The Best Running Session For A Triathlete

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. Today's episode, we are talking about the best running session or sessions for a triathlete. But before we get into the episode, a special announcement about our free Trivelo Facebook group. Now, some of you might already be in there, but many of you won't. And so this is our official invitation for you to come and join our community. Dad and I are active in the group and inside, we are sharing our best resources and streaming free live coaching sessions to help you with your training and racing. So if you'd like to join this free community on Facebook, you can just type in trivelocoaching into the groups area in Facebook or go to www.facebook.com groups. So that's facebook.com groups trivella coaching. Plus, we'll put the link in the description of this episode for you to go and join. And we want you to join the group, introduce yourself, and we'd love to hear from you and see more of you in there. But let's get into today's episode. So our starting segment as normal, when it's you and I on the podcast, dad, we want to start with some gratitudes and just remind ourselves a quick reminder for all the listeners out there that the gratitude section is just an easy way to remind yourself of what you're grateful for in your life. And in a world of negativity, it's an easy way just to remind you of something that is positive in your life and definitely helps with mental health. So, dad, you can start with the gratitude.

Good intro, Jordan. I could start with a negative, which is what I'm grateful for. The negative was I cracked my road bike frame, which happens, and apparently I'm pretty rough on bikes. Someone told me the other day. So I've cracked a few bikes and I'm grateful because every negative has a positive and you just got to find it. And instantaneously I was able to contact Giant and it's a definite plug because they've been outstanding with, you know, warranty frame straight away, no questions. In the meantime, they've given me a loan bike to ride whilst I'm waiting for, you know, during the COVID period. You know, there's not a lot of stock around. So I'm so grateful to be part of the Giant family and get the service that I was, you know, probably thought might happen. But you never know and I'm just so grateful for that. Community of Giant.

Absolutely. We are not afraid to plug Giant on this podcast because they are the official sponsor of Travelo coaching. So very happy with that. And you're pretty happy with the bike as far as I'm aware, because you had a pretty good hill session yesterday where you were a lot faster on this new bike.

Yeah, I did. Not that maybe my bike had been cracked for a while because when I put the power down on the pedals, the bike went forward at a much better rate. So it might have been a little bit spongy before I didn't realize. Realize that I cracked it earlier. So anyway, yeah, certainly happy with the replacement.

Yep, definitely. My gratitude is. My gratitude is also almost a negative one spun in a weird way, and that is I'm grateful for social media. Now. I've had a bit of a hatred for social media in the last week or so or maybe the last couple of weeks. So I decided I was going to turn it around and try and be grateful for it because I actually removed myself off the Facebook feed a year ago. I'm still in there and I can see our traveller groups and that's all all I use it for. I don't actually see any newsfeed because I just found it was too negative last year and I just got so sick of it. And other social media platforms have become the same sort of thing. You know, it's just full of a lot of negativity at the moment. And for me, I just wanted to turn around and say I've been spending less time on there because it is just full of negativity. But I am grateful for social media and how much it actually adds to our lives and how much readily accessible information is on there, how much sport highlights, updates of social things, updates of. You know, I get so much triathlon and cycling news from Instagram, for example. It's great insight into an athlete's life. You know, so many athletes are just showing everything about their training in life, which is so fantastic. So while it can be very negative sometimes, I'm also grateful for the positive things it does bring and the opportunities that it does bring, especially for our coaching business. You know, social media is a really big aspect of ours, so I actually wanted to extend some gratitude for it and just say that if it has been too negative, just get off it and get off of periods and it actually does wonders for your mental state throughout the day.

Yeah, I think it's a really good point, Jordan. It's a platform for opinion. That's what it's being used for. And I don't think that's what the original intention was. I think it was a platform to spread news about what's happening. As you just mentioned, you got so much information from the welter at the moment, so much information from the Paralympics. All stuff that you want to read about, not people's opinions. I don't care about people's opinions. That's not what it's meant for. And I think that's a really good point.

