Top 7 Takeaways From The Tour

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. In this podcast episode, we are discussing the best takeaways from this year's Tour de France. We've already done some special Tour de France episodes. You can go back and listen to those if you wanted. Talking about some of the stages in the first couple of weeks of the Tour de France. But we want to analyze the last couple of weeks, how the Tour finished and the best takeaways and what you can take as an athlete as the best lessons from watching the pro athletes go about their business in one of the best races in the world. But before we get to that, we'll go through our normal segments. So, dad, welcome to the podcast. Let's start with some gratitude and a reminder that gratitudes are just quite a simple way to remind you, the listener, of what you could be grateful for as well. So as we do ours, we encourage you to ask yourself, what could I be grateful for this week? And we have had some really good email feedback from people who sent in some gratitudes themselves or comment on how that's actually positively impacted their life as well. So it's a little small segment that we really like doing at the start of each episode. So dad, simply what are you grateful for?

It doesn't have to be a game changer. I'm absolutely grateful for the Tour being finished, even though I loved every single stage almost, it's almost anti climatic with the last stage. But I'm absolutely grateful that I, I can actually get some sleep now. There was a couple of stages and especially Lazar de Dan finish, I could not go to sleep. It was epic. And yeah, I'm grateful for back to normality, for not having to sit up till 2am Absolutely.

I mean, every year the month of July seems to bring with it a lot of sleepless nights with the Tour, with Wimbledon at the moment, there's just so much sport happening in the Olympics are about to start. So, uh, well, actually with the Olympics, we're on a better time zone. It's not in the middle of the night for us. But I'm also grateful for a similar thing. My gratitude's simple as well. It's just for sunsets. Uh, I've just been making an effort to get out at sunset each night, just go for a walk. Um, and I find that A really relaxing and calming way to end the day and really grateful just to look up at the sky and see some really nice colors. It's really great into the day.

Some of the sunsets and sunrises we've had, um, they stick in your mind. And I was on the plane just recently and the sun was setting as we were flying in towards Melbourne and we were sitting on top of a bunch of clouds and it was pure blue sky with the sun just setting. It was just an orange glow. It was spectacular. I can understand what you were saying.

It's really magnificent and it's kind of just a simple wonder of the world that really grounds you. So it's really nice. Next segment is what has caught your attention. So obviously we're going to be chatting about everything that's caught our attention with the Tour de France. But outside of the Tour de France, dad, what has caught your attention?

Yeah, there's so much been happening. I was intrigued that in the triathlon world that Jan Frodeno and Lionel Sanders would, would compete against themselves in an Ironman, a 2up Ironman. And let's understand, this isn't going to compete against each other for 800 meters. This is a seven to eight hour event, just the two of them. And I wonder in their program for the year how much impact this is going to happen have and what was the purpose of, of doing it. But what caught attention was the amount of people who loved watching it and could sit there for seven hours and you know, keep following the race. And it's not the most inspiring thing to watch, you know, swim for 50 minutes and a new world record of a 350 something bike for 180k which in itself is outstandingly and incredible. And then to still get off and run a 240something marathon. The amount of people who wanted to watch that, that was interesting to me. And that caught my attention. And not only for the athletes doing it, because the impact that would have on the rest of their season when they're not actually racing for prize money. So there must be, there must be some reasons why they decided to do that. But that's what definitely caught my attention.

Yeah, it's. It was really quite a different event and I thought the exact same thing. Would you really want to go one on one against a guy? Especially for Lionel Sanders, going against the greatest Ironman athlete of all time? Pretty much. And knowing you're probably going to lose. And he wanted to give himself the best chance, but he said realistically he's probably not going to beat him. And Jan Frodeno broke the world record in the race. So yeah, it was an interesting publicity stunt, I would say. I think that's probably the main thing, is that it's a really good show for the sport of Ironman and triathlon and must have done well for both of them. But you're right, there was tens of thousands of people watching the live stream and there was big crowds there just to watch two guys do an Iron Man. It's pretty unique event.

It was a horrible day too. I mean, the weather conditions were just raining the whole time. And you wouldn't have imagined in your wildest dreams that someone doing. Because they were separated by, you know, Fredino came out of the water five minutes ahead. So pretty much it was a solo time trial. You're not in an echelon, you're not getting the competition from the other triathletes. And you know, to write a world record bike time and do a world record, you know, iron man time was incredible. And you know, basically solo. And I know Lionel was chasing him, but. But, yeah, but just, you know, I just find that is outstanding and you know, that would be the outcome that he was looking for. He now holds a world record for the fastest time. And I was thinking that there might have been some reasons. I mean, is it because he's not fighting his way through the pack and it's slowing him down or on the run? You know, there's no other competitors here. He gets free run at it because a lot of the Ironman courses are very congested and you can't really get a good rhythm. I did notice that when he came through the 10k, it was four 10k laps or four 10 point something k laps and he fell flat on his side after the first 10k in the, in the rain, the slippery conditions of the finish shoot. And you know, he still had managed to run a fantastic run, even though he came down very hard. So there's so much in that that, you know, the outcome for Jan Frodeno was, you know, he now holds a world record for the Iron Man. So, you know, we're questioning why they were doing it. Well, there's, there's a good answer. Yeah. But for Lionel to do it knowing that, you know, he's against someone, that's pretty much as you said, you know, historically will be up there with, you know, the Dave Scotts and Mark Allen's of the world as, you know, one of the all time great ironmen.

