The Top 7 Holiday Training Tips

If you just do something each day that's, that's unstructured, this is going to help you maintain and don't stress too much about improvement, you know, improvements for the rest of the year. If your, if your goal at this time is to have an easier period of two weeks or one week or three weeks.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. Every December, the holiday period rolls around, and for every athlete, the same dilemma comes up. How do you manage your training around Christmas, around New Year's, around potentially going away on holidays? And I think there's a. There's a funny adage that for most people in the world, you're either the type of person that gets up on Christmas morning and TR or you don't. And for a lot of us, we're in the former category where we love to train no matter what the day, no matter what occasion we're getting up, because we love it and we don't train because we have to. But regardless, people go away over these periods. People are in different environments. People are on holidays, people are going home for Christmas. And throughout this holiday period, people are often as busy as ever, busier than the normal working year sometimes. And so training can sometimes take a hit. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about the top seven tips you can take throughout this holiday period to make sure you get the most out of it and you come out the other end, either maintaining your fitness or coming out stronger. But before that, dad, let's get into our normal segments of the episode. What are you grateful for?

Yep, I'm looking forward to this episode. And we do do these tips a bit over the years, but we've got a bit of a different take on it this time. And it is so funny because I have actually asked a few people already. Are you training Christmas Day? I don't want to put it in your program if you're not, but if you are, I'm putting it in. So, so far I've asked four people and they've all said, shit, yeah, I'm training Christmas Day because there's nothing worse than having a training program and you've got expectations of not doing anything. So I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. Anyway, well, what's caught my. What am I grateful for? Well, that's an easy one because Matt, your brother and my second son has just had their first baby, baby boy, Archie Gerard Donnelly. And I'm so proud to say that he, he's put his dad's name in the, in the, his son's full name, which is, I'm really, yeah, really grateful for that and it's, it's very nice of him to do that and I never really liked my name to be honest and to have it put into someone else's name is quite funny. So, so yes, little Archie was born a week ago, so he's seven days old now. And yeah, it's really good to have a second grandson. And yeah, that's a very easy gratitude for me. So, so congratulations to those, to Joe and Matt and Archie.

Absolutely. My gratitude is I recently came off a very successful weekend for two very different reasons. I was best man at a very old friend's wedding and it's always a great day when you can stand up there with one of your oldest friends and watch them get married. But funnily enough, the next day I had our touch finals. Play touch rugby over the spring and summer and we had our touch finals and I didn't actually tell my teammates that I the best man at a wedding the night before because it's always a funny conundrum. You know, you want to celebrate with your mate and have a few drinks but you know, I wouldn't want any of my teammates out the night before our final. But nonetheless we won the final and so I'm very grateful for both days because it felt like a win on a Saturday and a Sunday. So yeah, that's my gratitude.

Yeah, that's a brilliant gratitude. And for those who don't really know much about what Jordan's doing with his, with his touch football, it's a very non Victorian sport and, and you know, it's, it's a massive sport in Queensland and New South Wales and Australia and, and the competition's unbelievably high there. But this competition in Melbourne's become really good. This is the highest standard you can play in and it's back to back premierships for, for Jordy and his team. And it's a real special thing to, to be able to do that and against some really good, some really good opposition who have been playing for years. And yeah, it really a credit to your planning and preparation and yeah, it was, it was fantastic. You got back to back and still enjoyed the wedding the day before. So well done.

Thank you and I appreciate it. For those that know, don't know, it's kind of like rugby's summer sport where there's no tackling. And if you've ever seen rugby sevens where it's, it's way less players and it's super open, it's kind of like that where it's very fast paced, very athletic, it's about skill and speed and throwing compared to, you know, slowing the game down with tackles. It's just a very fun chess like game, which is awesome to do. Moving on to our next segment. What has caught your attention? There's a few things we want to touch on. Dad. There's a bit been happening around the world of sports, but leading with some recent races have caught your attention with our athletes.

