Running on Broken Legs

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined, as always, by your host, former Australian Ironman champion Jared Donnelly, and I am Jordan Donnelly. In this podcast episode, we're having a conversation around being well prepared for your event, and most importantly, being prepared for, in the case of an Ironman or half Ironman, one of the most extreme events that you're ever going to undertake. And most importantly, respecting the event. And we have a lot to say about this, and the reason we're doing this episode is because we found ourselves having conversations about this just generally, and we realized that it's a topic that really needs to be discussed. And there's some important points that you need to think about in respecting an event and being well prepared for it and not having the wrong mindset or expectations around the event, which can really lead you to having an unenjoyable experience. But before we get into the episode, just a reminder, if you want to download our Expert Secrets cheat sheet, that's a cheat sheet of the very best tips and advice the expert guests on our podcast have said to help you train smarter and race faster. Go to getfastpodcast.com that's getfastpodcast.com so another point before we get into the episode is we're in a different setting today. If you you're watching this, we haven't got our traditional Train Smarter, Race Faster logo behind us. We're in a different setting. If you're listening, then it makes no difference. But for those who are watching, enjoy the new the new view here. It's just a temporary view. We'll be back in the office in no time. But talking about this episode, I wanted to start by saying we posted a video a few months ago, a little snippet of something you said in a podcast a few months ago, which was, don't start your Ironman preparation too late. It was talking about one of the biggest mistakes people make in terms of Ironman training. And one was just quite simply starting the Ironman preparation too late. And that video has been up on Facebook for a few months. It's had tens of thousands of views. And every week I get, I don't know if you see this, but I get a little comment from someone tagging their mate saying, ha ha ha. Hilarious. This is you. And they're tagging their mate saying, haha, John, this is you. Or Scott, this is you. Hahaha. Marie, good luck with this, you've left it too late. And people are tagging. I find it funny, but every week it's happening. Which shows that even though it's a bit of a joke, people are really making this mistake and not respecting the event.

It's a common theme, isn't it? And that's the reason why we wanted to actually speak about this topic in an entire podcast. There's so much in this podcast that whether you're a triathlete or a cyclist or ultra runner or a marathon runner, it doesn't matter. The event, the goal you select has to be respected. And it's so easy to say in a conversation with someone around, around a coffee or at the end of a training session, for example, oh, I think I'll do Three Peaks next year. And for those who don't know what Three Peaks is, it's a 240 kilometer mountainous Gran Fondo with 4,000 plus meters of climbing. Unbelievably difficult cycling race event. Maybe not a race, but it's a personal race. People have personal goals in that to break 14 hours, 12 hours, 10 hours, 8 hours, whatever. The Melbourne to warnie, incredibly difficult race. And it's easy for people in a coffee shop to say, oh, I'm doing the warning. Oh, I'm doing Three Peaks. Oh, I'm going to do an Ironman. And those words just rattle off people's tongues like it's. That's my next thing. And, and I think that's fantastic. But the next step is to match the, the words with actions. And this is the point that we want to make today in this podcast is you can't just expect to enter these events and get through it without some decent preparation. And you can get through it without any preparation, as we're going to talk about, but you don't have to. And it's actually a ridiculous way and it's disrespectful to the event and to yourself.

So to start us off, I want to talk about a book I've been reading and it's by a guy called David Goggins and the book is called Can't Hurt Me. And it's. It is the best book I've read in the last year. It is one of the best books I've ever read. Very interesting. I don't agree with everything in the book, but nonetheless, it's one of the best books I've ever read. And what you just spoke about then in terms of, it's easy to decide in the coffee shop or to chat with your mates or when you're comfortable home in your living room to set a big goal. That's generally when the goals are set. He talks about this in the book and he says, you don't think about the pain that you're going to go through or how uncomfortable it's going to be in the moment. It's really easy to set these goals in the living room. And then when you get to that moment when it's so painful and so uncomfortable and it's really hurting, you better have a good reason why you want to keep going. Because if you don't, you won't finish and you won't continue. And I guess that's kind of the theme is that you can set a goal like this. And some people set the goal as just a really big accomplishment, like an Ironman. They just want to do it once and tick it off and they don't really care how they get through it. They just want to get through it and tick the box. But for a lot of people, that's not the case. They do one ironman. They either get hooked and want to do more, or they don't want to just be a box ticker. They want to really complete it well. And so for those people, that's who we're talking to, to say we want to be well prepared.

