Ironman Winner Shares 20 Years of Hard-Earned Lessons (Pt 2)

Most of you don't know the full story of Jared Donnelly, former professional Ironman, Australian ironman champion, top 20 or 23 I think specifically at Kona Ironman world champs, 20 plus time Australian Masters and age group champion across road racing, criterium racing, individual time trialing teams, time trialing and aqua bikes. A 2 hour 32 minute marathon PB that was pre super shoes era as well and has won countless other races. So today we're actually going to get an insight from Jared, the super coach on some hard earned lessons over his career. Why hard work isn't enough, why copying others fails and what the real keys to success are. This is 20 years of no BS triathlon wisdom. Let's get into it. Welcome back to part two of this epic episode. Next one, not focusing on the bad sessions, specifically when it's one out of 50 good sessions.

Yeah, and I was guilty of this a lot. I would absolutely be dark on myself if I was trying to do, you know, 8 by 1Ks. I was trying to run them all between 250 and 255 per K. And I was struggling with the last few and I'd say oh, what's wrong with me? You know, I'm not, I'm not training hard enough. I'm getting soft again, you know, and that's just ridiculous. You know, I've trained 30 weeks where I was doing this really well and I have one off day and it could have been that I wasn't actually feeling well, I was kind of starting to get sick or I hadn't slept well or I hadn't had the right nutrition. But it really grated on me that I performed poorly. It just needed to get over myself with what about the other 49 great sessions you've just done? And you've got to get your perspective on a lot of things and this is one of the key things. You could have a bad race, you could have a bad training session, but in the scheme of five years or a year, it's so insignificant that you spending 80% of your thought process in the next two or three weeks on that one performance is really a bad idea and you need to get over it and understand the reasons why. And if you can't understand them then that's a problem. But there would be a reason for it and you've just got to work it out. And I'm forever discussing this with athletes who have highs and lows, athletes who come to us and I don't know, this is not about coaching but that this is an example of athletes who experience exactly the same thing. Everybody goes through a bad session or a bad race. Everybody does. There's no one out there who hasn't. So. So you need to hear this. And if you haven't worked out why, then you need to find out why and dig deeper until you do find out why. And then once you find out why, you can understand that you can fix it. And I won't, I won't under fuel next time. I won't have a bad sleep, you know, or I'll try not to have a bad sleep. I'll do the taper differently. I won't ride so hard early or run faster pace. It could be execution that caused you to do it. It could be a number of reasons. So you've got to think I shouldn't do a race when I'm injured or ill because I'll get a poor performance. This is, I'm just giving you examples of there will be a reason why you've got a poor performance and it's not just not going to be there. Because your fitness four days ago was great. Now you've performed shocking and four days later you're feeling fine again. There would be a reason for it and just making sure that you don't spend all your focus on that.

Also, we encourage athletes to always remember where they've come from. You know, because you might have started with an FTP of 200 and now your FTP is 270 and then you do a 4x4 session or something and, and you don't hit the numbers and you, you're angry because you didn't hit your two 90 watts for the four by four efforts where you go, hang on a second. 18 months ago you couldn't ride 210 watts for 20 minutes, you know, and now you're riding, you know, two 80 watts for 20 minutes and you just didn't hit this four by four. So although in the context right now it seems like a failed session and it is. And we want to look at the reasons why, you know, you're not failing as an athlete and you're so far ahead. And that context is so, so important.

Yeah. And I think sometimes we're determined by our performances and that's a bit dangerous. You know, your, your happiness is determined by how you perform well. Gee, sometimes you don't perform that well. You're going to be unhappy a lot of the time. So you've just got to, as you said, you know, get it in perspective about where you've come from and where you're going and every day you're going to have highs and lows and you're trying to make them not low and not really high. You're trying to go through life where you're just progressing. So I think that's a really key thing is we're going to have some bad days. You've just got to put it in perspective and understand the reasons why and move on.

You mentioned moving to the Dandenongs to set up your training for success. And the next one is your environment has a major impact. Your facilities dictate your ability to train properly and set you up for success or disadvantage. And you talked about it from a pro perspective of why you did it. But you really push age group is to understand the same thing. They don't have to move location as an age grouper to do well. But what do you mean here by setting up your environment for success?

