Ultimate “A-Race” Preparation Guide + Kona Ironman Preview

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. The Ironman World Championships in Kona has etched a reputation as the pinnacle of the triathlon landscape and an iconic global sporting event. And it's been three years since the World Champs has returned to its home on the big island of Hawaii. And there's a lot of excitement about its return. And after all, it is the absolute Mecca of Ironman triathlon. So in today's episode, while the pros prepare for their biggest race of the year, today we're thinking about our own A race preparation. Each year you should have one A race goal, one big race that you're working towards. We want to know how do we ultimately prepare ourselves for this big A race? It feels like there's a lot more to lose on the line. It feels like there's a lot more pressure around the race. So how do we handle that mental pressure around the big A race we've chosen? We're going to talk about all of that in today's episode as well as we'll be previewing the pros and making our predictions around the race of Kona, which is coming up this week. But first, dad, welcome to the episode. Let's start with our quick gratitudes.

Okay, I don't know about quick gratitudes, but mine always seems to be very well drawn out.

I'm taking out the word quick.

You could be as long as you.

Want with your gratitude.

Like just recently. In fact, last weekend we had the World UCI Road Time Trial Championships in Australia in Wollongong. And my gratitude is the fact that it finally came back to our shores. Unfortunately, things didn't work out that I could actually go and watch. I went to Geelong back in 2010. I think it was the last time it was here and that was a great day to see the pros up close. If you haven't been to Europe to watch any of the tours, it's. It's incredible just to see them. And the course selection at Wollongong, I've got to say, was unbelievably good for to get the right result. It was really fair for all the riders. If you're a one day classic or if you've got hill ability, if you've got threshold riding, it really enabled you to show your ability and your fitness. And I think it was really good. A great course for spectators because they did some laps and you could place yourself on the course anywhere you liked. And there was lots of screens around so you could watch them live. And then when you're waiting for them to come back around the hill that you might have been positioned on, you could go back and see them on the screen. So it was really, it was really well done, I thought. And we got two great champions in the male and female road race out of it. And we've got really two gun riders who will wear the rainbow jersey really well for the next year. And that's what I always like to see. And it's been like that for a long time now. You know, even going back from Alaphilippe to Sagan really ridden the jersey properly and I'm really grateful for the fact that we have a world championships and we have this tradition of riding a rainbow jersey for the rest of the year. It's brilliant. It stands out in the peloton, it's respected. And you know, Ella Philippe, it was amazing seeing him ride the welter for Remco Evenepoel, who now is the world champion. He was on the front doing turns day in, day out, the world champion riding for another rider. And yeah, he really respected the jersey and so did Sagan. And you know, those guys won multiple world championships and who knows how many Remco can win because that was a super, super, super performance. And the two contrasting ways in which the women's race was one of them and the men's race was won, you know, Remco was just, just too good for everybody basically. You know, the best rider won in the men's race. In the women's race, the smartest rider won. And I love the contrast of how two world championship events were won in different circumstances. And yeah, it was a great day. So I'm really grateful that it occurred and it occurred on Australian shores.

That's a great one. And nothing wrong with that one being a bit long because yeah, it is. It was fantastic to see the race and all the pros turn up here in Australia. Micro shoot's a little bit different. It's for the those who have been long listeners of the podcast, you know that the Donnelly family or part of the Donnelly family really don't like coffee. Or not that we don't like coffee, but I've never drank coffee. It's just never been part of our, our routine. And over the last 12 months I found myself slowly drinking it more and more. My housemate bought a coffee machine. And against my will, he was making coffees regularly. And over the last year I have acquired a taste for it and I'm now finding myself very grateful for coffee in certain circumstances. I still don't drink it every day, but on the days I do have it, I really like it. And so that is a change of heart for me. But now I find myself being grateful for coffee.

That's a good one. And you must say that your mom is the coffee connoisseur. She knows every coffee shop in Australia and who has the best coffee. And she'll drive miles to get the best coffee. So she is the standout in our family.

I think that it's slowly taking over because our brother's the same and so you've slowly been the only one left, you and our other brother. So you'll be converted soon enough. Going into today's topic, so thinking about how to be well prepared for your A race. And we're talking about this because Kona's coming up, but it does apply to anyone's A race. When you, when you look ahead and plan your year, you think about what is my A race, what is the big one I'm working towards. And with that comes a lot of pressure as you get closer to the race race. And a lot of that pressure can be unnecessary because ideally you, you're the most well prepared, you've done the most amount of work. So you should be the most confident leading into this race compared to most other races. But it is natural that a certain amount of physical and mental pressure comes with it. So we want to talk about what are some of the major things you want to tick off? And I want to ask you, and I want to kind of start with the Kona experience and I want to know your thoughts on what was your experience leading into Kona? You know, going to the world championships and the mental pressure around it and turning up and seeing all these international athletes, that's your, your major goal race. How do you handle that the couple weeks leading in and what's your experience? What are the pros experiencing right now in this final week leading into their race?

