Riding Different: Russell's Unique Journey to National Champion [CASE STUDY]

Every year, one of the biggest a race goals for our cycling athletes is the Masters Nationals Championships. There are three events you can enter. The individual time trial, the road race and the criterion race. 3 chances to win an Aussie title in your category. And there is a point system for each event and whoever has the most points across all three events is crowned the Champion of Champions, the ultimate Masters national title. And dad, you've managed to win five of these Champion of Champion titles and countless titles yourself I have to say. But today's case study begins the night before the Nationals. Last week the Nationals Masters series was on last week here and the night before it's 10 o' clock and dad, you receive a text from our athlete Russell. And this story just sums him up. It's a video of him somewhere on a country river. The nationals were out in the country and he's driven his van out the night before the race to go and stay the night and so he can get up and get to the race early. And he has bogged himself next to the river so badly that the next morning he was not sure if he was going to make the start line. And he's, he's chuckling to himself, videoing you going, well this is not the ideal preparation I wanted for his a race which he's worth been working so hard for. And he's finding big sticks and logs, trying to chuck them under the wheels, trying to unbog himself so he can get to the start of Nationals. I think that story just sums up Russell a little bit. But can you give us a little more introduction to his character? You've known him a long time because it's such a great case study because of his personality and the results he's been able to achieve.

Yeah, that story you just told kind of sums Russell up. And I have known him since the early 1980s and we're, we're actually a similar age and he probably was one of my. I feared Russell as a competitor the most out of all the people I've grown up racing against. He was a guy who could put his hand to any sport. He's an unbelievably good paddler, he's a great mountain bike rider, a good swimmer, really good runner and he could cross country ski like you know, some really elite people. And that reminds me of an event we used to have in the 80s called the winter Wild Trek Classic. And it was a, we started up in the high country, it started up at Mount Hotham and I think the first leg, 20 something K cross country ski. Then we did a orienteering 20K run and then a mountain bike ride from the top of Mount Hoffam down to the Mitamidder river which is about a 30 or 40k mountain bike ride on kind of snow and ice and then jumping off the bike and jumping into the river and paddling down the middle, middle river. And that was day one. And these are examples of events that Russell loved to throw himself into and he won that event countless times. He was one of the legend of that sort of really early multi sport challenges and he was right up there with the best, you know, probably worldwide Certainly as an Australian he was, he was, he was feared as a competitor because he was so good at all every sport he did. So, so that's how I first come to know Russell and, and then you know as a bike rider I raced against him many, many national titles, many state titles, many, many just local club races and he's the ultimate competitor, just loves racing, just can't wait for the next race and, and I would class classify him as one of the most craftiest bike riders I've ever ridden against. And the majority of time I've known Russell he's, he's not really been a good trainer. He's always been a good racer and like if there's an option between today there's a race on or he could do a training session he would race and there's been a time where during summer Criterion races on a Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, Thursday night, Saturday and Sunday and he's done five of those. He's done all five races in a period where I'm trying to tell him to rush. You have to pick one or two races and then train the other days or even one race if you could, if you could but, but that's a really hard discussion we always have because I've got a guy who just loves racing and look for the listeners out there this guy is the ultimate craftiest rider. So you would not see him yet. He would win pretty much every race he goes into because he's got a really good sprint and his tactics about when to, when to make a move and when to sit in and when to conserve is second to none. And you know he's still able to ride a grade masters as a 64 year old which is pretty, pretty outstanding achievement when you're racing against 30 year olds in criteriums during our summer season. That just shows you how good he is. And he's a quirky kind of a guy. He's Never really got the best equipment. And for those who know Russell, who probably chuckling now when they've seen Russell out riding, he's, you know, he's always got makeshift stuff. So clothing wise, the same over boots and jackets that, you know, jackets that are flapping, that are not aero, they're just not aero. They're catching so much wind. It's almost like resistance training. The equipment he's using and he's always got a bike that's, you know, you know, five or six years needing changed and it doesn't worry him. He absolutely doesn't care about that. His performances are so much more important than equipment and what he looks like. And if you really, if he nailed that stuff, he would actually be better than he is already. And he's already outstanding in his age credit at the national level. So I hope I'm giving you a little glimpse of who this character is. He's one of my favorite guys to coach. I love helping him. And look, one of the things that, you know, I've raced against him that many times and, and we're very competitive against each other, but, you know, that's one of the things that he sort of decided to do was to join us.