Yeah, absolutely. What caught my attention recently has been the awesome array of Australian results. You know, Ash Barty winning Wimbledon was just so special to see, and I think the whole country was so excited about that behind her. And a lot of the pubs around Australia that were open and weren't in lockdown were showing the game. And you haven't seen that kind of support for a single Australian athlete in a long time. You know, people staying up late to watch the entire game. Um, I really enjoyed seeing that. And once again, our man who we love to talk about on the podcast, Jury McSwain, is just absolutely dominating the run scene. And I cannot wait for him to perform at Tokyo. He broke his own Australian national record again in the 1500 meters. And he ran. He ran under 330, which is the first Australian athlete to ever do that for the 1500 meters. That's, yeah, 1.5 K in 3 minutes, 29 seconds again. So a national record. And more impressively, it was something like the 24th fastest time of all time in 1500. That is just an incredible run from a young Aussie athlete. So that's really caught my attention. And I can't wait to watch all Aussie athletes in Tokyo with Tokyo Olympics coming up. It's got me really excited. But especially some of these superstars who are a high middle chance. Ash Barty, Stuart McSwain. And I found out, dad, because we. He's qualified in the 1500, the 5k and the 10k. And at one point someone said he was going to do all of them, which we were baffled at. But I found out that he has narrowed his choice and he is just doing the 1500. That's what he wants to focus on. His best chance of getting a medal.

So that's great news. I'm really pleased to hear that. And boy, he's got some competition. There's some unbelievably good runners in that race where he broke the world record. I think every single runner in the. In the race broke their own season's best or personal best. Yeah.

And the national record.

National record. Sorry. And. But I think the world record was nearly. Was it broken in that race?

No, not. That one was very close. Yep.

And if you get a chance, get on YouTube and watch that race.

It was.

It was probably going to be better than the Olympics, but. But the guy who won the race is not actually in the Olympics.

Well, he is now, so.

Oh, what happened?

Yeah, so, yeah, that was actually some big news as well, because he's the current world champion of 1500 meters, but he came fourth at the Kenyan Olympics because the Kenyan field is just so strong. He actually didn't manage to come in the top three, which he needed to, to qualify, which is just seems absurd that the current world lead time runner and the current world champion at 1500 wasn't going to be at the Olympics. But there was some administration issues with one of the other three athletes, which is really unfortunate for them. And that kind of highlights maybe a problem with athletes trying to come from a developing world still like Kenya or any of those countries where, yeah, this athlete can't, can no longer compete at the Games. So being in fourth spot, he's come in.

Wow. Yeah, that's incredible news because funny story itself. It is, isn't it? That biggest leaf, really.

Yeah. Yeah. So that is what has caught my attention and I can't wait for the Olympics to watch as many Aussie athletes as possible.

Yeah, it's really something about this, the European Summer, you know, there's so many, like, I just love watching the U.S. open. Golf is on and you know, how the Aussies doing it? I don't know, it's just something. I just love watching the Aussies compete internationally. Very patriotic for that. And you talk about the rugby. Australia beat France and so what? But it was another victory. We haven't had too many in the rugby field. So all good?

Yep. Moving on to the main segment, the best takeaways from the Tour de France. We'll start with probably one of the main ones, which you just said to me when we're talking about the Tour. You just said countless examples of how making the most of your opportunity has just never been more clear. Wow. Yeah.

If you look at the 21 days of the Tour, those guys who risked heaven and earth, got big paydays and, you know, Mahoric won two, you know, Vanderpoel, Vanart, Ella, Philippe. You just keep rattling off rider after rider. Pollitt, you know, there's just so many guys who, who made the most of their opportunities and who knows when they're ever going to get another chance. And, you know, take Cavendish, for example. He had 1st five years, but, but here he is five years later coming out and winning four, you know, which by the way, you predicted, which was pretty impressive.

Technically, I just predicted he'll win at least three, but.

Yeah, so, so my takeaway from that is, you know, you will be given opportunities at some stage in, in your everyday riding career or everyday triathlon career, and you need to, you need to understand that, you know, you're in a, you're in A good window. You know, they talk about premiership windows in football or in, in soccer or whatever, and we talk about being in form in athletics. But these, these guys, they, they just keep the fire burning all year and just simmering under that, that, that launch pad where they go from keeping all the fitness that they're gaining layer upon layer. And then, okay, you know, it's 10 weeks till the Paris Roubaix or it's, you know, 16 weeks till the tour or the Olympic Games, you know, and they, they can lift themselves without too much trouble to perform when it counts. And, and taking opportunities not only in your preparation but on the actual stage that, that, you know, you can see it time and time again. There's big performing people who, who don't have trouble winning and, and, or doing a personal best. That's kind of what I'm talking about for, for the everyday age group that, you know, they're listening to this and it's great to see. And there's guys in the pro ranks who've never won a race, and when their opportunity comes, you know, you, you, it means the world to them. And you can see that in some of the guys who've won stages. You know, they're in tears before they finish crossing the finish line. And that's how much it means to them. And you don't see, you know, some of them been competing as a pro for 10, 12 years and never won a race. And here they are, they win, you know, a stage in the Grand Tour and the biggest tour in the world. So, so it's, it's just taking your opportunities and being well prepared. They're the key things that I think are crucial to, you know, when we're analyzing the Tour, the examples that we just keep rattling through them all, you know, Alaphilit wins stage one. And, you know, people think, right, you know, how many more stages can you win? Well, that was pretty much it. And you know, van der Poel, you know, he's only at the Tour for a week and Woot Van Aert, you know, he's just chipping away early on the Tour and next thing you know, he ends up winning two stages in a row and wins a mountain classic, you know, just, just making sure that you're there to get an opportunity. And if you're not there to take your opportunity, you know, you're going to miss out. So lots to take away from that.

