went against me which really didn't help. But I think I was on track to run a reasonably good first, I think I did seven or eight marathons in a triathlon and I did. After my triathlon career was over I decided to have a crack at marathon running properly. And so I had a 3 year plan to try and run around 2 30s. If I could run sub 230 that would be my goal. Anyway on that journey I'd done I think a preparation run a half marathon. And I remember we were at Ngunnawning swimming pool. The race had finished there and I was with a few mates and we'd all done the half marathon together and you know, I think I ran a 1:12 and I was on track for, you know, I just wanted to run my first run. It's 2:48. I want to run 4 minute K pace. That was my plan and it was my first marathon so I didn't want to, you know, I had two years to two or three years to get down to where I wanted to and I had a really good idea of what I was capable of doing and saying to the guys in the pool if I can't run under three hours with that half marathon I've just done, I'm giving up running. And they all laughed. I thought of course you will, you know, you just run a 112 that equates to basically a 244 or 245. Anyway, I was on track for 4 minute k pace and the, the event I chose was the Frankston to Melbourne local race here in Victoria. And unfortunately some days you have a northerly so it's a headwind, the whole 42.2k it's One Direction so brutal from point A to point B is not out and back. So it's very annoying if you've got a headwind and great if you get a typical Melbourne forecast which is a southwesterly which is basically a tailwind the whole way. But this time here it is, it's a headwind northerly and so tactical Running in the pack was really important to try and hide getting a draft. Etc I'm taking too long with this. Sorry but, but anyway I got to, I think it was 36k and I had a group of my Mates who weren't runners. And they had set up a card table and Eskys and they were just watching the race at Elwood, just near Luna park, for those of you who know it. And they had an Esky with ice and their beers and stuff and, and they would, they saw me coming and they were jumping up and down. It was, it was actually pretty inspiring coming up to them. And it was really hot that day. And as I came up to them, I was totally on target. I only had 6K to go and I should have run that in 24 minutes. And I, I would achieve my 248. I was probably at 247 pace. And they picked up their ice bucket and chucked it over the top of my head and drenched me with cold iced water. And in the next 2km I had full body cramp to, to a point where I couldn't actually move. And I was stationary and, and I did everything I could to keep walking. And it wasn't my poor pacing, it wasn't my nutrition. I probably hadn't done quite enough long endurance runs, but I was pretty well on target for what I wanted to do. But just the change in my body temperature from going from a really warm body temperature to totally immersed in ice was too much of a shock. And I got cramped. And as you know, we get cramp in our family at the drop of a hat. So any changes in body temperature are going to do that. Plus when you've done already, you know, two hours 30 of running. And it took all of my mental resilience to get to the finish line. I'm not joking. I basically took from that point, I think it was another 38 minutes to get to the finish line. I could see the clock 2 hours 58, 2 hours 59, and I still wasn't within 100 meters. And it went 3 hours and I finished in 3 hours and 15 seconds. And that sentence I said at Ngunnawading Pool about if I can't break three hours for the marathon. Haunted, you came back to. And you know, that's kind of what a marathon, you know, program. You're going to have good, bad and indifferent results on your preparation. And my experience was that that was an unbelievably good thing to happen because it gave me respect for the event. And I thought about my training, I thought about the ice getting thrown on me, my strategy, my execution. All those things come into doubt and I had to work through them all. And clearly looking back, I decided that it was the Change of temperature in my body that caused me that problem. And I was doing a lot of other things quite well. And then my next marathon I did, I was no problems with sub 240. And then the next time I did.

It.

The program went well and I ended up doing the low 230s, which is, which is what I wanted to do. So, so I wanted to tell that story because it is a journey and it takes layer upon layer of experiences to get the right outcome. And as we said, those are, those preparation years were my B races, my C races, my for the big day. And of course I did the same event, Frankston to Melbourne, all three years. And all three years we had a headwind. And the course doesn't do that anymore. It doesn't go from Frankston to Melbourne. It starts in, it starts and finishes basically at the mcg, which is a much more pleasant way to do it. And it sort of snakes its way around the suburbs of Melbourne. So it's got lots of headwind, tailwind, crosswind. So it's a different type of race now. So looking back, you know, that time I did into a headwind, it was probably like a 226 or 227, but I just got over 230. But I was so satisfied with everything that went, went along with the journey and it was a great feeling to, you know, I wasn't, I was, I don't know, 16th in the race or 20th in the round. I don't know where I was some in the top 20 somewhere. But the standard of that race is not like an international race. We might have one or two good runners. I think Bill Shorten's come and done it 210 or 212. And a lot of local good runners have done two eights and two tens and two twelves. But it's not two fours, two twos type of runner. So, you know, the position was irrelevant to me. It was all about the performance. And, and yeah, I've had, I've had really good experience at having a crack at that and really enjoyed that period away from triathlon. But it certainly taught me a lot about making sure that you do the right preparation over the right time to get yourself into the position you want to be in.

