This Is Why Triathletes Shouldn't Train When Sick!

We're back with another episode with keeping up with the rookies, Tom and Roland. Two doctors, two very good mates, two gun age group triathletes turned pro this year in their first year on the triathlon circuit racing as pros, debuting in their first season, and it's been one to remember. We've just loved documenting this journey of Tom and Roland and exploring the highs and lows of their, of their first season, entering some pro racers. And if you recall from last episode, uh, we were basically midwinter where, um, Tom was flying through some winter training and, and, and feeling really good. And Roland had just come off his debut Ironman, uh, in Cairns where it was an absolute battle and didn't go to plan. And, and Roland was really honest and vulnerable on his podcast about how that went, and that was such a, a great episode to listen to. And, and that's been the journey this whole year, which has been so good for this series of the boys just, you really opening up and giving athletes an insight into their mindset and the challenges and the triumphs, which there'll be many more to come. So Tom and Roland, thank you very much for joining us again.

Thanks, Jodie.

Good to be back on.

So we'll pick up from where we left off because there's a really exciting race to talk about, which is Sunshine Coast, where Roland, you've come out and won the bike leg again and and had an unbelievable performance. So that's what we're going to get to, but to get there we have to look at the training. So Tom, take us through your flying midwinter. You went overseas to Europe for a little bit, had a lot of fun training and cycling around Mallorca there and some of those really world-class venues, and then things start to go a little bit downhill on return from that trip.

Yeah, yeah, I thought I'd, um sort of planned things quite nicely. I had a really good sort of 3 months through winter, um, and banked a lot of good work, um, just really pushing the endurance miles like we talked about on the last podcast. Gerard and I sort of made a bit of a plan to just get some, get some good sort of miles in the bank over winter and keep the intensity in there but look to push the endurance a little bit more, um, and then yeah, it was sort of feeling like I needed a bit of a break, and it was well timed to have a couple of weeks away and enjoy a bit of time, um, with Soph, my partner, and some family overseas as well. Uh, so I was really looking forward to that. Unfortunately got sick right on the cusp of, uh, traveling away. Um, and yeah, just the sort of the 2 weeks away, never sort of seemed to really recover from the jet lag and, uh, the sickness. And then much the same coming back to Australia. So the sort of month after that, actually, I found quite tough to get back to any real decent training. And all of a sudden, the sort of 2-week freshen up break that I'd planned to have off the good winter block ended up, yeah, being trying to just recover from being a little bit unwell and fighting a little bit of jet lag, as well as, you know, burning the candle a bit at both ends, still trying to get some training in and traveling and enjoying that time away as well. It made for a tricky, uh, tricky, I guess, re-entry back into some, some proper training and just didn't really feel like my body was responding, um, as it sort of had been all winter, unfortunately. So, um, I'm sure it was a whole number of all those factors playing into that. But, um, yeah, it was a bit frustrating to come off a really good, really good winter block and then, yeah, feel like I'd, uh, started slipping in the other direction, um, as opposed to sort of trying to use that break as a chance to really freshen up and get ready to fire into Sunny Coast. But, um, yeah, I guess that's a bit of a summary of how things sort of, uh, went a bit astray, I guess, to say. Jordy?

Yeah, yeah, it's always challenging. We, we talk about it on this podcast a lot, how, you know, you've got to be grateful for the periods when they're going good because it can just get taken away from you so quick. And when you're sick, it's just frustrating. And it's this classic balance of I want to keep training, I want to keep pushing through, but then sometimes that prolongs it. So what was your mindset when it was kind of unraveling a little bit? And Sunny Coast was coming up, you know, how are you feeling and what was the conversations you were having with yourself and Gerard Donnelly?

Yeah, well, I guess, yeah, the initial plan had been, you know, to get back from a bit of a break and enjoying, you know, other things in life as well and get stuck into— I sort of still had 4 or 5 weeks that I was, you know, keen to get stuck into some training. And Gerard and I obviously both knew and had sort of a bit of a chat that, you know, I needed to get back into some work pretty quickly. To, you know, get back on track. And unfortunately, both of our desires, I guess, to try and get to the start line in the best shape possible and be ready for the race, um, in hindsight, we've probably discussed, probably we just drove things in the wrong direction in the end, unfortunately. And, you know, I'd take responsibility for that. I'm probably, uh, I was probably in a bit of denial and not telling Gerard Donnelly how I was really feeling. But, you know, after the first couple of weeks back, still trying to push the intensity and get the, get the load in whilst I was really just not recovered from, um, whatever it was that had thrown things around, sort of put me, yeah, backwards a little bit in the wrong direction again. So then we really had to just lighten the load up and try and let the body recover in the last couple of weeks before Sunny Coast without really doing, uh, too much over the, over the top or trying to play catch up. And just see if I could, you know, from that point on, give myself a chance to freshen up and just race with what I had with some sort of, I guess, adjusted expectations. Unfortunately, I'm still keeping an open mind, but, uh, yeah, appreciating that it can't always be, you know, sunshine and rainbows and the perfect prep. And I was very aware that I'd, you know, at that point I'd had a pretty good run and pretty, uh, pretty seamless race preps up till that point. So, um, made me even more grateful for those. But, uh, yeah, that's just reality, the way things go, I guess, the ups and downs. And, you know, it's not the, uh, not the end of the world. There's lots of other stuff going on that's, uh, you know, more problematic than a bit of a bit of disrupted race prep. But yeah, it's certainly frustrating at the time when you feel like you've done a good bit of work, you know, in the months prior for that, then to sort of, you know, unravel a little bit in that last month was a little bit frustrating. But I guess, yeah, as you're saying, the conversations with Gerard Donnelly, the mindset was just to sort of recalibrate expectations and look to see what I could get out of the race. Yeah, in the position that I was in at that time. Yeah.

I will say that, you know, we talk about things can't go well all the time and you can't turn up to every race in peak form. And I think you went on a run of, what was it, 3, 4, or 5 70.3 wins in a row where you were turning up and really outperforming yourself. And throwing back to the Worlds last year, it was a— we really use your example as, you know, you had gastro that week and the Worlds was just your big race. It was your chance to be, you know, 70.3 World Age Group Champion for your category. It was almost derailing and it was just, it was a bit of an unknown going into that, going, far out, like how much is that going to affect you? Everyone's different. There's no rule book here. Sometimes athletes will turn up and just not have anything in the tank. You were able to turn up and it was a lot more challenging than other races, but you still won. And so I think that might have played on your mind a little bit, that even though you had this sickness, you probably thought you could push through a little bit and still get a good result. Would that be correct?

Yeah, for sure. And I guess, you know, I wanted to at least give myself the opportunity, um, and keep an open mind to see what might happen on the day. And, you know, I guess Although it was not as clean a preparation as in the past, things go wrong for people all the time in race preparations. And being thinking about some of the more well-known triathletes in the world like Sam Laidlow and people who'd sort of had these disrupted training periods but still been able to freshen up and put out really good performances on race day. So I thought at the very least I'd you know, have a learning experience out there, which I certainly did. But yeah, I guess, yeah, trying to keep an open mind and still give myself the opportunity to perform, even though I'm, you know, knowing that it might not have been perfect in terms of the lead-up, was, yeah, certainly something that was, yeah, I guess, my focus leading into it.

And I'll flag now, you had to adjust expectations. You weren't going in with form, and you still pulled out a 1:16 run. So it's not like you were shabby by any means, but Dad, I want to throw at you and say, you know, what were your— what was your thought process as the coach, um, coming into this part?

