We Were Wrong About RPE

This podcast is brought to you by Trivalo 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. Big episode today. We need to discuss the world champs of cycling and women's triathlon in Nice. Plus, we're telling you why we were wrong about RPE and how Pogucha just proved it. But first, let's go with our normal starting segment. Dad, welcome to the episode. Welcome back. What are you grateful for?

Thanks, Jordan. Looking forward to another one and certainly there's a whole lot of gratitudes I'm thinking about putting forward this week, which is pretty normal when you've got so many things happening and the first one is grateful to have you back home for the first time in a long, long time back in Australia. So yeah, grateful for that and the fact that you're staying with us for a period is good and we get to have a ride together, which I'm looking forward to as well. But my gratitude is really based around a couple of things that have happened in the last two weeks and it's to do with family and, and the importance of that and, and, and it's, and the evolution of people's family trees and, and you know, the example I want to use is we just had my, your brother Matt just had a brand new, their second child last week and at the same time Lani, your brother's wife, her grandfather passed away and so the evolution of newborns and people coming to the end of their lives, their journey. And you're grateful for that, I suppose family tree that evolves over generations and it's a pretty in depth one, I know. But yeah, I'm really grateful for the fact that we're part of a family that's growing and evolving and you just don't know what's going to happen in the next 50 years. And Andy's, my wife's dad had his 89th birthday yesterday which, you know, he's had a great life as well. And yeah, you get perspective of when people pass away, you get perspective of when there's newborns and you know, just grateful that we've got such an evolving family and I can't wait to see what we look like in 50 years time and I'm grateful for that. And I remember when my own dad passed away when he was only 67 and the things I was sad about was that he wouldn't see you guys in know, grow up as adults. He only saw you as little kids. And so, yeah, to, to hang in there for a little bit longer is great. Especially your grandfather on the other side, on my wife's side. He's going strong. He's, he's, he's such a robust character and he's worked so hard his whole life and, and I think he's, he's surviving because of that, because he's, he's been such a physical. He worked on a farm, they, they grew flowers and, and he was so hands on and, and you know, even at 75, 76, 80, he was still driving semi trailers, transporting flowers and driving tractors and yeah, he was just such a physical human being. And of course he's slowing down a little bit now that he's 89. But yeah, just. That's an example of trying to, trying to get the most out of you. However long you're going to be here as a male, we're supposed to have an average of 82 years and, you know, anything above that's a bonus. And yeah, so really grateful for what's happened in the last couple of weeks and gives me perspective of, you know, your own mortality as well when your. Things aren't going well with your own health. So, yeah, really, really pleased the things that are happening.

Yeah, it's. Pop's a good one because, yeah, he's 89, but he actually worked until he was 85 and he's really proud of that and he reckons it kept him going strong, which is a great result. And my gratitude is very similar. I got to meet the newest member of the family, which was, yeah, as you just said, your fourth grandchild and my second niece. And because, I mean, the way things work out. Lonnie's grandfather passed away, but because of that they're actually flying down to Melbourne and so I didn't think I'd get to see them this trip and they're actually coming down. So there's a silver lining in that, a small silver lining. And we're going to be together as a whole family with all the grandchildren for the first time since Christmas. So that's really nice. Moving on from the Gratitudes, we're going to do a quick new segment called Opening the Mailbag. And this is a question that we got from Instagram, which we do get a lot of questions on Instagram. If they require a bit of a intricate answer, we decided we might just start answering them on here. So this is from Joao Pedro Silva and he asked, I was training for seven to eight months for an Ironman. I got injured two months out. I only have one month left to get back to a level that allows me to finish the race. Can you tell me what's usually the best approach or just point out if you have any episode that talks about this? We do talk about this. Spread out in a few episodes but after a follow up question he said essentially it's a thigh injury, femoral biceps. But from what the physio told me, I'll be able to be physically ready on the Ironman date. The big, biggest concern is actually the cardio. My goal is just to finish and have that first experience with no expectations, just enjoy what I've worked for and build on that for the full distance next year. Thank you for the reply and concern. What do you think?

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack and I don't know a lot of the details. I've got very limited knowledge of training history, how long he's been doing the sport. So the answer always depends on depends. And, and so generally our answer to anybody who's sustained an injury is again depending on if they're, if they've been doing endurance sport for 10, 15 years, then that's a different answer to someone who's doing it for the first time, has only been doing endurance sports for, you know, a relatively short time, cardio wise that wouldn't be the concern. That would be the opposite to what I think the event you're doing. The Ironman is basically a zone two race. And so your cardio is not going to be the one that's holding you back with an injury where you don't train. Your musculoskeletal system is the one that's being limited in preparation. So I don't think you should be too concerned about breathing and heart rate too much because there's no intensity in the race. And for sure it's disappointing that you've gone into it, into the event injured. The biggest problem you'll have is that your, your muscles will absolutely, you know, not have experienced the training preparation for the endurance that you're going to experience on race day. So that's going to be something you have to be super careful about is, you know, being as conservative as possible on the bike so that you can actually, you know, your body can stand up to the, to the marathon because you haven't done the preparation due to the injury. So, so I would be so much more conservative. And, and your goal, yes, should be to enjoy the experience and and try to be as conservative as possible and you'll have a better day than, than yes. As soon as you're injured. Setting target times is, is a problem because your, your expectations are based on a normal, healthy preparation and in this case you don't have that. Um, so you need to adjust your expectations. We've said that in many episodes where different topics. You know, if you're doing an FTP test and you haven't trained well, you know your expectation has to be different. If you're, if you're doing FTP tests and you've trained the house down so you know, whether it's an injury or a sickness or FTP or training consistency, then your expectations have to be adjusted to what the form currently is. And, and the example you're giving us is you won't be able to train for running due to the injury. So you need to really lower your expectations and try to get through the event as conservatively as possible.