Yeah, yeah. I had the chance to race against him for the first time over summer actually, and he wasn't. It's a great. Just another story of him, but he wasn't very fit at the time, but he was still riding a grade, as you said, and he was kind of hanging off the back a bit. And then we had a Tribala rider attack up the field. And then now this is a credit to him and his, his craftiness. And he comes up next to me and I was towards the front probably third of the race. And he says, we still got someone at the front. I said, yeah, yeah, we do. So we're all holding back and letting other guys chase and he just buries himself and puts himself at the front of the race. And this, I don't know, the ethics of this kind of tactic is, I mean, you can do whatever you want, but he gets to the front, pretends he's going to do a turn and then slows the whole pack down and kind of kind of boxes that little gap off for people to go around and just gave our guy at the front that little bit of extra chance to stay away. And I just thought that sums up his craftiness a little bit. And yeah, you're right. I think we should take it back kind of almost nine years ago now where, I mean, you won't. You won't love me saying why he joined, but I think he beat Russell a few too many races in a row. And then particularly, I remember at the nationals, he'd come second to you two or three races in a row. And he just called you up after and said, if I can't beat you, I'm going to join you. And you'd obviously known each other a long time, but he said, no, I want to join Trivella. I want to get coached. And it's been a long time since then of coaching him and going through this process, like you said, of trying to get him to race less and train more. And he's going through periods where he's had great results and not so great results. But we want to focus on the last six to nine months particularly, because, yeah, this last six months particularly, he's just been on this upward trend. So can you kind of take us through what's been happening?

Yeah, it's an interesting story because it would have taken a lot for him to make that call to join us. I think he was just in awe of the fitness that most of the Trivalo guys had. And he's a very smart human being. And he thought to himself, well, I am a very good tactician and I've got very poor fitness, and the only reason I'm winning is because of my tactics in races. And that is actually true. And I said to him, I'm so happy you've reached out to us because, Russell, if I can get you half as fit as you are already, you'll be almost unbeatable. And I said, I'll have no, no way of beating you. And, you know, this is something that I love if I've got guys who are willing to join because they realize they've got a deficiency somewhere and his was his fitness. And that's not the case now, but in that journey, we've had periods where he's raced too much and I haven't been able to get his fitness up. And halfway through the season, he just performs worse and worse because all he's doing is racing. And when you don't keep your endurance ride up and keep some recovery rides going because you're actually too tired after the race. You know, if you race Thursday, Tuesday night and then race Wednesday morning, what are you doing in between? You're basically just going to bed, then waking up and going to race again. It's like a pro. And, you know, too much of that is just going to put you into a Big hole. So they're the things that, that we had to change from what he was doing. And that's been an ongoing thing where he's had periods of really poor fitness even whilst he's been under our program, where he's just, he's just kind of been a little bit pig headed and wanted to race more than I've suggested. And finally in the last eight months of this long journey that we've been on together, he's just decided to be all in. And what a difference it's made when he's all in. Instead of me looking at what I programmed for him for the week and then looking to see what version he'd done, now I'm seeing exactly what I've programmed and he's doing it and he's now contacted me instead of avoiding me saying, did I do that? Right, what's next? What are we looking, what's, you know, what sessions are we looking at next? Should I be doing more threshold? And for Russell to do threshold training, that's almost like, you know, giving up your mum. He just does not want to do any threshold riding. He just wants to race where he can just hide, don't do any work and then just sprint at the end.

And he's got a great sprint on him. Yeah.