Yeah, I'm totally on board with everything Tom said. It was unbelievably frustrating to have such a great preparation, and, you know, pretty much hadn't really had a bad race since he won the world title. He hadn't had a bad race before then. I think the last person to beat him was, was actually Roland, uh, in Melbourne pretty much 2 years prior, I think. Um, so it had been an incredible run of successful, uh, races by Tom. And, and, you know, we've seen Inge Britsen, we've seen so many so many examples of people who are seemingly invincible for a period of time, and then all of a sudden things don't go quite the way, whether it's injury or sickness. And, and people don't really account or value the impact that, that inconsistent training has on you. And, you know, we've— Tom's well documented that he traveled. Um, uh, yeah, yeah, you know, traveling from Australia, for those people who are listening around the world, it is a huge trip. It's 24 hours of actually traveling if you're lucky, because by the time you have stopovers, it ends up being a huge, a huge period where you're on a plane for a bloody long time. And, and that has an impact because you're breathing the same air. And there's so many examples that I've got now that people who have got COVID from being on a flight, whether it's a flight from Perth to Melbourne or whether it's a flight from Perth to London, people have come out of those flights sick. and you know, you only have to have a few people on the plane who are sick and the whole plane ends up being sick. And so there's so many things that can go wrong with the— you know, the idea that Tom had was to have a break. You know, his first year as a doctor, he's working really hard, he deserves this break, he's trained really hard, it should— all of those things should work. But the minute you get sick, it changes everything. And then because we had a race so close to him coming back, The idea was that, you know, yes, let's get over the sickness and then start to push some intensity. But we were too keen and we didn't really allow him to recover from the trip and the sickness. And possibly we, you know, these are the mistakes you make when you're the motivated athlete. We talk about that a lot. You know, I just wanna get going. I just wanna get back to the form that I was in. I'm in great form. I've been training the house down. And so it's easy in hindsight, but you have to learn from hindsight. You have to actually learn what went wrong. You saw Ingebrigtsen turn up to the World Athletics Championships and he's been injured and he's tried to train. He thinks he's in good form. He comes to the race and he doesn't even make the final of the 1500. When your form is bad, there's no miracle on race day that's going to happen. That's a hard lesson, isn't it? Tom was just hoping like hell that something might change. I'm trying to say to him, well, it would be a miracle if you were able to ride the way you want, but it's not going to happen. You're going to be only able to ride at the form you've got right now. And that's exactly what he did. He actually raced to the form he had, and his numbers were down 10% on the bike, and he pretty much rode exactly to those numbers. So you can't, you can't create fictitious numbers just because you've done it before. And Tom's done it 15 times before in big races where he's been able to nail these numbers. So, you know, Roland's experienced this the previous years, um, so it's the first time really Tom's had to go through this. And unfortunately, everybody's going to go through at some point in their, in their career. So, uh, you want to make sure it's not the most important race that you're actually aiming for, you know, like if it was a world title or if it's a, you know, for the bigger guys it's the Olympics or, or things like that. You, you want to have some bad races where it it's a little bit less significant, um, impact on you. And I think, I think it was good for Tom to go. And I actually was keen for Tom not to bother about the race because, you know, he clearly was out of the form that, uh, that was gonna not gonna be competitive. And, and we had a long discussion about that, and we both said, okay, if you're keen to do the race, uh, you're going to get to travel from Melbourne into the Sunshine Coast. There's a, you know, you've got this trip planned, and there's a lot of mates racing, so it's a good thing to go to, and you can learn a lot of things about the way you put your performances when you're not happy with it. So we always say, you know, you're either winning or learning. So this is a great example of, you know, lots of learning going on. So not trying to sugarcoat this, Tom was quite clear about where his performances were. All the numbers we were training to, he was absolutely struggling. And we've got such data to compare against, you know. What could he do the previous 3 years? He was nowhere near that in that last 8 weeks, so the writing was on the wall, but we still wanted to have a crack at it. So I really admire Tom for putting himself out there because he would have to answer a lot of questions afterwards when people would say the inevitable question, "Oh, what happened?" And that's a tough question to ask someone when they haven't performed the way they want. And you've got to stand there and say either, you know, "Ah, you know, things didn't go my way," or the response you make is you want to tell the whole story but you actually don't. You don't want to have to explain that to every single person who asks. In the end, you just end up saying, "Oh, it didn't go the way I want." Most people will be happy with that. The reality is you just had the worst preparation and it was never going to go the way you wanted it to. I think it was a hard lesson but it's one that you'll look back on and say, "Well, in the future, if I know that my form's not there, then the choice is don't do the race." or be okay with performing at your current form.

And Roland, you had to experience that at Cairns where you had to feel like you potentially had to explain yourself to a lot of people and everyone's going, "What happened?" And it's just such a frustrating thing sometimes to have to constantly re-explain and go, "Oh, I went through this." And again, I'll say, you know, you did such a good job on the podcast last time just talking through how it unfolded and it takes guts to do that. And so, for you, you've had a pretty opposite experience to Tom. Everything went up. From, from Cairns. And I want to give everyone some context. We spoke on the podcast last time in terms of their training, the volume that Roland was doing leading into that Ironman. Despite the race not going so well, your dad and I were talking about how that training block and the race itself really propelled you. And I want to get your thoughts, Roland, if you felt this way. Really just propelled you for the next block of training. And we talk all the time about how athletes, as long as they don't completely overdo it, they'll do their A race and then they are flying 2 weeks after that, after they've had some recovery, you know, they're really in good form. Is that how you felt after Cairns?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I did think that, that, I mean, Gerard and I had that conversation early on about Cairns and fitting that into, I guess, that, that, you know, semi-off season throughout the winter period. And I remember Jared saying that, look, you've got two options. You can either do Cairns and, you know, try and sneak in 3 or 4 weeks worth of Ironman training, which is obviously ambitious, having not really targeted that, or do the race, do— sorry, not do the race, but just dedicate the winter to really good intense training over the winter, which I think was what Tom had, I guess, planned to do. And so as you say, I think coming away from that experience, I hadn't maybe realized just how beneficial it was, you know, doing those really key hard sessions for that Ironman. But afterwards, I just— I think 2 weeks after, I was doing some of the best, you know, running and power numbers on the bike that I'd seen for over a year or so. So, yeah, it had definitely helped, I think, that experience.

So interesting because you could easily throw in the towel a little bit and go, woe is me, after that race. And look, it wasn't— it sounds like it was the worst thing in the world. It really wasn't. It's just like, no, it's just a bit of an off race. But you know, it's easy when we have an off race compared to our expectations, just go, you know, throw in the towel a little bit and— or throw the baby out with the bathwater. But instead you just put your head down and keep going, and then literally just 2 weeks later you're absolutely flying.

So absolutely. And yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I think, um, uh, I guess one of the main things and one of the reasons why I was so disappointed and embarrassed by that race is just because I knew that I was doing some quality sessions at work leading up into that, that race. And so it's just not what I had sort of expected of myself coming into the race. Whereas I guess for Tom, you know, he's, he's gone through this, you know, tumultuous period where he's come back from overseas and gotten sick and had pretty much everything go wrong that could go wrong. And then he's not been able to do the sessions at the same intensity or, you know, quality that he'd like to. So, you know, I guess coming into the Sunny Coast race, he sort of knew that he wasn't going to be where he wanted to be at. So it's a bit more reassuring, and his expectations are, you know, in line with that, which is obviously not great because he's a phenomenal athlete. And, you know, when he's firing on all cylinders, he's a force to be reckoned with. So, you know, I was kind of happy that he— I knew that he wasn't going to be showing up, you know, might have been able to toe the line a bit more easier with him, but So yeah, I think, you know, those are just two comparisons about, you know, tempering your expectations coming into a race like that and looking back at the training and what you've done.

I want to go through a little bit of the training and get some insight into some of those key sessions and numbers you were doing. That's what everyone would love to see, especially some of the monster wattage that you push out yourself. But let's go through the race. And yeah, you kind of get to race day, Tom, you're feeling a little bit undone, unsure how it's going to go. Roland, you're in pretty good form, you're pretty excited for your home race as well. Quite a fast race. So yeah, we'll go through each leg and kind of give us your separate experiences. Uh, the swim, start with you, Tom. How did that pan out for you?