Great answer. With limited information. And it leads into the next topic. We want to go straight into the women's world champs in France, the Ironman world champs. It's in France because every second year they now alternating between Kona and France. And Lucy Charles, actually the favorite, last year's Kona Ironman winner, like clear favorite going into the race, pulled out at the very last minute. And it's, it's very similar to this kind of, this, this topic of, of pushing through injury or racing through injury or even deciding to step up to the start line. You know, she had a really big decision ahead of her that this is something that she really wanted to go back to back. And she had a very, very minor calf strain in two days out before the race and decided after talking to a lot of her team and specialists that she just didn't want to do what she did last year and try and push through an injury for the sake of the race. And you know, last year it was a heroic effort. She had definitely some sort of torn Achilles going into the event. She started the marathon of the race limping and, you know what turned out to be, in hindsight, even more of an incredible effort than we realized at the time because she injured her Achilles so bad that it took her three, four months of insane work or possibly even longer to get back to where she. She had to this year. That was her choice, that winning the race was the most important thing. So she was willing to push her body that far. And this time around, she said, I'm not willing to go through that work. Again, I'm not willing to go through that rehab again. If, if the risk is there that this small calf tear is going to put me out for another few months, I'm not going to get on the start line. That was her decision. And it begs an interesting question. That, that's, that's a pro choice. Last year she made the choice to push through the race. But for age groupers, you would probably say it's never, probably worth it to push through that. In very small circumstances you would, you'd want an athlete to keep racing. But a lot of the time you say to them, think about long term questions, long term consequences. Don't try and be a hero here. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I feel really sorry for her because it's a tough decision. You're the defending champion and you know, it's hard for, for us everyday athletes to put ourselves into her shoes and her mindset because, you know, you've, you've won the race last year. You're, you're one of the best athletes going around and you know, this course probably suited her where it was super challenging with the hills at the back of Nice, such a hard bike course, which, you know, that's, that's one of her strengths and you know, and she has great form. So it's a tough decision, but I'm so pleased that she made that decision. And no matter how minor or major the injury is, if you're not at your best at 100%, especially as a pro, you shouldn't be competing. And I think it's a great decision. And she will, she'll reap the benefits of that decision because they'll, as you know, now the triathlon calendar has got so much events happening. The pto, the Ironman Challenge. You know, we could just keep listing off the different bodies that are providing events and, and so it's just not like it was years ago where it was just the Ironman was the big race for the year, the world championships, and there was a lot of smaller races sprinkled around the world. Well, now there's massive big races everywhere almost all season long. So, so I think the longevity of her career is important. I think she made the right decision. And if you looked at that from a professional point of view, that's a tough decision to make. But for an age grouper, that should be so much easier because they're. I just gone through that whole thing myself, aiming for a world championships as an age grouper and you know, putting in 12 months preparation for only to not make the start line. I, I understand that feeling. And so as an age group, you just have to have your mindset around. Look, there's other, there's other races for me. You know, I've got another probably, you know, five in my position at 65 years of age. I might have another five years of competition left to me if I want to keep competing. And I do, I love competition, even though my medical issues might prevent me a little bit. But, but that's how you've got to think. You've got to think of, where am I 35, am I 45, am I 55? You know, is this one race in my career that important that I have to push through an injury or I've been sick and I, and I won't perform at my best. So should I push through just because I've entered the event and I've got accommodation and travel costs in it? No, you shouldn't, you should, you should look after yourself. Your health is more important and you will be disappointed with the outcome anyway when you're not going into a race fully prepared. And to think that any other outcome will happen is almost naive. And I think that's a tough decision. It's hard because you just want to be, you want to be in the event and all the indicators, even the best advice you're getting is, well, you know, how well are you going to compete? What are the, what are the consequences of competing injured or competing sick? You could actually get more injured, like the example you gave with Lucy. And there's been so many examples of that. People pushing through and ended up being worse off and they didn't enjoy the event and they didn't perform the way they wanted. And in hindsight it's easy to go, why did I enter that? But at the time it's really hard to make that decision that you've got to think big picture a lot of the time and not, not be narrow minded in your thought process. Because your longevity as an athlete is way more important than the here and now. The here and now we want to, we want to do well in, there's no doubt about it, we're preparing for that all the time, the here and now. But if you want to be in the sport for a long time and you've got these things happening, you want to make sure that you're, you're trying to get through your career as with missing as little as possible and, and if you keep stressing your body in ways that are not allowing you to recover properly, you will Miss more than you compete in. And that's the sign of a good managed athlete is the one who's hardly ever injured. And you know, if we took Jakob Ingeritson, you know, he was injured pretty much for the first half of the season last year, but he still had a remarkable finish to his year. You know, he broke the world 2k record. You know, he, he won pretty much everything except the Olympics. So anyone. The 5k in the Olympics. So, you know, that's someone who's got over an injury and still had. Had a good result because he looked after himself and didn't, didn't push through. And you know, there's many examples you can see of people doing it the right way, missing out on events that are important to them, but living to fight another day. And I think that's a great lesson.

That's a really great take in the world champs of cycling. We had the individual time trials and the world champs road races last week. And Grace Brown backed up her Olympic gold medal in the time trial and finished off an incredible season in her final season with a rainbow Jersey world champion in the itt. After coming so close a couple of times in both the Olympics and world Champs, to get this win was phenomenal. And the fact that we got to interview her just a few weeks ago before the world champs and her, give us all her insights into her training and racing, to see her put that all together again and get the win, it's just phenomenal. And great work from.

Wasn't it great too that she actually backed it up in the mixed teams time trial. So she ended up with two rainbow jerseys, two world championship gold medals with the Australian time trial team, which was a fantastic race. They won by less than a second over, which is pretty phenomenal when you've got some of the best time trialers in the world. And it was the women's went second and the men went first and Grace, you know, basically drove it to the finish and won by less than a second, which was, you know, just testament to what a career she's had and what a fantastic way to finish. And I'm sure she got a couple more races before the end of the year, but. But yeah, it was, it was really outstanding performance to see, to see that happen and, and also to see Remco do the same, I suppose, back up from the Olympics, you know. Olympics, then world champion. That's pretty spectacular, I think. And it shows. Those two are the best male and female time trialers at the moment going around.

Yeah, absolutely. And we do want to touch on the World Champs road race? Both, both races, women's and men's, because we just saw some things that is some good coaching tips that, that we thought really do apply to everyone. And one, I love that you said you're glad that Pogachar won because he's, he's no doubt the best rider in the world, but we know in cycling the best rider in the world doesn't always win. And as good as he is, as phenomenal performance was, he, he almost didn't have it. He was, he was for the first time really looking behind himself and, and starting to think that he didn't measure his effort. So we'll touch on him in a sec because it does lead into the RPE conversation. But on the women's side, lol. Kapeki goes back to back, which again, an incredible effort in the World Champs. I know when, when Sagan went back to, back to back three times in a row, you just think how hard it is for a cyclist to win a road race, you know, and, and all these top men and women, they just, they, they are so good. Yet for them to put it all together and win a Paris Roubaix or win a Tour of Flanders or win a Liaison Liege or stage win is so difficult. Everything has to go right on the day. So for it to go right on the day of the World Champs, a one off event for the year is spectacular. And for it to go right, right two years in a row or three years in a row is incredible. So unreal by Kopecki, but yeah, some, some poor tactics on Demi Vollering's front and she's had a hard, hard luck this year after such a good year last year losing the Tour de France and then really being absolutely one of the strongest riders on the day. Some poor tactics really cost her.

