Prepare For An Olympic Triathlon (Properly)

It's always better to do time on the bike that's longer than the actual race event. And I know we're talking very generally here because we have people who are very early stages of their triathlon career from people who are absolute elite.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching and Jared Donnelly. In today's episode, we are continuing our series on how to train for an event properly. And so far in the series, we've already done marathons, half marathons, Ironman, half ironman, and today we are talking about the Olympic triathlon. The Olympic distance is 1.5 kilometer swim, 40 kilometer ride, 10 kilometer run, and it is one of the most common triathlons that people undertake. So we're going to talk about how to train for that distance split specifically. But before we do that, we want to start with our normal segments with our gratitude and what's called attention. So, dad, what are you grateful for this week? And welcome back onto the podcast because we missed you last week after you had some pretty major back surgery. So I imagine that's a part of your gratitude.

Oh, most definitely is, Jordan. I feel like I've stepped out of the world for 10 days. I don't know what's happened. It's taken me a whole lot of time to catch up to what's been going on because once you go into that surgery, hospital situation, everything else in the world seems irrelevant and you're just focusing on surviving, surviving the tension of going into the operation, doing the operation and trying to recover. So right from the outset, I've got to say a big shout out to, to Mr. Wang, who no one around the world would probably know who I'm talking about, but he's the back surgeon who operates here in Melbourne and I can't be more appreciative of his skills. It's great too that I actually coach this person. He's a prolific Ironman triathlete and I'm amazed how he can fit in his job and training for an ironman and he manages to do both. He's an incredible human being and I am absolutely very appreciative of what he's done for my back. It's been a long time coming. I've had this for a long time, this injury which I've just managed and I suppose that's a Whole topic on itself, isn't it? Being able to manage something that, that could be better if you, if you just stopped and, and allowed someone to help you or you just put your head in the sand and keep, keep plowing on. And it got to a point where I was starting to have some functionality problems and no matter how good my core and strength was, once you've got some bones hitting your nerve and your back, there's no coming back from that. There's no amount of strength and core that's going to stop that. So, so yeah, my, my appreciation, my, my gratitude is about appreciation for, for the, the skill of, of Mr. Wang and, and also I, on the same topic, I really appreciate the fact that I get great perspective again when I'm going to be out off the bike for the next six weeks. And it's a 12 week rehab program that I'm on. And I just did my first walk the other day and I walked for 10 minutes. I think I went 50 meters. So that gives it perspective. My aim is to see if I can get to 500 meters by the end of the week and then maybe if I can do a kilometer. And it's taking me 20 minutes to do a kilometer, so I don't know what that pace is. Not very fast 20 minute K pace.

Is that right?

So we laugh. But anyway, yeah, that's my gratitude.

No, that's really good. For those following along, I guess the audience it was, you were straight into your classic super coach mindset. The moment you came out of surgery you were already talking about the rehab and everyone's kind of saying just slow down a bit. And I think it turns out that you don't remember what you were saying. You were sending some funny texts to the family chat. But that does give a good insight into your mindset. But I think it'd be good, a little good test to kind of maybe talk about your progress over the next 12 weeks. Because it's something that, you know, it's a new challenge and every athlete kind of goes through these things where you have to suddenly do some training that you haven't been used to and for, you know, you're so used to consistent training on the bike and triathlon training. But this is a whole new kind of program of slow progress with walking, strength, conditioning, all the stuff we kind of talk about off the bike. And so it'll be good to share that journey with the listener, I think, and see how your riding progresses over this 612 week period period. And then even 6 months down the track to see how you're going.

No comment.

Good.

Yes. I was gonna, I was gonna say, look, having watched Remco go from that horrific crash and seriously having to be assisted to walk and then go and win the world titles, it, it's pretty inspiring and it just gives you hope and motivation to know that, you know, if you do all the right things and I follow the program properly, I'll, I'll get back to where I want to be. And, and I know I'm not a 20 year old, you know, professional writer and 64 and you know, things will take a long time to, to do what he's done in a short time, but, but I'm up for the challenge and I, I just. So motivated. Can't wait. I've got bad FOMO right right now with everybody doing what they're doing, training and, and you know, it makes you realize how much you do love something when it's taken away from you. So, you know, there's a whole lot of lessons here that I'm going to take out of it. A lot of negative things, but there's certainly some positives and that's what you've got to look for.

Absolutely. And the Remco one is, is so inspiring because some of the footage, it just looks like this guy's never going to walk again. You know, he's having to be so assisted to take his first steps and to go from there to world champion. Not just to get back to fitness and not just to get back to a really good level, to become world champion in a very short amount of time as well. You know, it was only a few years and you think Ego Manal had a horrific crash a few years ago and he still hasn't been able to get back to his top form for him as well. Yeah, it is, it's inspiring to see. My gratitude, quick one is I've been traveling around a lot recently and my gratitude is for the generosity of people that I've met along the way. I've just had so many people make things really easy for me. People offering up places to stay, people really going out of their way to make parts of my journey a lot easier. I've been actually overwhelmed with the generosity of people and especially a lot of strangers. You know, sometimes the world, especially when you watch the news or something, can feel like a negative place with the amount of people doing negative things out there, especially in America. You know, there's been a mass shooting every weekend I think, since, since being here, which you don't when you focus on that, it really, really can bum you out a bit. But from a personal perspective, you just feel so grateful for the generosity of people. So, so that's definitely my gratitude. Moving on to what has caught your attention, there's a few things we want to touch on before we get into the main topic of training properly for an Olympic triathlon. But what's been catching your attention recently?