Yeah, I'd just like to quickly add, I guess, without playing, uh, compliment table tennis with Roland here, um, knowing that he sort of put him after a really good preparation and, uh, thought he was, you know, he was absolutely flying, um, going into Cairns, still being able to grit out, you know, a full Ironman, um, gave me a little bit of inspiration to, you know, even if it's not, not the best day, um, you can still get through a half and, you know, keep your chin up and get through it. So that was definitely something that was in the back of my mind going into the race, um, and, uh, and certainly during it as well. But yeah, getting into the, into the swim, um, there's probably— yeah, my swimming's obviously not my strong point, um, and I have struggled quite a lot since Geelong, probably in the pool, um, and in the water as well. So I didn't have huge expectations about the swim, but I definitely knew that in— differently to Geelong, unfortunately we didn't get the swim in Port Mac— but differently to Geelong, there was probably going to be a little bit more of a spread throughout the field of swim abilities, um, a little bit less sharp towards the top end, and probably a few weaker swimmers as well that would be, you know, more around my capability. So, you know, with sort of adjusted expectations for the race in general and knowing that, I guess I just looked to execute the best swim I could, try and stick with people around me as soon as possible. And then yeah, just look to swim solid but not try and do anything fancy, I guess, accepting where I was at that point and just making the best of what I could. So yeah, ended up swimming with another guy, which was probably the biggest, best learning experience of the day, um, because I've never, you know, really swum sort of side by side or next to someone for a, for a whole swim like that before. I guess in the age group field there's people everywhere, and in Geelong I was just, uh, on my own, like Roland ended up being as well. So that was certainly a really good learning experience, um, because I sort of shifted my focus to just trying to stay with this person and sort of nothing— didn't really think about too much else. Like, I was just trying to sort of stay on the face down there, keep We honestly ended up just like knocking into each other side by side for like 90% of the swim and probably just slowing each other down and not actually using each other to advantage. But I guess that was a really useful learning point because it's not something I've been able to experience before. And I probably took for granted, you know, their sighting line as well and just focused on my own breathing and trying to stay, you know, relaxed and conserve energy. Like a lot of the pro field ended up doing. Unfortunately took a quite large detour to an additional buoy that was on the course, so I'm not even sure what happened, but we swam, you know, 100, 150 meters too far, I think, compared to the actual course. So yeah, lots of good learning things. It was— the tracker will have a pretty atrocious time, even for my own standards, unfortunately. But the pace from my watch was nothing to, uh, write home about, but actually not, um, not as, yeah, disappointing as, as I could have anticipated going into the race. So it was sort of status quo, I'd say, in the end.

It ended up being about 1:34 pace, I think.

Yeah, yeah, like one— yeah, 1:33 or 1:34 on my watch, which is, you know, nowhere, nowhere near what, like, I need to be swimming to sort of get in the mix in these races. Um, but to be honest, given the way I've been feeling, um, in the water, not just the period, even like before I went away, unfortunately just hadn't been, uh, swimming super well in the lead-up months. Um, felt like I've been sliding, sliding back a little bit. So I probably would have almost taken that if, uh, if you would have told me beforehand.

Yeah, I think it's interesting, Jordan, and Tom and Roland, if we look at, uh, Tom's time from last year, you swam, uh, I think it was 28:30 and you swam 32:30 this time, so 4 minutes slower because you swam longer. There's no doubt about that. And when I looked at Rowland's, it was 25, and Rowland swam nearly 28:50, you know, 29, 4 minutes slower. So you actually both swam similar, um, in both years. And it, you know, that, that's the thing that people stop, uh, getting right. They are comparing the swim and saying, oh, I'm 4 minutes slow, what's wrong with me? Well, you actually swam way longer than you should have. And so, you know, you've got to get the perspective right. You can't compare apples with oranges. So it's a good way to show people that, you know, Roland was 4 minutes slower, so Tom, you were 4 minutes slower. So you actually didn't do anything different than you did the year before, to be fair.

Because Roland, would you count that as a good swim? You were 1:24 pace, but it was a slower overall time. How do you assess your swim?

I was quite disappointed with my swim, I guess, as well. I mean, I'm not an exceptional swimmer by any count, but I was sort of hoping to be further up in the field. But I remember being actually at the first start of the race, there's about 300 meters out to the first turn buoy, and it was just a massive washing machine, and I was right in the middle of it getting whacked from all sides. I actually got quite anxious in the middle there, and I had to stick my head up and just take a few breaths and sigh. And then I remember coming around that buoy and just seeing it split about 2 or 3 people ahead of me. And I'm just not quite the quality swimmer enough to come around and close that gap, gap yet. And so I ended up being, I guess, in the pack that I didn't want to be in. And so I think, yeah, looking at the times from last year, obviously we had that deviation and, um, I ended up being maybe about a minute back from the pack that I wanted to be in. Um, so again, by all accounts, not a terrible swim, but also not quite where I wanted to be, um, coming in the water.

It's such an interesting conversation point, and we said this at the very start of the year, you know, yeah, and Dad, you, you've said this from right from the beginning, you know, if with his decision to turn pro and race in the pro field, you're suddenly not comparing apples with apples. You're comparing yourself against placings, which is a really difficult place to be because, you know, by all means with the times and the swim paces, it's definitely not bad at all. But that comment of, I was further back than I wanted to be, well, you can't control everyone else, but you know, you'd still like to be in the pack. So it's a really hard balance to get right, and Dad, I'm curious to your thoughts on that because of course you need to race the race to and you want to be competitive, but triathlon is still an individual sport, so you can't go one way or the other too much.

Yeah, swim is a bit tough, really. I can be disappointed with my swim time, but you have to look at why is the swim time slower. The conditions were way worse and you swam further. So we still want to use that as, "Oh, it's not a good swim because my time is slower," even though we know We're intelligent human beings. We can't compare that swim, whereas the bike set and the run is relatively comparable. The wind would be the only factor. The course is exactly the same. There's nothing different on the course on the bike or the run, but the wind could be a factor. So at the end of the day, the swim is only going to be something that's really comparable if you've got exactly the same perfect conditions and they've got the marker buoys in the right spot and they've measured the course. So we can never never really look too much into what the swim's doing. I think it's almost like we're doing our best just to conserve our fitness here, and so we can actually ride and run the way we want to. I think that's the takeaway, is don't get too caught up in times from previous years in the swim, because every year is going to be a different setup of the course compared to the conditions.

Takes us to the bike leg. And I just want to take a second here to commend Roland and make sure the audience get a good grasp of this because you've ridden a 1:58:10 once again for the second time already in your pro career, the fastest bike split of the day against absolutely world-class athletes. You are competing across 3 disciplines, of course, but in terms of the bike, these are the best triathletes in the world that you're now competing against, and you've for the second time given the fastest bike split. So firstly, I just want to give your props to you and say phenomenal effort. Rowland, that is just unreal.

Oh, thanks, Jordy.

And I want to go through some of your numbers as well, because they're just so fun to look at, because we know that you're a big boy. And average power of 360 watts for the 1 hour 58, normalized power 367, best 20 minutes of 390 watts, average cadence of 91 for those interested about, you know, your go-to race cadence, average speed of 45.7. So absolutely flying there. Um, but I'm really interested to hear, you know, how the race panned out, because when we look at your first half or second half split breakdown, you were 368 average first lap, and this is when you're coming out of the water, you haven't got a pack, for 45.3 kilometers an average speed. So 368 watts for 45.3, and the second lap you're 347 for 46.1, so 20 watts lower for faster speed. So talk to us about how the race played out and you ended up being able to find a pack and then getting ahead of them? Like, how did that go?

