Swimming vs Running: 8 Things You MUST Know

Welcome to another episode of the Get Fast podcast, 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 hosts, Australian Ironman champion and four times Nationals Masters cycling champion, Jared Donnelly. And I am Jordan Donnelly. Just before we start, if you want to get our expert Secrets cheat sheet, that is the cheat sheet of the very best tips and advice our experts who have come on the podcast give to help you train smarter and race faster. Go to getfastpodcast.com in this episode, we're focusing on things you must know if you want to perform better in the swim and the run leg of a triathlon. That's in a triathlon at 70.3 or an Ironman, there are mistakes that people are still making in the swim leg that you must be correcting and things you must be doing instead if you want to perform well in the swim leg. And then we're going to move on to the run leg and we're going to talk about some mistakes that we talk about often and we talk about a lot that people are still making, but more importantly, things you need to be doing instead to get your run preparation right. And if you want to be a good runner in the triathlon, if you want to perform well in the race, if you want to be one of those runners that actually runs well and isn't walking at the end, there's some key things you need to know and you need to be doing differently to get that right. To start us off, mistake number one is involved in the swimming preparation. There's a few factors you see where triathletes make in their swim preparation and pretty much how not to prepare for the swim leg.

Yeah, well, the first one really is about your training and whether you should be training all squad, whether you should be training some squad. And I suppose that is a really big debatable question that I get lots of triathletes asking me about. And look, my philosophy is a combination of both is going to so much be so much more advantageous to your swimming. If you just did all squad stuff, you're in that whirlpool of sitting in behind a group of eight swimmers and the water resistance you get, let's get specific here. The water resistance you get when you're swimming in a draft situation, which is what you want in a race, you want to get that bubbly water in front of you because that's easier water to swim in than solid water without bubbles. That's Harder to swim in. It's like headwind tail in a bike section of a ride. So really important that swimmers don't just do squad swimming. They that they do squad swimming to get some real intensity. Cause it pushes you. The competition's great, but you need to also do some swimming where you're breaking the water yourself so that you can get some fitness base around that. And really the other point is outside training. Should you be swimming in a lake or a river or an ocean? And the answer is absolutely, you should be. We don't do any triathlons in a pool. We have, I have actually done a couple of triathlons at pool, but they're very rare. And we're talking, you know, potentially Olympic iron man and half iron man. And of course we're doing sprint. But, but really you need to have practiced in the ocean because that's where the race is going to be.

Good. So the first part of the preparation is stop squad training so much and make sure you're practicing out in the ocean.

Yep. So, you know, don't underestimate how valuable it is to be in the ocean. Not only because that's where the race is, but you've got to learn some other skills that you can't learn in the pool. And one is, where am I going in the pool? You're just following someone's feet and there's a black line that you're putting your body in a certain position against the black line. So you don't have a head on with the person coming the other direction in the pool. So you don't have that in the ocean. You're looking at, you know, possibly 20 meters of depth of water below you where you can't orientate whether you're swimming left, right or center. So you need to practice, you know, swimming every six or seven strokes with, you know, as you inhale, when you take a breath, take a quick look at a particular marker that you can identify. And that's a real, a real art because as soon as you lift your head up high, your feet fall. And the idea in swimming is to keep your head and your feet at the same level. That way you're more streamlined, so there's less water resistance, therefore you'll swim faster. So the minute you drop your feet when you're navigating, you're actually going to slow down.

So that navigation, that is a. You talk about that concept a lot where it's, it's, you're not just swimming in the open water just to get a feel for the water. You're talking about. You're talking about everything that encompasses swimming in the ocean, which you will have to experience in the race.

