How To Train When You Just Don’t Feel Like It

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I am one of your hosts, Jordan. And this is former Australian Ironman champion, Jared Donnelly. We all have those days where the thought of starting a training session seems daunting. You're either tired, flat, unmotivated, and getting a training session done seems like a distant dream. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about how to train when you just don't feel like it, and some tactics to help and a little known secret about motivation that most people don't realize. So I'm looking forward to revealing that. But before that, as always, we're going to go through what's caught your attention. And normally we just do one thing each, but there's a few things that's caught our attention. So there's a few things this week that we need to talk about. We're going to start off with a bang. Go into Strada Bianca, the first unofficial spring classic. It's not actually counted as a spring classic, but spring classics are back and we're both very excited. We love talking about it on the podcast. There's always so many lessons to learn from pro cycling. Even though we are a cycling and triathlon podcast. We just love these races. And I want to start with the female race because something happened in the race that I was pretty shocked at and I want to get your opinions on the tactics of this. So with a couple of K to go, there was two girls in the lead who ended up coming first and second. And Borghini was left to do all the work on the front while the girl behind her who ended up winning Band and Brock Black, sat on her and did absolutely no work. And the commentators were saying she's doing no work because she has two teammates in the breakaway, 30 seconds behind them, you know, and I just couldn't understand why that mattered. I didn't understand why that gave her the right to not do any work. And you know, Borghini on the front was just doing all the work, tiring herself out. And of course she got out sprinted, because that was always going to happen. So what are your thoughts on that? Am I correct in saying that that, that to question that is that. Because it just seems so, you know.

It'S a, it really doesn't. It defies it. Logic and the nature of cycling teen tactics is, is so complex and there's so many factors that determine what's a good tactic and A mistake. And generally when you have one rider and you are well represented in the, in the break, as you said, they had three riders and of course they had to throw out grenades, throw out riders to attack. And the Italian champion Borghini chased down one of the attacks from the team that had three riders. And, and so Borghini's stuck with the, the rider she's riding with to the finish line could definitely throw that, that, that play that card of I'm not going to help you because my better riders are behind me. And that's kind of the basis of her tactic. You know, there's a world champion behind her, but she, she was actually a world champion, an ex world champion herself. So she's no slouch as a writer and Borghini knows that. So in my opinion, that's the card she's going to play then. Borghini has every right to question that and saying, oh, I don't think you're good enough to win. That would be one. You know, I would have a conversation.

Definitely play some mind games. Yeah.

And I certainly wouldn't just sit on the front and just let it, let it pan out like it did. I would, I would attempt to sit up and if you know the finish section well, there are a couple of little steep bits and as we saw in the men's race, Van der Poel attacked on a downhill at the end and got a little gap. So I would have tried a few of those tactics just to make the other rider think for a start and to take some energy away from her legs so that she may, if she has to do another little effort. How do we know what state she's in? It might be one more effort and that'll do her. And she's done. No one knows that. So just to stay on the front and let her have a free ride. No, that's.

It just panned out. So scripted that she just buried herself in the front for the last however many kilometres.

And the reason she did that is she, in her mind is going well, there's two riders here, I'm a chance of coming first and second and she's probably backing herself that she'll beat Vandam Brock, Brock Black in the final. But as it turned out, she was progressively getting tighter and Vanden Brock Black was actually recovering beautifully just to launch, you know, the predictable attack. So, so Borgheni's kind of got a second and rather than possibly a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth. So she's guaranteed second by doing that. So that would be her in her mind, I'll stuff it. I'm either gonna get first or second, rather than sitting up and potentially letting eight more riders have a crack at the podium. But, you know, how much value do you place on first compared to second? You know, your first or, you know, where is some of the tactics that I would. I would be using. You know, it's great to come second in a race like that. It's, you know, it's. It's one of the classic races of all time. And it will be a bigger race down the track. It's only a young race. And. And look, you know, this. This monuments, you know, that are called monuments. I think Strada Bianca should be a monument. It's only been going for 17 years or something. Before that, it was a ride where people came out dressed in olden gear and it was like a fun day, and it's turned into this epic race.

So you personally would have risked going back to the chasing group.

Yeah, I don't know if I'd risk that. I would risk playing some different tactics which. Which could cause the other group to catch up. But. But I would be really conscious of not letting that happen, because I still want to get first or second.

You. You wouldn't sit up and you wouldn't.

No, I definitely wouldn't sit up. No. I would be trying other things before that. That would be my last.

Because if you sit up and have a conversation and then, you know, they look at you and they look at you and go, I'm not doing anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you've lost your advantage.

Yeah.

Yep. And look, the advantage the other team had was if they get caught, the next rider launches. Yeah. Because all the other riders in the peloton were chasing, and the other two riders of that teammate were sitting on. So. So, yeah, there's a lot, A lot in the tactics of cycling, of team racing.

Yeah.

And look that. I don't think she made that big an error, but she still ended up with second. But I think she should have made it harder for the victory.

Yeah. And in the men's category, obviously, Van der Poel's Van der Van der Poel. The amount of vanders there are across the male, female is. Yeah. Van der Poel. And there's Wood Van Aert, and his performance was exceptional.

It was. I've never seen a rider dominate the race like that. And I think Alaphilippe's one of the greatest riders we've had for a long time. You know, he's in the class of Sargan and you can rattle through all the previous world champions and Alaphilippe is right up there and he's got an explos kick. And Vander Pol made him look second rate twice. And that's kind of shocking to see that. But you know, looking at his profile of the, of the power that he rode, he rode a very clever race. And Wood van Art, I was all. As the race was unfolding and I, I actually watched it more than once.

The only person I know that would watch a four hour race more than.

Once and, and he spent a lot of time on the front unnecessarily. And Matthew van der Poel, he timed his efforts better than Van Aert. Van Aert kept the pressure on and caused the race to split his team. Tactics enabled them to have the best seven riders in the world. You know, you had the world champion, ex world champion, Tour de France champion, national champion, you know, and then you had. Goggle was the other guy who has actually come in the top 10 at Strato Bianca before. But no disrespect to Goggle. That's right. He's a very good writer.

