How To Warm Up For A Race Properly

Do a PB in the middle of a training session at the end of it. After all that climbing was to me, the body will perform so much better later if you let it warm up properly. So if I'd have done that at the start of the session, I can guarantee you I would have gotten nowhere.

Near that time or the power that I pushed.

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 Trouvelo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. In today's episode we are talking about how to make a decision about racing when you're just not quite right, especially for your A race. We talk about the New York Marathon and the disaster we saw unfold in the men's side, as well as our main topic for today, which is how to warm up for a race. And whether that's a cycling race, a triathlon or a running race, there are variations in what you should be doing in the warmup. So we're going to be going to be going through exactly what you need to be do know what you need to do to warm up for your specific race. Dad, welcome to the episode. We're back in the studio today. It feels like home. Let's get into it. What are you grateful for?

What's my gratitude? Well, good to have you home. That's. That's one. But this is completely out of left field. This gratitude is I've been both my parents are Scottish, my brothers was born in Scotland, so we've got a real Scottish heritage in our blood and our favourite team is Celtic Football Club. And my dad was just a passionate man and we've really followed in his footsteps and so have all of my children.

You.

And it so happens that Celtic are coming out to Australia during the World.

Cup to keep their players in form.

They want to keep playing matches. So a lot of the clubs around.

The world, this is happening everywhere. They're going to play matches, exhibition matches. And it so happens that Celtic are.

Actually coming to Australia to play against.

Everton, who are in the English Premier Division. And Sydney fc, they were meant to play Rangers in Australia, but that fell through.

So when we found out this was.

Happening, we got tickets and we were.

Off to Sydney to see Celtic play.

It doesn't really matter who they're playing. We just want to be a part of the atmosphere and all the things.

That, that I grew up hearing my dad talk about the, the fantastic atmosphere.

At, at Parkhead, which is Celtics home ground and a lot of the.

For those of you who don't know much about soccer, it is one of the, the big clubs of the world. You know, it's in the top 10 clubs of the world with their performances and their supporters are almost second to none. And, and if you ever get a chance, get on a YouTube video and put in you'll never walk alone and just sit there and watch that for five minutes. And that happens before each match when Celtic play and it's especially when they play in a European Champions League game. The opposition teams, whether you're Barcelona or Inter Milan or Real Madrid, they love coming to Park Head to experience you'll never walk alone sung by the fans and it's quite an emotional thing and that's what I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for the team that I've passionately supported my whole life. I'm sure there'll be some anti Celtic listeners out there, which is absolutely fine. And I coach one who's a mad Ranger supporter. Shout out to Mattho up there in Queensland and yeah, it's one of those things. It's great to be able to experience it with our family. You're coming along as well and yeah, we look forward to. And I'm very grateful get the opportunity to go and watch Celtic in Australia.

Yeah, absolutely. My gratitude is more bike based. Although there are no, we always say there's no rules around gratitude. Be grateful for whatever you want. First time this week back on the time trial bike since about July. So bit of a shock to the legs, bit of a shock to the system. But the time trial bike is so much fun and we did. We've just started our team's time trial training. We've got the Nationals coming up in about 10 weeks. The Nationals teams time trial, which is always a fun event, which we love going to and you get to train. We do our Tuesday morning training sessions as a Tribalo group for the team's time trial and it's just so much fun being in this train that you are flying down the road on flat sections. You're averaging 48, 50Ks an hour. If it's a slight downhill, it's 55 to 58Ks an hour. Even on the uphills it's still 40 plus because you roll on time trial bikes, all very aero. The person on the front is grinding for 30 seconds and they swing off and you really feel like a professional team. So very grateful for the time trial bike. And to have so much fun, to be able to go really fast again and it's the fastest you'll go on a bike.

So it's, it's pretty awesome experience, gotta say.

You know, riding a bike's a great thing to do, you know, especially when.

You know, summer's about to arrive and.

The sun's on your back. But actually being on a time trial bike is another extension of that because the exhilaration, you feel like a little kid, you're just going so fast and in a little group, a little four man group or three man group or whatever your team's time trial practice is.

And we do variations of that. 2 man, 3 man, 4 man, 5 man, 6 man, you, you just feel like you're an express train going along.

And you know, when your turn comes to get on the front, you know, it's like, oh God, I hope I don't slow the team down here. And, and then you've got to be careful not to overcook yourself so when you swing off you can actually get back in line.

So, so it is a fun thing to do. And, and that's what bike riding is about, you know, enjoying experiences.

Moving on to our next segment, which is what has caught your attention. And dad, in our little niche of sport, what has caught your attention so far?

Geez, it's a tough one this week because I could talk about so many topics. You know, the World Triathlon, 70.3 titles that just went by and what happened.

In the drafting penalties to Ben Long. Sam Long, Yeah, Sam, Ben's brother.

We've got a family friend called Ben Longer.

You know, I could talk about that.

But we won't on this episode.

But yeah, really. I suppose my, my thing is about.

Making decisions about racing when there's actually something not quite right. And whether it's injury or whether it's sickness, you're faced with a tough decision. You've got this, a race that you've prepared for for possibly three weeks, possibly 13, possibly a year, and all of a sudden a day out or two days out, or within a week or even two weeks, you're faced with the possibility that you might not make the start line. So what's caught my attention is we actually had that situation and it happens all the time. It's just not a one off thing. This is happening day in, day out to athletes all over the world. And we've always said sometimes it's harder to get to the start line than to do the race itself. And we've talked a Little bit in this podcast and we're local events here. And there is one, one gravel race called the Melbourne to Warnee, and it's called the Dirty Warnee. And we have a Melbourne to Warny on the road and we have now Melbourne to Warny for the very first time on the. On the dirt.

So it's a.

A gravel bike race.

And one of our coaches has, has.

Been training the house down for this event and it's part of his preparation for next year when he goes back to unbound in the US and he actually felt sick on Friday morning the day before the race, and we kind of almost dismissed it a little bit. Oh, you'll be right. It's just nerves. And as the day progressed, it got worse. And one of the things I've learned.

Is when someone says they've got a.