Yeah. You know, from. From navigation and determining whether the person you're swimming is. Is swimming straight. So you're putting your faith in the guy you're. You're sitting on whose feet you're sitting on to think that he's going to swim in a straight line. So that's a bit of a risk. Should you do that? Should you not do that? Well, I would start with someone is swimming at my pace so that I'm getting a freer ride with less resistance, so I'm saving energy. But if I look up and I see that the boy that I'm aiming for is now on our right and it was on our left four strokes ago, I'm starting to get concerned about how straight this guy's swimming. So I might try and look for another person's feet if I think that we're zigzagging a bit. You know, it's really interesting when I download the results and I see that the race might be 3.8 K. And, you know, Joe swam 4.1. You know, sure, the course might be a little bit long, but more than likely it's because he swam, you know, zigzag across the course, and he's actually swam an extra. An extra few hundred meters. And if I compare that with other swimmers who are in the same race and they might have done 4K or 3.9 or 3.8.5, they're the guys swimming direct. And that could add five minutes onto your time by zigzagging.

You also talk about how the start and finish can really add to your time if you don't get that right. If you don't practice that.

Yeah. So in training, I would definitely be doing ocean swims or river swims or lake swims where I start on the beach or on the shore, depending on where you are. And I would get into the water and start swimming and try to pick a marker and swim toward. Straight towards it. And that would be practicing the start, practicing navigation and practicing not swimming too hard, because that's one of the other key pointers that we're going to talk about later. But. But certainly, you know, those skills, you can't get that in the pool. You can't run into the water because that's something that people don't really think about because it's really lifting your heart rate the minute you start running compared to swimming, compared to Riding the heart rate responds differently. Running will spike your heart rate a lot quicker than swimming and riding will. So sprinting into the water is not really an efficient way to start the swim leg. Especially in an endurance race like a 3.8k swim. That might be okay in a 500 meter sprint race, but you still don't want to be sprinting where you. We're trying to keep our heart rate from spiking too high because the minute our heart rate goes into lactate, then you're going to swim with like your arms are going to be like bricks. So you want to avoid that. So swimming too hard at the start is one of the things we're trying to avoid.

So on that last point in preparation and you talk about how much benefit there is in practicing in the ocean, you've just listed then that it's not just getting used to the actual swimming the ocean, it's the navigation, making sure you're going on a straight line. It's making sure that you're practicing the start and finish. So you're learning not to waste energy. What else is happening in that race that you need to practice? I mean you touched on it before with following someone's feet. I mean, how important is getting that right?

Yeah, so the drafting point, we did basically have some information about that. But the way the race sometimes pans out, it can be a wave start or it can be a rolling start. In the old days it was just a mass start. So triathlon swim league has really changed since the 80s where you had up to 1500 people starting at once. And then the next phase was to put people in age groups, so waves. And now it's a rolling start in age groups. So you're only really entering the water with four or five other people. So that panic anxiety problem that you had from the mass start has been reduced a lot. So you still need to self seed. And where would you self seed yourself in your age group? Well, I would always try to work out what your best PB time for the particular race we're doing, whether it's an Olympic half ironman or ironman. And if you're a one hour ironman swimmer, I would try and self seed yourself between 55 minutes and an hour. If you're a 30 minute half Ironman swimmer. Same again, 28 to 32 somewhere around there, you don't want to be swimming around people who are slower than you. That that is really not helping the point that we're trying to make here, which is drafting. So self seeding is important. It is far better to have people coming past you, but not lots of people. So you don't want to be putting yourself 10 minutes ahead. So you're getting the whole field swimming over the top of you. That's going to be really annoying and throw your rhythm out. So my suggestion is to try and get with people who are slightly faster than you are so that then you can select the people's feet that you're going to try and follow. As we said before, having bubbly water in front of you is so much easier and more efficient way of swimming, which is going to reduce the effort you're going to put into the race later on for your ride and run.

How should you practice that in training? Should you be doing more trainings? Because we said before you don't want to be doing too much squad training, but you also want to be practicing, be on a draft from someone. So where do you find that balance?