And I guess that really, that entire story leads into the first principle of a marathon training plan. And that is your goal for the race depicts your training plan because if you're a runner like yourself, you might have set a one to three year plan of doing multiple marathons to get your time down because you have a lot to learn. Whereas some people want to tick it off as a bucket list item, so they're only doing one. And if they make mistakes on that one, it's bad luck. That's the one they want to do. So talk us through that. This first principle of when someone says, oh, I'm doing a marathon, how do I prepare? And the first question you ask is, well, what's the goal for the marathon?

Yeah. And the second question I use is, how long have you been doing it? What's your history? And then I can say, well, this goal that you've selected, once I understand your ability and your history of running, I can say that goal's spot on for you or that goal is nowhere near your ability. You've got no chance, you need, you've got no chance for that date. You need more time. So I'll never say you've got no chance, full stop. I would always say you've got no chance for that particular date. It's too soon. You don't have enough time for that. You need to, you need to rethink your goal race day to another, to another date and give yourself more opportunity. So I think that's the key is your training plan will only be able to help you for your current form. If your current form is six months of running, then that's got limited ability because your aerobic capacity takes years. And if you want to improve that significantly, then you just need to give yourself the right time. So I think that's the key thing. So you're right. Your actual race goal in terms of how close it is and the time you want to do is totally related to your history as a runner and the aerobic fitness that you bring to the table right now.

That is the typical travelo conservative answer, which we love. But also what gives an amateur runner or a new runner that wants to do a marathon, or new ish runner wants to do a marathon, a lot of hope is the principle of diminishing returns. Meaning you will get the greatest improvement at that when you're newer to the sport. And so a lot of runners will find that if they could do a six month running program, you know, 24 weeks long, with proper progression, not too much overload to the point where their body's breaking down, they will feel like a different person at the end of the 24 weeks, you will feel so much fitter than you've ever felt in your life. And that's really exciting. That's a really cool Part of, of a proper training plan if you give yourself enough time.

Yep. And we've got to remember that as you said earlier when you posed the question, it could just be a one off thing. We hope that it's not. My desire is that once people fall in love, and you've heard this already in this podcast, once you love what you're doing, I want you to make it your lifelong journey is to keep doing these things. And I don't mean just keep doing the same race, I just mean keep running or keep riding or keep triathloning or keep swimming. Whatever your passion is, just don't make it a one goal thing. Make it part of your everyday life and it will help you in all sorts of things in your work life and your family life. We talked about that. But certainly I think that if you're just going to pick one event, one box ticking event like a marathon, you know you can do it. Whether you could run 42.2 K, whether you had four weeks training or whether you had six months or six years, that's the answer you can get there. But it's the level of the experience that is going to either. If you give yourself four weeks to do a marathon, you're going to have a lot of pain in that day. Right from the start. You might get away with 5K as being comfortable, but for the next 36, you're going to be very uncomfortable, but you'll get there. So I want to make that clear. We're just trying to give you the best outcome with the right structure to enable you to enjoy the thing. Because I think in life, if you do something that's unenjoyable, you are highly unlikely to go back and revisit.

It's funny because it's just always an answer that people don't expect. They say, oh, just give me a training plan. Don't talk about all this crap about loving the event, respecting the event and understanding what your goals are. Like just, just tell me what to do. And we're saying, oh no, that's, that's just totally the wrong way to go about it. And if you've decided to do the marathon, these are the things that you have to understand about the event. These are the things you have to understand about this challenge that you're about to undertake. And I guess I want you to keep going down that path of what are the requirements of the race that you want people to understand?