Even if you're just doing it as a, as a box ticking event, there's still no reason why you shouldn't prepare properly. And the experience will be overwhelmingly different. And if you just choose to do the event just so that you can say you've finished it, that's actually okay. But if you choose to do that and don't prepare properly, the experience is going to be horrible. And, and there's a, probably a big percentage to say that you'll never do it again because of that horrible experience. But it didn't need to be like that. If you had given yourself some opportunity to prepare better, respect the event for what it is. And it's, it's, it's something that people think is okay to walk the Ironman Marathon and that. Not that they think it's okay, but they have no, they have no other option because they're so underprepared that they can't actually run because they're so exhausted from the swim and the bike that they actually can't run at all. And they, they walk for six hours. And that's excruciating in anybody's language. When the possibilities are that you could possibly run, walk or run maybe four hours, 30. So you're out there for an extra hour and a half than you should be just by doing some preparation. And even if you are a box ticker, it's still not okay to disrespect the event so much that you end up, you know, crawling on the bike and just walking the run.

So the reason we're talking about, I want to talk about this book today is because I was listening to it and I couldn't believe how amazing the stories were in the book. And I started to tell you, and we were relating it so much to what Ironman and triathletes go through. And anyone that doesn't really big event would go through, whether it's an ironman or a 70.3 or like you said before, three peaks, a massive gran Fondo, a really endurance, any endurance, ultra cycling, ultra running. And when I was telling you these stories, more relating it to triathletes, we were saying, oh, we need to talk about this in the podcast because it is so relevant. And I won't spoil the story, but the basic premise is this guy, David Goggins, he's a Navy SEAL in America, he came from a really horrible childhood. He had an abusive father. And he goes to the extent of the abuse in the book, and it's horrifying. And he just had such a difficult childhood. And it's incredible that he has had a relatively normal, but more importantly, motivating and uplifting adult life given from where he came from. And he goes into it in the book to really set the scene of where he's come from mentally and physically. But he pretty much epitomizes everything that is against Trivelo in his mindset. The whole book is around. He wants to push himself further than his body will let him. And that science says he can go. He's just got this determination to push his body as far as possible. And it starts with him. In his adult life, he found himself overweight at 300 pounds, severely overweight. And he was. His job was he would go to restaurants and clean out the rats and find the rats in restaurants and exterminate them. And he was having a really horrible life. And one night he went to an infestation of rats at a restaurant. And this was the turning point for him. And there was just more rats than he could handle. And he was lying on the ground covered in rats, trying to exterminate them. And he just cracked it and just looked at himself in the mirror and said, that's enough, and went home and turned his life around and started to train, started to lose weight. He made it his mission to lose weight. And he wanted to do the epitome of world training, the hardest training in the world, and go become a Navy seal, which is renowned for. It's the toughest training to get through. And it's something like 200 people. They let 200 people in every year based on academic and other reasons to actually get into the training. Once they accept 200, only 30 people survive the 12 weeks of training. It's just that brutal. And so his whole goal was to become a Navy seal. But he, like I said, he. The whole premise of the book is everything against Trivalo. It's pushing harder than is necessary. It's doing things wildly at the start with no preparation. You know, going and doing a thousand pull ups and a thousand push ups. That kind of unstructured training that. When I was listening, reading the book, I was listening to the audiobook, I just knew it would make you cringe. But the part of the book that really stood out to me was he learns to push his body further than what you think is capable. And I can't even put into words how extreme it is. You probably just need to read the story and listen to it to understand what I'm saying about how far he pushes his body. But it really opens you up to thinking. He uses this 40% rule and he says when you think you're at your absolute max, you're actually only at 40%, which sounds extreme, but this is a guy that he ends up breaking his legs in the training, in the SEAL training, and he keeps going and he keeps training on broken legs, which when you hear the story, you just think, this is ridiculous. The fact that he does this, it's.

Incredible how few people survive this testing regime because it, it is mentally beyond what you can expect. You know, getting woken up, you're telling me, in the middle of the night.

And it's just torture.

The camp, it's basically torture. And they're trying to eliminate people. That's the purpose of the camp.

Their goal is to get rid of everyone. They don't care if one person survives or if no people survive. They only want the toughest, the craziest people to survive.

And so a lot of the things that are in this is really relevant because it's the mental toughness side, which is just a little bit sidetracking here. But certainly the mental toughness from what you told me about his determination then goes on to the story, doesn't it? Because the next phase from his SEAL experience.

There's so many stories in this that are amazing, but there's one part of the story I really wanted to focus on that's after he becomes a seal. And he.

So he does become a seal.

Yeah, yeah. And that's not a spoiler because on the front of the book here, he's wearing a Navy SEAL outfit, so it obviously becomes a seal. But he got there on, you know, he got through the training on broken legs, which just kind of makes you think that when he thought he was at his limit, he thought, I'm on broken legs, I need to quit here. And he kept going. And he'd fractured both his legs. And the pain it would, it would take to go through that is just insane. So post his Navy SEAL training, he decided to get into ultra marathons. Having almost no running experience. No. The only running he would do would be in the Navy SEAL training. And he would just go for runs just to push himself.