I've never seen Goggle before but the.

Commentator, that was a pretty funny joke I thought. But the class of writer that was in that final group, it was like you're going to watch a movie and you're seeing the, the race pan out just exactly as you want it. And don't underestimate how well Simon Clark rode and you know, to finish in the top 10 in that race and beat full sang at the end, he didn't get much of a mention in the race and that was outstanding. And he is one of the all time great classic riders, Simon Clark.

Yeah.

And he doesn't get the accolade in my opinion that he deserves.

And he's had such good performances, hasn't he?

Yeah. Some of his one day stage, not stage races, one day classic races. He's you know, Milan Remo is in the top 10 last year and you know, right there in the sprint. He wasn't there in the sprint for this one but, but you know. Ah, just, just terrific to see an Aussie. And Michael Power was also in the, in the bunch.

Yeah.

So there were two Aussies in that top 14. Yeah. Which was a split bunch. Yeah. And the bunch chasing. Yeah. Oh, Full thing was doing his nut because he couldn't get the guys to help to get back on. He was caught out. He made a mistake and got caught out. So tactics were flying everywhere.

Yeah, yeah. Definitely no you're right. It's great to see a top 10 Aussie in. Simon Clark in 9th and then Amanda Sprout was 12th in the female. So 9th and 12 were our best performances, which is from. Pretty good.

Yeah. Amanda Spratt's a consistent performer at that level. Yeah, it's fantastic.

If you couldn't see my face then because you were listening to audio. I was sarcastic. Pretty good. It's unbelievable. You know, that's right. I wanted to ask though about van der Poel's cyclocross background and what you think about this. Because we see tons of gun riders come across from cyclocross and you know, there's just this thing about either a cyclocross background or a track background where they produce incredible cyclists and it's.

Do you know the key. Do you know the. And look, the commentator, he was really. I can't remember what. Which one it was, but he'd done his research and he rattled off Ella, Philippe, van der Poel, Van Aert, etc, etc. They all had come from some sort of cross training, whether it's gravel bike or whether it was mountain bike or track. Cadell Evans, Was that all of them? All the guys in that group except Goggle, I think.

Are you making that up?

I'm making that up. No one knows who he is, but. But they all came from a background. And the key thing which we talk about a lot is pressure on the pedals. And a lot of the bunch riding in cycling is not pressure on the pedals. But in mountain biking or gravel riding or any of that cross training, you just forever doing over under effort, over under efforts. And when you're on the under, you're not actually on the under, you're still having to pedal. Cause you're on a flat section where you're potentially by yourself. Because they're almost like time trials. The other sport we're talking about is like time trialing. And ironically this is what we push. We push threshold training pressure on the pedals and we use our over under high intensity bunch riding as part of our program. And people keep saying, oh, it's cause they ride mountain bike. Well, what is it in mountain biking or gravel riding or that style of bike riding that enables them to be really good road riders or and track riding. It's because they're used to having pressure on the pedals all the time. It's like we talked about runners, you know, you can either keep up or you can't. In a running race, there's no freewheeling In a running race, if you can't keep the pace, you drop off instantly. That time trial style of racing or training is what makes you a better cyclist.

So my next question on that was, do you think it is equivalent to hill running for runners in strength training by going to the hills and running really steep ups and downs, is that the equivalent to cyclocross and why it could create such a good benefit for triathletes?

Well, the next step is cross country. That's what I think it's like. It's like cross country and the downhills. You're striding out and you know the eccentric contraction you're feeling when you're running fast and that, that can be fartleg training, hill running, but cross country running, racing is as close as you'll ever get to, you know, what a mountain bike experience is. Because, because whether you're going on the flat up or down, you have to keep the pressure on the pace you're running at. You don't get to roll down a hill as a runner. So, you know, you've just got constant. It's the time trialing threshold training that we're talking about that everybody avoids because guess what, it's painful and hard. So why would you want to front up and do that, you know, once every three weeks to do a threshold style event? Because, you know, you're basically riding at your maximum for as long as you can schooling.

Well, yeah, that is, that's. It's interesting to think about how exactly we said that, the amount of top riders that come from that background, it's definitely something to think about in these training programs and why you say that we, we implement this style of training in our training programs. Next thing that's caught our attention and this is both of us kind of have picked this up, is a lot of athletes wanting to do, wanting to be too many things. And what we mean by that is we talk a lot on this podcast about having an A race and you say, pick your A race and some athletes come to you wanting to pick two A races and sometimes close to each other and you would say, that's a bad idea.

Yeah, I feel like we, we keep flogging this dead horse a bit, but it, it's got to be said when you come with a mindset that, right, this is the race that I want to do and you're totally focused on that. And the example could be, I want to swim the English Channel. I want to, I run, I want to run a 50k ultra marathon. I Want to do Peaks through, you know, nine hour cycling race. And then you say but I also want to do something quite obscure like I want to improve my, you know, my running. But I'm training for Three Peaks and they're, they're just not complementary to each other. And I'm all for picking as many goals as you like, but you've got to understand at the end of the day that you are going to compromise one of them and you end up compromising both. So if you're gonna, if you need, let's just use the English Channel swimming event. You need to swim a lot of endurance and if you start running you could end up taking time away from your swimming program and potentially being sore. Potentially having hamstrings and soreness in quads and calves and etc, etc. It might complement it a little bit. But you know, it is a bit of a clash. The, the idea of doing a triathlon. Half Ironman against Three Peaks. They're both, you know, you can do both of them but you will not be good at either of them. You'll be average. You know, you won't do a PB at Peaks if you're training for an Ironman at the same time. And at the same time you won't do a PB at the Ironman training for Peaks. So you're going to be average at the end of the day and if you understand that that's what's going to happen and you're happy, that's okay. But don't be unhappy when you don't perform the way you want to. So getting confused about having too many a races that are too close to each other, we have talked about, I'm sure. And that's why I feel like we're repeating ourselves. But, but that keeps coming up where people keep putting other events too close to their a race and wonder why they're not actually getting the result they want.

