The Training Behind These 3 World Champions

We just had our biggest results ever at the Masters Cycling World Championships. 3 TriVelo athletes became world champions and get to wear the coveted rainbow jersey. But before we get into this episode, we want to remind everyone this show isn't only about world championship jerseys or, or top podiums, even though we do talk about it a lot because we like to celebrate it. We are a performance coaching group, but performance means PBs, improvement, or just any athlete that wants to build on themselves year on year. That's what we're all about. But also, progress and goals look different for every single athlete. But for these 3 specific Triathlon athletes, performance and success to them means a world title. They started this training campaign with a clear goal. They are at the pointy end of their age group and they wanted to see if they could win a world title, a world age group world title. So with that in mind, here's the story of 3 age group world champions we are super proud of and specifically how they did it. Now there was a gold medal time trial in the time trial, there was 2 gold medals in the road race. We're going to separate them because they're quite different. So Dad, as a coach, this is the stuff you love to talk about and break down, and we'll start with Joe Spano. Tell me what you remember of Joe, who is now the World Masters age group time trial champion. What do you remember of him calling up 7 years ago— I think it was 8 years ago, sorry, 2017— about what he wanted?

Yeah, I can actually remember him. I didn't know Joe at all, and it was a great phone call. Kind of had to give me a little bit of a history of, uh, how he loved cycling and he wanted to really improve. And he was frustrated because he, he told me that he trained a lot and he trained really hard, uh, and he hadn't really felt like he was improving at all. He was really stagnating. And I remember when I looked at his, uh, history in TrainingPeaks, I was shocked at how much hours he rode his bike. It was, you know, 15 to 20 hours a week. And there were some 180K rides, 200K rides, 150K rides. Wednesdays he rode through 3 or 4 hours. And he, he's got his own, uh, engineering business, and he would do these rides and fit all of his work in. For anybody who owns their own business, you know, if you don't do your work, you don't get paid. So, um, so he was fitting all this time, and there was no difference in any day— Monday, Tuesday, all the way through to Sunday. There was just lots and lots of riding. And to be fair, he had some good, good training sessions in there, but, but they were all the same. There was no differentiation between any of the training sessions. He was doing some hard bunch rides, some races, so that's unfair to generalize like that. So there was in the program, but he wasn't able to ride hard when he wanted to because he was so tired from from riding hard when you should have been doing recovery days. And I think that's probably the, the biggest thing I remember trying to change. And, and remember, people are not good at, at, you know, wanting to change their habits. And as human beings, we are very reluctant to, uh, to try something new because we get used to normal. And, and for someone to come along and say, hey, listen, try this, it takes a lot of trust. And I think that's one of the things that Joe had decided in his mind. I've tried it my way, I just can't get anywhere near where I want to be. I'm sick of being at a 3-day tour or a 3-stage tour where there's time trial in it, road race, and a hill climb, and I'm just mid-pack and everything. And he said, I just want to, I just want to win something. And, and I've actually be relevant is what he was saying, you know, in, in these races. And he just felt like he was just, you know, beating his head against the wall, and he was just really begging someone to take control. And even though he thought that he could do it, he realized that he couldn't.

In his own words, he said exactly that. He said, can you just help me win a race? What am I doing wrong here? And as you described, it's one of the most common mistakes we see with, with fairly good fit age group cyclists and triathletes doing a lot of training, a lot of hours, but it's just, it's a lot of medium hard, you know, it's just a lot of the same all the time and there's no differentiation between the top end and the easy stuff. And, and that's not always the diagnosis for an athlete, so not every athlete needs to change, but that is a common one and that was definitely the case with him. So wasn't winning any races and, and boy, that's changed since then. He's, he's, he's won 1,000 time trials, uh, since he improved. But talking about the time trial and the improvement, you actually went back to his training peaks in 2017, his first few FTPs with us and his first time trial. Describe what that— those FTPs look like then compared to now. And look, the power and speed has gone up for sure, but he was already very fit, so the power itself isn't anything to drastically write home about. He's definitely a 30 to 40 watt better rider over the 8 years, but you'd think over 8 years that's actually not that much. And that's the point we're making, is that it's not always about the power improvement, it's how you ride. So describe looking, looking back at those, those time trials in 2017 compared to now.

Yeah, it's such a good point, George. Um, look, he— his power has gone up, but there's been so many power meter changes you can't even actually determine. But so the thing that we always talk about is what was your speed in 2017 and what's your speed now? And, and really the power is whatever the, the speed allowed you to do. So, you know, um, he— his speed is gone. I think I looked at that very first event and it was 39.8 when, uh, we, we had not coached him. That was the first race. It was actually a time trial that we ran.

Um, yeah, and, and you will say that's— he's already a very good rider. He's run 39 kilometers an hour. So you go, how much more can you really get out of that, you know?

Yeah, yep. And so it was just really looking at how he, he spread his power load in the graph, like we talk about a lot. Um, how much time was in zone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6? And if I which, if we are able to visually put that up on a, on a graph, 2017 time trial with Joe on a similar course in 2025 or 2024, '23, '22, now the last 5 or 6 years, they would look completely diff— like they were different athletes. And, and what does it look like? Look, there was so much time in zone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It was really a good spread of time in every single zone. Whereas now, Joe has no time in zone 1, 2, 5 or 6. All his time is in zones 3 and 4. And depending on the length of the course that he's doing, there'll be more time in zone 4— sorry, if the course is longer, there'll be more time in zone 3. If the course is quite a short course, there'll be more time in zone 4 nudging into zone 5. And remember, as a cyclist time trialing, you're not trying to conserve at the end, you're trying to maximize your effort. So we're happy for people to have time in zone 5 and 6 at the end. It probably means you haven't actually executed that well if you can still push zone 6 at the end. You've kind of probably been a bit conservative early, but, but the way the graph looks, that's what's— that's the intriguing thing. It just looks crazy with the amount of power spread across all the ranges. And so, so not only did the training sessions have to change slightly, but the way he rode a time trial bike, he had, obviously, Position on the bike is important as well. Equipment. They're all things that he's really, uh, being an engineer, his attention to detail on those things has been brilliant over the years. And he's really honed his craft about how he sits on the bike. And we talk to a lot of our athletes about, have you had a bike fit? You know, it's super important. You could be really strong, fast rider, but not getting the value out of the way you ride the bike because you're sitting on the bike poorly. So Joe's done a lot of that well. And really, he's just changed the way he rode courses. So it's understanding how to ride the wind, headwind, tailwind, how to ride the, the terrain, the uphills, the downhills, and the flat. And once you understand that concept, for the same fitness level, you've said it 100 times, you can ride 5 or 6% faster for the same— if, you know, Joe A versus Joe B, just ride it, ride the course differently, you'll get a faster result. And I think that's the thing he embraced, was listening to the advice he's getting and then trying to practice that in training.

