The Best Swim and Run Training Sessions For 2022

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. Last week on the podcast we spoke about the best bike sessions for 2022. But for all the triathletes, what about the best swim and run sessions? Based on the analysis of our own athletes, what have we concluded are the most valuable SW& run sessions for you to be doing? What sessions can we say have given our athletes the most improvement? We're going to discuss the key sessions you need to be doing if you want to improve faster this year in the swim and bike leg. Dad. As always, welcome to the episode. What are you grateful for this week?

Thanks, Jord. Yeah, and it's funny, we were just discussing the winter months of training and whether you should continue swimming or not, so it'll a really good topic.

Yep.

What am I grateful for? Yeah. Over the last probably two or three weeks, I've had the pleasure of riding my new Giant Propel and it's been unbelievably custom spray painted in the Trivalo colors. And it brings me great joy. And I'm very grateful for the people who've organized that for me and Giant Australia have done an unbelievable job with, with the, the bike that I'm riding. And it, it is such a thing that I look forward to now riding that bike. You know, anytime you get a new bike is fun, but, but especially one that's painted in your colors if you feel very pro and matchy matchy. And so I'm very grateful for that. So thank you.

I might be biased, but it is the prettiest bike I've ever seen. And if you haven't seen it, go check out our Instagram. We'll chuck a photo up of what the bike looks like. It looks as slick as ever. And if you see someone riding a Trevelo colored bike, you know it is the super coach. So make sure you wave my gratitude.

Or someone stole on my bike. That could be the other.

Oh yeah, true. Yeah. If they're not in Trivalo colors on a Tribalo bike, my gratitude this week is a funny one. I'm getting my wisdom teeth out next week and I was actually complaining to you on the phone about how it's costing me an arm and a leg and I thought, well, I have to, I have to swap that and I have to be grateful that I, I have access to such good health care and the fact that I can have this kind of surgery and be looked after, I do want to switch that because I really was complaining about the cost of it. You know, what's the point of having private health if it still costs you an arm and a leg? But no, I do want to switch it and say I'm grateful that it's all a smooth process and I can go in and get all my wisdom teeth taken out and feel comfortable and safe that I'm being looked after.

Yeah. And look, there's thousands of people around the world who have got no access to that and they would give an arm and a leg to have no pain in their mouth.

Yes, exactly. I did think that when I, when I first went to the dentist, because I woke up just with the worst pain in my mouth, I went to the dentist and they explained, oh, your wisdom teeth are coming through, you need to go book in. And I said, well, how long is it? How long is this process going to take before, like booking in, seeing the surgeon, getting the surgery? And they said, that can take a few months. I thought, I have to go through this pain for a few months. And they said, oh, no, we'll give you strong painkillers and then the pain subsides. They said, normally it comes around every few days, might last a little bit. You take the painkillers, it goes away. And that's exactly what's happened. Sometimes it comes on for a few days, but I'm just so thankful for the painkillers as well, just to get through those few days. So double gratitude there. Before we get into the actual topic of today, can you tell the listeners the story of what you just told me off air? We were just chatting before this podcast because you really had to take some of your own advice and swallow a bit of a bitter pill today. So can you explain the whole process of what happened today and taking your own advice?

Yeah, well, going on from what happened at the previous couple of podcasts where we've explained what our Nationals campaign went and how the post. Post analysis and things, we didn't do so well in the training program. And anyway, so as I said at the time, it's extremely motivating to me to, to make sure that from this point, from that point on, which was now two weeks ago, that I'm really concentrating on trying to do things a lot better and take my own advice. So unfortunately, on the Sunday morning, I woke up with vertigo, which, for those people who've had vertigo, is not a pleasant experience. And periods of five or six hours of the room spinning and you uncontrollable vomiting, headache and you just can't function.

Yeah. This is not just a little bit of vertigo. This is debilitating.

No. Last time I ended up in an ambulance because I didn't really understand what was going on. But now your brother Matt, who's a physio, explained to me what exercises I need to. To try and get my balance back in shape so that I don't feel like the room's spinning. This is all part of the story that I'm trying to build and. And it's. It could be brought on by anything. No one really understands. It could be a virus, just could be an imbalance. It could be, you know, it's an inner ear issue for seeing where the horizon is level or not. And it's a really weird experience when the room won't stop rolling.

So Matt's. Matt's exercises, he explained it. There's basically crystals in your inner ear that are. Keep you balanced. And the exercises that getting vertigo because they're unbalanced. The exercises help balance those crystals.