And the only way that he was going to be a better rider with more time, more tricks in his kick bag. As we talk about, if you're just a one trick wonder, which means all you can do is hope no one breaks away and it comes to a bunch sprint and that's all you are as a sit on sprinter, then you're going to be limited to the amount of times you're going to win. But if you've got more little tricks in your bag where you can attack a bunch because you've got fitness and then, and then they catch you and you can go again or you can just ride off the front and time trial to the finish and if it gets caught again, you've got this unreal sprint. So these are the things that Russell's actually now filling his kit bag with. He's got everything that you need as a master's writer in his category and he can still do this stuff in, in Open Masters, you know, where it's, it's not age group so it's a really exciting change for me and wow, the results are incredible.

So with all that training and progress, what was happening in the last couple of months specifically leading into this a race?

Yeah. So we were really working hard on two, two main things, trying to get his threshold riding up. And Russell's not a fan of time trialing at all. And that's what people associate threshold riding with. And I'm trying to say to him, yeah, sure, time trialing is threshold training, but threshold training should be part of any bike riders training sessions anyway, so that they have the capacity, if they break away, to actually ride solo to the finish. And if you're only good at over underwriting, which is basically staying in the bunch where you do some efforts and then recover and hide and do some more efforts and recover, and if someone else does efforts, you can go with them and then recover, but you can't do anything else other than that. So. So some of the events that you know are more likely to have to have some threshold components are we have a local race here called the Amy Gran Fondo and he did that. And unfortunately his threshold riding is not quite at the level of the guys in his age group. So this race has a 25 minute climb right at the start and Russell just couldn't keep up with the front leading guys who by the way, one of them is a world road champion and another guy's been on the podium at the world world level. So he's actually against two of the best riders in the world masters riders in his age category. And ironically they, Russell, he won the bunch sprint for the next best. So there was a group away and then Russell won the bunch print with the next best. And these guys wouldn't have even noticed him in that race. And the nationals masters race was probably a month later. So they wouldn't be looking at him as a threat because he, you know, the people at this 120k road race with the threshold climbs in it would expect to be racing against those guys who are at the front. So that was good because by the time he got to the race, I said to Russell, these guys will be looking at each other and all you've got to do is follow these guys. And I don't have to talk to tactics to Russell too much because he's on the same level, same wavelength as I am. And our tactic was really good because anything that these guys did, he could just follow them and those guys would be looking at each other. And if they're attacking each other, Russell gets free rides all the time up the road. If, if one guy's up the road and another one of those guys who's their nemesis would be trying to get across, Russell just gets a free ride. So. And if it Comes to a sprint, he's one of the best sprinters for his age group. Watts per kilo, that I think is almost in the world. And that's a huge statement. But, you know, for a guy who's 61 kilo, who can push between 1200 to 1400 watts in a, in a 10 second, you know, sprint, you don't have to be a genius to work out, that's pretty high. Watts per kilo.

Yeah, I think it's off my head above 17, I think above 18. I shouldn't do maths live on a podcast, but I think it's 17 or 18 plus watts per kilo, which is crazy. And this is a really good point because it brings up something that's good for this case study and that's, yes, you've worked on Russell's weaknesses and it's really important to identify strength and weaknesses and where you should improve. His sprinting is clearly strength, like he said. But he still went out and found a specific sprint training coach and went and practiced with him time and time again because he's. This coach would get more out of him. So his sprint's already really good and he's saying, well, how can I still improve it? And I think that just is a really, really good thing to do.