Well, the Giro, which is I'm quite excited about being injured. I've got a lot of time to really look and analyze about what's been happening in Giro. And from a coaching point of view, there's so many lessons that I, I, I'm quite excited about getting out there. And it's not, you know, it's great to see who's winning and who's losing, and, and those riders come and go, and, and at the moment, we've got a whole bunch of fantastic bike riders. But, but as I've said to you many times, every generation has the same group of fantastic bike riders. It's just the new breed comes along. You think it's exciting, and it is, but there's a lot of lessons that keep recurring year after year, decade after decade. And, and watching the second time trial at the Giro, where Remco had won the first time trial, and it was a really short one, and it had a little punchy hill at the end, and he put huge time gaps into everybody in GC on that really short tt. Yeah, the first time trial had a really short, punchy hill, and the second time trial was a 35k, way longer flat course, and it happened to be on a really wet, miserable, rainy day. The good thing was the conditions were the same for every one of the GC riders and pretty much the whole field. So when you're comparing apples with apples, it was interesting to see from a coaching point of view, the way Remco went about performing in the, in the time trial. And, you know, you'd have to say that he would be disappointed to only win by one second, ahead of Gant, Thomas and Tao Gaganhart and Stefan Kung, who were all within 1 second, 1, 2, 3, 4 seconds of first place. And that itself is an exciting result. Really incredible. But the point I'm making is he won the first time trial by, you know, 20, 30, 40 seconds. He would have expected to be 40, 50aminute ahead of everybody else in the field. He didn't know, and we didn't know that he had Covid, and he started the time trial as if he was Feeling normal as a normal time trial is going to the world titles or stage one of a time trial in a Grand Tour. And he tried to ride the same power that he would have had he not been feeling a little bit off. And from a coaching point of view, this is the thing we want to talk about. The feelings you have to identify in your body when you line up on the start line. And the expectation is that you should be able to do X amount of watts. But if you absolutely don't feel like those numbers are achievable, you need to change your game plan. And it was really intriguing for me to watch it live. And I'm saying, wow, Roglich is getting hammered here, and he's 30 seconds down after the first sector, which is only 12K. He's going to get hammered by Remco here. And by the end of the ride, he only lost 17 seconds. So he'd beaten Remco over the next two sectors and Remco had faded badly, which says that. And he actually said in his interview he started way too high. But he said, I actually started the numbers I should be able to ride, but I couldn't ride them. I was absolutely not feeling good. And when he did that interview, he didn't know he had Covid. And he was almost saying, I don't know what was wrong, but maybe I was tired from the eight days of racing. And you're always looking for reasons, and that's fair enough, you should be when you're analyzing your result. But as it turned out, the thing we talk about a lot is how are you feeling? And if you feel that those numbers are unattainable, then change your plan. And he said he felt fantastic. And at the start and within 10, 15 minutes, he already realized that he didn't feel fantastic anymore then, and it was almost too late to do anything about it. And he pretty much had to try and hang on, which shows how good a rider he is to try and limit his losses rather than obliterate the field, which is what his plan was, he still ended up winning the time trial. You know, a stage win in any, any Grand Tour is something that you can't sneeze at even if it's one second. And ask Geraint Thomas, would he rather win by one second, you know, or come second. And he's come second a few times by less than, you know, five seconds. So, you know, he was very excited to be that close to Remco, but he was still frustrated that he didn't win the Stage, you know, in a day like that, when the conditions are so bad, any corner, you know, taken slower than the last corner is really going to be a contributing factor to 1/2 or 2/2 loss over the course of that. So that's what caught my attention on the time and it was really interesting to make. Note that everybody out there. As an age grouper you need to understand how you're feeling on any given day. And I know the expectation is that you've peaked and you're ready for the big race, but you actually have to be in tune with your body and understand that you may not be able to do that and you will still get a good outcome if you adjust your race plan and strategy.

How you're, this is such a good point. How you're feeling throughout the race is just so important for your performance and you need to be adjusting so frequently because especially in triathlon or endurance racing, if you're out there for 40km in a bike course, on 90km in a half Ironman or 180km, there's so many times where you're going to have to potentially change strategy and you really want to make sure that your mind is in the right place because you'll go to a bad place in the race if you go down this path of exactly what have happened to Rebco. You start out too hard, you're not feeling good, you start having negative self talk. What's wrong with me? Why can't I hold these numbers? I'm riding horribly. If that's the story you tell yourself for the rest of the race, you're not going to have a good time. Whereas you could potentially turn your whole race around if you adjust that quickly. Understand that okay, I'm not feeling flash at the start. Let's adjust the expectation, maybe potentially ride lower, you might actually freshen yourself up. You could have a really good back half. But if that story you're telling yourself at the start is what you keep going with, you can blow the whole day out when that might have been an unnecessary outcome.

Yep, spot on. And it just can't, that message can't be ramped home too much. And we, we are known for our data. Our coaching group is, is really data focused. But I'm equally for those who know me really well about how am I feeling in, in relation to, to the data that I have expectations of writing and they are equal in my mind and one shouldn't be rated higher than the other because if I'm feeling, you know, like I'm on top of the world. That could only be fleeting, or it could be the whole ride or the whole triathlon or the whole swim.

But.

But I've got to keep asking myself throughout the whole race or position situation that I'm in, how am I going? Is this something I can maintain and sustain? They're the questions I continually ask over and over. And there's a whole lot of things happening with that actual topic itself is what should you be concentrating on in the middle of an event? It's continually getting in touch with your feelings in relationship to the numbers that are being shown on the screen and little minor and micro adjustments as you go. And it was interesting. The camera got up close to, really close to Remco's visor and he was in a beautiful TT position, unbelievably fast. His position is brilliant. And just watching him look down at the data, then look ahead, then look down, when he wasn't moving his head, by the way, his eyes were darting forward and down and I was amazed I had to replay it to say, geez, he looked down like every 30 seconds to see what's going on with my numbers. Where am I on the course, obviously, to avoid crashing. So even that was interesting to see that he is. You know, people say, oh, I'm just going by feel today. Well, that's great, but you know, it isn't going to be the best outcome.

It's funny because we are so data focused, yet the data is never linear, it's never straight line. You know, it's, you never finish a race and you've had a perfect run of data. You know, you might end up averaging, let's say you're trying to average 250 watts for the time trial, you might end up at that. But how you got there can, can vary wildly. And that can be because of poor execution or really good execution just through different periods. You know, you might be averaging, feeling really good in a patch and averaging 255, 260, and then you go through a bad patch and you're averaging 235 or 240. And it's how you manage those periods. Exactly what you're saying when you're in a good period, understanding that, okay, I'm just feeling good at this part, but that could change at any point in the race. And the same thing with a bad period, but they all could just be fleeting. And so you do end up at 250 watts, but if you handle those periods poorly. So if you're feeling good above 250 but you get too arrogant and then start pushing to 260, 270, 280. You could end up blowing your race up because you've just gone too hard, you've been too overconfident in your ability. Same thing with the bad patch. If you're hitting that bad patch and you start to really panic and have a lot of, yeah, negative self view of how the race is going, you could throw the tail in and then just keep averaging 230, 240 when you potentially had the ability to turn the race around. So I think that's really worth understanding. And for a lot of people who are, you know, they might get to the end of a race and they did average what they planned to average in terms of power, you still need to look at how you got there because we go through these examples so often. But if you got there by starting at 280 and fading and blowing up to 220, yes, you finish at the same watts average, but you're not in a good way. You probably not setting yourself up for a very good run off the bike either. And it's a very uncomfortable feeling. And you potentially lost some gains of performing slightly better than you could have because let's say Your plan was 250, but on a really good day you could hit 255, but you're not going to hit 255. If you go out too hard and fade like that, you'll just be hanging on. So really important points to think about.

