The Most Important Cycling "Must-Haves"

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. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today is about asking the coach anything. We do get constant emails from listeners asking some questions and sometimes we want to answer them or on this podcast. So there's some key questions that we get, and sometimes we get repeating questions, which means it's important for you guys to know or learn about. And so that's what this episode is about. We're going to ask the super coach here some key questions that you want to know about and what are the answers. So we've got some specific questions coming up. But first, dad, welcome back to another episode. Let's talk about our gratitudes. What's your gratitude for the week?

Thanks, Jord. I always love these episodes because we get to really give people some detail about specific stuff that generally a lot of people are thinking about asking that question. And now we get a chance to probably summarize 50% of the people you know would like to and know the answers to these questions. So, so my gratitude to start with, for those of you who have listened to our podcasts over the years and we're up to what number, George?

140 or something?

40 something.

140.

We did a, we did a, quite a, an emotional one. I don't know what episode it was, but my niece Shauna, my brother's daughter, my older brother, brother's daughter. Shauna was 31 at the time, I think. And we did a podcast with her and she came out and really talked in detail and very personally about her journey with bowel cancer that she had. And it's been three years since she was diagnosed with cancer and it was looking pretty grim that she might not survive. So my gratitude is that three years on in that period, not only has she survived, she has gone on this fitness campaign regime that is pretty amazing. And she's had a few ups and downs over those three years where there's things where she's had to stop training again because she needed more treatment and some, some minor injuries and hasn't all been smooth sailing by any means. So, you know, I'm grateful, A, that she's here, but B, that she's taken on this fitness campaign and, and, you know, when she couldn't run, she said, all right, I'll start swimming. And so next thing you know, she started swimming 800-kilometer, 1200, 1400. And now she's at nearly 3000 meters in some of her swims. And she did a time trial the other day which was completely foreign to her as she's a non swimmer but just wants to stay fit and swimming was her next passion. So here she is smashing a PB in her swim 1k time trial. And you know, her running program has gone from, you know, five minute walk runs to being able to run for, you know, nearly 90 minutes. And so it's, it's an incredible story, an incredible journey, and I'm really grateful that she's been able to just have such a great attitude and positivity about whatever she's capable of doing. She's making those really important steps about organizing her life so that, you know, she's going to make the most of every day and every opportunity. And it's only when things are taken away from you and potentially not looking too rosy that you appreciate what you are, where you are in your life and what things you can do to make your life much more enjoyable and more fulfilling and not put off things that, you know, you just, you shouldn't, you should just get into life every day you can. And that, that's, you know, it's a long winded one, but, but it really, you know, it means a lot to our family and especially to Shauna and, and those of you who've listened to the podcast will remember that was a very emotional PO podcast that we had. And, and if you ever get a chance to go back and listen to that one. And here she is, you know, really killing it now, three years on.

It's funny that we start these episodes with gratitude because Shauna is the queen of gratitude. And when life is basically taken away from you, you start really valuing it. And it's, it's sucks sometimes that it takes those kind of moments for us to appreciate what we have or appreciate life itself. But I just call Shauna the Queen of gratitude because I happen to run into her so often. We live near each other anyway, but I, so often I run into her on a run or she might be on a run herself or on a bike ride or walking the 10. And every time, without a doubt, one of the first things she says is she's just so happy because she's living and she's on a great walk or a great run. It's a great day. And she says herself that not every day is a great day, but she really tries to make the most of it and she's just the epitome of trying to soak up life and it's so, it's so inspiring and it rubs off on everyone around you when you have that mindset. And that's a big reason why we started the gratitudes on this podcast. My one is just grateful for dinner with friends. Had great dinner with friends last night. I just was thinking about this morning and it's just always such an enjoyable time to spend some quality time with your friends for a few hours. Putting the phones away, just having great conversation. Really, really enjoy those kind of moments. Moving on to the next section, what has caught our attention? Dad, what's caught your attention this week?