Yeah, and look, I can use some examples of training sessions where if I want to ride my time trial bike where I live and I wanted to do some sub threshold or some 5 minute efforts at threshold or some VO2 stuff on my, on my time trial bike where I'm not wanting hills, I live in an area where it's just either up or down. So I don't really have a good environment for that session. So I've got two choices. I have a drive my car to wherever that environment is so I can do those sessions or nowadays now I didn't have this option in 1989, 1991. Indoor trainer. We had an indoor trainer but it just wasn't at the level that it is now. So I can actually go on an indoor trainer, pay a subscription for an app and find actually the course that I'm training on on full gas or do Zwift, where I've got courses that have got some undulations on Zwift. How many courses are there on Zwift? 2 or 300. So you can select the course that's appropriate for your training session that doesn't allow you to do that where you live. So you have no excuse for, for matching the requirements of the session to the environment you live in. And so that's another example of having dodgy equipment. You know, I can't do this training session inside because I don't have that, that equipment. Well, if that's the goal and that's your, that's your passion in life, you know, you're not going to go and play golf with a pair of Wooden golf sticks that that's your grandfather had. You're going to get the right golf sticks. So don't go and try and do an ironman or a cycling Gran Fondo when you don't have an indoor trainer. You know you need those equipment. Even, even if the facilities that where you live are not allowing you to train properly. The weather in itself is an impacting thing. You know, we know a lot of people live in the Scandinavian countries where six or seven months of the year you could actually not be able to ride outside. So you've got to have that facility and you're not. How can the Norwegians and the, and the Swedes be so successful when they've got probably the worst climate to train outside in? They're just proving that you need to make the environment suit your passion.

And you don't need to buy $1,700 Wahoo Kicker. That's not the only trainer out there. You can buy a basic trainer off Marketplace for $150 or a set of old rollers and they're not going to be the highest quality. And don't buy dodgy equipment like you just said dad. But there are options available to you to make it work. And I think for us we just see consistency is the biggest barrier to success and long term success. And staying consistent is really hard mentally, motivation wise and ph. And if you've got hurdles in your way to stop you training, you haven't got your indoor set up properly. You're just putting barriers in front of yourself that when things go wrong you'll make it hard. And the most consistent people often have a great pain cave set up. They've got. It's not state of the art equipment, that's not what we're talking about. But they've just got a set up where they can get on and get off and go do their session if they need to indoors really, really easily. And that makes a big difference when talking about the bike example.

Yep. And look, if I keep reverting to where I live and to this day if I want to do a training session on the time trial bike outside and I don't want to do it inside even though I've got the best equipment inside, but I still want to ride outside and I've got normally I would do a Sunday session on my TT bike and I need to be doing something at 9 o' clock with the family or whatever, I'm very prepared to get up at 4:30 and drive the 45 minutes to get there at 5:15 and then get set up and start riding at 5:30 and finish my session by 7:30, then drive back home and get home at 8:30 so I'm in time for whatever I have to do. That's sacrifice I'm willing to make by just getting up earlier and making sure that I can get to the venue. And you know, as I said to you, I was willing to drive to Geelong from Melbourne, which is, you know, those who don't know geography of where we live, it's, you know, it's, it's an hour and a half drive and here I am going to do on a Sunday session where I'm doing it every Sunday for the last, I don't know, 15 years, where pretty much I would go and do my time trial training session at the venue that I've always used because it's the only area where I can ride the bike, where I'm not getting stopped and, and I can ride properly in the TT position doing efforts that I want to do where there's, there's no possibility that I'm. Every time you stop, you've got the wrong course because if you're in the middle of a 15 or 20 or 30 minute effort and you have to stop eight times, you recover so you don't get the feeling of the fatigue that builds by continuously riding. And that's just one example. And so it's super important that you are willing to sacrifice something so that you can get the best outcome from the training session.

You can't do this by yourself. You need support. What does support mean to you in the context of this and the very.