Yeah. Right, next segment is what has caught your attention and I'll start and I just want to talk about this concept of giving yourself permission to fail. And on the podcast a couple of weeks ago we spoke about how good it is to. When you are nervous for an event or you've got a race coming up, you can get much in your own head by wanting to succeed so badly that you just focus on the result. You are extremely anxious and nervous about the result and it can detract from your performance. But instead focusing on the process, just controlling the things you can control and focusing on executing your performance to the best of your ability and giving yourself. I really like this concept of giving yourself permission to fail. If I just do this process as well as I can and I don't hit the time that I want, then that's fine. I've given it my best crack and from that angle I just have found that really helpful. Recently, a lot of travel athletes include myself at a time trial on the weekend and going into it with that mindset of just, you know, whatever the result is, it doesn't matter as long as I can say I was proud of the effort afterwards and if I fail, so be it, as long as I've given it an absolute crack and that actually takes a lot of pressure off and you end up performing a lot better. And on that note, it's also about, you know, give yourself permission to have a crack and when it's maybe tough in that third quarter part, you know, push yourself maybe further than you you might that they've been capable of before. And if that means it blows up in your face towards the end of the race and that's fine, you've executed well to that point. You gave it a crack in the third quarter and again gave yourself permission to fail. But I just think that's really important and that that can only work if you do a well executed plan. You know, if you just go as hard as you can from the start. That's not giving yourself permission to fail, because that's just guaranteeing you'll fail, you know? So, yeah, for me, that was just something that's really caught my attention. And I think I saw another quote, a recent stat that just came out that said it was remembering Kobe Bryant, because it's been just over a year past his death or something like that, and it said that KOBE Bryant missed 14 and a half thousand shots in his NBA career. You know, he scored however many thousand points, 10,000 points or something or more, but he. He missed 14,000 shots. You know, that is a lot of misses in an NBA career. And there's similar stats that we spoke about before. You know, Babe Ruth has the most home runs in the. In the baseball, but he's also had the most strikeouts. And another one in the cycling world we've spoken about is Peter Sagan has won an incredible amount of races, and he's also got the record for second places, you know, and it's just all these athletes weren't afraid to fail. You know, they just want to keep putting themselves out there, and in doing that, they gave themselves the best chance of success. No one remembers those failures. So that was a big point for me.

Oh, it's such a great point. And we probably touch on a fair bit over the journey in our podcast, but it's a really good reminder. And, you know, you think about the pro cyclists, for example, you know, putting themselves, putting it. Putting a number on each week. You know, they've gone this year, we've obviously, we've had some really, you know, events that have been on the calendar and not being canceled. So we've had the Tour, we've had the Giro, and we've had. The welter is going at the moment. And these guys are putting themselves up against each other day in, day out, and they're not afraid of that. And they can't win. Every ride, every race, only one winner. And I know a lot of everyday athletes won't go into an event because they're not at their best. And therefore, you're going to miss a lot of events, because it's very rare that we're at our best all year, even once a year. We're probably at our best, if at all, twice a year. That would be when we're at our best. So are you going to avoid every event because you're not at your best throughout your whole career? No. You want to use these events as practice, practicing, execution, practicing Preparation, practicing, mindset, practicing things that are going to allow you to get confidence with risk taking. Trying different, you know, as a triathlete, try and ride different power, try and ride higher, try and ride lower earlier. Try. Try different things. In a lot of races, that may only be B races. Um, so what you're saying is so true. And, you know, I remember Roglich, you know, when he lost the Tour de France on the last day. We've talked about this before, but, you know, and then he had horrible crashes in other events and didn't win this and didn't win that. He had two years of really disaster and comes out and wins the Olympic time trial. You know, that's a person who's putting himself out there all the time and not getting a result every single time. But, boy, when he did get a result, it was, you know, an Olympic gold medal, which will be remembered forever. You know, the time trial at the Olympics. And. And here he is leading the welter again, and he happens to just crash today. But he attacked. He attacked and got away from the main riders today. I know I'm getting off topic here, but that's another example of someone just having a crack all the time and not worried about the result. And that's the point you're making. Don't worry about the result. It's the journey we talk about a lot, and they're good examples.

So what's caught your attention is kind of in line with today's topic anyway, so they'll kind of blur in together. But essentially we want to talk about the best type of running sessions for triathletes. And that coincides with the fact that we had a lot of, like I said, travel coaching. Athletes do time trials over the weekend. And we had an absurd number of running pbs. And so we wanted to touch on what they're doing differently, and that leads into the best type of training for triathletes. So tell me what caught your attention with. With Travelo pbs.