There's a lot to unpack in that. And look when you, I love it when you talked about Sagan. And, and look, don't forget the World Champs is no race radio. So you can't get a message across to your teammates about what's happening up the road, what's happening behind. So that's a whole new scenario situation that these professionals find themselves in because so much of the time they're being informed by their director of sport from their, from their team about what's happening around them and what's what they should technically do next. And so they have to make decisions on the run now and, and a lot of the time they don't know for Example, the Dutch women's tactics looked on paper to be really poor because they didn't get the outcome, but it could have gone the other way. So, but had they had the director sportive in their, in their ear saying that, you know, because they had a Dutch rider up the road in the break and it happened to be Voss, who's, you know, multiple world champion road race. And so you would, you know, normally, if Voss was not feeling so good, she could message on the radio saying, you know, chase me down because I'm not feeling it today. And that would be that. Then we would understand what's going on. But, but when there's no communication for the Dutch women to be on the front chasing the breakaway, I found that a little bit. I was questioning that, whether that. And look, a lot of the stuff we're talking about here is team tactics. And, you know, I look at the world champs as almost like you're writing representing your country. And some riders embrace that. They love that fact. They're proud, and I think all the writers are. But there are other riders who are racing for their country and they're proud of that. But, but they are going to race as an individual. It's the first time they're not really surrounded by their normal team. They're surrounded by country, country women and men from, from different teams. So, so they ain't quite on the same page with tactics. And, and when you've got, you know, the Dutch team have got potentially three winners. And so who decides? Just like Pog and Roglic come from the same team, you know, who's going to decide, as an ego thing, who's. Who's the best, who should we be supporting here? And, you know, this is probably a little bit more obvious there, but when you've got Voss and Vollering and, you know, four or five other Dutch riders who on their day could win. So I really think we can't be too critical because the race radio prevents them from being fully informed. And so there, you know, and so that allows for the, for the individual to do more individual type of riding. And that would be what a club racer or, or a, a, a weekend warrior kind of thing tactically would be doing, because very few, you know, local club races have team tactics that much. So, so the, you know, what are we learning here? Well, we're just learning about team tactics, you know, in the pro pro tour that there's, there's some things you shouldn't be doing. One is you shouldn't really chase your majors up in the break, unless you know that that person is incapable of winning the event, that would be the only time you would do that. Or in the case of the males race, where one of the Slovenian riders was sent up the road and he actually dropped back and, and allowed P to catch him and they rode across to the winning break. So they're tactics that you would use to have your rider up the road, but to have someone like Voss up the road and then get chased down, I'm not sure that was a good tactic.

Yeah, I was, I was surprised by the accuracy of the Slovenian in the men's side that their tactics, because that was clearly preempted and pre planned to have him up there because without radio, he still dropped back and, and, and saw Pog and helped drag him across. And also Roglich, his clear role was a domestic for Pog and he, he really drove it on the, on the climb that POG attacked. So for POG to launch his attack. So that was pretty interesting to me. I didn't think Rockwich was going to be a pure domestic in that regard, but it seemed like it. But yeah, I guess you finished off with the point there that the unwritten rule is that you don't chase a teammate up the road. And once, once she did catch them following she. There was a lot of attacks going on, but there was one real hard launch that she did. Dropped everyone in the breakaway. Sorry, dropped no one in the breakaway except her two teammates with, with 5K to go or something like that. So, um, look, you said that was the unwritten rule. I just want to mention our other unwritten rule on the podcast. We haven't said this in a while, but we do have an unwritten rule here that if you like the podcast, if you get some value out of it, we would love it if you shared it to someone. Who else you think would find valuable? Whether it's a, a triathlon friend or a cycling friend or a running friend, it's the best way you can help support the podcast. If you find yourself, you get a lot of value out of it. And that's our unwritten rule. But yeah, I mean, with 5K to go going towards the finish, you know, they could be in such a strong position with three teammates there. They've got a whole, a whole deck of cards to play. But she dropped them both and didn't get away from anyone else and, and that could have cost her or one of them a world champs win.

Yeah. And you know, you've just eliminated your strength in Numbers. And no matter how, how tired the other two Dutch riders were, if, if, if you'd already, I mean, I understand what she was trying to do. She was trying to break the whole group, that all she did was succeed in breaking her two teammates. So once that happened, she should have turned around and had a look at what, what damage she'd done. And then she would have realized, oh, crap, I've just, I've just got rid of no one except for my two teammates. So she should have then slowed up and waited for them. And so why would she should she do that? Well, because then they can throw as many attacks from, you know, the other team riders representing the other country would have to follow every Dutch attack. So they have, they just throw in all these attacks. Some might stick, some might not, it doesn't matter. But the other teams have to continue to, to chase them down. Whereas Vollering, by herself, she's not the best sprinter there, so she has to attack the bunch continually. But it's easy for them to just to follow her. And she's only got a couple of attacks left. When you're in a world championship race, it's as hard as that course was. So it was counterproductive to her end result. And it could have worked because if she had dropped everybody then everybody would have been saying what a great move. But it didn't. And then she should have rethought her next 5K and she had, she had the opportunity to get them back so that they could actually, you know, Vos could, you know, could go for the sprint if it looked like Vollering wasn't going to do it, because all she did was basically try to make the race as hard as possible. And Lottie Kopecki, it was like having a domestique in front of her. You know, she just had to follow the wheel and then out sprinter and, and, you know, great tactics for, for Lottie Kopecki to, to just, you know, follow the wheel all day and, and I felt sorry for Vollering, but then I think, you know, had she raced a little bit differently, it would have, could have possibly. She, I think clearly she is the better rider, but that's not what happens in bike racing a lot of the time. The better rider doesn't necessarily win. You have to be super strong, but you have to be very cluey about what's happening around you.

