The Worst Triathlon Advice We’ve Seen This Week

Last week I watched runners across social media pile on massive plates of pizza, pasta the night before the Sydney Marathon, thinking that carb loading the night before was the magic trick to performance. And spoiler, it's not. Today we're breaking down the worst triathlon advice we keep hearing, from zone 2 obsession to last minute race week chaos and all the changes that we see. So joining me on the podcast as always is former Australian Ironman champion and multiple Australian age group and masters champion Gerard Donnelly. Dad, welcome back to another episode. There's some advice out there that I know really gets to you, so I'm going to have to hold you back a little so you don't burst a blood vessel on this one. But excited to jump into some of the worst advice we've seen.

Yeah, it's a really good topic and it's really, uh, a good time to do it, an opportunity for people to look at what's going on in the world of, uh, of high-level competition, uh, the, the world track titles, the world road titles A lot of northern athletes have just finished their triathlon summer season. A lot of the southern hemisphere athletes are just starting. So it's a really opportune time to actually bring up the topic of advice. And, you know, advice is well-intended, and I really firmly believe that people's advice is well-intended. And you and I give a lot of advice, but we give advice that's mainly general so that each individual can make sure that the advice is appropriate for them or it's not appropriate for them. So it's really hard for, for to take advice from people who don't know you and what your goals are. And that's one of the things I want to get out of this podcast.

We'll start off and, uh, we'll just get straight into some of the main bits of advice and, and talk about them. And, and for me, it's, um, the first one I want to touch on was this big obsession with zone 2 and polarized training. We're just seeing a lot of that rhetoric everywhere at the moment, that zone 2 is the magic secret and that 80/20 polarized training, that approach, which is a very popular approach, which is an approach we sort of agree with in certain contexts, which is 80% of your training easy and 20% hard. But whenever I say that, you know, Zone 2 isn't the answer for everyone and Zone 2 advice is misguided, people always come back to me with saying, you know, well, Zone 2 helped me wipe off 10 minutes of my PB. You know, doing Zone 2 got my easy pace from 8-minute k pace down to 6-minute k pace. And of course that's true because Zone 2 is good. I'm not saying Zone 2 is not good. Zone 2 is well documented to be the best training zone to build aerobic fitness because of how much volume you can do at Zone 2. It's kind of almost unlimited as long as you feeling yourself right. We program a ton of Zone 2 in our training program, so I want to say it clear, I'm not against Zone 2. What I'm against is just that, that binary approach of this is the magic solution and nothing else. And we train all the training zones at different parts of the season. I think that's the point I want to get across, is that triathletes need to practice the full range of training zones and not just, just that polarized approach.

If you came out of a science lab and you had done, you know, lots of Zone 2 and, and some 20% of your efforts at high intensity, you would find that there'd be an improvement. There's so many science studies that have, have shown that. But what we're trying to say is it's just not Zone 2 that's created that improvement. The 20%, you know, if we talk about 80/20, 80% of your time might be Zone 1, 2, and 3. Might just be Zone 2, but you're still doing 20% at high intensity. So you can't just say it was Zone 2 that created the improvement. So you gotta be careful when you hear hear someone say, I've improved so much and you know what? I've just done Zone 2. But if you dig deeper, and that's the thing I wanna, I wanna do in this podcast today is dig deeper across the advice surface and then, oh yeah, I have done a lot of threshold work. I have done a lot of VO2. And, and therefore, the statement that I've improved because I've just done Zone 2 doesn't hold that much sway anymore. You've improved because you have done Zone 2, but because you've done that with a mixture of other things. So I wanna make that clear. We're not saying Zone 2 is a bad thing. We're saying Zone 2 is part of the curriculum that you should have in your arsenal of sessions. And we are very specific. We wanna have Zone 2 depending on whether you're a cyclist or, you know, just training one sport as a marathon runner or a half marathon runner or a 10K runner or, you know, a cyclist or as in triathlon, you have 3 sports where you can't just do Zone 2 across swim, bike, and run. You know, you have to have maybe a section of your biking where it's more Zone 2 because you're doing a lot of VO2 stuff in the swim or you're doing a lot of VO2 stuff on the bike. So it depends what sport you're in will determine the level of Zone 2 that you do, and I want to make that clear as well.

I want to take that a step further because I guarantee there'll be someone out there who could say, "No, I've only done Zone 2 and I've improved. I haven't trained any other training zones." And that is definitely possible. As we said, Zone 2 is great for fitness building. If you're in a position where you have a lot of fitness gains to be made, if you just did Zone 2 and nothing else, you will probably improve. But our point is that you won't improve forever with that. And if you want to be a good triathlete and a well-rounded triathlete, you need all training zones. And so Zone 5 VO2 max zone is to improve your top-end fitness, you know, that very top end. Zone 3 to 4 is what you will probably do in your triathlon races, so you need to train that. And then Zones 1 and 2 is for your fitness building. It's your easy training. And you could do Zone 1 is more recovery, Zone 2 more aerobic fitness. All 5 training zones there are necessary as part of a program.

