How To Win Races

Welcome to another episode of the Get Fast podcast where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined with your normal hosts, as always, former Australian Ironman champion Jared Donnelly. And I am Jordan Donnelly. And we are, as usual, in these circumstances, doing this podcast via video communications, online video communications because of the COVID restrictions. So, as usual, we apologize for any audio or video quality issues. We're doing the best, our best to control them. Before we get into today's podcast, if you want to get our expert secrets cheat sheet, a cheat sheet of the best tips and advice to help you train smarter and race faster. And also get our weekly emails, which is the best way to get access to our programs that actually will help you train smarter and race faster. Go to getfastpodcast.com if you go to getfastpodcast.com again, you can get onto our weekly email list. You can get access to our programs that help you train smarter and race faster and as we said on last week's podcast, help you be one of our 30 plus athletes who got an FTP improvement last week. To do that, go to getfastpodcast.com so in today's episode, we've got a pretty packed episode in what's caught our attention this week. Le Tour de France has started again and we are very excited to talk about it. We're going to touch on getting injured on the bike and how much of a risk that actually is, which is surprising to most people. And based on the start of the Tour de France, we're going to touch on race tactics, how to outsmart your competitors. So to get into the episode, dad, let's talk about the famous Tour de France, which has started, which is super exciting. What's caught your attention this week in the Tour in the first two stages.

Stage one was quite dramatic, wasn't it? The list of injuries from the crashes, the amount of crashes was, I think, correct. That, to me, was a really intriguing debate. And the one thing I wanted to talk about which caught my attention is, as Robbie McEwen was calling it, the Astana Karma. When the peloton wanted to take it safely down the descent, which was, let's face it, like an ice skating rink. And you've got to remember nice has 300 days a year of no rain and how unlucky that the first stage of the Tour is bucketing rain. So the road is just not used to having water on it and it's got, you know, diesel, petrol, soap suds from people washing their cars. And, and the caravan that goes ahead of the Tour, I think there is a soap sud van that sprays out soapy water on the road. So once the rain mixes with that, it's treacherous. And the debate question is, should you be allowed to attack on a descent? And in the rules, it's a race, so of course you should. You know, you are allowed to attack on a descent, but again, you've got to really weigh up the safety aspect, the whole risk factor involved. And of course, when Astana decided not to agree with the peloton's decision to just go down safely, and in the first few minutes, one of their key riders ends up sliding into a post in a tree. So, yeah, it was instant, wasn't it?

As soon as they went on the front, they literally went round to three corners and then it was scary watching him, watching him crash. And Robbie McEwen caught it straight away.

Yeah, so that definitely caught my attention, you know, what is the right thing to do? You can imagine, you know, Vinokurov sitting in the car, the director sportive of Astana screaming at them to tell him, it's a race, you idiots. Start racing, you know, and it just, it can backfire so badly. And, you know, a lot of the teams in the peloton. There is a thing in the peloton that people really need to sort of like, the thought process of the peloton is more important than the individuals, I think. And yeah, it is a race, but there's times when you need to, you know, pull your head in and conform and do what's right for the sport rather than, you know, risk, you know, already, it was, I think FDJ had seven out of eight riders who crashed. Only one rider in the whole team didn't crash. You know, no one wants to see that. That's. Yeah, that's. That's not enjoyable. I mean, you end up getting a tour that's thinned out because of, you know, people going home after stage one. Yeah, the famous Phil Gilbert, as we call him, Philip Gilbert. Yeah, he's gone home after day one. It's so disappointing to see a champion have to leave the Tour.

Yeah. And that's why it was a mutual agreement in the peloton to just slow it down after the Astana drama. And I think it was definitely the right call because, like you're saying there's just the benefit of racing in that period when it's hard to attack a peloton on a descent anyway. So the benefit of that compared to the risk of what was happening. I think the risk far outweighs the benefit, and therefore it was a good decision.

There's plenty of other places on that sort of circuit that they could have attacked. And. And, you know, you saw stage two where both peloton and the breakaway were on the limit and the seconds were changing by one or two seconds. So it's not really a place where you can. You can gain time. And as we know, in time trialing, the biggest gains are in the slowest parts of the ride, not the fastest in the hills.

Exactly Right. So before we get into stage two as well, what was Robbie McEwen's tip from stage one that caught your attention? Talking about Caleb. Caleb Ewan.