Tickle in their throat or a sore throat, that's not a great sign. That means there is something going on. And all the markers. His recovery was worst. It had been three days earlier. It was through the roof. His performances two days earlier were all fantastic. And then the day before, everything went the other way. His resting heart rate was up. His recovery data was as low as it's been. It was like he'd been not tapered. It was like he was in a heavy training block. And they're things that are really indicators that something's not quite right. So. So what. What's caught my attention about that? Well, what do you do? You know, this is a great example for everybody to understand that, you know, you have prepared for this one event and you are in the form of your life and you have to make a decision, will I do the race or will I do the right thing and give it a miss? And Nick even went to the extent of he was at the start in his kit on his bike, warming up, still going, will I, won't I?

And.

And then eventually he's gone, no, I can't. I can't do this race. I'm definitely not quite right. And I will do a whole lot of bad things as a result of this.

So coming to that decision was absolutely the right thing for him to do. And why was he still trying to do the event? That's kind of what I want to talk about is because there's so many things you've done that have been so correct about the preparation and you feel like you're letting yourself down because you're.

Not going through with it.

And it was his A race for this period.

It was absolutely his A race, you know, because his next race, you know.

Is mid summer in America, which is April, May, June, July.

So it's a stepping stone for that season. And so there's so many reasons as to tell you you should do it because, because everything points towards I'm supposed to do this event. So, so really he's, he's, he's made the tough decision to step off his bike before he started. And I, when I spoke to him about two hours later, I just said that is the best decision you've made in, in all the time I've known you. That was so tough for you to do that. And you know, we can say he could have done this or he could have done that in the race, but you know, from the positions that he knows, the people he's against, he would have been right up there. And you'll never know where someone's going to finish. So you can't predict that and you can't say that, you know, I would have finished this place. That's just never going to be true. You never know what's going to happen in the race. But the point I'm making is two days later his wife got Covid and he's still sick and he didn't do the race. And he's actually got worse as Saturday, Sunday, but even Saturday during the race and seeing the results, you're saying, oh, maybe I could have done it. But I'm sitting there going, no, you've done the right thing. You've absolutely made the right decision. There's so many reasons why that's a good decision. If you had have done the race, let's look at that scenario. If you hadn't done the race, tell me what your performance would have been like. What did you feel out of 10? Did you feel six or seven or eight or nine out of 10? He said, oh, I felt, you know, five, six, seven. I said, well all the stuff we know, and you know that yourself as a coach is if you feel 6, 7, 8 out of 10, that's the only level you can go to without really falling in a hole. So would you be happy with the result if you went into that race racing at 70% of your FTP or 60% of your, of your, your eight or nine hour, because the ride went for eight hours. So it's a 238K gravel bike race which the winners did, you know, around the seven, eight hour mark. So, so that's the one thing that makes you feel better is well, I couldn't have competed at that level. And if I did, what would happen? Well, I would say you would be worse, you would be sicker for longer. And if you actually put your body under strain when there's something actually going wrong inside your own immune system, and I've experienced this just recently, then you will actually take longer to recover from this and you could stay sick for longer. So there's two things. Your recovery is shocking and it could take you four weeks to get over that stress that you put yourself under that load. And it's not like it's an hour.

And a half crit race.

It's, you know, it's up there with the hardest thing you'll do on a bike. You know, guys are really struggling who are fully fit and healthy by the end, you know, so there's so many negative outcomes that can happen. Plus mentally you would feel like you haven't achieved anyway because you finished well down the field, because you can't perform. So they're the things you need to think about when you're making those decisions. And Nick's made that decision, understanding all those things. What are the positives? Well, the positives are he'll only be sick for this small amount of time. He will be better within seven days maybe instead of three weeks. His recovery back into riding. He hasn't got an eight hour race under his belt. So even though he wanted to do that race, we had a schedule that meant he had to recover from that race before we started some easy training. And once he's now healthy, we can start the hard training straight away. So we've already picked his next race, which we've brought forward another race in January. So there's a whole lot of positive outcomes from the negative decision that he felt he'd made. But, you know, having found out that his wife had Covid, you know, it's pretty clear that he probably had Covid. No wonder he felt sick. And imagine doing an endurance ride in hindsight, if you found out you had Covid and we did have someone do three peaks last March who didn't realize I had Covid till I got home. And they clearly did the race with COVID and that really has knocked him around for months afterwards. He's had good recovery period, started to train. As soon as we put intensity into his training, he's got sick again. And we don't know a lot about long Covid, but I feel that if you didn't know accidentally that you had Covid and you competed, it's not your fault. But the long term Effects of that I've seen since March. He has really had a rollercoaster ride. And had he known he had Covid, he would not have done that event. And he possibly would not be in this situation six months later where we're still worried about giving him intensity because it might actually get him sick again. This is really what's caught my attention. I really want to get it out there so people can sure feel sad and disappointed. But imagine how sad and disappointed you would be if for six months you actually can't compete properly for one race. There will be another race.

There's always another race.

There's an example I want to bring up and get your thoughts on, and that's the Kona world champs recently, Braden Curry, who was one of the favorites for the race. He came second at the World Champs in St. George earlier this year. Or third. Sorry. And he wanted to go better and win. And all his preparation was going towards Kona. He missed all the PTO races, all the lead up races. He was just, he went to Hawaii early. And I'm just building this context because this for him was his and for world champs for anyone is their golden race. But for him specifically, he had just. He decided to forgo any payments from PTO races, which the triathletes get paid really well. And he was putting all his eggs in the Kona basket. And then he got sick the week of Kona and he went a different route. He decided, he started to come good again the last couple of days and decided to race. And he put a thing up saying that he was really unsure. Did he want to aim for a DNS did not start or a DNF did not finish? You know, would he rather start and then not be able to finish or would he rather just not start? And. And for him, because it was Kona, because it's the world champs, he decided to start and hope for a miracle. Halfway through the bike, he gets off his team, picks him up in a car. Devastating feeling. And in that sense, he went a little bit different route. Same concept though. It's an ironman. It can really ruin your body. Thoughts on that?

Yeah, and I totally understand his thought process and I myself have done exactly.

The same thing and had a disastrous outcome. And that's the message, that I want to prevent people from making the same mistakes. You can make that decision to have.

A crack and that's admirable, but it's actually foolish.

And I'm not criticizing him as a.

