The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Power/Data

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined by your host, former Australian Ironman champion, Jared Donnelly. And I, as always, am Jordan Donnelly. Okay. Boy, do we have a big podcast today here at Trivella. We talk a lot about power, numbers and data, but many beginner or intermediate athletes say to us that they're still a bit confused by it. And it's okay to be confused by this because it's a pretty confusing subject. But we're here to change all of this. So have you ever wondered, how do I actually get my data? How do I even use the numbers that the data gives me? Have you seen Power Watts on Zwift but not sure how to use it? Or have you heard that FTP is important, but you're still wondering how it works? We've noticed that many athletes have no idea where to even start with power, what an FTP test is, or how to do an FTP test, or how to use data properly and use it to your advantage. Instead, it just becomes this complex monster that just feels too scary and overwhelming to even look at, let alone attempt to understand. And don't worry, this isn't just beginner athletes. We have intermediate and even advanced athletes who are still perplexed by it all. And this is a shame, because once you understand it, it will literally change the way you train and race forever. So we'd like to fix this problem. And today, not only are we going to be giving a beginner's guide to data and power, we also have a very exciting announcement. We are opening up our doors to our home training studio in Belgrave, Victoria, and inviting four triathletes for a VIP coaching day with the super coach, Jared, where you will get a day of personalized data and data testing and coaching. So, dad, welcome to the episode. This is a very exciting announcement for us. Why do you think it was so important to do a VIP coaching workshop like this?

Thanks, Jordan. Your introduction really summarizes the answer to that question. People from all the years of talking and hearing people talk about power, data pace, swimming pace, running pace, the confusion about, well, I've got that, but I don't know what to do with it, or I don't even know what that is. How do I get that data? And then when they get it, it's like I can see it, but I don't know what it means and I don't know how to implement it. Into my training and then from there, how do I use it on race day? So really, the need out there is obvious to us that people just need assistance in all of those questions. And we feel that this is something that will be a game changer for those who want to take this opportunity to get this instruct, you know, personally. And that's why I'm opening up my home training studio to allow me to get the message quite clearly and simply across on how do we achieve using data and in training and in racing.

Spot on. It's really to help people who are struggling to understand or just get a basic understanding of how to set themselves up. And like you said, when it comes to training and race day, we want to make sure that they have all the tools that they need to be able to execute and get a basic introduction to data and power and set themselves up for maximum success. That's really what we're aiming for here. So if you're new to testing and understanding data and you want to come and learn firsthand how it works, and more importantly, you want to come and spend a day with the super coach, I think that's the biggest bonus I want to promote. Then this workshop is for you. So you can go to trivelocoachingday.com to register. That's trivelocoachingday.com so TRI is in triathlon. T R I V E L O the word bello coachingday.com and we'll give some more details later in the episode about how it's all going to work. But for now, let's get into the meat of the episode. The Ultimate Guide to Data and Power. And let's just start from the beginning. Let's start from a blank page, a clean slate, so that we're all on the same page. What the hell is data? And what do we actually mean by data? And more specifically, what are the data metrics that we look at for each discipline?

Yeah, that is the $60,000 question. And before I answer that question, look, it doesn't have. You don't have to be a beginner to not understand data. We've got advanced people who've been riding and racing in triathlon and cycling and running for years who haven't been able to utilize the data that's available to them. So it's just not a beginner thing. It's open to people who just want to understand how to use these tools to the, to advance and give them the opportunity to be a better athlete. And you and I have seen many Examples, Jordan, of elite athletes who are still not using these tools, and they could be so much better and then probably doing quite well already. And we have examples of people who are. But they could go to the next level. And that's what we're trying to give everybody this opportunity to know what to do, how to use it, and how to get the best results out of it.

Yeah. So let's give a basic overview of what do we actually mean by data? So in each discipline, there is data or certain metrics that you can look at that are measuring your performance. So we've got the swim, bike, and run, and there are a lot of metrics you can look at. And we just want to focus on the key metrics that are the most important for each discipline. And you might argue that every metric is important, whether you're looking at a whole range of things, heart rate, speed, power, et cetera. But we want to focus in on the main metric that you can use to your advantage for each discipline on top of a lot of the other metrics. So run it through us, dad.

Yeah, I guess the main thing is you're trying to find out what the input is. If you can think of input and output as the concept that you're trying to work with. For example, heart rate is a result of what you do. So that's an output. Power is the input. It's the effort you put into the pedals. And it's measured on a. On a Garmin screen or a Wahoo kicker screen to tell you that you may be pushing at 200 watts every pedal revolution. So that's the input, the effort. So as a runner, as fast as you turn your leg speed over, you can look at your watch and see the output, which is the pace that you're running at. So the effort we're talking about is what we're trying to measure, and that's the key to this whole simplification of what data is. So what. How do we measure our effort? And these tools are exactly what we want to talk about.

So basically, if we simplify it as much as possible in swimming, we're looking at the pace. The pace per 100 meters is the main metric that we focus on. In bike, the main metric we want to look at is power. And in running, the main metric we want to look at is pace again. Okay. Because there aren't actually any power meters for running or anything yet. So you're not going to be looking at that input.

Well, there is, Jordan. A power meter for running.

Yeah, yeah.

But it is actually not as advanced as it is for riding. So technically you're right, it's not commonplace yet and it's not really that effective in measuring as well as the pace you're running at. So yeah, in the swim, we really just want to measure what you can average per 100 meters so that we can train to that number. And on the bike we want to measure what your, your functional threshold power is in watts, and we want to use that number in training and racing. And as a runner, we want to measure what pace you can run at at your threshold and we want to use that in training and racing. So, so that's the data we're searching for. And, and we have to test to find out what that is. And so we do many tests to find that out. And once we get those results, we use that data to implement it into our training and racing.

So, dad, you completed your entire Ironman career without this data and you've always said that you would compete so much better now, obviously, due to technology, you know, bike technology has come so far, but also because of the data and explain why that is.

