Riley's FTP Jumped 78w in 8 Months (here's how)

In 8 months, Riley has taken his FTP from 170 watts to 248 watts. That's a 78-watt increase. His 10K PB has gone down by 5 minutes, and he's swum, uh, time down by 2.5 minutes. So in today's episode, we're taking you through the exact training program and strategy that has helped him improve this much, so you can apply the same lessons to your own training and your own improvement. If you're new here, this is what we do at TriVelo. We help endurance athletes like you train smarter and race faster. and I'm joined as always by former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of TriVelo Coaching, Gerard Donnelly. Dad, the plan for this episode is simple. We love these episodes because we love identifying what actually works for athletes and what doesn't and what we see. And we want to identify the key mistakes that both beginner athletes and even very experienced athletes are making that Riley was making, and now he's not in their training numbers, and what's holding them back, just like Riley's story did. So introduce Riley a little bit, and then we'll go through his training and performance.

Yeah, and, uh, I just think sometimes people think that we, we can't possibly find any more athletes that, uh, are improving at this level. But it's so gratifying to have another person who comes to the program who's tried the training themselves. They've, they've had a crack at it, at trying to get themselves to a level they're going to be competitive. And, and Riley's a 29-year-old guy who's come from a ex-hockey background and a goalkeeper. And so it's completely, you know, the opposite to endurance sport. So, um, you know, he was training like a hockey goalkeeper in his endurance sport, which is going to be a difficult thing to do. You know, endurance is not about short, sharp bursts, which is what a hockey— you know, he's got reflexes, he's got to be on his— concentrating on his mind the whole time. And it's really a complete opposite sport, really, the endurance way of training and competing. So we wanted to really— and also I think we should mention that, you know, during this period, uh, he's actually just got married, um, uh, last week I think, was it?

Yeah, yeah, a bit of a shout out, Riley. Congratulations. As of recording this, he just got married last week, and he's from Texas, so he married over in the United States, and Congratulations, Riley. And I did notice in his program he still had a VO2 set and a run off the bike programmed on his wedding day. And I asked Abby about it. I said it's a bit harsh with his, with his, uh, his coach Abby, you know, with his wedding day coming up. He put a note in saying I've got 2 hours to train and she gave him a VO2 set and she said I thought the same thing, but he said he wanted to train hard. So that's, that's the commitment to, to the program he has right now. But, um, yeah, he's preparing for Ironman Texas, uh, this year, which is coming up very fast in April. Uh, so he came into triathlon with very limited experience but strong motivation, as you said. And he hit triathlon training like a team sport where it was— he was getting everything wrong in terms of his intensity. He was training hard, which is what team sport is all about. You turn up to training, you train hard. And he admitted to us that he was getting it wrong. He was kind of either training too easy or too hard. He was getting his pacing wrong, and he wanted help with that.

Yeah, and look, that's crucial to what the changes he made. He realized that he wasn't getting anywhere, and he was staying the same in all the efforts that he was doing. And And he was putting in the efforts. There's no mistake about that. It's a simple strategy that we use that is very effective. And that's what this podcast is all about, to try and help people out there understand that there is a better way. But you have to be trusting the process. And we really want to talk about that in this episode, is almost submit to the process. If you've tried it yourself and you've got limited success, or you may have a fair bit of success, but you want more, then then there is probably a simpler way than just bashing yourself as hard as you can, which is, which is, hey, we want that athlete who's really motivated to do that to themselves, but, but then we can teach you how that you don't actually have to do that to get the results you want.