So there's two kind of key points there to touch on straight away. It's taking your opportunities and it's The. The notion of form, and we talk about form a lot podcast. It's kind of this arbitrary concept, and we'll get to form in a second. But talking about taking opportunities, I mean, you talk a lot about, you know, these guys have never won a race, and so when they get this opportunity where they're in a break with four other people, they are so hungry to make it work. And often we see that that results in, for me, some questionable or poor tactics. I just cannot stand the stages where there's a breakaway and one guy rides away from the breakaway, and 1 beats 4 or 1 beats 7 or 1 beats 10. It just knows the crap out of me because they're all in that group. There's just selfish guys, and I feel like it's a bit of a European attitude where they're. They're just going to be sneaky and sit at the back, and they'd rather do that and lose the race than do too much work, risk doing too much work to catch that one person.

It's a big game of poker, isn't it? You know, I'm not willing to risk anything to get the reward. And that. What. The scenario you described happened on the second stage that Mohoric won, where he broke away with eight, a group of eight, and he broke away solo, and he already won a stage doing that before. So the guys in the bunch are. They no slobs. They know how to ride. They know his ability. And to let him go is pretty much you can arrive for second. And it is always astounded me that it's almost like the group needs someone to take control and say, listen, you idiots, we all racing for second here. And if that's the case, then let's all just roll around. Yeah, but if. If you want to actually win, we can gobble him up. If all of us contribute. Yeah. And the second thing, if it was me in that position, I would be saying, if some guy says to me, I can't, I can't, I go, that's absolutely fine. No worries. But don't contest the end.

Yeah. Yeah.

So if you try to. Try to contribute, then you're allowed to contest the end. But if you don't, then. And you know, peer group pressure is incredible, Jordan. And if. If seven of the guys all agree and one guy says, I can't, I'm just stuffed. I can't. I can't help. Well, you know, the. The. The group scenario, if that guy actually sprinted and won, I think that'd be the end of his career.

It definitely works in the age grouper or amateurs, but I won. Morality would work in a stage of the Tour de France because I can imagine some people going, I don't give a what you say, I'm gonna sneak now. And all of them say that.

None of them, none of them agree with what I just said. They are all got egos and they all want to win. And, And I'll. I'll do anything except do some work. And as you know, if. If seven guys just roll turns for five minutes, they're dragging back, no problem.

Yeah, yeah.

And even I, I actually was wrapped that Robbie was getting frustrated on the commentary saying all these guys have to do. They just, they're just riding like deals. Yeah, they just have to roll turns and they'll get him back. But. But it only takes one to not contribute. And then everybody else in the bunch goes, well, if he's not contributing, then I'm not going to contribute either. And that is such a. A failed mentality.

Yeah. It's so frustrating to watch the amount of times that these bunches coming in sprinting for second when they didn't have to, you know, they, they let, they, they basically let a guy win and.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the second part of that is being in the breakaway like Harry Sweeney was. And in my opinion, he was clearly the strongest of those four. And this is another example of not the best rider winning. So in the scenario where my horrors breaks away from a bunch of eight or he might not have been the best rider, but tactically he was outstanding and he just relied on those guys arguing to stay away. And then you get the next scenario. When Harry Sweeney had his best opportunity to win a stage of the Grand Tour, he was the best rider out of those four. He managed to attack and get rid of one. So it came down to three. Very good tactic. It was. He nearly got rid of the other two. He actually separated himself. I don't know if you remember that stage on the, on the climb and, and they got back onto him and he ended up coming third. He was, he was the strongest rider, but out of those three, they were just so much smarter, but also their desire was so much more. And you know, we talk about, you're in a position where you're young in your career, and, you know, you might not realize how important this opportunity might have been because you may never get another chance. In another 18 years of riding the Tour or four years of riding the Tour, this could be your only Tour. You may not get another opportunity. And to come third. It's fantastic. It's great. You know, his first Tour Grand Tour in the Tour de France, but, you know, he rides for Lotto Soudal and their job was just to protect Caleb Ewan, who was no longer in the race. So how many times are going to have a free reign like they had this Tour? He may never get another chance. And unless he changes teams or, you know, hopefully he does get another chance. But he's, you know, I'm not criticizing him. His tactics let him down. There's no doubt about that. He was out tactician by guys who are not as strong as him. So that, that's. He'll learn a lot from that and be disappointing when he looks back on it. But their desire to take the opportunity was. Was, I think the difference. And when the guy who won Pollock broke away from the Movistar guy and Harry, those two still should have. Should have been able to drag him back. But. But at that stage, Harry didn't contribute properly, so he got it around the wrong way, his tactics. So. So there's a lot to talk about that, but it's just another example of not taking an opportunity when it's. When it's there for you. And, you know, hopefully he doesn't ever live to regret that. But great to see him up there and really put himself out there. That's the positive. You know, taking a risk and putting himself in the break and, and showing how strong he was. It was fantastic to see, you know, a guy who's relatively unknown to the rest of the world. And here's another Aussie doing you outstanding things. So I was, you know, congratulations to him, but geez, it's just an example of what we're talking about, about opportunities. I hope it doesn't haunt him.