Yep. And just one more point before we move on is, you know, when we go back and look at some people's, for example, if they're doing a 20 minute FTP and we dissect it to what was your 20 minute total average power? 250 is your example. You're using what were your two 10 minutes, 255 and 245. Well straight away that tells us that that was a poor execution. Or if we see reverse 245, 255, fantastic, we're happy you've started conservatively. Then we go further and we go four five minute efforts and it says 265, 255, 250, 230 and, and that tells us that, you know, you've ended up with 250, but it tells us you've gone a horrible way around it. And obviously the reverse of that is, you know, 240, 250, 255 to 258 and you've ended up with 250. And that tells us that you've actually planned and could possibly next time go better. And these are really different outcomes from the same number for 20 minutes. So the actual chapters in the story, if you're using the storybook analogy, the end of the book says it was, you know, this is what happened. You got 250 watts. But how did, how did that happen chapter by chapter? And that's where we need to find out about the execution of it. And that's what we're trying to get people to understand in their training sessions. Whether it's a five by five minute effort, you need to practice in those five minutes, starting at the right watts and finishing at the right watts, not starting 300 watts and ending up at 220 to get a 250 average. Do that in your, in your micro sessions and that'll happen on race day.

I had a really interesting experience last week where my Garmin holder on my bike, my bike computer holder actually got snapped on the plane and I hadn't. I went to a couple of bike shops in the area and none of them had the parts. And so I decided I'm just gonna go for a ride and I'll just have the Garmin in my back pocket. Um, and so I was just riding to fuel and I was doing nine by one minute hill repeats. And it was very interesting looking at the data after to see how my power was. And I was happy that I increased the power pretty much every rep. I was very similar. I was within 2 or 3 seconds per rep. But the most fascinating thing to me was just how much worse my executioner over the minute was for the session. And I blew a lot more energy than required because I was in way too many sections. I was going way over what, what I should have on the hill. And even though I ended up at the same time each time, how I got there was so different on all nine reps. And there was, there was some sections of the hills where I was pushing, you know, 550, 650 watts.

Which is just way too high.

When I was, I was probably averaging 380, 400 for the one minute. There's no need to be having a 15 second or 20 second period in there at that high because I couldn't see what I was doing. I was just trying to push myself as hard as I could. And so as it was very interesting because I could have looked at the data and set up well, they were all very similar. So I'm pretty good at Riding even power, even time. But how I got there was actually really inefficient and I cost myself a lot of energy.

And had those rides been two or three minutes, then it would have been a different outcome, you would have faded, the data would have shown a completely different scenario and you would have had to have adjusted your effort obviously to feel. But I can guarantee the longer the time, the effort, the worse the outcome is when you're actually guessing for sure.

It's been easier in one minute efforts. But very interesting watching the Giro with Remco now having to pull out because of COVID It has blown the race wide open. Suddenly he had a. I think it's a 45 second gap over Roglic in second, but now second through to sixth are all within 30 seconds of each other. So going to be really exciting. One other race we did talk about a couple of podcasts ago was the Vuelta Femme, the women's Vuelta seven day stage race. And we spoke about Demi Vollering and how dominant her Spring classic season had been. And you predicted that would she continue, continue that dominance in the Vuelta and win. And her and the main rival of the race was the world champion, Amik Van Bluten. And they were going toe to toe and it was very obvious that Vollering was the more infirm rider, stronger rider. She was starting to really dominate some of the climbs, but then there was one specific stage where she got a bit caught out and it's actually unclear exactly what happened. There's no clear footage of what happened. The reports were something about a bike change or, or a puncture or something. I couldn't, I could, I couldn't find out exactly what happened, but she ended up being dropped by the peloton by over a minute. And that was the stage, that was the race. She basically had to try and bring herself back by herself and Van Lewton got over a minute on her and that ended up being the race. And I would say it's pretty unfair because on the last stage she broke away from Van Vleuten on the last climb, got back 55 or 58 seconds or something and ended up losing the entire race by less than 10 seconds. She just couldn't get that time back that she'd lost. So very interesting to watch. Pretty awesome racing. And I think your prediction was right. She was the strongest, but didn't quite get the outcome, which was disappointing to see.

Yeah, and that's, that's the beauty of bike racing, isn't it? It's not always the strongest. That's going to get, get the outcome. And if you go into races saying, oh, I can't beat that person, what's the point? Then you shouldn't enter any races. And you know, the point in case with the female race, you know, on paper, Demi looks unbeatable, but you know, situations occur with whether it's mechanical, physical or just plain bad luck, you know, these are the things that happen. And look at Remco now he's got Covid. If people had said, I'm not doing the Giro because Remco's in it, I've got no chance. Now he's not in the race. So it's opened up for everybody. And no one's going to remember that he had Covid in 10 years time. I just remember who was, you know, Tao Gegenhardt's now the next winner of the Giro in 2023. That's my prediction, by the way. And, and you know that that's what's going to happen. And, and look, looking at the. I actually want to talk about the women's Grand Tours and the fact is that because they're not 21 days like the, the men's racing Grand Tours, it looks like all the best riders can do all three Grand Tours. And I'm not sure whether we should be looking down that track as well for the men. So I'd rather see the best riders do all three Grand Tours. I don't know what you think, but, but you know the fact that all the best female riders are going to be in all three Tours this year, which is absolutely brilliant.