Person, I'm just criticizing his decision and you have to experience it yourself once because he'll never do that again. He'll never start a race ever again because he now knows from firsthand experience the outcome. So that tells you what Nick did was really mature decision. And I'm really wrapped and I've told him, great decision. And it's a great example of how you understand as a coach, you know, you've had to have this argument with yourself and you've made the right decision and you won't live to regret this. Whereas, you know, I'm not sure how. How much it's affect Curry's, you know, future, but hopefully it hasn't had too.

Much of an impact.

But the result was the same, wasn't it, to a degree.

And I will defend his decision a little bit. I think that based on when he pulled out and what he said about it was that once he realized he couldn't push the power numbers, he basically caught it. Then he didn't push his body beyond that. So.

But my question, George, would be, what did he think? Being sick, he could still be 100%.

I think he was just hoping for a moogle. I think he was.

But logic says, yeah, exactly. If you're still not 100%, why would you think you can perform at 100% of your ability?

And again, I don't know, the insights in that position. I would think that there's a 1% chance that I just suddenly come good and I get on the bike and I can hit my numbers. Unbelievable.

I absolutely understand that as well, because I have done that mistake. So I'm not sitting here saying I didn't do that. The only reason why I'm so adamant about it is because I did do that.

Yeah.

And I haven't done it since.

And.

And every time I think about it before that, you know, I would say, oh, you have a crack.

That would be my attitude. I would have the same attitude.

I've trained for this.

No matter how I'm feeling, I want to be in it because I'm competitive and I want to see what's going to happen.

And I did it and I performed shocking.

And the result was just the, you know, the worst outcome. And still, I still think about that result as a, you know, and in hindsight, I said this to Nick, people.

Would be saying, you know, just see how you go. And you go, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. And then when they ask you how.

You went and you went, I went terrible.

They'd say, oh, how come you said oh? Because I was sick. And you know what they say? Why did you start?

Yeah.

Exactly the same people who said, have a go, and then they're saying, why did you start?

Yeah.

So it's like, you know it.

You can't win with this.

So you've really got to bite the bullet and.

Oh, it's a tough decision.

Yeah.

But that. That's what's caught my attention.

Yeah. No, that's great. Moving on. What has caught my attention. And again, we could talk about the 70.3 World Champs, Hon. Mentions to Taylor Nib, who just dominated the women's field, and Christian, who had his revenge race. And that's remarkable in itself. It came back from Kona three weeks later. Gustav couldn't do it after winning Kona couldn't back it up. Christian has said on record that he tends to race better after racing more. And so that is incredible after racing at Kona.

Well, I just think we need to put an asterisk here. He is a one off.

Yeah.

So don't try and emulate.

You know, it's like one of those things.

Don't do this at home because this is remarkable. Yeah. I don't think people understand how difficult Kona was.

And he went deep and he wasn't. You know, when you're going that deep and pushing yourself to try to perform better, to come back only three weeks later from the hardest race in the world at Kona. That is the hardest race in triathlon. Without doubt, Utah's pretty hard as an ironman as well, but it's just not the same as Kona. But for him to come out and dominate like he did and be challenged and still come out with the goods was pretty spectacular. Sorry.

No, that's fine. We saw a lot of the Kona athletes who tried to back it up generally perform well, but just. Just struggle to hit that top end, which you need to at a world championship. But what I wanted to talk about was the New York Marathon, which was ran over the weekend. And again, quick notable mention in the women's race. It was very, very close. I think it was 16 seconds between first and second, which is just so brutal at the end of. And the first three and the next one was another nine seconds back or something. And they were together until basically they got to Central park, which is the last few K, and there's a little bit of an uphill rise with 2k to go. And then it's just. It is a. I think it's an underestimated, brutal course. New York Marathon has so much Elevation, it's a late start, so it's always very hot if it's a hot day. So I just think anytime you're battling the last few k of a marathon, just, it's got to be the most brutal thing. You know, Most people from 30k just suffering to get through. Imagine having to race for a title at that point. Just crazy. Anyway, in the men's side, the Brazilian, Daniel do Nascimento. Nascimento. Nascimento. I don't know how I really like.

The Spanish to pronounce it.

Well, it's Portuguese technically in Brazil, but he is a runner that has a PB. Clocked a PB in the last 12 months of 204, which makes him the fastest non African born runner of all time. And he went out the first few K and bravely, courageously slash, naively, foolishly, took off from the field. Which doesn't usually bode well in a marathon. The front packs together. Normally it's the front packs together and everyone's running at the leader's pace. Who can, who can run a 203 or a 205 or 208, depending on the course. And everyone just hangs on for as long as they can. And he took off in front of them.

I love his confidence.

And didn't just get a little bit clear. He got 100, 200, 300, 400 meters clear of them.

Two minutes clear at one point. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah. You ran a 101 half ran first.

10K and sub 30. Yeah. And a 101, 22 half marathon. So on world record pace at New York, which is not a fast course in the heat. And as you would expect, 32kmart comes and he disappears. And the cameras actually kind of missed it to start with because it just happened so suddenly, but he basically managed to get a replay and he basically just stopped suddenly and collapses on the side of the road. And reports have now said that he was completely dehydrated, severely fatigued, spent a few hours in the hospital tent getting rehydrated, IV drip. And he has made a recovery already, reports say, but just push himself too hard. And it was, it was an extremely hot day on the day, but interesting to see this tactic. And there's two arguments here. One tiny argument in his favor is that he's giving it a crack. He's a pro runner at the top of the field. He can run a 204. So he was going for it didn't work out for him. He probably went too Hard because going for world record pace on that course is probably a little bit too ambitious. Even if you are a 204runner. He's still young. He's only 24 years old. So he's got a lot of potential in him if he gets his pacing right. He clocked a 4:17 mile, I think.

Fastest ever in a marathon in the history of marathon.

Which I said he doesn't count because he didn't finish because anyone can sprinter sprint and not finish.

I've got plenty of fun runners who've done that.

Exactly.

But yeah, interesting to see and I think for anyone else but the top 10 runners to try something like that is. We just want to make this point is just absolutely foolish and don't do it.

Lots of admiration.

Yep.

For the confidence and guts. But the percentage gain, it's. It's a bad one. It's. It's a bad mistake. And I guarantee you won't ever do that again.