It's interesting because on one of our very first podcasts, we interviewed ex pro cyclist Tim Jameson, and he gave some great stories about pro riding from when he was a pro. And he spoke about this very concept where it's so competitive there that you don't get opportunities in the break all the time. And there was one race where he got an opportunity in the break and he rode unbelievable. And he sprinted for second, and it was his best result on pro circuit. And he was pretty chuffed. And the team director was not happy at all because second meant nothing to him, you know, and that was a bit of a slap in the face because he thought he'd done so well and he was pretty content to do so well in that field. And yeah, maybe like that cutthroat desire to that second isn't actually good enough and you want to win, and that might have been the difference. And yeah, it is interesting, but it's. That could be the difference in these kind of results.

Yeah, look, Tim still has that mentality. And even when we're doing a club race in a local, you know, suburban Criterion, we'd all kill to be on the first, second, or third on the podium in some of these Thursday night Criterion races. And Tim's up there regularly, and he's not happy when he's second or third, you're first or you're nowhere, which is an interesting take on it.

We could talk about the same thing with Michael Matthews, and we have been a little bit critical of Michael Matthews in the past on this podcast, and that's just because we're big fans of him and we're big Aussie fans. We want to see Aussies do well. And this is a little bit of a harsh term, but we do call him Mr. Second because he so often comes somewhere between second and seventh, and he's got such talent. We know that he's a green jersey winner. I mean, you cannot disrespect his name. He's a green jersey winner of the Tour de France. He's an unbelievable rider. But he sometimes does seem to have this attitude of when he finishes a race, he says, oh, lost opportunity today. We'll go again the next one, and there's more opportunities to come. And it's almost. He's the opposite of what you're saying. He is so talented that he actually does have all these opportunities. He's always in the mix to win, but maybe that takes away that cutthroat edge sometimes because he gets all these opportunities, whereas a rider that isn't as talented won't be in that position that often. And so they really need to make the most of it. And you wonder if you acted like every single one was your last chance to win a stage, whether you would have a bit more of a desperate desire not to be content with second to seventh place.

Yeah, spot on. Look, the examples I use, and I've talked to you kids when you were growing up, you know, showing you why are the. The Russians and. And, you know, that, that, that area where you wouldn't think tennis was a really important sport because there's such poverty and the majority of the people, you know, below, below making a good income and. And they're producing, you know, tennis player after tennis player who had just, you know, got this Winning culture and, and then you compare that to what's happened to Australians over the, the journey where you know, we, the examples of Bernard Tomic, you've got a really privileged life. You know, his family had had poverty growing up but, but now he doesn't. And the desire to win can be influenced by many things is what the point I'm making. And if you're up against someone who's got a really cruisy life and it doesn't mean as much as someone who, this is their way out of poverty. The Kenyan runners are examples of, you know, if they, if they use their ability as a runner, they can actually get out of their vil, make some money and send it back to their family. And it's life and death desire as compared to oh, there's another race tomorrow. And you know, I'm not saying that the everyday age group should be thinking like that, but that's the mental approach that if it means more to you, you will take the opportunities that are presented to you on any given day. If you've just got the right mindset and as you said before, if you think that, you know, there's plenty more races to come, then you know, it's just another race where it should be, it should be every, every time you put a number on, you know, you desire to do a personal best should be the goal, otherwise don't put the number on.

Yeah.

And whether that means winning or, or just doing, you know, doing better than you've ever done before, that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, it's such an interesting topic because like you're saying, is it unnecessary to go into a amateur age group race, you know, treating it like life and death, but if that's going to help you, you know, do a better result, then so be it. But if you take it too seriously, you know, you're putting all this self worth on the result. So there's a bit of back and forth here, but it's a great observation that we thought was pretty interesting watching a lot of the stages in this year's race. And the second part of it was what you're talking about and that's form and how fleeting form can be and how you really want to become an athlete that can step up into form at any time. That's a really important thing for our athletes to learn is, is that point of becoming a better and more well rounded athlete and taking your opportunities when you've got that form.