Yeah, well, the squad training session is the one where, you know, it is really annoying if the person behind you touches your feet. And you've got to get practiced at being close enough without having to touch people's feet and thinking that, you know that one squad session, that's where you should be doing that. You can try and meet some buddies for an ocean swim and swap roles. When you're swimming, say there's five of you swimming or two of you. Spend some time behind that person, spend some time in front. So both of you are getting a practice at drafting. Good.

So is there anything else people need to do in their preparation to make sure that come race day, they, they get it right?

Well, equipment. So I've seen so many people get their brand new wetsuit and goggles and start the race without having ever used them. And that is a recipe for disaster. The wetsuit, it needs to fit really well because it's like a second skin, but if it's too tight, it can overheat you, it can restrict your movement, your arm moves, movement. You don't want to find that out during the race. You want to have had plenty of chances to experiment with. Does this suit fit me properly? I had an experience years and years ago. We were in, I think it was in the Gold coast and I got a brand new wetsuit. I was really happy with it. It fitted me, fitted me really well. But it got too hot and halfway through the swim I, I was nearly suffocating with overheating. I had to swim to the side, was in a dam and basically take the wetsuit. Off. Stop. Take the wetsuit off. I was absolutely overheating and that was a real big mistake for not using it prior the goggles. You really need to have practiced with the goggles to see whether they fog up, to see whether you can see clearly. Is the sun going to be shining in your eyes? So you want to have ones with tint. So you need to have practice with the goggles and the wetsuit. They're two pieces of equipment that you should not go into a race with without having done at least, you know, 10 or more swims with those particular pieces of equipment. Because they're the things that can derail.

A race for you in the ocean or in the lake or in a river or whatever your race is going to be.

I have actually done a wetsuit 1500 meter time trial in a pool and just to feel the difference. And boy, did it make a difference in the pool. I swam so much faster. The buoyancy factor of a wetsuit is incredible. And as we know, Kona was always a non wetsuit event. So, you know, you need to practice without a wetsuit as well.

Obviously it's not still a non wetsuit.

Event, it's a non wetsuit event still.

Is it?

Yep.

Oh, I didn't know that. So mistake number two for triathletes, and this is a question that a lot of people would have conflicting answers for, but because you want to either conserve energy and not spend too much energy, but you also want to be warmed up. So should you warm up for the swim leg?

Well, what is the point of warming up? And we've got countless examples in running, riding and not many examples in swimming of the effect of a warmup. And for those who do warm up for a run race and those who do a warm up for a bike race, it is clear, clear as day that the better warmed up you are for the actual event, the better you'll perform in that event. So why wouldn't we do that before the start of a triathlon? And of course the first leg is a swim, so we need to warm up for the swim, but you can actually warm up on the bike prior to your triathlon event well before the swim start. And I encourage people who have the ability to take an ergo or a wind trainer or any type of trainer where they can use their other bike to sit on and gently warm up in the car park whilst their time trial bike is sitting on the rack. I'm talking half an hour before race start where you're just rolling your legs over you'll allow enough time to get your wetsuit on, get your goggles and your swim cap and then you have 15 minutes possibly before race swim start for you, where you can be in the water doing three or four minutes of getting used to the temperature of the water so your body adapts straight away. If you're in a hot climate and the water is warm, that's not a consideration. But if you're in a really cold race, some of those races in Wales or in Tassie where the water's quite cold and you really want to get used to it, you don't have to have that first initial into the water going, oh my God, this is freezing. You've already done that in your warm up. Plus it gets your body ready for the effort to come. So in my opinion, if you don't warm up, you are making a huge mistake. And you spend the first five minutes of your hour swimming, warming up in the race. Come the start of the race, you want to be at race pace from the beginning. It also allows your heart rate to rise a little bit so you don't get that shock and anxiety. And that's important when you start the actual race to keep the heart rate down, which we'll talk about. But, but the warmup, don't underestimate, it should be part of your routine.