Well, I must say there's plenty going on around the world and you know, in all sports and it's pretty exciting month coming up with the World Road Race Championships coming to Australia at Wollongong. That's going to be pretty exciting. The welters on at the moment, I'm speaking specifically about bike riding at the moment but there's so many, you know, events like the world championships of triathlon and I'm sure there's more that you know, I could talk about but I want to bring it back to local level and what's caught my attention is look in our, in our small group of a small running group that we are really don't get much promotion. I, I should say and, and it's not the glamour sport of, of bike riding for some people. Running's just bloody hard work a lot of the time and, and look it that there are a certain breed of people runners and, and you know that's where my, my early athletic, you know, direction was always around running and if, if I could run these days I would and, and so I've got a real soft spot for our running group and I want to, I want to tell everybody how good they are and how dedicated they are and they're, they're normally the quiet achieving type of personality that does ENDUR not the 100 meter sprinters with seemingly oodles of testosterone coming out of their veins. I mean that in a good way. And, and you know, it takes, it takes a certain mindset to be able to be an endurance runner. And whether you're running marathons or ultra distance or half marathons or 10Ks, you know, it takes a lot of effort and the fatigue factor compared to a swimming program or pure bike program. The running program is so hard on the body and for older athletes it's worse because your body doesn't recover as well. Whereas for younger guys and girls, it's not as bad, but it still takes its toll. So what caught my attention is what about this running group? Well, without fail, you know, I could rattle off Shauna, Elise, Emma, Lani, you know, just four examples. And for you, your recent 10K, which you just completed another 10K PB and every single one of the people that you know, I've just rattled off a few, but they've, they've had periods where they've been training. And then because there's no races on, we give people a time trial to see how they're going to measure their performance, to see if they're, if they're improving. And it's just an incredible journey that as a coach, I'm just reporting in their program on a Monday, fantastic effort again, another 10k PB, another 5k PB, another half marathon PB and I, and I note all the previous PBs that they've done in June, April, January, last October. And the progression is being from a coaching point of view, it's just been unbelievable to see. And why would I be surprised at that? Well, it's just that all the things you have in theory, when they come into fruition, you feel so good about it because you know that it's working. So that's what's caught my attention is seeing the people do the work and then whether it's a race they're in or whether they're doing their own individual measurement as a time trial to see continuous improvement. And you know, take for example, you know, we talked, I don't know, it was six, eight, 10 weeks ago, it might even been four months ago when you did your, your best 10K. And you know, you've just come out recently and run another 10k PB and, and you know, it's always a bit of a worry when you're, when you're lining up for a, for a trial or a test to see whether you can match what you've done before. How's your training been going? Have you been running properly? Have you been consistent? Have you done the work? Is your endurance good enough? Have you been running the strength sessions? You know, and, and all of those things I just mentioned, they're what's in our program. And lo and behold, no matter how many times I say we, we rarely do fast training as runners. We do all strength work with some, you know, some intention to have some intensity in our running, but it's not based around that yet over 5k 10k half marathon and marathon, we get people improving week after week, month after month, year after year. So it's a long winded, caught my attention. But it needs to be said that if you do the work, be consistent, get stronger, you will run faster. And every time we do another 5k or 10k or half marathon test, I still haven't had anybody who hasn't improved unless they've been actually sick or injured. And so for everybody else who's just going through the process of training week in, week out, it's very satisfying. That's what's caught my attention and it's.

Funny to hear because I know that you can't pick favorites, but I know that as running being your first love, anytime a runner joins, you're really excited because you love setting a running program for someone and you love getting a runner in who wants to have a crack at a 10k half marathon or marathon. And even though you're not running yourself now, and you've been heavily involved in cycling and triathlon more than running, um, it is, it's, it's great to see that it's still such a, such a passion that you, you love the runners coming on board. So, and I guess that has to be said is that some, not everyone knows that we also just do pure running coaching. And yeah, we definitely do have individual runners coming in that want to break a certain barrier for half marathon or marathon. And we absolutely do do that. What's caught my attention is kind of similar theme to what you were just talking about and then my, my gratitude as well. Before I did my 10k time trial, I went to dinner with friends and we ended up going to a big feed me menu at a restaurant. And it was a big banquet, it was six courses and it was really fun and I just ate way too much. And we were just being very social and very relaxed and I didn't really think, you know, you have a time trial the next morning. It's good race practice, but we've done so many that you don't always treat it like a normal race because you're just so used to the process. Which is another good point in itself in that a lot of people are afraid of time trials. And if you can get to a point where you're pretty relaxed about it, it means you're doing them enough and you're not feeling the pressure of them. Which I certainly didn't because I was not thinking about my food intake. And before I knew it, I actually ate way too much and I Was feeling a little bit sick, which is a big first world problem to have. And I went to bed going, oh, I might have stuffed this up here and got up early, went to go to the time trial, started warming up and I just still felt like I had so much food in my stomach and I just felt so ill. And it's just a reminder of how important you have to take all these processes and doing something like that can really stuff up your race. If you make a mistake like that and you've got to practice these what you're going to eat the knot before so that come to race day, you know exactly how you're going to feel. And I guess it's a good lesson to make this mistake for a, for A D race 10 kilometer time trial. But I felt horrible the entire time trial in the guts because of that. And it really wasn't fun. And you don't want anything to make you feeling worse on the day. You want to be, you know, feeling as good as possible. And then the flip side to that lesson is that as athletes we like to be as well prepared as possible and we like to have our routines, we like to have our pre race rituals, we would like to get ourselves in the right mindset so that when we get to the start line we're feeling as on as possible. And I know I certainly do and I like to have everything in order and I get a little bit OCD on the day of a race because I just want to be in the zone. And this is a good reminder that not everything has to be perfect to do well, you know, and you see it all the time in sports with tennis players especially, they have all these superstitions and they feel like if they don't do that routine before they serve, they're not going to hit it well. And it's just not necessarily true. Those things help you get into a zone, but in my case I ran a PB even though I didn't feel great. And it's just a reminder that, yeah, not everything has to be perfect. You don't have to feel like you're 100%. You don't have to have everything go exactly right for you still to perform well. It might not hold you back so a couple of lessons in there, but those things really stood out for me. Yeah.