It's an interesting one. It's just definitely too hard for the three week Grand Tour races to do more than two. And only select few riders do two out of the three per year from the riders reports, even though they're so long, the racing is still so intense that if it was even shorter, I just don't know if the racing would just be too crazy because the amount of hype and excitement around these races is so big, riders are willing to take way more risks. The peloton is so much riskier. They always finish stage races in the Tour de France just saying how messed up it is, how scary it is. So I could potentially see that that would worsen if it was shorter. So I don't know the answer. It is interesting to think about, but it's really exciting for the, for the women's side. One last thing to talk about when we always talk about a lot of topics happening, but I think this is really Relevant for the listener. And that is what's happening with Gustav Eaton at the moment. Ironman world champ. He's 70.3 world champ as well. Not the reigning one, but previous 72 times 70.3 world champion, but reigning Ironman world champion. All the talk has been about the Norwegians, Gustav and Christian, but they've returned back to the shorter circuit and both have not been performing at the very top end. But specifically Gustav turned up to the world tour Olympic triathlon event in Abu Dhabi and came second last. Very humbling race for a world champion. And then just over the weekend, he came 40th in Yokohama. And these races are important. They're not nothing races. They are B or C races for these guys, but they're also important qualifying points. If you don't get enough qualifying points for Paris, they won't qualify. You know, they actually need to be performing well in these races and they have a very mapped out plan of what races they're supposed to be doing over the next 12 to 18 months to qualify properly for Paris and to have an uninterrupted regime. But if he's not getting the qualifying points, he'll now have to change his training plan and do more races to get the. The points necessary. So there's a lot of lessons to be learned here. But the big one, I want to say is that pro races, pro athletes have bad races and have bad periods and he's in a bad patch at the moment. And he spoke about it in an interview and he said how embarrassing it was for him to come second last in Abu Dhabi and it. Nothing really went wrong, he just was really that bad on the day. And I think as amateur athletes we can definitely get caught up in, I don't know what the word is, it's not necessarily arrogance, but it's almost ignorance in. I know that if a lot of amateur athletes had that kind of result so poor, they might fire their coach straight away or they might, you know, have such an adverse reaction. And sure, you've got to, we've got to reassess the execution. You've got to reassess the training plan. What's happening, Ask questions. That is all a healthy part of a good training program, but I think for all of us, sometimes you just have bad days, sometimes you're just in bad form and you can get through it. But he's not panicking at the moment. He still sounds very confident in his goals to win gold at Paris Olympic Games, but he's a long way from that right now. And it's very interesting to watch.

Yeah, there's a whole lot of points that we could talk about this from the point of view of the amateur age group athlete. And I think it's really valid that the pros are going through the same scenarios that would have occur to everyday athletes out there. And form is fleeting. That's the first thing we have to remember. It is not ongoing. You cannot hold form. We've talked about this so many times in our 172 podcasts that we've now done. Every person's form. Ability to hold form will vary from person to person. That's a given. Some people can do it for six weeks, some people can manage to stretch it out for eight. Most people have trouble holding it for four. And when you're in a good form period, that's when you hope that you've got the races that you want to do lined up. Because it takes a bit to get back to that form again and to be able to hold that over eight week period. That's a sign of a really well seasoned athlete, in my opinion, who can just come up and down and manage to stay where they want to be and race where they want to be. And if I look at Sam Long four weeks ago, people were basically telling him he's a hack and he's washed up and he's, you know, he's talking like he's, you know, a better athlete than he is and all of a sudden he comes out and wins back to back half Ironmans and. And you know, sure, the competition may not have been as good as the PTO race, but this is an example of, of how form can change. And you know, the competition wasn't as good as it was in the PTO, but his times, you know, he rode 150 odd 90k and he ran a 111 or 110 or 109, I remember, can't remember exactly, but it was really very competitive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your main point, I guess is doesn't matter who was racing that race, he probably would have beaten them with a 152 bike. Just insane.

Yeah. And so the second thing is expectation. So form is one thing. You can't hold it all the time. And your expectation is that you shouldn't be able to hold form all the time. And you need to get that into your mind that, you know, the pros, let's take the Norwegians, they have done a very good job at getting themselves up for the right events. There's no denying that they've performed when it counts. And it's, you know, this is another test for them to try and perform when it's really not counting towards the big race. But they actually have to get points. So there's a bit of a conundrum there. They're not in the best form. They don't want to be in the best form right now. And I think it's frustrating for them that, you know, you have to qualify for these races so you actually have to have some form. So you have to restructure. As you said, the way you go about it, this is going to be interesting to see how they do this because if they don't get the points, they actually won't be in the Olympics. And then everything that they've planned is a waste of time. So jumping from short course to long course to Ironman is not as simple as it sounds. And you know, even the pros who are doing it as a job are having difficulty going backwards and forwards between the two distances. So as an age grouper, let's just be a little bit more realistic in your expectations that if you are saying to yourself, I'm going to train for an Ironman in, in six months time, but I want to really do well in this short course race and this Olympic distance race, well, which one is more important? These are the factors you have to consider and have better expectations that are more real. I'm training for an Ironman. Don't be so down on yourself because you didn't hit exactly your best ever Olympic distance times. And if you were training for an Olympic distance, then you should expect that you could get close to that because that's what you'd be peaking for, but you're actually not. So having expectations that are real based around the goals that you've set. This is kind of tough when the pros are just jumping from Olympic to half ironman to Ironman and seeming like they're nailing it. And so it's almost, it's a good coaching point for me to be able to bring up that they're not nailing it and that it takes a lot to work out how to get it right. And it's going to be interesting to see how this progresses.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. So let's get into today's topic, how to prepare for an Olympic triathlon properly. And as I said, we've done these episodes in this series a few times now. And so if you want to go back and listen to those episodes, the commonalities between all the distances still apply. There's some general commonalities. So in terms of basic things like getting your equipment right and the preparation the week of, in terms of your sleep and pre race nutrition and understanding the course requirements, pre race routine, race day checklist, warm up, you know, they're kind of all very similar. The warm up is probably the only one that's going to be majorly different depending on the distances. So today we want to focus on the key differences that really apply to this specific race. And we want to start with the training. So what are the key differences when it comes to training for the Olympic distance versus a half ironman or ironman?