There's so many examples in every sport that you can think of, you know, cricket, football, soccer, athletics, golf, tennis, you know, you can't be in best form, you know, every single day, every week, every month, every year. And there are a few athletes who can, you know, you know, the top three tennis players of the last decade, you know, Nadal and Djokovic and Federer and you know, they've been able to do that and their examples in tennis of, of continuing on the circuit by, by preparing properly and, and giving yourself the best opportunity. When the big events come, you know, the Grand Slams of Wimbledon, US Open, Australian Open, French Open, you know, and they perform there all the time. They've won, you know, up to 20 Grand Slam titles. It's just as an examp. When you look at cycling, you know, how is it possible that Woot Van Aert can, can you know, win a classic and then he can come and win a time trial, then he can come and win a mountain stage and he can come and win a sprint. You know, they're examples of, of people who understand how to prepare themselves and be informed at the right time. And, and it's, you know, you don't have guys winning monuments or classics or tour stages that you know, that you know, rarely seen ever again. You know, if they win one. The examples of person winning one and never being seen again to never win another race is very few. Once, once you've experienced that and you understand how to get your form right on the right day, there has to be fitness, form and there has to be tactical form. Obviously in cycling as a triathlete, you know, if you come into an event that you're under prepared for and your form's average, you will, you will actually perform very average. And they're the examples that we want to keep stressing to people. If you just keep building the preparation all the time, as the period of time progresses, you will be a better performing athlete because your form will be available to you more often than if you do the high and low type of training. Say preparation, I mean training what are you doing throughout the 52 weeks of the year or the two or three seasons that you're preparing for the big event, your a race. We're not talking about winning all the time. We're talking about age groupers who just want to improve. And so this form of training where you're preparing yourself for the event, the more time you give yourself and the more you can get yourself right under that, that level where you need to step up. And as we know we've talked about many times, form can only hang around for possibly three to six weeks. And we can't pinpoint that because every single person is different. Every single person responds differently to form. Every person has a bigger or smaller window than the next person. So there's no general rule there. But you see the guys, the examples are guys who do the spring Classics. They disappear soon as the spring Classics are over in March, April, you don't see them for the rent the rest of April, May, June, and then come July, they're in unbelievable form for the Tour. And guys might start early spring classics in March and then disappear, and then they're ready for, you know, May for the Giro. So this is no coincidence that, you know, the preparation, their timing is. Is everything. So, you know, we as everyday cyclists or triathletes or runners, we expect to be able to do this every weekend and get frustrated as to why I didn't perform well this week. She's not going so well this week. But the expectation is that you should or not even the pros have that expectation. There's got to be periods where you have building base preparation phase before you can get to your A race phase. And I think the big races are examples in the professional world, whether it's a game of golf or tennis, you actually have to do a whole lot of things to get your form right. And one of them is to be consistent. And it was so interesting listening last night to the commentary. And they interviewed Jan Frodeno, and the question was something like, what is the key thing that you think that's enabled you to be such a good performer over such a long period of time and dominate, pretty much dominate the world of Triathlon, Ironman and 70.3. And he said, look, there's no secret. There's no secret recipe. I'm just damn consistent. I'm consistent in everything I do in my preparation and my. My actual racing. You know, I'm boringly consistent in my race. I'm boringly consistent in my training. You know, it's similar to what Moneghetti said when we interviewed him. What have you done special? I haven't done anything special. I've just been consistent. I've never missed sessions. I've never been injured. I get myself ready, you know, for the peak races. They understand what the preparation is in training and what it means to get yourself up for. For your personal best attempts. And it was great to hear Jan Frodeno remind I was just gold. I thought, you know, he's almost being paid to say this so that we can talk about it because it was exactly what the mess is that we're trying to get across to the age grouper and you know, the everyday athlete who just wants to be better version of what they were last year or two years ago or for some people haven't done a race for 15 years and they want to see, you know, am I going to be worse 15 years later than I was as a 20 year old compared to a 35 year old. And you know, surprisingly they can be just as good or better if they actually do what Jan said and be boringly consistent.

You touched on a term there, high and low kind of training where what are you doing for 52 weeks of the year and what the type of training that's going to really not allow you to get into good form easily and be super either inconsistent or unsure of the type or uncertain of the type of result you're going to get is if you're a high and low top trainer, meaning you go really hard for a patch for 12 weeks and then you completely disappear for another patch. And we see people do this towards events, you know, they've got an event 20 weeks away and so they do really hard program for 20 weeks and then after that they have three to five months off and undo all the hard work they did and they have to start from so far back again. Whereas the athlete that's just super consistent all year round and then decides to do a 20 week kind of step up program to their race is going to guarantee themselves a better chance of getting a good result and being informed and they're at less risk of having uncertain result in their race.

