The Ironman Training No One Should Copy w/ Matt Hanson

This podcast is brought to you by Trivalo 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, Gerard Donnelly. Matt Hansen is a pro triathlete known for his record breaking marathon splits and multiple Ironman North American championship titles. A former wrestler, he transitioned to triathlon in 2011, turned pro in 2013 and has since earned numerous accolades including the fifth fastest marathon split off the bike in Ironman history in 23439. He also holds an impressive academic background in exercise science. He was a professor before fully committing to triathlon and coaching in 2014. And he resides in Colorado, lives at altitude and with 10 pro wins to his name, four Ironman wins a 10th at Kona this year at the World champs with the second fastest run split of the day in 245. He currently sits in fourth in the inaugural Ironman Pro series which is really impressive in its first season. He's had a great year despite some big injury interruptions. Matt kindly joins us today in race week ahead of the Ironman 70.3 world champs in Taupo, New Zealand. He's going to give us a race review of Kona, an insight into some of his unique training methods as well as his specific run methods which is very different to probably what you've ever heard with with age group or pro triathletes and a preview for the weekend. So without further ado, here's the episode with Matt Hanson. Matt, thank you very much for joining us on the podcast. The very first question we like to ask athletes, and especially being race week for you, is what training session have you done today?

I had a three hour ride this morning, just chill, just kind of go through the motions. And then I did a hour run after that and of 3K swim.

Brilliant. So look.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, just trying to shift the jet lag.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Look, we want to talk about New Zealand. We'll, we'll get to that soon and talk about your race preparation and the plans for this weekend. But we do want to take it back to Kona and kind of start there and, and go through a bit of a race review and a race recap. Yeah, you had your best result at Krona so far with the incredible run, second fastest run of the day. So we'd love it if you could take us through. And we really want to dive into some aspects of your actual race plan and how you thought you executed. So yeah, take us through the lead up and specifically not a lot of people would know that you came in with a bit of a knee injury and you actually couldn't quite run at all leading into the race. So what was your limited run preparation and how much volume did it. Did you end up being able to do. To do?

Yeah, definitely wasn't the ideal lead up, but sometimes that's a blessing in disguise. But after Boulder 70.3 in June, I was going into my mid season break and. But I finished up that run and my knee just kind of blew up then with some swelling, I thought a week off would, it was kind of planned anyway so I thought that would take care of it. It didn't. So I kind of battled an issue all summer. I had a cyst that ruptured that created a bunch of swelling and that swelling kind of re aggravated another injury from my past. And so it just kind of was fighting with that. Yeah, literally all summer I would go a couple weeks pain free and then have a big setback and not be able to run. And yeah, with, with the pro series it was definitely a gamble. I had the surgery straight away in, in June. I could have been sacrificing the entire pro series if, if it didn't go perfectly and then, you know, so that was the initial thought was just do what I can to get through the year. And then yeah, about six weeks before Kona, it got to the point where I couldn't run at all and I went three weeks of zero running, zero impact running. I would do some aqua running. But yeah, I was pretty worried there and got to the point where yeah, I thought I was gonna have to pull the pin on Kona and thankfully it came around. With about 14 days to go. I did a 20 mile run, an 18 mile run and then a few taper runs leading into the race and called it good. So yeah, usually I would try to be nearly 110k per week leading up and I guess I didn't get anywhere near close to that. I got 30 miles so whatever that is in case not enough.

Yeah, exactly.

Did that have an impact, Matt, on your strategy for your race plan at Kona with not having what you've probably felt was a lack of confidence in your running capacity for, for a race like Kona, which is the biggest race of of the year and it's a world title.

Yeah, I knew I wasn't going to forget how to run. I just needed to get to, to get to the race day pain free. I also had the pleasure of training with Tim O' Donnell in 2019 when he kind of had the same thing. We were at a training camp together and, you know, I don't know how much he talked about it at the time, but he, he had an issue. So he was doing very limited running leading into the race and he had the race of his life or yeah, the race of his life there on that day. And so I was able to. To once I got where I could run again without limping every step. I was, I was pretty happy about just where things were at swimming, bike and knew if I could get off the bike and, you know, with the ability to see people, I would, I would be able to have that kind of carrot in front of me and hopefully be able to. I was pretty confident I could get to, to the Energy Lab. I didn't know how coming back from the Energy Lab was going to go. That's where things tend to fall apart or you can't, can't hide the lack of fitness there.

So last question on that. I really wanted to touch on the mental side because it's some of the biggest battles we get with any athlete, age grouper or pro, where if you are coming in with sickness or injury, you have to have that tough conversation with yourself or a coach where you say, do we pull the pin or not? So what factors were helping you decide whether to go ahead or not and what would have had to happen for you to pull the pin? Actually.

My age was, was the factor that kind of made pulling the pin not a. Not. Not going to happen. I'm not as young as I was yesterday, so, yeah, you never know how many world championships you have left. And, and I thought that if I could, if I could move, then I needed to, to do everything possible to, to just try for a result there.

Especially when it's a world title. So take us through the race. The swim, yeah, went as well as you could have hoped. You were, you were in a good pack. You came out with with a decent amount of people and ready to take on the bike.