It's quite a broad topic to get around and I want to try and break it down to obviously the three disciplines. So from a swimming point of view, we still would like to be promoting endurance into the training program where you're swimming some sessions where you're getting to practice four hundreds, eight hundreds, one K reps with some two hundreds. We still want to do some VO2 work where you're practicing 25 meter sprints, 50s and hundreds. But we also want to get some outdoor experience. If it's in the summer season where you are actually practicing in a lake, in an ocean or in a river, wherever the race is going to be held, where you're doing at some stage every six weeks, where you're going out and doing a time trial on the distance, four to six weeks is really important for that to happen. If you're in an area where it's too cold, well, you have to do it in a pool, but you need to be time trialling practice so that you're practicing what's going to happen on race day. And for this particular distance it's 1500. So whether you're doing a 1k or 1500 time trial outdoors, you would expect to do 1500. Indoors it's harder to do 1500, but I would be pushing for that. But if you can't manage that, a 1k is just as good. So the training really doesn't train differently. For swimming, the fact of the matter would be for those specific sessions you would do longer endurance, you would do longer time. So longer endurance as in the TT, the time trial for swimming you would be doing a 3K or three 3.8K or, or a 2K if you're doing a half Ironman and IR respectively. So the distances of your race day, specific stuff changes and the amount of duration time you spend in the pool might be for an Olympic, might be up to 2K. But if you're training for Ironman, it could be up to 4k. So the duration is going to be different. We're not going to change anything about whether we're doing endurance or VO2 or threshold work. They're all going to be the same. We just add more time to drills. We have more time to warm up, we have more time to cool down to get the duration so that your body's adapting to the fact that you're going to be swimming between 50 minutes and an hour 30 depending on your ability for an Ironman. So they're the things that it is a less time consuming swimming training program that you're going to be faced with. So anything you want to add with that, Jordan? With the swim? Yeah.

I think it can always be said that there's going to be value in swimming above the required distance. So we just, we try and we're trying to do what's necessary. Right. And so for an Olympic distance, you're swimming 1500 meters. That's why the total volume of the sessions doesn't go above 2, 2 and a half K too often. But that wouldn't hurt if you could build up to that and get yourself to a point where you can be fit enough to swim 3 or 4k. But for most, for the most part, we're trying to do what's necessary for the age grouper and not overdo it and not try and overload you with too much shore. More doesn't always equal better. But sure there are some circumstances where doing a bit more would be very beneficial. Just like doing a long run. That's, that's more than a half marathon is beneficial for a half Ironman training program, but doesn't mean we're trying to do that every single time. And we're not always going for more is better.

Yep. And on that point, the majority of people who are choosing Olympic or sprint, they're choosing that because probably time is their problem with training. It could be that they just love that distance. That could be the number one reason. Reason. But it also fits in with their lifestyle where they don't have to go for, you know, really long training sessions that are required for a half ironman and for an ironman. So, you know, we're giving you the minimum and if you can add more time to it, that's encouraged. But as long as it's in the right zones.

It must always be said that when we're talking about this, this is the kind of goal that you are working towards to A training program. This is, this isn't where you start, especially if you're more on the beginner side. As a triathlete, you're going to start with two two and a half kilometer sessions or as you said before, a 1500 meter time trial. Beginner athletes start with a 1k time trial and potentially, if you've never even swam that distance, potentially lower 500 meters. And if you need to work your way up very slowly to get to that point where you're doing a couple of 2k sessions a week, then you need to give yourself the time to get there. But towards the back end of your program, you really want to be able to do a solid, you know, a couple of training blocks where that's the gold standard.

Yeah. So I think we've raised a fair few topics that will cover both swim, bike and run. But let's just get a little bit more specific with the bike sessions. The bike sessions where we're trying to improve our threshold, which is a trying to ride faster, that is the goal. We want to be a faster rider than we started the program when we finish the program. So the sessions we need to do don't change really from an Ironman, half Ironman, sprint or Olympic. We still need to do sessions with intensity. But the difference again is you would probably shorten the warm up and the cool down if you're only doing Olympic distance training. And we're talking about the minimum requirement for an age grouper. But the actual session has to be relatable to your power that you've tested yourself to. So the session itself is going to be with some high intensity where you're going to continually stress your body to give it an overstimulation so that it can recover and actually improve and be a better rider the following week and the following week, etc. The high intensity sessions stay very similar across all three disciplines of triathlon, Olympic, half ironman and ironman. And the main difference would be where we're doing the preparation for the endurance ride. That can be, as you said, in the swim, it can be as long as you possibly want to in the time you've got available, but the minimum you would be doing is way less than an Ironman and a half ironman. So if we're talking building ourselves up from an endurance ride that might have started at one and a half hours for a 30 week program and by the end of the 20 week you're already at four hours for an Ironman program. If you're doing an Olympic distance and you're starting at an hour and a half. You don't need to go much further than two and a half hours. If you can do more time on the bike, it is absolutely encouraged. But we're talking about the minimum requirements to get yourself ready for the Olympic distance 40k time trial. So we're talking about a distance that might be in time 52 minutes. I know some of the top guys can ride that, that time for 40k to all the way up to an hour 50. So anything around that range is where we need to be training our endurance for longer than that. It's always better to do time on the bike that's longer than the actual race event. And I know we're talking very generally here because we have people who are very early stages of their triathlon career from people who are absolute elite. And so if you're at that elite level, you should be thinking about doing more in the Zone 2 side. When you're doing your endurance rides, you should be thinking about getting more heels into your legs. But the training for Olympic distance is really key to get that preparation in early. So that when we get to the race ready phase, which could be six weeks out from your main Olympic distance race, we are changing our program from the big endurance rides to really honing in on those hour of power. And if you're a 90 minute 40k rider, it's a 90 minute hour of power. And we'll use the same terminology of hour of power. But the reason we use hour of power is because we're talking about intensity being for the distance of your race. So you break up that hours ride or hour 30 ride, or hour 50 ride or 52 minute ride, you break that up into shorter intervals to start with where you're trying to ride at your race power. And then as you get closer to the race, you're trying to lengthen those intervals to maintain that same race power over. For example, you would start maybe with 6 times 10 minutes, then you would do, you know, 3 times 15 minutes or 4 times 15 minutes to make it to 60 minutes or 2 times 20 and then 1 by 40k, which would be a 60 minute effort. So as you're getting closer to the race, you're wanting to spread that out so that you're getting your body used to the actual duration of holding that power that you're going to do on race day. So the Olympic distance rise training program would look something like continuing to do the high intensity from start to finish in your program. The changes would be in your endurance ride where you're starting low and building up your time on the bike to as long as you can possibly get to, you know, three, four hours if you can. But two and a half is the bare minimum and including as much strength work in that as possible until you get to that six week out period where you start to do race ready type sessions that are really absolutely relatable to what's going to happen on race day. So they're very specific. So specificity of training comes in here.