Yeah, the inconsistency in results always surprises people, but it never surprises me. And we've got examples of people who, you know, and they've got every right to do this, they contact. I've known them for years, I'm not talking about anybody in particular. I've trained them for years and they'll come off the program for. I just need to be off the program for eight to 10 weeks or 12 weeks and you know, I'm saying, yeah, fine, absolutely, take a break, that's great. I actually encourage that if people want to do that. As long as you don't do nothing, as long as you do a preseason whilst you're off the program. And they're the things that I think they're not misunderstanding because they're doing the high low, they're training really well during the program and really, you know, putting in the time, the preparation, everything right and performing Quite well, but never going to the next step. And the thing that's stopping them from continuing to improve and go to the next step is the fact that they go off the program and do basically stuff all and come back, say they left the program at 100% in their fitness level and they come back and they're at 50%. By the time we get to their A race, they're at 90 or 95 or 100% again compared to the athlete who stays with the steady consistency of a reduced load, a reduced intensity, but consistent. And he leaves his a race at 100% just like the other example, and he falls back to 90 to 85% of his levels that he was come a race. And then when he has to step up again, he's now at 105, 110, 150 of his fitness. And that person will continue to do that year after year, whereas the other person who comes on and off is going to stay the same athlete year in, year out and wonder why they don't improve. And it sounds easy when you put it like that, but that's just examples of the people, obviously the people who've stayed consistent over three, four, even five years of being on the program actually doing better third year, fourth year, fifth year than they were in the first two or three years when they were training just as hard. But it was the, that it was a period of the low that they were getting wrong. And sometimes the period of the high they were pushing too hard and actually causing themselves to have a low period because they were exhausted. Whereas if you have that happy medium of consistency along your journey, week in week out, month in year in, year out, you just have that consistency in this, as we keep saying, you just sit your fitness simmering under the launch pad until you're ready to launch into your serious form building preparation. The results are absolutely obvious to me and it's a lesson that I think everybody needs to really adhere to. And if you just change your mindset to being the, you know, it's like the bipolar athlete, that's what we almost, you know, you're too high and then you're too low. You want to be an athlete. That's, you know, and I say a lot, you know, everything in moderation is going to be better than everything in extreme, because extreme is, you know, unsustainable. Actually, anything that you do extreme, you will not be able to sustain that for forever. And you need to be able to produce something that you could, for example, nutrition. If you starve yourself to lose weight that's unsustainable. But if you do a balanced diet that's got really wholesome, good, nutritious food that is cutting out all the stuff that's causing you to put on weight, then you will have a balanced diet that you can sustain forever. The training program is no different. And the minute you start thinking like that, that then you will become a better athlete by sheer consistency alone and not by anything else.

It's pretty much the keys to the age groupers safe of how do I get better, better results and performances. And some athletes that took their opportunity this Tour de France made the most of their form. We have to start with the winner of the Tour de France. He surprised everyone with just how good he was, how much he blew the field apart and how he maintained it over 21 days. We asked the question, will he hold the form over the 21 days and he did, did. But more importantly, he made the most of the opportunity and he's, he's won a second time in a row and that's two years in a row. He's just ridden as perfect as a race as you can get. And look, the whole every cycling fan was looking forward to Roglich vs. Garant, Thomas vs. Pocket this year. It was going to be a battle of three of them and it was going to be really exciting. And Thomas and Ruggage crashed out and so Pocket Char, you know, made the most of the fact that his next strongest competition was Carapaz or Vinegard, who were both, both there to actually help, you know, Rockledge and Thomas. So yeah, you can't do any more than that and make the most of the opportunity. And he's 12 in a row because of it. And how many more will he win? Well, everyone says he's going to dominate for the next period, but everyone said the same thing about Egan Bernal. And when Egan Bernal won at 22 years old a couple of years ago, everyone said, well, he's going to win the next seven, you know, but you just don't know what's going to happen. Eager Manal later crashed and hasn't written the subsequent two years of Tour de France France. He should be back next year. But again, you don't know what's going to come up. You don't know what could stop you from achieving your results. And so, yeah, making the most of a few opportunities while they come is exactly what we're saying. And on that note, Cavendish did the exact same thing. You know, Caleb Ewan would have been his biggest competition. Would he have won four if Caleb Ewan was not there? Maybe, maybe not. But he took the most of the opportunity he had while hewen wasn't there. So.

And history will not remember that. History won't remember that. Cav won, you know, four stages, you know, unless you're a real adamant cycling fan and you'll go, yeah, he won those stages, but, you know, these sprinters weren't there. But that's, that's not your fault. You know, you can only race against the people who pin a number on and for whatever reason, whether it's illness, sickness or COVID 19, it doesn't matter the reason. The fact is you can only race who you're racing. And Pigaccia is in that position. Cavendish is in that position. You know, so many other stage winners of the tour for 20, 21, you know, you just can't use that. Oh, you only won because, well, no, I won. And regardless of what the situation was, I won. And they're the things that, you know, as we've said right from the beginning, taking your opportunities when they present, and you may never, never get another opportunity. You know, Picacho might not ever win another Tour, but he certainly was outstanding this time in every, every facet that he was challenged on. And of course, the challenges were less probably than, than than they should have been, but, you know, at the end of the day, there was no one near him and he was by far, head and shoulders, the better rider. He's, you know, the best climber. He was, proved that he was the best time trialer. I don't think he tried that much in the last time trial, stayed safe, didn't he? And he was a really good tactician and he knew when to attack and he limited his losses when he was under a little bit of pressure. Yeah, he did everything well. And, you know, they're the things that we need to applaud. And it irks me a little bit that the people say, oh, he's, you know, he's too good. So, you know, what's, what's really happening? Well, until it's proven that there's something underhand happening, we should be applauding people and not trying to pick holes in performances. And, you know, there's so many examples in the last 50 years of things we thought were real but weren't real with, you know, the Armstrong era. And so we've lost that confidence in if someone's that good, then we always think, oh, you know, there must be something really strange happening. The Fact is that Roglich probably would have challenged him and been equally as good as him. And maybe Thomas would have been the same as he hadn't crashed as well. We don't know that. So we just jumped to conclusions without evidence. Too much, I think. And. And I get a little bit upset about that. And to hear people booing him on some of the stages, that was really disappointing. I'm not sure whether it's jealousy or what the reason is, but. But I just not a of in any sport being, you know, people performing and getting booed for, you know, if you can't do anything positive, don't do anything at all. And that's something people should really aspire to. You know, applaud people or stay silent.