Yeah. And that was really good advice. I thought people were quick to jump on the negative of Caleb having such a horrendous day, where at one point he was six minutes behind the peloton and he did a fantastic ride to actually get back onto the peloton and then be in contention to sprint. But, you know, everything was going against his team of that day. It was crashes everywhere. And, you know, you come away from that saying that was an opportunity for Caleb to win a stage which he lost. He lost that opportunity. And, you know, Robbie McEwen was clearly saying, as a sprinter, you can't dwell on that. You can't dwell on the one bad stage or the, you know, using as a training tool the one bad session, there's still. Still 23, potentially 21. Or if the Tour only goes for 14 stages, depending on what happens, you know, there's still more opportunities, and you can't. You can't be negatively focusing on one bad outcome when there is so much more available to you. And that was great insight to the way he thinks, you know, and you move on. You move on from a really bad experience and learn from it and then do better in the next experience when your next opportunity arrives. Don't be negative. Doom and gloom, what that's done. Put it away. Learn from it. Right? Let's not repeat that mistake again. Let's do something different so that we get the opportunity that presents itself. And there will be plenty of opportunities for him. There will be another, possibly eight more chances that he can win a stage. And if we look to the end of the Tour and look back and he's ended up winning three or four stages, who will ever remember stage one? No one. It will be just a forgotten stage. Yet the athlete will dwell on it if he wants to, or he can choose the other frame set of his Mindset to focus on something that he can control, which is the next stage.

Yeah. And the reason we're talking about that was because we were talking about just in general, if you have a bad FTP test or if you do a time trial to compete against yourself or you do a race or something and you have one bad result, it's easy to dwell on that for the next phase of your training and leading to the next race. And it's just so unnecessary.

Yes. That really leads me to that next part of that coaching tip that Robbie gave so well was, you know, I would have countless examples of riders or triathletes who are nailing, you know, 8 out of 10 sessions, yet their focus is on the two bad ones in four weeks of training or three week block of training or two week block of training, whatever the, whatever the period they're in. Oh, I'm not going so well. I couldn't complete the session. And I almost laugh saying, hang on a minute, this is one just under achieving the goal. And yet 95% of the other sessions in the world, yet you're focusing all your attention on the one bad outcome, one bad experience. You've got to not think like that. You've got to think around the other way. You know, 90% of my training has been fantastic. How good am I going? Oh, that didn't go so well. But let's put that behind us. What went wrong? Find out what went wrong. Didn't sleep well, maybe I didn't feel well. There could be reasons, you know, maybe my I didn't calibrate my power meter could even be a reason. You know, there could be lots of reasons or you just plainly had a bad day. So these are things you've got to not dwell on and always try, try to pick the positive aspects of what you're doing rather than, sure, we need to find out what goes wrong when things don't go to plan, but we don't spend all our time thinking about that.

Yeah, absolutely. And someone that has probably been renowned for focusing on the negative too much and might have been labeled a bit of a sook in some regards, which can be harsh because he is a great writer and he's one of Australia's best, and that's Michael Matthews. And he's made news because he didn't get picked for the Tour for Team Sunweb. And so he's announced that he's leaving Sunweb and is going back to Mitchelton Scott. And he's someone that forever would finish races he was in prime position to win a stage or win a race, and he didn't do it. And he would always come up with an excuse and it was a little bit frustrating to see. And when he would win races, you'd see what he was capable of. But he was someone that probably was a little bit guilty of dwelling on previous stages. You'd see a whole tour unravel in front of him because he was just so focused on all the negative days he was having.