Yeah. Swim was about what it needed to be. It would have been great to be in that group that was 90 seconds up the road. They were able to bridge the gap up to the first group. That's where perfect scenario I would have been, but kind of expected scenario was, was where I was and I knew there was some, some strong cyclists in the group that I was in. And Jackson Landry had actually stayed with me. I did my Kona build at home In Colorado and Jackson came down from Canada and stayed with me. So we did kind of. He did some altitude work. That's just home for me. But so I, I knew he was really fit on the bike and knew he was going to drive the pace. And coming out at the of the water, I sprinted through transition as fast as I possibly could just to get on the bike and get my shoes settled. Everything before him and a couple other guys that were in the group kind of took charge. I didn't want to lose, lose the train fumbling with my shoes. And so I knew I was going to have to just hammer it and be willing to go a little bit harder than I normally would have in a race because it's worth it to have a group to work with, especially on the windier days. And honestly, the plan was to try to hang with them in tel avi and then let them go. And I was with them. I, the person in front of me let a gap go right when we got to the Queen K, let a gap open. And it took me almost 30 minutes to close that, you know, 30 second gap. It was. I was right. You know, you have to kind of thread the needle of not going too, too hard and closing it too fast and then popping and falling off the back again to, you know, just kind of slowly make your way up. And I would get on and somebody else would let a gap go, have to go around them. So it was a tough, tough, you know, first 90 minutes for sure, and then got to the climb and Jack put, put the hammer down, which I kind of anticipated in doing. But I was able to hang with him, um, or hang with the group. I think I was sitting third or fourth in that group for that, for that climb. And the guy in front of me let a gap go about a mile before the end of the climb. And that was when, like, okay, well we're close enough to let him go. And so I just kind of made the decision to stick to my own plan from then on. And I mean, I've. I've been in that race a number of times where, you know, a lot of people blow up and they overbike, especially on the way back. And so my plan was to just sit at the, at the race plan, not let other people dictate my return trip at least. And, you know, I knew I was going to give up some time and I just, you know, had to trust that the race was going to come back to me. Uh, so that was, yeah, that was the game plan. I, I made it through you a mile short of that to the turn of Havi. And then, yeah, it was a long solo ride with a few mental battles on the way back to town.

How, how far were you over on the way out compared to what you would normally have if you were riding solo the whole way, were you a long way over your threshold? Give us an idea of how that looked.

Threshold? No, I mean, I was, I was probably 20 watts higher than I typically would average for an Ironman. And so that's, you know, two and a half. You're just 60 miles or 100k the turnaround. And so, you know, yeah, it was definitely a lot more surgery as well. So a lot more, you know, 400 watt, two 3 minute efforts to close gaps or to, you know, as you crest the hills, things in. So it was, yeah, it was definitely harder than, than I needed to be. My heart rate was staying really stable, so I was comfortable doing what I was doing. But we got some rain on the first hour and it was a really cool morning and so it started to warm up a bit as we were climbing and that's. Yeah, again, it just reinforced that the plan that I had was going to be the need to be the plan that I followed. And I was kind of in no man's land for, for quite a long time. And then once I got back to the airport, I could see the riders up in front of me again that had blown by or that I let go and I didn't catch them by the time I got in. But by the time I left transition, I was less than 30 seconds down from them because they kind of, I think a lot of them overextended themselves. A couple of them kept, kept on and carried on. But yeah, the, the run, you know, they came back to me even before the run started.

What was your power plan or your power numbers in terms of what, what you normally average and you said you were 20 watts over.

What was that?

And then what did you average on the way back?

Um, yeah, I was about 4.4 watts per kilo on the way out and then probably 4.1 on the way back. So I averaged about 4.2 overall. 4.2 and a half. So it was definitely my best Kona ride on par with most of the other Ironmans that I had done in the last couple years in terms of average power by the end of it. But a lot more, again, a lot more time spent above threshold, a lot more time spent in, you know, kind of that sweet spot zone when you.

Got off the bike. How did you feel mentally? Did you think you were in a good position? I don't talk. I'm not talking about position in the race. I'm talking about position as your body coping with what you've done on the bike and swim so far. Did you feel confident that it's easy to look backwards, but when you're in transition, changing into your running gear, what was your mindset? Were you thinking, boy, I've overdone this, or I'm good to go? Tell me about how you felt.

There I was. It's easy to feel good as. As you come through transition and you pass like five people running just to the tent and, and seeing the hurt on their face that you. You let go a long time ago. And so that. That always kind of gives you a little bit of. Of confidence. And I don't know who came up with the idea this year, but in the changing tents, all the volunteers had, for at least the. The front part of the race, they had really had ice towels and they wrapped them us in these towels as we were getting. And that was absolutely amazing. I. That's never happened to me before at that race, but it. It definitely cooled the bottle body down really well and I felt it. I mean, it just kind of again, was another kickstart as I was heading out. And then the first couple steps never feel good. But, yeah, I was happy with where the heart rate was at the start of the run and how the stride was just kind of flowing. Nice and easy.

You got it.

Sorry, Jordan. I was going to say. So were you mindful of where you were in the field and what was your game plan regarding your execution on the run?

I had no idea what place I was in. I knew it wasn't anywhere near the top 20. And yeah, the game plan is. Is always the same. It's just pick off one at a time. And in Kona, you have to be really patient. In a cooler race, I probably would have gone out a little bit harder even than I did there. And I went out plenty hard for the first 10k. But the down and back on Elite you drive is. There's a lot of fan energy, but there's also a lot of heat energy and you can. You can easily overcook it and you kind of find out. I. I've always said that you could sit at the top of. Right after the. We climb up plani. You could sit at the top there and watch people stride as they get to the top of that hill. And if they can open up Their stride, they're going to have a good day. And if they're struggling to get back their stride, they're in trouble. And that's. Yeah. Mile eight. So whatever that. Sorry, I'm. I'm not speaking the language. Yeah, it's. It's pretty early in the day. Everybody feels great on the down and back on the li. But that, that once you get there is kind of where things really start.

So, yeah, to paint that picture for everyone, I think you came in from the swim in 34th and then you came into T2 about 30th. And then like you said, it's. It's a matter of. Yeah. Picking everyone off one by one. So look, you've ended up with the second fast, fastest run split of the day. Can you take us through what your splits were even, like, first half or second half?

I was through the 10K. I think I was 37 minutes. So it was about right. It was a little bit slower than I would typically be for a normal. I typically go. If I'm chasing. I typically try to do the work early. The last. Yeah, the. I definitely hit. Hit some. Some tough, tough spots. Trying to climb out of the Energy Lab for. If you don't know, the Energy Lab is downhill into the wind on the way out, and then on the way back, you got to go uphill and you've got a tailwind behind you that's about the same speed that you're running. And so you just kind of roast because you're sitting in the same pocket of air. And yeah, that was where the slowest mile was. It was, I think, 702 or 703, which again, means probably very little to. For your end. But we're lucky.