Yeah, it's a really good topic to discuss today. I'm really excited about talking about it. And it really was emphasized because we had a period this week where we'd done a really good block of training, and we got to a point where we were ready to have a recovery week. And. And in the recovery week, we want to test ourselves. So we've got a little mini taper happening, and we do this quite regularly in the program. And everybody's accustomed to it and adapted to it and. And they have to go through the preparation of preparing what, what power number they're going to ride to and what running pace they're going to run to. And we had three tests actually. We had FTP 20 minute time trial on the bike and we had a 5K run and we had a, an endurance run as well. And I was staggered at the improvement of nearly 100% of the athletes across three different days. You know, we've got data from, you know, six weeks ago, comparing it to now and the improvement was nearly 100%. And the people who didn't, it was clearly obvious that they had been injured or sick or they had executed poorly. So they were the three outliers. And there was only a handful of people who fitted in that category out of 70 or so. Testing was almost like a little mini lab test. That was fantastic. And that's what's caught my attention is how did that happen? That's what I really want to talk about today and to see the positive outcomes from our preparation and to get that result is what the topic is about today.

Yeah, and you know, there's people that executed poorly that's not so much a reflection of their fitness level as we always know you can be as fit as possible, but if you execute poorly then, then your, your, your race or your time trial is over.

Well, it's funny Jordan, because you're 100% right there. And, and because we did it as a race, we did an FTP test as a race. The motivation from other people around you can distract you to cause you to execute poorly. And guess what happens on race day? Exactly that same scenario. So that's why we do it in training.

Yep, spot on. But yeah, we want to narrow it down to one of the major things, you know, we, we did, we do differently at Trivelo is we have a real strong emphasis on what we believe is the best type of running training you can do as a triathlete. And that is hill training. And we do naturally have a strong emphasis on that here. But specifically this last block, you know, we really incorporated he'll training in various degrees to a wide range of athletes. And yeah, we want to chat about that today and why that. We believe that is a differing factor, major differing factor in a drastic rate of improvement because we do see improvement consistently, you know, through various training blocks and various programs, depending where an athlete is in the, in the program. But yeah, we really want to talk about the specifics and the special gains you can make from hill training as a whole.

Yeah, and the topic is really what is going to allow you to get the best out of your running. And you know, it does relate to the event. And we're not really talking about single minded runners, we're talking more about triathletes here. So why does that matter? Well, it does matter because the requirements of a triathlon running leg are similar to an individual marathon or Half Marathon or 10K, but they're, they're not exactly the same. Um, you want to run at threshold in both events, but you know, you can't run at threshold in a triathlon as you can as a marathon runner fresh because you've got to run a different percentage of pace. So, so it does, it needs to be clarified that we, we are really talking about runners in triathlon here. So. But the sessions are still the same. We're still going to do similar sessions but we're not going to do a lot of intense running as triathletes for half, half marathon, half ironman and for ironman training. Because the requirements in that race don't require you to run, you know, six by four hundreds at, at 60 seconds. Because that's not what you can do on race day. Um, that is an important session for runners. That is really important. That might be part of your program. But, but I want to make that clear to everybody. You know, we're not saying that the sessions we're advising are the only ones. So, so right off the bat, the hill running, that is undoubtedly the most important session in a, in a program from start to finish. You must have that in your program. And if you avoid that, whether it be because you can't find a hill that's close by, or you avoid them because they're too hard and too tiring, then your missing out on an opportunity to become a better runner than you could ever have dreamed of.

On that note, Christian Blumenfeldt, the recent gold medal triathlon Olympic champion and recent world champion, over the weekend I was watching a video where he was doing a bit of Q and A and one of the questions was, what advice do you have for a young triathlete to become a better runner and become the best runner possible. And to our absolute delight, he just said straight away, without a doubt, hill running. He said, you gotta get, you've gotta get yourself in the hills and get yourself to a forest, get yourself on some trail runs. And this is what we love because this is very specifically in line with what we say, not just generically hill running, we say the exact thing that Christian Blumenfeld said. And he said, I spend so much time Going on trial runs and I might be running 7 or 8 minute K pace, doesn't matter. I'm just getting Ks in the legs, running those trails, getting that strength. And that is exactly what we talk about. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard you drill into an athlete and say, I don't want you to run fast at all. I don't care how fast you're running, how slow you're running. Um, so I care how fast you're running if you're running too fast, but I'm not interested in you holding a higher pace. You know, you could average 8 minute K pace. The gains will be there. And we have actually seen so many examples of runners doing those endurance sessions, you know, not doing any speed work yet, just from those sessions, getting 10K PBS, getting half marathon PBS. And to hear Christian Bloemenfeld say it was just great evidence to me in line with this thinking and shows exactly what you're saying, to be the best runner possible. This needs to be a part of your programming.