Absolutely. So take us to that point on not going out too hard because that is mistake number three and it's probably the biggest one that you say is just you can't believe people do it. And that is swimming too hard at the start.

Yeah. So it the problem with swimming too hard at the start, if it's a short event, you can. The mistake you make isn't as great as it is over an ironman. And I'm talking, you know, 3.8 K compared to a 500 meter. If you start too hard in a 500 meter swim, you probably get away with only losing a few seconds. When you're swimming, as I call it, swimming dead, what is that? The heart rate spikes so high that you've built the lactate in and the body wants you to slow down. As soon as your heart rate goes above threshold, the immediate responses from the body is to create so much lactate in the body it prevents you from swimming freely. We don't want that to happen. We want to be swimming with our threshold heart rate below that so we can swim with all the blood flowing and functioning as it should. There's nothing worse than swimming with really heavy arms because you swam too fast at the start and you progressively get slower. It's no different. And the analogy is if, if, say we're using a running example, if you're running a marathon and you start the marathon at the same pace as the professionals do and they're going to run, some of them are going to run 3 to 310 pace. If they're a 2 hour 10 runner and your pace is 4 hours 50, but you start your first kilometer at the same pace as the professional runner does, you're going to spike your heart rate so much that your first K is going to actually be the detriment to of the whole of your event because you're going to be running in the red zone for the rest of the run unless you slow right down. So that's really a really clear example of how detrimental running too fast at the start and spiking your heart rate affects your event. Swimming's no different.

So why do people do it then? Because it can be seen as a confidence thing to get in the right position both in a swim or run. But we all do it where we go harder in the start because we just want to get a good start and get off.

So yep, it's a good question. And the example I would give is say you're a, you're a one hour swimmer for 3.8 and I'm a 110 and you're my competition. You're in my age group, so obviously I don't want to let you get too far ahead. But to swim 10 minutes faster than I'm able to swim, logic tells you that that's not going to happen. What is going to happen? Your heart rate's going to spike and you could possibly swim a 115. I could possibly swim a 115 instead of a 110 if I keep up, if I tried to keep up. Because once you go over threshold, you will swim slower because your heart rate has to drop. So you're going to basically sabotage your whole event by trying to swim with your competition. You might be a weak swimmer, but your strength might be on the bike. So save it for that. And don't swim at a pace at the start that you can't sustain for the whole swim leg. Obviously you want to do a PB in the swim but wait for the last 5, 10 minutes to increase your pace. Otherwise you need to swim consistently with the pace that you can handle for the whole race.

Well, I think that's a good finish. There is three key swim leg mistakes that you see a Lot of triathletes make. Obviously we always speak about this. There's a lot more we could speak about a lot of things people need to do. Right. You can check out our other videos if you want to see more information. But you would say those are the three biggest that have a big impact on people's preparation, which results in their race performance.

Yeah, definitely. And if you can think about changing the way you've approached the race with those considerations, I'm sure you'll have a better result.

So now talk to me about the run leg and preparation mistakes we need to be looking out for in the run leg. And the first one is one that we definitely have spoken about a lot. But it is worth re mentioning and it's worth talking about because it is so important to get this first factor right.

Yeah, look, let's get right into it. Right off the bat, the biggest thing I see most triathletes doing wrong in their preparation is not doing any runs off their bike. It just baffles me. The event is swim, bike, run. It's not a running race. The difference for anybody out there who has ever gone for a run fresh compared to gone for a run after riding their bike is chalk and cheese. The feeling in your legs, even the nutrition of levels in your body after you've had a ride and then go running, completely different. The glycogen stores the carbs, what phase you're in and burning, trying to get energy to run compared to running fresh. So you need to practice. The key thing in, in triathlon is to practice what is going to happen on race day. And that's just not in triathlon, that's in every sport. Practice what's going to happen on the, on the day of the event in training. And that's what training is about. That's what the word training is. Preparing for the event and do that in training and you will be amazed how much of a different result you'll get. The outcome will be exactly what you want and you'll know the outcome because you've actually practiced it.