So his results, uh, since July last year, his FTP, uh, has steadily over basically monthly testing has gone from 170 to 248. And I'll read out the each, each test he's done, but it was 170, 179, 197, went to 209 in September, 224 in October, 233 in November, 242 watts in December, and 248 watts in January. His, his 10K time has come down from 1 hour 6 to 1 hour 1, and his swim time trial down 2 and a half minutes from 2:17 pace per 100 to 2:03. Now, a really important part that we just touched on— this is not a pure beginner, you know. This is a guy who, in his own very words when he applied for coaching, said, I have, through trial and many errors, tried different programs, tried training plans, with no long-term improvement in how I feel or in my performance. And so that's a really big, um, big point here is that, you know, you can be training hard and still just not getting anywhere. You will be getting fitter and, and building your, um, robustness as an athlete and, and getting yourself used to training, which is great. But realistically, once he got on the right program and started training in the right zones, he exploded as an athlete and he exploded in his improvement. And, and that's really the key here.

And I just wanna make sure that everybody out there listening, the testing is not the be-all of your improvement. It is one factor. And it's a really good way to get perspective of where you started, where you're going, and where you are right now. And it's also great for you to really learn that it's more about execution than the actual number. And so he's really understood that concept that, yep, sure, I'm gonna train hard for a 3 or 4-week block or 5 weeks, depending on who you are, And then I wanna find out how I've gone in that period. And so I'm gonna really, look at my numbers beforehand, prepare properly for those tests, and make sure that I execute well. So, so yes, you could have an athlete who's, who's only improving 4 or 5 watts at a time, as compared to, to what Riley's been able to do. So that, that's not the be-all and end-all, but it is actually part of the process that, that if you, if you actually trust the concept of what we're doing, you will get improvement.

Yeah, kind of the progression we see, especially with athletes who have such room to improve in their FTP, is we see this great progression over the course of however long it is, 6, 12, 18, 24 months, and sometimes even longer. Sometimes athletes just keep going because they have such a big ceiling to get towards and they started so low. But, but that's just the one part. You improve the FTP, but once you do that, you find your bike speed naturally comes up. Then those athletes take that next progression and they just start learning how to really ride properly and ride really fast and hold speed and ride the courses properly and the same athlete that they were, you know, you know, at 250 watts in a year's time, if he didn't actually progress his FTP, he would still be a faster athlete at 250 watts. We guarantee it, because you start to learn how to get the max speed out of yourself, and that's that next progression of— it's not just power output, it's about how you're using that power.

I could use some examples, like Abby, his coach. Um, she's got to a point where she just finished the Ironman last year and she's preparing for a marathon, but she's got to a point where her FTP is now stabilizing a bit. Matt Phillips, one of our other coaches, he's got his FTP to a point where he's stabilizing a bit, but his speed is continuing to improve, and so is Abby's. And the difference is they're learning how to execute better. The numbers are staying the same, but they are actually faster. And as we've said many times, are you going for a higher FTP or be able to ride the bike from A to B faster? Well, everybody will have to say, I want to ride the bike from A to B faster, and the power number we use helps us get that. So there could be a point where you do actually don't improve your FTP numbers, but you actually can ride faster. And, that's, that's a key thing for people to understand in this, this case study that we're trying to, to explain how you get these improvements.

So the first big mistake we want to go through and the number one thing Riley had to kind of fix was, was, and this is what he said to us beforehand, was I often either run out way too hard and burn out or way too easy. You know, very easy mistake that we all do consistently. And this has resulted in minimal improvements in how I feel during runs and my overall pace. And so this, you want to attack this from both angles because yeah, running too hard or training too hard in certain sessions, um, or training too hard in the wrong session means that when it comes around time to train hard, you won't be hitting the right numbers. But also for Riley, the opposite was true. He was, he was learning that you did have to do your easy sessions easy, but he didn't know or didn't have the confidence to for how easy he could go or what he could push at, you know, that line between zone 1 and zone 2. you know, 5 zone model where, um, you know, in zone 2, you can actually push yourself a little bit. It's not totally easy and comfortable and, and relaxed pace. You know, zone 1 is more like pure recovery, and zone 2 is kind of aerobic actual training. And he just found that through this, this progress, the confidence to actually run a little bit quicker but still stay in zone 2 has made a massive difference for him, rather than running really slow in zone 1 and just not improving his running.