Yeah. And you know, I tell lots of our criterium riders, road races, you know, cycle specialing riders, where, you know, sprinting is just not who's got the most power. There's three components of sprinting. There's getting the right position, timing the actual when you're going to sprint, and then the actual amount of power you can push. So if you get one of those three wrong, if you don't get the position right, you sprint from 10th place. You could end up fifth with the best sprint out of the whole 10 riders. So just having the right power doesn't mean you're going to win every race. So you have to position yourself well and then you have to time when to sprint. If you, if you sprint 300 meters out, you're probably not going to win. If you sprint 10 meters out, you're probably leaving it too late. So timing the sprint is going to be key as well. And one of the things Russell got to do really well was the guy who is Rico, who was helping him, has got this great jump. The first two or three pedal revolutions will separate you from other bike riders. If you've got the ability to almost violently push the pedals for two or three strokes and get to 9, 12, 1500 watts in the first two or three pedal strokes, which is almost impossible to do for 99% of the people. And that's what makes a really good sprinter, is their ability to push power from the first or second or third pedal stroke. And if you get gapped by a bike length or two bike lengths, immediately you're in the wind. So the guy you're sprinting against who's gapped you is in the wind, and now you're not on his wheel because he's gapped you, and that takes all of your effort to get back to his wheel. And then by the time you get back to his wheel, you've got nothing left to come over him. So these are things that Russell was really practicing really well and learning how to hold his wheel when he did that jump. And he was doing it. So basically he was yelling out to Russell saying, I'm going to do it now. And even then, he was gapping Russell when Russell knew that he was going to do that jump. These are examples of what you can do. And in our program, we have some zone two stuff where I'm asking people to do after every five or six minutes in zone two, get out of the seat and time your sprint acceleration to a signpost or to a tree or something. If you're outdoors or if you're on zwift, just get out of the seat and go for 5 seconds or 8 seconds or 10 seconds with a violent attack like you're going to sprint for your life, like a lion's chasing you or a snake's chasing you, and you have to. You're in survival mode, and the faster you go, or a train's coming and you have to get off the tracks. Anything like that, to make you think about this is life or death. I have to push violently to get the power. Then these are the sort of things I want people to do. If you. If you want to improve your sprinting, you have to think about that, but not just improve the power. Improve where your position is for. And know the finish. This is quite crucial. And these are the things that I've been able to help Russell with, is understanding positioning, which he's quite good at, the timing of it. And now the power and knowing the finish line will help you enormously. And knowing if it's a headwind, uphill, downhill, if there's chicanes or corners, or who the best riders are in the race and what wheels to be on, these are all the things that are part of that information. Knowledge that a road racer, criter Racer needs to understand.

And so comes to Nationals day, he unbogs himself in the morning, he makes it there for the race start and tell us how the race unfolded and over the two events for him, the road race and the criterium.

Yeah, and look, Russell, for the first time I thought over the journey of my knowing him, we had a little discussion before about the tactics and, and I'm basically saying to him, use your. He, he. His gut reaction. When he sees and thinks of things that are about to happen, he'. Reacted. That's one of the really good strengths that he has. And the mere mortals would be thinking about someone's made a move, should I do something about that move? And by the time you've thought 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds have gone past and now that move is 50 meters up the road. And now it's a worse scenario than had you made a gut reaction when you saw the move first and reacted within the first second. And that's the type of rider Russell is. He sees something that's going to happen or predicts something that's going to happen and he's already on the wheel and there's no having to bridge across because he's already on the wheel of the person who's making a move. And of course, you know, you've got to pick the right person. There's no point in jumping onto every single move that's, that's happening because some people's moves, they're not going to sustain. So you don't have to worry about those moves. The ones you have to worry about are the people who are probably going to be able to break away. And that's no different to World Tour riding. You know, a lot of the team rides, Tour riders would let some people go up the road that they know are not going to be going to be in the sprint final selection, I suppose, is the word. So. So you've got to be selective in who you're going to follow and who you're not going to follow. So these are the things that Russell was good at. So, so come race day, I'm saying to Russell, the guys who have done really well at Masters level are all looking at each other. They don't even know who you are. So you'll be able to go back to your own style of racing, which is do the least amount of work, which is what you used to do when you had no fitness. Now you have got the fitness that's actually equal to anybody in the race, but still act like you've Got no fitness. Hide, conserve. And then when the main moves are made, you're on the wheels. And as it turned out, the road race, because there was an awful crash in the time trial, the road race courses were all changed. So everything we'd been practicing about and discussing about the tactics changed because the course for the actual road race changed at the nationals for safety reasons. And so it became really a long criterium course, the road race. So it was always going to be, we felt, a bunch finish. So all his job was really to follow those lead guys and then unload his vicious sprint at the finish. And that's actually what happened. Russell followed wheels all day, conserved, and he won really comfortably in both road race and criterium. They panned out exactly the same way, Jordan. And obviously after the road race, people were going, who was that? What just happened? The guys who he beat. So then they were looking at him in the criterium because he'd already showed his hand in the road race. But he won the sprint in the criterium more easily than he did in the road race because he actually had some confidence from. But what I was about to say was when he called me before the race was he was. He was just needing reassuring that his form was good. And I'm saying, I'm surprised, Russ, you know, because normally you're not like this. And I think that's dawned on me that he really cared about this. And he was. He was wanting to make sure that I was confident in his ability. And I think that's all he needed was reassuring and that all he had to do was go and execute and. And I think it was almost humble confidence. And you can be confident without being over the top. But he was quietly confident, but he didn't want to sort of make any big statements, you know, the form that he was in. I'm just saying, Russell, I don't even know what you're talking about. There's no one going to beat you here. This is your race to lose almost. And I think that kind of shocked him. I think he was quietly confident, but he was not like I was, you know, having seen what is the fit. The few rides that I've been doing since I've come back from my back operation. He's just so far ahead of where I'd seen him in a bunch ride, where you're actually out there physically seeing him, where I can see him on the. On the numbers that we have in our training programs, and they all tell me he's riding brilliantly. But here he is on some of our bunch rides where he's, he's at the front with all the young guys and mixing it with them and you know, that's something you can't do very well as a 64 year old and.