It's interesting to hear those, um, those numbers. And thanks to the, um, that's really nice of you to say all that stuff, Jordy, so I appreciate that. Um, I didn't even know my cadence was 91. I actually would have thought it'd be a bit lower, to be honest, than the average. So that's interesting to hear. But, um, coming out of the water, yeah, I was, I was with a pack coming out of the water, but I just knew immediately that I didn't want to have any passengers really with me. So I managed to get out of T2 or T1, sorry, sort of first out of that pack and just got to work straight away on the bike trying to sort of minimize the gap up the road. But of course, with Gerard's voice in my head telling me not to go too far, you know, don't go ballistic with it, which I probably didn't listen to, to be honest, at the time, but because there's quite a steep pinch coming out of town there. So yeah, I think for the first out section of, of the course, I was predominantly by myself, and trying to hold around, yeah, I think 360 watts was what I was trying to hold for the whole day. So I was quite happy to, you know, obviously go and do that for the, for the race. And then I got caught up from 2 riders who had bridged up from behind me, and we started to work together coming back into town, which was also quite handy. Into the headwind. And so I tried to use that as much as I could to my advantage. So I started to work with these other guys as well and get a bit more of a rest whilst I was coming into that headwind section. And then, so after the first half, we just tacked on to the, the main chase group that was there. So I think there was about 6 or 8 guys who were sort of in that main chase group trying to get back onto the main front. Part of the field, which, as you said, did have some pretty, you know, big names in the sport like Braden Currie and, you know, Jared Osborne and other guys who have, you know, run some pretty big races out there. So that was always good. And that was also coming right back through town when we caught on to them, which is also where all the spectators are. So I had maybe a bit of extra motivation, you know, when everyone's cheering on as well. Yeah. So at that point decided to go quite hard on the bike and put in a, you know, about a 5 or 10 minute surge through town just to make sure that I wasn't again picking up any other passengers coming back into that really fast section going back. And I can't entirely explain why there's such a big deviation between the two laps like you mentioned, Jordy, to be honest, because going back again out of out of town on that second lap, I was predominantly solo until I got caught again by Kieran Storch, who's, you know, a phenomenal, phenomenally strong rider and runner as well. And so we started working together on the way back into town to finish off that second lap. But, you know, obviously, you know, we were sharing turns on the way back, so I've saved probably a bit of energy there and was able to sit in a bit And then we, maybe the wind had picked up on the way out as well, which you meant we might've had a bit of a stronger, overall speed as well for, you know, a lower effort, which is always beneficial coming back into, into the run where you wanna save your legs a little bit. But, I think, you know, some of the real takeaways, I think, from the good training that we did leading into this race, it was doing a, a bit more over-under efforts, sort of simulating the experience that we were expecting coming into this sort of, you know, pro field and race. And so some of the key sessions we did was, you know, having a 5-minute hard section before a more sustained 30-minute piece, followed by another, you know, pickup in power, which I think was, you know, a really good simulator for what we saw on the day. So I think those, you know, those sessions, you know, really helped out in that scenario. And there was a few other sessions that we, you know, I, I think were really key in that, helping, you know, hold really high sustained power, which were going and doing some, you know, races mixed in with a long, long ride. You know, on the weekends up here on the sunny coast, there's a, there's a few weekends where they do a few road races where we might ride out to the race and then do an hour or hour and a half at, you know, quite a high threshold power, which again is a phenomenal way to go and train and get in some good quality work. And then again, you know, the Zwift races that the TriPelo group do every Thursday night over winter are just possibly some of the best training I think, you know, we do throughout the entire year.

Especially because we give you boys an impossible handicap where we just, unfortunately, put you on the limit every Thursday and you stand up to the challenge remarkably. I don't know how you do it every time.

I don't know, I just try to hold on to Tom's wheel pretty much the whole time because he pulls everyone around. It's ridiculous.

We struggled to make much inroads this year, unfortunately.

I am curious, you know, how many age groupers were out on the course in the second lap because sometimes that really does make a difference for drafting, even though—

Yeah, for sure.

We see this a lot, even though you're going past them, there's still just that wind and drafting effect, right?

Oh, of course. Yeah, it's such a good point. It's something I didn't even think about just then, but absolutely. And you know, there were quite a lot and you can— I'm not sure if it's even legal, but of course I still did, and I'm sure everyone does. But, you know, I'll— in between where there's a gap, I'll probably come in, try and make the most of that draft, and then come back out. Yeah, sorry if it's not legal.

Staying to the left, that sounds right. Yeah, to the left until you have to go around.

Yeah, that's a great—

that is the rule, staying left, and then you should only be on the right when you pass. So, so you're doing nothing illegal there, Raul.

Yeah, I think that's definitely right though, Jordy. Like, I've, you know, even prior to this year, it's more pronounced this year. Well, for me anyway, because there's less people on the course to pass on the first lap. But yeah, like consistently on a lapped course, we'll have like lower power for better speed on the second lap. I think just that dirty air that you're going through.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. I'd be really— this is such value of us, you know, you being Travelo athletes, we have all your data, we can really see the details of the lap. We always talk on this podcast about how we're reviewing the World Champs. We just love to see their data and what was happening. And I would have been interested to see those guys that bridged to you on the first lap, what power they put down to bridge to you because you're the fastest rider of the course. They must have had to really override there. And then your ability to surge through town to get away from them, you know, that definitely would have cooked them if they were already on the limit. I would have loved to see their first half, second half split based on what times they did. We don't know, but it would be cool to see that. I want to throw to the coach. What do you make of that performance and almost from as well a proud moment to see a 1:58.10 on the screen and once again the fastest split of the day. What do you think when you see that?

I just think it's all the hard work paying dividends and all of the sessions that Roland was mentioning, they were very specific that we wanted to change things up. We didn't want to ride threshold anymore. We wanted to ride variations in threshold. Threshold because that's what the pro race is like. And so, for all those age groupers out there, we're trying to replicate what your race is going to look like. You're not a pro athlete like these guys, so you shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be doing a lot of work where you're trying to get yourself where threshold is not your goal. Threshold should be your goal, and that's the way Tom and Roland were as age groupers. They were on their own. Not in a pack, not surging, and so they had to train that way. And now we've had to switch that. In the last podcast, this is exactly what we said. What are we going to do about improving our bike? And we said we're going to change and make it more over-under riding. That is still good for age groupers, by the way, but it's not actually what we want them to do on race day. We want them to stay in the ranges that we give them, whereas I'm saying to Roland and Tom, there's periods where you need to be well over to be in the race. You're actually trying to ride a time trial in amongst the race, whereas everybody else in the race who's not not in a pro field, should be just trying to time trial. I know there's other athletes in the way, so that makes it very difficult because you end up in a pack sometimes. It is hard and then you sometimes end up with lower power with faster speed like you would as the guys have been speaking about. But for the guys who have actually busted their backside to get up to Rohland who'd got away from them early, that clearly showed because they dropped off badly. I looked at all those guys who did that because I was following the race intently and Rohland was able to actually maintain, basically improve his speed, whereas these guys were dropping off. That's why Rohan ended up with the fastest time. If your body's not used to riding a hard section, you're going to blow up. I think that was the beauty of what Rohan was able to do. He trained that way, so his body was actually ready for it. We both agreed that it was not going to make any difference to his run whether he rode 10% harder or 5% harder or whatever. He's going to run reasonably similar. All the sessions we did, the race-ready sessions, all those numbers, he was doing those in training. So what we talked about, Roland— Tom before, where his numbers were down, Tom replicated those numbers in the race, exactly the same numbers. And Roland, in training, he was flying. He was doing, you know, that— what was that last 60-minute you did, Roland? It was, uh, 3—

I think 3:90 or so, I think it was.

And so that equates to a 3:60 to 3, you know, 90%, and you know, what was your speed? It was something like 47.

Yeah, 391 for 40— wait, 391 for 40— oh, is that right? 44.7 it's got here.

Is it?

It seems low.

I think it was. It was a pretty windy day. I do remember.