You need to have the mixture. And this is, this is brilliant that you've brought this up because when you're in, for example, in the off-season, we want to keep improving your FTP. We want to keep improving your running capacity and your swim times. They're the, they're the things as a triathlete wants to do. Same as a marathon runner or half marathon runner. You wanna get the fitness load in the off-season. And people say, well, you should just be doing Zone 2. Well, we disagree. You know, the advice is just don't do Zone 2 and long slow endurance training in the off-season. That's a great example of, yes, that will work. You will— you will get a good basic fitness, but— but why waste that time when we know if you just sprinkled in some— some intensity, you would actually get a bigger benefit, a bigger gain. And— and the point you made, Gerard, about, you know, I've got evidence that I've just done Zone 2 and I have improved. Yes, that is true, but you will reach a point where that won't see any more improvement unless you give your body a different stimulus. So that is true for 6 months, for 3 months, for 3 weeks. I've really improved after 3 weeks. Now, the advice I got was do this for 6 months. Yes, you will improve, but if you don't do anything different, don't have any overload, don't have any other stimulus that's gonna create— because the body will adapt straight away. It will adapt to Zone 2, and you will be a great Zone 2 rider, and that's it. And in, in a year's time, if, if I said to you, Jordan, I want you to do Zone 2 riding for 6 months and nothing else, and then I did Jordan B, you know, a clone of you, and I gave Jordan B a mixture, by the time he got to 6 months, there wouldn't be a great deal of difference. There would be a little bit, but I guarantee in 12 months, Jordan B would be so far ahead of Jordan A, who just kept doing Zone 2. And, and that's what you want. You don't, you don't wanna be staying the same. You want to gradually improve over, you know, year after year, season after season.

Absolutely. That's a big one to start with, but we really want to get that big training zone misconception out of the gate, that advice we're seeing a lot of. So let's fly through some other key bits of advice that we see a lot. One is just starting the triathlon race, and people say, you know, sprint into the water to get some momentum and get a good start. That seems basic, but why is that a bad idea?

And I don't want to limit it to sprinting into the water, Gerard. How many times have you and I stood on the start line of a 5K, 10K, or a half marathon or marathon where there's guys who are just sprinting at the start to get a good position. A good position for what? You're actually blowing yourself up. You know, you don't wanna, you know, get your heart rate above the level it's gonna be for the remainder of an endurance event. You know, for a sprint, it might be okay if you sprint into the water because you are vying for the top podium position. That's— there are exceptions. But if you're an age grouper, a beginner or middle of the pack, or someone who's just trying to improve, you need to protect your lactate. You need to protect your heart rate and lactate. And by sprinting, you're not protecting it. You're doing the opposite. You're actually causing it to go into the red zone. So stop doing that. That is the advice I'm giving. So it doesn't matter whether you're on a start line of a 5K run, work out whatever your pace is for the run, start at that pace, the same with the swim. You know, don't sprint along the beach into the water and then get to put your face in the water and then you can't breathe 'cause you've hyperventilated from sprinting into the water. So, you know, getting a good position in the water is just so irrelevant in an endurance sport. Getting a good spot as a runner with the front pack is exactly the same. You'll last the limit of your lactate and then you're going to be running on your own. So you might as well start on your own at your level. And look, we see a lot of bike races where it's important that you would do an effort coming into a narrow section where you can't pass people or you don't want to be caught at the back. I get that. And, and now I would give advice of you need to move, you need to actually get to the front pack where it's really appropriate. You see a lot of the pros where all the big teams will, will start to gather when there's a section that's coming up where there's going to be a climb or there's going to be a narrow section of road. They want to get their, their GC riders right to the front so that they're not getting You're not giving someone 50 meters head start. So I get that, but that's a really minor part of racing. So I think the best advice is just control your execution as closely as you can and not take the advice of, I need to get somewhere fast in an endurance event.

Yeah, the only athletes that should be worrying about getting out fast for position is we would have just seen them all at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo for the last couple of weeks. And even then, it's such a fine line for them between getting out hard and not blowing up, because you see so many athletes fight for a— at the very top level, they're the only athletes that could potentially get away with it. But it's such a fine balance even for them, you know, they're fighting for position the first couple hundred meters, and by doing that, they're burning a lot of energy in matches. And you saw it over and over again in the 800s, every heat, semi-final, and final so many of the athletes that were in the top 3 at the start, because they went out really hard to get that position the first couple hundred meters, had nothing in the last 200. You know, over and over again we saw that across multiple distances.

And we see championship races, that happens a lot. I was so impressed with Jess Hull in her 800s. She did not follow the sheep. She, at the start of her heat in her semi-final and her final, she was literally 25 meters off the back. And you know, she qualified through the heats, although she did trip over and got, got put through from a trip, but she actually qualified in the semi-finals, um, really well by running smart and tactically and not sprinting at the start. You see Inge Britsen do this every time in a 1500. He basically sits at the back of the field, and when he's in great form, it works. But as we've seen at the World Championships, he's not in great form, and he was sitting at the back because he was actually protecting his, his lactate levels because he didn't want to blow up. And so, so it's, you know, we've got examples of the elite people doing it. So why, as an age grouper, would we think it's a great idea to take that advice?

Yeah, speaking of sprinting, another bit of advice we see a lot is— I do get where this one comes from because it is in line with what our goal is for the race, and it's you want to keep your average bike speed up the highest, therefore, you know, you want to get out of corners nice and fast to bring that bike speed up so that your total average speed is up. That's the advice, but why is that misguided and incorrect?

And there's a limit where you should be, because I look at a lot of the data in our TrainingPeaks when athletes have loaded up and say they're on a course where— and look, for example, Western Sydney Triathlon here in Australia last week had some ridiculous amount of turns. I don't know, it was 50 turns, U-turns, left turns, right turns, roundabouts. And if you spike 400 or 500 watts out of every one of those turns, and I think 50 times 400 or 500 watts, does it sort of make sense now? You are actually going to burn a hell of a lot of matches. And all it is doing is increasing your heart rate, increasing the lactate, burning more nutrition, and getting you tired. So sure, get out of the corner quick, really clever cornering, but make sure you've changed gears before you go into the corner so when you come out of the corner you're not stuck in the wrong gear. And then you can spin your way back up to good bike speed, not getting out of your seat pushing 500-600 watts every time. That is a recipe for really exhaustion. And, and you can still do it well and only lose 1 or 2 seconds. I've done this many times myself in races where I've, I've just got absolutely smashed by people coming out of corners who are just out of their seat, you know, hammering it, and they've literally blown themselves up in that 10-second sprint, and I've just taken another minute to catch them and then just ridden past them, uh, because they're still puffing from that actual effort that they've done. Imagine doing that 50 times, and I'm not exaggerating. A lot of courses have 30 turns, 40 turns, 50 turns. If you actually have that mythology of sprinting out of the corners, you're causing yourself to be not going to be able to perform the way you want to.