It's a really good question and I do have good, vivid recollection of the two years I did go to Kona and there were two completely different years with my approach to the event. The first time I went to learn and the result was quite insignificant to me, although I'm always competitive and I want to get the best result I can. But I went there with the long term plan of this is a learning experience for me at a race that's, that's the most brutal race that was going around in the world. Having to deal with conditions and temperature and wind and the. And with the view that I'd learn as much as I could so the next year I could actually race it. So I had a two year plan and so, so I had completely different mindset for both years, which was interesting. I definitely found myself putting a little bit too much pressure on myself the second year because here I am now I'm back here, now I'm ready to perform. I've had my little practice go the year before and I found that really enjoyable experience because I had no pressure, no expectation going into the event. I really had no clue. And in the very first year I did it, I hadn't done an Ironman. So imagine going to that race having not done an Ironman. That's your first Ironman event. So that was a really interesting experience. And I had deliberately not put any pressure on myself and just wanted to experience everything about the travel, getting there, booking accommodation, how long should I be there, acclimatizing to heat, what training should I do in that week, how's my nutrition, how's my hydration during the week? We're coming from an Australian winter straight to a brutal hot Kona. And yeah, just learning all that stuff. And then the day before, the night of meals, getting bookings for restaurants, cooking at home, learning all that stuff. And then the morning of getting up and seeing all the pros and watching what they were doing and really just watching and learning and then just trying to enjoy the whole experience, if that's possible, over nine or 10 hours. And so the day for me was all about being calm and being relaxed and enjoying the experience. And what a different scenario it was a year later where I had experienced all that and now it was time to put my game face on, my game hat on. And I found that I learned quite a bit post the second year because I should have had the similar attitude that I had the first year into the second year where I should have been focusing on the processes and enjoyment rather than I'm here to race and I'm here to perform. And I, I think that's a really good lesson to be learned. And it doesn't matter whether you're preparing for the New York Marathon coming up or the half marathon in Melbourne this weekend or whatever event it is that you're doing, you know, the national time trial championships that the world, the world elite riders just went through or the road race or Kona, it just doesn't, it doesn't matter. You have to have a mindset that from what I experienced myself, and I used that post second year at Kona for all the other events that I did, was to absolutely stop worrying about the result. I am determined to get the best result I can, but I am more process driven than result driven. And that was a lesson I took into everything from that point on. Because the minute you just think about the outcome and not how you're going to get that outcome, you're thinking about the wrong thing and you're not concentrating on the detail about the event. And I think, you know, to summarize what I was thinking second year compared to first year, it were completely two different scenarios. And I really, even though I learned a lot about the experience of the first year, the second year I didn't use that experience properly in hindsight I changed my mindset to now I'm a racer, not, not a person who's just experiencing the event. And you can still experience the event properly as a racer because that's what, that's what you're there for. You're there because you want to experience challenges throughout the day and you have to work things out the whole way through the day rather than just thinking, you know, I have to get to the end of this swim in this time, I have to get to the end of the bike ride in this, in this time, I have to, I have to run at this pace and get to the end. Well, you know, that's all good and proper, but if you don't actually think about how you're going to swim properly, how you're going to ride the event, you know, where is the wind, where is the hill, where's the easy part, where's the hard part, how's your nutrition going? You know, they're all the things that allow you to get the result rather than you just concentrating on, you know, I've got to ride hard, I've got to swim hard, I've got to run hard, and, and they're all important, but it's, it's really how you're going to achieve that. How are you going to break that down? And I think that was a big lesson for me. Even though I performed well and, and, you know, the result was, was, you know, nearly as good as I could get. But, but I definitely had, if I had a different mindset, I wouldn't have had so much pressure on myself. I didn't enjoy it as Much. And, and I felt like it was such a relief to finish the damn thing rather than, you know, how much fun is this when I was finishing?

Yeah, we've spoken a bit about this notion of not. It's this paradox of treating it like your A race and it's your time to really give your best crack, but also treating it as just another training session and just another chance to execute what you want to put in practice. It's so fascinating to me that you went to Kona of all places to debut at that distance and that's still happening. Now. Chelsea Zadara, who's one of the top predicted athletes at this year's Kona race, literally debuted in her Ironman only earlier, earlier this year. And then in the men's the two favorites, Christian, the Norwegians, Christian and Gustav are literally two of the favorites to come, potentially first and second and they've never even raced Kona. So it's interesting that that's still happening, but people still have potential to step up to the distance if they're well prepared. But I guess it is this contrasting view of what it actually means because it is your A race and it means a lot, but you've also got to treat it just like anything else, right?

