We’re Done With Power Meters (Here’s Why)

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. In today's episode, we have an issue with power and power meters, and we're going to explain what it is and what our current issue is and what you need to be careful of. But before we do that, we've got all our normal segments coming up and there's so much to talk about this week with the Olympics coming up, the Tour de France, there is so much happening and we have a lot, lot to say. And if you're watching this on video, you'll notice that we are filming this from a very different location to normal. And so we're going to explain where we are and what we're doing. So, dad, welcome back to another episode. Let's go with our normal starting segment. What are you grateful for?

Thanks, Jord. Well, it's been just one of the most amazing couple of weeks, I reckon, for a long time, starting with, as we said on the last podcast, with mum's passing and getting through the funeral and all of that. That goes with that, which was a fantastic period, even though it was a sad occasion. And I think I got really sick and run down and happened to get Covid in the middle of that. Sometimes you get sick and run down because you're stressed for some reasons. So my gratitude is with every hard period that you go through, like where we are now, we've been planning on this trip to go to, to Italy to ride the Dolomites and the Italian Alps. And I've been looking forward to doing this for years. And we had planned this about six months ago with my nephew's wedding, your cousin getting married in Italy. And so that's. The gratitude is that. Yeah, grateful to have an opportunity to travel, even though there's a lot happening in our lives and some not so good, some fantastic. And the gratitude is that, you know, with everything that happens, you've just got to keep. Keep going continuously along that journey and look for the positives. And here we are, you know, feels surreal to be, you know, just burying your mum and then you're having a holiday. It doesn't sound right, but that's, that's actually what you should do, is move on and, and celebrated her life. And now we're enjoying a really fantastic period of WR with yourself and another really good friend, Tim. Jamieson who's been on the podcast, who's a exceptionally good rider. I must say, I'm getting towered up on every single climb that we go to. I'm getting a lesson on climbing and it's just great training, great to be at altitude. We're currently at 1400 meters in a little town just at the base of the Dolomites, which is just beautiful. And yeah, my gratitude is for these opportunities that come, to be able to grab them and enjoy yourself, it's an unreal experience. And really grateful.

Yeah, my gratitude is going to be the same thing. I'm so grateful to be here, but my story of getting here was just as tumultuous. And I'm even more grateful to be here because it looked like for a second I probably wasn't going to be able to come at all or ride. Actually, a week before coming was in a crash in a crit race. And just one of those, I'm going to say, unlucky incidents. Although I was a bit annoyed with some of the riders in the race, but that's a whole different story. But I crashed pretty bad. It was quite a quick race, this quick race around the corner, and I was really looking at some of the guys taking these corners and wasn't too stoked with their lines. And sure enough, half hour in two guys came down in front and then a bunch of us just came down behind. It was quite a hectic crash. And I luckily walked away with just some scratches and nothing broken. One guy broke his leg, which was hard to see, and my bike was wrecked. And I was overseas at this point already and I was meeting you in Italy. And that night I was in a lot of pain. Although nothing was broken and the bike was wrecked, I was sort of thinking, geez, I've just ruined the trip to Italy, don't have a bike, don't know if I'm gonna be able to ride. And I kind of had the night to have a moment, and then I woke up the next morning feeling very grateful that I was like, oh, actually, nothing's wrong. I've just got a bunch of scratches. I'll still be able to ride, but I still had no bike. And this is going to be a big shout out to our sponsors, Giant, who came in, swooped in and saved the day and immediately helped get me a replacement bike, helped make sure I got a bike in Italy. And I arrived here, got the brand new bike, and I'm able to ride this epic trip, which we've been looking forward to for so long. Really a bucket list item to ride these Alps on on this giant bike. So again, a very wild story to get here but by the time I got here I felt, felt okay and it was straight uphill. Yeah.

So I think it's a, a great story of how John have really looked after us over the years and we're so grateful for that. We were leaving that night and you only really told me that you crashed that morning. And for, for them to organize a bike knowing that it had to be done that day was exceptional circumstances because we were leaving that day and there was no other way of getting the bike to you because your mum and I were leaving and they were able to make that bike happen in one day. Get built and, and deliver it to our house and took it with us to the airport. Mum was now carrying a bike that supposedly she was riding. But yeah, what a great story of people who just go out of their way to make things happen when the circumstances seemed like you were going to be without a bike for literally the whole tour that we're, that we're away for.

Yeah, yeah, look. Huge shout out to Darren and Dave Ross from Giant. Yeah, like as always, whenever anyone kind of needs support, they're the first to put their hand up and help someone out in the Giant family. So that's why they're, they're huge sponsors of ours and why we love their support so much. Talking about unwritten rules and I kind of alluded to it in the, in the gratitude a little bit but one unwritten rule definitely in crit racing is you cannot undercut people around a corner. And this was quite a high speed race. We were averaging 50ks an hour, so a lot faster in the straights and then losing some speed in the corners. And there was a lot of undercutting going on and guys taking some, some decent risks. It was a really young race. It was, you know, all young guys. And I would like to say that I'm not afraid of taking risks in on the bike and maybe push a little bit too far sometimes. But I was looking at some of these, some of the decisions from athletes and going geez, that is risky and someone could crash. And sure enough, a crash happened. And I think this circuit is known for its crashes because they had an ambulance on each corner, which you don't see it at most crit races. But this is an unwritten, that is an unwritten rule to not undercut around corners.

It is, you've got, you know, it's a really cheap, cheap way to Gain some, some advantage up the, up the bunch. But it's the most dangerous way. If you've got your line and someone comes underneath you, it's really a really dangerous thing to do. And you need to be able to pass people where it's, it's straight line and undercutting in the corner. Yeah, it's not something. There's no rule that says you can't do it, but it's just the most dangerous thing you can possibly do for you and for the person that you're undercutting under. So, yeah, it's, you know, you need to actually man up and improve your position in the bunch, in the sections where it's least dangerous. And sometimes that's the hardest time. It's easy to duck in underneath people, but it just causes chaos.