That, and that's just such a great captain story where he's now, you know, he won two times national Masters championship titles, which is just such a reward for effort. And I want to finish with obviously what the people want to hear and some of the key differences that you've touched on and explore a bit more because I guess how you described before is that he wins even when he's not the fittest, but now he's the fittest and he's the best decision maker and tactician. And I think the way you summed up to him is he's just having so much fun racing now because he's just got the combination of both. So what are some final key things that you think were important in this change and, and getting him to this point?

Yeah, and it's interesting now because Russ just says to me now, oh, clearly I need more threshold writing, Jared, I don't want to do it, but it's been a game changer. So for someone to actually ask for those sessions, for me, that's just gold. So he understands now that if he can keep his fitness improving by doing the stuff that he avoided for so many generations, I'm talking tens of years here, he would avoid any type of effort that was over a minute. He would be, he's the king of anything under two minutes. But really pushing that threshold riding is what he knows is going to really help him.

And give us some example threshold sessions that he's taken on that you think have really helped.

Yeah. And so one of the things we try to incorporate is to keep that VO2 training in the program, but mix it in with some threshold riding. So he would do things like 5 by 30 seconds on at really high VO220, 130% of your FTP followed by 2 or 3 minute rest and then a 10 minute threshold at 96 to 102% of your threshold. So having a, that replicates road racing. So if some guy jumps up the road and someone chases him, you're going to be doing those high efforts for 30 or 40 seconds or a minute. And then, then all of a sudden it's single file, strung out and you have to actually ride threshold and then you get an opportunity to jump again and maybe you attack and then you get a Break on the group and you actually have to go into threshold mode, time trial mode to actually stay away. And these are really key things that we put into his program. So that one session would be, you know, five by 30 on, 30 off, 10 minute effort, then five by five, 30 on, 30 off, then another 10 minute effort, then maybe another five by five, 30 on,30 off. And they're the sessions that he would just go, I'm not doing that, that sucks that session. But now it's, Yep, that's the session that's really working for me. And they're just examples of one of the many variations you can do that make it a bit more fun. And you can definitely in your own mind know that what you did last week compared to this week, compared to a month ago, compared to six months ago on that threshold, you know, his, his numbers have gone from 220 watts up to 260 watts for those, for those 10 minute efforts. And, and they're things that, you know, you can't ignore that that's just a complete change in, in how he's improved his threshold writing, which now makes him almost got the full, the full kit to, to use it at his disposal whenever he wants.