And that's why they're called race simulation sessions, those race ready sessions, because you're basically simulating, like you said, the exact power that you're going to be riding in a race. But we don't want you doing a 40k straight time trial every single weekend. That's a really grueling kind of training program to do. It's broken up into those segments to make it a little bit easier and more manageable for you to do and allows you to work up to that point where you would feel comfortable doing a full all out 40 kilometer time trial at that power. And I guess my next question on that is, we've answered this a lot of times on the podcast, but how do you know what that, what that race simulation, that race ready power is? How do you know what, what power you're supposed to be holding or your goal power is for the race?

Yeah, and I suppose there's lots of easy ways to answer that. You know, you just do an FTP test for 20 minutes and that will give you, you know, your best 20 minutes and you multiply that by 95% to get your ability to ride for 60 minutes. And as you and I know from all the data we've collected over the journey that most people's FTP is higher than their best 60 minutes. So if you end up doing an FTP and you've managed to push out 200 watts for your 20 minutes and 95% of that is 190, you would have a lot of trouble holding 190 for 60 minutes. You would probably be able to ride between 175 and 190 somewhere in that range, depending on the athlete and how long they've been training for. So the 60 minute test is a really good gauge of what your true FTP is, but that's a hard thing to do. So at the end of the day, I'm encouraging people to do that 60 minutes so you get a really good clear idea of what you can hold for an hour. And therefore on race Day you would try to aim to ride 95% of that to 100. And for all those who've listened to the other percentages we've talked about through Ironman, half Ironman, where It's Ironman at 65 to 75 and percent of your FTP, 80% for pros. For half Ironman, it's basically 75% to 90% for the age grouper and 90 to 95% for the pros. And in this Olympic distance, we're talking 95 to 100% of your best one hour. Those who can get close to their best one hour will be at at the top of their age group without any doubt. If you can ride your best hour of power in a race, that's the goal. But you want to be again measuring your effort. So starting out after the swim and starting around the 90 to 95% in the first 2 or 3k is the way to go. Just like Roglich did in the last 35k time trial on the Giro, started conservatively and finished like a train. In this particular race we want to start conservatively, get to our mark, mark and hold it. We don't want to actually go faster because we've still got to run. So that's a way of finding out what is going to be your best race pace. And you'll get practice at that in the race specific sessions that we give in that program where you get to practice what it's going to look like on race day.

Yeah, and I guess you really are encouraging people to have a crack at that 40k time trial, whether it's going to take you 60 or 90 minutes at least once, maybe six weeks out from your race. And that gives you a good gauge of where to train for that final block.

Yeah, and so that's exactly the race ready phase. You know, generally I'll give you an FTP or a 40k time trial, depending on, you know, what part of the season you're in or how many Olympic distances you've got. Or is there one a race you're training for? Or have you got four Olympic distances you're trying to do in a five month period? So once you've done two or three 40k time trials, you've got a really clear understanding for the rest of your races throughout the season that what your training numbers should be. And when you're in those training sessions, you're trying to push that number up every time. If you're doing six by 10 minutes and you're meant to be riding at 190, see how you go with riding at 192, 195 for the six efforts. And then next time when you're doing four by 15, see if you can ride 195 for those four efforts, et cetera. That's, that's where the training practice comes in. You're trying to see what happens to your body when you're pushing it outside and above the range. That's what training is, practicing things you want to see happen for improvement. And on the race day, moving on to the run.

Because you get off the bike, you've done a tough swim, you're on a 40k bike time trial and then you've got to run 10k which I think is one of the toughest distances to do because it feels more intense than when you think about the half ironman or Ironman. It's so grueling, but the intensity is not there. Whereas the 5k and 10k runs off these triathlons just seems so grueling because the events, it's shorter in nature. And I say shorter lightly because the total time still ends up being 2 hours to 4 hours.

Totally agree, Jordan. I think the 10k out of all the triathlon events, I think the 10k is the hardest one to run 5k. In a sprint triathlon it's 5k of pain. Whereas 10k, you've almost got to match that pace but double it. Whereas a half ironman, the intensity is definitely reduced. And obviously in a marathon for an ironman, you know we're talking completely different. It's, it's just basically zone two running. But, but what we're experiencing in a, in a half and an Olympic distance is you're, you're really trying to run as close to your best 10kpb fresh as you can. And in an Olympic distance, if you want to improve your position or just do a PB for your personal improvement, this is where you can do it. The 10k run. And getting your fresh 10k time as close to your off the bike time is the goal in training. So a lot of those race ready bike sessions where we're doing the examples we gave a 6 by 10 or 4 by 15, you would get off and try to run, run 5k, 6k, 7k, 8k at your 10k race pace. So that you're getting that, that race ready specific example of ride run combination. And that's one of the differences in the program that would be, that would be completely different to a half ironman and an Ironman. Training block where there's not a lot of intensity in the running, whereas this is, this is race pace intensity. The other difference is we do in our program, as most people know, we do do a lot of running off the bike at easy pace. But our Wednesday runs where we're really specifically trying to build strength and endurance for the other two triathlon disciplines with the half Ironman and the Ironman, we are now trying to get some pace into our running. So we move from the strength of the heels where that should have been done, done early in the program. We're now looking at things like 2k repeats, 1k repeats, and even some fartleg sessions where you're doing faster than the race pace you're going to do on race day. And these can only be done for a short period of time because the risk here of injury is massive and should only be attempted for people who've been doing the sport uninjured and uninterrupted. You will wouldn't put a new runner into a fartleg session or some 1k reps six weeks into a program when they've only been running 30 or 40 minutes at a time. That is a recipe for disaster. So you would avoid that for your Olympic distance program, even if that's what was required. You would just try to get to the start line without being injured so that you could be running five days a week. So there is a big difference between what I'm talking about in the running program for someone who's an elite program, elite triathlete, a top end age grouper, a middle of the pack age grouper and a newbie, someone who's done very little running.