Yeah, and there's a lot of other examples in other sports around the world where, you know, the mindset makes a complete. It focuses on the wrong thing all the time. You think of the tennis players that things start to go wrong when they're playing unbelievable tennis and then the line call goes against them and then they dwell on that for the next set and lose the set and then the momentum switch is incredible and they can lose matches by doing that. And Matthews is a bit like that. Oh, what a talented rider has won some incredible races and, you know, second at the world titles in Geelong. I was there watching that day, you know, almost world champion. That's how good a rider he is. One stage is in every tour he's ever been in, can beat the best of them. But, you know, his focus a lot of the time is on the bad outcomes rather than how good he is and the neck. The point that I want get across to the listeners is self confidence, yet he seems to be overly confident. Yet he's. And in life, the people who seem to be more confident are the ones who are least confident. It's more like all show, you know, and they don't call him bling for no good reason. He loves that, you know, look at me sort of athlete. But he does walk the walk and talk the talk, so. But there are times where he loses confidence and his form might be a little bit down and he talks himself out of winning races rather than the opposite. Whereas you see a guy like Sagan who, you know, he has a chance every time to win and puts himself in the right position, never spits the dummy. You just don't see him cracking it with anybody. Whereas you see that a lot from Matthews and it's something that our guys can really learn from is having self confidence, inner self belief, which is different to a bling type of show off type of self belief. A quiet inner resolve and you have confidence in your own ability is so much better than talking about how good you are. Just let the pedals do or your running feet do the Talking for you and building up that inner self confidence is something that a lot of the people I coach really need more of, more belief in themselves that they are well trained, they understand how to execute, and you know, all that's left is for them to go out and actually execute. And that is one of those really untalked about aspects of a really good program. And you know, I see countless examples in the pro ranks of people who are talented but, but never win good races because they don't have that self belief that, you know, and then all of a sudden someone cracks it for a great race. You know, I think Peterson won the world titles last year and what a different rider he is now. That one race has just said to himself, oh, I can do this, you know, and he puts himself in, he's got more confidence in his ability now. And you know, we see that even in age group riding. Once you get that bright breakthrough win in a C grade race or a D grade race, or if you're lucky enough in an A grade race, it just changes your mindset. It gives you the thought process that you can do it. When you're doing an FTP or a 5K time trial and you're training your guts out and you're only improving 1 or 2 seconds or 4 or 5 watts or you've stayed the same, you might have dropped a watt, you just think, oh, what's going on? But then you get a breakthrough and it changes your thought process. Far out. Everything's working yet, you know, five seconds slower, nothing's going well. There's a fine margin between the two, but yet the outcome of the way you think about it is catastrophic or exhilarant. And you need that middle ground to be more measured and not panic about any time period in your training program or any particular race that you're aiming for. Things will happen. And the more confident you are in your own ability, the more you'll make things happen. And you're, I'm always hearing, you know, take the game on as a, as a, as a football analogy, take the race on, you know, with the information you have, take it on. The more knowledge you have about your own ability, the bigger risks you can take. And you know, I love that in athletes. And we had a race last Thursday night in our Trivalo Handicap series on Zwift, which have been running for the last 20 weeks, and I got a comment from a guy I respect a lot and he said, oh, one of your guys with 2k to go on the big climb attacked, attacked. The big bunch. And in Zwift, it's very hard for a solo rider to beat 20 riders. Yet this guy took on the race. And I love that about riders, you know, really risking everything. And one of the other guys went with him. You know, Zach was the guy who attacked and Rossi went with him. And then a couple of other guys, Jordy and Alex, tried to bridge across. And that's what, you know, backing yourself is taking a risk. If you can stay away, it's worth it because you're only going to fight for first, second, or third or fourth. And if you don't do it, as many cyclists have said, if you don't attack, you've got 1% chance of winning. If you don't attack, you've got no percent chance of winning. So what percentage do you want? Well, I'll take the 1% every time. So it is good to be conservative sometimes, but then you're always going to have less opportunities.

So it has to be something said about an attitude like Matthews, and a few people have it where it's a bit of more of self confidence through a bit of that, that bling kind of show off style compared to inner reserve. But you kind of need that to be able to back yourself in those situations and be selfish enough to say, I'm going to win. Because the quiet, reserved person might never have the confidence to really go for it. And that's why Matthews has been able to have the stage wins that he's had. And I guess it was a little bit refreshing last year because Matthews has been our best chance winning a stage for so many years, to see Caleb Ewan and come last year and win his first stage. And he kept getting so close. In all his post race interviews, he never, ever put the excuse on anyone. He said, oh, the guys are going to be in good spots, I'm just not there. And then when he finally won, it was so rewarding and all of Australia was backing him in because he's just, he's a bit more humble like that. And so hopefully we can see a few more stage wins this year from Caleb. Just before we keep going into race tactics and the Tour de France, something else that caught our attention this week was injuries on the bike and the fact that you feel like, because it's non contact and it's no heavy impact on your joints, that you can avoid injury a lot easier. But we spoke about, for a few reasons, the fact that you actually can get injured on the bike. And I happen to be watching a Lionel Sanders put out a video of his training and he's been really quiet. He's the pretty much America's number one triathlete at the moment. And he said that in his off period, he thought that he was kind of invincible on the bike and he would only get running injuries. And so he was going nuts on the bike and zwift, like everyone has been, and training the absolute house down and just doing what he said was way too many stupid kilometres. And he ended up getting really bad knee injuries from the bike. And that really actually took him out for one to two months. And I thought that was really interesting because we can absolutely overdo it on the bike, can't we?