Yeah, we've got to remember, most zone 1 or recovery training sessions, they're not trying to improve your fitness. They are actually meant to be, like the word says, recovery. And Zone 2 is an improvement fitness game we're trying to establish here. So, so, you know, Jordan, when we've gone for a Zone 2 pressure on the pedals ride, that it is really aching on your legs. It's not stimulating your cardiovascular system that much, but it is really uncomfortable in your legs.

And depending on who you are as an athlete, if you're a real beginner, it will stimulate your cardio system a bit more, but the more experienced you are, you find that you're pretty comfortable, but you're— the sustained pressure on your legs is burning. Yeah, keep going.

Yeah, so, so, you know, there is a difference between what each of these sessions— and that's one of the principles that Riley has now understood. What are the zones and how do we get, how do we get them? We tested and then we've got him the zones, and now he is training in the zones for each day. Each day has got a different target, different goal, a different specific thing that we're trying to achieve. And that's the thing that he— the biggest change he's made is is understanding what the session's requirement is and training in those numbers. Not below it, not above it, but anywhere in that range. And, and as you were alluding to, if you're feeling good on a particular day, go closer to the top of that zone 2 range or threshold range or sweet spot range. Or, you know, recovery, that's not really what the goal is. It's just really trying to get blood flow. But, you know, even VO2, you know, you've still gotta measure your effort in those training sessions. To get through the session properly and not do half of it because you've blown yourself up by starting too hard. They're all things that, that contribute to getting the value added. And we have a lot of people— Riley's no exception to this, and no other am I, no other than you, Gerard— that we got ahead of ourselves in some of the harder sessions and really struggled to finish because we got too hard early. And, and, you know, the goal is, A, to finish the session properly. We, we do 20 or 30 minutes twice a week in these sessions. Don't do 15 or 10 because you've blown up. That's actually lost the value of the session. Mm-hmm. You're better off riding or running or swimming at the lower end of the threshold or VO2, and then finishing at the lower end if that means you can get through the whole session. That's another key component that a lot of people go, oh, I've done half of it. That's better than nothing. Well, not really. You've actually only got half the value of that VO2 set.

So the, the lesson here is, is really training to numbers of every session. You know, if you've got your 7 to 10 sessions throughout the week, you know, your session each day, every session has it, has its, has its purpose and, and has its goal and has its numbers to stick to. And it's often overlooked that, you know, you just go, it's an easy day, I'll just, I'll just stay within, you know, some sort of range of zone 1 to 3, I just won't go to VO2 level. And that's still a huge mistake. And so No matter what level of athlete you are, and this is really important, this isn't just for, um, beginners, and this isn't just for experienced athletes either. Both ends of the spectrum are making this mistake in some sort of way. For beginners, you could be ruining your program by being slightly out of range for every single session, you know. And a lot of people make the claim that, uh, you know, if you're a beginner, it doesn't really matter what training you do, as long as you do consistent training, you'll improve. And that is true, but as Riley was finding, being in the wrong ranges all the time was keeping him stagnant, you know. And so just being slightly out— if you're supposed to be in zone 2 but then you're creeping into zone 3 or 4 it's supposed to be an easier, um, yeah, recovery or zone 2 day. That just means that the next day when you turn up for your VO2 or threshold session, you can't hit the numbers because you're just freshly too tired from the day before. And it becomes this negative flywheel where every session you're just not quite hitting the goal, and that's what's keeping you the same sort of athlete.