Yeah, well, the first one is you need the time to do the training. And I don't Mean general, I mean the training session that's key, which is your endurance preparation. So you've got to allow in your weekly schedule that you would possibly be running at some point in that training plan up to close to the time it's going to take you for the event. So if you're going to do five hours for the marathon, then you need to be prepared that at some point you're going to be running close to that time. I don't mean the distance, I mean close to that time when you go out for your training run. And that's not what you do in week one. For those who have listened to the program, that's very obvious. For those who've never listened to the program, progressive overload is our key thing, which is start slow and build. And so if you're thinking that five hours is your time that you're aiming for, or three hours 30 or two hours 40, then you need to be training at some point towards the end of your program at that training time. So starting off at, you know, an hour and a half might be the longest you've ever run. And by the time, if you're a 3 hour 30 runner, by the time you get to marathon day, you will have run somewhere around 3 hours, 3 hours 20 somewhere in that training session. So that is the key requirement that you need to have in your mind before you start the program. And the other sessions are basically just continuing to keep the consistency going in your running so that you're, you're building an aerobic capacity to absorb the load. But the key session is the endurance run and everything around that is contributing to recovering from that and then getting ready for it.

And how long is too long for that run? Let's say you're predicted to run between four and five hours. Are you realistically asking someone to get to the point where they run for four hours on a Saturday or Sunday as a training run?

It's a great question because when I'm coaching people to ultra 100ks or further, when I say to them that, you know, if you're going to take 12 hours for that event, we need to be doing some days where we're actually out there for eight hours and I just get silence on the other side of the, of the phone and oh yeah, and, and you know, that sounds easy to roll off your tongue but, but that the run can be broken up into many ways. We can do a split run where we might do, you know, two or three hour run in the morning and then the afternoon when You've only had really small time of recovery. You might build up in the afternoon to an hour and a half, to two hours. So already you've got five hour, six hour run in one day. And then, you know, once or twice in that buildup in that six month period, you might do a day where you do six or seven or eight hours where you're walk running, you might be in the mountains somewhere where you're on trails where you can't actually run and you're, you know, climbing up steep slopes where you have to walk. So it's more like an excursion than a training session really because we're just not running fast, we're just out there for time on our feet that's going to replicate the event.

And I do see sometimes a lot of the time programs do depict these endurance runs on firstly on distance instead of time. And could you explain why that's a mistake?

Yeah. Because if you took the marathon as an example, when you get to your peak form, you're going to run X pace in training because we don't want to have such fatigue build up. Remember what happens after the marathon. You are exhausted because you've run at your peak pace for 42k and you've built your form up, you've tapered and this is a one off event and it takes you probably a week or two or three to really recover from. So if we were to say to everybody, we want you to run 42k on your long run or 36 or 30 at your race pace, then you would take so long to recover, you wouldn't train. So we're just going to get the body used to the time factor first, the time of the event that you're going to take and don't have the intensity as a factor. So remember, we always talk about frequency of training, duration of training and intensity of training. So the frequency is the key. So if you train too hard, then you're going to lose the frequency, which is consistency of, of lining up each day for a session. So we've got to cut the intensity down for our endurance run so that we can back up again week in, week out, so that we can get the right amount of load into our body, come to our race day. So the minute you try and run those long runs too hard, you're going to need more time to recover, which means it's going to cut into your frequency which is the key to all programs. So the minute you drop your frequency of training, which is consistency, which is lining up day after day and having a day off here or there or recovery day here and there in your program that it's going to get you to race day 10% better than you would be if you had not trained so hard. In those endurance runs. We can get the intensity from other areas but it's, that's not the day we want to do it. But you know, in some of the endurance runs over the six months we would ask you to do, you know, your own half marathon at race pace or your own 30k at race pace, or your own 36k at race pace as a test. But that's not a week in, week out thing. That's something that happens every four to six weeks in your program.

And I guess you're not also really has to say that you're not trying to get to the point where you're running. Let's say you're going to be a four hour runner. You build up to that four hour mark, you're not going to do that for a month straight. You're not going to build up to that four hour mark and then do four weeks in a row, four hours. It's probably once you get to that longest distance of what you're going to run for your endurance run, that's probably a one off. That's once you get there. Is that right?