Yeah, there's no doubt about that, Jordan. Even your own experience and my own experience experience, we certainly have had overuse injuries on our knees from possibly. And I think the next step, you know, it's okay to do lots of volume, but if you don't do lots of rehab with the volume, then you're actually going to be injured. There's no doubt about it. And that was the mistake that both you and I have made. And I guess I don't know exactly what he's been doing, but if he hasn't been doing the rehab stuff off the bike, then you're going to get an overuse injury whether you're running or riding. And the way to prevent that is to actually do it off the bike. And it's something that you and I have really taken seriously in the last six months since the lockdown has occurred. And even still, we're both getting some slight knee pain, but it's not stopping us or preventing us from continuing our program because we keep working so hard off the bike to do the stretching in the core and the alignment work, the conditioning work, so that all the joints of our body can function properly with the right alignment from muscles and tendons. So, yes, it's great to do lots of volume, but be prepared that it could backfire unless you're willing to and prepared to do lots of more work off the bike.

Yeah, definitely. That was just one point we really wanted to make today because it came into our attention this week. So to finish off on the podcast, talk about race tactics and how to really outsmart your competition and be that person you were explaining before that takes the race on and could give yourself that extra 1% chance of winning, let's talk about the end of stage two, where it was Alaphilippe versus the somewhere, Barbara Hershey versus Yates, and the different tactics there to win. The race at the end of the.

Stage, it was a fantastic. It reminded me of the finish of Milan San Remo, actually. It was so, so similar that the hill was probably a very similar hill. And Alaphilippe did the same tactic as he did in Milan San Remo took off and Van Aert joined him on Milan San Remo.

Yeah.

And Hirsch from the Swiss champion joined Alaphilippe. And I think Yates came across a minute or two later, which was an incredible attack. And the form that he's in, I'm really excited to see how well he's gonna, he's gonna win a stage in this Tour if he's got form like that. The way he bridged across was, was exceptional. And I just love the way Alfete races. He just takes the race on and he opens up opportunities for himself. And that's what Sagan used to do, was take the race on. And of course, that sort of style of finish doesn't really suit Sagan as much as a flatter stage. But certainly Sagan, in the classics, where the hills aren't as long, he definitely takes the race on a lot more than other riders. And that's what I love about, and that's what we love watching. We love watching people who take the race on. And Ella Phillipe's tactic was catch me if you can. And of course, two guys took on the challenge. Others in the peloton might have wanted to, but the reaction was too slow. And once you let a gap of 10 seconds go, you're going to have to be an exceptional rider and in good form and feeling good because you're already riding on your limit. That jumbo visma was pace that they were setting, it wasn't an easy pace. So that's their tactic, is to stop people from attacking by riding a pace that's uncounter attackable. You know, if we ride just on threshold or just over, hardly anybody in this race is going to have the energy to attack us, you know, except for an outstanding guy like Alaphilippe. And believe me, he would have been hurting in the, in the peloton, but he's willing to bluff and throw it, you know, and some guys will go, oh, I can't, I can't count it, I can't match that. Their mental approach is I'll just sit back and let someone else chase and I'll follow, and everybody thinks the same. And all of a sudden there's a 22nd gap until someone like Yates goes, well, I'm gonna have a crack and that's what's so outstanding about Yates's jump across, because that is not easy to do, which tells me he's in scintillating form. So. And sure, there would have been other riders in that bunch who would been told by their DS directeur Sportives from the car, you need to go. You need to go with Elaphilippe if you want to be first, second or third in this race and not hope that it comes down to a bunch sprint. And so what a great tactic. And of course that's one tactic is creating the race and then the next tactic is what to do between. Once the three of them are together, you know, what's the best tactic now? And each person has different strengths and weaknesses. And I'm looking at it as a observer knowing, well, Alaphilippe has the best sprint, so the other two guys need to surprise him in some way. And unfortunately, they didn't do that, which, which really allowed Alaphilippe to win. And, and he tried that tactic in Milan San Remo, but he came up against a guy who actually was a better sprinter than him. Alaphilippe needed a different tactic against Van Aert. And, you know, these are the things, you know, even as good as he is, there are tactics, depending on who you're against, that come into play. Not. You can't just have the same tactic every time. You've got to understand your opposition and what their strengths are. So, you know, and Hirsch nearly got him on the line, which was. Which, you know, might have been of, I think with about 5 or 10 meters to go, he realized, I'm catching him, but it was too late. He got confidence and just fractionally too late, and another two meters and he would have won. But the race isn't another 2 meters. It finishes where it finishes. And.