Now we have half an Australian audience, half international, so half people will be able to do the conversion and.

Yeah, got it. Got it. Yeah. So I got, as I was coming down into the Energy Lab, I think I was 15th right at the start of the Energy Lab, give or take. And so I just kind of, you know, that's the last paycheck is. Is 15th. So that's kind of the first, like, okay, one barrier down now let's go get a bowl. And got down to the bottom and. And on the out and back. And I could. I think I was 12th or 13th at that point, but I could see everybody and I could see their body posture. I'm like, I could run into fifth or sixth. Like, if I hang tough, I can run into fifth or sixth. And that's where my head Was at. And I got to the turn and as soon as we started going uphill, I started fighting off some cramps and, and I could see 10th place in front of me and it just, I wasn't closing that gap that near as quickly as I was before. And yeah, I was not. Yeah, I, I struggled there for about a good 20, 25 minutes. Got out of the energy lab, got a little bit more body temperature down, got some fluids in, and then I was able to open it up again. But that, yeah, that, that was definitely the low point of energy wise. Mentally. It was, it was a fight. And then, yeah, thankfully turned the corner and was able to start making some ground up as we went back and yeah, moved into 10th with about 5k to go and could see 9th. But yeah, was again started picking up some good ground on him and then got to the last hill with two miles to go and yeah, that was. I started moving backwards again. So I, I was running great except on the hills. And that's where the strength, lack of, you know, just the lack of fitness from the limited run build kind of took a toll on me. But yeah, I was able to hold on for 10th and finally got like 8th time I've been there. Finally got a bowl to bring home with me and so really happy about the way I executed overall. Definitely left with a little bit of the mixed feelings because, you know, as an athlete we always want more. And I had the day that I've been wanting for a long time, but I just didn't have the fitness that I had a long time when I got or, you know, the many other times I've been there before. So if I, if I could have been in normal run shape, what the day could have been, you know, that's kind of the, the day after thoughts that were plaguing me a little bit, but overall, really happy with, with the day.

That's pretty impressive the way you've attacked that, that run, knowing that you were a little bit underdone and at any stage were you thinking, oh dear, I have overdone it here early with this initial 10k when you were going out and having those really bad periods out near the energy level, you're thinking, oh, I could have overdone this. And what was your mindset there? Were you thinking, I've overdone it because my preparation is not good enough, or is it, I can battle my way through this, or is it the nutrition that's lacking here, or is it a combination of all these things? How are you thinking about when you were faltering a little bit in that one mile where you said you ran seven, seven minute mile pace and then you, you came back again. Tell us the mindset that was going on and you must have been having some arguments with yourself about what's happen, what's going to happen next and what should I be doing.

Yeah, you always have those arguments and the key is to get rid of them as quickly as you can. It's focus on here and now. What can I do to address my situation right now? You know, I, I had very clear objectives and, and outcomes that I wanted from, from the race and I wasn't willing to, you know, I'd come seven hours and put myself in a chance to at least have a, you know, be able to fight for them in the last hour to get what I wanted out of the day. And so I just wasn't willing to give in to discomfort. And yeah, you've got to be, you've got to be really stubborn sometimes. And, and yeah, sometimes it does take you being able to flush everything else and just okay, this is what I need right now or this is what I can do right now. And yeah, we don't always win that battle. But the ones that do are the ones especially in a race like Kona where you're uncomfortable for a long time on the day. Those are the ones that come out on top there.

Well, firstly, congratulations on the top 10 finish. It's in your best result there. That's yeah incredible race from you and incredible to get there and we love that. It's such great insight into how the race panned out. And this is our favorite part is getting to dive deeper into a race review and find out more details. 245. So you ran that in 2022. You basically ran almost the same time within 20 seconds I think of the same run you mentioned, you know, you're more capable of that. I think your Ironman record is 234 on the run. So where do you think you sat in terms of what you're able to do versus your, your actual potential if you hadn't come in injured?

I mean if it's always tough like, you know, we can always say, yeah, if I could have ran, you know, a 239 there, then that probably puts me fifth. But if I'm in 239 run shape, does that hurt My bike a little bit, you know, so, you know, the, it would be easy to say, oh yeah, I could have, you know, if I could have just ran the last 10k like I normally would have, you know, top five was certainly a, a possibility. But, you know, I also did a lot more work on the bike because I was running, you know. Yeah, I wasn't running 10 hours a week, I was running three. So. Yeah, the realist is, is, you know, that's a tough question to answer. You know, I've always been pretty honest that my goal when I made this career move was to win a world championship and to do that. Do I think I have the physical tools? Yes. Have I executed the day there? No. And, you know, was this the year that I could have had a shot if I would have been healthy? I don't know. Patrick had a heck of a day and, you know, if when you swim first pack, ride first pack and then still be able to run, you know, what he did, you got to tip your cap and, you know, figure out a way to get better.

It's interesting knowing that you are unable to train in your running sessions the way you wanted to and, and you devoted a little bit more time, I imagine, to swim and bike and, and some other, some things that, where the 10 hours of running wasn't happening. So do you think you did a really good job in improving other areas when you had this more time available to devote to the swim and the bike? And how did you go about that? What was your theory around preparing properly for Kona on the bike?