Yeah, and look, essentially we want to make sure that in training, we're training within the zones that we want to. And that could be heart rate, it could be power, it could be speed, it could be anything, any zone we want to. But we want to concentrate on the ones that are important to us that we think gets the best bang for buck. And if I had had this information, I would have trained more accurately and therefore I would have raced more accurately. I would have probably in my training, not gone too hard too early in the first couple of intervals and faded at the end of the session. And because I didn't know that was what' was happening. I'm just presuming by perceived exertion that I was training hard and I was by perceived exertion, you know, if I was using the example, I was doing 400 repeats and I didn't have any way of measuring on the track what my 400 meter time was. I wanted to do 70 seconds, but I had no way of measuring that, you know, and I just ran solid 70 seconds times, six times. If I didn't have a watch to tell me that I hit 71 or 69 or 70, I have no feedback about how I'm going. If I'm just going by feel, it just feels like I ran that 400 reasonably hard and I have to try and run that. Replicate that six more times and you're really doing it. Blindly, aren't you? If you're thinking about it like that, it's just a guess. And so come race day, so that's in training. So come race day, you start off the event and say, we're doing a 5k fun run or a 20k time trial on the bike, or 1000 meter ocean swim in the water. You start off by what you think is a comfortable pace, but pretty soon after four or five minutes, you realize that that's actually uncomfortable and I have to slow down. And by having equipment such as power pace in swimming and biking and running, we prevent ourselves from going too hard at the start. And we can measure and pace ourselves from start to finish so much more effectively than by going by feel, which is what I did in my day. And, and you know, not patting myself on the back. But I was reasonably good at measuring my effort evenly and that was a skill in itself. But I guarantee if I had someone secretly measuring the data that I was doing, I would still be going too hard too soon. And what effect does that? And you might say, so what? But what effect does that have on my day? Well, it pretty much means I'm not going to finish the day as strongly as I should. If I had watched the data and followed it closely, it might sound like.

A simple thing, oh, I might go too hard. But yeah, so what? But if you're going too hard and not measuring your effort properly in training and then in racing, most of your training sessions aren't as effective as they could be. You're missing out on gains in your training sessions. So think about the amount of training sessions you do leading up to a, to a race. Let's say you train for six months. You know, potentially you're training for 30 weeks, seven times a week. You know you're doing 200 plus sessions leading into your race. If you're doing them wrong, you know you're wasting so much time leading up to your race if you're not measuring your effort properly. So when you say, so what?

That's the answer, you're missing the mark, aren't you? Um, so we, you know, we use the example again of six 400 meter track repeats. And, and if you, if you do the first one at 65, say you don't get to use your watch, but someone's measuring you anyway, and you do the first one to feel and it turns out at 65, and then you do the last one to the same feel of, of effort and it turns out at 75. That's an example. The Feeling felt the same, but the result on the watch was 10 seconds different. And therefore, instead of doing the session all at 70 seconds, you've done one at 65, you know, possibly one at 72 at 72 and one at 75. Yet it felt like you were doing the same effort. But the data tells us that in actual fact, you weren't getting the most out of that session because we don't want you to do any above 70 seconds. We wanted them all to be 70 seconds or, or less. And, and by not having the right feedback, you're actually not getting the value out of the training session. Which in turn will mean come race day, you're going to be the same athlete you always were. Which is the thing we're trying to avoid is we want to make sure you're improving.

Yeah, yeah. So we've got our pace per 100 meters for swimming that we're aiming for, just our run pace per km that we're doing in running, unless you're international and you still do run pace per mile and the power that we want to measure on the bike. So there are measurement devices that can measure your data for each discipline. And you know, like you're saying, dad, back in your day you might have had a stopwatch and that was your best chance at measuring your run and swim. But again, it's only good if you can measure it compared to a distance. So if you're doing four hundreds and you have a stopwatch, at least you can measure your time compared to the distance. But if you're going for a long trail run or endurance run, if you've just got a stopwatch, then you've got no idea what pace you're running at, how far you've run, etc. And so having these new smart watches which give us our pace is an absolute game changer. So we want to jump into the measurement devices to really clear this up because this is a really confusing topic for a lot of people. Watches are commonplace now, running watches are commonplace. Most people understand how they work. Your watch will tell you your time, your pace, your current pace, your average pace, et cetera. In the water, it's a similar, more simplified version. You know, you've got your wash and it gives you your pace per hundred, or you can just use the clock at the pool. You know, when you're doing each 50 meter lap, you can see how long it's taken. You work out your pace from that. But the power meter issue is a little bit more of a complex topic which confuses People and even just starting with, you know, what is a power meter and what power meter should I get all the way down to? How does power meter work and how do I read my power numbers? So, so we'll jump into the power meter issue because lots of people are still on the fence about even just getting a power meter. So let's start with that issue. Why is getting a power meter so vital?

It's good that you mentioned that. We are really across using running watches and possibly using a watch in the pool. And that's just common. And majority of people are quite across that. You would say over 90% of the people do use that functionality. Some people just still run without a watch. But they're in the minority. Whereas the power meter, the minority is the people with the power meter and then the next minority is the people who know how to use it.

Yeah, because there are a lot of people that have power meters but don't know how to use it.

That's right. So majority of people are still riding. And this is absolutely fine. We're not saying this is right or wrong. It's just that you're missing out on valuable assets that will help you train and race better to get yourself a personal best is what we're trying to achieve here.

So I would go as far as saying it is wrong to go with that. Apparently it is.

But it's certainly, you know, it's a disadvantage if you don't have it. But, so, so we, we're wanting people to get as familiar with power as they are with their running watch. That's their goal is to, and, you know, and we're providing this opportunity to teach you to do this in this clinic and, and make it as simple as possible. And the power meter is measuring each pedal stroke that you're doing and it comes up as a number on your screen. And, and that's as simple as I can make it. So, so every time you pedal, it'll measure that, the output from a number that the input is of your action of pedaling. And it's a measurable. Measurable piece of data.

Yeah. So basically there's two, two main types of power meters. You can get pedal based power meters or crank based power meters. And they go either on the pedal or the crank of your bike and they measure the wattage that you're pushing through the pedals. And then that wattage is, is linked to your bike computer. Most people have a Garmin. So for, let's say for example, sakes, it is linked to your Garmin as you said, the wattage that you're pushing with each pedal stroke appears on your Garmin, right?

That's right, yep. And just like I suppose as an electrician, the ampage that goes through the, the power lines to make the light bulb go is the effort we're putting in each pedal stroke. That's the. And. And it's measured in watts.

Yeah, yeah. So the first common objection to power meters is the cost, obviously, because it's an extra, you know, 500 to maybe $1,000 for a pretty standard power meter. And that is just often a cost that is a barrier to entry. People go, already spend so much on my bike and everything, and the sport of triathlon is expensive. Do I really need to spend this extra money on a power meter? And we're hoping with today's discussion we can convince you that it is an absolute no brainer. The advantages you get far outweigh the disadvantages of saving 500 to $1,000.

Yeah. Not having key information, for example, we joked about this before. It was like jumping in the car and not having the speedo work on your car or the fuel gauge. And so you're getting in the car and you don't know what speed you're driving at. And you could possibly get pulled over and fined because you don't have any data coming back to you saying you're doing 60 in a 40 zone or 100 in an 80 zone and you've got no idea how much fuel is left in the tank. So you, you could actually have 5km left of fuel in the tank. So, so that's how important having a power meter is. We feel to, to your race training strategies. And without those pieces of equipment, you are pretty much driving the car blindfold. You're training blindfold.