Yeah. And it's a really good point. I've said to many athletes going into their A race and sometimes you can have a couple of a races if you're racing shorter distances in a year. The one thing that I want to emphasize is that you should not be make it like it's the end of the world race. It's got to be just another day where you've actually got volunteers helping you on a big training day. And you know, that sounds a little bit flippant, doesn't it? You're almost downgrading the event. Well, you're doing that for a reason. You're downgrading it to not make it the be all and end all of your career, of your life. And that, that is going to put so much pressure on you. Some people will be okay with that, but I guarantee it's a small percentage. The majority of people, if they do that to themselves, will have so much stress and anxiety around every aspect of getting there, the week of and the night of and the race, etc. Etc. It'll just be so unenjoyable and you race better in a relaxed, stress free environment in your mind. And if you're focusing on the right things rather than worrying about the wrong things, you're going to have a completely different outcome. So to treat it like this is just a big training day and you've got volunteers out there helping you on your biggest training day. And if this was your biggest training day, you wouldn't be going out on training days with the mindset that I'm going to smash out the swim, get on the bike and ride as hard as I can and then get off the run. Get off and run Absolutely as hard as I can. You would have a strategy in your training day. So have that same strategy of conservatism and discipline about execution that you would have on training days. Don't change that strategy. So that's the, the big key thing that I would be telling my athletes pre their A event. I don't care whether it's a marathon or a road race or a time trial or an ironman. And particularly one in Kona, you know, where it's, it's extreme. You don't have these conditions in hardly any other event around the world in triathlon, it's extreme. It was, it's there for a reason. They tried to make it the hardest event that mankind could ever do back in the 80s. That was the idea behind it, make it as brutal as possible. Of course there are way more brutal events, longer events now that are out there, but this is one of the extreme, brutal events in triathlon. And so if you make it about a big training day rather than this is the be all and end all, you will get through the day better. You will be able to measure your efforts better. And after all this day in particular at Kona, specifically talking about today, you have to deal with the, the weather conditions. That, that is the main thing. The temperature, the wind and the sun reflection off the lava, the black lava, the sun hits it and bounces back into your face and, and you just can't escape it. It's just, you know, 34 degrees the whole day. And you know, you've got sometimes 50, 60 kilometer an hour winds, depending on what time of the day it is. And then you've just got these areas on the run where there's no wind and you've just got the sun beating down in the lava fields back at, back at your body. You can't cool your body down enough. It's, it's, it's so disturbing, distressing for your body that you can't run normally. And so you've got to take all those things into consideration when you're, when you're thinking about how you're going to execute this day. And, and if you Go there with a mindset that in every other event that I've ever done, my power number is 250 watts and that's when I'm going to ride. And my average run pace is 5 minutes 30. That's what I'm going to run. You will be extremely disappointed. You need to not have that, that focus so much. Whereas we would have it that focus a lot in events where we're in control of the temperature and, and the events. But you still have to make decisions based on where you are on the course, just like you would in any normal event. But, but the, the actual temperature and the heat of the day will, will affect you. And for anybody who've done, who have done races, and I remember the guys who just went to the recent Haute Route in, in France, two guys we coached, you know, did both the Pyrenees and the, and the Haute Route, sorry, the Haute root Pyrenees and the Alps. I'll get that right. And the temperature on a lot of the days was 36 to 40 degrees. And you know, we'd worked out that they could ride some of those hour climbs, hour and a half climbs, two hour climbs at around 75 to 85% of their FTP. As long as your heart rate stayed in a certain zone. But the minute your heart rate goes outside that zone, you have to drop your power back to 70% or 65% because you can't ride at threshold power heart rate in temperatures of 40 degrees for more than 10, 15 minutes. And then some of these climbs were an hour, an hour and a half. So the strategy had to change dramatically. And this is the same at Kona. You know, if you're expecting to ride 250 watts and that gives you a heart rate in the 80% range of your max, then all of a sudden you find 250 watts, you're at 95 heart rate percentage. So you have to drop your power back to 230, 220 watts to stay in your heart rate zone that you want to stay in. So the temperature in events like this will affect your power and will affect your overall time. So that is the next point that I want to make is if you can match your previous Ironman times from all the other Ironmans you've done that aren't at Kona, you've had an unbelievably outstanding result. If you can get close your, your Kona Ironman time compared to your other ones around the world. If you get that even within 10 or 15 minutes, you've had an outstanding day. The majority of people are going to be 10 or 15 or 20% slower at Kona than they are at any other event. So you have to have that understanding as well. Time is irrelevant. It's more about how you're going to navigate your, your feelings on race day and, and time orientated for this day is going to cause you problems. I should be doing five hours for the bike on all the other rides I've ever done on every other Ironman, that's my time. But don't get off the bike and see 5:20 and go. This is a disaster. Don't think like that. Get off the bike and think, I'm pretty happy with that. I'm still feeling good, I'm in great shape to run. And you know, my runtime could be a 3:30 in any other event. And if you can get to 3:45, 3 hours 45, you've had another good day where you've run the whole way. So don't think about your overall times in this event compared to the times you've done in other events. Think about how you're feeling, how you're coping throughout the day because they're going to get you to the finish line in great shape rather than you swimming, riding and running to times.