Yeah. What was going through your mind watching that last kilometer when they were. They started cat and mouse and.

Look, I don't know if I'm. I'm getting nervous watching. I just, I'm thinking, oh, my goodness.

My mouth was open, going, oh, what.

Is going to happen next? Imagine being in that position. What do I do? And if I'm Yates, what do I do? Okay, I know. I don't think I can beat Alaphilippe in a straight sprint drag race. So I've got a couple of choices. I can get a run up and attack him long way out and see if I can hold it for longer, which is what I think Yates should have done, or I can actually wait till the last Possible time and get a run up from there. So a long way out or really make it short. But Alaphilippe's got an incredible first five or six pedal revolutions which would gap most riders. And Alaphilipe's tactics were the ones he did that was perfect. And Hirsch, I think the way I saw him sprint at the end, he should have actually, because he had the best position from third wheel, he should have started sprinting about two or three seconds before Alaphilippe did and run into the back of the group and then come out from the slipstream and he would have had momentum. So where he was was perfect. Lay off the back of Yates, give him a meter or two and run straight into the back of Yates at last second. Deviate and then you've got the slipstream momentum. And he would be on 55 is an hour and Ella Philippe would have been doing 53 and he would have gone past. That would have been the tactic I would have used. So, so it's easy in hindsight, but they're the three scenarios that they were faced with. So you know, it's really good for people to understand that they're the options that they were being thinking about. All those three riders would have been thinking about those options.

Maybe showed a little bit of inexperience from Hershey. He's a young rider that he actually, if you watch the replay, he turns around as Alaphilippe went. And so Alaphilippe got that jump on him and he's obviously just as strong a sprinter. I mean that last 50 meters he comes right up and loses by a few centimeters. And had he been watching and prepared like he said and almost sprinting a bit earlier, he wouldn't have lost that jump. But he turned around at the wrong time. Yeah.

And he was looking for the peloton, which is a fair enough thing. You have to keep your eye on all, you know. But the director Sportive should be saying in his ear, you know, don't worry about what's behind, they're not going to catch you. You need to.

Well, they were coming.

Yeah, that's right. And you know, there's tactics in every race that you do and even on a Thursday night at the Trivalo handicap race, there's, there's tactics. Should I sit in, sit in my bunch and not do so much work? But in a handicap race, that's a completely different style of racing. You're almost doing a team time trial in a full on race where the group that you're in Your bunch, you need to get that bunch to the front of the race. Then it becomes a tactical race. But until that happens, you should be working as a team to get yourself as close to the front of the race as possible to give yourself a chance of winning. And if you don't do that in a handicap and ride for yourself and hide, then you're possibly not going to contribute, which means your group is not going to get to the front of the race and you're not going to win anyway. So why would you sit in. And that's some of the things that, you know, a lot of the riders are learning in our handicap races on a Thursday night, that everybody needs to contribute in the group. Especially on Zwift, when bigger bunches, the speed is. Is inexplicably different to normal riding. You're getting more bang for your buck in a big bunch on Zwift than you do as a palatine Doors. So tactics, you know, you've got to understand what the situation is, who your competitors are and how you go about managing. And that's what people. People. I get shocked when people tell me, oh, I was daydreaming today. I missed the break or I missed the attack, and I just go, are you kidding me? I've got a sore head from concentrating that much on what is happening right now, who's tired. I'm looking at other riders, their hips, whether they're rolling or whether their head's down or whether they're sweating, whether they're puffing, panting. I'm looking for all this stuff to give me feedback as to what my competition is feeling like at any particular moment in a race. And for me, that's concentration. And then I can create the next tactic in my head. Right. Next hill that comes, I'm going to attack these guys or the downhill when they're not ready or whatever. But I'm forever thinking about what's next. And for people to tell me that they're daydreaming and they miss something. I'm just shocked.