You wouldn't drive a car, would you? If you got in and had no speedo and had no fuel gauge, you wouldn't drive it. It's too risky. Yeah.

And so we're still astounded that people go into races and do training, do a whole program that culminates in a race without basically understanding that the power meter is there and they could use it and they could be a better athlete because of it. So that's what we're trying to get across here. It is a tool, it's very necessary. And on this clinic training day, we will show you exactly how to use it, how to test it and how to. You had a race with it.

So let's give it a training example because we spoke before about how you are potentially wasting all your training sessions that you're doing, all that hard work you're putting in, you're potentially wasting those sessions because they're not as valuable as they could be because you're not sticking to the right numbers and you're not using the power meter properly. And we had an example recently. We had a new athlete start with us. And they are, to be honest, a very good athlete. They're very highly trained, very talented, a really good athlete. But they hadn't had experience with power, so they were starting with power for the first time. And like I said at the start, it's no problem whether you're a beginner or an advanced athlete. If you've never used it before, then you're not going to know what to do. So they did their first sesh bike session with power and it actually turned into a bit of a funny experiment for us because they were still learning and they didn't know how to read the power properly, which is another issue we'll get into in a little bit. But they had the power meter set up. They got their power meter on their bike, they had it set up, it was showing the wattage on their screen, but they weren't looking at the right things on the screen. And so they were basically doing the session like they normally would. But we had the advantage of we could see their data after they completed the session. So it actually coincidentally turned into a little bit of experiment similar to what you were saying before. You'd have loved in your pro days to have someone that could have shown you your data, even though you thought that you were writing well to feel or running well to feel. You wonder if the data would say differently. And in this case it, the data absolutely said differently. So the athlete did their session as best they could. Uh, they were doing, I think it was four five minute efforts on the bike. And they were supposed to hit something around 240 or 245 watts. And I can't remember the exact numbers, but basically their first effort they were at over 260 watts. The second one they were about at the range at 2,45 watts. Uh, the third one they were at 220 watts and the last one they're at 210 watts. And so they were supposed to be around 240 to 245 for the four efforts because they were riding blind. They were just going as hard as they could and seeing what happened. And they went way too hard at the first one. They actually, according to our standards, failed the session on the third and fourth rep because they weren't hitting the power range they were supposed to. And they were actually, they were riding blind. They didn't know that this data was basically being recorded. And so looking back on the session, that shows clearly how when you are training to feel, you might finish the session and think, oh, I worked as hard as I could, then I did that session really well. But the data tells you differently. The data says actually your third and fourth rep weren't where they needed to be and you missed the value of that session. If you hadn't gone so hard in the first one, if they knew they were going way over what they needed to and they were going over 260 watts, they could have pulled it back, which meant they could have done the third and fourth rep properly, but instead they were too gassed and the session was a failure. And they, for this athlete, you know, they're a really good athlete. They might have been training this way their whole life, um, and thinking that they were always doing really good sessions. And they were. Any, any session where you go that hard is going to be somewhat valuable. But they were missing key gains where they could have been getting way more out of the third and fourth rep. And to me, that, that clear example just shows how valuable this is and how much you're missing out on training and racing benefits. Without looking at the numbers properly.

Yeah, there's so much in what you've just described. And, and the response from the athlete is when they were shown how far away from the, the range that they were supposed to be riding in was, I just can't believe I was so far I felt that just as hard, I was going just as hard as I should have been. And I can't believe I was literally 60 watts difference from first to last effort. And, and how that session didn't get the goal and outcome, which was, you know, four times 240 watts. Instead they got one at 260 and two below 220. And so therefore they've really wasted that session. They've done a training session which is tick. They've worked hard, they've worked to feel hard, but when you analyze the data, they've actually not achieved the goal, which is doing those four sessions at the right power. And it's like having the coach riding beside you, because instead of me checking all the time saying, come on, go faster, Jordan, go faster, you're slowing down. Whereas if you're just riding to feel you don't have that coach Doing that, you're just going to have feels. And that's what having a power meter is. It's like having the coach, you look down, the number you're supposed to be riding is 240, and look down, you see you're averaging 220. You go, Holy shit, I need to actually ride a bit harder. And I know I can ride harder because these are my numbers and I should be in that range. And all of a sudden you start hitting targets for every training session and you start to become a better bike rider because you are actually getting the benefit of the actual training session of four efforts, not one and a half efforts in the right zone.

And that's the key here, isn't it? If we had two athletes, we put them side by side and that was the same ability. And athlete A did the session like the example we just said, and every session they were doing one and a half efforts correct, but two and a half wrong. And athlete B did every effort to what they were supposed to. You think every single session athlete B is getting slightly better than athlete A because they're just getting a little bit more out of the session. You do that for six or 12 months. How much further ahead is athlete B going to be?

Yeah, the consistency factor can't be underestimated too. And so if you're doing each session consistently correct and not just guessing that you did it well, but actually reviewing and knowing during the session that you're in the right range.

That's.

There's a whole, a lot of things in there, isn't there? There's knowing you're in the range already in the middle of the session and that get to the end of the session and knowing that you actually have completed the six efforts or four efforts or whatever the session's asking you to do in the right range, then you walk away from that session pretty happy with yourself, without even discussing it with, with anybody, because the data has told you that you achieved the outcome and, and you will improve way faster than the person who's doing the by feel. You know, it's, it's just an.

It's black and white.

It is as clear as day, isn't it? The results?

Yeah. So you might be listening and you're thinking, okay, Jared Jordan, I'm getting it. I'm getting, I'm getting convinced I need to get a power meter. The next biggest challenge is what power meter do I get? Because it's pretty confusing. There's a lot of brands out there. What do I even go for?

Yeah, well, there's basically two types. There's one on the crank which is you know what attaches what your pedal is attached to. And you've got a left and right crank and you can have dual sided left and right crank power meters that will measure through a strain gauge to give you the power that you're putting in from each pedal stroke and it'll come up on your screen as watts. Or you can use pedals with power in them. So you can have a left and right dual power meter in the pedal or you can have a single pedal power and it'll just basically estimate what that you're right and your left are even and it will measure your left side and double it to give you your power power number for that session. But don't get too confused. You know we don't promote any brand. We know that there are some brands that are better than others. But you either choose to get a pedal power meter or a crank based power meter. And the beauty of having a pedal base is if you have two or three bikes, you can just change pedals from bike to bike. And that is such a thing that you should consider when you're going to purchase a power meter. If you have a road bike and a time trial bike, then you can just keep a power meter for both bikes by just switching pedals whenever you want to change bikes. Whereas if you wanted to use the crank based, you actually have to change the cranks from bike to bike, which is not a simple solution for those who aren't mechanically bike minded. So my advice is to go for the pedal based power meter for that main reason of functionality across all bikes where you only have to buy one power meter for as many bikes as you have.