The compounded effect of the consequences or the impact that you make with your decision-making, that flow-on effect is massive. And if you can get one thing from this is, you know, stay, stay in your, in your lane. That is the key thing to, to really being in a good program. And in that lane, you can be to the middle of the lane, to the, to the left or to the right. And in terms of intensity, that's the bottom of the range, middle or the top. And so, you know, you've got, you've got the, uh, flexibility in that one session to be wherever you like according to how you're coping with that particular day. So there is flexibility in each session. And people say it was too restrictive. I don't enjoy that. Well, that's a choice you're making. Do you want to see improvement or are you just wanting for a program that you've got freedom to do whatever you like? I don't think you can have both extremes. You can't just have a locked-in program or just a program that's letting you basically do whatever you want. That's actually not even a program. But, but even in a structured program, We would have days like on a long endurance ride, we would be saying to people, today is a day where you're free to ride as hard and as long as you can, as long as you understand that on Tuesday, we may have to adjust that session down because we've really let you go on that, on that day. Have some fun on that day. Ride, ride with your mates, but, but then we have to adjust a few days later so that we don't just ignore that you've, that you've had this— it could be a race, uh, that's a 3 or 4-hour race, or could be just a hard bunch ride where you're really maxing out. Um, and, and if you don't acknowledge that has an impact on your actual recovery, then you're making a mistake again by just presuming that you can just resume the Tuesday hard 20-minute session or 30-minute session that we give you. So, so I think it's really, it's really important. You can have both, but as long as you adjust your program accordingly. And what's wrong with, what's wrong with that? Well, if you've got a 3-week block where you're doing each Tuesday and Thursday, your hard sessions, just to make it simple, if you miss out on the Tuesday because of that Saturday, instead of doing 6 hard sessions in that block, you've done, you're going to do 5. And if you do that every, every Saturday where you're just riding flat out for the same, which we wouldn't, we wouldn't agree to anyway, then you could end up with 3 sessions because you only do Thursdays. And again, if that's what you want to do, the improvement will be slower. That's all it's going to— the impact's only going to be it'll take you longer to get to where you are. And if you're okay with that, fine. But we don't have an argument with that. But most people come to us with the idea that I am sick of being where I am. I want to get to another level and just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And there's no coincidence that the compliance rate between, uh, the people who are really fully compliant and those who aren't, the improvement is astronomical.

I think the, the reason we, we harp on this is because we just think it, it's still underestimated the impact that this kind of, I would call it creeping out of zones, has, you know, on your, on your easy days, the, the constant creeping into zone 3 or 4, or even just some, some high-intensity work when you, you either go for a, a swim with a, with a group that was doing something much harder than you planned that day. If you go for a social ride where people are sprinting out of traffic lights and, and up, up every, every single climb. People are out of the saddle and you're suddenly doing a 450-watt effort on a day where you're supposed to be staying in zone 2 and you should never go above, you know, 250 watts or 200 watts, uh, or even just going for a run with someone who's, who's zone 2 is slightly faster than yours. So, Dad, we've had the, uh, the joy of riding with some pro riders in, in Belgium in the spring classics. And, and one of the things we definitely noticed was, you know, their, their schedule, as you might know, in spring classic season is they normally race Sunday and Wednesday. And everything outside of that is easy. If you go on a group ride with them, you might expect that, geez, this could be tough with, with some pros. If you've got some great aerobic fitness, it's actually really cruisy. They are just tapping away, and at no stage can a rider who can easily push 400 watts for 30 minutes, you know, are they going above 250 watts? They are just tapping away up and downhill the whole time, cruising. They're not sprinting out of corners. They're not sprinting up hills. They're easy, just stays really easy. And that's really, really important. And I've had the exact same experience, experience with professional runners. You know, I've joined a few professional run groups over a long time on their easy runs. You know, their hard days are Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, they're just going for, for really cruisy jogs. And these are runners who can run, you know, 3:50 for, um, you know, 3:50 pace as at zone 2, you know, for 20 kilometers if they wanted. Yet in their easy runs, they're running 4:45 and they're not going below that no matter what you do. You know, if you wanted to try and push the pace, they're just cruising and they stay easy and My point there is that there's, there's no creeping, and there's no, there's no creeping out of zones. They just stay like that. Yet, um, us as amateurs, we, we make this mistake where we think that, you know, creeping into the, into these other zones, uh, on these off days, um, and mixing zones all the time won't, won't come back to bite us. But they absolutely do.