Yeah, I think we talked the other day about the World cup and expectations of what's supposed to happen in the games that were scheduled and some of the teams who are beating some of the professional teams. Professional teams, they're all professional. Some of the teams who are beating the favorite teams. Yeah, I think you told me the 2nd, 6th, 10th, 12th, 15th teams were all eliminated in the round of 32, is that right? Something like that. That's a terrible stat for the favorites. But it just goes to show you just, you know, you never know what the outcome's going to be unless you're in there having a crack. And that's kind of what's caught my attention. A follow on from that, a couple of local events that are on last weekend and we've talked a little bit in the podcast about a stage race that we have here in Victoria called the Tour of Bright, which is held in the alpine region of Victoria, which is just a sensationally beautiful place to ride your bike, regardless of the fact they've got a race there. And the three stage races is a sort of 100k ride with a 20 odd minute finishing climb, with a 10 minute climb halfway around and you know, it's a really good road race. And then in the afternoon they back up with a 16k time trial and then the next day they do a climb up to Mount Buff which has got a, you know, it's about a 50 to an hour to an hour and a half descent ascent depending on your ability. And so it's a quite a tactical event. It's a stage race. It's just like general classification. You know, you've got the tour winner, you've got your individual stage results and you've got your king of the mountain, you've got the sprint king. So there's lots on offer for the riders. And we've been doing this event since the early 2000s and each year we send a group of trivalo people there. And what's caught my attention about this is now there are things that we have as a theme in our business which is plan, prepare and perform. And what caught my attention was even though you are well planned, well prepared and you performed as well as you can do, you may have an outstanding result or you may have a really disappointing result, regardless of how well you plan, prepare and perform, a lot of it comes down to execution on the day. And I've got examples of this from the weekend. We had one guy who, for those who have been following us, Joe Spano, who's won the last four national time trial titles in Australia for his age group and he's now won back to back Tour of Brights for his age group as well, which is a really outstanding performance. And it wasn't that long ago, probably six years ago when he was just a mid packer as a 50 year old. And now he's, you know, with sheer hard work and planning and preparing properly, almost like a professional, he has got to the top of his category from being an okay bike rider to being the best in his category now, which is an example of really doing the work and eventually you will prevail. And he did a lot of the work early in his career 10 years ago, 15 years ago he trained really hard, but, but it was not the right way. And now he's got the right program that's allowing him to get the recovery that he needs and to continue to improve and hone his time trial skills to be one of the best time trialers or the best time trialer in his age group in Australia and learning how to ride the road races with tactics. And this is an example of how important planning and preparing and performing is. But you actually have to have a lot of of luck going your way as well. And in this particular race he probably felt that he could ride harder in some of the stages and particularly the last stage, which was the Mount Buffalo climb, where he felt like he was in control. But the plan was that he didn't attack the bunch because all he had to do was defend his title, which is the general classification, the yellow jersey. He had that by 40 seconds. And so the risk of attacking the group and maybe dropping a chain or having a mechanical was too high. He's better off just staying with the group and just doing what he had to do to win the tour and that's an example of actually executing not to what your ego wants, but to just get the result you need. And I'm really impressed with the way that he stuck to his task and the preparation we talked about before that last stage. He did it exactly right and got the right outcome. And I saw in some of the other classifications because there's all different types of age groups and grades, I saw some other guys who were leading into the last stage and actually lost the tour in the last stage by doing something wrong, attacking too early or risking riding too hard and blowing up and actually losing their yellow jersey. And we had also other Trivala athletes who had planned just as well and prepared just as well and actually got gastro on the first day, first 5k of stage one didn't know they had gastro but you know, by halfway through the ride they, they were vomiting and sick and, and still