Unless you're a triathlete and you're doing all your training racing on your time trial bike, then you don't need to swap over. And the crank based will work fine as well. Exactly.

The crank base works fine for every bike. But, but it's just that, you know the mechanics of swapping cranks from bike to bike is not a simple solution.

Yeah, yeah. And again we, we don't recommend any brand because we just say don't let that be a barrier to you. Just go and get whatever suits you, whatever. Whether that it more could be more of a convenience thing, whatever your local bike shop has available at the time and you can get on your bike as fast as possible.

Yeah, and look, you've got to do your research Jordan, like you would do in any purchase. This is an expensive piece of equipment and go to the reviews and, and you know, there's thousands of reviews out there and they're all very straightforward. And the answer will be pretty plain to you once you've gone and done some research.

So if you've been convinced and you're going to get a power meter, you need to know how to read it. And this is another big confusing part because you can look at the numbers on the screen on your Garmin or bike computer and it can be really confusing. It can look like a different language. And so understanding what to look at and how to use the numbers is really important. So we know what data to look for. How do we use this data? How do we know what we're actually looking at and what we're actually reading? So let's keep it really simple. Again, to race better, you need to stick to your numbers. And to be able to stick to your numbers, you need to train to your numbers. But how do you get these magical numbers? We gave you the example before of the athlete writing to certain numbers in the training session but not being able to stick to them because they didn't know what they were reading. How do we actually get these, these magical numbers? Well, you need to do baseline testing. So what is baseline testing? You tell us, dad.

Well, this is what the clinic is going to be all about, is showing each athlete who comes how to use their power meter and how to measure the data that's going to be in this test, baseline test that we're talking about. So for a swimmer, for a rider, for a runner, we would do a basic test to find out where you sit as the minute or the, the seconds per, per 100 meter as a swimmer. So how many seconds does it take you to swim 100 meters? It could be two minutes, could be one minute if you're an Olympian. It could be three minutes if you're, if you're a novice. So we would measure you that way on the bike. We would use an FTP test, which is a functional threshold power test, and we would measure you over a 20 minute test. And we would use that number and implement that into our training program. And therefore you would train to that number and then you would use it on race day, not that FTP number, but a percentage of that number for depending on how long the race is. And they're the things we'll teach you on the clinic on the day. And the thing that you just need to understand is that you are going to learn how to use the power meter on the day, what metrics or data to look at and then how to implement that into your training program.

So let's summarize that. So we do baseline testing to find your threshold. And your threshold is quite simply, like you said, what your body can hold, the pace or the power it can hold for a certain period of time, correct?

Yep.

And we, we generally measure threshold for an hour effort. So we find what is your threshold for how long you can hold a certain pace for the swim for an hour. What is it that you can hold on the, in terms of wattage on the bike for an hour, or what run pace can you hold for an hour? And again, it's this threshold that we find it's really very clever because your body can hold a certain amount up to an hour. If you go above that, you will decline and you won't be able to last the full hour. If you go below that, you'll feel fresh and you'll feel really comfortable. And again, not to confuse everyone with these interchangeable terms of baseline testing and threshold, but that's as simple as we can make it.

It is. And, and of course, you know, to put someone through an hour's bike ride test would be quite cruel. And also a swim for an hour or run for an hour, we just don't, we just don't do that. So we've, you know, the experts have come up with formulas and so we do a 20 minute test and then we take 95% of that, which is supposed to replicate your hour on the bike. And you know, that's pretty close. And we do, you know, a 30 or 40 minute run to make sure that we're getting something that's sustainable for that period of time. And we would do the same in the pool. We would pick 1000 meters or a 1500 meter trial. It's around that 20 to 30 minutes. So all the testing's around that 20 to 30 minutes and we take a percentage of those results and that becomes our new threshold. We don't put people through a full hour of testing for each of the three disciplines because, you know, that is exhausting in itself and mentally quite fatiguing. But we can get similar results by doing, you know, a sort of a minimized testing protocol that's been worked out over the years by a lot of really good scientific physiology research that's been done.

Again, I just want to break this down even further and clarify this because whenever we start measuring percentages of thresholds or whatever, it just gets confusing and it goes over a lot of People's heads when they haven't heard of this before. So what you're saying is we want to find our threshold for an hour, what we can hold for an hour in the swim, bike or run. And, and that's more relevant for endurance athletes who are swimming, riding or running for more than an hour in the event. Um, obviously you don't need to find that threshold for an hour if you're doing a shorter distance. But you're saying it's too difficult to always just do a test for an hour and a swim and do an hour bike ride test and do an hour run test at your threshold because it's just exhausting. So rather than doing hour long tests, you do shorter tests. And then you can use an equation to from those tests that gives you what your predicted threshold should be for an hour.

So imagine, Jordan, how taxing it is to do an hour swim or an hour's run at your threshold at your, you know, this is a highest pace.

That your body can hold and you.

Would need four or five days recovery. It's like a race. I mean, you are doing an effect, a race. So you need to recover. And we haven't got time in our program to do testing every four weeks at that, at that length intensity. So, so we do it as a shorter. And we can still get very accurate numbers from the tests that we do. And you can recover straight away and resume your program literally, you know, within day or two of doing the testing. So, so that's also a really key, important understanding of why we don't test to the full extent.

Yeah. So to give examples, you know, we do, yeah. Shorter swim tests, whether it's 1000 meters or 1500 meters. We do 20 minute bike test and we do a 5k or 10k run, which would be anywhere from 20 minutes to 40 minutes or 50 minutes, but it's not quite a full hour. And some. And sometimes, depending on the athlete, a 10k test would be an hour, but that's prescribed, depending on the athlete. But that has to get that said out of the way. We want to get our magical numbers. What number are we trying to find? We're trying to find the threshold number, the number that our body can hold for this hour period. And to do that we do this baseline testing. So let's go through the testing. Okay. And for the sake of the conversation, how about we focus on the bike test? So let's, let's say we're trying to find our bike threshold. And so we do what you said before is Called a FTP test, a functional threshold power test. And again, don't let the words functional threshold power confuse you. It is just a 20 minute test designed to, as the word says, find your threshold power. Okay, so we do this 20 minute test. What is the theory behind this test?