Hmm. To go back to the Yates example, would you have knowing that Alaphilippe has such a better jump and sprint? He was in the worst position. He was in front, and he's in front of someone that has a much better jump than him. You can only really be in front if you're stronger. That's the only way you're going to be able to win. Yeah. Should he have just completely said, I can't beat you in a sprint? So I am not afraid of being caught by the peloton, there's no way I'm going in front of you. Because he was. He kept shaking his head and he kept doing the work because he didn't want to get caught. But he's not going to beat Alpha Leaf in a sprint. So he should just either let the peloton catch and sit behind Alefilit and risk that.

Yep, that. That would be his tactic. But I tell you what his best tactic should have been was after he recovered, when he rode across, he should have attacked. He should have attacked them, especially after Alaphilippe had been on the front, like they were rolling turns a little bit up the hill. When Alaphilippe had done his turn, he should have just attacked because Alpha had been on the front and the other guy would have waited for Alaphilippe to jump and Yates could have got, you know, five, six seconds and held onto it. Who knows? He may not have stayed away, but that would have given him one more opportunity to win the race. And that was, I think, a little mistake, that. And look, he might not have been able to. He might have been on his limit, but again, that's when you need to take a risk and you never know what's going to happen.

Yeah, yeah. But you don't know what's actually going on with the riders, do you?

It's easy in hindsight. So much easier in hindsight as a couch potato commenting, because we.

What I was going to say, we think we can do our best guesses, too, just to think what the best tactic would be. But if you watch the movie Star documentary that's on Netflix from last year, it's actually a really good insight because they're in the team car the whole time.

Right.

In some of those crucial moments in the Giro last. Last year, and so often the director, Sportif was screaming at the guys to go, go, go. Constantly. Go, go, go, go. And they're just not changing because they're on their limit. And so no matter what tactics he's saying, you need to go now, they're at their limit, they can't do anything different. And that might be the case a lot of the time.

Yeah, exactly. And it was interesting today to see the guy who was getting the most flack in that movie Star documentary was Solaire. Remember, he was the third rider in their team behind Valverde and one of the other behind.

Behind Carapaz and Quintana and Landa. Pretty much. That's right.

Yes. And he was up the road and they made him stop, remember? Yeah, they made Him. Wait.

Yeah.

And he was getting so angry because that was his opportunity to win a stage and he. He could have won a stage. And as it turned out, Quintana was hopeless. And then they lost the whole stage. And, you know, that was almost a turning point for him today. When Yates and Ella, Philippe and Hirsch were up the road. Did you see Solar attack?

Yeah. And he couldn't go.

That was his opportunity. And he got halfway across and he was done.

Yep.

So it's easy when you're a domestic to have no risk, but when you're the leader, he. He found it a lot more pressure and he couldn't bridge the gap. Like. Like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So, continuing on to race tactics, what do you think is the goal with. In terms of racing? Obviously, one of the biggest goals throughout a race is to conserve as much energy as possible while getting yourself in the best position. So how do you get that balance right of being selfish and not doing work while not. Not letting the race get away from you?