I have heard you say that sentence and I heard you say it last week, which is why it came up again. But you say do you want to be average at both or do you want to be good at one? And people say, well, I want to be good at both. And you say, well, it's just, it's not an option. I'm sorry it's not on the table. You know, it's, it's a nice dream, but it's not on the table. And that's a kind of a harsh reality to face.

Yeah, but the conflicts there. Yeah, and they do, you know, doing exercise will complement Everything but, but it won't enable you to achieve. For example, if you're doing peaks, we'll use the peaks example. You know, it's, it's 4,500 meters of climbing. So most of your training is involved around riding hills, you know, long endurance training with hills with some intensity to get your FTP to improve, but in between you need to recover. So if you, if you train for The Ironman or 70.3, in between the recovery you're supposed to be doing for peaks, you're swimming and running. But where's the recovery? So, so you're going to get really tired and not train well for three peaks because your fatigue level is too high. And the same is going to go for the 70.3. You're actually not swimming and running properly because you're so tired from the riding training in the hills that you're doing. So you're not going to get a result that's, you know, going to be your pb and that's as simple as I can make it.

Yep. And another reason I wanted to bring it up was because you had a group of travel athletes approach you and say, right, we, these are all athletes that we did the nationals that we spoke about a few weeks ago. We all want to do the melbourne. To warny, what was your reaction to that? And without going into personal detail, how do you approach that conversation? Because it is a, again, a drastically different event, a 30 minute time trial, 40 minute time trial to a 250 or 270 kilometer, 260, 565.

Yeah, I know exactly how far. Yeah, but they were also training for a road race and a criterium and a team's time trial and individual trian trial. So, so they were, they do have the base for, for an event and it is nine weeks apart. So they are a little bit different. And because of the way we bring our program through, we do keep the endurance ride in part of the program anyway. So now we've got nine weeks just to add to that endurance. So it's definitely possible. Whereas if it was in three weeks time or two weeks time, I'd be saying you're dreaming, forget it. You know, you don't have the, the endurance base to do it, but they have an opportunity. So, so that's an example of giving yourself enough time and understanding who the athlete is.

Yeah.

And a couple of people have said, oh, that sounds a great idea. And I've said to them, unfortunately for you, whatever your name is, I'm not going to say this is not the event for you this year. You need a lot more Melbourne to Warnable is not a race that you, that you go into because it sounds like a fun thing to do. It's one of the most brutal races I've ever ridden.

Yeah, great. That's great. Clarification. Next. Caught your attention, the sheet mentality. Explain to me the sheet mentality that caught your attention again.

And I do feel like we do talk a lot in our podcast about this, but it definitely needs to be reiterated is because I don't know how many examples I can Give here. If 100 people all line up to queue for something over the other side of the road, you will look across there and go, what are they queuing up for? It must be something exciting that there's that many people queuing up for it. And you would find if you went and asked a percentage of the people in the queue, what are you queuing up for? I'm not sure, but all these other people are queuing up. I don't want to miss out. So that's kind of an introduction into the sheep mentality. Doing exactly what other people are doing without a good enough reason. And so the peaks event has. The execution is just as equally important in a 10 hour event as it is in a 20 minute FTP or an 800. You know, in the 800, if everybody in your your heat runs the first and you're trying to run two minutes, we use that example because people in the podcast know that that's something that we've aspired to do.

People will know the two minute times intimately.

That's right. And I'll use this example because it makes sense. You know, four times 200 at 30 seconds will give you two minutes. And if you run one of them under 30 seconds, you'll get 159. So at the start of an 800. I've watched this week in, week out for three years while you've been trying to break this record.

50 years probably.

Yeah. And seeing the first 200 run at 24 seconds or 25 or 26 seconds. And because you're in a group of eight people, you don't want to feel awkward and be 10 meters off the back. So the sheep mentality is. I'll just keep up with these guys. They must know what they're doing. Well, actually they don't know what they're doing. They're running a completely poorly executed race. Because what you want to do is get there in 30 seconds in the first 200. Not 24 or 25. And when it comes to the 600 meter mark to get to the finish, they're all running 34, 35, 36. Whereas if you stayed 10 meters off the back and came through in 30 seconds, you would catch them all and pass them in the most important part, which is the last 50 metres, which is exactly what you did. So the sheep mentality keeps rearing its head. In Three Peaks. It happened as well. And it's happened to me when I did Three Peaks and I told the riders from Trivalo, this is what's going to occur. When you hit the base of Mount Beauty at the start of Toowonga Gap, which is the first climb in the Three Peaks event, you will be passed by pretty much three quarters of the field. And everybody thinks that's the pace to go at, because everybody's riding at that pace. But don't join them, don't join the sheep. You stick with your power numbers that are going to get you up that climb up Hotham and up Falls with the same power. And if we did a survey, the people who rode, who rode past you say they rode at 90% of their FTP up to Wonga, and you were sticking to your 75 to 80. I guarantee if you looked at their power numbers on Falls Creek, it wouldn't be 90%, it would be 40 to 50 to 60% and it could be 20 because the majority of them are walking. And that's what the sheep mentality does. You follow people who don't have a clue about what they're doing. And just because a lot of people are doing means that it's right. Well, it's okay to be the minority because sometimes the minority is correct. And in this case, they all rode the power on all three climbs. Very similar in the Trivalo group. First climb, second climb, third climb, and they were passing truckloads of people on the second and third climb that had already passed them on the first climb. So the sheep mentality keeps rearing its head. I just. That's like a broken record. I just can't believe people keep doing the same mistake. And that is the definition of insanity, isn't it? Repeating the same mistake and expecting a different outcome.