persevere, persevered and ended up, you know, limiting their losses to the end of stage one and weren't that far behind and, and rode an okay stage two time trial, but rode really well on stage three when the gastro had sort of disappeared a bit and they were able to ride to their true form and were fight second place on the stage. But two examples of really, really well planned, really well prepared, had the, had the best execution game plan going, but something prevented them from doing it. And I just want to bring that to everybody's attention that it's not always going to go well. The professionals in the World cup have expectations of winning, but they're not even in the last eight now. And we have guys, some of the guys who are just as well prepared as Joe was but didn't get the outcome. And so there has to be a lot of things go well as well as being planned, prepared and performing. You know, sickness can play a part in it when you don't even know that you're unwell. Similarly, we had just to go on with the same theme, what's catching my attention about, you know, you can do all the right things but still not get the right result. And we had the Ironman wa over in Busselton on the weekend and we had a group of trivelo athletes there and you know, we had one of the guys, Roland, who's doing his debut Iron Man, 21 year old, eight or 10 weeks out, got hit by a car. Looked like his dream of doing his first. He'd been training quite well up to that point, ticking all the boxes, doing all the preparation that he should Be and now he's brought his bike is in pieces, he's reasonably injured but not that bad. But as a 21 year old, you know, he's just, he just purchased a new bike and now he's got to try and find the funds to you know, or, or get the insurance or whatever. The whole process is that he doesn't have a bike so he's borrowed a bike to train on and, and got himself back into training and, and you know, no one knows that this is the journey he was on in, in his preparation and yet he came out on a debut and did a 906 and for anybody who's done an Ironman anything around under 10 hours is pretty bloody exceptional. Got third in his age group and you know, rode a 4 hour 40, swam fantastic and because of not being able to do a lot of the running from past post accident still ran a 320 odd marathon but you know, but still ran strong at the end and there, there's another example of you know, really get, catching my attention of you know, no matter what happens to you on the journey, you can still get to the destination, get a result. Another example we had was Ben who'd done Port Mac and he smashed his PB by 30 minutes from Port Mac. Probably didn't train as well as he did for Port Mac but because he'd been training on this journey for two or three years now, his fitness bank was so good that he was able to execute really well and had the right mindset and was so determined to run better and smashed his marathon Ironman run BY I think 20 something minutes to you know, out of his 30 minute PB, 20 of it was in the run and you know what an outstanding effort and, and then you've got another guy who had a gut issue who was on target to win his age group. All he had to do was run the slowest time he'd ever run and he would have won his age group. But he ended up walking for 5 hours 30 with, with gut issues and again you, you know, you don't know what's going to happen next and yet he still had the guts to continue and walk and finish the event. So I've just given you a whole lot of different examples of all those people prepared unbelievably well. They had the right plans and all they had to do is execute. But on the day variations of things happened to them and again, just like you know, the experts tell us that you know, you know, some of the teams that are eliminated out of the World Cup, Belgium ranked number two. They didn't even make it to the, the round of eight. So you just don't know what's going to happen next. And just be aware that sometimes it's going to go your way and I want to get it out there that it's not always going to go your way. But if you keep that consistency going over the journey, eventually I guarantee it will go your way. And all these hiccups along the way make it even sweeter when it does go your way. And your example of the touch you've played in, I don't know, four or five touch Grand Finals, probably before that, or not even made the Grand Final. And it's such a sweet victory when you finally get to the Grand Final and win because you know how disappointed you are, even though you prepared just as well, you think previously. But the experience you get from all those knockbacks or setbacks, they really set you up for when it does happen. Well, it just feels like there's nothing can stop you. And that's the thing that I want to get across to people who are listening, that just because something goes wrong now and then, just don't give up. Just keep that mindset that if I keep persevering here, I will eventually reach my goals.