Would you say that the running off the bike is, while it is absolutely important for any triathlon training program, it's probably the most important for Olympic distance because the feeling running off the bike at this distance is so tough because you're trying to run faster, the intensity is higher. Whereas running off the bike is so important for the half ironman and Ironman. But as you said, the intensity is a lot lower. And so you generally get a pretty shocking feeling off the bike at the start of those runs. But you can kind of build into it. Whereas it's almost like the 10k you're off and you're trying to fly from the start. And so therefore it's so important to match that feeling in training. Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. Jordan, this is the sprint race is very similar where you really need to be getting a feel of after you've done and we do this during the week sometimes where we throw in in a 2 or 3k off the bike where we just want you to run at 5k race pace after you've done a high intensity bike session. And even in the race ready weekend session where we are really trying to teach the body to run as fast as it can after it's done the requirement on the bike. And there will be days where we'd be trying to do swim, bike and run so that you're getting a feel for it. But that is logistically very hard and most people just absolutely can't do that. They don't live near the water, they don't live near a lake or pool. So you know, in their ideal world that would be something you would throw in, you know, once every six or eight weeks. But, but the main point we're trying to get is the run is got to be more specific as compared to every other discipline because of the intensity that the expectation is that you're wanting to do. But, but remember, the more proficient you are and the more at the pointy end of your age group or eliteness, the more your ability to cope with this. As if you know you're that category, then you shouldn't be thinking along these lines. You should be thinking along the lines of I just need to get all my running sessions in. That's my goal is just to get five runs in for the week or three runs in. Whatever your program's asking you to do, just get them in without breaking down and making sure that you've got the right running shoes. You're doing the strength and conditioning work to make sure that your body can cope with the load. But getting the consistency of the running is going to be better than doing some hard sessions and being so sore or injured that you can't back up with the next session. So I've got to have all these caveats with this podcast about really. But Jared said this is what I should be doing. Jared said this is what you should be doing according to your level. And it's got to be clear that when you ascertain where your level is, then you can actually implement the degree of intensity. Whereas the swimming and running, swimming and biking is completely different. You will be able to do the intensity in both those disciplines without the risk of injury. Whereas as a runner, if you haven't had an experience and you add someone who's normally at risk of injuring themselves, this is something you should steer clear of. You will still be able to run well because you're getting intensity from the bike. As long as you've got the musculoskeletal strength to be able to put one foot in front of the other strongly, you will still be able to improve your running. And we've proved that with many people who just can't do the intensity sessions. Yet they can still come up on race day and nail it without having done any hard running, any hard intervals, because they're getting it from the bike and the swim. So yes, it is fun running fast, doing training sessions, not fun, but it is a good feeling when you're really flying. It's hard work. Work. It is probably the hardest discipline to run within. Running with intensity is probably harder than biking or swimming with intensity in my book because it's a whole body experience. Whereas on the bike it's probably legs and cardio. Whereas as a runner you know everything from your landing for your toes, your, your arches, your heel, your Achilles, your calf, all the way up your, your glutes, you know the back's getting pounded, you're using your arms to propel yourself forward, you're trying to keep relaxed and the whole body is being included in the activity. And so that's where we have to be so careful when we're giving advice generally to you. Make sure you understand where you sit on that line of experience and injury proneness.

And then what about race day experience itself? What does the athlete need to know about turning up to Olympic triathlon? What's significant about this type of event?

Yeah, I really think the warm up is kind of a little bit more important than any of the other warm ups for the Olympic distance. It's really imperative that you swim, swim in the ocean at least five minutes before your race start and do some hard little 30 second efforts so that when, because you're going to swim 1500 meters quite quick compared to 2K or 4K. I'm just rounding out those numbers, 1900 or 3.8. So the expectation is that the intensity will be higher. You should try to still execute, obviously on race day evenly in the switch swim. But doing a good warm up in the swim will really help the start. Even when I look at my data from the last year or two of racing the aqua bike, I'm experienced at executing. I'm still swimming way faster at the start than I am at the finish. That's got a number of reasons. I don't swim enough, so I'm not fit enough to hold the form. So my fitness is poor. But my form falls apart as well because My fitness is poor, but I'm only swimming one day a week. So my expectation is that I'm not trying to swim fast. I'm just trying to get through the swim. So that's, that's one version of how I go about, you know, doing it as a, as a really poor, poorly fitness trained swimmer as compared to what I was as a professional where I was, you know, very fast and fit swimmer for, for the event. So I had to change my expectation to try not to swim too hard early. And so that's my, my advice is to keep that for everybody to try and swim even. But you know that everybody, if you're, everybody is going to swim faster at the start and that's a given. You can't help it. That's what happens. Everybody does it. We're all trying to get out and get into a good position. If you're trying to fight for an age group victory and you know that there's people in the swim that you could get on their feet, then I would be practicing and training some hard 25 efforts, hard 25 meter efforts to get you used to what you're going to do. Swim hard for the first 25 to 50 meters on race day so that you can get on the feet that you want to be. So you need to be specifically practicing this in training before you do it in a race. Otherwise, just swim evenly and that is really key. So the warmup for the swim is important, but I would also be doing a warm up for the run just to get myself warmed up for the day. If I had the ability to have a trainer there, I would plug my trainer into the car battery and warm up on another bike where I would just do 10 minutes of rolling my legs over and then I'd get my running shoes on and I'd just be doing 5 or 10 minutes of running with 3 by 20 second stride outs. So for Olympic distance, the warmup is probably that and the sprint is more important than a half ironman or an ironman. So the preparation for the race day, the night before, the week of, they're all similar experiences that you should be doing. You should be getting up at the right time so you've got plenty of time. Allow plenty of time for the race day experience. But on race day you are going to have an expectation that's going to be quite intense from start to finish. So we really want to have a mindset right from our getting up out of bed. I'm on today and I have to be up. It's not an endurance day. It's going to, I say that lightly. It could be between two and three hours. So that is technically an endurance day. But it's going to be a day where we are running as close to our threshold, we're riding as close to our threshold and we're swimming as close to our threshold as possible, possible and for a long period of time. So you really need to be focused on execution. This is so crucial. The execution could blow you up so quickly and you will fade away to nothing. You don't pay the penalty in a longer race where you have to stay out there longer because you've made a bad decision about your execution. It just means that you're going to really slow down quickly. So if you're running, if you're riding too quick, too much power, you could end up riding 60, 70 watts lower than you should have if you start off and get too excited and ride too big of power. So execution is really key. It's really key in any event, but it's more so in this. And look, the nutrition side of things, I just think that it's such a short event. Your body should be able to cope with getting the nutrition from the bike. That should get you through the run. And if you need to top up, the gels are there for you. But you should be practicing these on your race ready training sessions to work out what your requirements are nutrition wise. So the nutrition is part of the race day experience, but it is also important that you have practiced these things and not try something new on race day that you've done regularly in training. And why should you do it on that race specific days? Because that's the intensity that you're going to race on. So you want to practice nutrition at exactly the intensity you're going to race at. Not doing it on days where you're going to ride harder or swim harder or run harder or ride easier and swim and ride easier. They're the days where the nutrition is there to help you get through the session, not to practice what's going to happen on race day. So there is a difference between the nutrition on those different types of sessions.