It's all easier said than done, isn't it? Trying to have this mindset, have this calm, collected mindset going into any a race. Because whenever you turn up to a big race, whether it's a marathon, like you said, any major marathon around the world, whether it's any Ironman or 70.3, once you get to that location, there is a whole buzz around the event, there's an electric atmosphere. And the whole week leading up you see a whole lot of fit people around, training the house down. You're comparing yourself suddenly to what other people are doing on the day. You're comparing yourself. It's just so natur. Take a look at what other bikes people have or what equipment or how flashy they look, how professional they look and all these things just add these extra elements that you aren't expecting when you're trying to treat it like a quote, unquote training day. So I guess we've spoken a little bit about that. We've spoken a lot on this podcast about key training sessions you had to have done leading into this taper period. We've spoken about the taper period itself in terms of what that looks like. So I want to know what are the major things you want to tick off mentally and physically in the Last couple of weeks that we haven't spoken about before that are really important, just get you in the right frame of mind and get you prepared physically for this A race which you're trying to treat as just another training day.

Yeah, but I think the difference between your A race and any other races that you do throughout your year and we've spoken about each year has some sort of goal. And you might have two A races with six B races and 15C races. So your A race could be your second one for the year or it could be just the one big one for the year. So the things you would do differently to the A race compared to other events is you would definitely taper longer than you would for other events. You would try to give yourself a couple of weeks at least. So you're not coming into your last week of race week with fatigue. So the second last week in my opinion is really important to have a reduction in volume, a reduction in your whole mindset of I've got to train hard, you've got to think differently. This is not the week to train hard two weeks out. So for example, if you're going to go to a marathon or tour event like Kona, you need to be thinking this is my A race. So I have to treat this differently to all the other races that I've been doing where I train pretty hard up to a point because I'm still thinking about my A race down the track. It might be 12 weeks away. I've got a race that I'm doing as a B race. I'm going to train reasonably solid into the week leading into it. And then the week of the B race, I'm going to probably drop the volume, reduce the fatigue a little bit and just keep doing some short, high intensity efforts. Whereas this A race, we want to do that three weeks out. So the last sort of week, weekend, which is two weekends before your main race, that's probably the last time you're going to do something decent with volume. And even then it's quite reduced in volume. So you've, you've, you've picked your intensity up four to five weeks out. Race ready style training, very specific training that's really relative to, to what the race is going to look like in the swimming, on the bike and as a run. You've got to try and replicate those goal paces in training in that race ready phase so that when you get three weeks out, you get to the start of the Monday, two weeks out, you're really focused on getting rid of Fatigue, getting rid of volume and just trying to hone in on some easy sessions where you are only specifically looking at testing yourself over the swim, bike and run to see where you are currently at in terms of your fitness level. And those testing sessions will give you huge amount of confidence because you've tapered for a few days. You're finding out what your swim pace is over whatever distance your a race is, you're finding out what your, your current FTP is and then you're finding out what your best 10K is or whatever event you're training towards. You're using these testing sessions and there's only one of them. If you're doing a marathon, there's three of them. If you're doing a triathlon, there's one of them. If you're doing a cycling event.

And they're still training sessions, aren't they?

They are still training sessions, but they are very short and they have got a lot of intensity in them. There's no volume in them. So we're trying to recover and get rid of fatigue early on that week. Two weeks out, we're talking and we're trying to get ourselves ready for this little testing period to finally find out where we're at, come out race week the following week. So we're shedding fatigue, doing it, you know, possibly one high intensity session with low volume and then we're getting to the week of race week where, you know, we really should feel fresh and we should feel our freshest on that Monday coming into race week. And this is not the time to rest. This is definitely not the time to rest. If you spent the whole week resting during the week leading into the race week, I think you'll find that your body will go to sleep and come race day you will be going, what the hell's wrong with me? In the first part of the swim and the run and the ride. And you'll get your legs back, your breathing back, your conditioning back halfway through the race. But you don't want that to happen. You want to be sharp and ready at the start of the swim, at the start of the ride, at the start of the run, where you can implement your strategy from start to finish throughout all three legs. So, so what do we do during that week? We try to not do any volume. We try to not do anything in the heat of the day. We're not trying to acclimatize in that last week. It's too late. We need to spend the time early in the morning training similar to the start Time of your race and if your race starts at 6am or 7am or 8am, you need to get your body ready. All the last two weeks that's what I would be doing, getting myself ready, an alert. So I go to bed early two weeks out, so I'm getting myself ready every morning to know that I'm, you know, if I'm getting up at 4am on race day, I want to be getting up at you know, 6:00am Two weeks out, you know, 5:45, 5:30, 5:15 and 5:00'. Clock. Getting my body ready for that, doing my training sessions in the cool of the day in that last week, especially if you're in Kona, don't go out training in the middle of the day. That is just suicide. You are dehydrating yourself for no reason. You need to spend the time in the cooler part of the day where the sun isn't at its hottest and you can get your session done and out of the way and then the rest of the day can be whatever you've got planned, you need to plan the whole week and you need to have at least two sessions on the bike that are really short and sharp. Whether it's 2 by 5 minute efforts or 3 by 5 minute efforts with a little warm up, a little cool down riding at your race pace or just above race pace on the bike and a couple of, you know, couple of, you know, four by 30 second efforts times two sets, a couple of days out, that's, that's really helpful just to rev the legs but reminding your body that you have to be ready for race day. As a runner we won't really want to do any intensity running. We get that from the bike in the pool. We can do some short sharp sprints and some, some race ready efforts that we're, you know, trying to just wake our body up because it's really fresh, but not doing any volume in those swim sessions and even getting into the ocean and, and doing a couple of 200s, you know, warm up for 200, then three by 200 efforts that are at race pace with a couple of minutes in between. They're all things that you can do that are going to take you less than an hour. And so each session should be between 30 minutes and an hour, done early in the morning and get that out of the way. And it doesn't mean you're training multiple times, you know, each day for two events. Just pick one session each day that you're going to do. Swim on Monday, ride on Tuesday, run on Wednesday, ride on Thursday, swim on Friday, a little easy jog on Saturday, and your race is on Sunday. But we're at Kona, you know, the race is on Saturday, so it's a day earlier. And you use the things you need to plan.