Yeah, I mean, if you compare this race to 20, 22, at one point in 22, I think I was 50th on the bike and then ran up to 15th. That was probably the mile 60. And then I caught a pretty big group on the way back in, but, you know, I just was back of the second pack on the swim and then got spit out right away on the bike. And so here I was able to swim kind of in the front of the, the second pack and kind of lead them in to transition, which allowed me to get back up, you know, get out on the bike really quickly and get set before the, you know, the big hitters started, you know, hammering it. And, you know, so just that part alone made a huge difference of my day. Instead of hanging onto the back of the chase group, I was in the front of it and then on the, in the swim and then that, yeah, I had the ability to close the gaps and maybe a little, maybe I had the ability along. Just didn't have the confidence to do that in the past as well, or the, you know, the desire to do it here. I had a very Clear race plan. And yeah, I was able to, to follow it because of the training that I did and just having the confidence with that. What I did differently, you know, swim, I added one swim a week. So a couple, a couple times I was swimming twice a day in the build or like one day a week I would swim twice and then was yeah, doing a fair bit more top end work on the bike which typically when the run volume gets high, that gets hard to hit. And so being able to just hit the numbers that I normally wouldn't be able to hit due to the run volume was I think something that helped as well.

Can you give us an insight into some of what some of those sessions were? So potentially what some of those top end sessions are, I'm imagining that's kind of VO2 work you're referring to.

Yeah, so we did a progression where it would be like three by hour at kind of 70.3 watts or just between Ironman and 70.3 watts and then straight into like eight by two minutes or it kind of expanded but it was two minute efforts at zone five on very tired legs. And then the next day we would come into some long, drawn out threshold work. So it was, it wasn't just one session. I've never been somebody that does these like mega epic sessions. It's you know, stacking the fitness and you know, just having every session build on the next session and, and yeah, building into, into it that way instead of relying on epic sets to, to prepare me. If people saw I don't have Strava, but if people saw my training peaks, they'd probably be, you know, disappointed in the individual week but impressed in the overall build. I don't really have a lot of days off and I don't really, you know, take recovery weeks unless I've just raced. It's just kind of consistently build the CTL until it's time to taper.

That's brilliant and that's so cool to hear. And I definitely tried to find any sort of data on your training or your Strava and obviously it wasn't there. What about endurance wise or volume wise? What are kind of some of the biggest sessions you're doing and what are you looking to achieve out of them?

The bigger bikes that I was doing, I just would get out in the mountains and enjoy riding my bike. I, I, where I'm at in, in south of Denver, I can do a couple rides that, yeah, that get out to the tallest paved road in the world. So I can start at, at 62, 000ft and you know, I could go all the way up and end up 14, 000ft, which I'm not going to try to do math and get called out for being wrong, but it's, it's high.

The comparison is what matters. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't get all the way up. I didn't go all the way up during this build. But yeah, I would do a six and a half hour ride every week and just, and then a runoff of that when I was healthy and if not I would do an aqua run or, or I used a lever a little bit which I can take 30 of the body weight off and run like that. So it did some of that as like the long, long days, but it wasn't, you know, you spend two hours of that descending. Um, so it's not like you're averaging race pace or anything like that. You just keep, keep hard pressure on the pedals when you're climbing. Enjoy the elk and the moose that you see swimming in the lake next to you and, and yeah, just enjoy riding your bike.

That's brilliant. Um, we want to touch on the, what you mentioned before, which is you just said, yeah, clearly some athletes overextended themselves and that was kind of a lot of the discussion post race. Um, some of the top athletes did. But then, you know, you look across the board and, and there was just a lot of variation in what people could potentially do on the bike and run and what they ended up doing. And yeah, this whole race plan from you about, you know, sticking with the group for the first half, then really not letting your ego get ahead of yourself or, or the potential baiting of what everyone else is doing to, and just stick to your own plan. How did you view kind of that, that topic around. Yeah, athletes overextending themselves and clearly blowing up by, you know, it started with Sam just, just riding, absolutely putting the hammer down and then a lot of other athletes following. What's, what's your review of the race from that context?

You, you have two types of people in the race. You have people that are there to try to win it and then there to try to have the best day possible. If I was there this year to try to win it, I would have had to stay with that group. That second group, that was my only shot at being anywhere near the front. At the end of the day, I didn't feel like I had done the work on the run, especially to give myself a chance to win it. And so I have, I've been there enough times to know that a lot of people blow up and the race is going to come back to you. You know, the top 10 off the bike is very rarely the top 10, top 10 at the end of the day. So I think that, you know, there are a lot of people that were there with the intent on winning. Like Sam was there. He knew he had to get, you know, if you, I was at the press conference beforehand, he thought he had to have a six and a half to seven minute gap on Christian to have a chance to win. Christian knew that too. So, you know, they're doing what they could to, you know, kind of, they're doing the math ahead of time, say, this is what I need to do on the bike to give myself a chance to win. And so Sam went off by him, by himself. I'm sure he hoped that Magnus would have gone with him, or I think Magnus hoped that he could have gone with him, but that wasn't in the cards. And so, yeah, I mean, all those guys were doing what they had to do to try to set themselves up for a win. And if you look at the podium, you know, those guys benefited from everybody else killing themselves to do that. I guess Magnus tried and he rallied back, which was very impressive because a lot of people when they, yeah, start cramping like that, aren't able to do that. But yeah, I mean, like Patrick was able to. I'm not, this is not that this was him being a veteran. He was able to, you know, he had a great swim and it was able just not have to do a lot of towing because other guys were, were trying to put themselves in a chance to win. And that helped him out significantly.

It's an interesting debate, isn't it, when you, you look post race and see how it panned out for those guys who had these theories about what they needed to do during the race to win the event. And yet it doesn't. It, you know, it's easy in hindsight always. We can, we can look back and say, well, you know, riding like that for Sam had the consequences of, you know, basically walking on the run and, and for Christian to ride so hard at the front of that pack, he ended up with the same outcome. And, and you could go through many other, many other athletes who tried to do exactly the same thing because, you know, whether they thought that's, that's what they had to do to win the race. And yet Patrick had the different mindset. And again, it's easy in hindsight, but to try to run your own race. And I'm not talking about running, I'm talking about executing your own race all through the day is almost more important than trying to win the race. And you know, and a lot of, a lot of years at Kona have shown people that you, you can't really go out there to try and win the race. You've got to actually execute the race. And if your execution on race day is good enough, then you win. But, but to try and race the race is always going to end up with some tears for. For. And as it turned out this time the majority of the field really didn't have the run that they wanted to.