So part of the reason people just do running training and not running off the bike is they want to run fresh so they can run better and become a faster runner.

Yep. And I agree with that. To become a faster runner, you, you need to be actually able to train at a faster rate. And so that is definitely accurate. So why wouldn't you go and train with a running group? And it's no different to swim squad, no different to riding with the best riders you want to run with the best runners, but not every day. And what is the main reason we want to not do that is because running has got such a risk of injury compared to swimming and riding. Running fast when you're fatigued and tired is really going to stress the body. So we only want to do that sparingly. And for me, I only want to do that once a week, twice if I'm pushed. But the point is, in order to run fast in a race, you actually have to train with reasonable intensity at some stage during your training program. No different to the bike, no different to the swimming, but we don't want to do it at as many percentages as we do in swim and riding.

So talking about that, running off the bike still, how does that differ between pros and age groupers? Or do you think the principle is still the same?

Oh, no, it's got to be the same. Yeah. Whether you're at the top of your game, whether you're an age group or you're a first timer. The feeling of, I've got this when I get off the bike and you run because it feels normal. As to running, purely running solo with no rides before come race day, what is wrong with my legs? Why aren't they functioning? I've never felt them like this before. You don't want to have that feeling. So training with bike to run is the biggest mistake people make. And some people say, yeah, I do a brick session or a brick session you should be doing. As we've talked about, our sessions are four to five running sessions a week. Four of them, three to four of them. Four possibly should be off the bike. So that's really what we push. And one of those days is where you could run with a group, not off the bike, where you're a little bit fresh and you can be pushed for some intensity. And that varies according to what stage of preparation you're at. And if we're using January as our base phase and December as our race for an Ironman race, then, you know, certainly you can be running with less intensity in January as compared to when you get to November, December or October, November, December. So we're trying to, you know, which is 0.2 and 3. But running off the bike early, early on in the program doesn't change between January and November. In fact, the longer you do that for, the better off you'll become December race day. So we still want to do one, one, one run where we're not running off the bike so that we actually get the opportunity to Run. However, the structure of the program is depending on what phase you're at, what month of the year you're at.

So talk to me about mistake number two then. And a lack of training specificity. And this is actually quite similar to what we say with mistake on the bike as well.

Yeah. So it is a little bit different to the bike, but it still needs to be specific. If you're training for a sprint distance compared to an Ironman, there's definitely more speed involved in a sprint distance running. And if we looked at the bike, obviously you're riding faster on the bike, but it doesn't create a real tolerance of pain as it does on the run. If you're trying to run fast because the bike's holding you up, you're just really using leg muscles when you're running, the whole skeletal system is being pressured to function at a really high extreme standard. So you need to have actually practiced that at some stage. So we do things like what we might do every block, some sort of testing where you are running to a 5, 10, 15, 20k time trial. So you do get that exposure to that intensity, plus the run where you're running, not off the bike. So. So in terms of intensity, yes, there is a definite importance of running with intensity, but it's not the majority of the sessions compared to swimming and riding. You need to really pull back on the other sessions. And we talked about four or five running sessions. Well, there would only be one that I said in the initial statement that should have some intensity and that varies according to the year. So we're not disregarding intensity, but the injury factor by running too hard too often is going to be greater and you won't get to the start line if you're injured. It will derail your whole program. So don't take that risk. The fitter you are as a runner, the more your body can cope with the high intensity. So if you start to do intensity without having a good base fitness, you are exposing yourself to risking injury straight away off the bat. And you know in your own training. Jordan, I'm forever telling you, when you start a new program, how fit are you? Go out and do some endurance, some strength, some hills, not at fast pace. Just build that solid skeletal system where you can stand up and run downhill, uphill and not come off the run sore. You don't have to run with high intensity to get a good workout, to build your fitness base. So it's so important that we have a variety of sessions in our run that relate to what the requirements of the race are. So we need to run some running intensity that reflects the intensity of the race. And that's different between marathon in an Ironman and a 5k sprint in a sprint event or a 10k in an Olympic. The intensities are vastly different. So, you know, to become a better runner. Sure. Just like becoming a better rider, you need to improve your FTP. To become a better runner, you actually need to improve your 10k time or your 5k time so that to run a better marathon, you need to be a faster runner. So get your base fitness, get your intensity, get your ride runs going together. They're the components that are going to make you become a better runner at the back end of an Ironman or a triathlon, because it is not a running race. It does become a running race in the race, but it is a bike running race. And, and the less time you spend doing that, the worse you're gonna be in that running race in a triathlon.