Yeah. The reason I brought it up again and why it keeps rearing its head is because we were talking about Three Peaks after the weekend and you said that the athletes, you know, you gave them plan, they did exactly what you just said. They were passing people and they were calling you up afterwards saying it was incredible or just Passing people constantly, constantly. And you knew that was going to happen. You told them it was going to happen. It did happen, they told you it happened. But it just happens year after year. And we, we spoke about the fact that you've been telling me this since we were, I was a kid. You've been experiencing it your whole athletic career, but no matter what, it just keeps happening and no matter how experienced people are, it just keeps happening. And we were just kind of on the phone astounded that, that more people don't pick it up, you know, and even last week I was at a 5000 meter track event, which was a really great event, had a lot of Australia's best runners there and there's some really fast 5000 meter heats running around. But in a 5000 meters, in an 800, you can sprint out in 25, 26 and you will suffer in the last 50 meters, 100 meters and you will lose a second or two. But it's exaggerated over a 5000 meter event on the track. And I watched race after race go off and the first group would go through in 30, 32, 33 seconds when they needed to be running 36, 37, 38 seconds for 200. And that just hurts a whole lot more. 4K into the event on the track and there's a whole, there's packs of runners running in the last K 42nd, 42, 45, 48 second, 200 meters because they've just absolutely blown up.

And physiologically, yeah, it's, it's evidence based. It's not, it's not a, you know.

It is a tactic, it's not an opinion.

Yeah, it's, you know, you are increasing your heart rate, increasing your lactate which is going to prevent you from running well or performing well. It doesn't have to be running race doesn't matter. And look, that example you gave is exactly the, the worst case scenario is I remember running the Melbourne Marathon. It used to start at Frankston and finished in the city square. And you know, on the start line you had guys who could run in, you know, probably 215, 220 would be the best runners there. Not, it's not a world class event. So you're not having 208s and 206 runners, but they're still very, very good runners, you know, elite runners. And I'm talking three or four of them can run at that pace. And then there might be 10 runners who can run between 220 and 230 and there might be 30 runners who can run between 230 and 235, etc. Etc. And the masses start to grow. But on the start line in the first K, there's still a bunch of 70, right. Runners after a K in the marathon. Why, why is there still a bunch of 70 runners? It should only be three.

Yeah.

At the first, at the first K mark there should only be three. And the next group of runners should be 20 seconds behind them according to their pace that they're going to run. And this happened year in, year out. I did a few Melbourne marathons and it. I would look around on the start line and see, I know that guy there, he had the headband and he did it every year. And I looked, I used to search for his result and he'd run his first 5k in you know, really good time of 18 minutes something and his last 5k was 30 minutes and he ended up running a split that was like you know, one hour 30 looking at a three hour marathon. And then his second split was two hours. So end up doing two and a half hours, three and a half hours instead of, instead of running sensibly. But it was just the sheep mentality, just run approximate times.

But yeah, I know what you're saying. It's just like it, it's exaggerated. The longest event.

Yeah. And it's a long time to be in agony for. Whereas an 800, you know, you can put up 50, 50 meters, but try doing it for six hours in an event like Peaks where you, you've hit the wall. It's not an experience you want to go through, believe me.

Yeah, and there is, you know, genuine social studies on what you're talking about at the start, you know, the people queuing up. People queuing up. They did used to do studies where they would just make queues and see if people would just join. And people did. And there was one study that was so fascinating, it's a bit off topic, but they would get people to. In a waiting room and they would make sure that there was only one person in there to start. And then there would be a person at the desk with a bell and then the next stranger that walked in, the person at the desk would ring the bell and then the person in the chair would stand up and so the person that walked in would stand next to them and stand still and then they'd ring the bell again and the actor so to say would sit down and so the stranger would. The person who didn't know they were part of a social experiment would sit down. And then the next stranger that walked in, they take a seat, they'd ring the bell again. And then both people stood up. So the third person that comes in stands up and they do it to see how many people they can get to come in. And they fill a room with eight to 10 people all in the waiting room standing up and sitting down with no verbal instructions. Exactly. Yeah. No one said that they have to do that just because the first person saw it. And the more people that did it, everyone else thinks it's a. And it's so funny on camera because you see people kind of looking around going, well, I guess I should do it because everyone stood up. And it's this. It is the sheet mentality. Two at. So, anyway, moving on from that topic takes us to our very big topic of the day, the thing we want to finish off with, which is tactics with struggling with motivation. And give me your gold secret of information that you wish everyone would know when it comes to motivation.

Well, the gold secret is that you can't be motivated the whole time. And once you understand that concept that 100% is not achievable, face it, there's periods where as motivated as I am as a, as an athlete, I have periods where I'm 80% motivated or 60 or 20 or 0. So that is normal. And everybody out there needs to hear that. And if you feel zero motivation, then you need to create tactics that enable you to. To get training. And that's the key point, that it's normal to experience highs and lows in a program that you've set yourself a target for an a race. So say you're sitting here saying, or at the start of the year, like, I want to do the Noosa Triathlon and it's November, and you've got the journey from the start of the year to November to get yourself as well prepared to do the race as well as you can. But that's a long time. It's 10 or 11 months. So there's going to be highs and lows in your motivation along that journey. And the message is, that's normal. That's okay. You're not the only one who experiences that. But the key thing is, what am I going to do about that? How am I going to get myself. And they're the things that we talk about now is the tactics.

And that's on that note. It's so imperative that people know that, because when you, you can easily fall into the trap of isolating yourself and thinking that you're the Only one that's going through it and falling into that trap. Because you see everyone on Strava training really well. We talk about consistency all the time on this podcast. So you feel the pressure to be consistent. You know, the coach says you need to be more consistent. And so when you're not, you really beat yourself up thinking, what's wrong with me? Why am I not motivated? But when you understand that everyone is going through it, and literally everyone, even the best athletes, that you think, and everyone's somewhere on the motivation spectrum, some people are 100% right now, and they're flying, and then other people are at 10%, it's easier to be kinder to yourself about it and reassess and go through tactics. And before we go through the tactics, I mean, it has to be said that there might be situations where tactics aren't going to help because you simply haven't got the passion for what you're trying to do anymore. And this is a big thing that you say a lot is you ask people, do you still want to do this overall? Do you still want to do this? And if they don't, you say, well, stop. You know, don't think that I'm going to push you to do it when you don't want to do it. You know, there's just no way.