And he's now riding in 2025, you know, an athlete 8 years older, uh, 44 km/h+ in his time trial on undulating courses. And you'd say you can hit 45 km/h on a flat course, you know, it's— that's quite a massive speed difference. And so one of the things, uh, that you say to athletes is— and you said to Gerard specifically, and this, this applies to a lot of athletes especially cycling, when you wanted to be a well-rounded athlete, you want to be a good hill climber or good in road races, um, a good time trialist. And this definitely applies to triathletes. So you said to him, yes, you're doing a lot of medium-hard training, and so we need more intensity in there, but you need to firstly become a really good threshold rider. So you can explain to everyone the difference between why that you think that's so important to the overall ability of an athlete, and how do you balance being a good threshold rider but needing more VO2 intensity, you know, because they're different things.

They are. And look, when you ride medium-hard, that the term that you and I have been talking about here, it's really doing almost all your sessions above zone 2 and just below threshold with occasionally going into VO2, and you're kind of almost skipping the threshold section. So you're either really got, got the gas on, and a lot of riders will understand what I'm talking about. You're in a bunch and someone attacks, you go from medium-hard, which is that 75 to 90% where it feels hard, and then someone goes hard, you don't go to threshold. You go to VO2 to join. And so you're skipping that threshold even in hard races. You're not doing— unless you break away, that's the only time you would really use threshold if you're on your own or rolling turns. And even rolling turns, you're gonna be on-off. So specific threshold riding, you know, where you're practicing 10 to or 8 minutes to 20. That's the area that he had not done any, uh, substantial work. And, and he may have had it in his program, but he was doing it at 90%, not at, at that 100 to 107% where, or even 98 to 107, where that's the threshold area of FTP that we want to be riding at. And if you're riding sub-threshold, that is a really good training session, but not 5 times a week.

Mm-hmm.

That's what we wanna avoid. We wanna avoid doing the same session every day. And whether you did the VO2 work every day, VO2 work's a great session, but you would, you would, you could do it each day, but eventually after 5 or 6 weeks of that, you would have to lie down for a week. You would be that exhausted. So, so the threshold stuff that he wasn't doing, we put that in and, and that's in the form of, you know, 5 by 5. 3 by 8, 3 by 10, 2 by 15, you know, really trying to get his body used to holding steady state at threshold, uh, not at sweet spot, which is that 75 to 90%. And, and look, a lot of riders are very reluctant to do that. Why? Because it's really uncomfortable. It really hurts. It's not something mentally that you can cope with very well. But, you know, you, you wanna ask me how you're gonna improve? Do this. And Joe went, yep, how many times you want me to do that? And that was his, that was his attitude. I'll do whatever you tell me, you just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And so we were able to give him threshold and a lot more specific VO2 stuff, which, you know, we're quite happy to tell the listeners, you know, 30-15s, 40-20s, they're all the VO2 stuff. We had Joe doing 1-minute strength efforts. He's got this circuit in Melbourne that he does, uh, hill repeats on low cadence. You know, 120 to 140, uh, FTP, that neuromuscular VO2, zone 5, zone 6, you know, up against the hill. There's stuff that he'd never done before. And, and lots of hard VO2 stuff, lots of long threshold. Um, and, you know, put those two sessions in your, in your training program and keep the endurance stuff, but then don't do the Monday hard Friday hard, make them easy. And all of a sudden Joe's got the same almost time for riding, but it looks so different. Every, every day is different now. There's— and, and, and that's a very simplified, simplified, uh, way of explaining it.

Yes. Yep. You mentioned there trusting the process, and I know that when describing Joe you've said that, you know, he's really good at trusting the process, but also like any athlete, uh, he questions it because he wants to understand why you're doing something. And that's also a good thing, you know. You— we obviously want every athlete to, to trust the process, but it's okay to question, hey, why are we doing this? And you know, what's this for? And then understand the meaning because then you'll have more motivation for, for the actual session.

Oh, what a, what a great summary. We, we want every athlete to ask why. Just explain again, why am I doing this? And if you can't explain the reason why you're doing something, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. So if, if you're lacking that that ability to ride threshold, if you're lacking that ability to go with the jumps and get dropped in races, you need to do more of that so that, so that you can actually, do that when it counts in a race. And so I'm encouraging, and we have, Joe and I have great debates about, you know, what the reason we're doing this is. And, and, and I love going into detail with any athlete that asks me those questions. I know that then they're invested. And guess what? When they understand the reason for why we're doing it, you're, you're 10 times more likely to actually do the session better than if you're just opening up that morning going, oh yeah, it says I'm doing this, and off you go. If you actually, oh, tomorrow I've got this session, these are the, these are the numbers I wanna really aim at. And Joe would forever tell me, oh, last week I, in those 1-minute hill repeats, I was doing 390s, 395, 400. 3 weeks later, I'm now doing 415, 420. Super excited tone of his voice. Just, I 'Oh, how good is this?' You know, and 9 weeks, we did that for 9 weeks, and all of a sudden he's doing all 9 efforts at 430 watts. Um, you know, it's just, just, that's where you see perspective of improvement. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the numbers, but, you know, even on that hill climb, he's got, doing the same hill, starting at the same spot, he's getting to the top of the hill literally 10 seconds faster than he was 9 weeks ago. Yeah, they're things that you, you just get excited about as an athlete. And you wanna get up in the morning. Oh, how am I gonna go tomorrow morning? It doesn't mean that every week you're going to do that. I'm just giving a generalization of, of, you know, some weeks you're exhausted and you can't do that. So you have to actually ride at the lower end. But this is the stuff that, that, that we really wanna hone into athletes to understand why they're doing things.