Well you say that, but he actually did similar at the Tokyo Olympics and same result. So you would.

Well, I didn't know that stat.

Yeah.

So maybe he takes two goes.

Yeah.

Before he realizes that that's a tactic that won't work.

And look, if he's that confidence, back.

Yourself with a better plan and you know, stay with the pack and then from halfway run away from them.

Yeah.

But give yourself a bit more opportunity. So yeah. You know, even the best pros get it wrong.

Absolutely. And yeah, you can't underestimate how much the heat factors into it. And he might have been able to do those kind of paces in training, but not under these conditions. So interesting to look at. And I think the lesson is you can take a calculated risk if you're a pro runner, something like that. But any other runner, no matter what the distance marathon, half marathon, 10k, you know our principles. No amateur runner should ever be going out faster in their first half than their second half.

Yeah.

And look, if you know a little bit about the history of that race and if you. If you're really a student of running.

You would know what races have been won and run in. And that race is never won fast. It's never won fast. That's something you need to take into consideration. So. And in the end, the men's race.

Was won in 208.

Five guys were between 208 and 210.

So.

And they're guys who have all run fast.

They've run the winners PV is 203 I think.

So it's literally four to five minutes slower. On that course than any other course.

So why. Why would you go out trying to.

Run 202 pace on a course when your PB is already 204? You're actually trying to beat your PB on a course that's renowned for being.

Four to five minutes slower. So that's actually, I think, naive and not giving it the respect that it deserves. And a shout out to one of our trivalo athletes who traveled from Australia to New York, Rachel, and had an outstanding run and was kind of a little bit concerned about was my time good. And I'm saying in perspective, you know.

It'S outstanding what you did.

To be able to hold your pace within 10 or 15 seconds per mile from start to finish is a credit to you on that undulating, you know, humid course.

So, yeah, well done. And, you know, she's a weapon of endurance and loves to do that. And her time was the same four to five minutes slower than her PB at another course. And that's the disappointing thing because she wants to be beating her. But I've got to point out the perspective thing. You know, you can only compare New York with New York the next time. You can't compare New York to Berlin. Berlin's pretty much downhill, you know, so that's where everybody goes to run a pb.

And that's. That's what doing your homework. That's what planning and preparing is about.

Yep. And credit to her especially because the slower time filters down. So for the pros, it's five minutes, you know, but down to the amateur and age grouper, I was reading comments from people online saying they were 10 or 15 minutes slower than their PB or people that it was slower just because of the heat, you know, 10 minutes slower than their New York time because of the heat. And there's a YouTube runner that I follow, and he was 15 minutes off his pace. And granted, you don't know what their preparation was like, whether they're informal or not, but that seemed to be the general consensus across the board. So it's a big factor to take in. And let's get into the main topic of today, what we some education for you. And that is how to warm up for a race. This was an athlete emailed us and actually gave us the idea for the podcast and said, what should I specifically be doing in a sprint triathlon compared to a longer distance triathlon? So we thought we'd go through some examples of how to warm up for a race, what the purpose of the warmup is. And then go through some different distance examples of what you might do. And the warmup is very, very important and it's in my opinion, severely underestimated. And it's, it really sets you up for the day, not just physically, but mentally. So I mean, take us through the basic principle. What's the purpose of the warm up for you?

I think I should start with an example and that means more to people than me just trying to give a verbal answer about physiologically what it's doing. Well, we can talk about that as well. But I use the example of a couple of the guys that we coach because of their time constraints. We have a Thursday night swift race and it starts at quarter past six, Melbourne time, PM Thursday nights. And a lot of guys get to.

The start line at 11 past six or eight past six and they have literally a 30 second warm up or a four minute warm up. And other people who've got the time from work starting at 5:30, if they warm up for 45 minutes. And the correlation between performance and warm up is enormous, the people who have had time to warm up end up having a better result. And the people who are really short on time and just basically spend the first five minutes of the race trying to keep up because they actually are so not ready for the intensity and it really mucks up their whole race. And if you keep doing that every week, you actually get better at it, which is kind of interesting.

And some guys, that's what they do each week for the whole season because.

They can't do anything about it. It's not intentional, it's to do with their work and time commitment.

So they're not intentionally trying not to warm up, it's just that that's what they're left with. But their body does adapt, which is quite interesting to me that they actually eventually really use some tactics and technical ways to sit in early to see if they can warm up in the.

Actual race, which takes a little bit of talent to be able to do that.

And if we pick a race that's.

Got a hill straight away, then they're gone.

They've got no chance of riding at the intensity. And then once five or ten minutes is gone in the race, their legs come back. And you've had the experience yourself when.

You'Re starting a training session and you're thinking, my legs feel dead, how am I going to do this high intensity session?

So you start by negatively saying I'll.

Just have a go. And then you do the 10 minute or 15 minute, just building the intensity from 40% up to 70% of your FTP, just gradually building it up, starting with a really easy cadence and then.

Eventually letting your cadence get faster and faster.

I definitely start around 70 for the first minute or two. And I'm not even trying to ride with high cadence. I'm not trying to push the power. I'm just letting my legs dictate how.

Soon I can actually increase the cadence and increase the power.

That's the method that I'm trying to get everybody we coach to use and letting your body dictate when you're ready to do the next bit. So I'm trying to give a general.

Start of 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, depending on the actual session. If it's a high intensity session, I want the warm up to be longer. If it's a zone two session, the.

Warm up's tiny because the majority of the session's similar. If it's a recovery session, there's no warm up.

It's just rolling your legs. So the warmup's dictated to by the intensity of the event, whether it's training.

Or whether it's racing. So there's a lot to cover here. But definitely if you give yourself more time to prepare your body physiologically, where the blood is flowing a lot better, your whole body temperature has increased to a point where you actually have started to get a little bit of a sweat, a little bit of a puff. And then neuromuscularly, we do something which is really different to anybody else that I know. And I'm going to give this secret away, which is we do three strength efforts at really low cadence in our warmup. And that sounds counterintuitive to, you know, I don't want to be doing my race in the warmup. I want to warm up so I can race. But I found through so many experiments on myself where if I don't do these low cadence, high intensity efforts, I perform worse in the event. So it's been the bread and butter that I've used and implemented in a lot of the warmups that we do, depending on whether you're a runner or a swimmer or a rider. But you need to do something with intensity and a little bit of strength. So you are actually recruiting. And the reason we do it on the bike as a strength effort is we want to put pull up and push down. So we're recruiting every muscle, fiber and tissue and cell that we can actually get along board with us. And that will actually feels like you're breaking the shackles in Your legs.