And people get shocked when I say they're expecting me to say, oh, come on, Jordan, you know you can. You know you can do this. You know you need to, and I'm encouraging you to do it. Well, I'm. I'm not a believer in that. I want the individual to have the inner drive themselves, have the passion and the desire and the love of what they're doing to motivate them. They're the ones who selected the goal. I didn't push the goal onto them. They've come to me and said, this is what I want to achieve. I want you to help me get to that point at the end of this program. So you're the one that has to actually come up with, what am I doing this for? The why? And if you can't actually answer that, then you need to question, should I be doing it? And we did talk about this earlier in a podcast, but it needs to be said that I'm not going to be that person to talk you into something. If you don't have the love and the passion for what you're doing, then you actually need to not do it. And I've had a couple of conversations just recently about that with people who are quite shocked that I've said it's okay. You know, don't beat yourself up. If you've lost the. The desire for it. You're. You're being not true to yourself by continuing on the journey that you're not enjoying.

Yeah.

So there's a difference between just losing a little bit of motivation and a little bit of direction as compared to, I actually don't want to do this anymore. I shouldn't have picked this. This is too hard. It's impacting too much on my work, my life, my family. And they're. They're different reasons. So. Yeah. So, you know, I just. I just think you just really need to think really clearly about what is that, what is it? That's that the reason why you're doing this. And once you've established that, then the motivation and what to do and how to do it is. Is really easy.

Yeah. The tactics will work if that's what you want, but they won't do anything.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the flip side to this coin is that you don't want to also fall into the trap of questioning your own passion just because you're feeling not motivated. So if you're in that slump of it might be a week or two where you're really not feeling motivated, you go, oh, do I really want this? And then you're not saying quit then, because you might still really want it. You're just not feeling motivated right now. So you can try a bunch of these things.

The usual thing that I've done with you guys and your brothers and sisters. Sister is okay, I don't think you should do that anymore. And. And once something's taken away from you, the fear of missing out on that is enormous. So I actually said this today to one of the customers who's had a bad injury, and he's questioning whether he should be doing it. And I said, well, if you can't ever ride your bike again, will you be happy? Because he's thinking about not doing, you know, because it's. It's risky, it's dangerous. And he's going, oh, I haven't really thought about it like that. If I can't ever write again, I'm not sure about that, but I want to have a choice. Well, I'm saying if the choice was taken away from you, that will really determine how passionate you are about it. And I use myself as the example. Someone said to me, when you turn 40 something, you'll never run again. I'll just laugh I'd say, no, that's not a possibility. But that's actually kind of what's happened. And I would have, you know, taken. I would just given everything, if that was going to be the future, to prevent that from happening. And, you know, I'm still trying to prevent that from happening, trying all different tactics to enable myself to actually jog or run again. Because I love the passion and the feeling I get as a runner. I just love that. And, and it's something that should be a normal activity, but the minute it's taken away from you, you, you're. You want it more. And I think that's a really good point that, you know, say to yourself, have I got the passion for this? Or if I can never do this again, you know, I would, would I be unhappy? And if the answer is yes, then you still want to do it. It's just that you're in a motivational.

Yeah, yeah. Because you don't want to do yourself a disservice by every time you're feeling unmotivated, taking a break or.

Yeah.

Or being inconsistent because that's just going to lead to inconsistent training and you're just never going to get the results you want. So.

And that's why the tactics are the actual answer too. But you've got to establish what, what, which one you're on, which track you're on first.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah. So let's go through some of the tactics and something you've done with the athletes, especially over the COVID period, is replace some training sessions with something more fun and more motivational, which is, for example, Zwift race.

Yeah. And you know, you got to think outside the box a little bit when, when you're really, really struggling. And, and look, we, we have say the program that you've, you've got is six months to your a race and in that journey you've got, you know, Tuesday just pick a cyclist. Tuesday had Thursday hard Saturday endurance. Sunday at sub threshold, some easy rides and then some tempo. So Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday is, you know, you know, it's going to be a hard day and, and you questioning whether you can actually do them. They're that hard. So what tactics can you use that give you the same result of the intensity but you don't feel like you're doing a training session. So doing a race is one of those things. And I'm not saying do five races. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying use one of the days of intensity and that's what we did during COVID we threw in a race. And once people understood what we were doing it for, for the socializing, for the interaction, for the motivation of being as competitive beasts. Training by yourself against power is a competition, but training against other humans is a better competition. And all of a sudden you've replaced one of your hard sessions out of the three with some fun. And that means you only have to do one training session on Tuesday or Thursday, whatever day it is, whereas the other one is a competition. And then if, you know, in Covid, you can't ride with a bunch, so join a group ride on Zwift, which is what we did. We joined a long endurance group ride and we made it a competition. So it wasn't a race, but it was, you know, we were having to hold three hours worth of power just like we would as an endurance ride. You know, the purpose and goal of the session was achieved, but we used a tactic to get ourselves around it. And then, you know, the Sunday session during COVID I'm using these examples where we were still indoors, you know, to ride sub threshold, let's just not ride that on another flat ride. Let's go up a hill and, and ride at. At low cadence, get some strength work out of it, as well as the sub threshold. So they're little tactics that you can throw in. And all of a sudden, six months went by where everybody was riding out of their skins from, from and didn't feel like they'd lost motivation. In fact, they, they couldn't wait for the next week, for the next race and, and the next Saturday endurance ride on Zwift. And, you know, they were really good things that, that we threw in that enable people to keep their goals alive. And as we found out when it opened up in November, December, January, February, March, most of the Trivalo people are flying. So that's one tactic.

Yeah. An easy little trick that you always put it very simply is just. And there's a few things to this, but the principle is just get your socks on.

Yeah. And we do that saying a lot, don't we? It's just I've got a couple of guys who I would text to say, have you got your socks on? And most people go, what are you talking about? So the first step in getting ready for your session is to get dressed. So the minute you put your socks on, there's no going back. You're on your journey towards the session. So I would send a picture to Sean with my socks. I would just take a picture of My feet with my socks on. And he would know that I'm about to start my session. So that was a little motivation tactic that we were using between each other. And, you know, we both knew it was a, you know, it was a damn hard session coming up. And he knew that I was. Had my socks on. And he would say that photo. I went and got ready and jumped on the bike because I knew you were on.

You're not even riding together, you just both getting on the trainer.