But his mindset was, if I can do Navy SEAL training, I can do anything. So that's actually something really good for people to think about. If you've conquered something like an Ironman or Three Peaks or the warning, you pretty much think you're invincible, don't you?

Yeah. And he said, I thought, I thought that Navy SEAL training was the hardest training in the world. So, yeah, I would be able to conquer anything. And then he found out really harshly that ultra marathon running is a totally unique challenge in itself. His premise was he wanted to raise money for some soldiers who had died, their families. And he decided that he was going to run an ultra marathon 100 mile race to raise as much money as possible for these families to help get their kids through college. And so he really was serious about raising a lot of money. Not just a little bit, a lot. Which is why he chose such an extreme event.

And just let's get that straight. It's 100 miles. It's 160 kilometers, exactly.

Right. Which is just so extreme. And.

And he's not a runner.

He's not, no. And so he wanted to do this rail broadcast broadcasted event, a really famous 100 mile race in America. But the organizer wouldn't let him do it because he didn't have any experience. And it was, he says, in hindsight, he really thanks the organizer for that wisdom because he was really angry at him at the time, saying, I'm running for charity, you know, let me run. And the organizer saying, no way, I'm not letting you in this event. You've never done an ultra marathon, go and do one, show me that you can actually do it and then I'll think about letting you in. And so he says, right, which one can I do? And the organizer says to him in a sarcastic way, well, there's one this weekend if you think you're so good, your hero, you know, know. And he, we did have that attitude that, that cockiness of I'm a Navy seal, I can do anything. And the guy said, right, oh, hero, go, go do one this weekend then. And of course this guy, David Goggins is crazy. And he says to, he says just to prove this guy wrong, he signs up for this 100 mile ultra marathon off, no training.

So no, no running training, no how long?

He was very fit. He was, he was well trained. He was.

How long after the Navy SEAL was this? Straight away?

I can't remember. I think he was still working in the seal, he just wasn't able to. And he was training full time, he just wasn't running training.

It's very specific, isn't it? There's another point there, specificity of training.

Exactly.

Just because you're a Navy SEAL and you're well rounded fitness doesn't mean you can ride 2,000 kilometres or run 100 miles.

Exactly. Yeah. And the arrogance of him was that he did weights all week because he loves the gym and he did a big weight session the day before. The event was Saturday and he went to the gym and did a big weight session on the Friday.

Massive disrespectful.

Oh, so disrespectful. And he said he absolutely paid for it.

So what was the experience?

So he gets there on the Saturday and decides to do it and he takes off because he just thought, I have to complete the hundred miles in 24 hours. And that is a, he said something like a 9 minute per mile pace or a 10 minute per mile pace, which equivalent to minute per K pace is walking. It would be like eight minutes or nine minutes per kilometer, something like that. I can't remember the exact maths, but he figured out that even if he fast walked every mile, he would make the hundred miles in 24 hours. And that's what he needed to do. He needed to do it in 24 hours.

It was a short course, wasn't it?

And it was, it was in San Diego and it was, I think it was a mile loop and it was one lap. So you'd have to do 100 laps or maybe even less. I think maybe it was an even half a Mile.

So my mindset would be if I go out and back, 50 miles out, 50 miles back, that would force me to finish. Whereas if I'm doing a loop.

Exactly.

I've got an opportunity to finish every mile.

Yeah.

Quit every mile.

It was a ridiculous course because it was this tiny loop in, in near, near the. The docks of San Diego, which is a concrete boring loop near the shipments, I think. And it was relatively flat. But there was one tiny rise, 0.5% rise.

Like a speed hump, which he.

Speed hump, which he said by, by mile 60 feels like it's Mount Everest when you've done it 60 times. And it's interesting hearing his mindset around the whole thing. And he starts off and he goes out the gates and he's running. He's not jogging, he's running too fast, obviously. And he'd met the organizer of this event who was really trying to help him. And every lap the organizer said, please slow down, you're not going to make it. And he's going, I'm just jogging uncomfortable. The organizer saying, seriously, slow down. Every lap he's saying, you got to slow down. And he's, he's running at 8, 8 minutes.

He was way ahead of pace and.

He'S going, if I can just get ahead, then even if I walk, I'll still be fine. He was so arrogant and, and that.

Mindset'S even more relevant to what we talk about. I'll just get ahead.

Exactly.

And then I can suffer.

Yeah. Later, miraculously, he starts to get to mile 30, 40, which is more than a marathon. 26 miles is the marathon. It's frustrating hearing everything in miles because we don't, we're talking kilometers, but. And then he starts to struggle, he starts to break down and he starts to really hurt. And he realizes that, you know, he's very fit and well trained, but he's not running trained. And running training starts to break down because you're using the exact same muscles constantly. And he's never done that before, where it's just the same muscle group over and over again. And so his hips and his knees and his quads are starting to really break down dramatically.