Yeah, well, we're trying to find what power you can sustain for 20 minutes. And that's your, that's your maximum 20 minute effort. And you know, just think about if I have to get on the bike and ride for 20 minutes at my maximum, I can't sprint at the start and then fade. I've actually got to measure my effort over 20 minutes. So you can't ride at, you know what, you seem to be your, your maximum power because that's as we know it would probably last two minutes. So you've got to measure your effort. So we do a 20 minute test that is going to measure what power you can hold on average for that 20 minutes. And you might start at 200 watts and feel that that's comfortable. And after five minutes you can go to 205 watts. And then all of a sudden you think, oh look, I'll make this easily, I'll go to 210. And at the end you're pushing 220. So at the end of that 20 minutes we measure what your average was. It might end up being 210. That becomes your best 20 minute power. We call that critical power. CP is critical power for any length of time. Five minutes. What's your best five minutes? We call that your best five minute critical power. What's your minutes? What's your best two minutes? What's your best one minute? We can call them peak power or critical power. But for functional threshold power, that is only for one hour. So by getting a 20 minute best effort, which we just said was 210, we take 95% of that and that comes out to be our new threshold number.

Yeah. So the theory behind the 20 minutes is there's this quite simple formula and you can find this anywhere that you. Let's say you ride for 20 minutes at the best power that you can hold. And like you said, dad, you hold 200 watts for 20 minutes. That's your 20 minute power number. Yeah, there is a formula which is take 95% of that and that gives you your approximate wattage that you can hold for one hour. So the idea is very simply, if you can hold 200 watts for 20 minutes, 95% of that is what, 190? Yeah, 190. That means that you should be able to hold 190 watts for an hour. That's quite simply what the equation is trying to do.

Yep. And you'll find that that will be quite hard to do if you're a novice rider. If you're an experienced racing time trialist, you could hold 190. But we know that there has inaccuracies in it. But we are getting something that's better than going to feel. We're getting something that's really going to be within a percentage of being correct. So if you're a beginner athlete, you're probably going to be able to hold 185 to 90, 190 as if you're a really, you know, honed triathlete. You could definitely hold 190 as your, as your FTP. So that's kind of the little variant that we, that we know about the tests that we've done. If we were to put people against an hour, against their 20 minutes, they would find that they might not be able to hold that if they weren't an experienced rider.

Great. So we've done our 20 minute test. We've got a number that we can stick to for 20 minutes and then that's given us a number that predictably we should be able to hold for an hour. But how does that help for an Ironman athlete or a 70.3 athlete? Because you're riding for, you know, 2, 3, 4, up to 6 hours or 7 hours. So how does a 20 minute test or even an hour threshold help in.

That regard and how does it help in our training? They're two great questions. How it helps in our race is that number. We've just decided that you and I have tested at 200 and now our FTP is 190. We've decided that that's our hundred percent, that's our best hour effort. So in a race such as an Ironman, you might be riding for six hours. So we know that our best effort for one hour is 190. So we have a formula which we'll teach you about and you will implement that percentage of your 190 on race day for six hours or for five hours or for four. The same with the half Ironman. We use a percentage of your test and implement that into your race day plan and in your training sessions. I might ask you to do as the example we talked about earlier was 5 by 5 minute efforts or 4 by 5 minute efforts at 100%. That would be doing those efforts at 190 watts. That's 100%. If I asked you to do that at 105, you'd be doing that at 200 watts. So they're examples of how we implement the testing that we've done into our daily training and into our race plan. And it's really quite obvious to everybody who's done this, but for those who are new to power, that's a revelation. So I am really training exactly here, aren't I? And those who have never used it before and now start to use it, they are going, oh my God, what was I doing before? How did I possibly train properly? How did I not blow up my races? Well, you probably did. And, and this is just showing you how much you did.

Yeah, and let's look at the real world examples because the pieces of the puzzle are starting to really come together now. So you've done your test and you know what, you can, you can hold 190 watts for an hour, but obviously you're going to be riding for, let's, you know, take an Ironman. You're going to be riding for four to six to seven hours, or five to five to six to seven hours more likely. You cannot possibly try and hold 190 watts for that period because you know that at max, you're only going to going to be able to hold it for an hour. So you need to be holding somewhere much lower, somewhere between 150 or 170 watts or 140. And again, like dad said, we have formulas to help you work this out based on your training and racing. But the point of this is, you know, athlete A who goes into an Ironman, what kind of experience are they going to have if they don't have power? And they're just guessing, um, and they might just be focusing on, you know, speed to ride, for example, you know, trying to hold a certain speed versus athlete B who can focus on power. Now what, what's the difference going to be in their experience on race day?

Quite simply, it's really trying to prevent you from going too hard too soon. And we've talked many times in our podcast about being patient and, and trying to go the same pace from start to finish, generally averaging the same pace. That is our goal, so that we don't actually fade at the end of the bike leg in the Ironman so that you can run better. So they're the real reasons why we would want to absolutely follow the guidelines of what our range that we've set ourselves in our race plan of power. So it's stopping us from going too hard too soon in the event. And it's also enabling us then to run better because we don't fade because we went too hard. And you know, in any event that you've ever done in your life, whether you can see the data or not, if you go too hard too soon, it's a horrible finish to finish, you know, with a piano on your back, you know you can hardly run up the finishing straight, you know your legs can hardly turn the pedals. It's because you've executed poorly. The power meter prevents you from poor execution as long as you follow the number. You can have a power meter and not follow the number and still end up with the same outcome. But knowing the numbers you should be riding at is going to A stop you from going too hard too soon, which will be make you strong at the end. And C, enable you to run the way you want to run in a triathlon. That is the key concept of using power to your advantage. And you know, you only have to look back at if you, as we said before, if you had your data covered and it was being being tested while you were training and racing and then expose it at the end, you would just be shocked at how because you're fresh and tapered for a race, you're going to feel fantastic. So you're going to think that it's easy going to perceived exertion feels easy because you're fresh. But the same effort, you know, four hours later feels excruciatingly hard because you're tired. So. So there's another example of how valuable not riding to feel is compared to riding to power.

Well, we spoke about that example before about athlete in the, in the, in the four minute efforts, how the fourth one felt exactly the same as the first one in terms of effort, but that was 60 watts lower. And that's in, you know, four minute efforts or five minute efforts. You know, you can imagine how exaggerated that is over a five hour event. And if we use that example before of athlete A versus athlete B and athlete A decides they want to try and rate it ride at 30km an hour for the race, you know, they don't pay attention to their power and they're just trying to hold a good average speed, they might, if both athletes have the FTP of what we said, 190 watts, they might be pushing 170 watts or 180 watts to try and hit 30 kilometers an hour at the start. And they can do it because it's below their threshold for an hour. But Past that hour, they're going to start to struggle because they're trying to hold a pace. It's way too close to the hour threshold. And the last few hours of that ride is going to be super painful compared to athlete B, who knows that it shouldn't be anywhere near that power number. They ride to power for the day, they're going to be, like you said, patient and stay within their range and stay well under their threshold so that not tiring themselves out so they finish the bike leg feeling stronger. What's the difference going to be for both those athletes getting onto the run? You know, athlete A is going to be absolutely exhausted with the piano on their back before starting their half marathon or marathon. Athlete B is going to be feeling a lot fresher.