And also while you've been telling that story, it is a reminder to me that you still need to have processes and make sure you've got routine. And if one of the things is not going so well, then you Just have to adjust slightly and you may need to warm up a little bit longer than you normally do or you may need to do, you know, the strideouts a bit differently so that you can actually start to feel like, you know, the upset stomach that you're feeling is starting to dissipate. So spend a bit more time, you know, before your event, getting prepared so, you know, maybe take some water or. But do things to try and you know, because we have a routine and a process that you should be following, you know, pre time trial or pre event or pre race. And if something's not quite right, don't abandon the whole thing and as they say, throw the baby out with the bathwater. You need to actually think, well, it's just one thing that's not feeling quite right. I'm still fit, I've still trained well, I still have a plan. All I need to do is execute according to if I'm not feeling that well, slow down a bit early. It's only a practice, it's only a practice run. And if it is a big race, you still need to have that mentality of I need to adjust my plan and my execution according to how I'm feeling and if I'm not feeling too good then I need to adjust it down so that I give myself more of a chance. Don't just say this is my plan and I'm going to stick with it. You know, high or hell water. That's not actually what should be happening. And I know we shouldn't go on too long about the, what's caught your attention, but I've actually got some guys over at the Haute Routine in France at the moment it's the elp, the Alps Haute Route. And for those who know it, it's a seven stage ride that's got time segments each day and some of the distances are between 140 and 180ks. And, and it's 4,000 meters of climbing day after day after day. So it's it and it's, it's like a GC for amateurs. So you get to find out where you are on the gc. It's accumulation of your time over seven days. And we have really spent a lot of time with the two guys that are over there at the moment who it' finished yesterday. And understanding exactly this point about having a process, having a plan. And over the seven days your fatigue levels are going to change. The feelings you had at the start of the, of the tour, of this, of the 5, 7, 7 stage tour are going to be different in the middle and going to be different at the end. So knowing that you're allowed, you are capable of riding most of the climbs over an hour or an hour and a half, between 75 and 85% of your FTP. That might be different on the first day compared to the Wednesday, compared to the Friday. And you need to adjust it according to how your legs are. And you often hear the commentators talking about, I love hearing Simon Garron say, oh, it doesn't look like, you know, Roglich has got very good legs today. And what does he mean? It just means that, you know, his fatigue is way higher than it should be and he has to adjust his effort accordingly. And, you know, the pros are having to do this, so why wouldn't we as amateurs have to do this as well? And it really stands out more when you're in a seven stage tour for amateurs in the Alps in France, where you really do need to take consideration into exactly how you're going to execute day after day after day and adjust your plan. Just like you said with having a sick feeling, well, it's the same with how are you fatigue wise. These are key things that I think we get. This gets lost in a lot of the information we're giving. It's all about data and your power numbers and your running pace and what you feel has to contribute to how you execute. And if you don't get that right and you're pigheaded and you go, well, these are my numbers, I should be able to do it. This is what my coaches told me. Well, that's true, but it's flexible, it's not rigid. It needs to have a fluidity about it so that you can change your mind, make better decisions faster or slower, or stay the same at any given point in any one particular event or stages of a tour. So I think it's really important that the point you made was really good. But it goes on and on from that point. And I think if someone gets the idea of what we're saying here, it's well worth this podcast on its own for just understanding that there could be things that go wrong that you think might jeopardize your outcome. But you've just proved it again that if you follow the process and execute properly according to how you feel, you ended up with pb, which you probably wouldn't have thought the minute you lined up to go, here I go.