And so through this whole process, it's been a long time coming, years in the making, but he very quickly became a very good time trialist and all around his cycling improved. And it's not just about the FTP and the threshold, his critical power improved, his top speed improved, you know, his 1-minute efforts, his 5-minute effort, his 10-minute critical power, his ability to push that top end completely improved because of the mix of training he was doing. But that led to him then going on to win, I think, 5 national time trial Australian time trials championships in a row. You know, he just became almost unbeatable in the time trial discipline, which was so, so exciting for us to watch him because the time trial is just, it's the real test of truth as an athlete and it's such an art and you have to get everything right. You have to get your overall ability right, but the best rider should win the time trial but doesn't always because they don't put the power down properly. And so you have to turn up every single time and put it down properly and execute well to get the result. And to win 5 national titles for his age group in a row, um, was just absolutely a fantastic thing to watch.

And look, dude, for the listeners out there, they don't hold the national titles at the same course every year. So this is the thing that Joe is really good at. He would basically find out what the course requirements are, and he would map out his— and if he could, he would go to that course and, and do recon on it. And sometimes that was not possible because it was in you know, a couple of thousand kilometers away in another state. But, you know, he would look at the course and, and discuss with me about what are the requirements of this. Is there a lot of climbing in this course? Do we need to do some more over-under? So he— his attention to detail would always come through. And, and therefore, when it comes to the race, we had great discussions before the race about how to ride the power on this course. And, you know, there were some times where he won by 2 or 3 seconds And I remember vividly one race in Adelaide where we were able to look at the segments, uh, in Strava, um, after the race to see that he was actually, uh, 8 seconds down at the last turn, which is only a 3 or 4 minute section to the finish. And he ended up winning by, I think, 7 seconds. So he, he measured his efforts so well that he, that, you know, coming second at this point and then ended up winning by 15 seconds. Uh, it was a 15-second turnaround by winning by 7 seconds. So the, the type of athlete trusting that process And really, I remember saying to him at the start, don't you dare ride this first section hard because you need it at the back. And, you know, I think I said, I'll whack you over the head with a cricket bat if I look at your data and you've ridden your first section stronger than your last section. This could lose the race for you. As it turned out, he rode the first section thinking about my words in his ear, and he was laughing so much at the end that he said, oh, far out. I was so strong at the back end because of what I did early in the race.

So things that sum Joe up, and this leads into the World Champs, is that his resilience and perseverance is pretty unmatched. And he's come back for essentially 7, something like 7 broken collarbones and probably more broken bones over 7 years. But he just goes through the process, gets back on his bike, and gets back to it. And that perseverance shows from winning 5 national titles. Um, but it's also, it's not just about the training program, it's everything encompassing that what you're talking about here. It's, it's all about the meticulous preparation. He does this really well. If anyone knows Joe. He has the cleanest bike in Australia, I would say. He never finishes a ride without cleaning every single detail. He's an engineer, so his attention to detail is crazy. But he's— every single component of his bike is up to scratch. Nothing, nothing is faulty. Everything is clean and fixed all the time. Um, that combined with, with a gutsy attitude, uh, willing to put in the work, has just all resulted in this campaign to get to the World Champs this year. And, and for him, I think that the pressure of— we talk about pressure a little bit, uh, or a fair bit on this podcast, you know, being Australian Masters National Champion for a long time, being one of the best riders in the country, or the top rider in the country for his age group for a long time. The World Champs comes to Australia. There was a lot of self-imposed pressure around this, and, and he actually crashed in the, in the rep, in the preparation for it. And I want to start the kind of campaign story with this, where He was insanely nervous for this campaign. So how did you go about this one, and how did Joe come through and make sure that he did everything he could to land on the top step of that podium?

Yeah, and look, a lot of the things we talk about with our athletes is pressure is, you know, self-imposed a lot of the time. And if you can actually change that mindset to just think about if I execute the best I can, with whatever the result is, I'll have to be happy with that. And that's one of the things that I think you and I talked about this for the podcast last week with the Marbella, uh, 70.3 Triathlon World Championships. Um, it's no different. Doesn't matter what sport you're in, the pressure that's imposed is, is in your head. Um, and if you can get that person out of your head and just concentrate on the things that are helpful and contribute to executing the way you want to, then then you, you'll be happy because that's going to be giving you the best result anyway. So, so for sure, Joe and I had a lot of these discussions beforehand, and, and to his credit, he went and searched, uh, a sports psychiatrist to help him with that. And I— that's, that's, that's going way beyond. I'm so, so happy to hear that, um, that he did that. He came back and I said, oh, what was the summary? He said, oh, not much different to what you've been telling me. Trust the process. Be meticulous in your execution, and don't worry about the expectation of the end result. And, and they're the thing— they're the key things that anybody who's nervous about improving themselves— it doesn't have to be a world champ, just to— for you to be better, just, just do the things that are going to contribute to helping you run or ride or swim or, or, you know, whatever the sport you're doing, as best as you can. And, and I think that the, the good thing about Joe was we sorted that out before he got there, and, and that gave him that, uh, attitude that, you know, I, I only have to do what I know I can do well, and, and whatever happens happens. And, and I think that helped him a lot.