Yeah, you use the words a lot in there, waking yourself up consistently. And there is this false feeling of your body going to sleep, which affects everyone slightly differently. And even with these short, sharp efforts, which really do help that feeling of keeping the body sharp and alert, a lot of people experience this false kind of body going to sleep throughout the week on various levels. And some people will just find that because of the reduction in volume, because it's just a week that you don't have anywhere else in your program, it just feels so foreign that it's really uncomfortable. And a lot of people can almost panic a little bit leading into the race on Sunday because they're really not feeling good. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And then you're supposed to be feeling fresh, you're supposed to be feeling good, but because it's so different and so foreign, you're actually feeling really uncomfortable. And so in those situations, you've got to trust the process. We've had a lot of athletes say to us that they weren't feeling that flash leading in, but then once they got to Sunday and they warmed up Sunday, they were ready to start the race, and they started the race feeling on top of the the world.

Yeah, it's a good point. And look, in your B races, you would have had experienced the taper phase anyway, not the week before, but you would have experienced that feeling already. So your body will get accustomed to that. If you've done two or three B races along the journey, which you should have done. So it's not like it's brand new to you. It's something you have done in the past. And, you know, if it's your very first A race where you've had two weeks preparation for it, then that is a fair point. But if you've done several A races over your journey in your career, your body should know that this is what's going to happen. And mentally you can just get on with it. Don't let the worry and stress that you're creating in your own mind take over the fact that you're in a good position, you've trained well, you've prepared yourself unbelievably well, and start having the mental approach that I'm going to enjoy this period. I don't have to train very hard. I don't have to train long. How good is this? And it's good for me. Not only am I not training hard, it's actually good for me and it's going to make me be the best I can be when I want to be the best. And so they're the things you should be thinking, this is good for me. And have that mindset that it's what I should be doing and not second guess yourself. Have confidence that this is correct. I know this works and I will be at my best when it counts. So think about the mindset differently. And yes, what you said is true. These things will cross your mind, but put them out of your mind straight away.

I personally find that when I do a taper to an A race, I don't feel good on the morning of the race until I've done my third or fourth stride through. So we do four stride throughs pre race. I don't, I generally don't feel good if I'm warming up on the bike or doing a jog warmup. I feel pretty sluggish doing on warm up drills. But I, I know that now and I know to expect that. And I know that the first couple of stride throughs will still feel a little bit dusty and then the third or fourth one is where I come good. And because I have that expectation from, like you're saying, experience, I know that that's coming. Whereas it could be a really scary or frightening feeling to wake up and try and do your warmup and just go, wow, I am not feeling good in this warmup. What's going to happen today? But when, like you said, if you've had that experience in BNC races and you know what to expect from your own body.

Yep, I totally agree with that. And look, one of the things we haven't really talked about is, you know, having a, a race plan strategy written out. And we've talked about that in other podcasts before. But it's really important, you know, whether you're, you know, two weeks out or one week out. I like to do it two weeks out where if I'm, if I'm preparing for a triathlon, I need to have the swim information about my equipment all sorted two weeks out so that I'm not panicking in the last week trying to buy a set of goggles or, or my, my wetsuits just happens to not fit me anymore. I don't want to find that out three days out and I'm, I'm rushing around trying to purchase equipment. So two weeks out of giving myself an opportunity to check that my goggles are fine, they're not leaking, I'm really happy with them. My wetsuit is perfectly fitting me and my race suit that I'm going to run and ride in is exactly what I want. And then I go through the bike that my bike has been serviced. I've got new tyres, my bike position is right, my shoes are functioning well, the cleats aren't old. All of my Garmin data is, is not malfunctioning, it's. It's working. My batteries are all charging for my bike. You know, so many things that the bike has to have operational that you need to really think about that. And as a runner, I don't come into it thinking that my shoes are on their last legs. I should have had my shoes already organized coming into this period that I've got the right shoes to race in. And I'm confident that they won't give me blisters because they're brand new, they've been run in in the last, you know, two or three or four weeks and they're going to be perfect for race day. They're the things I do two weeks out, a list that I make. And if I've got travel involved in that, going to my race, a race, then I need to factor in that. When am I going to be traveling and if I get there, is my bike going to be getting there a on time? What's my strategy if it doesn't? What happens if the bike's broken? Have I got an idea of where the bike shops are? Am I carrying a spare hanger if the derailleur's broken, things like that. Have I got spare tires, spare tubes? Everything has to be all organized two weeks out. And then the only other thing we haven't really spoken about is hydration, which is ironic. You're having a drink right now. For those who can see, nutrition and hydration needs to start well out from your actual a race day. And you don't want to cram yourself in two days before race day to get as much hydration and fuel into your body and end up 16 kilo over what you should be by the time you get to race day, you need to actually think about the hydration well out. And if you're going to a race that's got temperature as a key factor, you need to be getting enough sodium into your body well in the two weeks earlier than the race day, last couple of days that most people just try and cram into it. So Think about those things and keep your hydration levels high, keep your electrolyte levels high, keep your protein, your fats and your carbohydrate levels all normal. Don't overeat, don't over consume, don't over fuel, don't over drink, but don't underdo it. Try to get that balance and make sure you're thinking about that each day. Have I got enough hydration into my body each day so that I am getting the right electrolytes into my body so that I'm fully topped up come race day. You don't want to start race day with a half a tank of every anything and anything and everything. And that is really important, especially in.