And I guess the last part of that is the attention to data and for someone that kind of refused to use data properly for decades and then he's finally come over to our side and he's really a data king now and explain that last piece of the puzzle.

Yeah, so it's interesting, he was refusing almost to train indoor. He just wanted to be an outdoor rider. And I totally get that. People just love riding their bikes. And the two things that Russell loves is racing and riding his bike. And so, you know, he would miss most of the winter season because a lot of the sessions was pouring rain. So rather than embrace the indoor training, he would just say, I'll wait till tomor. And so he was moving sessions backwards and forwards to try and fit in with the weather during winter. So, so they're things that, that he, that he had to really change. So he embraced the, the indoor trainer. Even though I would just get text messages just with swear words back saying, I hate this trainer.

He came on the zoo a couple of times then.

Yeah, and, and then, you know, having to, to use a power number indoors rather than just riding, you know, around, you know, just how I'm feeling outdoors. So specifically training to numbers. And then, and then even when he was doing the outdoor sessions, he's actually now focusing more on, well, this is the range I've got, and now I'm actually looking at a bike computer rather than like, he wasn't even using his bike computer properly. So all these changes that Russ has made and he's embraced them because he's seen the value of the improvement. And that's, you know, he's not a dumb human being. He just says, well, what are the things can I do to help me become a better bike rider? And, you know, the next level for him is to get him more aerodynamic. And he's embracing the data. He understands his power numbers and things. Like he was using his kicker power meter, the power meter from the kicker, and then he had a bike power meter and they were reading completely different, 20 or 30 watts different. So I'm saying to him, just use the one power meter. Don't have both power meters conflicting because the minute you test indoor and you use that number outdoor, it's wrong. You know, it's not reading the same number. So getting him to get on board and buy into that took a while. Once he realized that he was failing sessions because he was using the wrong power meter, not because of his physical ability, was restricting him from achieving the goal of the session.

That's a great summary. That's a great way to finish. I think the summary and the conclusion we want to take from this case study episode is that he's a great example of someone who is. Is able to get the results he wants without having to be the perfect athlete, without having every single box ticked, or without having to be almost neurotic, which a lot of us as athletes are about every single thing. And the equipment is a key example. You know, he really refuses to update his bike, his kit. You know, we always see him in worn and torn Trivello nicks and we say, russell, you gotta update your nicks. You know, one it's not good for. You have to be riding in kit and. And nicks that the saddle's completely worn and also looks crap. But that's just his nature. He just doesn't pay attention to that stuff. But it's a good example of someone that doesn't have to worry about that, but they can still get the result you want. And you don't have to be this athlete with all the latest tech and all the latest upgrades and the absolute schmick equipment and everything to be able to perform well. Obviously in his case, if he upgraded everything and paid more attention to that, he's going to get more at himself. That's true. But we wanted to highlight the fact that, you know, he's able to use his decision making, his experience and then get himself fit to get these results. Any last sentence from you?

No, it's been a great one because I'm one of my best mates doing so well. I just love the fact that he's now got the results that he deserves and it's taken a long journey, but I couldn't be more happier to see the photo that he sent me with his Australian national jersey on and with a big cheesy green in saying, you know, thumbs up. And I must say, Russell's care factor for other athletes is fantastic. He really wants to help and he's always asked me, tell me if I'm speaking out of turn. I don't want to give tips to other athletes. If you think I'm, you know, I said, mate, it's anything you can, you can instill into tactics for any of our road riders and Criterion riders is only going to be beneficial. So that's the sort of person he is. He really wants to help other people and I love it when a guy like that gets the just rewards that he deserves. Deserves.

That's it for this episode. It's been a big case study episode. Thank you for, as always, for listening and we'll see you in our next full Get Fast podcast episode next Tuesday. And every week we do another case study episode. So we'll see you in the next one. Cheers, Sam.