And remember that the nutrition rule is you're going to burn between 30 and 80 grams of carbs per hour or you need to top up with 30 to 80 grams of carbs per hour. And so because the race is shorter, this is what you're saying that you could probably get that at carbs in that 60 to 90 minute bike ride and that would cover that first 30 or 40 minute swim that you did or 25 to 30, 40 minutes and then carry you through the run as well. You know, if you, if you got a gel in which is generally 40 grams of carbs, if that's what you work out, you can get through on, you have that one at the start, one at the end of the ride then that would potentially get you through. If you had some carbs in your drink, that's another solution. If you're fine, you're somewhat one that loses energy quicker in these practice sessions and you need up to 60 or 80 grams potentially you're taking a little bit more. But if you're taking it early on in the bike ride and then towards the back end again practicing because sometimes if you took it the last five minutes before getting off the bike, a lot of people get a stitch from that that's too close. But generally that kind of rule of thumb is what you need to practice and figure out works for you and that will get you through the 10 kilometer run. If you're running below 6 minute K pace and so your 10K is going to take you over an hour, that's what you're talking about where you might be someone that needs to top up on the run as well. Well and there's plenty of options for that but it's a lot simpler than the amount of potential volume you need in a half Ironman or Ironman.

Yeah, definitely. And you know, I just think less is better and you can always top up because not going to be a six hour day, you know, it's, it's going to be maximum 3 hours for most people. A lot of the population are between two and two and a half hours so it's always easy to grab something and you'll get instant relief from a day gel. You don't want to be trying to force too much in on the bike when you could end up running with stuff sloshing around your stomach. So you just need to take what's required. That's the rule of thumb definitely.

And it's a fine line because if you go too far the other way like you just said and you bonk, it's really not a good feeling. And yes, you can get some relief from a quick coke or something but you'd prefer not to get that point to that point anyway. And I think just to finish. Logistically there's a few slight differences in that compared to an Ironman where you're racking your bike the day before you're racking your bike the morning of in the Olympic and sprint distances. And so you've got to factor those things into time. What time are you going to get there? What time do you plan on racking your bike? Make sure you've got your registration number and because the warmup's longer, fitting that in as well. So that really comes into your race day checklist. But anything else to finish off with when thinking about this specific distance?

No. I really love the Olympic distance. I think it is really one of the ones that most of the population all over the world can actually do and get a real sense of achievement. And there are a lot more options for it. I think it's a really good event for someone who loves the sport of triathlon but doesn't have the time for the half ironman and for the ironman events. And you can do lots of them over summer. You could do one each four weeks. And that would be what I would encourage. If that's what your race is that you want to really hone in on, you can train really well for it and not get that burnout factor. There's so many positives for the Olympic distance that I'm a big fan of. I'm a little bit disappointed that the swim and the bike and the run, in terms of. I think they don't have it quite right. The ratio should be a 1k swim, shouldn't it? Yeah, I think so. But, but the swimmers will be screaming the house down if they, if they hear me say that. But, but yeah, look at, that's what it is and we have to deal with that. So you need to improve yourself swimming. But, but I love the Olympic distance. I think it's, it's there for everybody. It's all there for the masses. And I, and I encourage people if, if you're new to the sport, it is something that feels like an endurance event and it is. And it's a real sense of achievement and, and it's over quickly so you don't have to spend, you know, hours and hours training for it. So I'm a big fan of the Olympic distance.

Quick is relative here because we say it's over quickly compared to the 9 to 12 hour Ironman event. But technically, any layperson, you know, the Olympic distance is not a quick, you know, two to three hours of racing is not a quick event whatsoever. But it's so funny, we're so used to talking about, you know, seven hour gravel rides on this podcast and, and big endurance stuff. It does, it really does relatively seem quick. It's and to be honest, I mean, looking at the results on the weekend, this, this distance specifically just makes me sick looking at the pros because, you know, the Top guys ran 29 minutes, 30 or whatever. Matt Hauser, the Aussie, came second in an absolutely terrific performance. But he's ran, you know, 1445 twice in a row for 5K. And the women's, you know, the fastest times below 33s, they're just absolutely flying. I just can't even fathom them running those times after one and a half K of absolutely brutal, brutally fast swimming. And then they're just going all out on the bike. They're on the road bikes, on the top trial bikes, but they're just, they're just maxing out, they're full. Attacking each other like a cycling crit race and then getting off and running. It just. It's so funny to watch. I think one last point I did want to mention, you know, we spoke to about Gustav Eden before. We won't go down this rabbit hole too much, but in a recent interview, he spoke about his swimming and he just said it's easily his weakest. He's just never gotten that good at it. And again, good relatively, because he's absolutely elite swimmer. But just compared to the pro guys, you know, he was, he was a minute off the back of them at Yokohama and the same thing at Abu Dhabi. And you just could never. You just can't catch up from that. You know that once they're gone, if you're not in that front pack, you're not going to be there. And he kind of admitted in the interview very casually, that he's almost given up on improving his swimming. He said, I've just done everything I can and I just don't think I'm going to get that much better. And to me, that's interesting, because if he's not going to get much better, I can't see how he's going to be anywhere near the front pack come the Olympics. So that'll be an interesting one to watch, especially because they're so convinced that they can use the science and training to improve everything. There's no point improving their bike and running if he's not going to be in the front pack. So interesting one to watch.

You'd have to be an elite bike rider and run way above the level of the rest of the field to catch up, and that is damn hard. And look, I totally disagree that he can't get better as a swimmer. I absolutely refuse to accept that it is a skill acquisition, swimming. And if you concentrated on improving your stroke technique, there is no reason why you can't swim faster.

Interesting one. It'd be good to watch. But that's it for this episode. As always, thanks very much for listening, and we'll see you on the next one.