So you're saying most of the sessions should be lower intensity and just practicing running and only one session should be high intensity?

Yep. At this particular stage of whether you're a pro triathlete or whether you're an age group or you're just a newbie first timer, as you get closer to the race day, then the intensities increase. So as the further away you are from the preparation of race day, the intensities are really low. So you progressively work your way as you become fitter and your body can withstand the intensities that we're going to throw at it. So it's not fair to say it's just one. It's going to be a gradual build. And this is completely different to swimming and riding. Obviously, you need to build your fitness in swimming and riding, but not at the same conservative rate that we do as a runner. And we spoke about that just before. It's to prevent you not getting to the line through injury. And the risk is huge. And I'm not prepared. Having experienced injury in my career as a triathlete, my calf injuries derailed so many seasons in my career that in the end, it was the undoing of me. I couldn't run anymore. Um, and no matter how fit I got as a swimmer and rider, an injury in the run, you're no longer able to execute your race plan. And it is very frustrating. So the risk is too high, in my opinion, for people to just go all out and train with high intensity without having the fit fitness to back it up.

Is there Anything else on running specificity that you want to touch on that people are making a mistake with?

Yeah, I don't think you can underestimate the value of endurance in your running. I've got countless examples and we've talked about this in other podcasts of athletes, trail runners that we do 100k, 100 mile, 50k, 75k, 100 mile, it's a long way. 160k and the endurance they've done for those in training, for those events in training, they have been able to do PBS across 5k, 10k, 15, 20k without doing very much intensity. And that is so important for our listeners to understand. Endurance is really important. It gives you that strength. As we talked about on the bike, at the end of an event such as a 10k, the last two, 3k where it really, really counts and you're trying to hold a. Say you're holding 4 minute K pace and all of a sudden you drop into 404, 405. If you've got the endurance in your legs from running long, steady state endurance runs with strength and hills, you can go back to holding 4 minute K pace and possibly running 356, 354 and improving a PB. You fall apart with lack of endurance base behind you, big endurance base, you come home strong. So the back end of a triathlon, that is the key. When all the other competitors in your age group can be falling apart because they're not able to sustain because of the endurance lacking in their training. So sure, you need intensity, you need to practice riding and running off the bike, but you need to have that really good endurance base. And that's not something you do, you know, two or three times a week. It's spread out so that, you know, on occasions you might do a really big event, but all the rest of the remaining times you're building, from January till October, building that base up, your endurance run would get progressively longer and longer, allowing your body to slowly, cautiously sustain the prolonged endurance training.

That comes back to a point we've spoken about previously, where you need to give yourself enough time to prepare. You need to give yourself enough time to build that base and 12 weeks out from triathlon. You're not giving yourself the best chance of building up that base. You can do it. And for a triathlon you might just have to because you've started too late and that's fine. But for the next one, yeah.