And I'll be honest, I had David Goggins voice in my head. We've Spoken about him a little bit on the podcast, but he's got a really famous book, a best selling book worldwide called Can't Hurt Me. And he's just this nutcase Navy SEAL turned ultra distance runner. And I had just seen a, he'd posted a couple of videos last week, really going nuts on, on Instagram. And he talks about this concept called the 40% rule. And he says when you're hurting and you think you're done, you're actually only at 40% of your capacity. And he says that sounds extreme because when you're at that limit you just go, how the hell am I at 40? I'm at 95 or 98, I'm not at 40. And he just believes that the human mindset is so weak and we have so much more potential. And he just goes really extreme and everything he does is extreme, which a lot of people don't like. But I just love it because it kind of just opens you up to maybe, yeah, just finding a little bit more on yourself. Even if it's not exactly 40%, it's finding a little bit more on yourself. And he put up a video last week where he was midway through one of his ultra races and his feet were just messed up. It was gross to see how messed up his feet were. And it's not normal and nothing he does is normal. And we had Mitch from the running company come on here and just say, battle scars on your feet aren't things to be proud of. It shows that you're not wearing the right shoes, you haven't got the right technique, etc. And that is a very reasonable mindset to come from. But Goggins comes from the fact that I don't care how much my feet are hurting and how messed up they are, I'm going to keep going. And he got pretty grilled in the comments. There was hundreds of people saying, you shouldn't be shooting this message. It's unhealthy, it's not safe, all this stuff, why are you showing this? It's not good. And he put out a video the next day and he was running along, classic Goggins style. And he absolutely ripped into everyone in the video and he said, everyone's saying, is this the message I want to send you? I want to be spreading. And he goes, yeah, it's the message I want to be spreading. He said, oh, you commenting, you're just.

Too weak minded to improve.

And he just really goes nuts. And again, it's extreme. But I just love his mindset. Of he's just saying, come on, stay hard. You're only at 40%. And it's just, it's just a funny kind of game to play with yourself. And I played it with myself. And the thing I thought, you know, it's not, you're not feeling good, it's uncomfortable, you're running. This pace would feel a little bit easier if you didn't have these gut issues. But I thought about the 40%. I thought, well, it's just going to be a bit harder than normal. Try and push through it, see what more you can have. And when you play those games with yourself and like you're saying things might not be going right, but you can adjust that and go like in the Roglic example where you've got bad legs that day, it's like, okay, I've got my bad legs today, I don't feel good. Today's effort's going to be harder than it should be for the same power. But if you can get into that mindset and play that game with yourself, you can really turn things around.

Fantastic. And we better get straight into our questions, Jordan, because almost half the podcast done, we haven't even started.

That's the stuff we love talking about. First question came through and it's talking about Ironman training. And the requirements to do an Ironman are really, you've got to be able to get your volume up. And the person's asking, they've heard conflicting arguments about whether you, you build that endurance up first and the duration, or do you build the intensity and power up first and get the duration more towards the race, or is the other way around or do you do both at the same time? How do you go about this approach when you've got so much volume to get to for something like an Ironman?

It's a great question, isn't it? And one that even the experts are conflicted a little bit. The science tells us that if you have a really good endurance base for an endurance event, then you should be able to start with some high intensity training at that time. But if you come into your program and you have very little endurance, then you need to spend the early part of your program building your endurance base. So that sounds very obvious, but some people think that, okay, I've signed up for the marathon 42k run, or I've signed up for the Ironman, possibly 14 hours for me on that day, I need to go and do a six hour ride. Well, that's, that's not where what we're Saying you, you need to build your endurance from where your longest ride has been previously before you started the program. If your longest ride's 90 minutes, then you can't go and do a six hour ride the next week when you start your program. So common sense says you need to start your next long ride at maybe 2 hours and then 2 hours 30 and progressively work your way towards getting the time that's going to, you're going to spend in the actual event, whether it's a marathon. If you're going to run a four hour marathon, you need to build up your endurance run to somewhere where the time you spend in one day is going to be similar, not the distance, the time you spend training, it's going to be similar to the time that's going to take you for the run on race day. So if you're going to be a four hour marathon runner and it's around six minute K pace, you know, in your training session you might train for 3 to 4 hours, but you might only cover 26k and you're running at 7 minute k pace. So they're examples of why the base is particularly specific to what your level is at any given time.