It's interesting that, you know, both those points were based around sprinting. We just always remind people of the principle that, you know, triathlon is an endurance sport and sprinting should just never be in that vocabulary. And we always laugh at the fact that the shortest distance is called a sprint when it's at minimum an hour for most people or longer. That's an endurance event, you know, that's not a sprint. So we always find that fascinating. The next one, I mentioned it in the intro, but, but carb loading. And of course you want to carb loading is proven to help top up glycogen stores. But the advice of, you know, carb load the night before and eat as much as you can, and a lot of people might hear that and go, I know that, that's basic, that's, that's, you know, of course that's a myth, that's old school advice. But don't laugh at this, it seems obvious, but the night before a race when everyone is posting on social media big plates full of pizza and pasta and, and saying, you know, you know, new science, you're talking about carbs and the importance of carbs 'You gotta get your carbs in,' and you start going, 'Wow, that's actually double what I had for dinner,' you might start asking, 'Gee, am I eating enough?' And that's what we're talking about, the danger of taking on other people's advice.

I loved your story with one of your mates, Matt, and he was questioning you about what you— were you having the pre-night-before meal? I should let you tell that story.

I was just saying that I was winding him up a little bit because he said, you want to go grab some lunch? We're both at the event together the day before. And I said, I'm just going to eat a little bit later. I said, what are you having? And he sent me a photo of some sushi. And just to wind him up, I said it was tuna sushi. And I said, oh, a bit risky. I wouldn't be having that the day before a race, you know. And he's gone, he's texted back going, oh, what do you mean?

Like, what are you going to eat?

And I was going, I don't know, seafood, 24 hours. I wouldn't, that just seems a little bit risky to me. And a couple hours later, he's going, oh, what 'No, tell me what you're having.' And I ended up getting some sushi myself for lunch and text back the same photo of sushi, because sushi's fine. I was very happy with that. And he goes, 'Oh, you're just winding me up.' And yeah, the point is just don't let other people impact your decision. I was kind of just testing him a little bit.

Yeah, and look, if you're used to having whatever you're used to having, keep having that. That's our point. But don't be so easily led by advice that's you know, it could be well-intended that, oh, I don't think that's a good— someone said to you, I'm having— you know, if someone regularly does well and they have some sort of meal that's got spices in it, but it doesn't affect them the next race, they've done it many times, and someone says, oh, I don't think that's a good idea, that, you know, why would you do that? And then all of a sudden it puts a question in your, in your thought process of, oh, am I doing the right thing? This guy's better than me and I should listen to his advice. But he doesn't know anything about you. So, you know, you should not listen to anybody's advice who doesn't know anything about you. And so the carb loading, yes, you should be carb loading, but it should be something that you've practiced. Don't try something that you haven't done before the night before or the morning of. And this is where you get sucked in with advice. You know, you're there at the village the day before and you're hearing people say what they're doing for dinner, and these people are saying, "Oh, you know, I always have pasta. That's what I— that's where I perform best." Well, if you've never had pasta, you shouldn't go and have pasta that night 'cause you heard some guy who's on the pro podium getting interviewed saying that's what he's gonna have. Don't copy other people. I mean, nutrition is the biggest one that I see people copying. And, and if, you know, if someone said that they were gonna eat cyanide because it made them, you know, perform better, would you, would you believe that? You go, no, that's ridiculous. But that's how ridiculous it is. You're right, you might as well have some poison because you don't know what it's going to do to your body because you haven't tested it. So don't follow advice of others who don't know you.

Yeah, so carb loading and almost anything nutrition related, it's just so nuanced to the individual, and so you just gotta be really careful about anyone's advice that they're trying to give you when it's— it needs to be so specific to you and what you've tried.

Yeah, and don't try to actually eat more than, you know, that you have been before. People think it's an eating competition the night before. It's actually not. That could be absolutely detrimental to you having a good night's sleep and feeling crook in the morning, having an upset stomach because you've overeaten. So don't just try to put as much, you know, don't like sort of store up as if you're going into hibernation for a whole day, you know. You can't top up something that's already full. So give yourself adequate fuel, but don't go over the top and eat more than you should. That's so important to prevent you from having a really ordinary day the next day.

It's very common to turn up to race events and race days, and there's a lot of different products on offer that you might not have tried before, and someone says, "Oh, you should try this," or, "Have a go at this." You know, "Oh, this has been unbelievable for me on race day," or, "This has been a game changer. Try this tomorrow." And it's very tempting, 'cause you go, "Whoa, geez, if it's made that much of a difference, maybe I should try it." But, you know, take these sodium tablets or try this ultra sodium drink, it'll stop cramping. You know, just little things like that that sound really tempting. And you've got to be quite disciplined to go, no, I haven't tried this before. You know, I'm willing to try it at some point. It could be a game changer like they're saying, but the race time is not the time to take that.