Basic form of that? If you've got a partner who doesn't actually want you to do that, you're going to be working against the tide. So I was so fortunate to have your mum who pretty much sacrificed her own, her own lifestyle so that I could be a professional triathlete. So this is a big lesson for me is I absolutely could not have been able to do what I did if it wasn't for your mum working full time. And obviously during that period as a professional, your older brother Liam was born in 1988, your other brother Matt was born in 1990, you were born in 1992. So in that period we had one child, two children, three children. And then Georgia was born in 1994. So someone had to be looking after you guys while your mum was at work and I was training. And for the majority of the time when Liam was born, I was training, sleeping and looking After Liam and my mum or Andy's mum would come down and do some babysitting and they lived 100k away, so I couldn't do that without their help. And as an age grouper, you need everybody in your little community, your little village, to be on board. Otherwise you're going to be feeling like you're ostracizing yourself from that. And if it doesn't fit that you should be doing an Ironman because it's going to impact your family, you should consider that you should not do that. You can still do triathlon as a sprint or as an Olympic and get a lot of the same excitement and satisfaction, but you really need to understand how impactful this is on the people around you. And that's what I mean by you can't do it by yourself. And if everybody's on board, that's fantastic. That's what you need. But if they're not, you need to reevaluate. Is this worth it? Could it cost you your marriage? Could it cost you relationships? And, you know, that's what I meant earlier when I talk about extreme behavior, that's not necessary. You need to put things in perspective. Sure, it's your passion and you love doing it, but, you know, going through life as a selfish individual, which is. I'm guilty of that as a. As a professional triathlete, it was all about me. And, you know, that's not entirely a good thing. And in hindsight, I'm saying, you know, when I look back, I don't have any regrets about that at all. Only because your mum was so on board with it and sacrificed everything for that period. And we both look back fondly on it. We had some great traveling experiences around the world through triathlon, and you guys got to experience a lot of that. Whether you liked it or not, you got dragged along. But. But certainly, you know, the message is you need to make sure that everybody's with you and, and you need support because I can tell you it's no fun going to. Still, to this day, I don't enjoy going to events where I'm not sharing it with, with Andy, your mom. I. I don't like going to races by myself. Even though I've done 4,000 races, I still enjoy sharing it. And to her credit, she comes along and acts interested and, and, you know, wants to hear my story about how I went. And, you know, she could be putting that on for all I know. But. But, you know, she does generally care that I'm happy. And so that's What I'm trying to get across here, it is super important that you've got everybody on your side by this point.

She's fully converted because she's often texting me the Tour de France results and the visma tactics versus UAE before you are.

She could be a very good director sportif because she's saying to me, why are they doing that? They know that that's not going to work. That is the wrong tactic.

Yeah.

And I just chuckled at myself going, you are so informed. It's incredible.

I can't wait to hear your. Your explanation of this next one. We only got two to go. Two to go. Because something that you've always done a lot and you always will, and I think is a really key point of difference and a little bit of criticism that we get from both from athletes and people outside of Tribalo is constant race simulation and always racing, practicing, testing to the point.

Yeah.

Where our own athletes sometimes complain and say, do we really have to test this much? Or, you know, we might put monthly time trials on. But I think it's a really, really important point and I want you to explain this, why it's so important to you. And we don't mean lining up for six half Ironmans every year or, or an Olympic distance triathlon every month. That's over racing. But there's a slight difference to, to this lesson here.

And I think years ago, when I first started this, I. I didn't know that there was a thing called A race, B race, and C race. I was calling it something else. I was calling it, I need to do this so that when I come to my main event, I am absolutely prepared because I've experienced what's going to happen on race day in all of these little practice things. And I would be saying to myself, I'm competitive, I want to win. Everything I do, I want to win. But I'm going to go to this race knowing that I'm not in the form that I'm going to be in 16 more weeks, but I'm willing to humiliate myself by not getting what I want to do, which is winning, so that I can get the experience of the race conditions. And I just can't understand. I am so shocked that people either avoid this scenario or have an aversion to it, and they're reluctant or point blankly, refuse to do it. And so when they come to race day, they're just guessing a lot about what the feeling should be and how, remember I said being informed is so crucial in understanding how to measure your efforts. The more information you have. Well, this is example of that. The more information you have experienced race conditions when it comes to the most important race of your, of your seemingly year or block, you will be that conditioned for what the expectation is that you'll almost be smiling, going, yep, this is where I should be. This is what I'm supposed to be feeling. And now I feel like I've got control of this because of the experiences of the, the, the training and racing conditions I've put myself in. And I've just got to execute here. And that to me is the more of that you can do. And I know, and I understand that people don't want to put themselves in, in race conditions when they're not at their best. And if, but if you had that mindset, you're never going to experience that race simulation except for on the day. And you can make, eliminate so many mistakes in those practice events so that when it comes to the real thing, you're actually making no mistakes and you're having the race of your life. And so that to me outweighs that. For me, it's only pressure you put on yourself about the result. But that's all you see is I'm putting pressure on myself. I should win. I didn't win. I can't get upset about that because I'm not in the form yet that I want to be when it counts. You can't be expecting to be 100 ready in July when your race is November. You know, you, you know, vinegar or they're not winning every race. You know, Inga Britzen doesn't win every race. You know, I could just pick the best does.