And we've spoken plenty of times about the need to build that foundation and work up from it. But it's like you're saying it depends on the person. Someone might be starting their Ironman journey, but they already have a really good foundation so they don't need to spend as much time building that up. They're already starting from a really good point compared to a beginner who's starting from scratch. And what are our principles for training? It's volume first, frequency first, then volume, then intensity. And so you're not really wanting to look at the intensity. And that's one of the questions the listener asked is do you need to separate them? And it depends on the athlete. For someone starting, frequency first, volume and intensity. For someone that's got a lot of experience, they can be doing intensity right from the start and combining it while they build that volume up.

Yeah, absolutely. And don't forget every program, whether you're a complete novice, you haven't got any endurance history, you still will benefit. All the data from science studies tells us that if you're doing your endurance session, that might start from 90 minutes, aiming to go to six hours over six months on a bike. If you start to do one high intensity session right from the beginning of your program, you will be far better off at six months later than if you just do Zone two plus endurance. And so there's confliction there, isn't there? You know, should I just be aiming for getting my base up and not worrying about intensity? Well, the data tells us, the science research tells us that from subjects that have been tested where they did no intensity, subjects who did some intensity, some subjects who did high intensity have ended up at the end of their testing period, whether it's three months, 16 weeks, eight weeks or four weeks, better off at further down the road by doing some intensity. And that doesn't mean you're doing two or three high intensity sessions per week at the beginning of an endurance program. It means that you need to think about putting that in if your body can cope with it. And of course, the example I'm going to give you is as a runner, I'm not going to give a high intensity session to a runner who starts a program for a marathon that's in six months time, who's got no history of running. I'm not going to give them any hard running. They're just not going to do high intensity. We'll try to get it somewhere else because the risk of injuring them is just massive. And so, you know, there's so many examples of variations of things. You have to consider what the sport is because, you know, high intensity training as a runner is highly risky. High intensity training as a rider and a swimmer has got somewhat less risk to it. So, you know, it depends on the sport, depends on your fitness level. It depends on a lot of things. As we've always said in many podcasts, the word depends. But we're trying to give answers to questions that would help people understand that, yes, you need to progress your endurance to a point, you know, probably four to six weeks out from your race, where you've actually covered the time that it's going to take you to complete that race on race day. And that's the key question here.

Exactly. And I think the only thing we could rule out is completely separating them and having just volume periods, endurance periods and just intensity periods, because it's just not going to work. Especially if you're building up to an ironman. It could take you to that point where you only get to the required volume six weeks out when you do a slow, progressive buildup. And you can't just not do any intense training until six weeks out, then there absolutely needs to be intensity in there well before that. So, yeah, there's definitely no need to keep them completely separate for the entirety of the program. That's, that's probably the biggest no out of that question going into the next question and similar kind of theme is thinking about running off the bike throughout the week. Should they just be slow, easy recovery pace runs, aka zone 1 runs, or should you aim to be doing those as a zone two run?