Yeah, there's so many things you can do and depending on what the race is. Jordan depends on that answer. So if you're in a. Let's just say a criterion. Let's just say a club criterium, and you are in a break with five other riders, and you might have 30 seconds on the peloton, and it looks like you're gonna stay away. So you're going to be fighting out the win with these five guys. So what tactics can you employ? You know, you might not have a clue about their sprinting ability, so that makes it hard to know what to do. So this scenario happens a lot in club races, week in, week out. So one of the things I tell our guys is to try to roll turns at fractionally softer than the actual three or four other guys are riding, not harder. And I'm forever seeing guys just roll through too hard and continually rolling through too hard, and all you're doing is doing more of the work for everybody else. You're just actually creating more fatigue for yourself at the finish. You could get rolled. And I've seen that happen so many times with the guy doing so much of the hard rolls and everybody else is just rolling the same. That guy ends up coming fifth out of that group. Or if you are too strong for the people you are with, it's still not a time for you to show that you're stronger. You should be only rolling at the pace that the rest of the bunch is rolling at. That is a real tactic that people get wrong in just club races. So in the Tour de France, that's something. And you saw Hershey not do the turns, and Alaphilippe was getting, you know, a bit pissed off with him saying, you know, do more. And he was giving the face of, I'm on my limit. I can't. And look how he sprinted at the end. It's all bluff and show. So. So there are tactics like that, and. And in a situation like that, you've got to not show your hand. That's what I'm telling people that I'm coaching to make sure that the other guys don't know how strong you are. They have no. They have no idea what's going to come up at the finish when you actually launch an attack on them, you know, up the back straight or wherever you are from the finish or. Or go out early or jump them on the line. Whatever tactic you're using, you. You just don't want to show them what you've got until it really counts. And then they, you know, when you attack them and leave them, that's when they realize, oh, geez, I didn't realize he was in. You know, I thought he was struggling. I didn't even. Wasn't even concerned about him. So, you know, that's an example of, you know, using. You're not scrimping out of your duty. You're still rolling turns, but you're not showing your form, and you're not really creating any more fatigue levels. Then you're reducing and minimizing your fatigue to as low as possible without being obviously not contributing. And I'm not a. I'm not a believer in non contributing. If I can't contribute to a breakaway, I'll sit on the back and I'll tell everybody, contest. You know, I'll just sit on the back and say, you know, I can't help. I'll help you when I can. And, you know, if I do no work, then I'm not going to contest the final. But if I do contribute and do my best, then I will. You know, if it's not. If it's not every turn, I'll still contest. But. But, you know, the reason I wouldn't be contributing evenly is because I can't. That would be the only reason. Not because I want to. What's the word? Do less than the other guys who are trying to work as a team to stay away. So tactics like that, there's a fine line between being a real prick and, you know, just sitting on, um, and. And being a Person who's contributing to keep your bunch away.

Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit less specific. But thinking about race tactics in triathlon races, how do you manage that? Because it's a lot more about conserving energy and controlling yourself. But also there is a race element in triathlon. Even if you can't draft, if it's a. If it's a race where you can't.

Draft, there's three opportunities, obviously, because it's a swim, bike and run. So there's three different scenarios that you got to think of. And in the swimming, you know, I would definitely be looking around all the time to people who are swimming near me or past me, and I would be jumping on their feet at any opportunity because it is like getting a draft on the bike. When you swim in disturbed water, you are getting dragged along almost like one unit. Now moving water, when you're swimming through water, the person behind the person is in moving water that's going forwards. The person in front is breaking still water. So you're getting such an advantage. So I'm forever trying to. That's a tactic that I would use all the time. But if they're swimming too fast for me, I would definitely drop off because I know that it's going to put me in the red zone and it's a long day and I don't need that, so I'll look for someone else. So that's one tactic. The second tactic on the bike is if you find yourself in a group of guys who are riding fractionally above the. The wattage that you want to sustain for the half marathon, half ironman or full ironman, you know, you still got to run. So the tactic on the bike has to consider how well you're going to run. Sure, you probably could ride at that power for the whole ride, but at the end of it, you may not be able to run a step at the pace you want to run at. So the tactic there is really crucial in do I sacrifice my run to keep up with these guys? And because you're not actually drafting in a triathlon, you're just pacing against their pace up the road. That's not something that. That's not a tactic that I, you know, I would back myself in. If they're riding at that pace, I would say good luck there. You know, if they can run off the pace that they're riding, well, they're just too good. You know, I have done that myself. I've made that mistake. So. And then, you know, suffered. I went, okay, in the run, except for the last 2K and lost 10 places. So, you know, just happened to be at Hawaii. So it was one of the biggest stages to make that mistake. So, and certainly in the run, you've got your third opportunity, and it gets more significant in the run because the end of the race is coming, isn't it? So you need to risk more in the run, and if you still go too hard in the run, you're going to end up walking at the end if you go into the red zone anyway. So do you know, the question is, do you risk it to win it, or do you stay conservative just to hold your place? And they're the decisions that I would be asking myself. You know, can I sustain this pace and is the person I'm running with at their normal pace, or are they just bluffing? And if it's a bluff, I'm definitely going to stay on this shoulder and see how long they can sustain this pace for.