That's right. So it's a bit of a. Bit of an episode anyway. Took about five, six hours of this before I could actually see the room stopping from. From moving and I could function again as a normal human being. Because you actually feel like you want to die. It's that. It's that debilitating and those who have experienced it know what I'm talking about. And there's extreme levels and I don't know where I sit on it, but I felt like I was a bit of a wuss.

But.

But I definitely struggled with it. Anyway. I haven't been riding so well since then. I haven't really trained that much. And that's one of the things that happens. You know, you get motivated and then just a slight where, you know, one of our other guys, Tim, who's been on the podcast, got hit by a car on Saturday. So, you know, there's deviations in your journey, isn't there, that. That are unex and sometimes unexplained. So I had to really back off a little bit. And so I prepared myself to do two threshold sessions or three in a row, once one every week where I was riding between 20 and 30 minutes at threshold. That was my first block of training on one of the days. And last week really happy with the result back. You know, numbers are quite low still, but could feel this progress. And so this Week I was really looking forward to it. And so this morning I jumped on with my plan of what I was going to do and instantly I felt that it was almost impossible to match last week's numbers. So I had to downgrade my expectation as I was riding in the first five minutes to okay, I'm going to stick with, instead of it being 290, it's going to be at that stage was 275, which is a long way off where I was supposed to be. But anyway, I thought I'll just persevere and try to maintain that. And eventually 270 became hard after 10 minutes and I didn't think I could get through the. It was a 25 minute. I was in a race, actually a Zwift individual time trial race and by the time I got to 15 minutes there was no way I could finish the race. I was going to try to get to 20 minutes if I could and I turned it into a sub threshold session because I was riding at 250 watts by this time. And all of the time I was thinking this virus has really done something to me from Sunday. I'm not, I'm, I'm really under the, under the, the, the, under the pump here of, you know, the, it hasn't left my system and that's why I'm not writing. And so I, you know, I accepted that and, and just tried to make the best of it. Anyway, I got to 20 minutes. Nearly killed me by the end.

You were just, you considered holding 260.

Yeah, well, anyhow, down in 250s, but my heart rate was up like I was doing 300. It was at the same heart rate as it was the week before and, but it was agony and I was nowhere near those numbers anyway, so the next three or four minutes I was just debating about the virus and whether I should be doing this intensity session or not and whether I started too soon. It is, it is Wednesday and you know, I've had three easy days so I thought I would be okay and maybe not. Anyway, so I also thought that, you know, I might just check my calibration halfway through the ride and even though I checked it before I started, but because I've got three bikes and I've got a new bike, I didn't do my preparation properly and write down the calibration number for the three different bikes because I've added a new bike and my memory is not that good. Details for what calibration number is for what bike. And I thought that was Close enough. Anyway, I recalibrated it and then, then it came back to 116, which is the number I know is my time trial bike, which I should have known before I started because it read 137 and I didn't think twice about it and I should have. That was the mistake I made. That was my error.

And so really you didn't realize, but the calibration was 20 watts off.

Yeah. You know, some percentage off. You know, literally 20 or 30 watts off. Yeah. And so I was actually riding at 290 in the first two or three minutes instead of where I was at 270, even 295. Yes. So, so no wonder my heart rate went high straight away. And I thought that was a virus. So things in my head were playing tricks on me based on what I was seeing on the screen. And I looked at the number and I jumped back on the bike and just thought, I'm going to do one minute at 260, because that was agony four minutes ago. And it felt like a piece of cake. And I just thought, right, I'm pushing lap and I'm going for another 20 minutes.

This is the funniest part of the story to me.

So I already done 20 minutes of the hardest thing I'd done for a long time. And clearly I was riding at 290, not 270, so I should have been happy with that at that point and left it at that. But I just wanted to see what I could do. So I lined up for another 20 minutes. I wasn't in a race this time, I was just doing it myself. And before I knew it, I was able to ride 275, 280, 285, 290. I finished at 300, 305. At the 20 minutes. I was strong as. And it just made me realize how your mind can play tricks on what you're seeing, because what you're seeing is untrue, it's not real, it's wrong. But that was my fault as well. What I was seeing was my fault, but it was false data and, and therefore I was looking for reasons as to why this is happening and they're valid. But the reason was the calibration, not the virus, not the vertigo. Not that I'm, I'm in great form. I just proved it because I just did two 20 minute threshold. If it's only 40 minutes of threshold and I, I actually wanted to do the 20 minutes to prove to my brain that I can overcome this and I can do it again. So I halfway through the morning session I was thinking how crap I'm going and then by the time I finished, I'm so ecstatic. I've done two 20 minute threshold, if it's not something I'd recommend you do. But boy, what a mind shift. In my post race analysis of going from what am I going to do about my form to I'm really happy with how I'm progressing and it was really all to do with how my brain was responding to what it was seeing.