It was brutal conditions. I mean, Voss's interview after one, she didn't blame Vollering whatsoever. And at the end of the day, it is not A team's race, it's an individual race. You try to become individual world champions. So, you know, if they're helping each other, the Dutch girls don't get any credit for it. They don't get the jersey either. So there's that element. But far out, watching Boss's interview afterwards, she, she could barely talk. She was shivering so much that it was that cold and wet all day. It was an absolutely brutal race. And on the men's side, you know, look, you've probably seen the news all around. Pog does this insane 100k attack to catch up to the breakaway. And then he breaks away from the breakaway at 50k to go and then holds off. You know, van der Poel, van Remco, all the best riders in the world riding bloody hard to not let him win. And the Tour de France, I was surprised that in, in the Grand Tour stages, Porsche was going up the road and then on the mountains kind of blowing. Once the gap was out to 30 seconds, he was blowing them out by minute, minute and a half, two minutes. You, he was just demolishing them. But the gap just would not go over, you know, a minute, a minute 10. They just, they were riding really well to try and bring him back and working semi cohesively, but they kind of made a couple of mistakes and it was on the, they would make time because POG couldn't compete with them all rolling together. I was asking that question. I was going, how is he staying a minute away from these guys? Rolling as hard as I can. How's one guy beating them? He can't be that good. But they were so jointed in their work for majority of the laps. But then they'd get so disjointed, POG would just be able to maintain that gap again on the climbs. And that was a big mistake from, from the men's pack.

Yeah. And we know that in history that when a guy breaks away from a, a pack of. When we're talking the pro peloton here, when, when one pro breaks away from a pack of pros, it shouldn't, he shouldn't be able to stay away or she shouldn't be able to stay away. That's just illogical. Six or five or three riders against one that they should not succeed. They should succeed once out of 100, but it's the other way around. They succeed majority of the time. And the reason is because the group chasing doesn't have any domestics and it's just the best riders left. And so none of them Want to risk putting burning a match to help the others get to the result. And that's what the breakaway is relying on, relying on them hesitating. And as you know, if you ride hard and slow, hard and slow and in time trial, and we know that this is a slower way than riding consistently and you know, as a time trial of a triathlon, this is a great example of someone riding pressure on the pedals consistently, riding hard the whole way. Whereas the other guys in the chase group, they're riding flat out at some sections, burning massive matches, riding 6, 700 watts up efforts and then, then riding 30 watts while they're all slowing down, looking at each other. So they're doing this slow start, fast start, slow start stuff, whereas the guy up the road is riding consistently. And that's the reason why people can actually add time to a chasing group. But in a world championship, I feel this was slightly different than a tour where, you know, you've always got tomorrow as the next race, or it's more like a one day stage, a one day race where, you know, it's all or nothing today. And sometimes guys go, oh, well, it's not my day today, I'll live to fight another day. But this is the world championships and there was about five guys in there, you know, who are really potentially could, could win it. You know, Hershey, o', Connor, Vanderpoel, Van Aert, I'm sorry, Van Art, I love saying that name, but he wasn't in it. But Remco, Evan, Pole Healey, you know, there were, you know, seven or eight guys there who, who I've missed a couple, but they could have potentially on the day taken that victory and they all wanted it. So they all were working together a lot of the time and they got to within 32 seconds and that's when we saw Pog turn around a couple of times because I think he was getting messages on the side of the road that they were catching him. So I think he was starting to get a bit worried. But the good thing that he does is he, he, he rides the hill really hard because there was still a few more hills to go. And then he kept the pressure on over the hill and then he kept the pressure on the flat and whereas I saw Van der Poel attack the bunch with this massive jump and, and he got to the top of the hill, turned around and there were still guys on his wheel. So he sits up, you know, which is, he's not going to keep dragging people around. That's what he should do, but that slows the whole group down. You know, you lose that 10 seconds there. Then on the descent, they take a while to get their momentum back again. They've lost another 10 seconds. And then they get on the flat, no one wants to. To roll, turn, so there's another 10 seconds. All of a sudden, 30 seconds becomes 48, 55. And you know, that's demoralizing for the group because they've just all the things that they've caught up, the time they've just lost again. So that's the beauty of being what POG is, that guy who loves to take a risk. And for those age groupers who are cyclists, you know, that's what you should be thinking about. You know, you will have that, that opportunity. Don't feel like you can't do it by yourself, because the minute people hesitate, then you've got the chance to add 10 more seconds and. And on a course like that where you can get out of sight, then as soon as people can see you, it's so much easier to start chasing down. You know, you're like the carrot, but when you're out of sight, it's so much easier just to concentrate on your form, your threshold and staying pressure on the pedals. And I think there's so many other things that happen where there was. Once they realized they weren't going to catch him, which is about 5k to go, they all started attacking each other and they probably had five or six goes and everybody had to go. Hershey had to go, Healy had to go, Vanderpoel had a go and. And then the last Remco had a go go as well. And then the last person to have a go was the good old Aussie Ben o', Connor, who was almost the last person to attack, and no one chased him. I don't know whether they were exhausted from all the attacks or whether they didn't write him and. And they thought they could catch him. And he stayed away and got a silver medal at the world titles. He was probably the seventh best rider at the. In the finish of that group, yet he got second. And that's an example of where we talked about following, being the best rider and not getting anything. Ben o', Connor, and he's done it a few times now. His tactics are really pretty insane. I think he's very underrated. And he did the same thing at the GIR. At the welterweight. One stage race, he got five or six minutes and he stayed in the red jersey for 19 days because of that one magnificent tactical day where he caught them all napping. And that's an example of using your smarts. And sure, he's a great rider. There's no doubt about that. But here he's got second in the world, he's got fourth in the Giro, and now he's got second in the world title, and he's won a lot of races along the way. So you know what a super year Ben oconnors had, and I congratulate him.

Yeah, it's. It was just one of those great mixing pots of. Of things to happen where everyone had just attacked. He has the guts to attack. When everyone's right on their limit, he goes. Because it's not Vanderpoel or Remco or someone. Everyone hesitates for that second where he gets a huge gap pretty quickly, and then someone has to sacrifice themselves to be the first one to chase, and none of them wanted to do it. And. And he gets away. And I couldn't believe the gap. He did that with 1.4k to go, and then he beat them by hundreds of meters. So it was just once. That elastic band snapped, and they were definitely sprinting third. So, look, moving on to the topic of talking about rpe, and if you listen to the podcast a lot, you know that we love being data driven, and to rely on RPE and no data is an absolute disaster. But it's. Again, we spoke about this power a few weeks ago. It can go too far the other way too easily. And we have definitely realized that too many athletes aren't using enough RPE in conjunction with the data. And Poga Charge is such a great example of this, where he constantly goes and takes risks with massive moves. And he said afterwards that he actually wasn't sure in that last period if it was going to pay off. He was really fading. You could see it. He was turning around. And had he gone just off the data, it looked like it was way too stupid because of the distance and how hard he would have to ride to hold off, you know, the rest of the world. But this is a great example of him trusting his rpe, trusting his gut on how he's feeling and making moves based on that, as well as using data. He uses all his data in training, but it's not just power and data and speed, and it's not just rpe. It's both.