I guess it's a reminder of exactly what we talk about with enjoying the journey, because while the a race is the goal and that's the big event that you're working towards and that's where you want to reap the benefits of the whole training process, you know, if something goes wrong on race day and your entire enjoyment is based on race day, then it's kind of a problem. Whereas if you can get enjoyment out of the journey along the way as well, knowing that you want the race day to be the best day possible, then you can still get the most out of yourself. And there's actually something, you know, worth worth it to what you're doing compared to banking it all on race day. And then something happens where the day's just gone to crap. And if, if, if that was where you were putting all your enjoyment, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be a very nice feeling.

Yeah, it's such a great point you make. Results based is risky. You know, it's. And we've talked about the journey and then getting to your destination, that's the package, it's just not the destination. And look, if you have a bad day, what are the negatives? Well, you didn't achieve the goal. You wanted to. What are the positives? You're incredibly fit from where you were before. You've had a really good preparation. You couldn't possibly have done any more than what was planned and you're in a great shape to actually back up possibly in four weeks time if you wanted to. So you're in a great position. It's just you've had a disappointment and you've got to take that on the chin, move on and pick yourself up. The measure of the person is how well I deal with adversity, not how well I deal with triumph.

One thing I want to mention on Joe's story was one of your big philosophies is that you want to help people become a really well rounded athlete and a lot of masters athletes tend to specialize in one area and they stay in that and it's a big thing among the age group how to do more of what you're good at and avoid what you're not so good at because it just. It's just easier and more comfortable and you really push our athletes to become more well rounded and a stage tour where there's a road race with a hill climb finish, a time troll and then a full on mountain stage is the epitome of being a well rounded rider and I think if you can win that it shows how far you've come because it's no easy feat to win four nationals, masters time trial races. You have to be a really really good time trialist but to be able to do that and win a multi stage race I think is very impressive and shows the type of training you can do to become a well rounded athlete. Before I get to what's what caught my attention one thing we did both want to talk about was the recent announcement by Kona to split the World Championships. If you haven't heard, Ironman have not. Not the recent announcement by Kona, the recent announcement by Ironman they've come out with a statement and said that from now on the World Championships which is a coveted event, a historical event, a prestigious event that is held at Kona every year and think the the reason it's so prestigious is that Kona has this absolute magic to it and it's been held at Kona Since 1981 everyone wants to go to the Mecca of triathlon and do the Ironman at Kona and Ironman have come out and said that from next year onwards they're splitting it so next year the women's races, elite and age groupers will be at Kona and the men's races will be somewhere else, and they haven't disclosed where that is yet. And then. And then from then on, it'll alternate. So in 2024 that you're after, all the pro men and the age group men will compete at Kona and the women will compete at the same undisclosed place that they. They are thinking. So at the moment they're thinking Nice in France. That's kind of the big talk around. So next year it's basically all the women are competing at Kona and all the men at Nice, and the year after, it's all the men at Kona and all the women at Nice. And this has caused a lot of divide along among the triathlon community. I have my own opinion that I think they. I think it's a fair decision. I understand their logic. It does take away from the specialty of the event. And it's really frustrating for those people who have qualified for Kona next year that were expecting to go, and now their world championship is at Nice. But I do understand what they're saying in their statement. So I don't know what your thoughts are, dad.

Yeah, I can also see that there might be some economical reasons the island couldn't cope with. For those who don't know, this year, for the very first time, they split the race into two days. It's normally on one day. And the logistics for that, for the island, the big island of Hawaii, Kailua, is a really small village and. And it's a massive influx of humans onto. Onto this, you know, this Mecca for where this race is being held. And, you know, I've been there and done that race, and it holds a really big place in my memories of achievements. And it's really disappointing from an athlete, from a competitor's point of view, especially if you've been training so hard and qualified for next year's Kona and you find out that you're actually not going to Kona next year. And for some people, that's. That's been a dream for 10 years. You know, we had some athletes this year who went, who, you know, Andrew Fox had been trying to qualify for decades, and now he got to go and he got to do it this year. But for those who have qualified and don't get to go there next year, I can really feel for them and the disappointment associated with that because you just want to go to that big island because of the mystique and the lava fields and the heat and the intensity and the wind and the extreme conditions. You're going to experience, make it the hardest race that you'll do. And, and that's kind of disappointing that that's taken away. And they must have their reasons, but from my point of view, I think they need to go back to having it on the one day. If that's the reason. I don't know the exact reason why they're moving it. They've come out talking about the.

Yeah, they've come out.

They can't cope.

Yeah, yeah. The biggest reason is that they, they have decided that they want to split the men's and women's races because when it happens on the same day, they just find that the men's coverage overrides the women and it's just not possible for them to get equal coverage on the same day. So they decide to split it and then like you said, that's too much for the island. They can't split it over two days. It was too much for set up, then race, then set up and race again. Yeah, the island just couldn't cope. And then they've. They've come out and just said, we value having equal coverage over having it at all on one day. At Kona each year. We looked at all sorts of solutions, couldn't come to an agreement. And so that's our decision. So, yeah, while it's very disappointing, that does make sense to me because they've said exactly what they value, what they're aiming for, and it is unfortunate. But it does make when people do go to Kona even more special now because it's only every second year that you can go. So that does add a lot to it as well.

There is. Yep. Anyway, it's. Everybody's going to have their own opinions on it and I'm a big fan of some other group who like to run races. One of the things we haven't talked about is the pros not really getting decent prize money for that event in comparison to other sports. The elite world champion triathlete just pales into significance against what you can win for. For, you know, winning the Australian Open tennis or the US Open golf or, you know, the Grand Prix at Silverstone. You know, it's just, it's just ridiculous difference in prize money. I'd love to see a competitive rival race organizer put on a race to give some real prize money, you know, a million dollars for the winner of the World Championship. Ironman. Yeah, that's something I'd like to see.

Yeah, and it's definitely happening with pto. All their races are so well funded. And the athletes are loving going there because there's prize money, big prize money and prize money so far down. And so Ironman do have a challenger in that, but they do have that ownership of the Kona race, which is the most prestigious race. So it's definitely interesting. One last thing I want to mention before you talk about the holiday tips is very quickly. This is just astounding and something to keep an eye on. A young Kenya just did his marathon debut and ran a ridiculous time. The first time running a marathon race of 2 hours, 1 minute 53 seconds, which is just off Kipchoge, the greatest marathon runner of all time, off his world record. So for a debut marathon, that is pretty scary time. And of course everyone has asked Kipchoge his thoughts on it and he welcomed the challenge. He said, I'm so excited someone else can run 201. Which is a very good response I thought. But yeah, we'll keep an eye on that one because. Because that could be interesting for years to come if you can already run that. And shows how close that athletes are starting to get to breaking two hours in a legal race.