A new environment, especially if you're going to somewhere like Kona where the climate is so much warmer, you will have to be hydrating probably more than normal especially. And if you get in there a couple weeks out, that gives you that chance to adjust to that. And, and as you always say, nothing extreme, not overdoing it, but you will have to adjust some more to the climate you're going to. We're always interested in the psychology of athletes and it's the same whether you are an age grouper or a pro. And Lionel Sanders actually just gave a great insight into one of his race ready sessions. He's done a couple of weeks out from the race and he had to do 3 by 70 minute efforts on the bike at race pace and then three times 25 minute run efforts off the bike at race pace. And in the video it's, it's really raw and he, he basically just feels like absolute crap and he's so frustrated in the session because he's hitting the numbers and his lactate levels are good, but he feels like crap and he's going, I'm not trying to panic, but I don't know what's going on here. And as a coach, you know, how do you manage this because you've been in this situation with athletes where they, you can start to panic a couple of weeks out, where even in what feels like a worst case scenario, you're not hitting the numbers or you have some bad training sessions a couple of weeks out and it really rocks your confidence a little bit leading into the race.

Yeah, it was an interesting video to watch and I felt like the coaches were doing a really good job with him. Just trying to bring him back to this is one day, one session and it's not an accumulation of the 70 sessions you've done getting to this day. And There will be days where you're really on fire and you're feeling great and there will be days where you're not so good. And as you said, he was still hitting the targets and yet it was his feelings that he was upset about, how he was feeling. He just felt rubbish. Even though his lactate level was good and his bike power was good, he did feel average on the run and he didn't feel like he should continue. But certainly the coaches were saying, you know, just hang in there, it's just another day. And. And obviously things, other things are going on in his mind. And this is the one thing that I think I got out of it was redirecting his mind to just concentrate on. This is just a training session and because he's putting so much pressure on himself about the outcome of this event, it means so much to him. He wants desperately to win this event and so he wants every session to be like a winning feeling and that's just not going to happen. And you need to have that mindset. This is one stepping stone in the journey to race day. Whether it's three weeks out, two weeks out or one week out, it's still just a training session. And you may have good, bad and average feelings from all that range on any given day. And you've just got to understand that that won't be how you'll feel when you've tapered and, you know, giving your body that reduction in fatigue and you're feeling fresh. He will feel like a completely different athlete on race day. You know, the accumulation of fatigue that he's experiencing during this period is massive. He's in it. He was in Kona in the temperature. He was not coping with the temperature. That was the main thing he wasn't coping with. He was really struggling. His body couldn't cool fast enough and I think that panicked him. If I'm going to feel like this on race day, this is going to be terrible. I'm not going to be able to perform. And I think that's one of the things that was good about what he was doing because he was experiencing a negative outcome and he was having to deal with it. And the coaches were great. Post that training session in the room, I really felt sorry for Lionel because they were honing in on. He was thinking about and talking about the wrong things.

It was almost an intervention, wasn't it? There was four coaches sitting around.

Was not going to. There isn't. They were not going to get. Let him get away with this negativity that he was trying to, trying to get across and I thought it was brilliant.

And so Lionel is our favorite guy. He's the guy we personally want to see win and we love the Norwegians and if, if they win as expected, if Christian wins or Gustav wins as potentially expected, then that'll be great. But we're absolutely rooting for Lionel. But he is admitted himself. He has this fear around the heat and he almost, he had a pretty poor performance in Dallas recently in the heat, which a lot of athletes did in preparation for Kona as well. And he really struggled and that panicked him and he almost pulled out of Kona because of it. And so now he's, he's in Kona and he's training and he's not feeling good and the heat has gotten to him a lot of times in the past in Kona and so, yeah, there definitely is that admitted panic or fear and we're really hoping that he can get through it and perform really well because he's, he's such a hard worker and we've just loved his, his vulnerability in showing his journey so far and we really want to see him do well.