Yeah. And I think. I think we do this without realizing it, and we all like to label things, and I think that's kind of what I'm. I'm really going to push here? Yes, we push power. It's really important to train to power and know where your numbers are and get that feedback and, and, and follow that really intently and know what your heart rate's doing, understand what cadence you're riding at, you know, know what power equals the average speed. As a, a triathlete or a time trial cycling time trialist, you need to know all about your own current data form. But at the same time, we don't talk about rpe because in my, when I look at my, my own career, I have used RPE from day one. And you know, from day one we didn't have any data. We just had basically a little ridiculous computer that told us the time of the day. And I think how far we'd ridden, I think it might have had distance on it. And you know, then all of a sudden heart rate straps came in and next thing you know, we could measure our cadence and heart rate and then a long time down the road we could measure average speed and then we could measure power. But all the time we've been unconsciously using RPE and we don't want to have to say, well, we just use rpe and that's all. That's still not what we're promoting. We're promoting that you need to use everything that's available to you. And if I look back at any of the events that I've done over the 40 years, most of the time I'm getting the data from whatever era I was racing in, whether it's the 1980s, 90s or 2000, because everything changed along those periods. I was always using, how am I feeling? That's rpe. That's, that's what you're asking yourself all the time. In any event, in any training session, when you're resting, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about going for a training session. I'm asking myself, how do I feel today about my training session? That's using your perceived understanding of what your current situation is, your current feelings of health, of, of tiredness, of fatigue, and you're making decisions based on your rpe. And then once you start writing, you think today is a hard ride. In my training session, that's what's meant to happen. I'm meant to have a hard ride. Here's my efforts, here's my numbers, and it's in the warmup. You feel like you're not really going to be able to do that. You're making a decision based on your perceived value of what you're you're feeling and, and then when you start writing in the efforts and you think, oh no, I can do this session, I'll do the five minute effort at the bottom of the zone and that's you looking at the power and then you're saying I'm going to use my RPE because I don't feel so good. I'm going to ride lower than I would normally be able to. So all the time. And then I put that into a race. Okay, I'm in a triathlon or an individual time trial or a marathon or a Half Marathon or 10K. I've got this plan around what my running pace should be or what my power should be on the bike as a time trialist. And then I immediately keep asking myself all the way through, I'd say just for example, let's pick a 10k run. I want to run 4 minute k pace. That's what I capable of doing. That's what my coaches told me. But you know, in the warmup I'm not feeling so good. And then I start the first one K and four zero five four ten feels really hard. And so I know what the data is. 405, 410. And I'm asking myself how do I feel? And I'm already answering it, it felt really hard. So I have to, I have to do this event based on data and rpe and we're already unconsciously doing this. And if you're not asking yourself that, that question, that's the tip that we're trying to get across. Don't blindly say this is plan, this is what my coach has told me, this is what I think I can do and I'm just going to disregard how I feel. At any point during the event you should be thinking completely the opposite way. You should be absolutely asking, well what, what am I doing in terms of the numbers? And then how do I feel about the rest of the journey? Whether it's a 10 minute effort or a 2 hour or a 50 minute or a 30 minute, it doesn't matter. The distance, the time. That's how we're going to measure our, our. Can I sustain this for, oh, I only have to go for another two minutes. Well, you know, you can actually push yourself more than you think. And that's another point we want to bring up later. Your perceived exertion in your brain about what you can and can't do. But for this example, we want to make sure that at all times you are, and I say this to all of our Athletes, when they're preparing for their events, I want you to always think, what's my cadence? What's my heart rate? What's my power? What's my speed? How do I feel? Asking yourself those five things every two or three minutes whilst you're in that event and you'll be amazed how quick the race goes when you're concentrating on those things. Even how's my breathing? How's my form? Am I tense on my body? There are things that you would add to yourself, have I had nutrition? So there could be up to eight or nine things that you should be asking yourself regularly that should roll on the whole time. And if you don't ask yourself how you're feeling and can I maintain this? You're making a huge mistake. And that's not just for professionals. That's for, that's for everybody and especially beginners. You know, you may be able to do the numbers, but as a beginner you may not have that endurance over two or three or four years where you can, you know, endure yourself to the finish line. If you're new to this, you really need to be listening to how you're feeling. And if, if you're starting to feel average really early, you need to pull it all back and you need to let the plan go a little bit and replan the next tactic. So you can't go in with just plan A. You have to have all these other options available to you so that you can actually fall back on. You know, these are my numbers. They feel really incapable of doing that today. So you need to change straight away if you don't. The longer you wait, the worse the outcome's going to be. And I think that the rpe, the perceived exertion, the recommended perceived exertion, it's just your, it should be yours, it should be YPE or M my rpe, my recommended perceived exertion today. And that's. And if you don't listen to that, the consequences can be horrible.

Yeah, definitely. And I think it's recommended or rate of perceived exertion. So it's your own rating or people actually prescribe the RPA that they want you to go to. But in that example you're talking about with, you know, starting and then, and then pulling back. If you didn't have a accurate plan, if you didn't have data of a plan that's dictating your. Okay, in the example of 4 minute k pace, you would, you would go off previous data that you should be able to run between you know, 4 and 4, 10, for example. And so if you start at 4 and you start going, okay, this is not sustainable. I need to pull back. You probably haven't ruined your race because we know that, fitness wise, you're capable of 4 to 4, 10 on any given day, but today is just not that day. But if you don't have that data and you're just starting out and going forward and seeing what you can hold, you can quickly ruin your race by going out. In this person's example, if they just didn't have a plan and they went, oh, just see how I feel, and they run the first part in 345 or 350, they will actually barely finish the race because they've just overdone it completely and they don't have anything to fall back on. So that's a really important point of what you're talking about, is why you can't just rely on rpe, because if you overdo it at the start, you can very, very easily just wrap the entire back half the race, and you just won't even be able to function.

So we don't want to go the complete extreme. You know, we're talking about RPE now, which is something that, you know, not a lot of the time we've spent on this in our podcast over the last four or five years. And, and so when people hear us talk about that, we don't want them to go, okay, let's forget about all the stuff you, you know about heart rate, cadence, power, speed, et cetera. No, that's still absolutely important, but now we want to add that and consciously add that. Ask the question. So you got to ask the right question all the time. And if you're not asking that question, that's what we're talking about. That has to be included in all the things, with all the tips we're giving. For you to compete as an endurance athlete, you have to have that RPE in, in your language. And, and you have to be able to answer it. And if you're, if you're, you know, so far gone from fatigue that you actually can't answer that question, then you need to actually slow down whether you're riding, running, or swimming.