He's the only one.

But he still loses. Jordan. Yeah, he still loses races. So even though he wins more than others, you know, and you know, guys, you can just. Van Aert doesn't win everything. Van der Poel doesn't win everything. I'm just rattling off cyclists, but, but you know, marathon runners don't win. Every race is, everybody wins at some point. So you've got periods where you're going well and periods where you're not. So you, you can't not race just because you're not in winning form. Your winning form comes from racing is what I'm trying to say. That's how you get the winning form by not shying away from putting your number on this particular style of racing that we do. It gives you that feeling of race simulation where you're competing and you're exposing yourself at A form that may not be the best of the year. Everybody's willing to put themselves on the line here and you need to get used to putting yourself on the line. That's a good thing. So that you don't get that has the nerves and anxiety about the one race you've had for six months, you've had leading up to you've had no other races. If you've had lots of races in between, you don't have the same anxiety about. The anxiety comes from the fear of the unknown. Whereas you've practiced all these races, there's very little unknown about what's going to happen because you've experienced every scenario. So that's me getting my mindset in tune with what the requirements of the race are. And you hear me say that a lot in training we're trying to replicate the requirements of the race. Not every session, but there are specific race ready sessions we do. We try to train over our race requirements, we try to train under our race requirements and at some time we try to train at our race requirements. And some of these races that I make our athletes do or the testing, if there's no race, I'm going to test you. I would rather put you in a race. But if there's no races available, the next best thing is to do an individual test. And you should be up for that because it's going to give you perspective of where you are and how you're improving or what you need to work on. And I'm adamant that that is crucial to the success or the non success of your next event.

You started the podcast by your first lesson was perfect. Practice makes perfect. Not just any practice makes perfect. And you can train the house down doing VO2 intervals and other training sessions, but that's not a race and that's not what you're going to do on race days. If you do all that training, you might be getting fitter. But if you're trying to if expecting that you can do all that, not practice race conditions and get everything right on race day, the chances of that are slim to none. The chances of you making mistakes, getting the power wrong, something coming up that you haven't experienced is so, so high. Whereas if you're repeatedly putting yourself in those race conditions, you're just, you know, priming your body mentally and physically to get it right. And then the word you use is automatic. It just becomes automatic on race day. And so many of our own good athletes and the best athletes, they get to a race and it's Just no different to the hundred training sessions and race simulation sessions they've done. There's, there's almost no nerves because it's just like clockwork. They just get on, they just start riding and they ride so robotically because they've, they've practiced that over and over again and it's just like second nature.

And you know, Jord, when you've been in a parkrun and look, park runs are huge in Australia, it's every Saturday around Australia. There's a park run in every city and there's several park runs. And so putting your number on not only gives you that feeling of replicating what's going to happen on the main day, but remember, in a parkrun there's two or three hundred people with all levels of ability and there's someone who can run 15 minutes and there's someone who can run 30 and there's everybody in between the other 300 runners. So when you're standing on the start line, you could be a 20 minute runner or you could be a 25 minute runner or a 30 minute runner, but everybody starts a park run at the same 3 minute 30 pace, whether they're 25 minute runner or a 30 minute runner. And so you've got to learn that discipline. This is the other aspect of competing. Learn the discipline of staying in your range and with people running past you who are, you know, they're slower than you but, but your temptation is, because you're competitive, is to go with them where that's the thing, we want to practice the discipline of not going with them and then passing them 2 or 3k later and learning that lesson that, that you know, if you didn't do that in, in practice when it comes to the main race, you're just going to follow everybody who's not at your pace. You need to be doing your pace in any event. And that's one of the key lessons that the competition BC races that get you to practice.