It's almost like the devil's been sent to test you. And hey, hey Jordan, have you tried these? What sodium volume are you taking? Oh, I don't take any sodium. Oh, you should, otherwise you'll get this this issue and that issue, and then all of a sudden you're thinking, "Oh, this person, I trust this person. He might be right." And again, it's just listening to advice from someone who doesn't know what your requirements are, and that's the thing you've gotta keep reminding yourself. It's really nice of them to tell me that I've taken this amount of sodium, I've tried this anti-cramp stuff, I've used this nutrition carb gel or whatever product, but unless you've actually tested it yourself, don't take anybody's word for it. Even though you think they're very talented, they're very successful, they know what they're talking about, they're all probably true and that all the information they're giving you might suit them down to the ground, but you're not them. You're you and you've got your own unique requirements. So say thanks for the advice, but no thanks.

The next couple are just more specific to race strategy that we see and hear a lot of. And one is, if you've got a hilly course, it's very tempting, and this strategy, again, it does seem like common sense, but it's actually not correct, is when you get to an uphill, you know, whether you're riding or running, go harder on the uphill because you get a rest on the downhill, so you can afford to go harder. It seems like common sense, but again, that's not the fastest way to go about the course.

We know from all our data we've been collecting for almost 40 years now, and Nothing's changed. The people who ride above their level on the uphills end up paying for it. There's a consequence for every decision you make, and if you continue to ride the hills too hard— certain courses we want you to ride the hills. Our rule of thumb is when the bike's going slower, ride more power, but there's a limit to where you should be. And if you can't keep the pressure on the pedals over the crest of the hill because you've ridden too hard and you're too puffed, then you've ridden that hill too hard. And so we have all of our TriVelo athletes after the race say to me, I'm so sick of people passing me on the uphills and then I just take off over the crest of the hill and then take away from them, um, from that point on and I don't see them ever again. But, but I felt so bad and I, I almost felt like I was going too slow up these hills because I was getting passed by 50% of the people, uh, on that hill. But that's again taking advice from just seeing people do something that's you think because the majority of people are doing it, it's right. And that's that sheep mentality of just because a lot of people are doing something doesn't mean it's right. You should just stay with your advice from your coach and from your numbers that you know in training, and you'll be fine. Don't, don't think that someone else's tactic is going to work for you. It's not.

Once again, it's like the devil on the shoulder. When you're going up an uphill in a race and everyone's flying past you, it is so hard to stay within your range and and let everyone pass you. It hurts the ego. It's very difficult to do, and because everyone else is doing it, you think you're doing something wrong, and you really have to be strong in your own principles to say, no, I'm going to go my pace. And I love that litmus test of whether you're biking or running. Can— if you're on the bike, can you keep the pressure at the same— the pressure on the pedals to the same power range that you want over the top and down the hill? If you can't because your legs are too tired, you've gone too hard. And it's the same with running. You know, if you can't hold the pace that you want over the top or the downhill, if you need to back off slightly because you've gone too hard, you've just burnt a little bit of a match. And yeah, you might recover a little bit in the downhill and get back to that pace, but it's cost you more energy than it should have, which energy conservation is the, is the big goal in endurance sport. So that's why it's such an important point to get right.

We want you to know what number is your not tipping over the limit number. And if you're, say you're averaging 200 watts for a for a 90k time trial or a 20k time trial, doesn't matter. If you're averaging 200, if 220 is your slow, uh, uh, part of the course where your bike's going slowest, if 220 watts is the top of your limit and you get over the crest of the hill and you can't hold 200 again when you're going down the hill, then 220 is too high. So you need to practice that in training. It's 215, my number. So we would be getting our athletes to actually practice this. And I know for the World Champs, we're doing this with some of our athletes where there's two massive hills in the, the World Masters individual time trial here in Australia in October. And I'm getting the guys to, to find what happens at 340 watts, 335 watts, 330 watts. Can they recover well enough from those numbers in training? And if they can't, that number's too high. So we already know that going into the race. That— and, and that's getting right advice rather than 'Oh, do you know, Gerard, that you should be riding all the hills hard on this course? That's what you should be doing.' And to a certain degree, that sentence is right. You should be riding—

Attack the hills.

Yeah, you should be riding the hills harder than you are on the downhills and on the flat. But there's a point where it's too hard. And so that advice of, you know, 'Oh, whenever you're on a hilly course, you have to ride the hills harder, run the hills harder if you're a runner.' Well, again, You know, the effort on the uphill as a runner should be slightly above what you're on the flat, but not much. And therefore, your pace will be not matching what you're doing on the flat. It will be slower, but the effort should be similar to what you're running on the flat. And a lot of people don't get that advice. They're listening to the advice of, you know, when you're going up the hill as a runner, you should really put in there and really push your pace as high, you know, to try and match what you can do on the flat. That's just not good advice.

Another bit of advice is stop riding hard with 10 minutes to go on the bike leg to freshen your legs up for the run. And again, I can see the logic, but explain why, you know, stopping riding hard in the race isn't necessarily going to give you the gain that you want in the race.

The logical thing is you're just giving 10 minutes away where you could possibly lose 1 or 2 minutes. And if you're trying to do a PB for your own personal improvement, if you just do that every time, then you're matching, you know, apples with apples. If you always ride slower for 10 minutes, but I, I just question what's the purpose of it. Yes. The purpose is to let my legs recover a bit before I start running. But if you're riding in your ranges and you've trained that way, your legs will be able to absolutely absorb the load that you're riding with. So why give away all the effort you've done to get a fast time and slow down for the last 10 minutes, you could lose 1 km/h in the last 10 minutes by slowing down, which could cost you 3 or 4 minutes on the bike for no real advantage. If you've trained the way we're asking you to train, that advice of slowing down, you know, that's just not helpful for any part of the event except it's just making sure that you can run okay because you've probably ridden too hard. So if you've ridden the way you should have been riding in your ranges, slowing down is just going to slow you down. That's actually all the goal it's gonna achieve is slow you down without actually helping you physiologically, be able to run any better. If you've trained the way you should have been, you should be able to run with the, with the same amount of power you've ridden from start to finish.