It took great self awareness to be able to really figure out what was happening because for most people if an athlete called you and told you that story straight away, you'd say you didn't calibrate your bike, did you? But you did calibrate your bike, but just weren't, you didn't have the data down of whether that was the calibration was actually right or not. But you could have finished that and just thrown in the towel and gone, what the F is wrong with me? And may it has to be the virus. But yeah, it took a lot of awareness to recalibrate, retest, you do that extra minute just to see how you feel and then the guts to do another 20 minute test. And as you said, had it been out on the velodrome, for example, you would have known straight away that the watts were off because your speed would have been fine.

Yeah, the speed would have been, you know, around 44, 45 ks an hour. And I know that whether I'm riding 20 watts or 600 watts, that's what's important.

Exactly.

So because I want to trainer, the.

Speed means nothing and I'm seeing swift.

Speed, I don't really, it looked like it was going well, but, but I don't trust that speed thing and it depends on the bike you're riding in zwift and all those, all those variations. So, so that wasn't really, you know, normally outdoors you would get an indication.

Yeah, but it's a great story because you do get athletes calling you up all the time after a test and something's gone wrong and they're in full panic mode and you've really got to look at everything first before you panic. And as we always say with the post race analysis, the post session analysis or post FTP test analysis, look at all the facts to figure out what's really happened, not just jump to the conclusion that oh, I'm in crap form.

Yeah. And another example would be in the triathlon races where the experience I Had a couple of weeks ago, I think we mentioned where I was passing the field because we started last in the group. As Aquabike, you start last with the teams. And so literally I'm riding past people and I'm getting a lot of dirty air because there's thousands of riders on the road and, and that in itself makes it easier to ride fast for lower power. And that took me four minutes to work out that I was literally 20 watts lower than my power should have been, yet my average speed was perfect. And then I was absolutely able to reconcile that in my brain to say, okay, 260 watts equals 42 to 43 ks an hour. That's fine. Today, 260 watts is the number because. Because I'm continually coming up behind people where I'm getting a draft effect every five seconds for, for two seconds and going around them and going up to the next person and that, you know you're getting a false power reading because of the amount of people on the course. Yeah, you're not drafting because I'm riding past people. There's no draft there for me. It's just that there's dirty air the whole bike course. So you need to take that into consideration when you're in a race because if you're dead set stuck on riding 280 and you're seeing 260, you're going to ride harder, which means you're going to blow yourself up. So therefore you need to have all this other information. So the saving grace was my average speed.

Absolutely. So on that note, let's get into the actual topic of today and let's start with the swim. What do you need to be doing to make sure you are doing the best swim sessions for the year? What have we really noticed can make the biggest and greatest benefit to you if you want to make sure you're maximizing any sessions you're doing in the poorness. That's especially a good question for our tribal athletes because we do as minimal swim sessions as possible because we believe in our hypothesis is there's much more to gain in the bike and run and we would rather athletes not do four swim sessions a week and we'd rather than get more time gains in their bike and running sessions. So what you need to be doing throughout the week, swim wise, I just.

Want to add the reason we do that is because most people that we coach are age groupers and they're not professional and they don't have all day to train. So when people are time poor, they need to prioritize. And the biggest gains are on the bike and the run. And that's where you need to spend the most of your time. You still need to do swimming training, but, you know, if you're short on time, what has to go, Something has to go. So let's take away less swim sessions because that's got the least value in terms of your improvement overall in a triathlon. You can improve as a swimmer by swimming a lot more, but your overall triathlon result won't improve that much by spending triple the time swimming as compared to triple the time riding or running. So that is important to understand.

Absolutely. And that, that the adv advice would be different for a professional. The advice would even be different for an elite age grouper who is trying to maximize time.

Absolutely.

And they have more time to train.