Yeah. And don't forget, Jord, the shoes are making such a difference to the times and it seems unbelievable, and I hate that word. It's real. That's what they ran. It's not unbelievable. It's what they're able and capable of doing. And I reckon there's a few minutes in the shoes, without doubt. And, and so, you know, a 207 runner can now be potentially a 204 runner. And a 204 runner can be a 201 runner. So, you know, I think it's great and it has, you know what, we wouldn't want to go backwards and say you can't, you can't wear or you can't ride a time trial bike that's, that's got disc wheel.

Yeah, exactly.

It's just you've got to go with the times and that's exciting. The running shoes. Yeah, I think it's great. I can't wait to see the two hour broken. It will be broken. It might not be in our lifetime, but summer will run faster.

Yeah, for sure, sure. I'm thinking it's, it's sooner rather than later. And on that note, I did forget to mention that the Australian marathon record, both in the men's and women's was just broken. So Brett Robinson and Sinead Darva just broke the men's and women's Australian marathon record in Japan. Which is incredible in their own right. And I think that's definitely worth mentioning because both records had been held for a while and I think Dicostella's men's record had been held for 36 years or something, which is insane for that to be finally be broken. Like I said, it's a testament to everything happening, but a big testament to Brett to be able to pull that off and get that record. I think he only beat it by 20 seconds, so very impressive. So finishing off with today's topic, and that is the top seven holiday training tips. Now, it is very interesting to think about. Throughout this holiday period, depending on where you are in the world, you'll have a different experience. So the southern hemisphere, it's often associated with really a big holiday period. Especially in Australia, a lot of people take one week or two weeks completely off work. They're down by the beach. It's more of a relaxing holiday. In the northern hemisphere, it's winter, People might work through more. People might still have that some time off, but you're in a different, completely different environment because, you know, some nice summer environment where it's good to train. You might be training indoors all the time because it's in full winter mode. So these tips will apply slightly differently to you depending on what hemisphere you're in. But the first one is for this period. It is called the holiday period for a reason. And tip number one is prioritize enjoyment.

Yeah, good one to start with, Jord. You know, you've been hard at it all year and you've had structure and you've been drilled with the structure and you really are paying attention to your planning and your preparation. You know, sometimes we talked about having a deliberate break in your season and sometimes this is the right time to do it. For those in the southern hemisphere, this is probably not the right time to have a deliberate break because it's right bang in the middle of our cycling and triathlon and running season. So I would be saying that you would need to do this holiday period as an enjoyment thing, which is what you're suggesting. Whereas in the northern hemisphere, when it's smack bang in the most coldest period of your winter, it's a really good opportunity to ease up on the structure and the dedicated way you're going about things and have a bit of a relaxing time. And that is really important mentally to make sure that you freshen up your mind. And I'm not saying stop training, I'm just saying fix your mindset that, you know, if, if you're wanting to do something slightly different then you, this is your opportunity. But there are a few rules around that, that, that you need to keep in mind. And, and, and you can still do that and have the enjoyment factor. That's one of the points we're trying to get across.

Yeah, definitely. And that does bring us into point two. And that is no matter what situation you're in, what climate you're in, what hemisphere you're in, the principle should always be, and this is point number two, keep your fitness. Don't do anything that's going to undo the hard work you've done or put you backwards and just make it harder for when you come back to it. So if there's a two week period, you don't want to come back into that and have to spend another two weeks or three weeks getting your fitness back because you've completely gone off the rails. So bearing in mind that no matter what you're doing, you always want to keep training to a level where you're maintaining your fitness. And that can be easily done as long as you are smart about it and keep training, even if it's not structured, even if it's not super hard, you can maintain that level of fitness. But dad, you get frustrated when people really want to break, but they make the mistake of completely going off, which ends up just putting them further back and making it harder to come back from.

Yeah, and look, you said the right thing there. Maintain. Sometimes if you're wanting to have that little break, it's better to just maintain something. Detraining takes a long time. We've talked about that in other podcasts. So if you just do something each day that's unstructured, this is going to help you maintain and don't stress too much about improvement improvements for the rest of the year. If your goal at this time is to have an easier period of two weeks or one week or three weeks. So we're talking about those people who are thinking along those lines. We're not talking about people who are doing the opposite. We're talking about. And this particular point number two is those people who are thinking about taking it a bit easier. And our message is that's great, but don't do nothing. You need to keep some form of activity going each day and that will keep you maintaining the fitness that you've worked so hard to get during the year.