Yeah, so different conditions. Yeah, but we'd had some other sessions where your speed was unbelievable for the power, and some of those days where you rode with other coach Matt Phillips and you're doing some sessions together and both of you are nudging 46 k's an hour for 75k in training. And so, you know, the writing's on the wall for a poor performance if you can't hit those numbers. The writing's on the wall for a fantastic performance if you're hitting these numbers. So, the numbers don't lie. That's the beauty of it. You're going into this race super confident. Tom, on the other hand, is going into this race lacking confidence and it's because he's nowhere near the form he's used to and that's the lesson I want everybody to listen to in this podcast is you can only race to your current form. And I know we say that so often, but people don't really get that message through to their, their psyche, of their mental preparation, is, oh, I can do this power and speed in, in my history, so I should be able to do that on race day no matter what preparation I've had. And that's the thing that, that I think these two boys are getting good at. Tom raced really well to the form that he was in, and, and we need to not Avoid that. That's actually a really good positive thing that Tom's done here. He's still ended up running his fastest, you know, half marathon, um, probably an angry half marathon, um, but, but Roland's coming to, into this race with the best form of his career and there's no doubt about that. And he's raced like that. He's done a— like, the swim was 4 minutes slower, but he's actually ridden, um, he's actually ridden from last year 2 minutes quicker and ran 5 minutes quicker. So he's actually 7 minutes quicker across the bike and the run, yet he's 4 minutes slower. So it only looks like he's improved by 5 minutes, but he's actually— if you take swim out, he's actually improved 11 minutes in one year. That's— and I know you didn't have the best race at Sunny Coast the year before, but we can only compare those two races. So, you know, that's a phenomenal improvement in one year for a guy who's at the top of his range.

You're both, um, as humble as they come for athletes, so it's hard to get you to gloat about yourselves. But Roland, like, you must finish that and just be, just be stoked with the training and the execution.

Yeah, I mean, I, I couldn't be happier, to be honest. Like, um, to, to go out and, you know, do the fastest leg of, you know, a professional triathlon, it's always fantastic. Um, As you say, you know, it's, we're not there to compare to other people, but it's always hard not to. And even comparing, as you say, Gerard, this race to last year, I think, I think we ended up placing better as age groupers as we have as racing in the pro field this year. It's just ridiculous. But, you know, it just goes to show, I guess, the level that, you know, triathlon's going to, which is always a good thing. More competition is a good thing for the sport. So can't be too upset by that. I did have a thought that maybe I should just give up triathlon and just focus purely on cycling and go across to Europe and just be a domestique for someone over there, you know.

El tractor.

I'm sure there'll be a team out there that might take you. Yeah, that's a good point. Tom, let's look at your numbers because this is a super interesting part of the story because by all means, it's, you know, the way we're talking, it sounds like the bike was a disaster, but the numbers don't show that. Not, you know, you've ridden 2:04:48, which is a phenomenal bike leg time. We know you can go quicker. It's not as quick as you wanted, so I'll get your comments on that in a second, but I want to run through the numbers. Average power 297. Same race last year, you were at 20 watts higher, I think at 317. And you are trying to now hold more like 320 to 330 watts in races. For those interested in the cadence, your cadence on the race was 86, so a little bit lower than Roland's, for 43.3 kilometers an hour. So absolutely not a shabby ride, but some interesting points. So your heart rate was 157, and your heart rate is consistently— this is the average— consistently averages, you know, I'm looking through all your races, 169, 174, 163, 167, 167, 167. So it's 10 beats lower, and so I wonder if, you know, that's often you guys are doctors, you might be able to comment on this, but we often see that when athletes are sick, they can't get their heart rate up. It's like they can't get their engine going. But my whole point here is that you actually rode a 2:06 at Sunshine Coast last year. So in terms of conditions and trying to compare apples with apples, even though it was a worse day for you and your expectations, you've, you've still ridden phenomenal, faster than last year, and some interesting numbers there. So, so what do you make of all that?

Yeah, I think, um, that might have been the year before, Jordy. I'm pretty sure, um—

oh yeah, sorry, 2023.

I think it was about 4 minutes slower than last year.

Yes, sorry. Yeah, 2:06, 2 years ago. Yeah, 2 hours flat last year. So that's important to note too. Yeah, you're at 2 hours flat, which shows what you're capable of. So 4 minutes slower this year, which is— yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, yeah, and as I guess as you're saying, it's sort of— as Gerard was saying, the writing was sort of on the wall a bit beforehand. Um, for whatever reason, I've just been really struggling on the bike. More than anything else. I've been running okay in training and still been able to get some, some sessions done, but I probably only had like 2, maybe 3 sessions on the bike where I felt not like I was, you know, going well, but sort of closer to, you know, sessions that I'd be happy with. And I guess as Gerard Donnelly's saying, there's no miracles in your recent forms. The best predictor of race day performance, which is extremely true. I guess I was just holding on to those, you know, couple of little light light at the end of the tunnel moments that I'd had. You know, I had a decent 75K time trial, some better power, and one or two other sessions where I felt, you know, like closer to, you know, a range that I'd hoped to be able to execute. And I was sort of just blindly hoping that would happen on race day, but it was evident pretty quickly it wasn't going to be. So yeah, it was a bit of a mental battle, to be honest, on the bike. I was I always know I'm coming from behind after the swim, but I'm usually pumped to get on the bike and really ready to execute the best bike I can and get myself back into the race and at least execute a ride that I'd be really, really pleased with. So it was pretty difficult going into out of the swim, however far back, and then into the leg that I was probably least confident with on the day, which was very foreign for me because I'm usually really looking forward to getting on the bike and getting to work regardless of what's happened prior to that. So yeah, it was a, it was a very interesting experience. Um, and you know, I have a lot of respect for, you know, I'm fortunate that I've got some great equipment and a few years of consistent training under the belt that, you know, can still ride 2:04 or whatever it was on, on the day when, you know, not be suffering for as long as some others who are doing a really good race and just having to be out there pushing for a bit longer for where they're at. So I was, you know, aware that it was still gonna— still get— the time was still gonna pass. Um, you know, contemplated a few times of pulling the plug, but, uh, I was already that far in. I thought I may as well just get as much of a training day out of it as I could at that point. Um, but yeah, it was, it was definitely foreign, really struggling to hit even a, you know, what I felt like was pretty conservative target around the, you know, between 300 and 310 watt mark, which is something that I should, uh, you know, previously been able to do fairly comfortably. And even in my sort of race preparation sessions was, you know, consistently still riding between that 300 and 310 watts, which was, you know, not something that I was stoked about, but I'd sort of been able to fairly consistently replicate that sort of range. And to sort of struggle to get there on the day was— yeah, it was a bit of a mental battle. Um, but, uh, but again, the conversation I'd had with Gerard Donnelly before was we're just gonna have to see what the body does on the day and whatever sensations you're getting and however it's responding, just have to try and make the best of that. So I think once I got around the first lap and sort of committed to getting out on the highway again, it's not my— it's sort of only one way home then to just keep going around. So yeah, just tried to make the best of it. You know, I just accept where, where the numbers were at on the day. Had someone on the first lap that I was riding a little bit with and frustrating, interesting experience, sort of getting dropped in the wheel like consistently every time they go to the front and then, you know, struggling to take— get back around to take turns. But it certainly helped keep me in it a little bit mentally and came a little bit better on the second lap, at least sensation-wise. The power wasn't necessarily much better or the speed, but, but I felt like I was able to sort of lock into a bit of a rhythm and just, and just ride, ride for where I was at on the day. But yeah, certainly interesting what you know with the heart rate, and I noticed that as well. I'm not sure what the I haven't been through it, like the second lap, but my heart rate might have been like 150 or something like that, which is pretty much like zone 2 sort of heart rate.

Yeah.

And it's sort of—

yeah, for that second half. Yeah.