That's right. Yeah. So it was just little things like that where you can use friendship groups. And, you know, there's, there's no doubt in my mind that I, you know, I maintain my motivation by these tactics and I struggle with motivation just like everybody else. But, but, you know, by using. And I've got a whole lot more that we're going to go through. But, but there, that's one of the ones that I think it's, it's, it makes me laugh every time I think of it because.

Yeah, and you taught me that. And I still use it, you know, to this day where I'll be. I might just lie in my bed or something or lie on the couch, which is a big mistake when you, because you're just avoiding this session and you might, you know, just, you're just so tired sometimes and you, you just can't think of anything worse than delay. Yeah. And I just say to myself, just get your shoes on. And I, I actually trick my. The point where I say, just get your shoes on. If you still don't feel like it, you don't have to run, you know, and no matter how many times, once my shoes are on, I'm going for a run. But I still say to myself, you don't have to run. It's okay. It's like you're coaching yourself, you know, just get your shoes on. And then if you're still feeling a little bit tired, you can not run. And it never happens once your shoes are on. But extending that tactic of just getting your socks on, that mindset of, look, if you're stuffed, you don't want to do a hard session, just go for a, for an active run.

We say this all the time.

Just go for a zone two.

If your session's Tuesday and it's supposed to be the hardest session you've got on the week's program and you genuinely are exhausted, then consistency is king. So get your socks on, jump on the bike and roll around at 50% and for 15 minutes. What a waste of Time that is absolutely not. You've got blood flow happening, you've got recovery endorphins released from exercising, cardiac, your heart's getting worked. So many good things, so many positive things. And I bet you get off the bike thinking, oh, glad I did that. And sometimes halfway through it, this isn't so bad. I might actually start the session and before you know it, you've talked yourself, sucked yourself into doing a session without realizing it. And I know myself that I'm going to do that. If I just get started, I won't do the session. I've already said that to myself, I won't do the session. And 15 minutes in I actually feel, all right, I'll just start the session and before I know it, and I'm so wrapped at the end that I've actually gone through and I've actually nailed it. And what a journey that is from, you know, the session's an hour 20 and it's been a two hour mind game. And I'm telling the, the listeners this because that's what I've gone through, it's what you've gone through. And, and it's normal to have to experience it because if it was easy to get to your race goal, everybody would be doing the same. You know, thousands and thousands, millions of people would be just, yeah, I'll just do that race, I'll do that race. But the journey is harder than the, than the actual event sometimes the journey to get to the event.

Yeah.

Which probably leads to the next tactic.

Well, I had my own point, but you can. Okay, I don't know what you wanted next. I was going to say it's context dependent and we spoke about this where sometimes I am struggling to do the hard sessions because they're really tough, they're grueling and you just know they're going to hurt. So sometimes I struggle with motion for that, but other times I'm really enjoying the tough sessions and I'm struggling to do the easy sessions because they're boring or they're just slow and you're getting excited by the hard sessions or even races and then going for a long slow 1 hour jog or a 1 hour 30 zone 2 pedaling. It just sounds horrible. And so depending on which one you're struggling with, depends on how you try and trick yourself and that.

Look, I've got some ridiculous tactics with my recovery rides. Like I would try to ride because Zwift doesn't have lap power, it only has three second power. So yes, because we pedal so Poorly, we. It's hard to hold 100 watts.

I'm going to highlight this and say that this is under the category of Dad's weird tactics, because you have some super weird tactics. And if people want to incorporate these, then great, you tell us.

So one of the ones I'm concentrating on is 100 rpm, 100 watts and 100 heart rate. I call it the 100100 session. So it's a recovery session. And I'm trying to sit the power at exactly 100 watts and take a photo of the three at 100 100. And you know, obviously, if you're.

That works for you because I know.

I'm just using these numbers as an example. Or sometimes I would say I want to hold 160 watts, but I don't want to see 100 anything below 155 on Zwift or 165. I have to be pedaling and I don't want to see my heart rate creep more than five beats. And so I'm concentrating on the line, concentrating on the power number, trying to pedal as smoothly as I can so that I don't go over the number. And there. And before I know it, I've concentrated so much on such an irrelevant thing, which is actually quite relevant to the session because it's keeping me right in the zone where I should be. But I'm concentrating so hard on that, all of a sudden the session's flying through. And it is a tactic that I don't find the recovery ride board people go, it's just so boring. But I know the actual purpose and goal of it is so helpful to the rest of my program that I'm going to attack it with a tactic that's going to keep me concentrating in what I should be doing and using Zwift for that ride where there's people potentially sitting on me. And when we come to a hill, I'll stay at my 1.5 watts per kilo at 150 watts, and they will, you know, ride the hill hard. And all of a sudden they'll soft pedal over the top of the hill. And all of a sudden I'm flying back past them. I'm still riding 1.5 watts per kilo at 150 watts. And. And I just. Funny seeing people yo, yo, backwards and forwards. So that keeps my attention as you know, as to the minor details. I'm talking minor details which actually. Which actually contribute to my concentration.

It's just ways of tricking yourself.

It is for sure.

And and again, these things, you're not doing that every single session. Although I know you do do a lot of that, a lot for the recovery sessions. But this is for when you're not motivated. When you're motivated. I find recovery sessions really enjoyable. You know, when you're. When you're in that mode where you're just loving training, everything's easy. You know, I don't need any distraction or I don't need any games to.

Yeah. And I also think of far out. Thank God, this is an easy day today. I can just relax and man, I've got a smile on my face. I'm just rolling around. And of course, you know that I don't use the stationary trainer. I use the rollers for my recovery day. So I'm practicing balancing, I'm sitting up with no hands, trying to ride, you know, standing up out of the seat trying to balance on the rollers. So it's a day to have some fun. And I'm still getting. Because I'm on the rollers, I'm still getting that feel of the road because you actually, you have to concentrate all the time, otherwise you're off. Yeah. Which has happened. So. So there's a whole lot of little things I'm doing where I'm not making it easy by riding the recovery on the stationary trainer. And look, you know, sometimes, because where we live in the Dandenongs, for those who know the Dandenongs, it's just up and down. There is no flat section. I can't ride more than 100 meters without going up or down. So how am I going to do a recovery ride? I have to drive somewhere to do a recovery ride. So I use the rollers indoors as my recovery ride and so time efficient as well. So. So they're little tactics I'm using because it doesn't take time. And I'm on the rollers and I'm, you know, I'm still using Zwift on the rollers even though I can't feel the hills. But I'm, you know, using the ant plus dongle and I'm still on Zwift.