Yeah. And look, it's a little bit of— you've got to have, you know, the ego that we have. We all have an ego. It's, it's just that we've got to control it and And, you know, there's been a few times where guys have gone up the road with these pro riders and the pro riders just let them go. But if we're in a bunch ride ourselves with non-pro riders and someone in our bunch goes up the road, then the next thing is everybody starts chasing. Whereas when you ride with the pro group, those people go up the road and the pros stay exactly what their goal is. They don't, they don't change. They don't start chasing people. Um, you know, they've left their ego in in the car or at home, and they're basically just following the structure of the program. And so that enables you— and this is the big point— when you have to be doing these 20 to 30 minute twice a week really hard VO2 threshold sessions, you can actually come to the occasion prepared, fresh, and get the value. This is where the improvement is. The value and improvement is in these two sessions. And of course, the endurance ride can be alternating. One week you could be doing it hard, another week you could be doing just zone 2, another week you could be doing a little bit of pressure on the pedals plus some VO2 efforts in there. It doesn't matter what it is, but as long as you get those 2 hard sessions as hard as they're supposed to be, because what happens is you end up getting to those VO2 or threshold sessions so fatigued that you're at the bottom of the range and you're not getting the value or the improvement. And, and, you know, train smarter so that when you get to these hard days, you are actually able to cope with the load that, that's being asked of you. That's when we say be the hero then, on those, those, those short hard sessions where you've got threshold and VO2 requirements. That's your big gains. And if you can't actually do those sessions properly, you're missing out massively.

I love that clarity and that simplicity. When you break it down, you've essentially got two 30-minute windows per week to get the most out of yourself. You know, you in those, in those VO2 days, you do your warmup, and then when you do your main set, whether it's 5 by 5 minutes or, or, or 10 by 3 minutes or 8 by 3 minutes or 6 by 3 minutes, you know, with, with your rest period, there's basically a 30-minute set twice a week where you're getting all your gain. That's, it's getting you majority of your, of your fitness and VO2 benefit on the bike. And so you want to make sure that, yeah, you, you do everything to make those as quality as possible. And the more you take away from them, the less improvement you have. And in this, in this example, you know, if you do those right, you will get the same kind of improvement that Riley did. Maybe we're not talking you'll get 80-watt improvement. We just mean you will improve as an athlete, you know. But, but he has stuck to this meticulously, and, and look at his results once he started getting this right and, and getting the sessions around it right. And if you don't do this, you'll stay the same ability like, like Riley was in the months leading up to us. And yep.

Well, an example was when Riley did that first FTP test, when it comes to his VO2 and threshold sessions that we're talking about, those midweek ones, he probably found that they weren't that hard because he wasn't used to, uh, testing for 20 minutes. So his first test, you know, is, is going to be lower than his— probably his, his fitness. But he's been drummed into executing well by his coach so that he didn't blow up. So, so those first couple of weeks of the VO2 threshold sessions, they probably were easy for him, and he was able to ride at the top of his range. But as soon as he got tested for the next, uh, FTP test, you know, he, he was actually understanding how to execute an FTP test. So he rode way higher power. So he's gone from 170 to 179, and then what was the third one, Gerard?

Yeah, what, 197?

So 97, so 20. So in the space of 8 weeks, he's gone up, you know, 30 watts. So, so he— but he didn't go outside of the ranges in those first few blocks. He just stayed where he was asked to stay. He could have possibly ridden above the ranges in some of those sessions. And that's what I'm— the point I'm trying to say, but he didn't. He said, this is my range, I'm staying here. And so that's, that's the super disciplined athlete who's going to see big gains 3, 4 months down the track because he's not getting ahead of himself. These are my zones, I'm going to stay in them and I'm going to see myself— give yourself time to progress properly. I think that's what he's done. So if you just go slightly above or outside the range in those early days, you're still creating too much fatigue so that at some point, you'll have 3 or 4 or 5 weeks down the track where, you know, you're in the fetal position in the couch and you're supposed to be training and you can't yet because you've just got that ego where you just, oh, I can do better than this. I'll show the coach. Well, we don't want that. We just want you to stay in the ranges.