Yeah, that's exactly right. And that for me generally should be six weeks out from your main event. You should be doing your longest time run six weeks out and then from that lead in you've basically got five more weeks and one of the weeks is the race. So you've only got four weekends from six weeks out. You've got the six week out run, four weeks of training and then the race. So you've got four weeks where you're totally reducing the duration and then slightly increasing the intensity so you start to run less distance and then you start to pick up that six week race ready period we call it, it where you're starting to replicate the paces for shorter times that you're going to run on race day. And I think that's the key.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that, that immediately leads us to the progression question, which is how long should the program go for and how quick is too quick to progress through your long run? Because the point you just made there is you want to be getting to that goal length of your longest endurance run, six weeks out. So if you work backwards from whatever that goal run is, again using the four hour example to where you are now maybe your longest Run ever is an hour. You need to be able to, week by week, build up from an hour to four hours and finish there six weeks out. So you need to allow enough time for that build. And let's say you increase 10 or 15 minutes per week in terms of your long run, which is a general progression, 15 minutes, maybe pushing it, depending on the person, that's going to take you 18 weeks worth potentially of progression to get to that point six weeks out. So that's kind of giving you a timeframe, working backwards, of how fast you should be progressing.

Yeah, you're almost answering your own question. But the bottom line is the longer time you give yourself, the more opportunity you have to progress slower. And the rushed progression risks injury. And if you want to take shortcuts, you know what's going to happen. Your risk factor goes up exponentially. You are going to, you know, run the gauntlet of possibly over training, over straining. And then what happens? Frequency, which is consistency, disappears and you're worse off come race day. So, so, yes, the answer, the simple answer is give yourself more time than you think. It's never too late. As I said earlier, you know, six weeks out for that, for that particular style of preparation. If you've only given yourself 12 weeks, well, you know, that doesn't give you much time, but you can still do it. And, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say, well, that's not, that's not achievable. You know, you can run a marathon in, you know, if you had to with two weeks training, you know, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're being sensible.

This is just what's ideal. And you could almost look at what's ideal and then what's what you actually have now, because you might go, oh, crap, I signed up for this marathon 16 weeks away, and now they're telling me I need minimum 24 weeks. Well, now you have to decide, okay, where can I try and meet in the middle here? Where can I look for ideal but realize I don't have enough time? So try and find that medium patch. One point I would like to make is I have seen a lot of programs where they do progress people quite quickly in terms of total volume per week. And so you have to look at the amount of KS you're running per week. And people might start at 25 KS. Then it's quickly 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, up to 90. I just look at any beginner runner trying to run over 60 km a week, week Consecutively.

You know.

We train full time as runners, as triathletes, and in our coaching group, in my own example, stringing together consecutive 60, 60 kilometer plus weeks is really tough. And my body takes a long time to adjust to that. And I've been running for 28 years, you know. And so for a beginner runner to expect their body to be able to cope with that is asking a lot. So you have to be really aware of that. And I don't like seeing a program that progresses that fast and expects 8 a novice runner to be able to do 60k this week, 70k the week after, 80k the week after that, because they're trying to get that volume in. I just don't think that's safe.

Well, that was the next point that I was going to raise is the program going forward is always dependent on what you've done previous. And so what you've done previous is you've been a runner for four weeks previously or you've been a runner for 40 years, or you've been somewhere in between four years, four weeks and 40 years. So that will determine how quickly you can progress. If you've been a runner all your life and you come onto a program like this, you would only need probably sometimes the minimum of eight weeks because you've already been doing the volume required and you've got the necessary aerobic fitness. That's, that would. All you need is some fine tuning from someone who knows what they're doing and you've got your race ready, period, to get yourself to the goal you want to do. And that's a classic example of people who want to join the program and they're already runners. But the person you're isolating there is the new person, the novice. And there's not a lot of people in that position who would try to do a marathon straight away. So we're talking about a very minor group of people. And so the majority of athletes out there who are runners, you are coming to the table already quite well prepared. Your pre season's been done, whether it's three years or 10 years of running running or, or a year's worth of running, you're still ahead of the person who's a novice. So, so the novice, their, their aim should be a 5k park run. You know, that's, that's how conservative we are. And then you Progress to a 10K and a half marathon. And then if you're still in love with, with running, then your big goal is the, is the marathon down the track. So, you know, being sensible and, and, and making these goals around the bar at the pub is great to do, but you know, just because the other six guys have said, yeah, I'm going to do a marathon and it's in six weeks time, that's probably not the right outcome for you if you haven't been running at all. And so that's kind of what we're trying to, we're trying to differentiate between all sorts of abilities and levels and historic relevance is the key to the answers that you're asking.