Yeah, it was a, it was a really deceptive day. It started off so cool and so everybody just got in the mindset that we can hammer it today because the winds were down, it was raining and it was like the coolest I've ever felt in any training ride. Didn't come and let alone. And again it, it heated up really quickly and so I think people were a little bit behind on their planned nutrition just with. Yeah. How cool things started and then it, I think that was another aspect that not many people have talked about really at, at in the post race stuff that I've seen. But I think that definitely had a big impact on how the day went, was how quickly it got warm and, and when it did, the wind was down, which makes for potential a fast day, but it also doesn't cool yourself, cool you down near as much.

Yeah, it's, it's been awesome to slowly get a little bit of info from a lot of athletes on different podcasts and revealing. And Christian recently went back on the Rich Roll podcast where he kind of spoke about what he thought was the gastro problems and it was, it was a bit of a mix of things and he, he really thought the. He admitted that. Yeah, the intensity was probably a part of it, but he's been having a lot of gastro problems previously in races where he's ended up vomiting. But yeah, it sounds like that, that one topic you just mentioned, which is it's starting off cool, has lured a lot of people into, into a false sense of security. We haven't heard that take as much. So that really makes a lot of sense. And I wish it's the only part of triathlon that we're missing a lot I think is I wish we could have. And there's a reason we don't have this, but I wish we got to access everyone's power files and data for the bike leg so we could see what did everyone push in that first 30 miles, 60 miles compared to the back end and how much did it really cook the run leg? And one question I had on that for you was you are now using the Darefoot technology, which you did a video about on your YouTube, which is basically live tracking of your aerodynamics. It's basically giving you live feedback about how aero you are and that's a pretty amazing new tool. Were you using that live in the race and was that we. Was that giving you feedback to. Were you making any changes based on that?

No, I wasn't using it live during the race. Yeah, I just used a standard heart rate monitor during the race. The thing that I found most valuable about that leading into the race was just seeing how the position was changing during those long 60 minute blocks in Arrow that I was doing and then being able to look at the data afterwards. And so, okay, well, this is when I probably could have been sitting up and resting back because the speeds were so slow that the drag wasn't. It wasn't going to make a difference really if I was sitting up or, you know. So just trying to learn about, about that a little bit more and glean some insights there. Yeah, they've been a fun company to work with. I've started just recently and yeah, they've made a lot of improvements on their platform and on the user interface and they're very young, so I'm sure there'll be quite a bit more to come out on that as they mature. Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, one more question. On the bike leg and the improvement there, 2022, you were 15th and your race time was 8:04. And it's always hard to compare year on year race times for exactly the reason you just said. You know, a cooler day can create faster conditions, but you've done a 754, you've improved the bike leg by eight minutes. What do you put that down to? Because it's obviously not what you said before where you're doing any majorly different sessions. It's the. Is it the consistency of the training you've been able to put in for like two years? Was it the lower run volume, faster day? What do you think?

I mean, it definitely was a little bit of a faster day. But again, sitting in the press conference, I was asked by Paul K. How many people were going to go sub 8 and I said 15. And they kind of laughed at me and I said, no, you're going to have to go sub 8 if you want a paycheck. And it turned out to be 16. So I kind of felt that that's just the direction we're going. You have to get faster, otherwise you're not relevant anymore. And so, you know, I think part of it is just believing that yeah, we can go faster now, but obviously, you know, the improvements in aerodynamics, you know, we always find another way every year to reduce a little bit more drag. You know, we get a little bit smarter about the training that we're doing. I think, you know, I've, that this is kind of where my background is, is like I was a professor of exercise science before coming to triathlon and I've always been critical of the traditional training methods because they treat us like swimmers, bikers and runners, individual sports, not as triathletes as a whole. And we're finally figuring out, you know, as the sport matures and gets a little bit older, it's still pretty young compared to any of the other, any of the other sports. And so, you know, coaches are getting, you know, a little bit or a lot better at treating us as triathletes and not as people who swim, people who bike and people who run, like. Yeah. And so I think that's changing things significantly as well.

What does that mean for you specifically? How does that, how's that changing for you? Thinking of that mindset of, of combining all three sports and not trying to train them individually.

I do very, very little slow running. I do my aerobic work on the bike. I don't really need, feel like I need to run just to get aerobic work. That's just going to add fatigue into the system. And so when I'm running, I'm running, you know, kind of I'm not trying to run faster, but I'm not trying to run slower either. Like I just go out and you know, if it's a two hour run, I'll probably be, you know, at a, at a 6:10 per mile, which is a 242 marathon pace. And that's what I do all my base running at is. And that's what's comfortable for me. That's where it's at. But you know, I've, I've had a lot of people like, oh, you need to slow that down because you know, the marathoners that are running 150 miles a week, you know, they're running, you know, two miles or two minutes per mile slower. I'm a triathlete, I do so many, you know, 220 watt rides for six, seven hours. I don't really need to run just to get the aerobic system. I need to run those long runs to have the durability in the legs to handle the last 10k at pace. And yeah, so I've done that my entire career and I think that's becoming more and more popular now as. Yeah, that's just one of the changes that I think is starting to come in.

That is such an interesting take. And look, it's really cool to hear from you because we are very much of the opinion for age groupers, we don't want to risk any running intensity with them just because of durability. Not many age groupers would be able to run more than 60 mile weeks consistently. And that's just a training thing. But you're obviously a very different type of athlete. So out of that. So you're saying you're running up to 100, 110 miles per week generally?

No, no, no, sorry. Peak at 70 to 75 for like two or three weeks in. In the field. So. Yeah, definitely not hitting 100 mile. Yeah, definitely. Definitely not.

Yeah. Yeah. Because there, I mean there are marathoners out there that are. Yeah.

That do.

That's happening. 110 mile, 160k weeks. Yes.