Yeah, and it's always good when you see someone successful and you try and investigate as to why are they so successful all of a sudden, and then you trace back to, you know, what are they actually doing in their program and then you hear them back being asked, you know, what have you done differently? Because all of a sudden when you're the Olympic champion, everybody wants to know, well, what did he do to become the Olympic champion? And, and that's just common, that's what happens. People want to associate with winners. So they want to, they want to replicate and, and follow the exact exact same program. And don't forget this is a professional and we're all everyday cyclists who have jobs and families. So you know, we can do a version of that. And, and it's, it was great to see that Almost everything he said is what we've been trying to drum into people for almost the last 10 years of our coaching. And I'm forever, you know, looking at people's programs saying, yeah, of course you selected was, you know, it had 60 meters of elevation. It's meant to be an endurance undulating run, you know, oh, but I don't live near hilly area. Well, drive to where the hilly area is so that you're going to get the best bang for your buck. And it's no coincidence that people who've been doing the endurance run, which is, they've been doing it fine, but all of a sudden they go and do it at a more. Venue all Of a sudden, I understand they're already doing the session reasonably well, as the first point is endurance. The second point is strength. And that's what we're trying to do, strength and endurance. But if you miss out 50% of the component, which is the strength, you're going to, you know, miss out on 50% improvement. So. So, you know, it's obvious when we see people do the program properly, which is go and find some hills and do 3 or 400 meters of elevation in your running endurance run, and without changing any speed or running any faster, they are running faster. PBS in 5K, 10K half marathon and marathon. It is outstanding. And it's. And it's that obvious, but it's the answer, the key to the. To the safe. It's there in front of your face. Yet people still will want to run on the flat.

Yeah, I totally agree. I get really frustrated on my endurance run if I'm in a situation where I can't find hills, no matter where I am, if I'm traveling somewhere, if I'm interstate, I will seek out as many hills as possible, and I will honestly go as far and make the run a little bit boring and just go to a hill and just kind of run up and down it a few times to really get my elevation, because I just know the benefit, and I feel like I'm really missing out if I'm just running flat for my whole endurance run. Um, and it is hard in lockdown. But again, I, you know, it's worth almost making that sacrifice if you've got a radius around you, just find the closest hill within 5km and just repeat it. Um, yeah, I mean, I understand that you don't want to do that every single endurance run because you might go a little bit insane. But we're just. The point is, the value in it is just so massive.

And you know, why. Why is it that it's so valuable? You know, these are the things that obviously people would be saying, well, you know, I hear what you're saying, but why is that happening? And there's a couple of reasons why we use it. One is we want to get a session where you're running at threshold, around that threshold. Mark, we're not advocating sprinting up these hills. This is not what we're trying to do. We're trying to run at threshold. And for the general population, it should be around your 5k threshold number.

It's a very generic number, but it is.

And look, that's for the general population. There are elite runners who who won't get the value out of that by running that slope. There'll be beginner runners and that's too fast. So that's why it is a very general sentence. But to give, to give the listeners an idea of what we're trying to achieve.

And the point is, your 5k pace is not your sprinting pace. It's not 100 meter sprint. That's, that's the main clarification.

That's right. And, and if we did do this on the flat, we would have to run fast to get the same value. And that takes a little bit of understanding. So thinking about that, if I run on the flat, I, I can run faster than I can uphill, but I can get the same effect uphill by the having a resistance against me which is absolutely affecting my quads and hamstrings and glutes and getting an aerobic, a training effect that is undeniable. And you can't get that unless you run flat out on the flat. And you don't have to run fast uphill to get that same value. And the other bonus is you're not going to injure yourself by running at this pace as compared to running flat out on the flat, which, which is what we're trying to do. And of course in a triathlon, you know, you're not going to run that fast anyway. Um, so you, you're more specifically running towards the pace that you'll be doing on, on race day. Um, so, so many good things about the hill, the uphill, and of course to get to the bottom of your uphill, you have to run down. So you're getting eccentric contraction, you're getting concentric contraction. So the running down is absolutely good for you as well. Um, it just builds strong fiber muscles that are working both ways and, and these are little things that, you know, people are asking, why should I run hill? So these are the answers. And the main thing is that you're going to have less risk of injury at the end of the day. And that is so crucial to getting to the start line. And I've said it so many times, you know, it's all great doing all these great training sessions, but if you cause yourself to get injured or so fatigued, you know, you don't get to the start line, then it's pointless doing that training.