It's a great analogy. It's exactly what it feels like.

Yeah. And it feels like you've burst through. And all of a sudden, because we've done a little bit of a 10 or 15 minute building the power and the cadence, and we've done a little bit of a ramp where we've gone from 70 to 80 to 90 to 100, 110% for a couple of minutes each. And then we have a little bit of rest. Then we do these three high intensity, low cadence efforts. And when you get to those, you actually know straight away if you're on song with the numbers there, you know your next main set, you're gonna have a good one. And if you're not going well there.

That'S a decision where I'll go, well, I need to be at the bottom.

Of the range today, my main set, because I'm not feeling it when I do these. But sometimes the first one feels crap, and then the second and third feel way better. And you can't even push my example. For me, I'm trying to push 350 to 450 watts for that 30 seconds. So my first effort is barely 350, 360, I am struggling and then have the minute and a half rest, and next thing you know, I'm doing 400 for the next 30 seconds, but it feels the same as 350. And then after I have my rest period, I do the next one. The effort feels like 350, but here I am doing 450. And that example just proves to me.

How easy it is for your body to adapt straight away.

And then once you start the race, if you're doing a time trial as an example, and I'm trying to ride the time trial at 280, how easy it feels like you're slicing through butter.

How easy does 280 feel after you've done an effort at 3:50, 4:50. And so all of a sudden you're on top of your game and you're.

Not spending anytime in your main event or race warming up. Warming up. You are actually right from the very.

First Pedal Revolution, you're at your race pace, intensity, temperature.

And I can't tell you how many times I've felt average in all the. All the 30 second efforts. You know, most of the time it's like you said, the first one feels average, but then the second one you're better and actually you're pushing higher. And the third one feels quite good. But it definitely has happened plenty of Times where all three of them felt average, but you just got through them and then you have enough recovery for the race. Then once you start the race, you go, oh, I'm actually feeling really good compared to that because you push through that bit of a grind of a warm up and you really got your body ready. And you mentioned there that a lot of people are worried that they are racing in their warm up. When you want to warm up to race. And I would say that you just have to make sure you also are planned enough and you've thought about the timings that you give yourself enough recovery. The big mistake you can see with these kind of efforts is you're doing it three minutes out from the race. You've still got a bit of lactate buildup in there, you still got a bit of fatigue, you still, your heart rate's still high and you kind of a little bit panicked leading to the race. You know, we kind of give ourselves anywhere from 6 to 8, up to 12 minutes rest after that final effort. For a race, not so much for a training session. For a training session it's two or three minutes because you're just getting into it. But for a race you're really making sure you're well recovered but not so long that you cool down in that.

Recovery period, um, and spreading, spreading out the warmup.

So if you're, if you've got to the event and you're late, I've found people will try to cram in those ramps and the 30 second efforts in five minutes and have, instead of having a 30 second effort with a minute or two minutes rest, they're having 15 seconds rest and then doing it again. That's actually not what we're trying to do. We're trying to do an effort, then let your body just relax again and then do another effort. So cramming it in, if that's all you've got the time to do, don't try and do the whole thing in seven minutes. Just pick a couple of little efforts once you've felt like your legs are coming good. So there's. Yeah. And look at again, it depends on what event.

Yep. And we will go through that now. I mean generally the aim, when we're talking about shorter events, races, time trolls, shorter running events, you know that feeling that you're aiming for is, let's say you finish your last effort eight minutes out, you're puffing. My heart rate might be 160, 170, quite high. You know, you're quite tired. But you know you're fully warm, you're physically warm, your muscles are switched on, you feel good, you've got a full eight minutes to recover. So in that eight minutes you actually do stay physically warm, but your heart rate goes right down. So you're really calm going to start line, but your body is totally warm and it's dependent on the person. Again, I found that sort of timeframe works well for me. But you've got to figure out what time frame works well for you, that you can stay warm but you've got enough time to recover. And there's one little concept I want to touch on quickly before we go into the distances and that's this concept that is well known among training groups and that is the second rep kind of myth, that if you look at so many reps, let's say you've got 8 times 400 or 6 times 1k or something, so often the second rep is the fastest. And it's just always so funny how that happens because you might not have completely warmed up or dialed your warm up routine in. You do the first, you get to the start line of the training session, you can do your first rep, do your first kick, it feels good, but you're not totally warmed up. Then you have a couple minutes rest and in that second rep you're still quite fresh in the session. It's a combination of that fresh feeling, but you are totally warmed up, you do a really good rep, it feels really good. And at the end of the session it turns out that was the fastest rep because you were still the most fresh whilst being the most warmed up. And I think that's a really fascinating concept.

You took the words out of my mouth because that was one of the things I wanted to mention was again, I'll use an example because it makes more sense. One of my training partners and I.

Years ago we were doing preparation for the Tour of Bright and we wanted to do three 10 minute hill repeats at the end of our three hour ride. And we went to a well renowned hill called Perrons Creek Road up in the Dandenongs where we locally live. And it's about a 10 minute effort if you're riding quite solid and if you're really racing up it to try and do a PB you could do for me, I'm talking about 8:20 or something, 8:30 or 8:48 somewhere around there. So the distance time is, you know, from your best to your to your mediocre is a minute and a half depending. And it's It's a gradient of about 7%. Anyway, the point I'm making is we, we did at least three hours of riding in the hills, 2,000 meters of climbing, all zone to pressure on the pedals and we were to finish off with 3 times 10 minutes up Perrins Creek Road. And they were supposed to be incrementally, progressively getting harder. So the first one at 75 to 80% FT, second one at 90, third one, go for it, see what you got. And remember, this is at the end of 2000 meters of climbing and I've never, that third rep, I've never beaten that third rep. That is my PB for that hill. That's the third time up it after 2K of climbing and Sean's is the same. And that to me was like a aha moment about warming up. So, so it was only a 10 minute effort. It was the 20 to 30 minute effort really. So I'd done 10 and I'd done 20. This was 20 to 30 and I wasn't mucking around with the other two. But to do a PB in the middle of a training session at the end of it after all that climbing was to me the body will perform so much better later if you let it warm up properly. So. So if I'd have done that at the start of the session, I can guarantee you I would have gotten nowhere.