So he's literally 10 hours into a.

24 hour event, something like that. And the point is he's not even halfway and he's starting to really struggle, which is expected because 40 miles is a long way.

It is, yeah.

It's 60 or 70 kilometers. Yeah. And he keeps pushing and he's, and he's, he's surprised at how quickly he's. His legs are breaking down on him because he's not used to this repetitive movement. And he's. He's determined as anything to make it to 100k. He's not gonna 100 miles. He's not gonna let anything stop him. But as he. As each mile ticks over, he's getting worse and worse. And as he gets through mile 50 and above, it's really getting horrible for him. And he has to start walking. He can't keep his run up anymore. He starts really shuffling along, and the next 10, 15 miles is where it all just goes. Horrible for him. His body. He had no nutrition plan. He had a support. His wife was his support worker. She was just sitting in the car and she would watch him come past each lap. And he was so arrogant about the whole thing. He didn't have any nutrition with him. And all the people around him had bottles and fluids and he had some crap like a muesli bar or something, or he just had nothing. Oh, he had a protein shake that he was sipping, which is the worst drink you can have while you're exercising. And he just started running to all sorts of problems. His digestion completely went to literal shit where he was getting no food in. He was almost chucking up the drink so he couldn't really have much more of it. He started having diarrhea. He started chafing so bad in his legs that he was bleeding, which is obviously going to happen when you're running for 10 hours plus if you're untrained. And the way he describes it is horrifying how. How much pain he was in, how uncomfortable he was. He was walking, he was bleeding, he was vomiting. Vomiting. He stopped to go to the toilet and he was pissing blood. And it was time to stop pretty much. And this is at mile 60 or so, but he just kept pushing. He was. He was walking at this stage.

Was he getting behind the time?

So this is the. This is the turning point for him, where he got to about miles 65 or 70, and he could not walk at a pace that would get him there in 24 hours. And so he's gonna fail. Yeah. He said, I couldn't believe it. He said, I knew that all I had to do was, even if I walked, I would make it, but I was so in such a bad way that I couldn't even walk at a pace that would make it. I was walking so slowly I could barely move my legs that I just wasn't gonna get there at this point. When I'm listening in the book, I thought, oh, this is it, he's finally reached his limit. This is the one where he's going to quit because he'd been in ridiculous situations before and he wouldn't quit. And I thought he just can't keep going. He's literally a medical disaster right now. Totally dehydrated, he's pissing blood, he's got diarrhea, his legs can't move, he's not going to get the time. Why keep going? And he keeps going and he's just so determined to finish. He's so determined to push his body beyond what his mind thinks is capable. And he's using his own 40% rule. And I cannot believe that he keeps going in the story and he says, I keep going. And he gets.

The race organizer tried to stop him, didn't they?

Yeah, yeah. The whole thing was just so messy. And he gets, he somehow gets a second wind and starts shuffling again and starts getting back on track and pushes through it all. And the Next, you know, 10 miles he just, he just pushes that pace a little bit more, just puts one foot in front of the other. And I don't want to exaggerate the story, but I feel like he. And it's hard because so many extreme things happened to him, but I feel like he developed a stress factor in the run and it was so painful that he stopped and took his shoes off and his shoes were full of blood because he was just bleeding everywhere and strapped his foot to not move in his shoe so that he could keep running with a non moved foot because it was in so much pain. I think he found out after that he actually had a stress fracture. So again, running on some sort of fracture. But then he gets to mile 80, 85 and he can start to see that it's possible. And that obviously gives him more wind to actually finish. And he miraculously gets to mile 100 and he's so delirious that he's actually not sure how many laps he's run, so he does an extra one. So he ends up running 101 miles and he does it in 21 hours or something. And he's done it, he's done the 100 miles off, no training, and the story was just so wild. He tries to go home and he can't. His wife's taken to emergency department and he spends the next few days recovering and he can't wait to email the organizer from the other event and say, I finished, you bastard. You know, and he does and emails. And the guy emails back and says, oh, what did you do for the next three hours out of the 24? You know, why didn't you keep running? Like if you made it in 21 hours? And he was so mad. But the most fascinating part of that story, I mean, there's so much in that that we can talk about, but he then he. He then becomes an ultra. He gets addicted to ultra marathons. He just loves it. He just thinks it's the greatest sport because you cannot believe how hard it is and how hard he has to push his body. And that, that example was so extreme. And he says, out of everything I've ever done, he's done 80 ultramarathons since he. He's competing in some of the hardest ultramarathons in the world. The hardest courses. He said out of everything, all Navy SEAL training, that event was still the hardest because I was totally untrained, under prepared, underprepared. He said it was so hard mentally to push through because I was just totally. My body just wasn't supposed to do it. In all the marathons I've done since ultramarathons, I've been trained, I've been well prepared. And they're extremely tough. They're some of the hardest things I've ever done.