Yeah, because before that, that whole process in the lead-up, he was just putting a lot of pressure on himself, and he was starting to get really nervous because he just wanted this so bad. He just goes, here's an opportunity, I just want this result, despite what we're saying about just do your best, execute the way you want. He wanted that result, you know, and I— and he'd probably self-admit that, that— see, you're starting to overthink it, you know. Sometimes in training you can, you can almost crash because, because you're just overthinking things and putting a lot of pressure on yourself. And that's not exactly the reason, but that's an example of, of what you can do by just kind of driving yourself a little bit crazy. But again, to his credit, he did the right things and he, and he just focused on the process. And he did exactly what you said before, he actually rode the World Champs course 18 to 20 times as a recon. You know, I don't know anyone that would have done that. Maybe Remco Evenepoel for the Tour de France time trial, or, you know, it's Donnelly, you know, but he knew every sector back to front. He knew his power and speed for every single sector. You can't be any more prepared than that.

And just for the listeners, uh, it's not in his backyard. He had to basically drive an hour and a half to that venue, or even slightly more, and back. So it was 3 hours worth of driving to go down to practice on that venue. Um, but yeah, I, I definitely think, uh, if you've got anxiety and nerves, I love that because it shows it means a lot to you. You care. I think that's a good thing, but you've got to be able to control it. That's the difference. Um, so anybody who doesn't have any pre-race nerves or have any anxiety about an upcoming event, I'm not sure if they've got the right mindset. You should have some. Um, if you're too relaxed, that's a worry to me. It means, you know, you're not really into the event. But, but then you can go overstimulated. So the happy medium, just like we talk about the balance in life, you know, anything that's extreme behavior is going to cause problems. So having that balance is, is what we're, what we're really looking for. And, and I think, uh, at the end of the day, that, you know, that attention to detail by going and doing the course so many times— and look, this, this race only comes to, to Australia— 2015 was the last time it came to Australia. So It's now 2025, it's 10 years ago, and every other year it's somewhere else in the world, uh, which is huge for Australians because, you know, it's a 24-hour flight to Europe or a 20-hour flight to, uh, the US. Um, and so we just don't have that ability to, to really just fly over and do it, do a race, um, uh, at, at Masters level when you've got full-time job.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah, and it came to the day, and, and look, he actually didn't have his best day after all that, after all the preparation, after all the work. Um, he wasn't completely satisfied with his execution, but that just shows the work that he put in was enough, you know. And we talked so much about data, and he knew his data back to front. And this is such an important point that we just speak about all the time. We, we love data so much, but it can't be everything. And for this exact reason, because the data worked against him on the day because his power meter was a little low on the day. You wouldn't believe it, you know. So, so that, that is hard to deal with when you've done the course 20 times and then your power and speed's a little bit different on the day.

And it could slightly— that, you know, people go, oh, the power's— you know, you should understand that's a little bit, uh, reading a little bit lower if you're so much into the data. Well, you're not going to find that out, um, really until you've done maybe an out-and-back section where you could look at the speed against the power. And there isn't any out-and-back for in this particular race for 15 or 20 minutes. So, um, so it caused him to override a little bit early. Um, but, but it could work against you if you, you are so detailed with the data, you start to have a fight in your own brain with, I should have been here 10 seconds faster. You know, all the practice sessions I've done, he was doing actually better power and times than he was on race day. And that takes a lot of, uh, self-discipline to not lose the plot on that. I'm having a crap day. Most people would go, oh, it's not my day, and, and then not really try hard enough for the, for the rest of the ride. And, and people say, oh, you know, it's a World Championships. Well, but in the moment when you're so dialed with your data and you know that you're not actually performing better than you have in training, that's a, that's a real negative feeling that you're getting. And, and for, to his credit, he just kept pushing and he just kept riding the best he possibly could. He did not drop his bundle even though he was falling behind the times that he wanted. He kept pushing. And that's the message I want to get across. Your race is never over, no matter what you think's happening to yourself. You don't know what's happening to anybody else. The same things could be happening to every other rider in the course. And this course is one of the most difficult, challenging time trials I've ever seen in a World Championships. I don't think it had very many sections where it was flat. There might have been a kilometer out of 19 where you could say this is a flat section of road. You're either going slightly up, slightly down, or really fast up, uh, down and really slow up. So there was major climbs, 5-6 minute climbs. Of them, and very fast descents, 70, 80, 90 km/h descents, and, and long dragging climbs and long dragging descents. So, so, you know, you could be every, every reason in the world just to go, oh, it's not my day, I'm having a shocker, um, and, and just throw in the towel. But no, Joe just pushed all the way to the end, and in the end he only won by 5 seconds from a guy that— a local guy here Mike, and Mike won't mind me saying this, he probably listens to the podcast. Mike had beaten Joe every single race for the whole year, and, and Joe hadn't got near him. And Joe turned the tables, and he had his worst ride probably for execution. It just shows you, if you hang in there, you don't know what the other guys are doing. And he would have thought that, oh, I have to be at my best to beat Mike. 'And I'm actually riding worse. How am I going to beat him today?' But he just kept pushing, and to his surprise, Mike was slower. It was one of those great moments, really.

8 years in the making, really. And that just shows it takes the mindset of a champion to keep going like that. And if he hadn't have pushed right to the line, if he had have let the doubt seep in and just backed off 1% because he goes, 'Oh, it's not my best day, race over,' he wouldn't have won, you know. But he push through despite that, which takes a lot of guts and mental strength to win by 5 seconds. It's really inspiring. And boy, I mean, the summary is a guy who never won races to winning, as we said, unlimited time trials. He just over the years he kept showing up, get shot in the process. It's resilience, attention to detail. In the lead-up he crashed. I want to touch on actually the lead-up and he's doubting his form and doubting the numbers. In the lead-up, uh, all resulted in this. But the best part about this for us is on the day of, of the World Champs, um, you— we were watching the results online and waiting for him to come through, and he'd finished, and we'll kind of, you know, it's— there's a lot happening, and we actually were recording a podcast, um, about this time. And eventually, uh, you called him but didn't get through, and we were recording a podcast, and halfway through the podcast he called back. And so we stopped the podcast and said, you got to take this call. And it's just funnily enough We talk about the post-race phone call all the time, but to actually have a random coincidence chance where the call was recorded, to hear what it's like to speak to a guy who's just become world champion in the age group. We actually have this recording and Joe's given us permission to use this right now. It's pretty raw, so you'll hear that in this moment. There is a language warning ahead, there's a few swear words. But yeah, we were recording the podcast and then— and this is what Joe sounds like.