Well, there's a lot to consider. I'm sure we're going to be talking about race tactics a lot over the next three weeks, especially with the Tour de France. It's one of our favorite things to observe and watch and analyze and talk about. There are some really good stages coming up. We probably will be doing some bonus episodes of the podcast based purely on the Tour de France and some exciting stages because we just love analyzing the tactics, and it's really interesting to see what the writers do compared to what we thought they would do or the tactics they choose to do. So we'll be talking about this a lot more over the next three weeks, and we can't wait for it to come. Is there anything else?

Yeah, look, I just really want all of the people listening to have a different perspective on what they're watching and to put themselves in this scenario that they're seeing the riders in. And whether you're watching the Tour de France or whether you're watching, know, a half ironman on tv, you know, just have a look at what the winner does and then have a look at what second and third place did and analyze tactics. And, you know, you've seen me rewind sprints from stages on the Tour where I watch one person. I'll watch the winner, and then I'll rewind and I'll watch second, see where he goes from 200 meters out. I'll rewind it and watch third. And I'm learning heaps about sprinting. I'm a very poor sprinter, and I've learned so much tactically by doing that, rewinding sprint finishes and seeing what it did well and what the losers did wrong. And you can get so much insight out of watching. Doesn't matter. Anybody who ever gets to a podium, look, if it's filmed, look back and find out what they did during the race. And, and I, you know, even some of those mountain stages, I will go back through the video and say, okay, I know, say, contador wins today. How much energy did he expand? What did he do? What stage did he attack? You know, there's been riders who've broken away on a mountain stage. You know, where did they break away? What part of the hill was it? The steep part of the hill where everybody was on their limit. I remember Carlos Sastra attacking at the bottom of alpe d' Huez one year, 10, 15 years ago. And everybody said, who attacks at the bottom of Alp d'? Huez? No one does that. And he stayed away and won. And, you know, taking a risk like that, just. And he got 20 or 30 seconds in the first 3K and then he just added 1 or 2 seconds. Every K from that point on ended up winning, you know, quite comfortably. So, you know, you want to look at the thing from a point of view of what can I learn from? As well as enjoying the, you know, the spectacle of the race, really try to learn things from, from people that you're following and, and see what they're doing right and wrong. And don't forget that the director sportives are manipulating a lot of the races in these races where, you know, they're telling riders now, you need to do this now. And, and normally they will execute that, unless they're, as we said before, incapable of executing what they're. What they've been told where the instructions are. But, but yeah, there's, you know, there's so many scenarios I can think about that you will be faced with, that you've watched on telly, and you may have already had that scenario yourself. And we, we do a lot of coaching analysis with our athletes about going over, tell me how the race panned out. And, and while they're telling me how the race panned out, they're saying to me, oh, I think that actually, I think that's where I made the mistake. You know, by talking about how they executed the final or in the middle of the race, you know, they were, They've started the conversation with, I don't know what, I don't know what went wrong. And then halfway through, they're saying, oh, yeah, that's what I did wrong. They identify it themselves by just thinking about and that's really important.

Reflecting. Yeah.

In learning how to improve yourself as an athlete is to go through and analyze the things that you did well and things that you did poorly. And if you don't take any notice of that, you're never learning. You know, you learn more from the mistakes you make than the victories you have. And that's what you know. You get it. You get a bank of information in your brain that really is gold to retrieve. I've been in this situation before. I'm not going to let that happen again, which I stuffed up. I'm going to do it differently. So they're the things I want people to think about, especially when there's really great racing on at the moment.

Yeah, definitely. And I think that's a good way to finish. And I'm sure that there will be a few listeners who have come second to you in a sprint who will say you're not a very poor sprinter. We'll find out. So that's it for today. Thanks very much for listening. Again. If you want to get access to our programs to help you with potential race tactics, training smarter and racing faster, you can get onto our weekly email list by going to getfastpodcast.com that's the best way to access us and our programs. Thanks very much for listening. We will see you very soon. We might even see you sooner than the next week episode if we decide to do a bonus Tour de France because of the upcoming good stages. That's it for today. See you next time.