The next one is, is tinkering with your equipment or technology last minute. And so, We see a lot of advice, especially when you go to the compound and everyone's pumping up their tires and it's, oh, this PSI is the fastest PSI, or change from tube to tubeless or vice versa because that's the faster way to do a triathlon. And once again, it comes down to what you've practiced versus just taking on someone's advice last minute.

Yeah, and look, if you haven't used tubeless before and you've always had tubes when you get, you know, a puncture, imagine the, the fear you're going to have when you've changed your mind about if you get a puncture, I'm going to try this method. And you know, for anybody who's tried to change a tubeless tire, and the only reason you would use tubeless is because the goo inside is supposed to seal the puncture, but if you've got a big cut in your, in your tire you know, you actually can't do much about it with the tubeless. So, uh, the air will just keep coming out. So, you know, using that style of, of tyre is probably going to be a bad idea. At least with the tube setup, you can actually, you know, carry a note where you could block up the slit in the tyre and then put a tube in, and then you can get going again. So, you know, the advice of tubeless is better— yes, it is. If you don't have a cut that's big, too big to actually stop you from riding. So, you know, the advice in the last 5 years is you should— everybody should be riding tubeless. Well, sometimes you need to be looking after your own destiny, and if you get something bad happen and you're on tubeless, you can't actually continue the event. So, so that's something I would, I would be really adamant that you don't really change to. Also, the pressure, and the pressure of the tire is really more aligned to your body weight. Imagine, you know, if you put 120, 130 psi if you weigh 100 kilos or 110 kilos or 90, that's really asking for trouble. You know, you don't need that much, and you know, a lightweight person who only puts in 50 or 60 kilograms, that's not going to have any impact on their tyre pressure. So more is not better in tyre pressure. The more rubber you have on the road, the more safe your bike is. So don't be pumping— I've— I'm so annoyed when I, I'm in the compound and I hear someone say, oh, what pressure are you putting yours up to? Oh, I always put mine to 120. What do you do? Oh, I, I do 80. And so that person who does 80 all of a sudden is thinking, oh, maybe I should do 120. Again, listening to advice that, you know, and if you've got a lot of, uh, corners in a course where the road might be a little bit damp, the more tire pressure you have air in your tire, the, the more slippery your tire becomes. So you could end up on your backside because you've got too much air. And you and I know from riding in Belgium, when riding on the cobbles, you know, 50-60 PSI is the only way you can ride up wet cobbles. And if you have any more air than that, you know, you're not going to actually be able to pedal. So, so tire pressure is one of those things where you're better off being under than over. The only risk is getting a pinch from flat, and that would only happen if you hit a hole in the road. But generally, tyre pressure is one of those shocking bits of advice that I hear in the compound over and over where most people have got it way too high.

I guess the summary of all this advice is this point that we really want to make was just nothing new in race week, nothing new in the last parts of— in the compound before the race or the night before. You know, that's what you can summarise all this down to, the advice. And we always talk about the last 48-hour chaos before a race, and we just can't wait to hear what's 'What's the rumor this year?' You know, 'What's going around?' 'What's the word on the street this year?' And you would just hear something that you'd never heard before or that you heard as a wives' tale 20 years ago. You know, and it's always just interesting, but you just got to be so careful about everything flying around and just trust in the work that you've done and what you need to do. And just be really careful of anything in that chaotic window.

I kind of trying to get the analogy of when we're talking to our athletes about their pre-race plan, I'm saying to them, Get into your little bubble, cut the noise out. It's almost like put earphones on, and you could be in a conversation with a group of people who are all giving everybody advice. You know, the day before, you're standing around the compound, you met all your mates, and someone's saying, "I heard someone say this." You should have your earmuffs on, and you could be nodding, but you're not listening to anything they're saying. That's my rule. Get in your bubble. You actually see their lips moving, but you're not listening to anything they're saying. Just stop the noise. Concentrate on what you know works for you.

Something that's a little bit different to the thing of what we've been talking about, but it's a conversation and topic I think is worth exploring so that when you get in this position, which a lot of athletes will find themselves in at some point, will have to face this decision. And that's the advice of, you know, don't DNF, always finish what you started. And again, I'm generalizing the advice here of always finish what you started. People will say, "Well, no, I'm not that silly. I won't just finish if I'm not silly." We all have egos, you know, we all, we all don't, you know, we're human and it's human nature to want to be that person to finish what we started and grit through and not give up. Giving up is really, it's a really hard thing to do and it should not be called giving up. It should be, you know, a smart decision if it's the right thing to do to stop the race. But the notion of always finish the race, always finish what you started, we think that when, you know, if a friend was in the same position as us where they're battling through an injury or something and they should probably just stop. we would tell them the safe thing to do is stop, but then if it's ourselves in that position, we don't do it. We go, "No, no, I want to push through. I want to finish what I started. It would be embarrassing not to finish." It's a really important topic to think about, that that's not always the best advice. Sometimes it can really save your next year of training and racing if you make the smart decision to pull out early.

It [Speaker:GERARD DONNELLY] can backfire big time. You've got to have a clear head about this. If the consequences of you continuing to finish the event have no repercussion, you're clear on that, then even though you haven't performed the way you want, I would be encouraging you to finish the race. I'd be saying don't get into the habit of DNFing. That's a really bad habit to get into. But to say you always finish, that's something I'm not— there's a differentiation here. I'm not saying that. I'm saying if there's no physical reason or mental that, that would prevent you from getting a poor outcome by finishing, then continue. But if you've got a hand— like, I saw Josh Kerr at the world titles in the, uh, 1500, or was it 5K? I can't remember.

It was the 1500.