And look, don't underestimate the recovery, Jord. And you know, recovery from running is so much longer than recovery from riding and swimming because you're, you're holding yourself up, you know, gravity is against you and you just get so tired from running. Compared to riding and swimming, it's a different feeling in swimming. It's a lot more upper body, a lot more cardio because you're breathing in water, out of water. It's high intensity. The bike, you can do endurance riding and not really hurt yourself. You can be riding for four or five hours at a really easy tempo. You have a fatigue feeling, but you don't have the same musculoskeletal pain that you've experienced yourself after a long run in the hills. And you really feel that the next day your legs are like, oh, geez, I've still got that leg pain there. So the recovery needs to be really mindful in the actual planning of your program. And that's so different to the other two legs of a triathlon. So the longer that you give yourself to build that period, as you said before, 12 week compared to 16, compared to 25 compared to 50, you just don't have that struggle with recovery because your body is adapting slowly, progressively, inch by inch, week by week, day by day, week by week, month by month, until you know. A program that involves 120k of running a week compared to what you're doing at 50k in January feels the same because your body's adapted to the gradual progression. So that's why it's important not to just go in a running program for triathlon events that is just based like a normal runner would do. As I would prepare for a marathon runner, I'm preparing him completely different as compared to a triathlete.

Yeah, makes sense. So take us through mistake number three. And that is unless you had something else you want to talk about.

I just wanted to say on equipment, before we move away from that, the running shoes, I mean, obviously your triathlon suit has got to be comfortable for running, and that goes without saying. And you need to have practiced running in your suit when it's wet and sweaty because it's not fresh and dry when you go to run. The shoes. The shoes are something that is really important in preventing injury. So you need to find, and I'm not going to advocate any brand of shoes. It's specific to you. And you need to find. If you've had an injury from a particular shoe, it might not be the shoe that's doing it. Obviously, there could be a structural problem with your muscles that are causing the injury, but the shoe might Contribute to that.

Although one shoe specifically that you love that, that the world champion just signed to. And this is not a sponsorship thing, we don't have anything to do with Hawker. But Jan Frodeno just signed with Hawkeye. You love the Hockers.

Yeah. The Hokas seem to be. I call them the old man shoe. But now that Jan Frodeno is wearing them, they're no longer the old man shoe, they're the world champion shoe. But. But they're certainly got more cushion. And when I tried to do some running comebacks, that was a shoe that enabled me to come back a lot less longer before I eventually injure myself again. So don't do as I do, do as I say. But definitely a shoe that's going to give you more stability, more cushioning, not stress the Achilles, not stress your calves. You need to pick something that's actually going to really suit you and to get the best advice, like a bike fit, get the best advice from a podiatrist or a running podiatrist. And the second thing I want to say about the shoes is don't buy a brand new pair of shoes for race day. You need to have worn them in. So have two pairs of shoes going. Have your one pair of shoes that you're training in. And every now and then I'm say twice a week when you're doing your or once a week when you're doing your more intense session. Use the newer shoes there and then another day. But don't do it in the endurance day because that's going to be a new shoe for a long period. You want to do it the runoff, the bikes were shorter, so break the shoes in gradually. So come race day, you want to have a pair of shoes that you've been running in for probably 150k. 150k. And that would be perfectly suited for race day.

Perfect. So mistake number three. How do people have a poor race plan with running?