Point number three, and you just, you put a keyword in there before and you said there is a way to go about it, there is a Structure to stick to. To be able to do this properly. And it's not the same structure that you would stick to throughout the year, but it's what we refer to as the holiday struct. And you just said athletes, if you want to go off a structured program where the coach is setting you a quite advanced structure throughout the week, instead go on the holiday structure and explain to us the simple principle of the holiday structure.

Yep. And the whole purpose with the holiday structure is to do something different. And I'm encouraging that. And so instead of trying to do exactly what you've been doing all year, just think about every alternate day I want to do something different than I did the day before. So rather than doing, say you've got. I don't know, I'll just make an example. You've got 12 days off and you decide, I want to really improve my fitness. I don't want to go the tack of easing up. I want to improve. And I just think I'll just go hard every day. This is the very first time. Jared's not really going to worry about my program. I'll just go for it every day. And in the end that'll work for probably three or four days until you actually get tired and tighter. So what the structure we're recommending is that you alternate between hard days and easy days. And an example would be, I've got people going to the Tour down under, which is back on post Covid and it's been missing for three years. And it's a big event for a lot of Australian guys and girls who go away in groups and they might have a group of five or 10 or 20 people and they go and stay in Adelaide. It's an unbelievably great tour. The Tour down under to watch the pros. And the actual tour starts from Adelaide every day. So the pros don't move. They stay in the one hotel for the whole seven days. And each day the tour goes in one direction out of Adelaide, north, south, east, west. And so it's really easy to get to. And you don't have to move accommodation, so it's one of those great ones to go and watch. But people just get carried away with the first day. They might ride 100 as their group's doing 150. The second day they got 120. The third day got another 150. The fourth day the plan is. And they're just making these ridiculous expectations of riding way too far. And the temperature normally is somewhere between 35 and 45 degrees on any given day and you're in your lycra from 9am till 6pm all day riding these to get to the stages and then to ride back to your accommodation. So you've got this ridiculous strategy of the group wanting to ride each day. And there's always egos in these groups. So what happens? Someone rides hard and everybody chases and all of a sudden that easy ride that they talked about becomes flat out day after day. So our strategy is to say, okay, day one, let's just ride with the group and do what they want to. When they ride hard, go hard with them. That's your hard day. Day two, when the group starts to do exactly the same thing. Find out where they're finishing and you meet them there. You start with them, let them go when they take off. You've had your socializing the day before. Today is about you recovering and still getting 100k in your legs, but doing it all in zone one and two. And then you'll still see them at the bike race. When the pros come, you still get the socializing. And then day three, they're doing exactly the same thing as they did day one and two, you join in again and have some fun with some hard efforts and you watch how much you are better than the other guys in that group because they are day three exhausted. And you've only had one hard day and one easy day. And then day four you go back to your zone one, zone two and by that time some people will join you because they're exhausted. Oh yeah, I can't keep up with this, so I'll do what you're doing. And then day five you're ready to go again and all of a sudden you're the lone ranger out the front compared to day one when you were mid packet at best. And that's a way to just alternate hard and easy days. You still get the fun factor with the group, you still get to race and get your testosterone, feelings of self belief and all the things that are associated with riding well. But you still don't come out of that six or seven days in a hole where you can't even train for the next two weeks, which has happened so many times with people who have not followed that semi structure that we talk about and can't train because they're that exhausted. Riding 5 or 600 ks for 6 days straight in 35 degrees temperature hard every day, what do you expect is going to happen? You're going to be quite tired and it could take some weeks for you to recover from that. So this is a really important point. You can still do some fun things with groups, but as long as you just tinker with it a little bit, you'll get a better outcome.

And with that point comes point four. And that is with the holiday structure. It is a good chance to get some cross training in, to get to get some type of training in that you might not get to throughout the year. And that can come in the form of if it's your off season, you might be introducing some strength and conditioning and we know that that's a great time to introduce it while your load is lower and get your body used to it. So then when you get back into hard training, into the on season, you know your body is actually used to strength and conditioning. It is hard to introduce that when you're in the middle of your racing season. It is possible, but just a little bit more difficult. But regardless, there might be so many other opportunities that you have. If you're taking some time off, you might be away and going on long walks or long hikes or playing any other sport. You might be near the beach and you've got a chance to swim more than you than you usually do. And so if you're at home a little bit more, then you've got a chance to do some home workouts, some home core stuff, some home flexibility or mobility work. So just a good chance to get some cross training in while this structure is a little bit more relaxed.