Yeah. And on that point, I mean, I haven't got the excuse. I live in a flat area. So my. I try and do my recovery rides on that. Go outside on the flat, because I do like being outside and riding around. But yeah, sometimes when the motivation's not there, I'd rather distract myself and go on to the trainer and either be on Zwift, which is a bit more distracting. Or literally I'll just put something on the TV and so I can just kind of pedal easily watching. And again, it's just a tactic. But coming back to the context dependent thing, I mean, the tactic can kind of differ depending on what you're struggling with. So the hard session tactic, you said before about just do a session easy, just get on, just do 15 minutes easy. I've used that plenty of times. And I can say I've never just done 15 minutes. You know, every time you warm up, you do the session. And even though I know that it's still okay to trick myself, because if I just did 15 minutes, that would be okay.

Still.

Yes. I'm not.

But I'm here now, so I might as well do it properly.

Yeah. And it's important to know that if you just do the 15 minutes.

Yeah. There's two options there.

Yeah.

It's okay to do 15 minutes and get off.

Yeah. And even though it's never actually happened, if it happens one day, it's okay. And that's actually how it works when you trick yourself. Because you do believe it when you say, if I still feel crappy after 15 minutes, 20 minutes, I'm getting off.

Yep. That's the rule. And. And I have done it many times where I've just stayed at recovery for the whole hour. I've not got off at 15 minutes exactly. But. But I've just stayed recovery.

Yeah.

And. And I felt better afterwards and I actually performed better the next day.

Yeah.

So, you know, it was a win. Win. And it still enabled me to keep the consistency trick.

Yeah.

Which we could talk about as a. Another tactic.

Is that the one you wanted to bring up?

No, that's one I just thought about then, but it's not the one I was thinking about before.

Yeah.

Do you want me to go with it?

Go with it.

Yep. Well, I mean, we. I know Moneghetti did I think a tactic of I'm going to run consecutive days for. I don't know, that he did tell us.

Yeah. I can't remember what it was. Yeah.

More than a thousand days.

Yeah.

So he was at airports and he'd have to unpack his bag and run around the airport. And he was in obscure places where, you know, he'd arrive at 9:30, being on the plane for, I don't know, 18 hours. And he. And he had two more hours before the midnight struck and he had to get dressed and go for a run. And. And that's a tactic that, you know, making yourself accountable to others. Have you broken your thousand days in a row? No, I haven't. And, and you know you're going to keep training. Some of it's a little bit silly but, but it's a really good tactic to keep you accountable because someone will ask you if you, if you tell someone a ridiculous thing, they will definitely try to catch you out. That's, that's what human nature is. I'm going to do, you know, 50 sit ups every day for the next year and someone's going to ask me, am I still doing it? And you don't want to say no, no, I failed on that one. So you know, I'm not going to eat chocolate for a whole year. And you know, inevitably you have to say I had some, you know, so, so they're little tactics to make you accountable is. And if you're a person who's got pride, you won't give that up.

Consistency breeds motivation. So the more consistent you are, just you'll find you're more motivated because when you've done three or four weeks in a row of training, you don't want to miss a day. Even if you haven't told anyone because you go, I'm just on such a streak at the moment, I don't want to miss a day. And then as soon as you miss a day, you start letting yourself miss more days. So once you break it, start again and then try and get your streak back up again.

We do know that 30 days makes a habit and I'm forever texting and I shouldn't do this because it's against my principle. But I feel if someone's struggling, I'll say well done, Brad. Seven green ticks in a row and instantly they are motivated. Oh, that's good. I'm going to try and do that again. And, and if you can get 30 greens in a row, then you're on your journey and that's motivation. You know, just aspire to get training peaks. What am I talking about? Green ticks. Training peaks has green ticks. If you do a session that's loaded for you on a particular day and there are other colors but if you have a red it means you've missed. You can have orange, yellow or green and that's still. But you know, I make the rule it has to be green which means you have to do the time that's given.

Yeah, one of, one of the last couple ones. Was there another one?

You're going to say no, no, you.

Go for the next one. Well, there's too many. We're just stumbling over each other.

Well, I think the one thing that I think the key one that I use, which I don't know whether you want to talk about this now, is putting myself on race day. And that's the key, the biggest motivator for me. So if I'm feeling crap in November and my race is in March during a period, all I have to do is go, what am I going to feel like on March 28th when my race arrives the night before? What am I going to feel like? What am I going to feel like when I stand on the beach, if I'm a triathlete or on the start line as a runner or I'm hovering over my bike, ready for the. The race that I'm about to. To do? Am I satisfied with the preparation? Have I done everything in my power to enable me to have the best day of my life on my. A race that I've spent six or nine months preparing for? So in that November, when I'm sitting there thinking, well, I put my socks on, all I have to do is think about race day and race night the night before. Am I. Am I shitting myself the night before because I haven't prepared properly, or am I really happy with myself and looking back going, well, there is nothing more I could have done to prepare myself as well as I can? And. And that is the biggest motivator for me. There's no doubt in my mind. If I'm struggling, put my mind straight to race day and you bet that I'm on the bike or I'm putting my running shoes on, I'm going for a run or I'm jumping in the pool for a swim, I was going.

To say that that's my number one as well. Um, and I think, again, this comes from a lesson you taught me when I was a kid. But just as soon as you think about that race day, it's just instant motivation. It's like a little secret pill, you know, and it's like a motivational.

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. It's like taking an injection of. Of stimulus. When you're in.

Yeah, you're in a conflict. Do I do it or do I not? When you have to make a decision about what's. What's going to be best for my preparation and what's not, as soon as you think about how am I going to feel the night before the race, how am I going to feel the morning of, how am I going to feel when I'm starting Or in the.