Yeah, absolutely spot on. And the reason this conversation came up was I just did an FTP test and you were asking me what, what did you aim to start at? And I said, oh, the goal. I thought I would start at 320. I thought that was achievable. And just see, see how much I could hold It I anticipated I could probably go higher, but I thought that was a, a good enough start and not too conservative either. And I very quickly, I said to you, I found that after two or three minutes I went, oh, this is actually a lot tougher than I anticipated. And my challenge now is to hold this. I don't think I need to drop back, but I think this is what I need to hold based on how I'm feeling after the first few minutes. And then we start talking about this whole RPE thing and how it's a very natural thing that we both do is, is we're constantly asking that question, how does this feel that really dictates our choices? And what I was going to say before is that you always mentioned the fact that in racing it's just made up of a whole bunch of choices on the fly and you need to be using the most accurate information possible to make make a choice about what to do. And so often the effort is actually one of the most important things you need to be using to, to decide on those changes and that, and that'll dictate the result of your race.

A good example is in a, in a bike race, whereas, which is quite different to steady state racing. Steady state would be a marathon or a triathlon or endurance triathlon where you're trying to stay in zones. Whereas in a road race on a bike or a criterium, you know, if you don't, if you don't make the effort, matching the people around you, you and you want to ride steady state, well, that's going to be a poor outcome, you're going to get left behind. So you have to actually almost ignore the data. And, and I've said to people, don't look at the power number if the race is going up the road on this hill, you need to be in the race. If that's what your goal is to be with the front group, don't look at the data. And we had the example of the World Championship Gran Fondo here at down at Lawn. And next year in 2025, the World Gran Fondo is at Lawn. So, so that's the, that's the course they're using. So for those in Australia, that was a great opportunity to race on the, on the world title course. And it starts with a 20 to 30 minute climb in the first kilometer. And so obviously you've got a decision to make. Do you want to stay with the front pack? But you're going to have to ride way above your level to stay with that group. And can you sustain it for the Next? Because that's 2K at the start out of 120K. So you've got another, you know, another, basically another 115K to go. But a lot of things that you know, you've got to think about is, you know, do I look at my numbers and will I blow up and does it matter if I, if I stay with my numbers? But the race goes up the road. It depends on what your goals are for the event, depends on what your decision should be. But my advice to the people who want to be in the front group is don't even look at your numbers. Ride with the group that you think is going to be the leaders at the end. And if you don't stay with that group, you're going to have to start with another whole plan of what you're going to do now with the second group, et cetera. So they're good examples of you shouldn't really be taking much notice of the data. And it's great to have the data at the end of the race to look back on and, and see why you are struggling, why you're lackading so much. And the pro.

Yeah, go on. Now. The pros, the pros do do this all the time. Exactly what you're talking about. It's Harry Sweeney put out a great video a few years ago at the Criterium Dufin Day where his job was to help his teammate, you know, be really strong at the first climb and he had to lead the peloton. The first climb. And he said, the first climb of the day I did an all time 20 minute FTP power number. And he's, he's on the front of his face, he said I'm supposed, I'm still supposed to get over this hill descent and go to the next climb and, and do it again. And he said I wasn't looking at the power at the time because he's just riding, he's just racing. And that's what you have to do sometimes is you have to go above your numbers and do an auto. If you've ever done a 20 minute FTP test, you can't pedal afterwards. That's how hard you've got. It's a max test, you know, let alone in the middle of a race and you have to keep going. That's just phenomenal. And so that is racing and that's, that's using just race adrenaline and race environment to push and get some pbs. But some pros definitely do that in triathlon. And it's becoming more frequent in Ironman races where they want to stay in packs, and that's much more advantageous to potentially push themselves to stay with the pack and stay with that drafting. But in the triathlon racing, it's a lot more risky, and you wouldn't encourage it until Potentially the last few K or 5K of a half marathon or marathon.

Yeah, the age grouper, you know, it's more about your own individual performance. And I think, you know, we've been talking a lot about bike racing, which is completely different. Where it's okay to be. It's not okay, but you have to do that to be part of the race. Whereas. Whereas in an endurance Ironman or endurance marathon running race, it's not okay to do that over. Under stuff. And we had an example at the Sunny Coast 70.3, which is one of the races here in Australia. And one of our really good guys was an age grouper who was right at the front of the field. He ended up coming third overall in the age group, but he caught up to some of the pros. That's how good a bike rider he is. And. And the guy he caught up to was surging a lot. And. And instead of him just staying within his own numbers, he was trying to stay with that, to try and to. To get some advantage with having someone else, like a pace line, like the pros do. Whereas as an age group, he's normally riding by himself. This is the first time he's actually got a someone to ride with in a legal sense, you know, being the correct distance apart. But this guy was surging so much that it was actually making it worse for. For Rowan in hindsight, after. After actually looking at the data. And that really cost him for the rest of the race. And that's an example of going, you know, deciding, should I do this for the race or should I just stay in my own. Stay in my own zones? And, you know, the answer. Normally for an age group should no, you should just actually stay in your own numbers. And if there's someone who's riding similar to you and is not doing something that's over under, then, yeah, that's an opportunity to do that type of riding like the pros do. But the minute you have to change and go outside of your zones repeatedly, that's going to ruin your race. And that's where the perceived exertion. You should be thinking about that. Is this hurting me? And every time I do this effort, you know, am I burning too many matches? Even though the data is saying that I'm not riding that much different to the normal average power that I should be for the whole ride. But it's how you ride that power and that's where the perceived exertion is. No, this is hurting me too much. I need to stop doing this. I need to go back to riding the way I want to. And that's the difference between steady state racing, whether it's riding or swimming or running, and over under style racing like bike riding or road racing or criterion racing. They're quite two different things. And they still need perceived exertion. Though as a bike rider, when you're doing over under, how many more of these efforts have I got left in me? You know, taking the world titles, you know, if there's five attacks going up the road, you know, you're thinking, well, should I do another attack? Or if I do, could I blow myself up? So, so you gotta decide, well, now I'm gonna be a follower and whatever happens from now to the end of the race, I'm just gonna follow. Whereas if you're feeling really good again, we're asking yourself how you're feeling. I'm feeling really good. You should be thrown in attacks where the course is most hardest. And that's how you use RPE properly. And as a time trialist or a marathon runner or a triathlete, you should be trying to stay in your zone and asking yourself the RPE question about is this sustainable for the long journey, the long haul of this event. And so we're trying to give you advice in different sports where you use rpe, the same thought process, but you're just asking yourself slightly different questions.