Hmm. Because when you don't, when you don't practice that race simulation of, of staying to your race plan around, other people guarantee you won't do it on race day because if you haven't practiced over and over again, you know, we talk about making your first kilometer of the run your slowest. When everyone else is sprinting past you, the first time it happens in your race, you're going to sprint out of the gates and your first kilometer is going to be your fastest and potentially ruin the run leg of your triathlon. Or if you're doing A half marathon. A marathon. You go too fast. The first K. You've literally set up failure for the. It's going to be really hard to run well for the rest if you, if you blow it in the first kilometer. Next one. Measure your success by performance, not victories or what position you came and I wanted.

That's pretty ironic for me to say that who has had his whole life defined by did I win? Did I win?

I was going to challenge you on that straight away. I thought it was a hilarious one to finish off with. How do you justify that when winning is what is the most important and even as a master's age group a is, you know, is your big driver for turning up to events is you want to win.

It still is, Jordan. There's no doubt in my mind, but I can't. I can't measure myself as a person by the amount of wins and losses I have. And I think that's the key thing as a someone looking back, you know, when I was your age, I don't think I was a very. As I said earlier, when I lost, I wasn't good to be around. And, and that was because I was defining myself by. I didn't win. I either won or I didn't. And that's not a. That's not, that's not a good way to, to enjoy your sport. And you know, when you think about it, there's only one winner. And like some of the races you're in is 3,000 people in it, you know, and sure, we can break it down to age groups, but each age group might have 250 to 300 people in. In your age group. And so, you know, and if we, if we looked at criterium racing or road racing, you know, there's so many things that can. You might be the best fittest rider, but you not necessarily guaranteed to win because of tactics. Whereas as a triathlete or as a marathon runner, it's more reliable that you would. You would do better if you're, if you're fitter because there's less tactics involved. But, but you need to. First and foremost, this is my biggest advice. The lesson that I learned is if I've performed to the best of my ability, executed the way I wanted to, prepared, planned and trained the house down and I was beaten by someone better. I actually learned that lesson later that I should and am happy with my performance. If I've gone into the race and made mistakes, sure be disappointed. But don't measure your success by the position. Measure it by how you executed your performance. And once I learned that lesson, I became a much better human being, believe me. And I was a bad loser. And it's not good to be a bad loser. You're not good to be around. And life's too short to be worrying about that sort of stuff. You do do a lot of effort and time and work to get the best out of yourself, as long as your performance is up to what you wanted and you can't be anything but happy. And it doesn't matter whether the time's slower than it was last time. There's so many variables that change that you know the conditions on the day the course has changed, that you know the equipment you had is worse or better, or, you know you had a poor preparation. You know, you just can't be defined by the time or your position. It has to be by your performance, your execution of your performance. And people think performance is your placing, performance is your execution. And how, how well you prepared and planned for that day and did you end up achieving the goals that you want? And if you. If you did all that and you came and I've. I've told you many times where I've won races and I've had a little bit of a hollow feeling because maybe the competition wasn't that good and I did a lot of mistakes and I didn't perform that well. There's other races where there's been. I've been out of my depth and I've got 15th, and that's probably above where I thought I could finish. And I executed the house down inside. I've been really pleased with that. You know, I didn't win, but it was like a win to me to be that close to, you know, I'm talking on a world level, you know that that's a big lesson to learn and a tough one to learn because, you know, when you're very competitive person, you know, it's easy to be a bad loser.

I still to this day get so much satisfaction from a good training session. You Finish a good VO2 set where you've pushed yourself, you've executed well. You know, mentally, it took a lot, and you're buzzing for the next few hours going, that was great. And all those mini wins are so, so important. And a race for me is just a really big exaggeration of that. All those feelings are just amplified. And if you perform well, people, it's so funny whenever. Still to this day, this has been happening since. Since I was 8 years old, but it's Always, you know, what race did you do? Where did you come? You know, people still ask me at a half marathon, where did you come?

Oh, yeah, 2000 and 20th.

Yeah.

Oh, is that good?