Fuck yeah! Oh mate, that is so good. Um, it just gets me so emotional straight away. It's, it's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant.

I didn't feel it. It didn't feel good at all.

Yep. And remember we talked about that 3 days ago? Sometimes, sometimes you, you don't perform the way you want to, but you get the result. And yeah, and it's times like this where you just got to go I don't give a shit about how I executed. I got the desired result, and I'll worry about that another day.

Yeah, absolutely.

World champion Joe Spano. Unbelievable, mate.

Unbelievable. Fucking 2017, Joe, can you just help me win a fucking race? All I want to do is win a race.

That is gold. Um, I'm so proud of you, mate. Um, I, you know, you've done everything right. You've just left no stone unturned, and you've, you've ended up with, uh, your biggest dream come true. So you should be, you should be super proud of your efforts, and it's well deserved. You get what you deserve, mate, and you deserve this.

Yeah, no, it's probably the effort, that's for sure. And, uh, you know, just come. I can say thank you and I can say words, but that's just— it doesn't feel like I'm doing it justice for all the help you've given me.

So anyway, it's, uh, it's been a great journey and, uh, you know, um, and it's not over. And that this is, this is one of the, one of the The best parts about a coach-athlete relationship is sharing the experiences, the highs and lows, and there's been both along the way. So, you know, this is one of the better ones.

Yeah, I'm fucking unwell. Yeah, I'm speechless, really. Yep. I'm speechless and dehydrated. I couldn't put out a piss, I was saying. Truck control over an hour.

Um, no, it's, uh, yeah, I was giving it the fist pump, mate. It was when I— because I'm sitting there watching the bloody, um, time— times on the computer, which is freaking agonizing.

Um, and it just splits at the half—

just halfway and then finish. Um, So, um, yeah, so, uh, I, I want to talk to you in depth about it, but I've just stopped— I've stopped the podcast in the middle of it just to, to answer this call. Um, Jordy's watching me talk to you.

Um, he, he was, uh, like, I get inspiration from a lot of The TriVelo lads and Jordy's part of that.

Yeah, he can hear what you're saying, mate. So that's fantastic.

It's great. We'll talk again. I'll leave you be.

Good stuff.

Alright, I'll wear a TriVelo kit for the ceremony. Just about to try and get into it now.

Yes. Yeah, I've got to stop myself from crying, mate.

It's great.

All right, mate. Well, have a good day and yeah, just unbelievable.

Good stuff, mate. See ya.

Okay, thanks.

See ya.

Well, so to have one of those phone calls recorded is actually pretty special because to have that moment captured is one you always remember forever, but to have it recorded is special. And Dad, you got a little bit choked up in the end there. You're talking to Joe. Why is that for you?

I'm not sure if it came across, but yeah, when I get emotional, I just actually can't, I can't really speak too well. Um, I must apologize for, um, we have this thing that, yeah, we have this moment where, you know, just basically when the result came through, it just— as a coach over the years, I'm always just yelling out in my office, you know, just yelling out the top of my voice going Yes. And it doesn't matter whether they've just run a club race or, or, you know, they've run a really important big race, a world championship or Australian title. I'm always doing this, and I always tell our athletes privately that, you know, that's how it means to me. It means that much, that, um, that this teamwork that we've done together— you've done all the work, you've done the execution, and I've just been the guide, or Traveller's just been the guide for you. And, and it's a really great experience, and it does get emotional when when you've— you succeed, and it's a great moment, and it's one that's very private. And, um, and, you know, only the people who've had that moment with their coach in Tri-Valley can understand what we're talking about. But so it's special that you're getting to hear this, and I do apologize for the swearing, but, um, but it's, it's euphoric, um, happy swearing rather than, um, using as an example to describe things. So, um, yeah, so it was a great moment, and Um, yeah, one that I'll never forget. And but there's been so many of those moments with our athletes that, uh, that I just love it. It's, it's the joy of being a coach.

Um, and how was it when you got to see him in person? I think a couple of weeks later, I think he bear hugged you or bear tackled you.

It was, yeah. Then again, we couldn't talk. It was, you know, the emotion. You were so silent. Again, it was just embrace. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's even now I, I think about it and people go, you know, get, get real. But that's how I am. And if people, uh, have trouble with that, I don't apologize. It's, uh, it's, it's just the way I am. I just love sharing moments like that. And if you've ever been at that point of, of, uh, sport yourself, it, you know, you understand what it means. And, um, and you've worked so hard to get, to get to that position. And so So it is emotional for sure.

I think it is bloody fantastic because it's, it's seriously, we say this a lot, it's not a cliché, it's not about podiums. If you've ever finished any hard endurance effort, you get the same feeling. You get a wave of emotion after, you get this wave of relief, pride, just mixed emotions. Just, you know, all the training that you did leading up to that. And whether you're doing a marathon in 6 hours or, or a half marathon in an hour 40, or, or an Ironman in 8 hours, and I'm in 16 hours, like anyone that does an endurance event gets the same wave of emotions. It's just all these mixed feelings at once, and it really can overwhelm you. And that's the beauty of it. That's, that's why we do it. We enjoy the process, and then we, we're so proud of ourselves for the end result. So I think it's the best part of sport. And we want to finish off with, uh, going to the other two athletes, um, who had successful road race victories, which is quite a different skill to the time trial. Um, so very successful campaigns from, from Tim and Al. Tim Jamieson and Al Adams both won the road race. Um, at the, at the Grand Fondo World Champs. So starting with Al, this is really cool because you guys had a meeting where you sat down— I can't remember how many weeks out from the campaign, 12, 16 weeks out from the campaign. And, and some people might say, oh, that's not much time, but these athletes were on the program full-time, and so for them it's stepping up to their A race. And so he said, sat down and said, I want to win a world title, so how do we do this? And you both set a plan, um, and it's kind of a similar, similar motto that, uh I think you said to him, look, I know you don't love the threshold riding, but that is your missing link right at this point of where you're at in your fitness. So talk us through that chat and the plan with Al.