Someone I want to applaud is. This isn't a takeaway. This is just one of the best parts of the tour was Ben o' Connor coming forth, having an Aussie, young Aussie, first Tour de France come forth. What an awesome tour he rode. He wrote out of his skin. He made some mistakes. He want to stay stage. Unbelievable ride. I mean, last year we were applauding Richie Port, who had an unbelievable race to come third. And we've had Nazi come four, so third and fourth across two years. He's just great. And so couldn't be happier for Ben o'. Connor. What just an unbelievable performance from him.

Yeah. Such a relevant point. And not sure he was getting the accolades that, you know, I mean, he's not on the podium. Sure. And the podium does mean a lot in history of the event, but, boy, you know, to get. To get that close and to actually win a stage and the way he did it was. Was outstanding. And he risked everything and took his opportunity and. And paid the penalty the next day with exhaustion, got dropped, but limited his losses. So did things very well so that he still maintained his position on gc. And he wasn't very well supported by his team. I think that, you know, that AG2R team are not used to having. They're riding for a GC rider and, you know, you've got the world. You got the Olympic champ, champion Greg van Avermade in there, who I absolutely love as an individual rider, but he's clearly not a team rider. You know, there was so many times when I was shaking my head that AG2R guys were up the road going for their own personal glory when they should have been, you know, hovering around. Yeah, yeah. And. And that was really getting up my nose. And. And to see Ven Ava might do it and then, you know, they turn around saying, I was just getting up the road so that if, if he needed me, you know, when we got to the mountains, I could be there. Well, every time I time the, you know, the main peloton with Vergacha and Ben got to them, they just went straight out the back, out the back without helping them at all.

But didn't help for one second. Yeah, he was isolated so much. So it makes it a much more incredible performance that he basically did it with no team around him.

Imagine if he was the ineos in ineos's team. Far out. This, this guy's got talent. And, you know, Joy Hindley and him and Rowan Dennis and this Harry Sweeney. There's so many. Caleb, there's just, just so many riders who have got capabilities up and coming, which is really exciting for the sport.

Last couple of takeaways we want to touch on. I want to talk about our, our man, Wood Van Art. Wow. Van Art. Unbelievable tour. What a ridiculously good rider he is. Like you said, he's a classics winner, but he's won Montvantou, the hardest mountain stage of the race. He's won a time troll and he's won the Champs Elysees. The sprinter. Ridiculous. You know, how can you be that good across all key things? And you made a really good point about what does this say about, you know, what kind of rider you need to be to improve your bike riding?

Yeah, ask that question in a minute. But I want to say, first of all, because our second home is Belgium, we think we're Belgium, so he's part of us now. Woot. And, and we just love seeing him win. And some of our friends in, in Belgium always are texting us saying, oh, you know, our man's up there. So it was fantastic to see the versatility that this rider has. And this is the lesson that I absolutely want everybody out there listening to. You know, you give yourself more opportunities and as we've talked about this whole podcast, you may not get many opportunities in your, you know, your age grouping career. So if you're a well rounded rider like Woot is, imagine the possibility that you can win a hill climb. Imagine the possibility, then you can come out and win a time trial and then win the sprint on the biggest stage. The Champs Elysees stage is the biggest sprint race. That's the Olympic games of cycling, sprinting. And if you've ever won on that stage in a sprint in the Tour de France, the Champs Elysees trump trumps every Other stage and there's only been 100 Champs Elysees winners over the journey of the Tour de France. And some riders have won it five times, some riders have won it too. So there's very few of those people in the history of the world. And this is an outstanding example of being so well prepared across all facets of cycling. And he can't do this unless he's got an engine. And how do you get that engine? Well, threshold riding is one of the big key reasons why he is such a dominant rider in spring Classics. Winning Milan San Remo. It's the longest race in world cycling, nearly 300k and he wins it in a sprint. You know, he's been in Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix on the podiums, you know, really hard, tough one day stages. And yet he can come out and win Von two, you know, mountain stage, which doesn't suit him whatsoever. But unbelievable tactics, getting himself in the right position, taking opportunities when he could. And then the race of truth, which proves that he is an unbelievably good rider because he can ride threshold. And if you don't want to work on your threshold, he think time trialing is a pooh subject of, of cycling. This is a great example of how important it is to use threshold.

Just to clarify, when you say the race of truth, you do mean the time trial, because that's your favorite saying is, is the time trial is the race of truth. It's you against the number.

Absolutely. And it is, you know, it is the proof of who is the best cyclist. You know, there's no tactics. Well, there is, there's execution tactics, but you're not actually, you know, fighting against other people. It's the best rider will win.

Yeah. To be honest, Ben o' Connor coming forth was my favorite part of the Tour. But a very, very close second was seeing wow Barnard win the Montvantou stage. The last couple of K up that climb, he was, he was just, he looked pale with exhaustion. He had gone so hard. He had ridden as hard as he possibly could and they were starting to really catch him in that last 2K. You know, the gap went from. Can't remember what it was, four minutes to a minute 30 in just a couple of kilometres. That showed how much he was slowing down, but he had given it everything. And what an incredible individual performance it was to see that and to see the pain an athlete would go through to win was amazing.