Yep, I couldn't agree more. And if you're just a pure cyclist who's been riding the road for, you know, for eight months, this is a great opportunity to grab your gravel bike or grab your mountain bike and just have some fun and don't have any structure. Just go for some easy rides and go with the family. Just do something that's just easy, but it's not the same bike that you're riding. If you're a triathlete, same thing, Go for walks, forget about doing the long runs and the high intensity runs and the structure that you used to the swim sessions with intervals. When you're at the beach, just go for roll your arms over and catch some waves. Just go for long walks on the beach, go for an easy coffee ride on the bike, on the commuter bike, but just don't do anything that's similar to what you're doing during the year if that's what your goal is. But if your goal is to actually improve your fitness, then we're not Talking about doing cross training, we're talking about, you know, doing longer versions of the sessions you've got by adding time to your warm up and your cool down. So we're talking about two entirely different things here. And, and you've got to understand exactly what we're getting at here.

Yeah, definitely. Clarify. We're not. This point isn't do more cross training. That's absolutely not what we're saying. We're just saying that it is a good opportunity to, we know the benefits of something like strength, conditioning. That's probably the number one priority. If it is your off season and you've got this period, it's a great time to now introduce that this is your best chance of the year to introduce that. But if you've got a chance to do some other stuff, then we're giving you the green light and saying this is a good time, that you can take advantage of that and get the most out of your easy days and the fact that your week isn't so packed with work and training that you completely filled up. Now, one thing I know is a pet peeve of yours, dad, and this is our point number five, and that is don't wait until January 1st to make any changes. Some people might have a really hectic December leading into Christmas. Training's gone by the wayside. And the essay stuff, there's only another seven days or 10 days until the start of the year. I'll just wait till the new year and I'll start then. I'll get it right then. And a lot of people even think about starting a new program and they just, for some reason, they just refuse to do it between December 15 and 25. And they say, I'll do it in the new year. And our philosophy is start now. You're just gonna, you're going to put yourself 7, 10, 15 days ahead of where you would be and that'll, that'll help so much down the track. Track.

Every day you wake up is an opportunity to improve yourself. Why delay that? That's what my mindset is when I wake up today, how much better can I be than yesterday? And I don't mean by riding hard every day. That's not what I'm saying. I mean, get up and do what I'm supposed to do and not delay it till next week. And you know, if someone's sick, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I've heard this so many times. I'll just start on Monday of next week. Well, if you're okay to start today, start today, it's an opportunity for you to get going. And, you know, the January 1 thing drives me insane. It's just a delaying tactic for you, not really having the right mindset. So if you're in the right head space, you should be wanting to wake up tomorrow and saying, what can I do better tomorrow than I did today? Can I recover better tomorrow? If it's a recovery day, you know, can I get. Get more hydration into me? Can I have more restful periods during the day? If tomorrow is a high intensity day, I want to wake up and be ready for it. And I don't want to wait till Monday to do that, even though it's Friday or it's Saturday. Let's just not have the delaying tactic. That's not what this is about. This is a period where you've got an opportunity to actually get ahead. And the old analogy of coming to, you know, for those who have been involved in team sports where you've got preseason training where the group gets together before the season actually starts. So the idea of preseason training is to prepare you so that when training starts proper for the. For the season, that your body can cope with the proper training. So use this as exactly the same method. Here's an opportunity where I'm not in structure, but I can work, you know, slowly or easily away at improving some of the things that I'm weak at at such as strength training or just getting my body moving so that when I start the proper structure, I'm actually at a 5% better level than I was if I did nothing. And that's the way you should be thinking about it.

And that brings us to point six. And that is that you may have these goals of this holiday period and you may want to get the best out of yourself and have the best intentions, but you lack some. Sometimes you just lack the logistics, you know, and equipment availability is a big one that we are faced with. When you do go away outside of your actual normal environment, you can't take your bike with you. What do you do when there's a lack of equipment and how do you get around that? And your answer is, there is always a way around it.