It was a 1500, and he looked like he'd done his hamstring, and yet he, he gusted out and, and finished 200 meters behind. And I just thought, I agree, that's brilliant, that's brilliant, Josh, absolutely brilliant. But if that means you can't run for another 6 weeks, that was the stupidest thing you've done in a long time.

Yep.

And there's countless examples of that where, you know, it's a really brave thing to do, but you've got to have a little bit of self-preservation, I think, and think about the big picture. And it's okay to be embarrassed that you can't finish. It's okay. Don't worry about what other people think. You've got to protect your own interests of your own body. Your health and safety is more important than finishing the race. So you've heard my view on it. If there's no adverse consequence, yes, push through. But the advice of at all costs finish the race, no, that's not what I would say.

The Josh Kerr one is so true. I just— it was so clear he'd done an injury, and in hindsight it turned out that he had actually mildly strained it in the semi-final, and they decided to run anyway because it's the World Champs, it's A race, so there was always a risk. And then he did it quite early But to, yeah, to finish off, it was, it served no purpose. It's exactly what you're saying. And I just quickly did a Google search because actually I hadn't looked up his injury since then. It came out as a calf, but then I hadn't heard much. And then the very first article that popped up, Josh Kerr admits that finishing the last 600 meters of the 1500 did more damage than was necessary. And he probably would have done that and he's just put himself out for longer. So that's exactly what we're talking about. The opposite. Okay.

I was just going to say, instead of it being a 2 or 3-week calf, calves can be 6 weeks. So you've just doubled your recovery. And, and, you know, you're not thinking— he's a professional. There's races that he should be getting ready for that, um, that, you know, you know, I'm sure he'd say it's the end of the season, it doesn't matter. But it's still an injury that's now going to be taking double the time to recover from. And look, you know, people say the injuries, you know, you get over them. Look at Ingebrigtsen, he's come back from an Achilles injury and he is so far off the pace. And it could be that he had done some damage in races where he had some injuries but didn't tell anybody. We don't know the full story, but it has derailed his whole 2025. Basically, it's an injury-riddled year because of this one injury. And he's come back to this World Championships and he just wasn't competitive. And, and that's what injuries can do to you. So don't discount the fact that this, this piece of advice could have a long-term effect on you.

Someone that did a really good job of it was Remco Evenepoel. Pulled out of the Tour de France halfway through, and he was absolutely slammed for it. You know, the press were calling him weak-minded, soft. You know, you start at the Tour, you finish it, respect the race. He came out and just said, I've, I've been pushing through injury and return from rehab from his crashes. My body wasn't there. I tried to get right for this Tour de France. I haven't. My body's not there. I need to stop. I need a physical and mental rest. And he got slammed for it. And so that would have taken some serious guts for pull out of the race. And riders don't want to do that. They want to finish the Tour de France. It is such a special event. But he did that. He freshened up. He came back to the World Champs absolutely on fire. And he won the time trial, beat the best rider in the world, Pogačar. And he was, by the looks of things, he was in form to win that road race as well. And he came out afterwards and he ended up having a problem with his— problems with his bike where he lost a minute to the group. And he came out and said, I'm so shattered. I came here to win a double. I felt like I was in form to challenge Pogačar. And it looked like it. He he basically solo rode back to the group and maintained that gap to a minute to Pogačar. So it would have been a great battle between the two of them. So it turned out that was the right decision to leave the Tour de France. It allowed him to freshen up, and he's come to this World Champs absolutely firing. What a smart decision that was for his own career.

I know, I think, Jordan, just put yourself in his position. He got slammed for it, but now he's at another race and people are lauding him as the best time trial ever. And people have already forgotten about the Tour de France. And so that's what you as an age grouper should be thinking like. You know, people won't remember that you DNF'd and they should actually give you some kudos for doing it because you were injured or it didn't suit you for the upcoming races that you're preparing for. And you know, that's the thing. People, they've got short memories and You shouldn't be worried about what other people think. It should be your decision based on what's best for you. And again, that's taking advice from other people who don't know what's best for you. Only you and your coach and your inner circle know what's best for you.

And have all the information. That's kind of the main part. Have all the information available. So, look, one last example on that. I had a friend who was in a marathon, had some serious injury happening to the point where they had to stop on the side of the road and they were just devastated because they were going for a really gun sub-3-hour time for this marathon. And, um, a friend of theirs was going along beside them and just said, how you feeling? Like, do you think you can finish? And they were kind of just devastated, and they were thinking, should I just finish? Should I not? And they decided, I, I'll just cut this out. I've come this far, I'll finish it off. And they pushed through a lot of pain, um, to, to finish. And turns out they had a sacral stress fracture, and finishing was an absolute disastrous thing to do because they ran an extra 10 kilometers on that stress fracture, which not good and, and prolong that injury. It was really not a very smart thing to do. So you've just got to be really careful, and it's that question you're asking yourself, you know, is this going to cause me more damage? You know, the ego doesn't want to be a DNFer. You don't want to get into the habit of that, but it's a fine line to, to think about. And just as we're saying, don't just take that advice of always finish your race or always finish what you started. It might not be healthy for you.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And, uh, we could just go on and on about countless examples, and I think, I think that's probably probably got the message home, I think.

To wrap this up, we kind of just want to summarize with kind of the last point you made and it's people don't have all the information that you have and you actually started this podcast episode by talking about the fact that people aren't malicious in their advice and they're not misguided. They actually mean well. They're trying to give you advice that they think is really helpful. If someone's got a product that is working for them, they're trying to tell you, "Hey, this has been unreal. Have a go at this." It's not but people don't know your journey, they don't know your history, they don't know everything about you. You just have to remember that when you're thinking about taking on someone else's advice because they might mean well, but they don't know your full story and what's appropriate to you. Only you have all that information.