So one thing, one way I love that you put it was that we are so power driven. We spoke about this in the power episode kind of a month ago where we're so power driven, but we, we don't want people to get so robotic on it and relying on it. And basically power is there to stop you riding too hard early or riding too hard in the first half and controlling that first half of your back leg because that makes or breaks the rest of your race. That makes or break the second half of the bike leg, which we just see majority of people ride far too hard and completely slow down the back half and also their legs are ruined and so that really ruins their run. So power range, the power data is there to stop you doing that. But it's really a case of, and we've spoken about this, you don't know what the you don't really know what the day is going to be like until you're out there. And depending on the course, depending on the conditions, depending on how many people in the race, depending how many turns there are, depending on the wind, temperature, rain, sun, heat, etc. Kind of once you get out there, you kind of try trying to very quickly figure out, okay, what are the conditions of the day, what's happening today? Because the power range is there to stop you overdoing it. Got that limit there going. Just no matter what the conditions are, you shouldn't be going over this. That's going to ruin your race. But once, once you get out there. We speak about this a lot. Very often the power output you're doing is so much lower than what you train to, but your speed is high. This is just a common thing we see in racing and that is due to the nature of more legal drafting available, due to the nature of more people being around you due to a faster race setup. You know, you're in full race conditions due to the nature that you tapered and so it's a lot easier to. The perceived effort feels easier for the same power and also the nature of the course. I think people still underestimate that when you're doing training efforts, a lot of the time, if you're training properly, you're doing, you know, really out and back efforts or controlled efforts on the trainer where there's none of these factors are inputting the power output. You're just putting your best output output and your best numbers in training. But very rarely do we see people do that in the actual race. And anytime you go around a corner, your, your average power drops. Anytime there's someone around you that you have to kind of slow down for a pack or kind of go a different direction, your power drops. Any u turn, your power drops. And so all these things combined in a race end up equating to a lower average overall average power, even if you are riding quicker. So my point here is that, and I love the way you put this, it's like, yeah, the data is there to stop you overdoing it. Once you're out there, you quickly gotta be asking those five key questions you mentioned earlier, going, okay, so what's my power doing? What's my speed doing, what's my heart rate doing? And how does this all feel? What are the conditions? What am I actually riding against right now? Is it headwind, tailwind, uphill, downhill? And you're, you're forming a picture of what's actually happening. And so often in a race, I'll go, okay, my heart rate's super high, but I've just had a big caffeine gel, so I'm just going to, you know, eliminate that right now. I'm quite stressed right now, so I just need to relax. My power's quite low, but I'm riding really quick, so I'm really happy with that. But in the in between sections, my power is actually quite good. I'm pressing lap and my power is quite good. So I'm just forming this overall picture of, of the conditions of the day and then making decisions based on that. But if you just went in with a, here's my plan, I'm sticking to it no matter what. You're not using the data well and you're setting yourself up for failure.

Yep, that's a great summary. I just think the perceived exertion factor is the one that we really haven't pushed enough. And I, and I want, I want the listener out there to now factor that into all, all the details that we've given you over the, over. The journey of this podcast has been really to set you up with understanding how to race evenly as a triathlete and, and unevenly as a cyclist, where you have to ride with, with the, with the race. But, but if you're not asking yourself questions about how you're feeling, that's what our version of RPE is, is. You know, we just don't train to RPE on its own. That's the thing I want to get across. We use it as part of our kit bag. Our kit bag, when we open it is full of goodies. It's, it's great. It's got everything that we need. We open a kit bag, it's just got RPE in it. We're really going to struggle a bit if we open a kit bag and it's just got power. That's not that helpful either. It is helpful. RPE is helpful, Power is helpful. But you put them all together in that bag and you've got a really good tool bag that's going to be able to do any job that you want. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to gather around us all the information so that we can make better decisions. And the decision making comes really at the final. When you answer that question, here's all the information I've got. How do I feel about that and what decision do I make for the rest of the event and the consequences of those decisions you keep making. They should be. You can change your mind after 15 minutes or 20 minutes or an hour, but you have to keep on top of that. And if you don't, if you just drift off for an hour without asking yourself that question, then it's too late to adjust it. You've actually done the damage. And that's why you should be so mentally fatigued from asking yourself all these questions the whole way through. And don't forget how, how strong your mind is about what you tell yourself you feel and what is actually happening in your body. Physiologically, you might be on your limit, but you know in your own mind because the data is telling you this is the highest power. This is a pb. That example you get of Harry Sweeney, that's a classic example. I've got a role to do. I think I'm riding, you know, within myself. But when you look back on the data, it was way above anything he's ever done before. But his mindset was, my job is to ride on the front here and push the pace. And all of a sudden your mind is, is making your perceived effort so much easier because you're thinking about things that are contributing to you being a good rider rather than, oh, God, I'm looking at my data and it says, I'm way over my limit. Your brain will say, well, I can't survive that for another five, five or six minutes. So I, I need to change my plan straight away. But what you should be asking yourself is, yeah, sure, these are the highest heart rates and highest power numbers I've ever had, but am I coping and can I continue? And if the answer is yes, that's what we want. We want you to be a better version than you were last time. We don't want to match what you were doing before. We want to be an improved athlete. And so don't be afraid of what you see that's there to guide you. But if you, if at the end of the day you feel okay, but you get that wrong and the consequences are bad, but if you feel okay and you get it right, the consequences are glorious.

It's a bit of a Pandora's box and we do want to touch on it to finish off, but we won't go. We might even do a full episode on it in terms of, terms of the mindset around RPE and, and, and getting over that. And I mean, my example yesterday was just, just staring at a, at a power number for 20 minutes. An FTP test is the most painful way to do it. So yes, you're looking at it a lot and you're using that number to drive you in the test. But I think I went through minutes seven to 13 or so and I kind of just started not looking at the power as much because you, you kind of settled in, you've got your rhythm, you've got your, yep. Your pace. And then it just starts to become painful to just stare at that number and focus on that because all it's doing is reminding you of how hard it is. And you kind of have to use these mental tricks to, to get through and focus on some other things to, to, to make sure you stay on top of your mindset. And it's just so prevalent how much your thoughts affect your feelings and, and that perceived exertion and it's so cliche. But when you talk to yourself well and positively and just little things like, hey, you're still holding 320, you're doing well. Like this is great. As long as you just hold this, you don't have to put pressure on yourself. You don't have to be hitting 3:30 here. Just, just hold this to the end. Just two laps at a time, one lap at a time, one section at a time. That's better language than how much this is hurt. Wow, this is hurting a lot. I can't do this. I can't get to the end. Oh my gosh. There's still 13 minutes left. Just minor things, but you, your body will respond so differently depending on the thoughts you're telling yourself. So you have to be so aware of that. And I want to get your thoughts of that and then talk about kind of the perceived exertion of the warm up as well and that and the little tests we have of that each time.