And I want to bring it back to frequency now because you spoke about all the sessions around that endurance run and the rest of the week is quite important to get right. And so we've had many athletes aim for that elusive sub 3 hour mark. So I want you to give an example of how often they were training, what their frequency was like, versus some athletes who are somewhere between that 3 hour and 3 hour 30 mark, who maybe didn't have time or weren't as experienced to train as frequently, but they could still get away with three to four sessions a week. So talk us through the frequency side.

Yep. And don't forget the people in the world who have run under three hours I think is less than 5% of all marathon runners. So we're talking again, a really small amount of people and if they can run, you know, 4:15 pace, I think is what gets you under three hours, 4:12, I think it might be. I should know that because we had Daniel Byrne Do 3 hours and 30 seconds, 3 hours and 20 seconds and then 2 hours and 58, 2 hours 58 minutes. So I know that 4:12 or 4:13 is the pace you need to run for breaking three hours. So, so that that group of people, they are probably already running five out of seven days minimum. And that's why as a, as a professional cyclist or a professional runner, you've got this huge aerobic base that enables you to knock out 60 to 100k a week, or as a bike rider, 400 to 600k a week or 20 to 30 hours because your body is totally adjusted to that load. So if you're someone who's a 3 hour 30 runner, you probably still might be in that category that you've been able to run consistently five days a week. And someone who's not done any of that and is a four hour runner, they would probably struggle with three to four sessions per week. And therefore you need to be very clever. And the obvious answer which is cross training. So getting yourself to do some stuff where if you can possibly swim or jump on a bike and do some easy riding, and it has to be all easy, where you're not trashing your legs because we're trying to get off our legs. That's why swimming's such a good thing to do. You're still getting some cardio, still breathing with your head in the water, you're still blood flowing around. What are we trying to do on our recovery days? We're trying to repair the damaged muscles from our running. And the best way to do that is just to get light blood flow. And we know blood carries oxygen, which repairs working and damaged muscles. So we want to continue that, that happening. Going for a walk is easily as good a thing to do as long as you've got some movement where there's a little bit of blood flow above sitting still. So it's important that five, five sessions is kind of the optimum, I think, over the journey from everybody that I've had go through the program and my own running. And even then I didn't run seven days a week. I was doing other sessions and making sure that I wasn't running myself into the ground. By just running seven days a week, six months at a time and having a day off here and there from running, the more recovery you can do. And you know this yourself, you are a better athlete when you're fresher, but you still need to get your body used to load. And that's what training is preparing you for the load that's going to happen on race day day. And you know, there's a fine line between doing way too much and doing enough to get you to the result you want. And each person is going to react differently. And that's the hard part from a coaching point of view, because one program doesn't fit everybody. You know, the, the five sessions that I give you, I might have to adjust the intensity of those. The five sessions are clear. You know, some tempo, some, some recovery, some endurance, some strength and some race like pace. They're basically the five sessions. But, but the, you know, the intensity of all of those sessions might need to be adjusted if you're not coping.

Can you give us an example snapshot of a training week of potentially just a quick example of, you know, what those sessions actually mean? You know, what is a tempo erase like session interval session recovery or steady state session? What do they all specifically mean and how do they fit into a week?

Yep. So it's just, let's just concentrate on marathon training for this so, so our endurance run for a start, we've, we've probably talked about that a lot, covered that. So it's all the strength work in the hills, running to time and making sure that you're not running too hard and you're keeping yourself as much as you can in Zone 2, where the duration is the key component of the day and strength is the second thing and keeping your heart rate down so that you're not trashed so you can't front up two days later for your next run. If it's a Sunday. So there is a recovery run, which is helpful to do if you're a person who's running Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. And there's your five days. So it depends on how your schedule is for the week that determines where we put the recovery. So if you're only able to do five runs and they're Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, straight away, our recovery days or our cross training days are Monday, Friday, so what are we doing in those days? We're just doing for a light spin or a walk or a swim. So you've got the understanding that zone one, that's all you have to worry about. So therefore, if that's going to be our schedule, and this is just a hypothetical example, so if we're going to run Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm unhappy with that because it's not giving you much recovery. So the Wednesday has to be your easy, easy day. So if you're going to run with some sort of change in pace, remember marathon pace. If you're running, we know that if you're a 3 hour runner, you're going to run 4 hours 12, if you're 2:48, you're going to run 4 Hours. If you're a 3 hour 30, you're going to run 4, 50, some pace, something like that, you know, etc. Etc. So knowing those paces is what we're going to determine our intensity around working backwards from your marathon actual goal pace. So our Tuesday and our Thursday, we would be trying to do something where we're running slightly better than our marathon pace because we've already got a day endurance where we're running way slower than our marathon pace. And so, you know, we always talk about specificity, don't we? Well, why would you do a training program where you never run at your marathon pace? You need to have that somewhere. So we would try to do recovery runs where we're actually running slower. We would try to do some sort of zone 2 sub threshold, which is Just below your marathon pace or something about threshold going into VO2, which is just above. So we're getting the body used to everything that could happen on the day. And obviously we're doing it for reasons because sometimes we want to practice more threshold running because that's where I'm weak, more strength running, that's where I've got no abilities to sustain when I get tired. The stronger you are, you can hold the pace when you are strong at the back end of of a marathon because you've got the strength from the hills. And if you don't do any of that sort of stuff, you find that you fade every time. And that could be the exact reason why you fade because you just don't have the strength and endurance to hold that pace. So we need to do sessions similar to that. So that's why we would throw in heel repeats. We would have some tempo runs which are kind of that sub threshold where it's between 75 and 90% of your threshold pace. And those sort of sessions are really good because they're, they're going to give you the pace that you're going to feel similar to on race day. And I'm not talking about the training session as relationship to your marathon pace. I'm talking about your threshold pace here. So the sub threshold is your threshold pace for your best 10k, your best one hour. So just understand the difference there.