Yeah. And a caveat on that injury thing, which we always want to say is that if you run them fast, if you're sprinting up them power sprints, and this doesn't have to Be fat power sprints. The fact is, running up here does put extra load on the muscles. It's why it creates that strength effect. So there is, you know, a lot of physio rhetoric is that it does increase risk of hamstring strain, for example, but that's why we back off the pace. You know, we're not doing 10 second power sprints up the hill like an AFL team would. You know, we're not even doing, you know, short 20 second bursts up the hill trying to get max power. You know, they're longer efforts and that the pace is a little bit slower. And that is to replicate, like you said, kind of five kilometer threshold efforts. And then if we take it back to, you know, the reason we don't do on, on the flat is it's all about management. And let's take it back right back to the race goal. You know, getting to the start line is a big achievement for age groupers because injuries are just so common. And so any advantage we can take to try and reduce the risk of injury. And if that means not doing threshold efforts on the flat, because running that speed does risk injury for the age group triathlete, if we can take an advantage and take it to the hill, then we're going to do that from an injury prevention point of view. And then like you're saying from a strength point of view, that's one of the biggest benefits is that the strength you get from running hill repeats. And many studies point to this evidence that it improves running economy, which is your ability to run efficiently, you know, so I guess I want to touch on that next, dad, in terms of this running economy, and I mean, I'm going to say quote unquote, strength, because in this definition, by strength we basically mean economy, we basically mean efficiency. But there's a psychological and physical benefit to improve strength. Improved efficiency, isn't there?

Yeah, and I probably digress a little bit here. Look, the feeling you have, that's just, this is not talk about science at all. Let's just go by anecdotal evidence that you have. When you train in hills, then you go and do a race on the flat, you just feel like you've been released, you have no resistance, you are almost free running. And, and that is something that, that I think people don't really experience unless they've, unless they've trained in the hills. And the minute you go onto a fast flat course, it feels incredible. You feel like you're invincible. You can just run fast and yet you haven't done any fast running in your training. And, you know, that is one of the key things that is psychologically really an advantage and everything. Every advantage we're looking for in training, whether it be physical or mental, it is important. If it's a placebo effect, then then great, we'll take it. But it's not a placebo effect. It is. It is, you know, well documented that being strong in the legs from training in the hills will absolutely make you a faster runner on the flat.

Yeah, yeah, spot on. And look, we'll be the first to say that there isn't overwhelming evidence to say that, you know, scientific evidence to say that hill running is superior to flat intervals. You know, that's just not the case. And that is not what we're saying. You know, we're saying that hill running has its benefits in other ways. Um, obviously they both. They both. Running threshold on the flat, running threshold on the hills will both improve everything that you want it to, you know, improve your VO2 maximum, improve your running ability. But as we're going through now, there's just so many benefits to the hill training that are added bonuses, and that's kind of what we want to go through.

And just on that point, Jordan, before we move on the, the back half of any event, whether you're running a fresh 5k 10k half marathon or marathon, the back end is when you're searching to hold, you know, that third quarter. If you break a 10k into two and a half, five, seven and a half k, 10k, that five to seven and a half k is the third quarter, the premiership quarter. And if you've been doing the strength work, you can hold your pace or possibly negative split by absolutely being strong when it counts. And if you've just been taking the easy option and it's not the easy option, I shouldn't say that taken the option of avoiding hills, you will not feel the same invincibility in that third quarter. You know yourself from your own training when you've, you know, boy, I didn't fade in that important section because we can all run fast in the last two and a half K because we're nearly home, but, you know, we're fresh to run the first 2 1/2 K and the second 2 1/2 K. We're settling into the race, but the third 2 1/2 K is when, when we draw on that strength. And in a triathlon, that's the second half of the marathon or the half marathon where you can hold the same pace that you're trying to hold from start to finish, whereas you will fade if you don't have that strength and stability that you've been training for for six months. And we're not saying that this is every session you should be doing is in a hill. That's not what we're saying either. But I've got to make that point. One of the key things is that that strength when it counts and you're being tested and you want to hold the pace that you've set yourself in the, in the race plan and all of a sudden you start to feel yourself fade. You know, in the back of your mind, bloody hell, I've written, I've run that many hills, I can do this. And you start yourself and all of a sudden you come through that period and now you're looking at the finish.