Yeah. And you can go one step further. Jordan, I totally agree with what you're saying. You know, the way of thinking about the event, whether it's a 20 minute FTP or a 60 minute or a, or a 10k run, you want to absolutely think, absolutely think about the things that are going to contribute to you performing better. Not about the things that concentrating on the wrong things like how much time's left. That's important to know because you're measuring your effort, but you use it in the mindset of oh my God, how much time's left. That's all I'm worried about, how much time's left. Whereas if you can look at that another way, I've only got six minutes left to hold this power. I can do this. Or maybe I can actually pedal a little bit harder to get another what or two here? Because I've only got six minutes left. That's one example. But the other example is if, if you're, if you're thinking about what things can I do to help project me around you, you're on a velodrome. Things like in the headwind, okay, Be more aero. That's something that can contribute to a better performance. Okay. Changing gears before you get to the headwind so that you're not grinding in the tailwind. Making sure the pressure on the pedals. When your bike starts to go faster, you don't spin into 105 RPM instead of 90. So you're changing gears for the tailwind and you're making sure you're getting the pressure on the pedals. And now I'm going to start thinking about my pedal pedaling action. Pulling up and pushing down, Aero position, breathing, relaxing. Did I need a drink? These are all things that are positive that are going to contribute to a better outcome rather than what you said. And that's a great example of all the negative things. Boy, this hurts. I've got another 40 minutes to go. You know, I hate this. I hate riding my bike. You know, that, that, that mindset is not helpful to the, the outcome. And then at the end of that 20 minutes, you disappointed in yourself. You're also disappointed in your result. You're disappointed in your negativity. Whereas if you've actually hung in there, you get this great feedback of, boy, that was pretty tough. But I'm really proud of myself for actually hanging in there and, and getting a great result. Even though I was being tested amazingly by my brain because my brain wanted to opt out. And, you know, how much control have you got over it? And that's, that's one of the things that's, we know that's very untapped and, and you can go away a lot, a lot longer in your mind than you've ever physiology is probably capable of doing. And we've got hundreds of examples around the world of amazing feats that people have done. I think we talked about this a long, long time ago when someone was stuck under a car, you know, that the car ran over their leg and they were still stuck. And two people came up and lifted the car up. You know, the adrenaline from that, the power of positive thinking, just, you had to get the car up to get this person out of their pain. And then, you know, try those people to do that later on. They could not get the car to move, you know, this is an example of extraordinary efforts by people when their mind is taking over spot on.

And I, I laughed myself because this happens every time in a race or a hard effort or even sometimes in training sessions, but especially in a test like this where it happens at the same point every time. It's right at that back end of the third quarter of the effort. And for me it was kind of the 16, 17 minute mark when you've still got that, that three or four minutes left which just feels out of reach towards the end. And every time my brain will do this thing where it goes to, it just starts to remind me of all the hard things coming up. It starts going, this is so hard. Like just rest now. Like you're so tired. I start thinking of all the times that I've been tired in the past or tired in the future. It's a really weird pattern I've noticed where I think about harder races in the future or hard races in the past and how much it hurts and I have to snap it out really quickly because it just puts you in a bit of a spiral and go. I myself, the trick I use is to think about all the positive things once it's done. And because you always five minutes later, 15 minutes later, you forget the pain and you have this incredible post race or test high that always happens. I just have to mentally and, and consciously remind myself of that to snap out of it. Because otherwise if you just again, if you focus on that fatigue becomes overwhelming. Thinking that's such a weird thing that happens. I don't know if other people feel the same way. I just, that that's the thing that I go to. I think everyone goes to their own kind of things, that it's their brain trying to tell them to slow down. But it really has to be a conscious effort for myself to say no. What are you thinking about instead? Think about how it's going to feel in 10 minutes when you're fully recovered and it's all easy.

And that's another really good example that I can give to the listener is, you know, there's two ways of thinking about that 17 minute mark. There's two ways of thinking about that exactly what the example you gave all the negative things and the other way, which is very hard to get your brain to do this when you are under pressure. And that's the time when you want to, you want to be most proud of your thought processes because a, you've been here before, you've done this many times. Jordan and I'm using you as the example. You know, as a 9, 10, 11, 12 year old, when you've done track sessions, you know, you know that, you know in the fourth 400 meter, six by 400 in your fourth one, you're thinking, far out, there's still two to go. This is so hard. But when you're in that position, you know that you've done it before. And so that's a positive. I, I've, I've pushed myself here before and I can do it, I've done it before, there's no reason why I can't do it again. They're the thought processes. You should be grabbing past history to say, I've done this and that's what should happen in a race. Boy, this is getting tough now in the race. But hang on a minute. I've just spent eight months training for this race and I've put myself in these exact situations in my training sessions. And that's where you should be drawing on. You should be drawing on your past experience of being in a painful position and how proud you were that you went through it and you didn't bail out or, or take the soft option about slowing down. And the more times you do that, the more times you will step up every time, the more times you take the soft option, that will be your mindset as well. You will be one person who gets to it when it's too hard and, and you've got a history now of shutting down when it gets too hard and you don't want to be that. And you've got that choice. That's the choice you make. They're decisions you make. That's what RPE is. It's you making decisions and suffering the consequences. And so I think the feeling, the physical feeling is what you're reaching out for, which we've talked about, but now we're talking a little bit about your mental process because you know, physiologically you can, you can feel lactate, you can feel your breathing, you feel your legs are heavy, you can feel tired, fatigue. But you, you in your, your mental state can decide how to cope with that. And that's the thing we're talking about here in this second part of, of the rpe, which is, as you said, we can do a whole podcast on that thought processes which will change the way you actually race and train.

Yeah, I think it's worth finishing there. I think it's been a great discussion and I think the summary is what you said probably 10 minutes ago where you said we've got all this data, we've got all these things to inform us, and then the perceived effort and how we're feeling dictates the next decisions we make. And, and that's a really good summary, so I think we'll leave it there. Understanding the power of rpe, both in terms of your decision making, but in terms of getting the most out of yourself and overcoming mental barriers, I think that's a, that's a great way to finish. So, as always, thanks for listening to another episode and we'll see you on the next one. Sa.