There. We've got our marathon pace a percentage of that threshold.

Yes, that's right. So we've got our marathon pace, which is also a percentage of our threshold. It might be, you know, 75% of your threshold pace on the day of your best one hour. So we're going to do some sessions that are just under that threshold pace, which is still above your marathon pace. And we're going to do some sessions that are over your threshold pace, which is way above your marathon pace. But we're also going to do some sessions that are bang on your marathon pace so that your body gets totally attuned and adjusted to what it feels like to run at the examples I gave 4:50 or 4 minute k pace or 4:12. And in some of those we do a lot of hill repeats where I'm asking them to run not at a pace up a hill. I'm asking them to run at a feel which might be. I'm asking you to run at your 5 minute K pace. What does that feel like when you're running on the flat? And it Might be your 5 minute K pace, might be 4:30 I don't want you to run up the hill at 4:30 because that's not capable because you're running up a hill. So you need to have the same feeling as a 4 minute 30 pace. So that might be 5 minute 10 pace up the hill, but it feels like 4 35k pace. And so get that right and then watch your strength and endurance just go through the roof. So we've got a variation of some running on the flat where we're running bang on marathon pace. We've got some hill repeats where we're running at faster than marathon pace. But, but you know, not sprinting feels.

Like you're 5k pace as you said.

Yeah, that's right. And, and then we would try to do some sub threshold stuff which is, which is just under, under your threshold. So you would be running somewhere between your 10k and your half marathon pace in there. And that is, that is harder than what you're going to experience on race day. But as we always know when, even as an example, in a warm up, if you're going to do a 20 minute time trial on a bike or a 10k run or a 5k run, if you warm up a little bit harder than the actual race and the warm up's quite short, where you're doing some 3 by 10 second sprints with 90 second rest, rest, those sprints are there so that when you start the run, the 5k run or the 10k run, the pace seems relatively easy compared to what you just did in those 10 second or 15 second efforts. And even when you were a junior, I made you do two or three 200 stride outs, 200 meter stride outs. And then come the start of the race you were so warmed up that whatever the intensity of the race was, you, you are ready to do it. And that, that's kind of the same analogy we're trying to replicate here is to try to get you to, to do some sort of training that is well above the expectation on race day so that it feels quite comfortable on race day until 30k or 35k or 41k.

Hopefully that's a great snapshot of the actual training and I'm conscious of time. But we do want to finish by talking about the actual RA race itself. And you've spoken a lot about at the start about the, how much the race can defeat you, how prepared you have to be mentally and physically. We're talking about the requirements so far in training so that you can actually get through the race. And like you said, get to that 30k mark, get to that 35k mark and be able to have the strength to keep going. That's what all these sessions are designed to do. So take us through to finish off. What do we need to know about the actual race itself?

What are you.

What are you hammering home to athletes? What are you reminding them of, of how do they approach the race and execute and have the best day possible?