I do wanna, mention something that's really important because we, we simplify it by saying something like, you know, you've got these 2 30-minute windows per week to get right, and that's, that's for the bike. But the nuances of a triathlon program are a lot more complex because you're training for 3 3 sports. And so, you know, where does your swimming come into it? And we, we do just find luckily that, um, most people can really recover well from swimming once they get in the habit of, of swimming frequently, you know? And so you can actually do some VO2 work and some endurance work in the pool and still turn out the next day and be relatively okay to train on the bike. Cause it's, it's slightly different. Um, it's more the cross of, of everything being hard all the time. And, and, you know, if you've got 4 bike sessions for the week, all 4 of them being kind of similar intensity is, is where you go wrong. But But it's not just, you know, getting good at VO2 that makes you a good triathlete. You're trying to be a good endurance athlete. So what you spoke about before and you touched on with the endurance sessions, you know, you've still got to fit in the base volume required to be a good endurance athlete. Your, your endurance sessions at the weekend still have to be there. So it is this fine line of getting enough volume in and making sure that's not too much load for you, that it's completely fatiguing you so that you're exhausted each week. You know, that's part of a good program and knowing your limits and knowing, you know, your volume requirements, uh, because ideally you get to a point where you can handle a 4-hour endurance ride on the Saturday and a 90-minute or 2-hour endurance ride on the Sunday, and you've built up to that to a point where you recovered by Tuesday and you're ready for some VO2 sets. But if someone was to suddenly jump up in endurance volume, they'll just be exhausted for 3 or 4 days like you were saying, and they won't be able to train well throughout the week. And so that's, that's the nuances, plus life factors, plus work factors, plus family factors. You know, these all play a part in you being able to turn up to your quality sessions of the week and get them right.

And look, just going one step further where you said the swim and the bike have the capacity to have the high intensity and then the endurance ride, but we don't definitely— our big value, uh, gain is that you don't need to, to replicate that in the run unless you are a very experienced runner from a long way back. Like I'm talking 10, 15 years of, of you having, you know, raced a lot, um, had your body through a really big running load. You don't need to keep doing that in a triathlon program. And for those programs that have that, normally that became, becomes an inconsistent program because the athlete breaks down. And, and so we, we've made that mistake early and we are so adamant that I don't care what level you are, you're doing enough intensity with the swim and the bike. If we can get your running load, your body to cope with the running load, You know, that doesn't mean you don't— you run less. It just means you run less intensity. So to equate that to Riley's running, you know, he's a 60 to 70 minute 10K runner, not a 40 to 50 minute, not an hour 20 to an hour 30. So, so he's, he's definitely not had the, uh, the experience of a long running program. So, so all we did was get him used to running 3 or 4 times a week. And had no intensity. And, and amazingly, no, he didn't get injured, um, and stayed consistent. And that's why he improved— what was it, 6 minutes in his first 10K to the next 10K with no intensity in the running.