Yeah, Al's and our relationship is— every athlete has a different relationship with their coach, and Al's really attention to detail, different to Joe. Like, Al has his own ideas and sometimes is reluctant to change that, which I found challenging. And to Al's credit, he said, okay, if that's what you think I need to do, then I'll embrace that 100%. I won't do a version of that. I trust and follow what you say because I believe in what you're telling me now. So, and that was a great meeting. And And, you know, I had, I had to really convince him that this is the way he should train to get to this, uh, World Championship race, and that's going to give him the best opportunity to get the result that he, uh, was so looking forward to. Um, and yeah, that's how it sort of started, was just, you know, a full-on meeting where we are now all in for this one race. And I've been coaching Al for, you know, for years, so it was, it was not like we had to actually just start coaching this guy. We'd already had a great base of training. So, and everybody needs to know that Al is a really experienced road racer, criterium racer, and he's very, very good at it. Very smart, really good tactician. Um, and he's, he's a, you know, he already was a great rider. He didn't have a lot of good results, um, uh, at that national and, you know, world. Obviously, that's the highest level we're talking about, but But he was winning a lot of races, um, at club level. And, and, you know, uh, he's from originally from New Zealand, so he raced, you know, 200 or 300 times over his career in New Zealand at bike races. So he had really good race smarts, and, and I love talking to him about how the race panned out in all of his, uh, other races that he was ever doing. And, and so this particular race, it was, you know, we had to do the training, but it was also about the tactics and one of the good things that, uh, that we talked about was, you know, you are very good tactically-wise. So, you know, we've got to use this to your advantage in this event. And but we've got to get you fit enough that no matter what happens in the race, you can respond. Um, and you are very good at over-under, but you don't have that ability to ride threshold very well. And to be fair, you know, it was something you really didn't want to do, but, but he was willing to do anything to get all the, the, uh, the, the tools in that bag that'll enable him to do whatever he can on race day to win the race.

And so interesting, both him and Joe, 6 or 7 weeks out, were really questioning their form. And they weren't questioning the process as much, although those natural doubts do come in a little bit, but they were seriously questioning their form. Um, and, and you had to kind of say to them, I'm not trying to get you to peak right now. You're still 6 or 7 weeks away from from the World Championship A race. If you're peaking right now, that would be a problem. That would be really hard. And to hear that as an athlete, because you're not putting out your best numbers, you're not putting out your best speed. All athletes, we think we're invincible. We think we should be doing PBs and our best numbers all year round. And as it gets closer and closer to the A race, you think, why aren't I doing it yet? But you just have to— if the program's going to work, you have to trust that you're not going to be peaking 6 weeks out. You'll be peaking at the race. But that was a hard thing to go through.

Yeah, and look, there's so many examples worldwide where athletes at the highest level, World Tour cyclists, um, the best runners, uh, you know, the Diamond League runners, uh, going from Diamond League season to the World Championships, or Diamond League season to an Olympics year. It's hard to win the Diamond League all the way through and then be the Olympic champion. And Inge Britson had trouble with that, you know. He couldn't win an Olympic, uh, 1500, um, but could win a World Championship because they were different dates and had more time in between. So, so peaking is really hard, and when your form's not where you want it to be, you're going to start questioning everything. And so it's my job to calm people down, relax, and, and give them perspective of how, how, where they've come from in the last 8 weeks, where we are now to be expected, and what we hope to achieve in the next period. And, you know, and it's not like, uh, we're just going to blindly follow the process. We're tinkering the whole time to make sure that we're— we think we're a little bit lacking in the VO2, maybe we should you know, cone in a little bit more on that. Or, or, you know, we've missed a few threshold sessions. We need to, we need to make sure we're not missing any more of those. So, so a lot of the bunch rides that they're in or some, uh, B races, they start to get confidence when they, they see that their form against the other opposition people that they know very well, even though the form might not be in the number, the power number, because that's what all we've got to use in training. But when they ride against other people in a bunch ride or in a, or a B race, all of a sudden they get huge confidence because far out, I am actually riding pretty well. And a couple other people say, geez, Al, it's, you know, you smashed it today on some of those Saturday rides. We've been doing some of those courses for 2 or 3 years and he was doing PBs 6, 6 weeks out, 5 weeks out. But he was worried about his form. As soon as you do some of those courses that you've done before where there's Strava segments, you've got this feedback. All of a sudden, oh, well, just because my power number isn't where I want it to be, I'm actually riding really well. And, and that's a, that's a tough thing to, to really navigate, I think.

Yeah, and the way the race panned out, he actually, um, got dropped late in the race and then got himself back on, dug deep, did a huge effort, uh, to get himself back to the group, which is as gutsy as you can get in a road race. Um, You could almost argue that the threshold riding is what allows you to get back on. You know, you need that tool in the toolbox to be able to get back. It's easy to sit in the group, but if you're out of it, you've got to be a strong threshold rider to get back on the group, and, and you managed to do that, right?

Yeah, and you know, no matter what the means is, whether you recruited other people to help you, that's smart tactics to get the group up the road. And you know, one of Al's other great attributes is his kick. Oh my goodness, this guy has a fantastic kick, and you could be trying to sprint beside him in the first 2 or 3 pedal strokes. He would have 4 bike lengths on me. And, and that's, that's so handy at a race like a Gran Fondo where there's possibly 8 riders trying to win, 15 riders, 4 riders. It really comes down to the kick, uh, and who's got, you know, the timing, the position, and the kick. They're the things we talk about. And guess what? We practice that probably most Saturdays and all the guys we coach wherever their bunch is around the world. For cyclists. We're telling them, when you're doing an endurance ride, you make sure you have a sprint at the end of your endurance ride. Learn to sprint tired. People are great when they're fresh sprinting, but what do you like when you've ridden 140k and then you have to sprint at your max power? Al did hard. He hardly lost any of his power because he'd done it, I don't know, 3 years worth. So 50 weeks times, it's 150 times he'd sprinted tired. And, and I'm pushing people every week, you know, why didn't you sprint this week? Ah, a little bit tired. No, this is the time, you know, I didn't think I could push hard enough, so I didn't bother. No, do it. Make yourself do it so that you, you actually, when it comes to when it really counts, which is unbelievable, our, you know, he's been— he sprinted against one of the best sprinters. You and I, and I've raced against Damien, um, from Noosa, um, and we did a race up there and he's a really good bike rider, and they ended up having a drag race, the two of them, and Al got over him. And, uh, it was, you know, it took some doing, uh, but, but, uh, that was a real classic example of practicing something when it comes really useful on race day.