It's still. The difficulty's still there. Yeah, but you're more capable and you've respected the event and your body's prepared for that. And that's what we were talking about earlier wasn't it's okay to do a box ticking Ironman, it's fine. But you don't need to do it under prepared. And that's the big key point he's making, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. That is what stood out to me. And as soon as I heard him say that, I just went, that is what so many Ironman triathletes do is that they suffer through the event because they're underprepared and they suffer needlessly. You will still suffer no matter what in an Ironman. You still suffer in any race.

But it's not extreme, is it?

It's not as extreme as that.

And also you can push yourself further. So if you are prepared and you still find yourself struggling, then know that you can dig deeper. And the story you told there is incredible because it almost replicates everything we do from. From just a normal training session where the start's easy, you're fresh, the middle part. And the third quarter of a four quarter match seems to be where everything falls apart. And that's where the mental side comes into your game. You've got this physical side, and then when everything's breaking down, then it's mind over matter, which we've talked about in other podcasts, because people can always finish. No matter whether you're doing a 5k run, you can finish the last K fast, no matter how badly you've executed the 4Ks before. It's that third quarter where the mental side of pushing yourself and you've experienced that in training sessions where, Jesus, I've still got a third of this to go. And all of a sudden you get to the last section and you come home like a hero. It's quite an incredible mindset, isn't it?

We used to have this rule at ATHS training where you. You could not be a last rep hero and you had to go your hardest on the second last rep. And your last rep couldn't be faster than your second last rep. And that was the same thing, that third quarter. You've got to go your hardest because you can always come home. And we always found that we were within a second on the last rep, even though we'd given it our all on that second last rep. Yep.

You've always got one more left, haven't you? And that period of the race or the event against yourself doesn't have to be a race against others. That's when you find out and you have to dig deep. That's when the opposition's struggling because you're struggling. Everybody's feeling the same, just don't think it's you. But that's the time to be the toughest. That's when you can talk, to talk and walk the walk. That's the point. Not at the start and not at the end. Not sprinting for. For something. You're five minutes behind where you should be. You know, that's. I just see that as pointless, almost.

Yeah. But listening to this story just reminded me of what you say so often that most people think that walking in the marathon part of the Ironman is normal because everyone's doing it. You know, 80% of people are walking at some stage, and it is such long, tiring endurance event that you need to walk at some point. And you just say that's not true. If you are well trained, you will be able to jog at your pace or run at your pace the whole way if you're really well trained. And hearing this story reminded me that you repeat that so much. You know, he was so under trained and he vows that it's the hardest thing he's ever done. And even though he's done harder races than that and harder trainings than that, because he was well prepared for them, the difficulty wasn't as extreme.

Yeah, you. You will definitely have to walk like the. And we, we think it's around 90% of. Of triathletes walk the marathon, and a small percentage can run the whole way. And you'll be one of that 90%. And because everybody else is doing it, it seems that that's okay, but just like sheep, it's not. If just because one person is doing that doesn't mean that that's okay. You want to be in the minority here, and it should be the majority eventually. But certainly being well prepared will enable you to run at your own pace, like you just said. And swimming and riding beforehand at your pace and then running at your pace, that's what you've been training to do. You haven't gone out for 3 months or 6 months or 9 months or 12 months walking all of your running in your training, you haven't done that. You've run all your running. So why would you expect that it's okay to walk the race that you've been training so far so hard for? The only reason that would be the case is if you haven't actually prepared properly. That was the only reason. Or you're injured or you're sick. If you're injured and sick, you maybe shouldn't be doing the race anyway. So there is no reason why, if you prepare properly, you should be walking in an Ironman.

So that makes me ask the question, why is it so accepted to walk? And it's not just in, not just in ironman, it's in 70.3s as well. It's in a lot of triathlons, but it's more prevalent in the full distance, the marathon. But why is it so accepted? And it makes me respect a lot of Ironman triathletes as well, at how hard they're willing to push themselves. Because if you're going so hard that you need to walk, you're going beyond your limits. So there's a lot of respect there that you're able to do that. And the fact that you keep coming back to do more Ironmans shows your level of dedication to the sport. And we spoke about this. If you could have a more enjoyable experience and you're more well trained, you'd love it even more. But so many people love the sport so much and love completing 70.3s and Ironman so much they keep coming back, even though it's such a hard experience. So imagine what it could be like if you were better prepared.