Yeah. And I mean, I want to touch on the note of kind of looking at data and looking at real life examples, comparing data to real life examples. Exactly what you're talking about here. And if we look at our coaching group, we talk about this a lot, that we just get these great samples of data to look at and great examples of athletes to see. You know, if we implement changes in certain areas, what result does that have? And obviously, because it's not completely validated, formal studies taking out all variabilities and other factors, which there are plenty, you know, we just can't say that it's scientific proof, you know, trust, it's just anecdotal proof. But rarely, you know, do you see a overwhelming amount of scientific proof, you know, saying that this is the exact answer in regards to sports science and triathlon or cycling or whatever. You know, this exact session is by far the best possible thing you can do. Undoubtedly evidence based. You know, if that was the case, then it would be so well known and so well cited and so black and white. Um, but, you know, we look at our coaching group and we look at the amount of PBS that just happened and we've got great data on the fact that probably the biggest change made with most other things being relatively equal, was this block was more focused on heels than normal. And obviously other factors can come in previous training blocks, you know, athlete training history, that kind of thing. But for the fact that these are athletes that we have known for a long time, have athlete, athletes that have improved and been in certain situations previously, and the main variable that was changed was this, and it resulted in a great improvement, we can point to that being a leading factor. You know, not saying that that is the only factor. But for us, it's just great anecdotal data to look at.

And Jordan, to back that up, it's not the first time this has happened. We have done blocks where we've concentrated on strength and progressively as a bike rider, the FTPs have improved progressively as runners. Their running pace has improved. And, and it, you know, how many times this has to be a coincidence before we start to go, well, here we go. This is, you know, twice this year we've done this block, you know, once early in the year and once now. And both times we had the same results where people improved their FTP on the bike and improved their, their average 5k pace and their, and their half marathon pace. It's just too coincidental for it to be. And, you know, whether there's other factors coming into it, the overwhelming majority of the group all did the improvement. So if it was 40% or 50%, we'd say, oh, maybe, maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But when it's above 95%, it's, it's unbelievable evidence. Just from our own little coaching group.

Yeah, exactly right. And look, I had a great conversation with you where we're kind of planning my next training block and I've done a lot of hill work myself, probably more than, more than average. And you said, oh, how are you feeling about the hills? And I said, I'll just keep doing them till forever because, because if I keep improving, you know, keep running PBS and I'll just, just, I just don't want to change what's working, you know, and you made a good point that it doesn't apply to every part of the year, it doesn't apply to every context of the year. And you can't just do hills all year. You know, it doesn't, doesn't quite work for, you know, the way you want to get to your race and that kind of thing. And that has to be said, you know, because otherwise, like you said before, why don't you just do it every session?

And also you can't improve all year. You know, you're going to have periods where you're peaking for an event, you're going to have periods where you're recovering post event, you're going to have periods where you're building your base. But, but having it in the right order, that is what's the key to it. And obviously there's a different improvement rate to a beginner, an intermediate and an elite and look to be able to run low 30 minutes for 10K. That puts you in a reasonably elite category. And for you to improve a minute 30 over 10k just by doing a 6 week block of training in with strength and conditioning in hills, that's outstanding percentage overall and that's the equivalent of someone going from 60 minutes for their 10k to 52 minutes. It's like an eight minute improvement when you're going from 35 to 33 and a half. It's just incredible. So the rate of improvement might not be in time, it's in percentage and, and they're the things that you've got. The listener has to understand that we're not going to expect that to happen every block. This is coming into the start of the summer, so we starting to come into some. We've got our base behind us, our strength and we're not near our peak. But our improvement is what makes us smile because we've still got more in us and the excitement is, yes, just give me more of that. Which is what your reply is. I'll just do that, that till you tell me not to. But we can't do that week in, week out, month in, month out. We've got to have other periods and there is a limit to it where you will need to concentrate on other factors to actually get you to be running faster because you've got the strength now. And the next phase, just talking particularly about you, is to get you to do some more speed. You've got your base, you've got your strength and now we focus the seasons coming close and we'll start to do more things like fart like sessions and things like that that you're going to really, you know, go in a new direction, but you will start to, you know, feel like you can run faster. You know, we haven't even done any run fast running in your program yet, so. So it's kind of exciting.