Yeah. So it does come back to what have you done in the swim and the bike? And that will determine how well you run. You have to have a race plan based on your running ability. That is definitely important. So we know that from our training, what you're capable of doing fresh as a runner and as a runner off the bike. And we've got that data from our athletes. So we need to actually make sure that this is a mistake. A lot of guys do. They don't actually do that testing on themselves. Just like the FTP test on the bike. You need to know what your Number is against the speed. We need to know what you can run as a fresh runner. It's not so important, but it is a good comparison because as I've spoken to you before, my goal in my career as a triathlete was to get my off the bike 10k run pace as close as I could possibly get to my actual reel. And the closer I got to it, I knew I was informed the further away from it was I hadn't done enough bike run sessions, so it really made me motivated. The closer I was getting to my best 10k off the bike, there was no. Hardly any difference. So that meant that I was at the peak of my form and I was going to run the best I possibly could because it was close to my best anyway. So knowing what pace to run at from the start is so important in an Ironman. It's important in a sprint distance as well. But the measurement of your effort across that marathon, you know, of course you're so happy to get off the bike after five or six hours on the bike. Oh, my goodness, it's so good a feeling. And now I'm starting to run and you've got your family in the transition period, and all of a sudden the adrenaline you get through transition, everybody's cheering for you. They might be calling your name out and your pace is meant to be 4 minute 30 pace for the next 42.2. And you look down and you're doing 3 minute 30 because you're just so happy to be off the bike. That is a mistake. Having a race plan coming out of transition, not spiking your heart rate so that you're running the first 5K in the red zone. You want to pick a pace that you can sustain for the whole marathon and possibly get better towards the end. And in an Ironman, that's not going to happen. You're not going to improve your pace unless you're Dave Scott or one of the legends, it's just not going to happen. You're going to struggle to hold the pace. So the pace you pick at the start is something you want to sustain forever in that marathon, in that Olympic distance and in that sprint distance. It's the same in a sprint distance. You're possibly going to be able to pick up the pace better than you can in an Olympic better than you can in a 70.3. And so it goes on. But you need to pick a pace that's sustainable the whole way. So how do we get to that pace in. In training, we would measure that just the week before so that we know what our best number is and we can convert that into a marathon. So each one of our Ironman athletes has their marathon triathlon pace that they're going to go into the event with. Knowing this is my pace and I know I can sustain it because I've done this countless times in training. And I don't mean run a marathon in training, I mean run the pace that we've trained you at. And that is going to be transferred across because of the way we work it out.

Perfect. Does that cover everything that you think people make mistakes in with the race plan or is there anything else that people need to know when thinking about their race plan?

Yeah, but look, I just want to, I just want to give an example of something that happened to me as a triathlete. And this is something that you can really concentrate on is running your own race. And when you get off the bike, everybody else around you seems to be running so much faster than you. And you're looking down going, I'm doing 4:30. These, these guys must be really good runners. If they're, they're all running at 4, 10, 4:05, boy, there must be some good runners in my age group. But after 10, 15k, those runners are all then running 4:30 and you're still running 4:30. Those runners then at 35k could possibly be running 5 to 6 minute k pace or walking. But you're still running 4:30 and you feel like you are flying past these athletes, but you're actually staying the same pace. It's just that they've slowed down. And the feeling you get when you're running past people and they're yelling at you going, oh, fantastic running mate, you know, way to go. That is such an adrenaline rush and that is an enjoyable way to finish a marathon. And you will run faster at the end. So running your own race is a mistake that people make. And I've done it myself. I've followed someone else's pace just because I'm competitive and it's been the detriment of my result. There are days, as we talked about on the bike, in the run, at the end of the day, you are either a newbie trying to complete an age grouper who's really trying for a podium or a professional and you select which one of those you want to be, you want to just compete the event, that's okay. Run the same pace. If you're an age group or trying to get for a podium, you need to race the other guys. As well. So you've got your set pace and it's okay once the risk gets less. And what do I mean by that? If it's a marathon, the risk is less from 30k to 42 than it is from 10k. So you can't make big bold moves at 10k when you've still got roughly 32k to go. You can make better moves at 30 30k when there's only a risk of 10k to go of blowing up. Same in a sprint race. You know, at 3k you can go for it run, you know, 4 minute k pace instead of 4:30 knowing that you've only got to hang on for 2k so the risk is is less. So you can actually compete against your competition when the risk is less but you still need to leave. Listen, like we talked about on the bike, ability and ambition, don't get them confused with your pace and then you will get a better outcome and possibly win the race because you have listened to what you're able to do and then let the competitiveness take over when the risk is less. Perfect.

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