There's a few things in that. The, the addiction to pushing yourself is one thing, and in some ways it's almost masochist thinking. The harder it is, the more I struggle, the more satisfying it is at the end. But we're saying you can still get that feeling by being a little bit more prepared. But people do get addicted. And it's amazed, you and I to see people who have done 10 Ironmans all the same way. They've repeated the same and executed. Swim, struggle on the bike, walk on the run, and then, geez, that was hard. Really tough. I did the same time as last time, or I was worse, or I was fractionally better. I'm gonna sign up for the next one. I can't wait. And I'm just amazed that that approach is acceptable to people. And it seems like the struggle is more. More what they're after than actually the outcome.

But imagine if you took that persistence, that skill of persistence, because that is incredible persistence and resilience. Imagine if you took that and applied it to a better structured training program that got you more well prepared and you then did the race and you were an hour quicker, an hour and a half quicker, which is definitely possible. Or two hours. How much more of an enjoyable experience would that be?

Oh, that's the point we're trying to make. And we didn't. We cut off David Goggins continuation of the story because he then went on to be an ultra marathon beast, didn't he? And he was never under prepared ever again. And that's something that you, you know, it was a lesson, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I just, I think that question of it's something you say a lot and it's just something that isn't even considered by a lot of triathletes where the way that they are suffering at the moment in races they think is just the way it is. Whereas you're continuously trying to preach to people that there is a better way and you will enjoy it more and it will be a much more pleasant experience. It would just be just as hard, but not in such an extreme way where you are at the absolute limit of your body's capacity because your body isn't as trained enough as it could be.

Yeah. And the consistency thing that we talk about a lot in our, in our programs is something that will enable you on race day to get the Best outcome and it's still going to be very difficult. The Ironman is one of the most difficult things you'll ever do. Comparing it to other events, you know, there are just as tough of things as, you know, ultra running, you know, ultra riding, there's ultra swimming, there's so many things. Because the repetitive action of doing one sport is harder than a triathlon. Make no mistake about that. If you're spending 12 hours in a, in an Ironman compared to 12 hours as a swimmer or 12 hours as a runner, that is more difficult because you're doing the same action, there's no break. Whereas as an Ironman athlete, you're swimming, riding and running, you're changing sports so you have to be a bit more well rounded but the, the action changes so you, you almost get a relief section from riding and then, you know, you've been swimming for a bit. So, so they are tough. They all, they are all tough, but they have different levels of toughness. So just because the event is meant to be extreme and almost unrelenting consistently every step or every swim stroke or every riding effort is think it's your last. Being prepared won't change that. If you're, you know, elite middle or beginner, you'll still have periods where you're going to struggle, prepared or not. But the majority of the time if you're not prepared will be, I can't finish. Whereas being prepared, that's not what's going to be happening. It's, it's going to be, I'm going to have to manage this a bit better. I might have to slow down a bit more. And you've got more cards in your hand to play than the underprepared person whose sole focus is to get to the end. And which one do you want to be? The person in the card game with no cards to play who's just on survival mode? Or do you want to be the prepared person who has lots of things at their disposal they can draw on? And David Goggin is an extreme, mentally tough person. So you wouldn't expect to be a very high percentage of people who could have finished what he did. And I would say there would be, you know, one out of every 10,000 could have finished that 24 hour in his position, in his position from where he was.

And you probably wouldn't advise people to do it either.

And that's what I kind of, you know, I said a few times already, it's okay to do a tick box Ironman, but I'm not an enthusiast of those types of things because more than likely it's something they've said in the spur of the moment at a coffee shop or at a bar, which is actually how the Ironman started. Funnily enough, I can be sure I'm a better swimmer than you are a rider, than you are a runner. So that's how the sport of triathlon started. But those statements, they're going to be people who are just going to turn up on the day and they're expecting to suffer and they're just going to get through it. And that's our point. You don't have to do that. You can still be a spur of the moment person, but you should be preparing yourself and, and you wouldn't do this if you're trying to go for a job interview. You know, you wouldn't go in there expecting to be underprepared and have unrealistic expectations, you know, not dress accordingly, not have some sort of preparation plans about how you're going to achieve the job or why would you do that in, in a sport when it's your health? Because you can actually be very detrimental in an event like that to having long term injuries, stress fractures, cardiac issues where pushing your heart, you know, it's not prepared for it, muscle injuries, it could be there for a long, long term. So there's a whole lot of things that I'm not a fan of where people are just doing box ticking, but it's okay to do it. But I still think, you know, at the end of the day, no matter what you're doing in life, you'll have a much more enjoyable experience and outcome if you just do something to plan to get the day to be, to be what you wanted at the end of the day and not have to spend three days in hospital contemplating your next event.

Two weeks unable to walk or month animal unable to walk. Yeah, there's two sides to the coin, isn't it? There's one side is what we said at the start. You've got to respect the event and it is probably going to be one of the hardest things you've ever done and you have to acknowledge that. But then it's almost like people are aware of that and respect it so much that they just expect to suffer wholeheartedly the entire time and expect it to be the worst pain for majority of the race, which is actually respecting it too much in terms of the pain it's going to cause.