Near that time or the power that I pushed.

How many times have you done that climb, you reckon in your life?

Over 300 times.

And that's still your PB?

It's still my PB and I've done it as a, as an attempted PB and not got really that close.

Yeah, and a lot of the athletes from St. George actually had similar comments exactly talking about this because it was freezing temperatures at St. George. It's really starting to get into the cooler temps in America getting into winter. It snows in Utah a lot and yeah, it was freezing and they were wearing a bunch of them wearing long sleeve tri suits, calf sleeves, gloves, gloves. A lot of them were wrapping up in transition and taking more time because of how cold it was. And a lot of them commented on the fact that it was really hard to get warm on the bike. They just couldn't get find their legs or a lot of them found their legs over halfway through the bike leg which just again shows the impact of a warm up. And if you ever try to race in cool temperatures, you know exactly that feeling and really how important it is to warm yourself up.

Yeah, that's a really Great example you used. And it was interesting watching some of the athletes, their tactics. Should I get dressed? Should I not get dressed? Should I overdress? And Christian, because of his not his strength is his swim. So he wasted no time, didn't put any clothes on, basically just got out of transition and he made up a.

Minute and a half in transition, whereas everybody else was getting gloves and getting warm and doing the right thing, in my opinion. But Christian's gone.

No way.

This is a great opportunity for me.

To get rid of the deficit I.

Had in the swim. And he was with the lead pack. And his theory was, which I actually thought was hilarious, was I'll just ride harder to get warmer. And boy, that's exactly what he did. And again, don't copy what he does. This is not a good idea. Yet in the women's race, the winner.

Put on a long sleeve cycling top over the top of her tri suit. And then I saw one of the other athletes wearing a bathing suit. And she said later she was freezing. All she had was a bathing suit on. And it would have definitely affected her performance for sure. And look, I know the people who are in the penalty box, they would have got cold standing there and then trying to get warmed up again after standing there for five minutes. When you've been sweating and hot and you know what happens with the sweat, it cools down on you. It makes you colder. So that would be really hard if you've had to be stopped for some reason. Whether it's a mechanical or a penalty, you are actually trying to warm up.

Again in the race.

And if you try to ride too hard too soon, you get the same problem you have when you don't have a warm up.

I had that exact experience yesterday when we finished the session. And normally on a bunch ride, by the time you get to the coffee shop, it might be a lot later in the day. The sun's out, so you can warm.

6:30, it's not finished.

6:30 in the morning and you're pouring sweat. So my clothes are soaked. Sat at the coffee store for 10 minutes, tried to ride. It was the most uncomfortable ride home because you're soaking wet and you've got this bitter cold kind of window. And even though it was a warm day yesterday, it really is uncomfortable. And again, just reiterates this point.

And the second point I wanted to make about we were talking about how.

Important the warmup is. You mentioned that you don't want to do your race in the warmup.

You'd just rather have all of your energy ready for the race. But if you train this way over a long period of time, your body will adapt to this style of warmup. It will be a shock early on in your career, but if you really persist and do the warm up the way I'm suggesting, your body will cope, it'll adapt.

Well, let's go through some distance examples because this principle of this quite hard warm up really doesn't actually apply to every single distance. So it applies to a lot of the shorter races. But yeah, let's go through some specific race examples. We're going to go through cycling, triathlon and running examples to clarify what kind of warm up is appropriate for what. So the example we've been given this whole time about these big efforts doesn't apply to the longer stuff, Ironman, half Ironman, but let's go through it. So we'll start with cycling and basically the two main distance differences will be if you're doing a short race like a time trial, which can be between 20 and 40 minutes up to an hour, crit race compared to a road race, that might be 90 minutes to two and a half hours plus. So how does the warm up differ once you go from that short distance, long distance for purely cycling?

Yep.

So your initial statement is 100% accurate. So the warm up is dictated to.

By the time of the event. So if the event is two hours.

Plus, then the warm up all of a sudden becomes less significant. Because one of the things we skipped over a little bit was what is the purpose of the warm up.

The warm up is to get your body ready for the expected intensity of the event.

That's actually what the warm ups meant to be doing. So if you're doing an Ironman, the.

Expected intensity is around 60 to 70% all day. So, so you need to get your body to that state. If your activity that you're going to warm up for is a 5 minute.

Pursuit on the track or 100 meter sprint or 800 meter or a 20.

Minute, 20 minute time trial, your intensity is going to be at maximum for the duration of that event. So you need to be getting your body up to your maximum intensity. So if you can understand that concept, everything else will make sense. So from that point of view, the question is the longer the event, the less warm up. We do. But, but how much warm up should you still be doing? So taking the cycling.

So if we're doing an endurance event such as a Gran Fondo, that might be five hours, six or seven hours or even three peaks, which could be 10 hours if you had the opportunity. And because a lot of these events.

You need to line up in that is a real issue with the warm up. Because you could warm up and because.

There'S 5,000 people in the event, or.

500, it's important to get near the front so that you're not having to fight your way through traffic for the rest of the ride. So there's a lot of tactics going. So you need to actually warm up as close to your start time as possible and still be able to get near the front of the race to start with. How do you do that and what should you do? Well, if I use the example of when you go to an event, you normally are in a hotel and that is part of the preparation is getting the hotel location as close as you.

Can to the warm up. So you've got the option of having.

A toilet right there and you could have your, your stationary trainer in the room.

So you could go and put your bike down at the start line, hang it over the fence near the start. If it's a Gran Fondo we're talking about and every Gran Fondo has rails with advertising shoot and so you can just hang your handlebars over at the front. And this has been done many times where if you walk from the back with your bike trying to go through.

People to get to the front, people.

Will go, what are you doing?

I'm not letting you through. I've lined up for hours here, why.

Am I going to let you through? But if you walk through without a bike to say excuse me, people will let you pass. And so therefore you go to where your bike's hanging over. So that enables you to go to.

The toilet as much as you want because your location's right there and you can jump on your trainer and get.