Yeah, 100%. And don't forget the nutrition burn from someone who's going too hard. You're going to go through the fuel just like a car. If you accelerate all out of the traffic lights, you're burning fuel more. So if you're being patient and riding steady state, you're going to actually feel better. But your nutrition levels will also be nice and strong and still reasonably topped up when you come to run. And they're the two things come running that you want to have on your side. You want to feel like you haven't ridden 180k and you've batched around a marathon. You want to feel with some confidence that you're relatively fresh from not cooking yourself on the bike and that the fueling that you've had on the bike is still adequate and you haven't, you know, diminished the fuel levels to an amazing low level where you start, you know, going hunger flat or even worse, cramping. So, so the benefit of pacing by using a power meter for the run cannot be underestimated. It is a game changer by going too hard on the bike will detrimentally affect your run. And we want to use every piece of information that's possibly available to us to stop that from happening. And also using the information in the run from the data to also stop that from happening. Which is the next obvious thing to talk about.

Yeah, so the data in all three disciplines is super important. We're just really honing in on the power data give to give really clear examples. And that shows really obviously why baseline testing is important, why your FTP test is important, this 20 minute bike test, but baseline testing overall, why getting this data and getting these numbers is important. So we said at the start, what are these magical numbers? And now you're figuring out, okay, these magical numbers are my threshold numbers. This is what I'm trying to find out. So let's go through the example of the FTP test, the 20 minute test. What are some common mistakes that people make doing their FTP test, doing their baseline test?

Yeah. Well, the obvious one is doing what they do in most races and training sessions, which is starting too hard and fading. And if you do that in the baseline FTP test, you won't get an accurate result because you've started too strong and ended up dropping the power. For example, if you start, if you ended up with 200 watts and you executed in this fashion, I started at 240 and I finished at 160. That seems extremely exaggerated, doesn't it? But I ended up with 200 watts as the average. What about this person who started at 200 and, sorry, started at 195 and finished at 210 or 205, sorry, he ended up with 200 watts as well. So which athlete do you think achieved the better result? Well, obviously the person who was more even and you know, 205 was the maximum they could do. So their number is 200. But if a person could push 240 watts in the first example, example A and ended up pushing 160 at the end, we never know whether 200 was their average or not. Because they faded so badly, they could possibly be a 220 rider or 210 rider. But because they were so far above what they should have been at the start, we don't actually know whether that number is accurate. So we'd actually have to do the testing again and start, you know, start them at the average, which was 200, and see how they go from that point. And I'll guarantee that the test they do the second time, they would probably get 210 within a day or two of doing the same test because of the execution. So getting the execution wrong on your testing will actually adversely affect the result. So you still, you're still better off being conservative and coming home strong and getting a result that you can actually use in training.

I would ask you my. The average I get is the average I get. You know, what's it matter? How does it affect my training?

Well, you could have possibly had a higher average. So therefore your training is going to be worse if you train at 200 and you should have been training at 210 during the week.

Yeah.

Is that clear?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, obviously I know, but I Try to make it clear for the listener.

I should have said, is that, do you think that's clear to the listener that, that if you ended up, you know, doing 104, 240 for the first 10 minutes and 160 for the last 10 minutes and ended up with 200 and in fact you could have actually been able to do 210 with better execution. When you come to do training sessions and you train all of your sessions at a percentage of 200, are you going to be training too easy? And because you should have been training at 2:10, that's the effect it'll have on your training session and income. Race day. If you've, if you've tested incorrectly, then you could race too low a power number and therefore be too slow. The good thing is you'll run fantastic, but you'll actually lose time on the bike. So, so getting the test right in terms of execution is key.

Yeah. And this is a really big point we want to, we want to hone in on you. You need to get this test right because like you've just summarized, otherwise you're training, there's no point training to numbers. Cause they're going to be the wrong numbers to stick to and you'll have a poor race plan as well. Another big mistake is not having a proper warmup to be able to do the test right.

Yeah. And people say, oh, so what if you, if you, you know, you just get on, do your best. Well, if I don't do a warmup and I've used this many times, you know, where I've actually not planned my day properly and I've tried to jump on and do a training session where I am actually doing five minute efforts and I haven't warmed up properly, I can't get the first or second effort out properly. Then by the time I get to the third, fourth and fifth effort, I hit the groove and I can actually hit the targets. And that's an example of how poor warmup has been, has affected my whole session. I did three of the efforts in the right zone, but the first two, because I wasn't warmed up properly, I couldn't hit the target. So what we're trying to do in the warmup is prepare you for the main set. And without this warm up being properly drilled into your body, you won't be able to hit your targets from the first pedal revolution or the first second of the test. And that's what we're trying to achieve. And all the scientific evidence around the world says that in order to warm up, in order to do a great successful outcome of a session, you need to be well prepared in getting the blood flow around your body, not only for the preparation of the intensity, but also to eliminate the possibility of injury.

Yeah. The next big mistake or confusion point is not knowing what to look at on your garment or your bicomputer.

Yeah. And the data you show on your screen is crucial. And I've had people do an FTP test and, and ring me and ask me how did I go? And I'm floored by that question. It's like, well, you would have seen how you're going if you're looking at the right data from the first minute to the last minute and you wouldn't need to ask me how did I go? And that's the bit that counts. You need to be following your data. So we'll show you what you need to be showing, what you need to be seeing on the screen, the important metrics. You know, should you be looking at 3 second power, should you be looking at normalized power, should you be looking at average power, should you be looking at lap power? What, what importance is cadence? Should you have heart rate on the screen, should you have average speed? These are the things that will show you that in order of importance as to what you should be looking at during your 20 minute testing.

It's a really important point which ties into kind of the first point of execution. There's no point doing the FTP test blind. You've got to know what you're looking at, otherwise you are going to finish and have no idea how you went, you know, and we don't want you to do that because if you do that, you might stuff up the test and then you've just wasted an effort. You've just wasted a really intense 20 minute test and you're not going to have accurate numbers to train or race to. So this is, that's how important it is to know what to look at on your actual garment or black computer. And I mean the technology side of things is probably one of the most confusing parts of all this, isn't it?