Yeah. And I actually want to take this, uh, moment to, to say what Riley said about his running. And he sent this into us because we told him we'd be doing this case study episode. But he said, my relationship with running has been a complete 180. I had a tough time sticking with it through my 20s, and since I joined the program, I can honestly say I look forward to every run on the schedule. It's been really fun to just go out and run at a relaxed pace. A 10-mile run is not only enjoyable, but my body can handle it to a point where I can still feel good the next day. And that's, that's the goal with, with progressive overload and frequency of running. And that's exactly what you're talking about, about just getting used to that load. And you don't have to— again, we've said this a million times— train hard with running to see that improvement. Um, if you're a 32-minute 10K runner, it's going to be a different story. You know, you're probably going to have to do some serious intervals to— some hard intervals to, to get that time down. But that's majority— that's not majority of, of TriValo athletes. So the word I want to kind of touch on here is, is what you said before, and that's, that's compliance. And that's a great word. And, and Abby, our coach Abby, just loves coaching Riley because they have a great relationship. He does what she tells him, you know, he's, he's compliant with the program. But if he needs to tweak something, he communicates with her and they have a discussion about it and And what's been good for him is that it's been this great positive flywheel because, you know, he gets used to consistency because every testing he's seeing improvement, and then he trusts that the process works and he trusts the process more, and then he follows along and he stays consistent. And that's, that's part of what this whole process is. And we want to make a really big point here, Dad, and you're big on this, is that compliance does not mean dictatorship. That is not what we're about at Travelo. Um, but, you know, a lack of trust in the process is really what holds people back a lot of the time, and we just see that so often in the people that get that consistency in Excel, and the thing that holds people back.

Yeah, you think that, oh, maybe I could just tweak this a little bit and, and I'll be better off. And, and that may be true, but it's not actually trusting the process properly. And if you're, if you're wanting to do something with a bit of variation, then have a conversation with the coach, and, and I'm sure that he or she will, will talk you through What are the consequences of your need to tweak the program? You know, where do you see that you're lacking here? And, you know, for Riley, he's just on board because, you know, it's working. And that brings such great enjoyment when you see something work, then you're all in. And no different to a football team or a hockey team or a soccer team, if you start to win, Everybody's on board with the same process and, and you know that that's the winning formula. So let's do more of that because it's fun because you actually enjoy that satisfaction of achievement. And, and so I think, I think if you just forget about trying to tweak it, uh, because you think you know better and you know the reason you reached out to get coaching in the first place because you didn't do such a good job on your own. So, so go back to trusting that you know, I am already improving. I am really enjoying it. But just don't try and get ahead of yourself. Just, just stay with the process. And the more time you give yourself, the more opportunity you've got of actually continuing to improve. And, and I think that's the, that's the thing that people think that, you know, it's, it's either this program or nothing. Well, that's just not true. It, you know, we wanna discuss with our athletes and make them clear as to why we're giving them these sessions. And if they wanna have a discussion as to why, then We're all for it. The more, uh, you understand why you're doing something, the more likely are you'll do a better job of it. And, and that's key.

Yeah, our goal is so simple. We take the training principles and parameters that we know work, and we— our objective is to apply it to your life and your individual needs and your schedule and what works for you. And, and how that looks in conversation is an athlete says, hey, I want to do this this week, or I've got this on, or I want to try this. And we say, great, we can just move this there or there. We can, we can change this, but we're still meeting the requirements of the week. We're still meeting, we're still training inside the parameters of what's going to work. Where that breaks down is we start saying, look, there's a bunch of different objectives here. You know, you want to improve as an athlete. You want to improve your VO2. You want to improve your endurance. Uh, you also want to, um, you know, train with your group on, on Saturday and, and do the hell ride and, and, um, you know, be the, be the winner of that because that's important to you. You also want to do some, um, some, some social stuff here or there, and suddenly there's, there's so many mixed objectives of the week that you start to lose— it starts to go outside the parameters of what's actually going to improve you, and that's where it breaks down a little bit. So, so if you can— we want the program to be, to be flexible to you, but without too many contradicting goals within, without, throughout the week, and inside the principles of what works. And that's, that's the consistency that will get you progress.