Yeah. Which like on a, you know, warmer endurance ride, I might sort of be sitting up towards that by the end. So it was sort of consistent with what I've been experiencing in training and having those discussions with Gerard Donnelly. And I really don't want— I don't want this to be like a sob story, you know, stuff stuff happens and it's just a race. But it was interesting in that like I felt like I could still get some run sessions done, which we'll get to in a bit, I guess. But, um, I just really couldn't push on the bike. Like I really— and my heart rate would sort of consistently reflect that. Like I did a, you know, a 20-minute effort, um, that I had to end up just, you know, cutting down to shorter pieces because I was pushing, you know, 20-30 watts below what I'd expect, but my heart rate was sort of appropriately reflecting that, sort of stuck around the 160s, 160s range when it's usually in the 180s for that sort of effort. But the effort felt really high, so the heart rate was actually appropriately low, I guess, for the power. Um, I just felt, as you were describing, Jordy, a little bit sort of blunted at that top end and just couldn't really get the system going, um, despite, I guess, the RPE being quite high, um, for what the, for what the numbers were giving the feedback. And I guess that's where it's really useful for me well, for any athlete, but I found it useful, you know, having sort of a couple of metrics to use. As we know, sometimes power meters with, you know, leaving them in transition or whatever, calibrating can, you know, be reading a bit funky. But to see, I guess, that the power and the heart rate were appropriately, you know, altered to what I'd hoped for and expected to be able to do. Yeah, it was an interesting thing to reflect on and not something to dwell on too much, I guess, going forward. But Yeah, definitely just, yeah, shows me that something was just not quite right and wasn't really able to, yeah, to ride as well as I would have hoped on the day. But, uh, we'll live to fight another one.

Yep, I think, uh, I think it's a really good summary. And look, again, you've been too, uh, too kind. Um, the impact of illness, you just can't underestimate. You know, it doesn't seem like it has much impact on your training and, uh, your ability to push high intensity, but if you train when you're unwell, and that's kind of what we did. We didn't let you fully recover from that illness, and it almost blunts your ability to train hard. And so the lesson out there to everybody is when you're sick, you know, this is one of the golden rules we have in our TriValley family is, you know, you can only train according to where you are at. If you're a 7 out of 10 or 6 out of 10, you should only be training at 60-70 80% of your FTP. If you're not quite 80 or 90% right, you shouldn't be training at 100 or 110% of your FTP. And so, you know, the motivated athlete sees the race coming and wants to get going and doesn't really give their body the appropriate time to get back to full health. And that's just not what Tom's done. I've done that many times. Jordan, you've done it, and I know Roland, you've done it, where you're absolutely so keen. I'm feeling better, I need to get on with my training. Um, but, but you really don't. You really need to let your body actually— and when you've got a race coming up, that is the worst thing that can happen. You've only got X amount of days or weeks, and so you try and cram this program in it. And halfway through that build, Tom and I decided, no, we're not, we're not going to try and push anymore. We're actually going to pull back because the, the, the The biggest temptation is to train harder. Try to train harder. When you're struggling for numbers that you can't achieve, you think, "Oh, I need to train harder. I'm not fit enough." Well, that's just not true. You had the best winter of your whole career and I guarantee you, over this summer, you will reap the reward of that winter that you've prepared for, those 3 or 4 months that you trained the house down. Except for you getting sick, you would have had one of the great races because you had done such good training. This is a really good lesson. And we could record— play this recording back and I mark my words, you will be performing the way you want to because fitness doesn't disappear, your form does. That's what happens when you're unwell, your form disappears because you can't get the body to perform the way it should because it's still fighting other things that are going on like infection. So hard to hear that and, you know, it feels like an excuse but it's not, it's reality. And for you to dismiss that, I've done it myself. I've tried to go to an A race where I'm actually, I had the flu, I'll be right, I've trained the house down, and I came nowhere. I think it was a Tour of Brighton, I've told this story many times. Instead of, I won the year before, I came 23rd the next year 'cause I had the flu that period. I was flying, I was in better form than I was when I won, but because I was sick, I expected that I'd be fine, and I just wasn't. I was so angry at myself for actually putting myself in the race and expecting that I would perform when I was unwell. And we just have to learn that lesson, unfortunately.

If I'm not mistaken, I think you said the same thing to Roland on the last podcast, that he will reap the rewards of that training, and he absolutely has. I think it's called Occam's Razor, that the simplest explanation when solving a problem is often the correct one. And you use interesting wording there, Tom, when you said, "For whatever reason," you know, the why power wasn't there. And it's like, well, no, there's a very clear reason. And it's the trap we fall into all the time as athletes is can't figure out what's going on, especially when you're the one in it. And it's the most common thing we do as coaches is we remind the athlete, hey, it's not complicated. This very clear thing has happened, and that is the major reason that this is happening. Of course, all the time it's multifactorial, but, um, I really like that the simplest explanation is often the most accurate. And it was for you, you know, you were sick and unwell and you guys tried to train through it that was the period. And I'm sure there was other factors, but yeah, simplest explanation being the best. But we moved to the run, and Tom, you ran a 1:16 flat or 1:15:59, is that correct?

Yeah, 59 if you're going on the track, Jordy, which I'm happy to take on that day.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, and is that your fastest half in a race off the bike?

Yeah, I think, I think it is. And it's honestly probably like the easiest, as in I say, I don't want to say that in the wrong way, but like from a perceived exertion point of view, was probably one of the easiest runs in a race I've done, which I think just reflects the fact I wasn't able to ride as, as well as I would have hoped. And sort of with the reserves that my body had that I just wasn't able to access on the day, the legs were definitely too fresh on the run. I was pretty sort of low on motivation going into the run, but thought I'd just get going and, you know, look to just jog the first 10K at, you know, something that felt pretty comfortable. And the pace was just coming far too easy. The legs were a bit fresh. So, um, yeah, the plan was just to get around the first lap and feel pretty comfortable coming through halfway, which I did. And then, you know, knowing that I was in a reasonable position in terms of executing a decent run, um, had enough incentive to sort of keep pushing on from there and get something out of the race in the end, which was good. And a couple of guys were sort of suffering just ahead of me on that last lap and could sort of use them as, you know, carrots to chase down in the last sort of, you know, 6-7 Ks, which was really good and definitely kept me mentally in it. So yeah, I guess that was definitely a positive note to take out of the race, still being able to execute a decent run. But Yeah, I guess it just for me highlighted, um, yeah, for the fact that I wasn't, wasn't able to ride to the same, you know, sort of intensity and, uh, effort that I usually do and usually suffer a lot more on the run because of that. So it was really interesting actually to experience going into the run, um, with the legs and I guess, you know, energy stores and everything being so much, um, you know, such a better place versus having done a really hard 2 hours whatever on the bike and then trying to tackle the half marathon with depleted system already.

Was it an angry run like Gerard said?

It actually was, to be honest. I was actually, yeah, I sort of accepted my fate by that point, to be honest. I was pretty pumped seeing Roland right up there. I was getting around him as much as I could when we crossed paths and seeing him mow down a few people was pretty motivating for me actually. And Matt Phillips out on course, I knew he was really up in the race, so I was actually just really sort of enjoying the usually, you know, suffering so much, I'm in my own head and just trying to get from K to K and, you know, get my nutrition in and get everything right. But I could sort of, yeah, you know, still try and execute as good a run as I could, but soak in a bit more of the atmosphere and the support out on course and everything, and try to get around the other athletes I knew there as well. So yeah, that was an enjoyable part of the day after the other two weeks.