Yeah. And on that point, I mean, speed is all relative because when you say the word speed, you can immediately jump to what you said at the start of the podcast and go, you know, 10 by 4 hundreds. But again, depending on the your race goal, depending on the event that you're training for. Yes, speed is totally relative. And a lot of 70.3 athletes just never have. There's just never any need to do any speed work, you know.

Yeah, I should clarify my words really, because speed is for a half marathon runner in a triathlon is going to be running some threshold runs. One or two K threshold runs. Yeah, that's your speed date as compared to, you know, an Individual, you know, marathon, a half marathon runner, where he would definitely be running. He would be doing those sessions as well, the threshold sessions. But he would be doing VO2 sessions with six by four hundreds and stuff to, you know, because purely a runner. Whereas we're getting that intensity from our bike. So we're talking, you know, specifically about the relationship between the session and the event.

Yeah, spot on. And look, one of the last things I wanted to touch on, and this is very, this is on the same topic of event specificity is, is we have a little bit of a trip with, you know, strength, strength training in the gym and some recent obsession with that because it is well documented that strength can strengthen conditioning program. Some weights in the gym can help endurance athletes. It was always proven to help, you know, shorter event athletes, but it can help endurance athletes as well. That's very well known. But some athletes say, ah, do I need to be doing more, you know, strength training in the gym as compared to getting my strength from, from hill running, that kind of thing. And we are very heavily leaning one way for very specific reasons. And this isn't to say that we are against strength and conditioning and gym training at all. But you know, the clear example we want to talk about is that some athletes feel the necessity to, you know, go and do 3, 3 rep squat max in the gym or 5 rep squat max to help improve their power. And that will improve your power to a degree. But if you're a 70.3 triathlete, there's just no need for you to be doing that kind of lack of specific strength and conditioning work. And doing something like heel training is going to get you much more specific strength work to what you need.

Yeah, it's a really interesting discussion and I'm having that discussion week in, week out, year in, year out. And let's get this straight. We are advocates of strength and conditioning. We think it should be in your program. So that's the first sentence. So we're not saying we shouldn't have it.

So the strength and conditioning coaches listening can take a breath and know that.

That'S so, so what we're saying is it needs to be more specific to your event. And so if you're going to do on the velodrome the one kilo time trial, I reckon you should be doing three, three reps at, you know, 400, 400 pound efforts. And that is specific to what your requirements are to do, you know, a one minute flat out time trial on the velodrome.

Guys that are trying to push 2,000 watts.

You just need to have the most power you can possibly do. And going into the gym will give you that. But unfortunately I'm not coaching any one 1km time trials. Most of the people we're talking to are the endurance athletes and obviously the cyclists who have a variety of events. You know, time trials could be a 20k time trial. Criteriums could be 30 minutes to an hour. Road races could be, you know, 60k to 150k. So there's very few events that are shorter than that. For running, you know, we have got athletes like yourself doing 8 hundreds or 5k runners or 10k runners all the way up to marathon. For triathlons we've got Sprint, Olympic pick, you know, 70.3 and Ironman. So. So even in all those examples I've given, there is still no need to do three reps at, at £400. So.

So what's an extreme example? But we're trying to make a point, you know.

Yeah, so what, what strength and conditioning are we saying is good? Well, we're saying that, yes, as a part of your program, add the strength and conditioning. As long as you're fulfilling the rest of your specific triathlon program, if you're going to cut out something to put in strength and conditioning, I'm not for that. I want it to be added. And if it's causing you too much fatigue, then I want to wait till your body can adjust and adapt to the program that it's had for two or three months. And people who've just joined our program have heard me say that many times. When can I do the strength and conditioning? I'm saying, yes, let's just let your body adapt to, to swim, bike and run. And then once you've got your routine and your structure and you can cope with it and your fatigue isn't too high, you're not getting sick or injured. Then we introduce the strength and conditioning and lots of other things, but it should be part of your program. And we are very specific in some of the sessions we give you, which have an aspect of strength and conditioning. We do do hill repeats as a runner and that is very specific. As you said, we do do hill repeats on the bike. And that is, you know, you can't get any more specific than doing it in the actual action that you're doing. But we also, and I'm a, you know, I'm a believer that one of the things that has kept me injury free is the strength and conditioning that I've been doing over you Know, a period of 20 or 30 years off and on and I should do it more on than off. And I'm the same, I'm, you know, dropping it and then all of a sudden I'm feeling some twinges and it's because I haven't been, been continuous with my strength and conditioning and I absolutely think I should be doing more of it. But if it means that I'm going to be too tired, I'm going to drop that first and try and make time for it when I've recovered a bit. So they're kind of the way that I look at the strength and conditioning and the way that I've sort of implemented into your way of training. And you are really good with the strength and conditioning program that we have in our membership site. And, and it's fantastic that you've been doing this for years and it's one of the reasons why you're relatively injury free. And so for people to say that we're anti that, it's absolutely incorrect.