Yeah, and it's another, you know, another general question, isn't it, that, that can, that can be picked apart. We can, we can absolutely pick this apart. Where are you in your program? Are you four weeks out from your race day or are you 14 weeks out or are you 24 weeks out? So that determines the answer here. So very early on in the program, when you've got another 20 weeks to go, there is absolutely no need to run off the bike with any intensity. You just need to build up that aerobic fitness and the feeling that you're trying to achieve by running, not fresh by running the same way as you're going to do on race day after you've done a bike session. So that is the goal of, that is the main goal of this particular run off the bike session, is just to continue to slowly build your aerobic fitness and experience the feeling of running when you've had a bike session in your legs. And so whether we run in zone one or two, it's okay if you're new to running, make it as easy as possible. And that may be some sections of zone one, some sections of zone two, it's okay to be in and out of those, those two zones because they're very similar. You know, we are trying to run as easy and as relaxed as possible. We're trying to build up some strength in our, in our overall body as a runner so that, you know, the more times you spend out there pounding the pavement, the stronger your body is going to become week in, week out. You know, right from your feet to your ankles to your calves to your quads to hips, they're all gaining some improvement in fitness and aerobic capacity and some strength. Because, you know, if, if you're varying the terrain you're running on, even in the easy runs, you can still do rolling hills where your heart rate's well down and you're just really cruising. You are absolutely enabling those, those tendons, the cells, you know, the muscles to continually overload week in, week out by exposing them to the more running you can do as a runner, the better the benefit. Your body will be able to cope with anything. Regardless of your aerobic capacity and your fitness, your muscle and strength ability to cope is what we're trying to also build at the same time as building aerobic fitness. And you can do that just by running easy. So whether you're in zone one or two doesn't matter, but as long as you're not going above that in these sessions until it counts. Where we may ask you 4 weeks out or 8 weeks out to do a 5k run off the bike or hard 3k or progressive fast run off the bike. So there are variations to this, but generally we're really trying to get you just to get your body to understand how to cope better week in, week out. So you are becoming a little bit more bulletproof as a runner because we know that if you do things more often, which is consistency, sorry, frequency, obviously consistency, you are doing it more often. But if you're frequently doing something with less volume, less intensity. There's been so many examples of trials where people have done. I was listening to a great podcast just recently and the trial was to do with bicep curls. And the three separate groups were. One group did no bicep curls and you can imagine how they get their improvements going to go. One group did bicep curls where they did one session that was, had no interruptions. So they did two by 15 reps for bicep curls each day for the four week period. And the other group did, I think they did three sets per day of five bicep curls to add up to the same amount as the group who did 2 by 15. So they just did them spread out across the day. And the group that did the spreading out with less reps kind of volume, the volume they achieved, 10% improvement across all the measurements, size of biceps, strength. The group that did one straight block of two 15s, they improved the next best by two and a half percent. And the group who did nothing, the improvement was zero, which would be obvious. But what astounded me was lots of little efforts spread out throughout a period is still better than one big effort. And that kind of goes against what endurance training is about. But, but specifically we're talking about doing something to build muscle structure and strength. And that's what doing lots of little runs is going to do. It's going to actually make you more stable as a runner, more balanced as a runner. Your tendons, your ligaments, yourselves, all those things are going to be stronger to be able to cope with the load of the long endurance event that you're training for. And hopefully that's the message I'm getting across.

Yeah, like you said, it's that same principle, exact same principle. It's frequency, then volume, then intensity. And so, you know, we have a rule with running off the bike is that we need triathletes to be doing at least two runs off the bike a week. Pretend like we, we would prefer three. And that's about getting that frequency up. And so the most important thing is getting to that point because a lot of people are doing none or maybe one. And so if it means you have to go really easy, really slow, zone one, to be able to get to that frequency and get your body used to that without breaking down, then that, so be it. And once you've done that enough, once you've done that frequency for a certain period and you've slowly built the volume up, your first ones might be 10 or 15 minutes off the bike. And you build it up to 30 minutes or 40 minutes, then you can start to go, right now that I've got that under my belt, I can start doing these at zone two and really getting that aerobic fitness benefit from it. And then as you get closer to the race, like you said, you start doing five kilometer time trials off the bike, you start doing intense race specific efforts or tempo efforts off the bike. And it just follows that exact same pattern. The next one is, and this is quite common question we get is, can you rank the most important, important things that someone needs to buy or purchase or invest in to improve? There's a lot of things you could do. You could buy equipment, you could buy technology equipment, you could buy a program, you could buy an indoor trainer, you could buy wheels, you could buy a new bike. For us, what are the most important things? And I want to narrow it down and rank what we think the most important things are for you to invest in first in order to improve. Obviously if you get it all, that's the best outcome, but that's just not possible. So, so if we list them out, if we go, the most important things that if you get them all that are required to really help you as an athlete would be a power meter, a bike computer, obviously to read that power meter and to read your time, everything. An indoor trainer, a training program and a training program that you can read on a training software that actually gives you feedback on the sessions. A time trial bike for triathletes and cyclists compared to just a road bike. Better wheels, aero helmet, skin suit. Anything else in this list? Investing in nutrition, psychiatrist. I'm sure we could rattle off more. Yeah, psychiatrist, yeah, nutritionist. For us there's a big list of things, but to make it simple for Someone, what's some of the. Let's go with maybe a top three, four or five. What should you be investing into? Try and get you started and give you the most bang for your buck.

It's a really good topic and one we could really talk a lot about, I think, and spend probably half an hour on, but it's the first and.

We have spoken about all these things individually, so I think it would help. I guess the question is where do you rank them in order? Yep.