Yeah, that's, that's the key point there, is that, you know, people say, oh, you want to— so he won, it was a, it was a bunch sprint, and he won. That's how he won the world title. And people would say, oh, maybe that's a bit of luck, that race, you know, sprinting is a bit of luck, timing. Uh, we disagree. It's, it's really, if you get the 3 things right, your timing, your positioning, and your sprint power, then you're most likely, you're at least going to put yourself into the best position to win. And, and it wasn't a mistake, you know, like you said, essentially every bunch ride, he's, he's willing to sprint and he's winning almost every sprint of his bunch ride. And, uh, I think that is so important for people to remember that that doesn't guarantee you'll win, but it gives you the best chance. Because you practice it so many times. So a quick shout out to one of our other athletes as well, um, Damien Burke, who won a medal at the state champs this year because of this same thing. You know, he's— he would say he's not the strongest sprinter, never has been, but because on bunch rides he keeps practicing it tired, and maybe on the bunch rides he's, he's coming 5th, 8th, 10th, you know, but he just keeps practicing anyway, uh, and eventually he starts coming 3rd or 4th in the bunch sprints. And eventually when it counts on, on a race day, he gets to win a 3rd on a state title because of Ironically, um, he's in the same bunch as Al and Tim Jamieson.

And so, you know, they're the guys who are— who, you know, most people got bunches wherever their city is in the world. Um, and, you know, it just so happens that those guys are practicing in the one bunch. And Damien's come from, you know, being a mediocre sprinter in that bunch too. He's fighting with Al and Tim, uh, coming first, second, or third. And he might not be the fittest rider, you know, for the actual road race But because he positioned himself so beautifully at that state title, uh, he'd never won a medal at state level, and he positioned himself beautifully, hid all the way through the race. He was the best at hiding and not doing any work and just saving himself, hoping it was going to be a bunch sprint, and positioned himself in the right spot, timed his sprint well, and came from back and got to the podium. And that's an example of what we're talking about.

To finish off, we want to shout out Tim Jamieson as well. He's a former pro cyclist. Once he puts his head down, he is someone to be feared. Once he decides he has a goal, it doesn't happen often where he has a huge race goal, but when he does, he's that pro mental and physical strength comes back to him. And you know what's— it's really— I just want to highlight his training strategy. You know, his training strategy is quite simple. It's just monster, monster volume. He just goes, I am going to get as fit as humanly possible so that I just— so no one's going to be fitter than me. That's, that's his goal, and I love that attitude.

Uh, well, to put in context, in 2015 when the World Championships were back here in Australia in Perth, Tim won the road race, uh, then. So he's— that's the second world title he's won. He's only been to two and he's won both. Um, so it's a fair record. And, and look, I've known Tim since, you know, 2013, 2012, so it's been a long journey together and we've ridden a lot of kilometers. We went to Belgium together. You've actually ridden a lot with him as well and learned a lot from him. He's been on our podcast, one of the early podcasts, I think, you know, in the first 20 or so podcasts we ever did. We're past 300 now. And, uh, Tim's done it his own way. And, um, I spent a fair bit of time with him this year in Europe training, um, when he was, uh, overseas for literally 3 months to prepare. And I, I met him at Girona, and, uh, he put me through the wringer there. And um, he was as fit as I'd ever seen him, he was as lean as I'd ever seen him. So his aerobic capacity and fitness was through the roof. Um, and when he came home, we had a quick couple of discussions. Uh, I said to him, you need to get into some of the bunches and you need to hone your, your, you know, high VO2 work and sprint stuff because you're fit but you just don't have the high end. And, you know, get as many races as you can into you. And that's exactly what he did. And one of the things he did do was about a year ago, he reached out to say, I just ride my bike and I don't think at my age I'm really strong enough. Uh, what, what sort of strength and conditioning work should I do? And, you know, you and I came up with a little program, um, and he started doing that. And it was really quite a simple little program, and he has relentlessly done that. And I think for his age now, because that— it was 10 years ago when he won this title— he's as strong as he's ever been. And just by doing that little program that we gave him, um, And so Tim did a whole lot of things right, got his endurance right, got at the last 6 weeks really worked on his high end. And I think that strength work that he's done for the last year, you know, and for those who know Tim Jamieson, they would have expected him to win. And I would have said that, you know, if someone beats him, they must be some, some bike rider, because he also has the, the nous that Al has. And when those two guys get together, uh, in a, in a group ride, you know, a couple of smart, smart riders there, and they're outsmarting each other. And we often talk about, you know, how do the, the World Tour pro riders— they're all very, uh, capable bike riders— how does someone break away and beat the bunch? And I'm excluding Pogačar here before he came along. Um, you know, most people could win races or lose races depending on how their tactics were. And so, you know, Tim's tactics are absolutely brilliant. Doesn't do much until he has to, and, and then when he does it, it's, you know, he broke away and there's a 2-man sprint. The way he won his world title, uh, he just broke away and, um, you know, got away with one other guy and they pretty much had a sprint at the end. And Tim backed himself the whole way because he is one hell of a sprinter as well, just like Al. And, uh, it was another world title, and Tim's very casual and took it in his stride. And, uh The difference between me talking to Joe, me talking to Al, and me talking to Tim, all very three different versions of euphoria. And that's kind of intriguing as well as a coach that, you know, the personalities of each person, they— some of them are just over the moon excited and some are very calm and casual. And Tim's that, he's Mr. Cool, Calm, and Collated. And I love his attitude as well. And, um, and he's not down on himself. If something doesn't work, he goes, oh, that's life. Um, it's a really good, uh, it's a really good attitude to have, and it doesn't put pressure on yourself at all. And, and I'm sure internally he wants to win, but externally he's not giving that, uh, that, that persona.