I've got a great analogy and I'm kind of chuckling to myself when I'm going to share this one, but getting advice from people who do know you is really important. And the example I would use is in my own situation, And it kind of leads into the gratitude. I've just had an operation 4 weeks ago. The advice I'm listening to is from the specialists, my doctors, and that is advice I should be listening to, not from someone else who's had the same operation or knows someone who's had an operation similar. No 2 operations are ever the same, so no 2 people are ever the same and have the same actual illness. And so whatever your your actual medical expert is telling you whether you've got an Achilles, uh, whether you've got a calf, a hamstring, or, or ITB, or some injury, you listen to the advice of the expert, not from someone who's had a similar injury. And that's a really big point. And so I know that, uh, for me, the advice I got was I'm not allowed to ride outside for 4 weeks due to the amount of medication I'm on for blood thinning. And so "So I'm not gonna be stupid and go riding outside. I'm gonna ride indoors for 4 weeks or for 6 weeks or whatever the advice is." And so that's the advice we want you to actually take note of. People who know who you are and are doing it in your best interest. And I think that's the point we wanna get across in this whole podcast is there's certain advice that's appropriate and there's certain that's inappropriate.

[Speaker:GERARD DONNELLY] Yeah, and we just— we talk all the time about who are you modeling and who are you copying and you get get to race week and there's a whole bunch of athletes there, there's, there's product stores popping up, it's all very exciting, and, and there's a lot of talk around the athlete village, and you can get a lot of FOMO by what you might not have tried or missed out on. So it was very tempting to, to try new things, but, or I've seen X pro doing this, should I try this? And, and they're all in different situations. We, we talk all the time about we use what the pros are doing to, to try and inform us of any new training to test or try, but no one knows all your information as well as you or your coach. And so I think one of your most hated saying is when an athlete says to you, oh, so-and-so told me I should be doing this, and you say, well, so coaching you? You know, if they're not, then maybe don't listen to them. And if it's, if it's, I don't know, Craig Alexander, or you get to sit next to Lucy Charles-Barclay and they give you some advice, then you might listen. You know, you might sit there and go, I could probably take this on. But then again, they don't even know all your training history and your goals and what you're trying to get out of the race and your race plan in detail. So you've just got to be really careful of of, um, again, what you're paying attention to.

Yeah, I think, uh, I think definitely people who've, you know, been very successful, such as the example you gave, you know, Jan Frodeno, Craig Alexander, they would have some really good advice, but it's not for you to, to use in race week. That's the point we're making here. Take that advice that you've heard and then start training to that advice after the race and then see if it works for you. So even though you've got really good qualified successful athletes, and that's different from your medical practitioner example, you've got to differentiate between someone who knows your health and someone who doesn't know your health and well-being. And the general advice is in that category and the medical advice is in the other category. And I think if we separate those two for this podcast, you'll actually be able to get some value from all the things that we've talked about and then try to implement some of that hearsay or, you know, "You should do this" information and go research it yourself and see if it works for you. And just because it works for someone else doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for you and I can guarantee that you try to do some of these myths that people are actually giving you as advice and that's all they will be is stuff you should actually ignore.

I always love, um, your example of, of Kona, and I think we're just trying to prepare people for what to expect on race day because any event you turn up to, whether it's a marathon or a triathlon or a 70.3 or an Ironman especially, there is so much excitement in the air and you can, if you're not expecting it, you can really be a deer in headlights, just shocked, and then you're in a vulnerable state and then you kind of just start doing what everyone else is doing because you're, you're not ready for it. So we're trying to prepare you for that and analogy of you just chucking your headphones on and going in your bubble is really, really important. And you had to do that at Kona when you first got the shock of going to hot Hawaii in the Northern Hemisphere summer straight out of a Southern Hemisphere winter.

Yeah, and gee, it was really intimidating. There were just so many fit, tanned, sweating athletes who just— their skin was glimmering, they were looking healthy, and they looked unbelievably fit. And we were just kinda pale and we, you know, we hadn't seen the sun for literally 3 or 4 months and it was almost embarrassing. We went outside and we got sunburned within the first 5 minutes. So, you know, it was very intimidating to see all these fit athletes and they were training the house down. And this is literally the week of the race. And I was thinking, oh, maybe I've got something wrong with my preparation here. You know, I should be doing a little bit more training here. But it was no, no, it's not. They're They're the ones who are actually doing the wrong sessions, or they might be doing the right sessions for themselves, but they're not for me. The sessions that they're doing, they're not my sessions. And so that's the point, is stick to what you want to do and what you know works for you.

That's a great way to finish. Uh, we want to always go to our final segment of the episode, which is our gratitude, and finish off, uh, with what we're grateful for for the week. As always, to remind ourselves to have a healthy balance with with training and lifestyle, and we never want training or racing to take over our life. We always want to make sure that we're finding things to be grateful for throughout the week because there's so much to be potentially ungrateful for. So it's a really positive reminder and good exercise that we encourage all triathletes out there to do with us. So Dad, what is your gratitude for this week?

Yeah, I love the gratitude section, and I, and I do think it's really important to keep that in the forefront of your mind most days if you can, most weeks. But yeah, as I mentioned in the topic about the advice, yeah, 4 weeks post-operation, I'm excited again to be able to ride. And even though my fitness level is at rock bottom once again for the 3rd year in a row, I'm so grateful that I can actually exercise again, and that's my gratitude. I'm not going to be disappointed or depressed about the fact that I've lost all my fitness. I am grateful that I can actually train. So that's my gratitude.