Yeah, I think people get frustrated too because they want to do everything and expect to have really quick, fast improvement. And that just— that doesn't even logically make sense. If you spread across yourself across different sports, you're going to be average at all of them. You know, we've got people who want to do some time trialing, people who want to do some long endurance Ironman races, short time trials with 20, 30 minutes, Ironman races, some hill climbing, endurance, uh, Gran Fondos. Well, which one of them do you want to do better at? Because if we concentrate on getting your short time trialing improvement, it's not really contributing much to your— if we train you really short and hard to get that 20, 30 minute time trial, uh, improvement, it's not going to contribute to your Gran Fondo 8-hour ride or your 12-hour Ironman, you know. So one of the three It's just an example of some— we've had plenty of athletes do that to us, whereas Riley's really, here's my goals, tell me what sessions I should be doing, tell me where I should be riding, running, and swimming in the ranges. And I think, I think it's just, it's just another great example of somebody's got the right goals ahead, learning how to, to follow a process, leaving the ego behind and staying in the ranges and not having you know, bad decision-making that has huge consequences for 2 or 3 weeks down the road. And, and I think that's the best thing about Riley is just he's just got on board with the process and just tell me what to do. I understand why. Um, not my job is to actually get up each day and, and get around my task of, uh, you know, getting the value of each day's training session.

And the thing about Riley is, you know, he's at the point of the program now where his FTP matters less and less, you know, as he's getting closer and closer to the Ironman. This, this, 20-minute test matters less and less. It's been great progress to track his progress, track his overall fitness, but you know, it's, it's moving more and more towards just the volume and the, the, um, the durability required for an Ironman. And so yeah, he's done great work so far to build that overall fitness up, and that's translating more and more slowly over time to more endurance work. And, and yeah, I guess the conclusion is overall his, his goal was to improve execution in training and testing, which is what he wanted, and he's absolutely done that. And I think the example of You talked about the 10K time trial previously, you know, his first one where he did 1:06, he went out at 6:29 pace. That's minute K pace for the US athletes, not minute mile pace, and blew out to 6:49 for the second half of the, um, the 10K, you know. So that's a, that's a positive split. And that was, he told us that he was doing that frequently and he did it in the first test. And then his last test when he improved by 5 minutes, he did 6:20 for the first half and 5:57 for the second half. So just a monstrous negative split. And that's the— that's what he wanted. He wanted to learn how to execute like that and improve like that. And that comes from improved fitness plus learning how to execute. So, um, yeah, I think overall we, we've covered really, uh, everything about, uh, his improvement and, and the mistakes that people make that stop them and what he did well to, to get that. I think I just wanted to touch on his last point he said to us was, look, a big win was learning to ride to power. That's been huge. This time last year, I would have never been able to finish, um, the gravel race that he did in Colorado. I would have bonked halfway through it and would have had to get picked up. That was a big ride for me, especially when I was quite new to the program. But, on that execution, you know, there were— we really drummed into him about not going out too hard, not falling trap to wild over-under riding, which really bonks you, and, and learning how to get through an endurance race evenly, which will hold him in such good stead for, for Ironman Texas.

Yeah, great examples. And, you know, as we've said many times, every time we do a case study where we're, we're showing examples of, of our athletes who are improving, just trust the process, be on board with it, and stay with your ego intact, and you'll see improvement. If it takes time though, it's, it's consistency over time. And that doesn't mean training easy consistently. You will, you will have a level of fitness, but you have to have that variety of what we're trying to do in this, you know, this particular program. We've got a mix, um, of, you know, running load, high-intensity bike sessions, endurance riding, uh, swimming with intensity, swimming open water. It's just that combination to see where your weaknesses are and making sure that we're fitting the right appropriate load to what your body can cope with. And that's the value of having someone who's communicating backwards and forwards with a coach.

And if you want to get the same improvements as Riley, if you want to be shown the system and you want to trust the process from a proven system to get you these kind of results and all the other results we've done in case studies like this, go to triavelocoaching.com.au. We'll have a chat to you, we'll figure out your situation, whether you would work with Triavelo Coaching. Not everyone works with our system and our principles. We want to make sure we're on the same page. But if you are on same page, then we'll get you in and we'll get you these kind of improvements. So go to travelocoaching.com.au and we'll talk to you there. Thank you, see you, see you next time.