Yep. You've just got to be inventive, don't you, and understand you could be doing a European trip, that you're moving from place to place every fourth day. You don't have your bike, you want to train. It's cold in it snowing. You know, if you're in the middle of a, middle of a December European winter and you know there will be somewhere a swimming pool that's open. If you're, if you're a rider, runner or a swimmer or just a guy or a girl who wants to get fit so you can go for a swim. There will be a gym somewhere around where you are, you know, and it might not be a gym for two or three days because you're out in the country somewhere, but eventually you'll go back to a town or in a suburban place that has facilities for gym equipment. And it may have a stationary bike. I remember going to Thailand and going to the hotel gym we had, and it was literally 4 meters by 1 meter wide. And it had one stationary bike and one treadmill. And that was it. And so great. I was thinking, I'll just jump on this. In my week off, I had no bike. It was boiling hot outside. It was 38 degrees in Thailand and jumped on the, on the stationary bike and it was a shocker. And I still managed to try and ride some efforts where I was doing right. I'll just do 30 seconds hard and just ride the thing hard. I had no pedals or shoes that were tied to the bike. The thing wouldn't, the bike seat wouldn't go up or down. So I was in the wrong position. Everything was wrong about it. But I just spent 20 minutes doing 30 on, 30 off. And I got a sweat up and I was huffing and puffing and then there was this little treadmill beside it and I thought, oh, I'll just jump on that next. And he started on that and all of a sudden it started going quicker and quicker and quicker and before long I couldn't turn it down, I couldn't turn it up. It just was going flat out. I had to jump off it to the side. I nearly got spat out the back, but the thing had broken on me and I got the guy up and he said, oh no, it doesn't work anymore. And so that's the treadmill done. And the next day I jump on the same bike and that wouldn't function anymore. I don't know what happened from the day before. I broke that as well. So here I am day two with no equipment now. So, you know, what's the next best thing? I'm trying to jump in the water and I'm going to do some swimming and I'm going to go for walks. So you've got to make the best of the situation and there will always be opportunity for you to do something. You've got a pair of shoes on. If you're in the mountains, you can go walking in the mountains and get some altitude walking in. If you're skiing somewhere, do some cross country skiing as well as your downhill skiing. You know, there's always going to be something. You just got to be inventive. And the more you think about, you know, you can run anywhere in the world and if you're not a runner and you're just a cyclist, just walk, just go for walks and you can see a lot more of the local area if you're traveling, then you'll ever do if you're just sitting around on the beach and stuff. So, you know, some of the best experiences I've had when I've jumped on my bike and ridden, you know, 20 or 30k around the district and seen some really great highlights and seen things I wouldn't have if I was, if I was just sitting around at the beach. So be inventive with the situation you find yourself in. And sometimes if you plan ahead and ring the hotel and ask them what they've got, if you're staying at a hotel, if you're at a caravan park, are there some walking trails? Just do some preparation. If you don't have Internet when you get there, there's always going to be obstacles. It's just the person who's more motivated can find an outcome. That's my message.

Absolutely. And I guess the final point, we want to finish on, and you touched on this earlier than. But just because you might have more time, just because it might be a more relaxing period, you might be spending time at home, that doesn't mean that. And you're not working, that doesn't mean that it's time to train yourself into the ground. And you gave all those examples before about what could happen and we just wanna make that point, this point that the same way that having a big break and losing your fitness that way is detrimental to you, training yourself into the ground just because you've got more time is just as detrimental.

Yep. And you know, the only thing I didn't say was you are allowed to ride or run or swim with more volume. And if you've got more time, that seems the logical thing to do. As long as you, you keep the intensity. As we talked about with the previous examples, alternating the intensity hard and easy days. And during those hard days, it doesn't mean you do the whole thing longer, harder, you keep your mindset if that's what you're doing, you keep that the same and you just extend the warm up and the cool down and the warm up and cool down. You should be able chat away to the guy riding beside you should be able to talk the whole time. And that's your measurement of your effort. So it is important that you can and understand it's okay to do extra but not extra hard. You need to understand that that will still cause problems down the track just like it does mid year when you're in a structured program. It's not the green light to just go long and hard day after day because that will end up in disaster some point in the next, next short term week or three weeks down the track, it will come back and bite you, believe me.

I guess I'd like to finish and say that you can, you can increase your load, but the training principles of progression still apply. You can only increase it a certain amount that's safe and that's risk free and that your body can handle. You know, just because you're in a holiday period doesn't mean that you can double your training load like you're saying and expect to stay injury free or expect to. Expect to stay not sick or expect to put yourself into a hole in the ground. So that's it from us. We've got one more episode left for the year, but we wanted to get this holiday episode in just so that anyone that was getting busy throughout this December period could take these tips on and get the most out of yourself over this period into the new year. But one more episode left for the year, then we'll have our Christmas and holiday break and into 2023, which is a pretty exciting time. But that's it for this episode. Thanks very much as always for listening and we'll see you next week.