I love the coaches approaches to him, was, okay, if you don't feel good, let's go home, let's not do it. And you know, taking that opposite tack is kind of good because it brings it back into perspective. I'm not going to train my whole year and then, you know, because I have one bad session, sook it up and then pack my bags and go home. You know, that's a really good sort of method to use on someone who's really complaining. You know, you don't have to do this. You absolutely don't have to do it. And everybody's in that situation, whether you're an age grouper or an elite. You're the one wanting to do it. So change the thought process to I'll be fine. Just trust the process. And, and you've been here before. And even if you haven't, the process should be enabling you to be confident that on the day you're standing on that beach thinking about what's going to happen in the next nine hours, eight hours or 14 hours, depending on what your level is, that you have a process that you're going to execute to the best of your ability. And that's all you have to worry about. How do you show an example?

I'll go, Yep, keep going.

I was just going to say I remember an example of one of the, Everybody remembers the, the key athletes of the 80s. Scott Molina, Scott Tinley, Dave Scott, Mark Allen, Mike Pig. There was so many really, you know, Greg Stewart, Greg Welsh, some great athletes of the, of that particular period. But one of the athletes, Scott Molina, who was not, not as. And not a lot of people even know who he is, he did win Kona. He won the Ironman. But he, he was a person who did not perform well in the heat. And he said that, admitted, he admitted that after winning Kona, the first thing he said in the interview was, I'm quite shocked because I just don't perform well in the heat. And everything worked for me today. And, and that to me was an amazing statement. And I was listening to every word he said because he won. And it was unexpected that he would win and he performed unbelievably in the heat. And, you know, I just wanted, I just wanted Lionel to hear that. Here is another guy who was not giving himself any chance at Kona. And yet because of his, his performances in the heat, and yet he came out and it all clicked for him on the day. Everything he did well, his nutrition, his hydration, his race strategy, his planning, he, he, he did the event his way and didn't worry about the big guys of Mark Allen and Dave, Scott and Scott Tinley. You know, he raced his own race that day and that's the things he was saying for the first time. I stopped racing other people's races and concentrated on my own execution and look what the result was. I, I am good in the heat. It's just that I was racing everybody else's races that caused me to be poor in the heat. And I was, I immediately, when I was watching Lionel Sanders video, I was thinking of Scott Molina and how he actually hated racing in Kona and tried to avoid it many times, but really wanted to, to have a crack at it and he ended up winning the thing. So hopefully that's what's going to happen with Lionel. Yeah.

How do you trust the process when he's. He's had a bit of a disastrous performance a few weeks ago.

Yep. Well, I, I would go back and say, how did you go in Utah? That was pretty damn hot there. He performed really well. The only person to beat him was, you know, was Christian. Everybody else was struggling in that heat. So he's got a, he's picked on one event where he struggled, where he's in. He's been in many other races where it's been hot and he's coped. So, so again, you can, you can be quite specific, can't you? I'll hone in on the one negative training session. I'll hone in on the one poor race yet. I've had 7,000 great training sessions and I've had 200 great races there where it's been hot. And I just think, you know, to come second at the 70.3 World Championships in Utah in those brutal conditions, that's what I would be looking at rather than what happened in Dallas. You know, I just think he's, he's concentrating on the wrong thing.

That's a great answer. To finish off, we do want to look at the pro field and make some predictions and potential comments around things we notice with athletes. And we'll start with the women's field and a couple of key favorites. You can't go past Daniela Reef, five times Iron man world champ and five times 70.3 world champion. She won St George earlier this year. I think she's the clear favorite. Laura Phillip, the German who's had 15 70.3 victories was, has been in great form but had to pull out of St. George. Would have been Daniela Reeves, probably biggest competition but had to pull out of St. George earlier this year due to sickness. Otherwise in serious form and a lot of people are picking her to go very well. The defending champ from Kona. Last time it was in Kona, the German and Haug. And then the next sneaky potential favorite is Lucy Charles who pre prior to her injury was in the form of her life. But she's come back from a serious hip fracture. She said three second places at Kona. Never be shocked about what she can do but she is most likely under prepped for this race. She was not even planning to do it. But then her injury rehab has gone so well that they've her and coaching team decided to do it. So you can never count her out but I, I can't imagine she could win it. But you look at her interviews and if she's lining up on the start line she, she expects that she could potentially win it. So I think that the clear favorite win Daniela Ryf. I don't know if you have any thoughts on the women's field, dad?

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think just as a general statement I, I just don't think you can go past people who've got the experience and the score on the board. But there is a lot of pressure with performance expectation from the outside world, the noise around and that would be hard for the five time champion to continue to perform. And I think that's where Lucy Charles Barkley's got an advantage. She has got an incredible base and we talk about that a lot. And when you get injured, the athletes with the biggest base come back quickly. And sometimes freshening up is a real advantage. And you can actually. She has no pressure on herself from expectations, so she could race with a carefree attitude. I think that's a really good recipe for success. So don't be surprised if she actually wins.