Yep. So, so we, we're basing our, our information that we're trying to get across today on two swim sessions. And so what's going to give you the best bang for your buck in those two swim sessions? So let's just break it down. I really believe you need to be doing lots of fast intervals. Short, fast intervals where a. You can hold your form and not lose your form. When you're swimming short and fast, you can maintain it for 25 meters, 30, 50 meters, 100 meters up to 200 meters. You can hold your form with swimming quite quickly. Once you go past 200 meters, it becomes more of an aerobic. It's still an aerobic effort at 200 meters, but, but it's more aerobically muscular fatigue that you're experiencing because of the fitness factor rather than the cardiovascular factor. So, so we want to practice swimming fast with good form. And so if you did just long, straightforward, 1500 straight or 2000 meters straight, your form would fall away. You're not swimming fast anyway. You're getting an endurance session out of it, but you're not practicing good form. When you swim fast, you swim with good form and you need to have a rest so you can keep doing the good form. So that's why you swim shorter. So that is one session that needs to be in your program. Short, hard, good form sessions that are going to give you the high cardio and not losing the form in the process.

The biggest change we've made to that is that this session isn't full of just intervals. In fact, it's now. And we've, we've definitely made this change over the last period is almost majority drills then intervals.

Yeah. So there's Two aspects to swimming. There's the skill acquisition, which is the better that you have a technique, the faster you'll swim. And the second point is the fitter you are. Generally the faster you'll swim because you can hold your form and stay swimming the same pace. So you need to develop two things. You need to develop your swimming fitness, but you need to develop your swimming technique. And if you don't develop the technique, you can be as fit as you want to be and swim 50 sessions a week, if that's possible. But you actually won't swim much faster. You'll be really fit in the water and you'll probably bike and ride better because you're so fit in the water, because it doesn't take much out of you. But you actually won't improve your speed that much by. Unless you improve your technique. So you'll get to a point where you'll just be as fast as you can go and as fit as you are. So. So the drills are absolutely imperative. And you know, on the podcast, we heard Joe Friel say if you can't swim under 130, you shouldn't be doing any intervals. Well, I really like that theory, but I still think you need to do intervals to improve your fitness. So, and I think Joe is assuming that most of the triathletes are doing four swim sessions a week or three. So we're, we're down to the bare minimum of two. And I do advise people to add an extra, extra swim if you've got time. And you know, I really push that. If you, if you've got the time to do it, do the third swim. One swim a week is, is barely adequate. Two swims is, is just enough. Three swims will actually help you, help your fitness incredibly.

So the two would, you would say is more to maintain fitness and improve your technique, Technique.

Yeah. So we're really, we're really honing in on that. And we have to also say this depends on what part of the season you're in. And for the majority of swimmers, and I'm talking about the poor swimmers, I'm talking about the really good elite swimmers in triathlon and in age groups. There could be unbelievably good swimmers in age group and there might be very average riders and runners, but they're fantastic swimmers. I'm not talking about these people. I'm talking about the everyday average swimmer who's really struggling, has not had a lot of background in swimming, hasn't had club swimming, hasn't had coaching for technique at an early age. The kids who have been coached from early age in squad swimming are going to be the best swimmers for their whole, whole life because they've really developed a good technique when they're younger. It's like learning to read music. You will always remember it forever. It's like a language, you know. Once you've done the basics in language, you'll be able to pick it up when you just start to recall it. When you, for example, go to Japan, you remember, I remember all these words now. And it might take you two or three days, but it's there in your memory. So this is the same with swimming. It's in your memory, your stroke is in your memory. And it will go back to the feel once you get some fitness. So, so it's important that you, you maintain that two sessions a week. And during the season there will be periods where it's the middle of winter and there's no races and you might get some athletes saying I'm not going to swim this winter. And I'm going to say that is really bad advice. You need to be trying to maintain the swimming and, and almost forget the intervals during this period where there's no races. Just do drills. Do 2ks of drills, 1500 meters of drills, 1k of drills. I know it's an effort to go to the pool and spend 15 minutes swimming and then leave, but it's still going to be more benefit than doing nothing. You're not going to improve your fitness during this period. But if you've got the time to do the two sessions all the way through the year, the off season is the time to do 75% drills, 25% intervals during the season. If you're a bad swimmer, you probably still need to do 75% drills and 25% intervals. But if you're a competent mid pack swimmer during the season when the races are on, I still think the intervals is 50, 50. And if you're really elite swimmer, you still need to do drills no matter how good you are because you want to improve your technique. So it should be 25, 75. That's the way I would, I would approach it.