Yeah.

So you're saying that majority of that. Yeah, if you're, if you're around that 60 mile mark or 50 to 60, a lot of that is at. Is at race pace and higher or just generally around Rice consistently.

No, I definitely do a lot of, a lot of speed work, a lot of tempo. Um, yeah, If I'm running 60 miles, it's, you know, right. At six hours. It's kind of how that's. Yeah, it, it's 10 miles an hour.

Well, it's obviously doing good. You're good because you want the best run is an iron man. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, we've had a few good days.

But on that point, Matt, were you surprised that a lot of the runners really didn't run to their potential at Kona? Or was it. Were you expecting that result for the way that everybody was attacking the ride? And I know it's easier in hindsight to have this opinion, but to be fair, there was really only four runners who ran under 250.

Yeah.

And you know, the majority of the field are all better than 250 marathon runners.

Was.

Was that a bit of a shock to you?

Yeah. Looking at the results afterwards, you know, coming in at a 245, I definitely didn't think I'd have been in the top five. I thought there would have been five people under 240. And just the way that the course shook out, they hammered it on the bike and, you know, you gotta pay the piper somehow. Um, and, and so, yeah, sometimes that's, that's the way that dynamics work out. And it happened to favor me a little bit this year because I was able to constantly have somebody to chase and kind of keep that motivation high. When you're constantly closing on the person in front of you, it just kind of helps the mindset just a little bit more.

I'm interested also to ask you, going into the New Zealand World Championships coming up this weekend, when you look at your competitiveness on the bike at Kona, the majority of riders are riding somewhere around four hours to four, six. And a lot of that's because they're in a pace line. And as you said, There was literally 20 guys up the road in a pace line and you're in the second pack and your time is around the 4:14. And a lot of, when I looked at the data, a lot of riders who rode 410 to 415 had better runs than the, than the athletes in the race who rode 4 to 405. And that answers the question of over biking a lot, clearly, because the data proves that. But, but what things can you do and what did you try to do post Kona to get yourself a little bit more competitive? Because it is a big jump, isn't it? From 4:4 to 4:05 to 4:10 to 4:14. And I know it depends on what group you're in and who's driving the group. So that's not necessarily a true indication of your level. It's dictated a lot by the group you're in. So, so the things that you, that you're thinking about, how am I going to get more competitive against these guys as a bike rider? Because you're, you're clearly running world class in these races.

Well, right after two days after cone, I had knee surgery. So that kind of hindered the build into Taupo a little bit. So I got my knee fixed and I didn't know if I was going to be able to get healthy to race in time with the pro series. I wanted to be here and, and give it a shot if I was able to safely do so again. You never know how many shots you're going to have left. And I definitely, yeah, wanted to be here if I could. Thankfully, the recovery went pretty well and I was able to get on the bike Within a few days of surgery, just with easy spins and I was running 10 days post surgery at partial body weight and within two weeks I was kind of on the ground running outside. So all things considered, it went as good, the recovery went as good as I, it could have. I didn't do a lot of mileage still, but I was able to get on the track four times, which I hadn't done since May. So that was encouraging as well. And, but yeah, bike wise it was a lot of like kind of the max, 4 minute, max 2 minute efforts repeated over and over and over again to where I finally told coach with about six days or eight days to go before the race, I said no more. I've, I've hit my L5 quota of the year. I'm done, I'm waving the right white flag. But yeah, and then we actually started putting in a couple this year more so than years past. After a hard threshold type swim, having the bike set up on the pool deck and jumping on straight after and doing kind of a crisscross ladder, so, or over, under, so where you're going just above threshold and then below and kind of just going back and forth for like 20 to 40 minutes and using that to, to mimic the first 20 to 30 minutes of the race because there'll be times where you're soft pedaling so you don't, you know, turn the race ranger lights the wrong color, but times where you have to absolutely hammer it to protect your space and to stay with the group. So yeah, just we hit a couple of those sessions in the last couple weeks as well, which are always painful but hopefully give a little bit more confidence that you can do what you need to do for that first half hour.

So finishing off with looking ahead to this week and now that you've, you had the surgery, you've recovered, it all went to plan. What is your mindset coming into this week and what's the game plan for the race?

Yeah, the mindset is always the same. It's just execute as clean a day as possible and yeah, let the results sort themselves out. There's not a huge amount of movement that I think for myself can happen on the, on the pro series and I think if, unless I'm totally missing something, unless Matthew Marcourt has a mechanical or something and doesn't finish, I think I'll end up fifth. I think he's the only one that can pass me. But it would take some crazy circumstances for me to move up just one spot. I don't think I can I think I'm in fourth right now and if I won and Hogan hog finished well back then I could possibly get third. But I'm not, yeah, I'm not counting on, on that as a scenario and I'm not counting on, you know, Matthew having a bad day. He's been super consistent all year and so I'm sure he'll be up at the front most of the anyways. Just it's racing style so I'm not really worried about the, the series on the day. It's just, yeah, trying to put myself in a good spot on the swim. So much of how the days in the 70.3 go is determined by the first 500 meters and if you can get into the group that you want to get into this course especially there's not a lot of on the bike, there's not a lot of difference or a lot of changes in the course that are going to break the field up. So if you're there, you're there and it's going to be really hard to chase if you're not because that front of the, the front of the field is going to be flying and so sure some of them won't run well because of that but you know, it's, it's going to be cold enough so that, that takes a big, you know, question mark out of your big variable that we have in Kona kind of just gone. It's, it's going to be a thoroughbred stay and yeah, all about the engine. So you've got to be just ready to hammer it for three and a half hours.

And are you feeling ready? Are you feeling as prepared as you can be given the interruptions?