Well, I get this every time someone applies to get coached by Trivalo. This is the question that I'm asking straight away. And so I'm congratulating them and making that decision to invest in a program that, that is, they've reached out, they want, they want guidance of what to do and when to do it. And, and that's really, you know, that is the crux that would be my number one thing is getting the right program that suits you. And, you know, everybody knows how to train hard to a certain degree. Everybody knows you need to train frequently. Everybody knows you need to have some endurance, but it's knowing when to put them in the right order, when to have them at the early phase of your program, or what do I do as I get closer to the middle phase? Or what do I do when I get six weeks out from the race, two weeks out. So getting that assistance with all those details, I think is going to be more of a game changer than you having a shiny new bike, an indoor trainer, great wheels, great skin suit, helmet. They're all things that really help you get, get better. And after all, that's all we're trying to do here is get better as an athlete. You know, the power meter is clearly important because it's going to give us feedback about. But if you don't actually have a program that understands power, then having a power meter, as we found, can be absolutely useless to us. It's, yes, I've got a power meter. I can see the numbers. I haven't got a clue what it means.

And that happens a lot. You say to someone, do you have a power meter? And they go, yep. And I have no idea what I'm looking at.

And you know, what's your FTP? I've got no idea. Don't even know what that word means. And, and that's okay because there are a huge percentage of people who are in that category. And everybody thinks that everybody should know about power and FTP and all those, you know, anaerobic aerobic words. But Most of the population don't. It's a small minority of people who are across it. So if you're in that minority, congratulation.

Done.

Well, you've, you've, you're a way ahead of the pack because the majority, I'm talking 90% of the people don't understand any of that. So, you know, pat yourself on the back if you're in that small percentage. But, but in order to rank these things, I think getting to know what to do and when to do it, what session to do and on what day, you should do that program to suit you so that you can get to race day as, as fit as possible to get the best outcome. So I think that in my, my opinion, all the other stuff comes secondary. And so the next thing, and we're talking just about bike, bike riding at the minute, I think the power meter, you know, that that is really the next best thing that you should be thinking about spending your money on. And of course, if you're a triathlete, there's so many other things you need to spend your money on, like a bike computer. And you know, if you've got a power meter, alpha, alpha flies and shoes and stuff. But if you haven't got a bike computer, you can't read your power meter. So you, the two go hand in hand, you know, so I'm asking that question, do you have a power meter? And if the answer is no, are you willing to get one? If the answer is no, then that's the end of our interview. We're not going to coach you. Do you have a bike computer? No, no, I don't have a bike computer, but there's a power meter on my bike. Well, there's no point in having a power meter on your bike if you can't read it via a bike computer. So you either have to have a watch or a bike computer that can read it. And are you willing to do.

We call it, we call it. Oh, sorry, I was gonna say we call it a bike computer. A lot of people refer to it as a head unit as well. But we just like saying bike computer because it's quite advanced technology and it just clearly states what it is. So that's why we call it a bike computer instead of.

And you know, the bike computer can be a wristwatch because wristwatches do read power. So all the triathlon watches do read power as well as a designated bike computer that sits on your handlebars. So definitely for me, my number one thing would be get yourself the right program that's suitable to you, and then you'll wake up each day going, fantastic, I know what I'm doing today. I know what the goal is of this session, and I know that it has to be done today. And if I can't do it today, I've got a program that's flexible and I just have to find out from my coach what do I do if I can't do it today. So they're the really key things that are going to allow you to get to race day. Regardless of your equipment, you'll still be a better athlete with the crappiest equipment as long as you've got the right program for you. What to do today, and is today the right day to do it? So the what to do and when to do it is the key. And then you can start, you know, categorizing the next most important thing.

And I think if we, if we did put them in official categories, we'd almost say necessary and then really important and then bonuses and necessary, we say, is the program. And then just below that in the, like, a tiered level would be the power meter and bicomputer. And then once you have those things, you are able to complete a really good program and really improve and see dramatic improvement. And they're the necessary things. And without them, we would not, like you said, take anyone on to coach. And then you don't require an indoor trainer. We wouldn't put that in the necessary category or that is super helpful. And it's a really important thing to have. So, yeah, again, it's much harder to get the training done if you don't have that option, but it can be done. And then all the other things, a new bike, better training, better wheels, disc wheels, carbon wheels, better equipment, skin suit, helmet, psychiatrist, nutrition. Yeah, all these things are really going to be beneficial for you, but they're not in the required or really important category.