And the other session, if we're going to say it's just two, that needs to be a completely different session.

Absolutely. And again, there's two choices here, but the actual session needs to be the same. The two choices are do you do it indoor or outdoor? And I'm really adamant that during summer you need to be doing one of those sessions outdoor. And if you don't live near the ocean or a lake, then you don't have any option but to do it indoor. And the only time you get to do it outdoor is in a race. You need to go at some stage and make an effort to drive to the nearest ocean or lake to actually practice before your main event. And there are lots of people who live miles away from those choices. So it's a big effort to go. But people who are fortunate enough to live by the bay, you should be doing your extra session, should be in, in the ocean. And now I live near a lake which is only, you know, 10 minute drive and I do my sessions there. The Ocean's 50 minute drive. So I'm just going to go to the lake and do it there. And during summer that's not an issue. During winter it's a big issue because I don't like the cold. So I'm going to do those sessions in the pool. But the session itself is the same. It's an endurance session where we need to just like running and riding, you need to build your endurance. And if you don't have an ability to sustain form over a 400 or an 800 or a 1K, then you're just going to be good for 200, then you're going to need to rest. And you know, I kind of found that out myself when I started doing the last couple of acrobike sessions where it's a swim and bike where I was really good in the pool for the 400 and 250s and two hundreds and 150s. But when I had to swim 1500 straight, I really battled, got really tired, couldn't hold my form. So talking about doing short sprints, holding form, you also need to teach your body to be able to swim 5 by 400 or 4 by 500 or you know, two six hundreds plus your warm up and cool down plus your drills or two one ks when you're getting fitter. So as, as your fitness builds, you need to push your endurance out and progress. That don't start with, you know, a straight 1500 unless you're doing a time trial to see what your pace is. And then you should need to start with, you know, a couple of four hundreds and build it up to six hundreds, eight hundreds, one Ks and that is going to help you come race day to be able to be much more relaxed for the entire 1500 meter or 1900 meter or if you're doing an Ironman 3.8K. So you do need to do endurance swimming. But it has to have drills in it as well. And if you, if you. I see people only doing ocean swims during the summer season. Where's their drills? Are they doing the drills in the ocean? Great. If they are.

Yeah. Yeah.

But if they're not, they need to do a session where they're doing drills.

Yeah.

So. So that would be my advice as a package for people who are actually swimming.

Yeah. My only comment to add to that is I have done drills in the ocean and in the pool and it is just much more convenient in the pool. It is. It's funny carrying your snorkel and your flippers and your pool boy all around in the open water. It just doesn't. You can do it. But I think me personally, I would only do drills in the pool and I'd rather just do the endurance efforts out in the open water. So moving on to the running, then analyzing our athlete running improvement, we have probably narrowed down three key standout sessions. And it has to be said that these aren't the only sessions you should do. But again, use the term bang for your buck. These are three key standout sessions that we've really seen time and time. Again our athletes get great improvement from. So we're gonna go through each of them and the first one, and we have mentioned this before, but there's just some things we wanna note on this and that is hill repeats.

Yeah. And without doubt, this is the best session to stop yourself getting injured, number one. But it has. Has a risk about it as well. And number two, you don't feel like you're actually flogging yourself yet. You're still getting the benefit of muscular strength, which is what triathlon running is. It's, it's, you know, let's just really hone in on what is the triathlon race. It is an endurance race. And I don't care whether you're doing a sprint, Olympic 70.3 or Ironman, the time that it takes to do a sprint is an hour for the fast guys and an hour and a half for, you know, anywhere between an hour and a half or an hour 40 for the, the age groupers. So if you want to call that, you know, sprint, sprint, then I look at a sprint as 100 meters. This is, this is still an endurance event. Anything, you know, anything more than two minutes is classified as aerobic. Anything under two minutes is anaerobic. So, so we are. Terminology is wrong. We're doing an endurance event in a sprint triathlon. So. So you need to be strong at the back end of your 5k run in a sprint, 10k in an Olympic, etc, etc, half marathon marathon. You want to be strong. So what are the sessions that are going to make us strong? And that is making sure that you've got strong legs that you can hold the pace for for the entire start to finish and not fade. The key to being a good triathlete runner is not fading holding the same pace from start to finish. And we'll talk about that in the progressive fast run later on. But we really need to understand that if we've got a good strong, stable muscular skeletal system that is really used to running downhill and uphill with some intensity and then without the intensity, and we're talking about hill repeats with intensity, this is really going to help you be able to run the pace you want to run in in your race and hold the pace from start to finish.