That's brilliant. I'm grateful on the opposite end of the spectrum. I just finished my last long run for the marathon prep, the last 35K hit out at the end of last week, and I'm at the end of the marathon training block. I'm just very grateful to be at the end. It's, as anyone would know training for endurance sports, Ironman or marathon, you are very exhausted when you get to the end. So in the recovery and taper phase now, just 2 key intensity sessions to go, and then next week is race week. So it's been a very enjoyable journey, but very grateful to be at the end of it and ready to race.

It's a great gratitude, Jordan. Getting to the start line is one of the biggest hurdles that we all face, and you've had your fair share of hurdles, or roadblocks as we call them, put in front of you for this preparation, but you've managed to get yourself to this point, 2 weeks out, in reasonable shape and getting some confidence from getting away from the humidity and the heat of Bali, back home in Melbourne where it's a lot cooler and you can actually run, you know, similar paces for 10 or 15 beats lower heart rate and it feels completely easier. So it's a really good— it's almost like you've done this heat preparation and now you can actually run a lot more intensity with less effort. So I'm really looking forward to your taper and seeing seeing how you go come race day.

A lot of people have questions about the taper and that last long run. You know, when should that be? And we've had some great discussions about, you know, about our theories behind the last kind of 2 or 3 weeks. And some big lessons that come up are, you know, you really want to get those big long runs in, but you don't want to push them too close to the marathon. And if you're really delayed in your program, if you're really rushing— this is why we don't like rushing— you're trying to do a 35K or a 3, 3.5-hour, depending on your time for the marathon, run, progressive run, 2 weeks out from the race, it just ends up being too close. You end up almost doing 2 marathons within 2 weeks, which is, which is just too much. So that's a big learning. And then we were having, you know, just big discussions around what's the goal of the taper, you know, what are you trying to achieve here? And, and just talking about what kind of intensity you want to run, because, you know, the advice is quite clearly reduce volume but keep intensity to keep yourself kind of sharp. But there's definitely a fine line when you're trying to shed that fatigue for the marathon and, and really freshen up when you're feeling and this, we see this with Ironman athletes all the time, just feeling really tired at the end of the full block because it's just such extreme training, you know, and really giving yourself a chance to actually shed that fatigue.

Yeah, I think it actually ties in well with this topic of advice because the taper advice is exactly that. It's advice from either your coach or from people who are trying to help you or from yourself about what you should do in the taper taper period, and I can guarantee you not one person can match the same taper as someone else and get the same result. So you need to actually work out what taper suits you. And we've got a lot of anecdotal evidence from a lot of the athletes we've been coaching where they've had major races, and we've, we've seen time and time again where they've had a big, a big build up to about 2 to 3 weeks out, and and they do quite a hard large volume of training and then give them a couple of weeks of recovery where they're not doing hardly any endurance. They're actually almost like they're recovering from the big event that they did 2 or 3 weeks out. And then 2 weeks later, they are in the best form of their career. And that's been— that's been an interesting thing to identify. And, you know, you and I have looked at this so many times. How good has this person gone 2 or 3 weeks after their main race? You know, they're absolutely flying. Because what do they do after their main race? They recovered. They recovered and started off slowly, did a few little, uh, little, uh, efforts, and then they started to do PBs 2 or 3 weeks after their main race. So, so if you just move that whole thing back, um, and do a big build-up 2 to 3 weeks out from your race and act like 2 to 3 weeks is your race, and then shed the fatigue. And the only way to do that is to stop the endurance, stop the volume, And sure, you can do some, some short, sharp stuff. And for you, you're going to do a 5K parkrun, you know, just to, just to keep the intensity going. Also give you a bit of confidence to see where you're, where your numbers are at for 5K. And it's got nothing to do with the marathon except it's good preparation for the marathon. It's not a session that's going to help your marathon, uh, uh, result, but it will help your marathon result because it's part of your taper. So, so they're just examples of— there's no one taper that fits everybody. And the advice you get from people who tell you there is a definite best taper, they're not actually telling the truth. They're— you know, everybody tapers different, and that's the thing that you need to remember. What works for me? I've got to find that out. And you might have to do that over multiple events that you, you know, you end up doing over your career, and you will get to work out what taper suits you better. Try both. Try training hard through a taper for a race that's not so important. Try training easier through a taper for a race that's not so important, and then by the time you get to the race that is important, you've tried both and you've got a better understanding of what works best for you.

We love it. We've got an athlete, Justin, who, you know, I would give a pretty standard Travalo protocol taper to, and he kind of came back and said, I just think that's too light. I really feel like I perform better off, you know, some harder tapers. We went into a race with some more intensity in the taper, and he did perform better. And whether that was actually true or not, it's really hard to measure that and go, that's absolutely confirmed. But regardless, if it— that he physically and mentally felt better from that, so that's kind of the protocol you lean towards. And that's the athlete taking real control of their own process. And you and I did that, you know, this week. We did plan to have kind of 3, um, sub-threshold sessions kind of spread out over, over 6 days to kind of finish off before the park run. And I'm just feeling too fatigued. It's just the end of the block and, and I'm just not freshening up. And so we cut back to 1. We cut 2 of them out. It's just 1 threshold session and then some really easy running and a parkrun. And that's just an example of, you know, individualizing the taper to how you're feeling and getting it just right. Exactly right. Yeah. That's it for this episode. We hope this advice ironically has helped you and that you can take on the advice we're saying and not the worst advice we've seen out there, if you so please. If you'd like to get coached from us and get some specific advice individual to you, you can go to triathlonoaching.com.au and apply to get coaching there. As always, we coach athletes internationally and around the world. There is no time zone or location around the world that we cannot coach you from. So if you want to apply, go to travellacoaching.com.au. As always, we guarantee your improvement in the first 8 weeks. If not, the coaching is on us. Thanks very much for listening as always, and we'll see you on the next episode.