It reminded me, Jord of the race finished at the top of Von 2. It didn't really it finished 21k down the road, but a rider understanding where the race really finished because the biggest gains in time trial, when it's the hardest sections and when he went over the top of the climb, the time gap stayed almost the same. Yet five minutes prior to that he lost a minute and a half in 2K. And that's an example of how important it is when it's the hardest period in a time trial situation, which is what it was. He was time trialing up on two against these guys and they were making huge gains on him because of his exhaustion, because the of, of what he'd been. He'd been out in the break for, you know, 150k and they'd been sitting in the peloton. So, you know, they were making the most of it. But when they got over the top of the hill and it was downhill to the finish, there was no time gain. And that's what we drum into our athletes every single day. The biggest gains are when the bike's going slowest and understanding that is crucial.

Last takeaway we want to touch on. And it's something else we drum into our athletes every single day is that you've got to be to able, able to be adaptable and you've got to be willing to change plans based on things that are happening. And you can't just be a robot because the context of a race will change. You need to be willing to change your plans on the go. And a team that we were shocked that didn't do this very well was ineos. I mean, Thomas was out, the race was getting away from them. Poker Shot was five minutes ahead. Yet they, they begrudgingly and I wouldn't say begrudgingly actually, I would say stubbornly stuck to their same tactics of just riding on the front. And there's some stages where, where it was like they were just riding for Pagacha. You know, UAE didn't have to do any work and they just did their normal train thing which works when they've got the best rider and they're in control of the race. But they weren't and then they weren't adaptable. They didn't change their tactics and I just reckon that was really poor from them, from the one teams in the world.

I was absolutely surprised. Dave Brailsford is such a great tactician and I'm not sure that they thought they could ride Poga Chow off the wheel and make it so hard for him with that tactic. Just, it just made it easier for him and in hindsight, it's easy, isn't it, to, to, to see what actually eventuated. And maybe the tactic could have worked if they had stronger guys, but, but certainly it was a really weird way to ride. And, you know, you would have thought that they would have been throwing guys up the road that would put UAE under pressure rather than sitting on the front and trying to ride people off the wheel who are in unbelievable form. You know, he was the best time trial of there. He already proved that early on in the time trial in early stages. So how they thought that was going to happen, they thought it was going to crack, but, you know, as I say, in hindsight it's easy, but we don't know whether it was going to crack early on. So maybe doing that for one stage or two stages to see what happened, but to continually repeat the same plan was, Was not being adaptable, was not, you know, changing it up. And, and we say that a lot. You know, if it's not working, change it. Don't just keep following the same line. Because if it hasn't worked once, there's, you know, there's no guarantee that you continue to do it 15 more times and it still might not work. And you just say, well, one time it might work well, you're wasting a lot of time in between for that one time it might work.

Yeah. I just think about kind of the team morale aspect of it. You know, UAE had an easy ride for the winning team and they, their riders didn't have to do much work at all. And if the INEOS guys are on the front all day, so smashing themselves for no result, they're not getting any, any reward from it. They're getting exhausted, they're not winning, they're going to be back on a team bus. Morale is going to be a bit lower, the confidence is going to be a bit lower, whereas UAE are getting the opposite. They're fully confident, they've got a fresh pocket shot, their team's feeling fresh, they're in a winning position every day that I feel like that gap would just exaggerate. Whereas if it was a little bit of the opposite, a few AA guys had to really smash themselves. Every day we're working tirelessly. We know that they weren't as strong in the hills as the INEOS guys, so maybe the confidence would start to seep into the mindset. I just feel like that angle might have given INEOS more of a chance of wearing Poga Char down if he was isolated a lot more often. And they were forced to do more work that might have been the gap. They needed to be able to really smash it on the heels. But all the INEOS guys were stuffed by the time they got to the hills each time. And they're really good climbers.

So, yeah, it was really surprising. And I agree. I definitely would have been using different tactics than that. But as I say, look, it's easy in hindsight, but that's an observation. And, And I, Yeah, it was. It was hard to watch, actually. It, you know, that stage, the first stage, my H1, that longer stage of the Tour, they sat on the front and just made it easy. And finally they let Carapaz attack and it changed the whole thing. And then all of a sudden, you know, the Spanish team sat on the front and did the same as what INEOS was doing. Movie star was like, oh, you're kidding me. So they're getting away with it again where they needed to do, you know, the whole peloton needed to gang up on. On UAE and. And make them fight for it. Yet they just did the opposite. Everybody did the opposite. It was just weird tactics.

Yeah, but the point of that is that you as an athlete need to be willing to be adaptable and don't do the same tactics, especially if they're not working. We do see that in athletes a lot in triathlon and cycling, where things don't work for them and they keep doing the same thing and they keep getting poor results because of it. So you've got to be willing to be adaptable.

For sure. There's not much more I can say that it's absolutely spot on and adapt or get left behind. That's kind of been the motto for the last two years since COVID came. And we're just talking about general life in there. But in situations where you're in an event, if you did something, the last event, let's not repeat it for the second event, because that's the definition of insanity.

Absolutely. Well, that's it for this episode. We hope you've enjoyed our takeaways from the Tour de France and how you can apply them to yourself and your own training. Thank you very much, as always, for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Sam.