And we just have to say it is a great session. But that doesn't mean you do Hill repeats 52 weeks of the year.

So it is really based around where you are in your program. And you know, in the off season when you're trying to maintain aerobic fitness and, and concentrate on other things that, that really need attention. This is not the time to be doing hard hill repeats when there's no triathlon. You want to have this session as your speed work session. And it doesn't even make sense when you're doing a speed work session uphill because you're not actually running fast. The hill is stopping you from running your fast. You know, if you're a, if you're a 30 minute 10k runner, you'll be doing your speed session at 250 minute k pace per km. If you're a 40 minute, you're doing it at 4k. If you're a 50 minute 10k run, you're doing it 5 minute k pace. So on these hill repeats you could possibly be a 40 minute k 10k runner and still not really be running faster than 455 minute k pace. But your normalized power would probably show you pace. Sorry, you normalize pace will show you that you're running, you know, probably 4, 10 or 3:50 pace. So that's the bang for your buck. You're actually, you know, training picks is really good at that. Giving you an actual example of what the pace is. Had you been running on the flat. And I think that's a really good point for people to understand. The time and place to do this is when you're trying to get your speed work up without running flat out. And you know, that's when we get injured. So this is why this is such a great session, because you can actually not run that fast and still get the same value.

Definitely the second key session, and we have mentioned this session before, but there's two factors that we haven't really talked about to do with this session that need to be said. And so the session itself is the endurance run in the hills. So doing going to the hills, going to trail running and doing some endurance. But again, it could be really slow pace in the hills.

And just before we left the hill intervals, you don't just start doing them as a, as a new runner, you have to, you have to have done a fair bit of running before you start to do any hill repeats. That's no different that you should be doing that before you do speed work on the flat. So that's the first point for the undulating aerobic endurance run. You just don't start going into the hills for your first long run. Yeah, long run. You need to build some sort of base and you get that by running on a course that's reasonably flat to start with. And then you gradually include some undulations as you develop more strength and, and, and basically conditioning muscular and stability, skeletal conditioning to withstand the fact that you can run up and down hills. So don't start your training program in the hills to start with. That is the first thing. You need to get some form in your body on the flats and then gradually introduce over months, we're talking, and possibly years before you can actually run the hills properly. And I don't mean run them fast, I mean run them without injuring yourself. And because it is very harsh on the body to, you know, to run up and down hills.

Yeah, both up and down are equally as tough on each other. And we recently had a private coaching call for our Travelo athletes with Dane Verway from the Run Culture podcast. He's actually been on our podcast as a guest, but he's an elite marathon runner and a physio and he spoke about this self awareness that you need to have about how you're coping with an endurance run in the hills and a long run in the hills. And he put it really succinctly, he just said that any new change on the body, you need to give the body time to adapt to that change. You need to give your muscle fibers, your bones, tendons, ligaments, time to adapt to that change. And so if you are a fresh runner and you're building up your first long run. You can't go and do 60 or 90 minutes of a long run when you haven't done one before. Plus do that in the hills with even more stimulus of up and down. You're just adding way too many things to the body to try and cope with and most likely you lead to injury. So this is the point you're making, that it's almost like adding one stimulus at a time. First it's just the length. Just get the length right and build the length up. And then once you've got the length right, you can start to include some modulations. But it can't be suddenly just 90 minutes of uphill and downhill. You know, it's, it's got to be a little bit flat with a little bit of uphill and downhill. And these are just examples of the kind of progression you need to be thinking about and be self aware of.

Yeah, the load, that's what you've got to consider the whole time. What load are you giving your body? And a lot of the people we coach, you know, I've made them run their endurance run on the flat for some for six months, some for a year before. I'm saying now you need to do hills. And that might not be obvious to them, but it's been a progression and some people can cope with it, you know, relatively quick. Everybody adapts quicker at their own pace, not quicker. Everybody adapts at their own pace. And you need to be able to understand how the load's affecting that person. And if they're coping with it, then you can continue to introduce it quicker than another athlete who's not coping with the load. And the minute you start to get serious pain, that's when you're overdoing it and the load is too much, you're not adapting.