Don't have your mates with a bucket of ice, that would be one. But certainly there's so much to say here. It's the preparation, the taper, it's the nutrition during that week, the night before, the morning of getting there, in the time, being relaxed, being calm, having a race plan, and then there's a race. So the race will pan out this way every single time. There'll be people on the start line who run too fast, who throw you off mentally. And I've already told this story that Melbourne to Frankston. I think at one point there might have been a Steve Moneghetti equivalent on the start line who is capable of running a 206 or whatever. And literally 5 or 600 people kept pace with him in the first 2 or 3k. The only one person who could hold that pace was that guy. The other 600 people were wrong. They were going to run something slower and some of them were going to run 4 hours, yet they ran 303 pace for the first 2 or 3k. So that is not what to do. You need to go in with a clear plan and I can go and grab my book, which is just right over there in the cupboard, and it'll show me that I was aiming to run 18 minutes, 30 per 5k, and that's all I had to worry about. What were my 5k splits? And in order to get those 5k splits, what did I need to run per K? And the big test I had was every 5k, look down, 18 something and I'm bang on target. So you need to follow that race plan from start to finish. There will be marathon courses where that's harder to do because there's headwind, there's hills, there's downhills, there's sections that are predominantly uphill. So you've got to adapt or adjust your plan according to the course. So it's easy to say that's your plan on a dead flat course with no wind, that's an easy thing. But not a lot of the races are like that. So you actually need to have that scheduled into your race plan. So in order to make the race a successful one. That is the key is your race plan and then how can you execute it? If you make mistakes in that execution, then that's going to be the problem. But if you're fit enough to come out of that mistake, you can still save the day. But if you don't realize you've made the mistake till it's too late, then the race is going to have the outcome that you don't want. So in order to get to the finish line with the result you want, the race plan and the execution are all what it's about. And you need to be in the cone of silence and have no one around you except for your body and mind attuned to how am I feeling? Is my pace right? How's my heart rate? Am I feeling comfortable? Is this getting too hard? You're asking yourself these questions every single 20, 30 seconds. Is there someone I can run with who's running the same pace as me? Can I drop in behind them and get a bit of a rest? And then finally, making sure your nutrition is on song, and you've practiced that in training and that will give you the outcome that you want. So have a correct race plan that you've talked about with your coach that you know is actually real and you have evidence that you can do those numbers, that pace and then going out and actually doing it and not getting sucked into people around you, running a pace that you think you can sustain because you are so fit and tapered that the first 20k should feel the easiest 20k. You've run for a long time and you should be saying to yourself, I can run faster than this.

Too slow.

Yeah, this is way too slow. I can do better than this. Maybe my plan was wrong. Well, that's not going to be the case in 12k or in 15k time. That's when. That's when you need to stand up and be counted and be grateful that you've had a plan and you've stuck to it. Because, no, like, unlike any other endurance event in, and I say this a lot, patience is the key and to stick with your plan. And if you're patient, you will do that. If you're impatient, you'll get ahead of yourself and risk the consequences of not getting the result you want. But if you want to go for it, and that's what we're trying to do, the time is with 7k to go at 35k, you think you've got this, Prove it. That's the time to do it. It not at 21K.

Yep, absolutely. That is an absolutely brilliant snapshot of a race plan. And the last question I want you to try and answer is, do you remember you used the example of Daniel before, in his third year in a row, his third attempt at breaking three hours, maybe it was fourth one, I think, where he was 20 seconds off his target each time. Dream of the last thing you said to him, the last bit of advice you gave to him before the race.

That's a really good question and I think it is. Have the confidence in your preparation because you can do this. That is basically what you've got to believe. You've got to believe and trust that you've prepared yourself as best as you can. You have the right program, believe that you can do it and have the confidence. So we talked about this in the podcast the other day. Confidence is an amazing thing. So you get confidence from some good results coming into the race and search for those events. Go and do some events where you are in the form of your life, if you've trained properly. So go and do a 5k run or whatever's in your program to really, you know, there's nothing like going and doing. For example, we've got 70.3 Geelong coming this weekend. Couple of guys have gone out and done some FTP tests and they are flying. They have done pbs. What a confidence booster that is, coming into the race and they're just going, bring it on. I can't wait to race because that's the best I've ever done. So go into the race and back yourself in and trust that you've done the work and you will be fine if you follow the program. The actual race plan.

Brilliant. That was a jam packed episode. Absolutely unbelievable information in there and that should prepare anyone as well as they can without spending another two hours going to the absolute intricacies. So we hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you've got a marathon coming up, let us know how you go, let us know how your training's getting on. We hope it helps and we'll see you in the next episode.