Yeah, exactly. It's not even the point of the question, but, yeah, it still cracks me up. But I do love the. Still love the example of Ash Barty, former world number one tennis player, Grand Slam champion, and before the Australian Open, before she had won the Australian Open, she was the number one seed, world number one player. There had been years coming to try and win the Australian Open. An Australian female tennis player can't remember the last time it had happened before that. But decades of pressure build up for an Australian to win the Australian tennis tournament on home soil. And going into the final, they asked her, what are you feeling? The pressure of the weight of the nation, that kind of thing. And she could just. She looked everyone dead in the eye and said, absolutely not, not at all. And people are going, come on, you're lying. And she had this exact attitude. You're talking about, I'm not a better or worse person whether I win this next game or not. Like, do I want to win? Absolutely. Have I worked my butt off to get here and am I going to do everything possible to win the game? Yes. You know, will I. Will I be disappointed if I don't win? Of course. But I'm not any better or worse of a person if I win the championship or not. And you can separate those two things because, again, it's holding two opposite truths at the same time. It's, I really, really want to win. I'm going to give everything to win, but the result won't dictate who I am and how my life is after. That's. That's a really, really cool attitude. And she ended up winning, but she would have been okay if she didn't. And she wouldn't have cared what anyone thought of her if she didn't.

Yeah, I think that's a great story, and I've heard that many times. And, and I've. I've used it. You know, that's an example of the whole of a country riding on whether you win or lose. And, and for her to sit there in that press conference before the event and almost laugh, and it turns out that, you know, she had some great people around her that were really allowing her to concentrate on the things that mattered. And we say that a lot in our trivelo coaching. You know, concentrate on the things that are going to get you the result you want. Don't concentrate on. I need to do this Ironman in 12 hours or less. I need to do this marathon in four hours or less. I need to do this swimming event in whatever this marathon in. Just don't worry about the end time. How am I going to get the end time? That's what matters. And like the Ash Barty example, if I serve my first serve well, I'm probably going to win this point. So if I concentrate on swimming with the right technique in a triathlon, getting on the bike and staying in my zones, running and staying in my ranges and not running too hard, I will get a PB if I've trained well and been consistent. So how do I get the result is more important than I need to get that result. And I think that differentiation, if you don't get that, then you're still gonna be an unhappy human being.

I think we speak a lot about, you know, you gave the examples before of second places and all those top cyclists who have come second as many times as they've won and those bitter disappointments. And Liam actually took this to another level and said, I wonder how many points Rafael Nadal has lost in his career. And the stats would show over 100,000 points over his 20 year career he lost, which is just astronomical. You know, that's an absurd amount of times to lose a point. Every time you lose a point it hurts. And so you have to have a lot of self worth and measure to be able to just keep plotting along. Imagine having a hundred thousand bad training sessions, you know.

So I want you to find Jord. How many key points did he lose? That, that would be a better stat.

And that, sorry, that is the stat he lost. So that's what I'm saying. He lost 100,000 points.

No key. Like key points key.

Oh, sorry.

Actual. When it's five all.

Yeah.

40, 15. Yeah.

Geez. Yeah.

Did he win or lose that point? Yeah, and, and yeah, that, you know, that's what I'm talking about. Being in the moment when it counts will get you the result. And, and that I think that's, that's a. One of the big lessons that. Not worry about what's what the noise around. Concentrate on what you're doing in your little bubble. We talk about that on our podcast. You know, our athletes need to be in their bubble. Concentrate on their, on their, you know, you've got one job. We say that a lot. You've got one job, you know, ride this power, run this pace, swim this speed. You'll get the result you want concentrate on being in the moment. And the, the quicker I learned that lesson, the quicker the successes came. I need to win this race because the pressure on me to earn prize money, that's the wrong way to think. I need to think about how am I going to win this race? What things do I need to do during those four hours or nine hours that are going to get me that result and not think about the whole race? I have to win. I have to win. You're actually not thinking about anything constructive. You're thinking about the wrong things. You know, imagine if Asparty said, I have to win this game and didn't think about how am I going to throw the ball up, how am I going to serve? It's just, it's just the wrong cues to be thinking about.