Race that whole week that build up when you start thinking about the race, geez, why did I only do 4 long runs instead of the 10 he told me to do?

Yeah.

Why did I do three endurance rides instead of that? You know, the 75 I was supposed to do? Yeah. You just kicking yourself that whole week. It's so disappointing. And. And I just don't try to avoid. I just don't want to. I don't want to feel like that. I want to get there knowing that, you know, I've done everything in my power here. And whatever happens on race day, I know that I've. I've prepared as well as I can. And, you know, it might not still pan out the way I want to, but at least I know I've given it everything. But if you get there on race day and you have a crap day, you know why? Yeah, yeah.

But agreed. It's my absolute number one. And it never fails to give you a little surge of just, oh, I know what to do now. Yeah. Because you really think about that day builds up something inside of you, and that's obviously also the value of having a goal, because you've got that goal. You can. Yeah, you can think about that.

Yeah. But if you don't have that goal and it's. You're just meandering along, aren't you? You know, you can't use that tactic.

Exactly.

Because there's, you know, my goal is to be better. Well, that's a great goal. I'm really happy with that goal. I'm not dismissing that. But be better when it does make.

It easier to give into a session or.

Yeah, I'll be better next week.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that.

That.

That's kind of a good point, because I actually mentioned this today to someone as well, was when someone says to me, I'm having a bad week, I'll just start again on Monday. Well, good on you for. It's Tuesday. Let's just waste five days in preparation. And you've now lost. What about you Just start again now?

Yeah.

And. And get your mindset right. And, you know, I'm gonna. You know, I'm gonna. That's a famous word. I'm gonna go and get your shoes on. Go and do the session.

Yeah.

You know, what's stopping you now? Yeah, Just laziness, but I'll start better on Monday. No, you can keep doing that and keep starting on Monday. Don't be that person. You know, if you're having a bad trot, don't make the consistency worse by having a adding five more days to your bad trot that you've just had. It could be legitimate reasons why you've had three days off. But don't make an eight. Make it three and start again.

Yep. One of the only last ones I had was meeting up with people like you spoke about. Even if you're not meeting up with them in real life, meeting up with them virtually or just training at the same time. I know my other two brothers have used that before. They text each other and say, do you want to get on? Just for a bit of motivation? And they'll chat on the phone while they're. While they're doing easy ride. You know, just doesn't make a difference not riding together. But that's a time they're setting aside to talk and pedal at the same time. And I found that effective for my easy runs. Just organized. To meet up with someone just gives you that motivation for the easy, slow run or joining a group for your hard sessions.

Yeah, I just think they're the obvious ones that we haven't even talked about and they should be the ones you go to straight away. There's always going to be a conflict whether the people you're going to train with are doing what you want.

Exactly. That's why that's hard.

So what do we do there? Well, I. My message, and I've had this conversation so many times with the athletes I coach. Oh, but I want to ride with this guy on Monday. I say, absolutely, go with him and explain to him that you've invested in a coach and this is where you're at with your program. And he doesn't have a coach and he's just doing a random what'll I do today? Session, which is normal. Wake up. What will I do today? I'll just do a recovery. I'll ring Joe and. And we'll do a recovery ride together. But as I get out there, I might just go harder and. And that's his program. Whereas you can say to him straight from the. From the outset, look, today we're going to do recovery. We're not going to go over 190 watts, no matter what. So if you're happy with that, then let's go.

Yeah.

And during the ride he'll say, yeah, well, we talked about that, but that doesn't count. And all of a sudden, just let him go and you stay with your 190 watts and all of a sudden he will join you. Believe it or not, that's what will happen. So you have to be selective and you have to make it clear from the outset, be transparent. This is what I'm doing today, and if it's a hard day and they want to join you, great, join in. But this is the session I'm doing, and every time I do a hard section, I'll come back towards you or work it out. You know, if we ride the hills and someone's really at a less standard than you are, you know, when you get, if you're doing four hill repeats, you get to the top of the hill, you ride back down and you join them and ride back to the top of the hill with them, and then you go on the journey. So there's lots of little tactics that you can use as a runner. You know, if you're running with someone who's too good for you and you're doing a hard session that's similar to what you want to do, then that's actually okay, as long as it's got a similarity that you can say, well, I'm trying to get, you know, three, four, five minute efforts here or 30 second efforts or two minute efforts, depending on what your session is. And if they're, if they're running too hard for you, great, just do your version. But you're still in with the group and you still got that camaraderie, teamwork that, you know, you're sharing pain with others that feels like it's okay when you, when you're sharing it by yourself. Oh, you know, you're looking around going, whoa, how hard is this? You know, but, but using, using groups and friendships I think is great as long as you can not compromise. That's the key underwriter there, that the minute you start doing that, you might as well not be on the program because you're just doing the sheep program.

Yeah, I guess that summarizes some good tactics. One last thing I wanted to clarify. We touched on it really briefly before when you said, this is not my philosophy, but I text someone the seven green ticks. I wanted to clarify that because it is a big part of your coaching philosophy that you're not there to motivate people.

Absolutely. That's not my job. I want people who are on the same page as me who have a desire and a passion to reach a goal. And my job as a coach is to help them do the right sessions, have the program spread out correctly, make sure they're riding in the right power ranges, make sure that their heart rate is appropriate, that they're riding at the right cadence that they're getting, the tactics of the race that they're learning how to execute, etc. Etc. Motivating them is not my job. Don't come to me. If you need someone to motivate, go to somewhere else, because you will be motivated by the passion that I've got invested in you. But I'm not going to spend time talking you into training. That's what we talked about earlier, and that's not what I see my role is.

And that's why you are happy to send that little text, because it's a little tactic that will help, but it's not. It's not you creating the intrinsic motivation in them because you. That's not your philosophy. You won't do that.

No. It's just telling them they're on a good journey and it's a. It's a motivator in a different method. But it's not me ringing up saying, come on, Jordan, I know you. You need to train here. Come on, come on, you can do it. I'm not that. I'm not that coach.

Yep, Good way to finish off. It's been a big podcast. Thank you very much for listening. It's been hopefully one that can help you train when you don't feel like it. That's it from us. We'll see you next episode.