Yeah, I mean no one sits in December, 50 weeks into their season feeling great unless you had an injury or something that, that you know, kept you from racing for all of the summer. Right. We're all tired. It's been a long season, but it was refreshing to get back on the track and be running pain free for the first time in six months. So it was kind of a fun last six weeks of the build after Kona. Just feeling good again. At least. You know, I'm tired but I'm moving well and I'm not hurting. At the end of the night I can go out and walk my dog because I'm not so sore at the end of the day that I'm limping and don't want to walk the dog, you know. So it just made the last bill, it made it a lot easier to get through the last Last, you know, slog of training and, you know, it's. It's definitely a grind. You saw a lot of people pulling out of the start list. As we get closer and closer, another couple of people would pull out and, you know, it's. It's a long year. So, yeah, it'll make it entertaining to watch because it's very similar to cone on paper. We know what the outcomes might be, what they should be, or who should be, where, but. Yeah, that's why we race.

Exactly. Exactly. One thing I think our audience would be really interested in is I know that previously you had mentioned on a podcast that you had had serious problems trying to manage and get on top of your insanely high sweat rate and salt loss rate. I think over the course of Ironman, you said that it could be upwards of five to eight to nine kilos, I think 15 to 20 pounds. How have you managed this and gotten on top of this the last few years? And was it an impact at Kona again, or do you feel like you're fully on top of it?

Yeah, so this I used to be like, I used to thrive in the heat, and then I got heat stroke in 2016, and I've struggled in it ever since, and it's taken a lot of time to try to figure out how to get on top of it. I went to the heat lab and did a lot of research on what was going wrong, what, you know, and I was losing a lot of salt and a lot of fluids and, and yeah. So being able to alter the, The. The nutrition plan for hot races especially, I had to take a step back in total. In total calories, add sodium. But then I was supplementing ketones on the bike to use as a fourth macro to kind of make up for the 25 grams an hour less in carbs that I was taking in. And so that was definitely something that helped me once I kind of figured out how to dial that in. It took a year of, of playing with Keto Mojo and taking a lot of blood samples as I was doing it. But I also think that living at altitude as soon as I moved out to Colorado in 20, end of 2020, and obviously there wasn't a lot of racing in 20 until end of 2021. But from then on, I started to notice that I was slowly feeling better and better as I was managing the heat a little bit better in races. And I think living at altitude, you get a lot of the adaptations that you would from a typical heat threat block. And I think that definitely played an impact as well. So it was just, yeah. Figuring out a few things differently on. On the nutrition side of things. And then, yeah, I think moving to altitude also helped. Like this year, I didn't go and do a heat camp for Kona. I just stayed in Colorado and we had some warm days, but it's not humid at all and it was able to never feel totally uncomfortable. Well, heat wise. Yeah.

Yeah. So.

Are you looking forward to racing in a really cooler, possibly a really cool environment come the weekend?

Yeah, definitely. I love racing in the. In the cooler temps, but everybody goes a little bit faster. It's great for the ego, but it's still. Because the numbers come a little bit easier. But yeah, they come a little bit easier for everybody. So it does make for a faster day. Makes things a little bit more exciting for. For the runners. It makes it a little bit harder because you can get a lot more. People will get away with being stupid on the bike and not paying the price for it on the run. But yeah, that you got to be able to. To put together the day and whatever conditions are thrown at you.

And so on that temperature note, can you tell us how much fluid and. And salt you're taking on per hour in Kona? And does that plan dramatically change for this weekend?

Yeah, so I would take in two and a half bottles an hour on the bike minimum and trying for 2 grams of sodium minimum, which is a fair bit. And yeah, on the bike and then on the run, it's just whatever I possibly can without giving myself gut rot. Um, and. But I. I definitely took in an obnoxious amount of sodium this year. And yeah, I probably paid the price for that for a couple days after the race. But it worked. It worked out all right. So on the right if anyone doing that. Yeah, I won't be doing it this weekend.

Does it? And yeah, I'm really curious. And for anyone listening, this is not. Just because a pro is doing. This is not what you should do. We've just mentioned that. Yeah, he loses insane amount of sweat and salt. 2003 grams an hour is wild.

Yeah.

Yeah. Per hour is just crazy. And so. Yeah, how does that. How do you adjust that?

That's not one just to copy just for this. You heard somebody doing it. That's it. Will doing that won't make you run faster. I promise. Weekends, I'm not worried about sodium really at all of whatever's in my. In my bottles with the. With the fast food nutrition stuff will. Will be perfectly sufficient. So it's. It's Kind of the opposite here is when it's as cold as it is for the first hour of the bike, a lot of people kind of forget to take anything in. It's easy to get behind because you're not, you're not sweating or you're not noticing that you're sweating and your teeth are chattering because you're cold. So it's hard to squeeze a bottle. I have Renaud so my hands stop functioning completely when they get cold. I got a flat this morning and I couldn't, I couldn't twist the valve open with my hands. Like I had to try to use two fingers and, and like my hands just don't work when they get cold. And so yeah, it's the, the struggle for a cold race like this will be getting the. Just reminding yourself that you have to keep the engine burning hot.

Last couple of questions. Firstly, congrats on, on what should be fourth in the, in the Ironman Pro series. The first year I went into world champ I just hadn't even considered, you know, and of course that the athletes would be looking at the points going oh wait, can I, can I move up or down here at all? Just when it, because it's a world title. I was just focused on the world title. But that's such a brilliant point because it could really change the way you race. Let's say that you are in a situation where you know, Bradley below you was closer. It would potentially change the way you race the race and you might go easier or harder in sections because you're actually just racing him compared to racing for the world title. So how, what's your review of the first season and thinking about that and changing the way you race like that?