But the goal should be to get in the hills because once you get in there, it is such a valuable session and we just see just across the board, such improvement with athletes that can consistently get this endurance run in undulating terrain or in real hilly terrain such as trail running, you know, really, really aggressive trail running.

You think about it when you're running around the suburbs, you're running mainly on, you might be running on a trail that's been man made. I'm thinking about in Melbourne. There's the Albert park and it's, it's a soft sand and it's really beautiful surface, flat, beautiful surface. And then you've got, the next level is a footpath and then the next level is a bitumen road. You might be running on or even a golf course on the grass. So they're the variations of. Of surface that you're going to run on and, and they're all reasonably even and flat. So every time you plant your foot, it's quite reliable that it's going to be the same angle that you're landing on. But if you're in the hills on a trail where the angle of the trails, you know, it's literally something that, that foxes have been running on. And it's not wide, it's not beautifully manicured, it's got tree roots. Every step you put down, your foot's landing on a different angle. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about your tendons and muscles every time they land being affected differently. And that runs right up your leg, through your quad, through your hamstring, through your glutes, through your back. So every step, it's not the speed of the endurance run, it's the conditioning your body gets from step after step after step of different angles. And that is the key to this run. And then all of a sudden you're doing that step uphill and now you're doing it downhill. So you've done a little bit of on the flat where it's a different landing position every step, and now you're doing it up and downhill and downhill. All of a sudden it, you know, the front of your quads are screaming when you're running uphill, your glutes are screaming. So you are giving this well balanced without running fast. It's. It's almost like cheating, cheating training. To me, it's go do these hills on as really, you know, undulating terrain that you can find that's got different landing surfaces. You have to be very careful not to twist your ankle in these situations. But, but once you're across your landing and understanding the peripheral of what you're doing, it is a fantastic session.

I can tell you. You never actually quite get across it. Every single run you have to be watching your feet. And that is something that a lot of people who aren't used to trail running get wrong, is that they don't concentrate. And you just have to be concentrating because every step is something different. No matter how well you know the trails. I've been caught at many times, just lack of concentration and ankle goes.

So you're over on your back before you know it.

I, I can't.

I've done 50 ankles up and the trial runs over the 20 years. I can't even Think about it because it does my hitting.

I will say though, you know, I grew up running the trails around home here and even though I've had as much experience as you could get, you know, growing up my whole life running them, if I go a period without running in the hills, when I go back, immediate doms, you know, the next few days, I'm as sore as ever. So you just have to be aware that, you know, even for myself with that much experience, I have to be careful not to just suddenly jump back into a 90 minute long run in the hills because my body actually won't cope with it unless I build it up again myself.

Yeah, the point we're making here is, you know, you have to give yourself time to adapt and you know, adaptation is the key. You can't go and do 90 minutes in the hill straight away. You've got to start with 45 or 50 as long as you've been running endurance runs for over that time, you know. So that is the key to this.

The third major session and this is a really exciting one that we've never, I think really spoken about on the podcast. It's a bit of a trivelo secret, but it's this race ready half marathon, marathon run that you get the athletes to do and, and this topper run that we're going to explain is just really a game changer in a lot of athletes in getting ready, especially for a 70.3 and even an ironman and even an Olympic distance because it gives you such good fitness. So but it really is a perfect session for a half ironman, but it is applicable to all distances and really it's a session that's preparing your body for that exact distance in a really applicable way.

Yeah, it's a, quite a, it's a simple, simple training session but it has to be done at the right time. It's so that's quite complicated and I don't want to, don't confuse the listeners here, but the purpose of this session is to make sure that what you experience in this run where we we trying to get you race ready is what you're going to feel on race day is similar to in this run. So the only way to do that and for me to explain that is when you're in race in the middle of a triathlon, whether you're doing a 70.3 or a 10K or a marathon, the feeling of the first few K compared to the feeling of the last few K and the middle few K, let's just take Half Marathon. The 6K feeling from 1 to 6 generally feels quite normal. If you've run the first K properly, which is the slowest K, and then you find your legs and then because you've tapered for this race and it's a 70.3, you should feel really good. Let's just pick 4 minutes 30 as your race pace for this race. So 4:30 feels almost like 5 minute K pace from all the training you've been doing and you're almost getting cocky and I've got this. And then when you get to 10 to 12 to 13K, that 4:30 pace feels like 4:30. It feels real. And then when you get to 14, 15, 16, 17, it feels like 4 minute K pace. Yet you're still running 4:30. That's the feeling you get. And then 17 to 20. To hold 4:30 it feels like 3:30 pace because the fatigue of the 90K and the swim and the previous 17K of running is now taking its toll.