There five minutes before or 10 minutes before the start. Been just rolling your legs over on the trainer. If you're doing a 10 hour event, you basically only need to roll your legs over and maybe do one or.

Two efforts that have got some low cadence with high intensity. That's about all you need to do. So, you know, five minutes of rolling your legs over and one or two little short efforts is fine for an endurance race. That's the difference between a long warm up and a short warm up.

And so moving that theory into triathlon because you've got, you know, you're trying to be warm for the swim because that's what you're starting with, but you also want to have some legs in the ride and run. How do you warm up for a triathlon? And then that's the first question. And then specifically a sprint up to Olympic 70.3 Ironman.

Okay, so we work backwards because we just spoke about the endurance ride. So the endurance triathlon, which would be the Ironman or long course or half ironman, the three things I like to make ask people do. I don't make people do anything. I advise them to if they can.

Park their car or get dropped off and ride a small section to the venue. Some races your bike has to be in overnight, so that's impossible. So therefore a good walk is still a good thing to do. And that's your like five or ten minutes of easy aerobic exercise. Whether you're riding a bike or whether you're running or swimming doesn't matter. So as long as you can get five or ten minutes of some movement so you're actually getting the blood flow around your legs and riding is a good way to do it, but walking is actually okay as well. Don't make that too long. So we only need five to ten minutes of that. And then once you've got your bike and stuff set up and you're happy with everything, then you should go and do a little bit of a run with a couple of stride throughs and that's about it. Like two or three minutes with a couple of stride throughs with your other pair of shoes that aren't in the transition that you should have in your bag. We've had also the opportunity to have parked close to an event and you can have your trainer with another bike and just warm up that way. But you just need to be rolling your legs over and it does stop you from getting anxiety anyway with standing around.

Again, very short time though, very short time.

And then you need to get into the water and if it's an, if it's an Ironman or 70.3, you need to swim for two or three minutes and then do one or two 10 to 20 second efforts where you're actually huffing and puffing for 20 seconds or 30 seconds and then give yourself five minutes between the end of that and the start of your swim. So it's a really low key warmup. It involves all three sports, but it's a really low key one so that you actually by the time you get to the swim you feel like you've done a little bit of a half hour training session which involved three sports. So we do the same method for each of the disciplines, whether it's Olympic distance sprint, half Iron man or Ironman, but we change the intensity. So if I was doing let's go the extreme from Ironman down to a super sprint, which a sprint is still.

An hour and a half to some.

People, an hour for the winners. So it's 50 minutes to an hour. So we don't overdo it still. But we really want to know that when we swim we're going to be swimming flat out. When we get on the bike, we're going to be riding at our best intensity and when we get off we want to run at our best 5k. So we want us, as I said before, the intensity of the event has to match the warm up. So you would be wanting to warm up with some strideouts that reflect your 5k running pace with some, you know, 400 meter, three 30 second stride outs in that. So you would do three of those for a sprint with a, you know.

Sorry, not 400 meters each sprint.

400 meter pace. Yeah, I meant to say yeah, for 30 seconds.

Yeah.

So 10, 20 or 30 second efforts at your 400 meter pace. So with a good break in between and then you would jump in the water and do a little bit more swimming, maybe four or five minutes and then you would do definitely three hard efforts at 30 seconds where you are sprinting like you are in the start of this race. And it's not just a, you know, a lift, the intensity 30 second, it's flat out sprinting so that you, you get out of the water and you line up for your event and then when you jump in the water, you've already done three of those, you know, five minutes ago, your body's ready for the next one. Even though I don't want you to sprint at the start of, of a sprint race or any race for that matter, I want you to take off at the pace you're going to swim from start to finish. But there are times where you might have to be sprinting for 10 seconds just to get placing on someone's feet. So for the sprint race we want to still do the same ride to the venue. There's no need to do any intensity on the bike. It's just you warming yourself aerobically. You get your intensity from the stride throughs on the run and from the efforts in this in the water.

And depending on how you are as a swimmer. I personally, swimming is my weakest leg. So I won't or would not prefer to do any more than two minutes of just general swimming to start with. Would rather just minute Minute and a half, maybe two minutes and then some short little efforts.

So what you're saying is great, but everybody has got to find out the way that suits them best. So try to do one race that's not so important. A little bit longer warm up and all the C and B races practice shorter warm up, longer warm up and experiment to see what it feels like. And then use your A race, the one that you feel gave you the best opportunity to perform better.

And then let's take that example and apply it to just purely running. So if you're doing a 5k, 10k again, up to half marathon or marathon, same principle. I know you're going to say, but how do you just do a run warm up because you're just doing a running race.

Yep. So let's start with the longer version first. So if you're warming up for a marathon, I would definitely be wherever my car's parked or if I'm staying in a hotel, I would want to have a period where I'm walking as as.

My preparation for the long endurance event.

And for some people the marathon might be anywhere between 2 hours, 20 and 5 hours.

That could be the range of person we're talking about. So you know, if you're going to.

Be out there for five hours, you.

Just don't need any warm up.

You basically would be a walk to.

The start line and line up and then start your race. If you know you're going to be.

Out there for five hours, I'm saying.

Use the first kilometer or two as your warm up. You don't want to expend any more energy than you need to. You're going to be running 42.2 as a five hour runner.

You don't want to be running 45k on the day. Okay, so if you're a three or four to four hour, then it should be a five to six minute warm up with an easy walk, jog and then maybe one stride through just to feel your legs. The closer you get, and I'm talking about just the marathon here, the closer you get to a faster time. 3 hours and under a couple more stride throughs is what I would suggest. And a little bit longer warm up so that when you have to run, if you're going to run 248, your 4 minute K pace, if you're going to run 3 hours, you're 4:12 pace, so you need to be actually ready to run 412pace from the gun. Whereas if you're a four hour runner, you're aiming for 5,550pace. So that's where your warm up should be. So again you try to reflect the intensity you're going to have. So the higher the intensity the more intent should your warmup be. But it doesn't have to be long. So equally different if you're doing an 800, we're going the complete other spectrum.

The warmup should be at least half.

An hour or more for a two minute race.

For a two minute race.