It. Always watching the Ironman over the last five or six years, when I'VE gone to the events. And it's interesting being an observer at an event that you were, you know, so passionate about doing for so many years. And it always intrigues me watching the. The professionals. There's a different category, obviously, but. And then the top age group is there, almost mimicking the professionals, the way they prepare. And, you know, they've got certain goals, but it's the next category. The. The first timers, or the ones have done it 20 times but are repeating the same mistakes how, how their mindset is just about just existing in the event. If you can keep walking, why can't you jog? If you're still walking, then I almost ask myself, what's stopping you from jogging? Even if you had a plan where I'll just walk the aid station and I'll jog in between, that's a stepping stone to going half an hour faster. And at the end of the day, I think the overriding goal is it doesn't matter what time I do at the end, you've lost all aspirations of a time, it's just completing. And that brings it back to, well, if that was your goal, you want to complete it as comfortably as possible so you would prepare better. And if you've got a mindset that I'm going to walk the whole marathon, that's always concerning to me. And I'm confused by that approach. Where it's a triathlon is a swim, bike and run. It's not a swim, bike and walk. And people say, oh, you've been a little bit, a little bit critical here. But that's where the disrespect to the event comes in. And whether you do Three Peaks and you come to a walk on the last corner of Falls Creek, where it's excruciatingly steep and the majority of people are walking up that hill. You know, the challenge is, I don't want to be one of those walking bike riders. I want to be someone who's, who's actually riding their bike. And we talked about that a lot. Where running compared to riding, you can blow up on the bike, but the bike still moves, so you get away with it. Whereas if you blow up as a runner, you either have to walk or stop and there's no more movement. Whereas in Three Peaks, you found out, because the hill is so steep, it's like the equivalent of walking in the. The Ironman. Walking up that hill because of whatever reason, poor nutrition, poor preparation, cramping, they're all reasons why you haven't prepared properly. And that's an example of getting a poor experience and outcome for disrespecting the event. And I suppose that's the main thing we're saying here is these ultra challenges are going to push you to a point where you, you are questioning whether you can finish it first and foremost. But it's too late on the day to think about how. And it's a good reminder of next time. If I do this again, I'm never going to go through this process again. I'm going to be better prepared. And it's a real aha moment. Like halfway through that event, you just go, I'm a dickhead. What am I doing? I've done it again. Or if it's the first time, I'm never going to do this again. And I'm sure David Goggins, those thoughts were going through his mind was, and it did prove to be exactly that because from that point on he went into every event that he ever did better prepared.

Exactly right. And this concept of disrespecting the event isn't a shot at anyone that has experienced this or that walks in the event, because like we said, it's majority, it's 90% of people. You're trying to spread the message. And I really like this message that even though not many people do it, there is a better way to do it. Just because 90% of people walk doesn't mean it's the right way. And it's not your fault for thinking that way because everyone else is doing it. So it's very acceptable. But you're trying to spread the message that we shouldn't be doing the Ironman swim, bike and walk. We really should be able to swim, bike and run. And the better trained you are, you actually will be able to run it at your pace, the entire thing. You might have patches of walking like you said in an aid station, or some sort of problem might come up, but it shouldn't be accepted as the normal way to do it.

10% run, 90% walk. It should be the complete reverse. And if people start to change their mindset and start to prepare better for the run, because most people love bike riding, let's face it, they'll train the house down on the bike and then totally disregard the running training. And that's the main reason why people end up walking is because they've not trained themselves to run at all or run off the bike, more importantly. So if we can start to see an event where people, more people are running, I guarantee, just like the sheep theory if people look around, they're the only ones walking, the majority of the whole event will turn into a, back into a running event. And you know, we're not talking about people doing 14, 15 hours running 4 minute k pace, we're talking about them running at 6 to 7 minute k pace and that's still sustainable to break an hour off your walking pace. If you ran 6 to 7k pace compared to walking 10 to 12 kilometer an hour pace, you're going to knock off an incredible amount of time that you shouldn't be out there for.

And I really like how it applies to the same principle you say, which is no matter what the distance, you have to be prepared for the event, whether it's a 5k run or a 50k run. If you are unprepared even for the 5k run, if you haven't prepared properly for it and then you go out a pace that's unsustainable, you will suffer in the last 2K and you will, you know, if you're trying to go out and formulate 30 pace and it's way too fast for you, your last 2k will be 8 minute pace because you've just completely blown up. Even though it's only a 5k event.