Yeah. And look, that's totally understandable. This is hard enough to actually do. The effort of the 20 minutes that's taking a lot of your concentration is holding even effort across 20 minutes. And now you're wanting me to do some technological stuff about looking at what is the effort telling me as I'm writing. And that is the key to it though, once you understand what to look for, then it Becomes very simple. All I'm looking for is am I holding steady state power across the whole 20 minutes? And if you don't have the screen set up properly, showing you what to look at, then you're going to be riding blind again. Even though you've got a power meter that's, that's, you know, because the power is measured, you know every single pedal revolution that you, you ride. So it could jump from left side to 220 watts, right side to 190 watt watts, back to 210, it could be jumping all over the place. You've got real no cons, you've got no real concept of what you're averaging. And that's why looking at those numbers on your screen is so important.

Yeah. One of the next biggest mistakes is course selection.

If you are doing this, and let's just get this clear, there's many ways of testing. You can do indoor, you can do on a velodrome and you can do on a piece of road. And so for this particular test, if you're doing the third option, which is outdoor on the road, you need to be very careful about the course you select. And it can't have 8 degree hill with a 12 degree descent. You can't have that in an FTP test because on the descent you can't push power, as those people have tried to have used power. And know that riding downhill, you can't actually push the power number. So you need to find a reasonably flat course. And that's why the velodrome is brilliant, because it's obviously a pancake flat surface to ride on. But if you want to do this test outside on the road, you need to select a course that's reasonably flat. You also need to have no interruption on that course for 20 minutes. And it needs to be two directional. That means 10 minutes one way and 10 minutes the other, so that we get tailwind and headwind as part of the test. And if you find that you've selected a course that has a traffic light in it, it's going to destroy the result. Because the minute you stop at a traffic light, you recover, your heart rate dips, and then you can push bigger power straight away after that effort. We don't have that in a 20 minute test. It's a continuous effort, not one broken by traffic lights.

Yep. And look, we could, we could keep going through these sorts of mistakes. There's a mistake you can make about, you know, the type of bike you choose to do your test on, whether you do it on the Bike that you're actually going to race on race day, or, you know, you do it on your road bike, which you're actually not racing on race day, which is a mistake in itself. You know, doing the test using your kicker, which again, you're not using your kicker on race day. So you need to be making sure that you're testing with the power meter that you're going to be using on race day. Again, it's a whole more list of things we could go through, but essentially you need to understand that you want to be able to execute this test right and we want to help with that. And so our solution with this VIP coaching day, this clinic that we're running is that we're going to help you with all of these points that we've just gone through. You know, Jared is going to help you with how to execute the test, what number to start at, you know, to make sure that you don't start too high and you execute it properly, how to do our specific special Trivella warm up that gets you really ready for the FTP test and make sure it gives you the best chance of getting an accurate result and doing the test properly, teaching you what to look at on your Garmin so that you're looking at the right things and you're understanding what the numbers all mean and making sure that the technology aspect isn't stopping you from getting a proper test result. All the little things like you said, dad, not knowing what cadence to ride at all, the little bits of data, extra data, and, and we're choosing to do the test in a controlled environment for our coaching day just so we can be there by your side to make sure that you're doing it properly and not having that risk of doing it outdoors and getting it wrong and then wasting the 20 minutes of the test. So if again, just to wrap up, if you would like to sign up to this day, you can go to tribalocoachingday.com and dad, that's pretty much the bike test. But something else we're going to do on the day as well is the run test. And like we said before when explaining that we don't want to just run for an hour, a solution is a five kilometer run, you know, a shorter run and it's a bit simpler, but the same principles still apply. And again, we'll be doing a five kilometer test on the day after the bike. Not straight away with a bit of a break in between, but to get a feel for running off the bike, which is really important. But I want to ask you. Lots of people have a fear around testing and baseline testing because they don't want to be embarrassed by their ability or a common question you get, like you said before, is, did I do good or are my numbers going to be good enough? And you have pretty specific thoughts on this, don't you?

Yeah. And look, on the indoor trainer, you know, you're not moving past people. On the indoor trainer, everybody's sitting stationary, so no one can actually see how well everybody's doing. But in a 5k run, if you're in a group of people, it's instantaneous that you see where you sit amongst the group of 20 people or four or whoever you're running with, and so you get a feel of where you are against your opposition. And the purpose of testing is not for that. It's not to see how good or bad you are, it's to see what level you're at so that we can actually train to that level over the next training block. And then eventually, when we come to race day, we would have tested, you know, say we've done 16 or 20 weeks or 30 weeks of training, we would have tested possibly, you know, six times in that period. We would know accurately what your running pace for race day will be, not only in training, but in. On race day. So. So it's really not a test to see how good you are, it's just a test to see what level you're at. And if you happen to be an elite runner and you, you know, you do the 5k in 15 minutes on the day and someone else has turned up and they're a very beginner runner and they do the 5k in 30 minutes. You know what, that doesn't say anything about anything except that there's a vast variation in between everybody's ability, and we already know that. So we're going into these testing days not caring about the difference between other people. We're only caring about our own number, and therefore we're training to this number. So what someone else does on the day is quite irrelevant. Same when you're on the bike, because you can't see their number, it doesn't really matter to you. But because you can see them running faster than you or slower than you, it affects your mental approach because you feel like you're inferior. But in fact, you should be focusing on, what am I doing? Is this pace sustainable 4.5k and concentrating on your own run rather than seeing what other people are doing? Um, so. So my emphasis on this number is not to see how good you are, to see what level you're going to train and race at come race day and come training sessions.

Yeah, there is no good or bad. You always just say your number is your number. You're not trying to compare any athlete to any other athlete. You're just trying to compare them to their own number, find out what your number is and not worry about anyone else's number. And in fact, as long as you just have a number, as soon as you do this testing and have a number, you're at an advantage and you're better than someone that doesn't have a number.

Exactly right. Because that person can still have a training session where they go too fast because they haven't used their number. And they could go into a race where they go too fast and fade and not get the outcome they want. Even though they're a better runner than you, you could actually have a better result, get a better pb and they'll continue to not reach their PB that they got on one occasion from that point onwards.