I do find it hilarious that Roland Tomkins somehow managed to downplay his best ever run. That's what I was about to say. And it shows you the form that you had during the winter for your running. And had you been riding a lot harder than you would have, you would have run the same way. You would have had more incentive to run faster because you're in the race, where here, you're just relaxing. It does show you how well you can run when you actually relax rather than putting pressure on yourself. You've got such good form, both on the bike and the run, but it's just not— we just didn't have enough time on the bike to get your form back. But when the running, it's a different activity, obviously. The bike riding, you're spending a lot of time on the bike trying to hold power, whereas as a runner, we're not doing a lot in terms of time to hold the same pace. So it just shows you the form you are in, but you didn't get an opportunity to show it. So it's— yeah, all the time I'm trying to make make sure that everybody's hearing the true story here. So even though Tom will downplay it, and Roland downplays his extreme improvement as well, and you know, you've got to celebrate these because it doesn't come all the time. And you know, it's hard for Tom to celebrate anything there, but that is worth celebrating. It's something you should be proud of that even though things were going completely the wrong way that you wanted them to go, you still came and pulled out the fastest fastest half marathon you've ever run in a 70.3, and not many people would be able to stand there.

That—

you should be really proud of that. And you know, that's what you do to make a positive come out of all the negatives that are happening around you. So you walk away with some incentive. Well, I can actually run under 1 in the 1:15s now. And you know, don't forget when we started, you, you know, you're battling to break under 1:20, and, and that's, you know, that's not that long ago. And that's 5 minutes for everybody out you know, at that pointy end, 5-minute improvement is massive. And you know, when we get to talk to Rowland about his— he's doing exactly the same thing. So we were talking about 1:20s early in your career, then we're talking 1:18s, 1:17s, then we try to break 1:16s. Now you've already reached the 1:15s. You know, we are aiming for 1:13s and 1:12s. That's where we're going. And that's, that's the thing that you need to grasp onto. You just keep doing what you're doing, and as you progress through the months and the years, that those numbers will start to come And it's already happened for Rowland, the way he's run with a very hard bike ride, being the hardest bike ride of the day, and ended up with a PB run as well. So it's, it's, it's super exciting.

Take us through it, Rowland.

You were—

not your day last year, it was a 1:21:53 half, and then you've run a PB 1:16:42. That's 3:37 pace, a negative split, 3:39 the first half and 3:35 second half. I remind everyone that it's not a— it is not a flat run by any means. There's some pinches in there. You have to go up 4 times— is it 4 times or 4 times. Yeah, they are serious pinches. They interrupt your speed and flow. They're not super long. I mean, 700 meters, I think, or 800 meters. So there's definitely climbing there that slows you down. So, Rohan, congrats on doing that bike ride and then coming off and running a 1:16:42, your best run ever. How did that feel?

Again, yeah, it felt amazing. I was really happy, you know, to really piece together what was probably the best race that I think we've had ever. And so executing a really good— I'll admit the swim, as we've said already, but a really good bike and run together was just fantastic. And I couldn't be more stoked with that performance that I put out there on the day. Obviously, there was many, many things that contributed to that. That effort on the day. But I mean, for one, seeing, as Tom said, you know, seeing Tom himself running out there just jogging. I thought he was jogging on the day and I was shocked to see that he had done that time that he had done at the end because he did look so comfortable. I thought he was going to do like a 1:25 and then I looked and he'd just gone and done a 1:16 flat. And he looked so comfortable.

1:59, sorry.

Yeah, sorry. It's got a lot of technicality. He's ridiculously comfortable. So it was so motivating. To see him out there, you know, doing that as well as, you know, Matt Phillips and, you know, the remainder of all the Tribello crew. There was a strong contingent out there, you know, getting around each other. So that definitely got me over the line. But as you said, I think, you know, we just put in some really good, you know, solid training sessions. And of course, I've got the hometown advantage knowing the course intricately. You know, I do the run sometimes, you know, with one of the running, local running Shops, the running company up here. We, we do that course— they do that course every Tuesday night, so we go and run it. And then I do all the hills around here as well, which is, I think, again, you know, paid dividends in the last few months of training, you know, really getting as much elevation in. And, you know, we've talked about it at length in previous episodes, but getting as much elevation in throughout those training sessions I think really helped with those pinches. Um, and then, you know, finally just just, you know, targeting that, that negative split was really on my mind. Um, coming out of T2, I had, you know, some absolute hitters coming past me. I think Braden Currie went flying by me, as well as, you know, Jared Osborne, who are, you know, two very strong runners, um, who must have been doing around, you know, 3:30s straight out of the gate. Um, and I mean, I know I can't run at that level, so it wasn't even in my mind that I was going to even try. I'd like to think that that would be in the wheelhouse someday, but at this point in time as we've said, it's just not there. Um, and so I just sort of immediately locked into, you know, the pace that I had tried and executed in the previous sessions and something that I knew would be in the ballpark, and then slowly wound it up and luckily didn't capitulate and held it all together. And so I was just, I was just stoked to not, you know, get a cramp or have something go wrong and, you know, to finally have what felt like a, a good race, you know, with you know, a few, you know, missed races in the past. So it was really good.

We have your max heart rate here down as 197 BPM. Is that correct, or is that—

it's probably the watch. Yeah, I'll quote Tom, but I think he's— I remember him posting on Strava once, but he said something like, either the, the wristwatch is capping or the heart be flapping, is what he said. So I think it's Yeah, spurious result there. I think I wouldn't listen to that.

Didn't have a chest strap on?

No, no. Next race I'll end up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because there's some gaps here in the bike heart rate data.

Yeah.

Which frustrates us, Roland, please.

Extra weight was slowing me down.

Extra weight, that's brilliant.

Just as a note for anyone out there, the chest strap is so much more accurate than the wrist heart rate. The wrist heart rate could be highly inaccurate, so.

And look, the reason we want that is because of discussions like this between you you and your coach. You want to be able to compare how your heart rate is responding, and if you're getting inaccurate data, you can't actually have that conversation. So it is super important to get all the information you can, especially when you're racing and when you're having a look at it post-race.

Now, it's not a competition, but your transitions— I will say that you both came out of T2 in exactly 1:10, and T1, Roland, you came out with a whopping 1:25, Tom back at 1:46. So if we're going to look at that, 21 seconds there, Tom. Where you can improve a little bit.

I probably should have got my wriggle on a bit more, especially when you— socks on, that probably slowed me up.

Yeah, okay, that's the 20 seconds probably.

Yes, I was going to say, especially when you two guys have beaten each other by less than 20 seconds in the past, so every little second counts.

Yes, I've been working on Matic specific. That's all I've been training, T1 and T2.

No riding or running, just transition.

They're lightning fast transitions anyway. A lot of people would be keen to hear, to finish off, just your total nutrition intake. So what are you guys having in terms of grams per hour across the race and bike and run specifically? And is it a mix of carbs or drink or gels or food? Break it down.

Jump in, uh, Roland.

Yes, please.

I'll leave you to figure out something whilst I'm speaking. Um, yeah, so as usual, so day prior I do like a carb load, um, mostly rice-based products of all, uh, all varieties. Um, and then, yeah, morning of, um, have a good brekkie a couple hours before I'll have a gel, uh, caffeine gel about 45 minutes before the race, and then that's just a like smaller like 80mg caffeine gel. Um, and then yeah, then I guess you're stuck into the race. On the bike, I think I had about 240 grams, so about 120 an hour-ish, give or take. Um, that's with, uh, actually yeah, that was one positive trial something slightly different just in the way I made up my nutrition, having my like powder sachets with a gel in a bottle. Usually I just have like the sachets and then the gels like I have separately, but I just mix the gel into the bottle just for less sort of handling. I think that worked really well. How's that?

How's texture and taste?

No, it was totally fine because like once you shake it up with the water, like it just seemed like a normal cut, you know, powdered mix drink. So it actually worked really well and it just meant I didn't have to faff around sort of getting my gels out of my into a box and stuff as well. Did have a couple of spare in there in case I lost a bottle or something, but, um, I think that went really well. So about 120 an hour. And then on the run, I had, um, similar sort of thing— 2 gels in a soft flask, so 80 grams in a soft flask with water mixed up. And that actually came out quite smoothly as well. So again, saved the faffing around. And then I would have picked up at least a gel and a few cups, so probably had, you know, 80 to 90 grams an hour on the run, maybe 100 and 110 grams in total. So um, yeah, it would have been in the 110 to 120 gram an hour range, I would say, across the, across the race, more or less.