Is that your prediction?

Well, I think that's my. You know, if I was a betting man, I would definitely put money on. She could be 50 to 1. I'd be putting a fair bit of money on her because you never know what's going to happen. It's not like she's not experienced at this. She is. And she's performed at the highest level time and time again. She's a. She's an outstanding athlete. And just because you're. You've had an injury and you're coming back and you know, Jan would be in the same position. You know, you couldn't go past him. Even though he's been injured, he's not doing the event. But. But you know, you wouldn't not back him because he's done it so many times. And she would. The fresh and no pressure. The freshness that you're not having a season of fatigue, you're coming into it super fresh and no pressure of expectation for performance from the outside world is huge, in my opinion. And you've seen so many sports where the team or the athlete has got a carefree attitude of, what have I got to lose here? Nothing. So they perform unbelievably well.

That's a really, really good point. Moving into the men's field, you can't go past the two Norwegians, like we said, Christian and Gustav, the clear favorites. I really liked a little point that Gustav made. He was asked about the fact that they train together all the time and they're always together and when they're competing for World Championships, is that a problem? And he straight away said, look, they train a lot together, but they don't do everything together. Otherwise the training will trend towards one person to advantage and bias one person. And so, yes, they train a lot together, but in key sessions, they're doing their own numbers and their own training and their own lactate levels. And that's a really, really important point to consider.

Yeah. And, you know, when you think about the men's race, it is so wide open. I just think there is no favorite. I think everybody has A chance to win this event and especially Kona. We talked a little bit about in the, you know, how do you, how do you go about, you know, this whole topic is podcast is how do you, how do you go about preparing for your a race? And on any given day in the males and female elite race, whoever has prepared the best in terms of their training, in terms of their race strategies, in terms of their preparation, and then it comes down to how you execute on the day, how you fuel yourself. So there's so many things that can go right and so many things that can go wrong on this particular day. So I discount no one here because if you, if you don't have a discipline that allows you to race your race, Kona will expose you. And I was listening to a podcast just recently where one of the guys was talking about an athlete that got off the bike, a female athlete that got off the bike in 23rd place, ended up coming seventh and, you know, caught up 10, 15 minutes from professional athletes that had blown their race on the bike and swim and after 5k in the run, were still running well, but 10 minutes later were, you know, almost walking and going pace. That was, that was, you know, unsustainable. And this is a race that will find you out. And if you, if you get ahead of yourself here, you know, you will find that you could end up 50th and walking as an elite. So anybody can win this, and it's the disciplined athlete, the one who controls himself throughout the day. The best will get the best outcome, no doubt.

And Mark Allen had the same sentiment as you. He said that, yes, Christian and Gustav are unbelievable athletes, but they have not faced Kony yet. And it is totally different beast. And so, like you're saying that they can't, you just can't have them as clear favorites because it's, it's a totally different race. And if they do end up winning, then good on them. You know, they've. They've proven their absolute worth at this race. But to debut and be clear, favorite is a pretty big expectation. We've spoken about Lionel. I think he's both our favorite. We want to win. Not necessarily that he is the favorite. Some other interesting ones. Braden Curry, I liked his prep. He went to Kona the earliest out of anyone, any pro. He was there four or five weeks ago, and he wanted to do a. A hard training block there before leading into the taper period. So that was interesting to see. Joe Skipper, who announced he was going to pull out of Kona because of the expenses and he had some issues with accommodation. He's ended up arriving there and he is racing. He's the only other athlete to go sub seven with Christian. And there are two, only two previous winners in this race. That's Patrick Lange and Sebastian Keenly. So it'd be interesting to see how they go. And like you said, you can't count out experiences. Experience from guys that have won. So, like you said, the field is wide open. It's going to be very interesting to see how it goes. And we're excited to see the race.

Yeah, I can't wait. It's. It's one of the things that we've missed over the last couple of years with COVID and, and look, you know, Ironman races around the world, they've been fantastic to watch, but there is something just special about Kona. Its history, its uniqueness. It's. It's, you know, it's brutality. They're the things that it really will find you out if you don't pay respect to the conditions. And you need to do that in every race. I understand that, but. But this is extreme. This is. It's not normal conditions that you'll experience. So if, you know, if you don't respect the conditions, you will be found out, sadly. And, and, you know, we've said this many times, if you, if you don't respect fuel your body throughout the day, just like a car, if you don't put petrol in it, you will end up walking. This is going to be really more important because the body doesn't cope with this type of temperature that's relentless out on those lava fields, especially in the run. So I'm really hoping that everybody has a safe and great race, but more so that the best athlete will prevail. And the best athlete doesn't mean the fastest. It's the one who has got the smartest plan and they execute the best. That's the person who will prevail on this day. And that's what's good about Kona.

I think that's a great way to finish. That's it for this episode. Thank you very much for listening as always, and we'll see you in the next one. You.