Yeah, I mean I think that the way that they developed the series worked out pretty, pretty well. I think that there's a three way fight, three guys that could potentially win it here that are racing 70.3 worlds and then there's two women who can go for the win that are both here. So, you know, it comes down to the last race of the year which is exactly what you know, Ironman would have wanted if they're drawing it up on the board. So, you know, from that perspective I think that the, the way things are structured are pretty, pretty good overall. I'm sure there'll be some adjustments, but I don't think they need to change dramatically that much with how well it seems to have gone this year. And then for me, you know, last year was not a good season. I didn't have fun. I wasn't racing well and this announcement of the pro series was very timely for me. It kind of gave me a kind of kick in the butt to have something to shoot for this year. And yeah, I mean I had the goal of 20,000 points at the end of the year, which I thought would have been necessary to win. Probably won't need quite that many to get the win, but pretty darn close. And you know, I spent a good portion of the year on top of the series but yeah, unfortunately just wasn't able to. To stay healthy and see what I could have done if I could have. Yeah, stayed healthy all year, but that's part of it. It's, you know, five race season with doing three Ironmans is. It's going to take a big toll on the body. And so the people that are at the top at the end are the ones that have figured out how to stay healthy year round and be consistent. And you know, I think that that definitely is a big part of being a professional and having a long career as well. So I think it's a great time to be a professional triathlete. You have the PTO come in and, and really help us out of COVID especially with, you know, pushing Daytona in 2020. That helped me significantly and then the Collins cup then, you know, and then which kind of led to the, the pro series that they had this year and then Iron man stepped up and announced a competing series which has been great. So as long as we, you know, I'm really hoping that both, you know, that the PTO can, can keep pushing forward and keep going because that's going to keep this pro series on the Ironman side of things going and, and yeah, just bring the sport forward. We've seen so many advancements in the last couple of years and I think that's because a lot more people are seeing it as a viable career that, you know, they're not moonlighting, they're going at it 100% and it's, it's a lot of fun to, to be a part of. It's a lot of fun to, you know, I've been doing this professionally since 2014 and to see the evolution of the sport in the last 10 years has, has been a lot of fun. So it's, it's definitely good to, yeah. See where it is now versus where it started for sure. I mean, I think 2014 to 2018, we saw a decrease in the overall prize money that was going to the pros and now it's Kind of starting to push on again.

Do you think after experiencing the first year in the pro series that you would do things differently now that you've had a go at the whole season and having to measure your efforts throughout the year? How do you think you've managed this year and what would you do differently next year?

I don't think I'll do. I think a lot more people will do what I did. I was kind of the only one of the top 15 guys that had five full races or their pro series done before Kona. And so, you know, I was going to Kona to get rid of bad scores versus, you know, having to have an amazing day at Kona to be relevant. And you saw a lot of potential people who could have been there, have a bad day in Kona or, you know, went for it in Kona and walked the run and then they're out of the series as well. So I think that there'll be more people that have that safety net race. Like I went to Hamburg and didn't have an amazing day there, but I went there and yeah, so I had, you know, it kept me in the lead, you know, through the, through the going into Kona, which I think gave a little bit back to my partners and my sponsors and, and just, yeah, it got some exposure for, for my supporters, which I'm grateful for. But it also meant that I didn't have to do anything stupid in the race. I just had, you know, I could, I could improve myself, but I couldn't ruin my season in that race. So, yeah, I mean, there's pros and cons of that. If you, if you have the durability to handle that, great. You know, there's a lot of young kids that are chasing the series that have done, you know, two foals in their lives and now next year they're going to try to do four. You know, I think that that'll have some unintended, unintended consequences down the road for a few people and, and with how closely they're going to be packed together next year. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that long term shakes out if people are still able to race into their 40s or not when they're going, you know, doing three, four folds a year when they're 23, 24, 25. But I don't know, with, with the new money in the sport, maybe they've, they've made a living by the time they're, they're 35, 36 and don't have to race when they're 40 anymore.

All right, well, thank you very much for your time. Last question. And I, and I know age groupers and any amateur athlete just loves hearing this because it's always slightly different for everyone, but you've got a pretty busy few days and you've got a lot of stuff to attend to as a pro in terms of scheduling and meetings and stuff. How do you approach the last few days of training? We'd love to know. What does your training specifically look like? How much volume do you do? How much intensity? How do you figure out a taper leading into the weekend?

Yeah, I had a five hour day today and that mainly because of the travel. It was 18 hours of travel, so I wanted a little bit of a bigger aerobic day, a little bit of spice in the pool, but nothing crazy. And the bike and the run were just to make the body feel a little bit better. And tomorrow is a just swim on the course. So today was a hard swim, tomorrow's an easy swim. And then I've got a. I've got a pretty hard run tomorrow. I think I've got 6 by 1k at like 5k pace. So it'll. Yeah, it'll be a little. Yeah. Be something that I have to show up for. Can't just go through the motions and then. Yeah, yeah. What day is tomorrow? Wednesday. So then Thursday is my busy day with everything. So I've got a hard swim and then nothing else on Thursday. And then Friday will be an hour bike with some openers and maybe one 10 minute block at race pace and a runoff and then a bike. And then Saturday I go through the motions on the bike and the run for about 40 minutes total and then enjoy the women's race. Thankfully, I can watch my. Watch the run from my. From my window so I don't have to be out on my feet.

Yeah, that's great. Anything else from you, dad, before we finish?

No, I just want to say thanks so much, Matt. It's been brilliant insight. And look, I do want to emphasise that we're asking Matt questions from a professional point of view. A lot of the age groupers will take on board a lot of what you're doing as an athlete, as a professional. And we want to reinforce that what a professional does is not exactly what we want the age groupers to do, especially on the bike. With the discussion, the great discussion we had with you about racing the race and trying get into that, that front group so that you could actually run properly. We don't want our age groupers to think like that. We want them to think completely different, to race their own race the whole way through. And I'm sure you would add to that knowing your knowledge as an athlete and as a coach. But yeah, we really want to thank you so much for being part of our little podcast and we really can't wait to see how you go on the weekend. And we've really enjoyed all the insights into your racing strategies and what you were thinking and you know, the way you've gone about it is it's really, it's a great listen. So thank you.

Yeah, thanks. It's good to. Good chat.

No, no, really appreciate it. Congrats on a great season, a really good first Ironman pro season. Your best result at Kona and good luck this weekend. We can't wait to see how you go. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Sam.