We, it's really important to us that we finish off this episode. It's been a monster episode. Uh, we want to finish off with a segment that's really important. And we normally do it at the start, but it's at the end here. It's really important to us because it's what you talk about with being the balanced athlete and the balanced person. And we can be really focused on, on our goals. But often being focused on a goal and focused on improvement tends to come with a sense of lack of what am I not? Where am I falling short right now? Where am I not good enough? And we see this a lot with, you know, FTP goals. I want to get to 300 watts and I'm at 292 and I'm not a worthy person or I don't feel successful or I don't feel like an accomplished athlete until I get to that 300 mark. And so once again, we want to push that 300. It's a great goal to have, but you're not any better or worse of a person because you're at 292. And especially if you've come from 250 or 240 or 180, you've accomplished so much. And so if you're focusing on what you don't have, it's a really bad balance to have. And so we really push gratitude as a way to just reflect on what we do have now and what we're grateful for. So, Dad, I want to finish the episode with one of our favorite segment what are you grateful for?

And look, this is very simple. I do love coming home from holiday and I've just been on traveling and I am so grateful for where I do live, even Though there's some negative things about the current weather that is in Melbourne at the moment, where it's quite cold and rainy. But when you travel, you see a lot of different scenarios about how people live. And. And there's some fantastic places. There's just some brilliant places where people live. But I always love it when I come home because I'm really happy with the environment we've created here, our friends, where we live, and I'm grateful for that. And a stark reminder was on our journey home from Europe, we stopped at Abu Dhabu, Abu Dhabi. And we have trouble saying that word a lot, but, but, but we were delayed because we missed our flight. So we ended up spending two days and to go out into. To the beach and outside in itself, rather than, you know, normally you fly into the airport and then get your connecting flight and you fly out, so you don't actually go outside and experience what 42 degrees feels like. And so two days in 42 degrees. It's just a whole other world that people live in. And that made me more grateful for a little bit of cold weather. And so I tip my hat off to the people who live there because I don't know how they work or train or compete because it's oppressive. And they love living there. But I love living here. And I'm grateful for where we live.

My gratitude is actually for what this episode is about, for your training lessons, you specifically, and wisdom. And this episode is just a small example of what I feel lucky to have grown up with. But we talk a lot as brothers about how grateful we are to have learned the lessons of training and the discipline of training growing up, because we just feel like it really set us up for a lot of success in our adult life, learning to be disciplined and learning to. To plan, prepare and perform. And don't get me wrong, there was. There was plenty of times growing up when we didn't want to train. And, and, and people do ask me, you know, has your dad been a former professional athlete? Did he push you too hard, or. And I, and I always say, like, yes, but not, not, not yes, too hard. It was always disciplined and it was always firm but fair and never unreasonable. But that's what life is as well. You know, there was plenty of times I didn't want to train, but that was just part of the structure and the discipline and you had to learn that. And, you know, it applies to everything in adult life, is plenty of times you don't want to do something, but it's a good thing for you to do, and it's the right thing for you to do. And so I think that those lessons I'm grateful to have for life, and I think every athlete should be as well. When you have this structure and this discipline and this thing in your life that's really rock solid, you go really well in all the other areas. And often when training falls apart, a lot of the other areas fall apart, too. So that's my gratitude.

That's a beauty. And look, a lot of the athletes that we coach have said to me, I am so grateful for what you've given me, not as an athlete for fitness, but you've actually changed my life in terms of I'm so much more organized now because you've made me, because you've given me structure in my training and I've had to fit my structure of everything else around it. And I'm actually feeling so much better about myself, and I think that's a big win. Being improved in your sporting ability is a great win. But to hear that, I love hearing that.

And if you like what you heard in this episode, in terms of coaching tips and philosophies and our principles of how we go about things and you want to get coached by us, go to trivelocoaching. We coach athletes from anywhere in the world. We have a guarantee that if you don't improve in the first six to eight weeks of coaching with us, the coaching is on us. And that's not unreasonable. We don't demand a crazy training program that's completely hard to do. It's a completely reasonable training program that all age groupers can do. We adjust it individually to you and fix it to you. We just know that with some structure and the right training sessions, we can guarantee your improvement. So if you want that, go to travelocoaching.com and apply to get coached there. Thank you as always, for listening. We'll see you on the next episode.