Yeah. And I guess as a summary, firstly, we don't see anything as inherently good or bad. It's all very context dependent. And even in your example just then, to make it clear, strength and conditioning has two main benefits. It's injury prevention as well as performance benefit. And when you're talking about, you're getting sort of maybe some, some twinges or that kind of thing, it's actually the strength and conditioning almost ramps up from that injury prevention point of view. But that's different type of training to maybe some of the strength and conditioning you might do for purely performance benefit. There's big overlap. But just to summarize and sort of clarify that, and I guess I go back to something that our strength and conditioning expert at Trivala coaching, Dr. Jordan Moncrief, who's been on the podcast, one of my favorite things that he says is, he says, I don't know why I keep seeing people who can't perform one body weight squat optimally, you know, putting 60 kilos on the back or 80 kilos in the back and trying to get their strength from that. Um, you know, so he's sort of got a similar rhetoric. There's nothing wrong with strength and condition. There's nothing wrong with, you know, a weights program. But a lot of athletes are just training inefficiencies. They're just training poor technique with added weight, weight, you know, and so you've got to almost take it back a little bit and, you know, get your efficiency right and which will Improve your overall economy of your body with. Improve your overall efficiency and movement before adding in things that may actually be detrimental with incorrect technique, for example.

Yeah, and look, I'm. I haven't lifted a weight for that long. I mean, I might do a chin up and a push up, and I should be doing some. As I get older, I should be actually doing some sort of weight training to, to keep my, you know, my bones and struct healthy. And that's something that I really need to work on, and I'm happily admitting that. But I'm struggling to do the strength and conditioning exercises with no weights on me. I've got the shakes, you know, holding the positions that Jordan Moncruze got me in without adding any weight. And I just don't need that for the purpose of the exercises I'm doing for bike riding and for running and for swimming. Whereas for muscle development, I definitely would be advocating older athletes to be lifting some weights.

And to clarify, you're not weak in those events because you, because you're weak, you know, in those movements, you've actually got quite a strong core, you know, I would say. And. But it's just some of these movements are quite difficult, and it is quite difficult to move your body, you know, hyper efficiently. And so we need to really make sure we're training that properly. And struggling with body weight exercises does not indicate weakness at all. It's. It's to do with a whole, whole other rabbit hole of a topic about efficient movement. And I think it's worth getting Dr. Jordan Moncrief back on the podcast to kind of dive into this because it's a topic that we could talk about for ages.

Yeah. Yep. So look, in summary, definitely, you know, we're all for it, but it needs to be specifically related to your event, and that, that is what people need to hear.

Yeah. So that's a good way to finish off this episode. You know, it's a topic that we're really obviously passionate about. We really just love a part of our program, and we sit when we see the results that we do with our athletes. We want other people like you, the listener, to know how beneficial it could be for you and, and how to get more out of yourself. So that's really the benefit of this topic, isn't it?

Yeah. And look, you know, I'm. I'm hoping that we have some people who change their ways with, with their endurance running and with some of their. They're training for improvement in running just by hearing what we're advocating. And you know, it's work to treat for our athletes and we want to share that experience with the listeners out there. And I know there's a lot of people who are listening intently to the advice we're giving and you know, this is one of those gold nuggets that you know is a no brainer but it has strings attached to it. That's my only concern when we're giving and advocating advice.

Absolutely. So that's it for this episode to finish off. Again, if you want to join our free Facebook community, you can just search us travel coaching on Facebook. There's our Facebook page which is separate but there's actually a group travelo coaching and you can find that by typing in facebook.comgroups/relevable coaching or click the link in the bio and you can chat to us in there. As I said, we'll be active in there. We want to hear from you, any questions you have. Obviously one of the main things that we're doing in the group is is free live coaching sessions live streamed in there which we want you to be a part of and get a benefit out of. So go join us in the group and we hope to see you in there. That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. It.