That's if you're good enough to hold 4:30. For most people, they're looking down and they're going, shit, I'm running 5 minutes pace or 5:30 pace and it still feels like 4:30.

Yep. So get that thought in your brain that the feeling of the pace is what we're talking about. So you're still running 4:30, but it feels completely different at 16k compared to 6k or 4k. So in this fast finish run, we are trying to teach your brain to run faster. We want you to do that. We don't expect that to happen in the race. That's not what's going to happen in the race. We want you to run the same pace from start to finish in the race, but, but by running faster from start to finish in training teaches your body to feel, say, say you're trying to run 4:30 pace. In this fast finish run, you might start at 5 minute k pace because that's what it feels like in the first one to six. And then your next 4k might be 440 pace. And then in this fast finish run, the next 4k might be 4:28. And then the next 3k might be 4:20. And then 4 minute k pace for the next two. And then the last three is 350. There is exactly what I explained, the feeling you'll get when you come to race day. So we're doing this experience in our training session so that when the race comes, your body is used to it, it's experienced it already and it can Cope. It's adapted and it's practiced. So this is an unbelievably valuable session in teaching your body to experience the feelings it's going to get come race day. A lot of the times I do it in different periods of the season. Sometimes I do it after really hard endurance day. So that you are actually going to feel what it's like in the middle of a triathlon if you're doing an ironman the day before. If you've done maybe a four or five hour ride, undulating, hilly ride and you go and do this fast finish run, not fresh. And you get to feel how hard it is running tired in this fast finish run. And this is a game changer run because come race day you go, oh, that fast finish run. That, that is exactly what happened to me on the day. And I was able to hold my pace from start to finish. And, and it's, it's a really great.

Feeling for, for most people that's quite a technical aspect and benefit of why it's good. But there are also some really fundamental, simple reasons why it's good as well. And one is that you are practicing running the distance of the race fast. You're practicing running a half marathon fast, which most people would make the mistake of not doing before their race. You need to see what kind of time you can do for a half marathon so that you are one showing yourself that you can do it. And you need to do it multiple times.

What a confidence builder it is.

And that was the next point is it gives you confidence as to what pace you can predict and have as your race plan to actually hit the day on.

Yeah. And that's why it's important not to do it fresh, which is what I'm talking about. So sometimes I put a ride in front of it, sometimes I put a big ride the day before. And it depends on where you are and what race you're actually going for. So it is in the program and it's not done very often because it's very taxing. It's, you know, it's almost like doing actual half marathon race.

It is a really big mistake that we can't, we can't mention enough of. And that is that you can't be rocking up to your 70.3 without running a half marathon beforehand, without running one at your goal race pace to see how you will go. And I had a friend who I was helping run his first half marathon and we built up his endurance run to get to the point where he eventually did one of these runs. And he was shocked that he was going to do a half marathon in training because in his head it was quite a big objective to, you know, to complete the half marathon and he wasn't going for any elite time. He just wanted to get through it and prove to himself that he could do it. And he couldn't, he couldn't really comprehend why he was doing it in training. But doing it in training gave him so much confidence on the day and he ended up not making the mistake of blowing up in that last 5k. And he puts it down to only because of these training sessions he did where he understood the feeling at the back end and he didn't, he knew not to push himself too hard and get that really wrong feeling at the end.

Yeah, it's a really good, valid point. And, and you know, the longer the endurance race such as a marathon, you know, you can't be doing, you know, this type of run for a marathon. That's, that's just not what we're saying. You would, you would try to run in your training close to the time you're going to experience on race day at, you know, at least a few times in your easy, slow, endurance run. And, and that's an undulating run. And you might, you might only get 20k and say your PB for a triathlon marathon is four hours. If you've done 20k and it's taken you four hours on that hilly run, that's perfect. It's not the distance that matters, it's the time. And if you can run the time that you're going to do on race day. That's what we're trying to, trying to emphasize here.

Yeah, absolutely. That is a good way to finish. That is three key running sessions that you can really start incorporating into your program. And again, there's a lot of caveats that we mentioned. You've got to be really self aware and you know, don't take these sessions lightly. Don't just jump into them. Really have a think about how you could utilize them in your program. But that is a good way to finish with this episode. Thank you very much as always for listening and we'll see you on the next one.