The difference is in the shorter events the pain that you suffer for is short, whereas in an endurance event that's a long time to be suffering. And, and we keep saying it's unnecessary. It's interesting, I heard someone say to me it wouldn't be so good to be elite because, you know, they don't feel uncomfortable at any stage during their event. Well, I'm here to tell you that no matter where you are in the field, the uncomfortable feeling is the same. You're just doing it at your level. Whether you're an elite or, or a beginner at back end of the field, it's uncomfortable because you're at your threshold, threshold point or in an ironman, you're holding that 75 to, to 80% point for the entire bike ride or run. So, so being able to sustain that for that period of time is no different except you finish the event quicker obviously by being a faster athlete. That's the only difference.

So I would ask then, if everyone's at their 75 to 80%, what's the problem with walking? You know, why is it better to be fitter if everyone's just at that same point anyway?

But you're not trying to compare yourself to other people, you're trying to compare yourself to yourself. So the sheep Theory again, just because that's what people are doing, does that make it right? No, it doesn't. And you shouldn't be accepting the mediocre idea that it's okay to walk because the event is not, you know, doing breaststroke and then riding, you know, a dragster and then walking, you know, everybody in that race is trying to achieve a time that they've set themselves. Whether it's to complete the event in under the 17 hours that's a goal or whether it's to do it in 15 hours, 30 compared to 16 hours the previous year. You are trying to swim, bike and run faster than you have before or get to the finish line in less time than, than you really expect to do it in.

So I guess if you're walking, you're not at 75 to 80% of your threshold.

No, definitely not. And you, we know that you are capable of doing that if you train yourself properly. So there is the mental side of it is the key here where that third quarter like that, that 70 mile to 85 mile mark that David Goggin went through, this is the same point when you get off and run, it's okay to run the first maybe 8k, 5k and then people go, it's too hard now, I've got to walk for the rest of the event. And they just settle for that. That's the mental side of it then. And if you're prepared in training to to mentally be battling through some sessions in training that are uncomfortable because you have to replicate that in training to experience the same result in the race. If you haven't experienced that in training, this is going to be brand new to you. This is a horrible feeling in the race that I have never experienced before. And that's because you're under prepared. You haven't done that in training. So you know, knowing what to do in training is going to help you on race day. And that is absolutely being prepared.

So that's why we wanted to talk about the David Goggins story specifically today. I absolutely loved the book. It's called Can't Hurt Me. If you want to go get it, listen to it. We don't have any affiliation to it. I just think it's an unbelievable story and it's really inspiring and it just hammers home this point of being better prepared will give you a much better experience. And we've spoken about countless examples of athlete who is prepared and runs the whole way and actually comes through the field in the back half of the marathon at the end of An Ironman still running at their normal pace, and they're just flying past everyone that's walking, they're flying past everyone that's shuffling along and suffering. How much of a euphoric experience that would be compared to the suffering you would endure in the back half of the marathon at the end of an Ironman?

Yeah, but I've got examples of the same person experiencing both of those things. And the elation they felt from actually executing with good preparation on race day compared to what they experienced with a poor execution and outcome is like chalk and cheese. And the phone call I have between the two events from the same person, one where they were underprepared, performed poorly, one where they were totally prepared, ran beautifully to their own pace, with people in the last 10, 15k calling out who are struggling. Oh, fantastic. Keep going. Running well, and the encouragement you get from other people who are quite shocked at someone at that end of the field running past people who have just blown their races to pieces. That adrenaline rush you get from that feedback is incredible. And that's one of the things they talk about to me, oh, I was getting so much encouragement from people and you can't take the smile off their face and the exhilaration of the improvement for the same event just by attacking it differently. And the mindset of knowing that I can keep running at this pace, I know I can. I've done it in training and I'm just going to execute what I've done in training in this race. And the astounded assumption at the end is far out. I did it and I didn't walk and I just didn't think I could do that. And it just gives them confidence from that point on to know that from that race onwards, it's going to be different forever. And it's almost like a turning point. And the enjoyment they get from triathlon after that point compared to what they were doing before, it's like two different sports. They've told me that it's completely different to a being totally prepared and having the right mental approach on the day.

That's a good way to finish. A bit of a different episode today. Talking about a really specific story that isn't one of ours or one of our athletes, but an inspiring story nonetheless, and just one that forces you to think that's it for this episode. If you enjoyed this episode and you want to download our Expert Secrets cheat sheet of the very best tips and advice that all the experts on our podcast have said to help you train smarter and race faster go to getfastpodcast.com and if you want help being prepared for your Ironman or half Ironman. If you want help to improve your smell, improve yourself and train smarter and race faster, the easiest way to do that is to be on our weekly emails. And you can do that by going to getfastpodcast.com and downloading. You'll get that download as a bonus as well, but that's the easiest way to get a hold of our programs anytime we open them up. So thank you very much for listening. We'll see you next episode.