Yeah, and that's a really good summary. You know, we've got to understand that not everybody can afford, you know, every single piece of bling that's out there. The basics is all you need. You know, as a triathlete, you do need to have a bike that functions. So. So you can't actually do the race without one. So you do need a set of goggles. You know, you do need a decent pair of running shoes that you're not going to get injured from. So. So they're the basic things that you actually can't do without. But whether you need to get the most expensive one of those or the most up to date, that's, that's depending on your finances really. Of course, if you can get, get, you know, the best equipment, disc wheels, tri spokes, you know, TT bike, you know, the, the alpha flies as runner, you know, the form goggles, you're going to be in a better position than someone who can't afford that, unfortunately. And that's just the nature of it. Why are you going to be in a better position? Because you're going to actually, you know, with a better bike, you're going to be one or two kilometers faster with a better bike, with better wheels, better aero helmet, skin suit. With those running shoes, we know that they're faster than, but they're very expensive. We know that the form goggles give you more information about your pace, so you're going to execute well. So that's the reasons why you would try to. If you could get the equipment that's necessary for your chosen sport, and if you're just a marathon runner or 10k runner, it's a lot more cost effective, isn't it? You're only really needing a singlet, a watch and a decent pair of shoes. As a swimmer, you just need wetsuit, goggles and a watch. And as a, as a cyclist, it's a very expensive sport. You're needing so much equipment and as a triathlete you're needing all of that equipment. So there are restrictions to people. It's all very well for us to sit up here and say, you should have this, you should have that. I'm very mindful of the cost factor and I want to encourage people to participate in their chosen sport, not discourage them by saying, oh, geez, I don't want to be a triathlete. I need to have all that equipment. Well, well, you don't need to. Some things are necessary. You can still do the sport without it. You still can have incredible fun without half of the things we're speaking about, but it will be more enjoyable if you find yourself improving because we are competitive beasts and we do want to get the best out of ourselves. So if you can manage to get these things secondhand and they are functioning properly, then by all means get all this equipment so that it is going to give you the better outcome at the end of the day, because that's really. We love to see ourselves improve and these things will help us.

I liken it to a video game analogy where as you go through a video game, you upgrade your levels and you upgrade maybe your video game character or something. And they get better equipment as they get more experience, rather than if you're just starting at level one and then you get all the best equipment, you wouldn't even know how good it is is because you haven't experienced anything different. And I really like the journey that naturally happens with athletes where you get into the sport. You might start with a basic bike that you've borrowed from someone, or just the first bike that you can get with basic wheels, basic training program. And you go through a three, six month or year period training on this relatively poor equipment compared to what's out there. But you're still loving it, you're still having a lot of fun. And then once you've got that experience, you go and upgrade your bike and then you go, whoa, this is so much fun. I did not know a new bike would feel this good. And you really get to appreciate that difference. And then once you do that for another six months or 12 months, then you get a set of carbon wheels and then you go, whoa, this is even better. I've guessed again, another kilometer or two because of the wheels. And so you really get to enjoy the benefit of that experience. I think that natural athlete progression is actually quite good compared to just getting all the best equipment from the start. You know, all the gear, no idea. You wouldn't even know what you had and you wouldn't even know how to use it. So I do like that progression.

Yeah, it's, it's a good point you make. And, you know, I've seen lots of people with incredible $20,000 bikes who ride to the coffee shop and back and very proud of their equipment, love their bike, and, but then actually not even using it properly. And, and that's, that's absolutely fine as well. You know, there's no criticism here, but it is just so funny when someone who's so dedicated to their training and, and can't afford, you know, let alone, you know, a bike that's worth two grand, that, that's just doing the basics for them. You know, you kind of feel for them because it's, it's, it's restricting to a point. But, but the passion's there and you're going to do the work, then eventually you'll make things happen in terms of equipment because you just love what you're doing. And at the end of the day, that's more important. The actual doing the program, doing your sessions, that's what should be more important than the shiny equipment that you have at your disposal. So it should be all about what's my training looking like today rather than what am I looking like today on my shiny equipment? So if you can keep that in mind and, and don't be too disheartened if you can't afford all of these things. And that's my message here is, you know, we're ranking things but bearing in mind that some things are out of people's reach and, and you know, that has to be a consideration. And you just do the best with, with what you've got. And if you see that you, if there's a bargain somewhere, you know, be across it and, and make sure you, you jump on it whether it's secondhand or brand new.

Yep, yep. That's a great way to finish. This has been a good ask the coach anything. Q and A with the coach. We hope you've enjoyed the answers and we'll see you next episode. Sam.