So I'm trying to give you the extremes here. And from an 800 in between, it's 3K 5K 10K half marathon. The warmup gets shorter in time and less intense as you go towards the marathon. But the shorter the event, the more the intensity of the. That doesn't mean the whole half hour is intense. I'm saying there are sections such as we would you possibly could spend 10 or 15 minutes just doing a cruisy run at 5 minute K pace. If you're trying to run an 800, you know, four 35 minute K pace where you're just getting your breathing going. You could be talking while you're doing, while you're running, you could be jogging with a mate before the event and that's a good thing to do as well. Take your mind off it. Run with someone very easy and then you would finish that and you probably sit and do a few stretches maybe. But then after that you would get ready for some almost like a ramp where you would do a little bit.

Longer two minutes with a bit of intensity like you've done in your, in your training sessions during the week. And you would do some at 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, some, some strideouts and then you would do some proper efforts where you are really running hard like you are going to feel at the start of this event in the 800. If, if you're trying to run a 2 minute 800, you're going to run 30 seconds per 200. So your stride out should be at 30 second pace or better in your warmup.

And you need to do three of.

Them spaced apart by two or three minutes.

Yeah.

And 150 meters is what I recommend.

Not doing 200 but jumping out of the box in your warmup and then just getting up to speed and striding out beautifully like you would be in the race, giving yourself a little rest. And this needs to be at least 10 minutes before you start, at least because you don't want to be doing them and then getting straight on the.

Start line and Then you just apply that principle to 5 and 10K. So let's say it's 10K and you're trying to run 4:30 pace, you want to be doing at least one 150 meter effort just faster than that 4:15 pace. 410. Yep.

So, so you. Right from the start we said we want the warmup to reflect the intensity of the event and the duration. So the two, two key things is the intensity and duration. So once you understand what event I'm doing, you can apply the principles we're telling you quite easily across whatever and we've given you the examples of how and what to do.

Yeah. To finish off with. We just did want to quickly touch on a. If it's a multi stage event and there's plenty of those around where you go and do a weekend where you do a road race in the morning, time trial in the afternoon race again the next day. Can you give us a quick tip of in between races? How do you warm up again? Because you've cooled down, you've recovered, you've got another race in the afternoon. Whether it's another crit or road race or time trial, how are you changing your warm up to adjust?

It's a great point to make and it's really good that we finish off with this because people forget that there are multi stage events happening all over the world and we've got one here in Victoria, the Tour of Bright which we've talked about a little bit. It has stage one which is 100k with a hill climb top finish, 25, 30 minute hill climb top. It's a bit of a brutal course. You need to warm up for that and you need to finish that race and the thing we haven't talked about.

At all is cooling down after that.

So you need to actually finish that race. It finishes at a hilltop top. So you are actually pushing, you're sprinting to the finish at and you've been just riding at threshold for the last 25 minutes. So you really need to let yourself cool down. So luckily that race is about 20 minutes from the finish of that race is 20 minutes from there to where you would be staying. So most people would roll back home even knowing there's a time trial in the afternoon. Because this is what the tour abroad has, it has the road race in the morning and time trial in the afternoon, afternoon. And so you would cool down and make sure that you then really getting into the recovery drinks and the fueling and then for your warm up for the time trial this is a bit different, so you actually don't need to.

Do such a long warmup, but you still need to do the efforts because your body's already at a temperature level.

That'S different to what it was at.

5Am in the morning. It's on the go already, so you're just trying to re wake up your body. So an easy roll out to the venue is a good idea. Or if you're doing the training on your motel turbo, you just start rolling your legs over for 15 minutes, just easy rolling your legs over and slowly.

Build up like you would in a.

Training session during the week.

And then you would do a little.

Mini ramp and then you would do.

Your 330 second efforts. And that is really the key to the time trial to make sure that if you're going to be riding at 280 watts, you're doing your efforts at 350 to 450. So by the time you're ready to go, it should be only a five minute ride if you can manage it to the start line. If not, you have to be in the car and that's okay. You've still got yourself five to 10 minutes, that is all you need and off you go. You should be able to ride at the intensity you need to. And if you've got another race the next morning, the cool down is really important. You just don't get off your bike, put your legs up and say, I've got to get ready, rest for tomorrow. You actually need to roll your legs out again.

You see that every day in the, in the Grand Tours where yes, three straight weeks they're finishing six hour stages, which is just exhausting. And they all disciplined, get to the team bus, jump on their bikes, roll their legs for 15 minutes or if.

They'Re at the top of a mountain stage, they will roll back down the hill and ride back to the hotel. And you know anybody who's been to the, the Tour down under any of the Tours, the Tour de France, you would see the riders in packs riding back to the hotel. The elite are the GC guys. They got their own turbo trainer right.

At the finish line.

But the other guys, they're still doing the same thing. It's just not in front of the camera. They're riding back to the hotel as their cool down. It's not just because that's the only.

Way they can get back to the.

Hotel, it's because they want to cool down. They could get driven back to the hotel, but that's not what they're meant to be doing so then the next day, if you're doing a three stage or a five day, but I'm just talking about this particular event, the next day you would still not do a long warm up. You would just let your legs catch up again from the fatigue from the previous day. You would still do those three 30 second efforts just so that when you get to the start line you are ready for anything and you will still be able to use some of the race because the start of the race is not generally if it's a long day, you're not going to be out of the blocks and you could be. But that's why the 30 second efforts are really good. Because if that's what actually happens, the race goes on from the start, then you're ready for that. So as the days progress, your warm up doesn't need to be as long. And there's so many variations here. I could be talking about a 10 stage race where most people, if they're in a 10 stage race, unless they're going to be in the breakaway, everybody else in the pack is just rolling along talking. So you don't need to warm up.

You use the race as the warm up.

But if you're just doing a three stage race where it's over two days, that's different. And I've given guys different warm ups for this. You know, day one is different to day two.

Just shortening aspects of it.

It's a great way to finish. To summarize, it's just think about the requirements of the intensity of the race and if the requirements are high, you might need to be on it and those efforts need to be higher. Intensity, if it's, you know, it's most likely not going to be that, then you don't need to do it. And if you can apply that principle, then you're going to be pretty good in your warmup.

Yep. And you know, don't forget the intensity.

Plus the duration is what, what's actually.

Going to determine your warm up.

That's a great way to finish. Been a big episode this one. Thanks as always for listening and we hope to see you next time.