Yeah, phenomenal. That's, uh, brilliant thinking and good strategy. That's nice. I haven't heard anyone squeezing the gel into the bottle, so where did you get that from? Um, I actually don't know.

I've seen like, um, Sam Long and a few people prepping their bottles on YouTube videos, just squeezing heaps of gels into bottles. Definitely a good way to get like, yeah, a bit density in there. Um, I also have caffeine in some of those gels as well, whereas I don't in my like powder mix. So I thought therefore I could just get it all in one product as opposed to just using another powder sachet, which I guess would get the same amount of carbohydrate, um, but wouldn't have the caffeine. So yeah, it went really well.

That's brilliant. Roland, you're infamous for your random concoctions of supermarket sugar.

What did you take? I've got it down to a fine art now, which is great. I'm still copping a bit of flak from all of that because, you know, I've had some people messaging me saying, you know, sending me all these nutrition sponsors who, you know, like to advertise what the athletes are having, and then there's me drinking Coke. And anyway, unfortunately, I still am on the sports, like, the soft drink train. Um, I think what I ended up doing was having a gel, just like a caffeinated more, more Tange, not more Tange, more Vincel, sorry.

I did NutraStress.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's okay.

Lucky you're not a sponsor yet.

Gel before the race, before the swim, sorry. And then I think straight onto the bike I just had mixed, I put in some soft drink that has a about 10 to 11 grams of carbs per 100 mL into my bottles, of which I had 2. And so it ended up being— and then, sorry, dissolved some SIS carbohydrate powder into that mixture as well, just to increase the amount of carbohydrates that were in there. And so each bottle ended up being about 140 grams of carbs, and I finished both of those on the bike. It was then about 140 grams per hour on the bike. And then coming on to the run, I had another gel coming off the bike onto the run, which I think was about a 40-gram carb gel, and then some more of this special elixir that I've concocted up, which again might have been around 60 grams of carbs. Carbs. So, um, probably not quite the same numbers as Tom, um, but yeah, but, but certainly, I mean, I certainly didn't feel energy deplete coming into the end. Um, and I think for a half Ironman, you don't maybe need to be quite as aggressive as you do for, you know, a longer effort like an Ironman, which I think is, you know, something that my body's starting to respond better to in the half Ironman distance.

For those listening, those are monster numbers, and you guys are racing at super, super high intensity, you know, a much higher percentage of threshold than a lot of age groupers are, which would contribute to a lot more energy expenditure. So don't just, you know, hear this and think, oh geez, Tom and Roland are doing 120 to 140 an hour, I should try that. Sure, that might, that might be what you need, um, but, uh, you know, just, just keep that in mind that we have had athletes before, especially with this new craze of all the pros definitely going over 100 grams per hour athletes try and jump to that and just get major stomach issues because the jump's too big because they're used to 40 or 60 grams an hour and that's what they've been used to. So if you are going to try that, maybe build your way up to that. Don't just jump up to over 100 straight away. That's a really important reminder. Well, boys, great episode again. We always seem to go longer than anticipated, but you give us such great insight into your training and racing. What's the next goal race for you both? Tom, what's, what's, what's the redemption race for you?

Yeah, I need something. Um, I've been, yeah, having a bit of a chat to Gerard Donnelly and I've had, uh, uh, Ironman Western Australia in, in Bussau sort of in the back of my mind, I guess, through that winter build. Um, so that's something that I'm, I'm still sort of weighing up, just going to see how the body responds the next couple of weeks and try and get back to some consistent training and, uh, yeah, make sure things are trending in, in the right direction. Um, if so, yeah, I'll look to making sure I can and get the adequate arrangements with work to get the couple of days off around that to make sure I can get across, you know, to make it worth my while going over to Busso. But yeah, that's probably the main thing that I've got on my agenda, just to see how the next couple of weeks pan out, really.

How are you feeling, by the way, 3 weeks post-race? Are you feeling somewhat recovered? Are you still feeling like you're just not quite there What's, what's the feeling right now?

Yeah, I'm feeling, I'm feeling pretty reasonable. Um, again, like the whole time I felt like pretty much normal doing like endurance training and things. It was just sort of couldn't really push much intensity, um, particularly on the bike for whatever reason. The run sort of seemed to be able to get away with it a little bit more, um, even in training prior and things. But, um, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good now. Um, definitely, yeah, a little bit down in confidence. Not so much from the race itself, more just from the fact that it was a new experience to my body body just to not respond, uh, how I'd expect it to from training and from, you know, being able to sort of adapt and progress from, you know, the training stimulus. Um, but I think that's sort of trending back in the right direction now. So, um, yeah, I'm pretty, pretty keen to just get a few consistent weeks under the belt and, and see things, you know, responding appropriately as I'd expect them to have in the past. And then, um, yeah, look at what might be the best, best path forward after to that.

Brilliant. Roland, what's on for your calendar year, the rest of your calendar year?

Um, I'm also potentially teeing up a, um, Busso start line list. Um, I would absolutely love to see Tom toeing the line of an Ironman. I think he would be an absolute monster doing that. So I think, Gerard, you should really put pressure on him to do it. But, um, yeah, also considering doing that. But I think the next two races that I'm, you know, definitely hoping to be doing are a Noosa in November if I can get a reply back from that team to confirm that I can do it or not. And then following that would be the Hervey Bay 100, which is about 2 weeks after that. So yeah, 2 races in November that I'll be looking to execute a good race for. So that'll be fun. And I know there's some pretty big hitters coming to both of those races, so it'll be pretty fun.

Some final personal questions from you both. The Kona Ironman World Champs are coming up for our female athletes. Now you both love watching the pro athletes and getting any insight into pro athletes on YouTube, as you mentioned before, Tom, can help. Do you have any predictions? Do you have any winners you want to announce? What's your thoughts for the race?

Yeah, gee, I think it's going to be a great race, just like Nice was. Pretty pointy end, or pretty stacked pointy end of the field. I think Lucy's in some pretty ominous form though. I think she might defend the, uh, defend the title is my, my pick.

Roland, I was actually having this discussion the other day, um, with a few friends of ours, but, um, I think I ended up saying that I think Laura Phillip would probably win, and then Lucy Charles-Barclay second, and then Kat Matthews third. That would be my pick, I think.

Great podium pick. We'll see if it pans out like that. Any final thoughts, coach, on the boys in the episode?

No, super proud of both of them. Uh, they're really, uh, giving giving listeners a lot of information about their private and personal feelings. And I think that's a hard thing to do, to be vulnerable and to be opened up with questioning. Jordan, you do a great job at getting— extracting information out of the boys. And yeah, just loving the journey, and we're learning so much together. It's fantastic. And I can't wait to see what happens from now to the end of the year and hopefully next year's, you know, we're just continuing to build and improve. And that's, that's what this is all about. And enjoy the process as well. So we Yeah, really happy with the way the boys are going. There's highs and lows, and we see all the time with the world's best. I keep using Ingebrigtsen as an example. Who would have thought that he would be not even making the final of a 1500-meter race at the world titles? You just never know what's going to happen next, good and bad. You just got to keep your chin up and do the best with the situation you find yourself in. The boys are doing a great job at that. Keep at it, boys. Can't wait to see what the next 3 or 4 months, uh, shows us by the time we get to Busso.

I've loved these chats, boys. I've loved the whole year. It's, um, yeah, been so great. I look forward to them every time because it's been, yeah, such a fun journey to watch, uh, from the outside. And you're, you're both being really honest, as we expected from the start, and you give great insight. It's such great value to the listeners. So thank you for another episode. That's it for this one. Thank you everyone for listening. We hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have, and we'll see you on the next episode.