So once you've, you've completed your baseline testing, what do you do? And this is the most important part, and especially this is the most important part of the coaching day as well, because we've got these numbers, we've got them all laid out in front of us. How do we use them? Well, now every single minute of your training can be set to a certain percentage of those numbers of those thresholds. This means that you have an exact number to hit or number to stick to for every single session that you do. And that makes every single session as effective as possible. And these numbers will increase over time. But basically you're never going to start a session again without knowing what numbers to be at. And you never finish a session without reviewing whether you stuck to those numbers. And like you said, dad, it's like having a coach with you 24, 7. And we'll use these numbers to improve different parts of your fitness and your physiology. So a sub threshold session has a different goal to a VO2 max session. And so let's go through those goals because every session has a its own goal and purpose. And this is the beauty of having these numbers, that if you are doing a sub threshold session, the purpose of that session is to train you at holding a sustained effort below that FTP number like you were talking about, dad. Whereas a VO2 max session is a high intensity session designed to push your body beyond the limits of what it's used to, designed to increase your ability to hold high sustained power. And this creates a physiological adaptation that allows you to increase your threshold number. So every session hits your body in a different way, all aimed at increasing your threshold. But now that we have these numbers, a sub threshold session is hitting completely different numbers to a VO2 max session. And it begs the question, how could you possibly do a proper sub threshold session without power? How could you possibly do a VO2 max session without power? How could you do a proper recovery ride without power? Well, you couldn't because you haven't tested properly. So if you're ever trying to do these sessions without power, without baseline testing, then you're most likely doing them wrong.

Yeah, and that hits the nail on the head when you think about it like that. You know, you don't want to train the same way every day. And you know, you might have good intentions of today's going to be easy, today is going to be a little bit harder. Today's going to be very hard. You know, if that's the terminology you're training to each day. Whereas we're specific, we're saying today is going to be recovery and it should be at this intensity. Today is going to be VO2 and it should be at this intensity. Today is going to be sub threshold and it's going to be at this intensity. And because we have the baseline FTP number, we can plot that quite easily into our training program. And away we go training exactly in the right ranges for the outcome and the purpose of every session. And come race day we want to, we want to race at this intensity which, you know, depending on the event, Ironman 70.3 sprint or Olympic, they all determine different intensity levels. So we just input our number in our range and away we go and race to that number. And it's stopping us from going too hard in training or in racing. And that is the reason, the most important reason why we want to actually have a number to train and race at. And without that number we are at best guessing.

And that is the biggest benefit is all about getting to race day in a better position. And we tell the great story of a athlete who signed up to try velo and they had a race in two weeks time. And so obviously we weren't going to help them train and get better in two weeks because it's probably not physiologically that going to be that beneficial beneficial. But this athlete instead you decided to give them some baseline testing so that they had some numbers to stick to in the race. And, and this specific athlete had done the new search Triathlon three years in a row prior to this and done the exact same time three years in a row within. Within five minutes or so. Um, and then just from doing the baseline testing and getting their numbers to stick to and knowing what numbers to stick to in the race, they did a 20 minute PB that next year because they had an actual plan to stick to and numbers to stick to. And that is the biggest benefit. And that's what we want to see. And that's just without even training better. You know, imagine if you combined training better to your numbers plus knowing what numbers to stick to in a race. And I guess that's our big benefit for this, isn't it? Data. You don't have to turn up to the start line of races and wonder how the day is going to go. You know, you don't have to be nervous about blowing up or nervous about not finishing when you have these numbers.

The only thing you need to be nervous about is will I execute the way I should? And that's all you should be concentrating on because you already got your race plan, you've already got your numbers, you've got all your data, you understand how to train to it, you understand how you've been going in training. So the numbers are very familiar to you. So your job is to focus on the execution, whereas the other people who haven't got that information, their job is trying to get through the event without blowing up. And they're just basically guessing at best to see what the outcome is going to be. Whereas you've got a really clear understanding of what time you're going to do on the bike according to the training you've done and what time you can run according to all the data you've tested. So you actually have a clear understanding because you've been tested properly and you understand how to implement that into your training and racing and the outcome will be a lot more guaranteed than the person who has none of this information.

That's great. So to finish this off, it should be a no brainer, especially to us, as to why data is so important and why you need to learn how to test yourself. And this guide was about showing you exactly how it all works, the steps involved in the entire process, and giving you that understanding from the absolute base level of why this is so important. And this is why we announced our VIP coaching day. And this is why we wanted to create this for anyone out there who didn't know how this works and want to get personal help. Again, this is for anyone whether you're a beginner athlete who's brand new to this or an advanced athlete that hasn't utilized the power of this properly. So a reminder of how the VIB coaching day will work. Basically you turn up and session one will be all about the arrival, setting things up and introduction to get you going and setting up your bike and your power meter correctly for the day. Introduction with Coach Jared. The second session will be the actual bike testing. And this is where we do the test with Coach Jared looking over your shoulder and coaching you every step of the way for the best chance of maximum success. Then we have a bit of recovery and a breakdown session debriefing your performance before we go into session three, which is the run testing. And again, this is done off the bike to get the most accurate measurements for the day in terms of run performance, which is going to be most similar to how you run on race day. Then we have a bit of a break again and the last session is the actual coaching workshop with and review with Jared where we teach you in the workshop how you can now use your data in training and on race day for yourself. The power numbers simplified. So setting up your Garmin or your watch in the simplest mode possible and showing you what numbers you should be looking at during your workouts and races. Program analysis and creation part of the workshop which is using these numbers to create highly effective training sessions that you can immediately go home and start using straight away and really importantly, understanding zones. So what percentages mean, what zones and how much time to spend in each zone throughout your training week. So again, if this is something that you would like to do, you can go to trivalocoachingday.com we're really excited about this day again and it's held in Belgrade Victoria. So either you're in Victoria or you're prepared to travel. The first date of this is Sunday, August 1, 2021. And obviously there are some things up in the air with COVID all the time and if for some reason the date needs to be changed, that's fine. But for now the first official date is Sunday August 1st and we only have four spots available due to the nature of the ability to test in this studio and where we are at our home. So generally a power meter is non negotiable. You could come without it, but we would just ask you the question, like we said in the episode, what are you going to do after? If you come and test with us but you don't plan on having a power meter at home, then the testing is kind of rendered useless. So yeah, we would strongly encourage you to get a power meter if you're going to come to the day. And once again, it doesn't matter what level you are, this will benefit you if you're an absolute beginner triathlete who's brand new to all of this, or if you're an experienced triathlete who wants to get to another level. And that's it from us. We really hope you've enjoyed this episode. Dad, any parting words about this day that you're excited about? We're really excited when we came up with it and decided that this is something we really want to help people with.

Yeah, it's something that I've talked about for years and so much easier for me to really have someone hands on where I can take my time and go through stuff that seems to be, you know, too, too advanced for, for most people to, to really get a good concept of what's actually happening in their training and racing. And this is a great opportunity for, for you to, to ask questions and, and learn how to implement everything about what should be happening in data into your everyday, everyday training and racing.

Once Again, go to tribalocoachingday.com Only four spots available. Thank you very much for listening to this episode. Where super hyped about this. We hope you enjoyed it. If you have more questions on this, we're happy to answer them in future podcast episodes. Thanks very much for listening as always. See you next time.