Yeah, to end up in a 2-up with him at the end of a race, I wouldn't want to be against many other—

I'd be—

I'd rather be against a lot of other people instead of him. I mean, like, that, that wouldn't be a position you want to be in, would it?

No, no. And, uh, and look, uh, he said, you know, in his, um, very humble explanation of his race, he said, oh, you know, I managed to win. And, and I said, oh, was it— did you have to really work there? He goes, no, I was okay. Um, you know, anybody else would be describing how brilliant they were, and he's just going, no, no, it was It was, uh, you know, I did what I had to do.

Yeah, he could. And that could also mean he's underselling it, knowing how mentally strong he was.

He, he's absolutely underselling it. Yeah. Um, you know, any sprint's going to be hard at that stage when you've ridden 140, 130k. So, uh, but sorry, I just wanted to clarify.

I hope people didn't think he was being arrogant. No, not that hard.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, he's just being— he's been the opposite. He's been absolutely humble and um, yeah, not talking himself up. That's, that's one thing he doesn't do. He lets his actions do, uh, the speaking, and, uh, that's, that's his personality, which is great. And look, you've got 3 different, uh, world champions here with 3 different personalities, and, you know, 2 road races and 1 time trial. And, and, you know, what are we, what are we sort of looking at here? The time trial is very particular race, whereas there's a lot of things that can go wrong in a road race. That can cause you to not have a chance. A lot of things are out of your control. You're trying to control most of it, but there is a lot of things with other riders, whereas in a time trial, you're pretty much in control of most things except for the conditions on the day, the course, etc. But you're in control of what you do, you know, every aspect of the course. So, so yeah, it was a, it was a great weekend of, uh, of There were some other, some other fantastic results that we had from TriVallo athletes who are here in Australia who are able to go there, but we just wanted to highlight, um, for the listeners, uh, you know, the guys who ended up getting a world title out of it.

One final story I just wanted to touch on on Tim, and he's such a good example of the balanced athlete that we talk about, and then he just loves riding his bike. He just really enjoys it. He enjoys being fit all year round, and so he really does the phases of the year really well. Some, some times over summer. He just wants to ride, and he's all year, he's keeping up his fitness, he's keeping up his, um, aerobic fitness. And there's just some periods where he puts his head down, he goes harder than others, and he decides, I want to get really strong here, and he goes in the hills. Or he goes, I just really want to enjoy my bike riding, he goes and rides 200 kilometers every weekend. He doesn't do this on-on-off kind of thing that we can fall trap to when we're unbalanced and we go too hard into something. So then when it's time to step up to a race, he does it. And I remember specifically last year was on a bunch ride with him and he didn't contest the sprint. And I said, I just asked him why not, I was just curious. And he said, I've put my head into the dirt hundreds of times in my life, you know, trying to— I've pushed myself to vomiting many times in my life sprinting, racing. He said, in my age now, I only do it select times, you know. I just have no interest in making myself vomit every single weekend. Not in an arrogant way at all, just in— he's going, I pick my moments. But this was an example of him picking his moment. I just love that he has this balance of, oh yeah, he still enjoys it, still wants to do his bunch rides and join in, and then he picks his times and he goes all in on something. And that to me is really good balance.

Yeah, and a point you touched on where, um, he just keep— because he loves riding his bike, it's, it's not a chore to train. And, and he has had a couple of broken collarbones, 3 or 4, where he's had to take 2 weeks off, maybe. Maybe. I remember when, uh, he, he came to one of their Belgian tours. He'd broken his collarbone, um, got it pinned, and he was riding 2 days later outside. He said, oh, I can't stand up, but I can still sit in the seat. And so he's just adamant that because he took such a long period away— he was a semi-pro, or he was a pro in the early '90s, and he took a long period off. I think it was 2009 or '10 or '11 somewhere where I met him. Didn't know he was a bike rider. I asked him to come and join our group and he said, I'm not much of a bike rider. And it turned out that he— that's how humble he is. He was a pro and he wouldn't tell me that. I had to Google him to find out that he'd ridden in Europe and in Belgium, and he'd ridden Milan-San Remo, and he'd ridden some of the really key races. So he's no dummy as a bike rider, and he's, you know, he's now— he's in his 60s. But yeah, it was he said, if I'm going to come back, I'm going to keep riding all the way till my 90s. I'm not going to have a break like I just did, because he said it was the hardest thing to start again. And he said, even, even, you know, in the middle of a year where the weather's really bad and I'm, I'm, you know, I don't feel like it, I know that if I just keep tapping away, I don't have to train hard, I I don't have to come back from anywhere, you know, I'm just maintaining. And, and that, that mindset allows you to, when you want to do a race that's 16 weeks away or 8, you can just step up because your, your level of fitness is already there. There's none of these highs and lows of, I'll take a break for 4 weeks. And, you know, he was so angry if he actually crashed, um, and broke a collarbone because that meant, you know, he's going to lose some fitness and You know, as it turns out, he hardly lost any fitness. The worst he had was about 2 weeks. So it's a really important message that if you love doing something, you know, you don't have to be forced to stop doing it. Just keep doing it at a lower level.

Brilliant. That's a great way to finish. So we are really proud of this episode and those results, and we hope you learned a lot from that preparation. We take a lot of inspiration from those athletes, and we're proud of the all-around preparation they did to execute the best they could on the day, which just turned out to be, you know, the best result as well. And if it didn't turn out to be that result, they all could have been proud of their preparation because they left no stone unturned. So that's the really key message. So if you want the same sort of coaching, if you want— if you like the idea of this kind of coaching, this level of detail, we have coaching spots available, a few more towards the end of the year before we shut them off for the year. Go to travelocoaching.com.au to apply to get coached there. Otherwise, thanks for listening. See you on the next one.