Yeah, which it absolutely did. But that's not why we bring up the unwritten rule. The reason we bring it up is that we have our own unwritten rule on the podcast. And that's if you love the podcast and if you get some value out of it, the best you can do for us is share it to anyone in your network that might find it valuable or share it on your social network. So share it to your social media. And we appreciate anyone that tags us online and shares an episode. It really does help us and we see that and we thank you. So, yeah, look, I was very in all that, I was very grateful to walk away pretty spot free. Just took a bit of healing for a week. And again, just weird timing. It's lucky I crashed in that 24 hours because if it was 24 hours later, there was just no way of getting a bike to you to get to me. And I just wouldn't end without a bike. And you can always hire one over here. But it's really nice to have the giant sponsored bike, which is what we're used to riding.

Yeah, it is a great TCR to climb the hills in, especially when we've a couple of days we've been doing two and three thousand meters of climbing. And I must say it wasn't really a minor crash because your helmet was smashed in three different parts and you probably had concussion and you've got a couple of bikes have hit you in your leg, some other bikes have hit you in your leg, your back, your hip and your arm. So, you know, you've come out of it pretty lucky considering how bad it could have been. So, you know, crash is bad enough, but your face was pretty much you landed on your face. And don't want to downplay it, but it was a pretty, pretty major crash.

So, yeah, I'll rephrase. When I said it was, I was. Not much happened. I mean, my bike was smashed, my bike was completely written off. But the bike and the helmet took the brunt of everything and. And I ended up just. Personally, my body was okay, which is the lucky part. Yeah, the helmet was pretty messed up. But let's talk about this trip a little. We're in Italy, we've been here a week. We're having the absolute time of our lives riding these monstrous climbs. Switchbacks. Yeah. You've been enjoying it?

Yeah. And one of the worries, when you go to the Alps and when a lot of the climbing's above 2000 meters, and look in Australia, I think Mount Kosciuszko is 2,200 meters, I think 2100, something like that. But. So we've had several passes, as they call it, when you're climbing any of the major climbs. And we've been in. In the Alps for the first week and some magnificent climbing there. And most people who've been there know the areas that I'm talking about, the Garbia and the Stelvio, two of the most iconic climbs that I've always wanted to climb. And we, we decided that we would do the Stelvio, both sides, and that was one of the big epic days for both of us. And I don't think I've been so belittled in a long time. Coming up the 48 switchbacks. On the return leg home, I think I stopped seven times because I had full body cramp. I actually went into a pub and had had a Coke and. And whatever. They gave me sandwiches or something. I was pretty delirious, actually. It was quite a warm day and we had separated because you were doing a bigger loop. And there was no way I was going to do that seven days after Covid. So I decided to do the more.

Conservative loop, but quote unquote conservative, because.

At three and a half thousand meters of climbing and doing the Stelvio, both sides, I was pretty much on my knees and I didn't actually think I was able to get to the top because I was probably only a K or two away. And when I got to the top, I fell off my bike. And a couple of people around me saying in Italian, are you okay? And I said no. And I just reached in my pocket, handed my MasterCard and said, Coke. And the guy went and got me a Coke and I was lying on the ground. So that was my story. But then I recovered a bit and I could watch you coming up from the view where I was, and you were doing a similar thing to what I was doing, which was stopping on a few of the corners and having a rest. And it was hilarious. But at the same time, it was a journey that I'll never forget. It was one of the hardest things I've done in a long time. And we both commented, like, if you don't prepare properly and you hadn't done any endurance, and that's what you get when you're not prepared. And I probably was a bit sick still, to be doing a long ride like that. And that's what happens. You end up. You end up in a bad way and. And you actually can't do anything about it because you've got to get home. So somehow you've got to get up the top of that hill and going down, you know, felt like it took 10 minutes, took two hours to get up there, but. But it was a. Yeah, one of those great rides, perfect day, hundreds of riders on the course, and yeah, it's not one of my best rides, but it's one of my most favorite rides I've ever done. I will never forget the experience I had. And, yeah, very belittling and humbling.

I reckon humbling is the key word. It was. It was extremely humbling and, and almost defeating, but at the same time, it was. No matter how tough it was getting, I was still laughing at how good it was. And there was certainly some dark periods where the second time at the climb, because it's three and a half thousand meters of climbing, four and a half hours worth of climbing in terms of time, and not so much the time, but it's just the relentlessness of the steepness. It's. The back half of the Stelvio is minimum 7%. So there's just no relief. You know, that's. Normally on a climb, if it's 7 or 8%, it dips down to 4 or 5% every so often. But that back half is 8, 9, 10, 12%. And then the relief is 7%, you know, and it's just. You're absolutely crawling up. And I got half an hour into the climb, the second. The back way up, I don't know which is the front and back. But the second time, and. And I was, yeah, full leg cramp, same as you. I was just a bit behind and. And then I kept pushing through. And then the next 10 minutes, I'm going, no, I'm. I'm Fully cramping here, adductors and everything, which is just the most uncomfortable thing to cramp on on the bike. I. I pulled over and was holding onto the wall, trying to stretch. Cause I didn't want to unclip because I felt like once I unclipped up, that would have been game over. And I thought, there is. Seriously. I was doing the math. Seriously. 2 hours, 10 minutes left of climbing still. How am I going to get up? Like, it's not. I'm struggling to pedal 100 meters right now. How am I going to pedal for another two, two plus hours? Um, and it's not necessarily that the difficulty of it, it was the underpreparedness, definitely. And it's an extremely difficult climb for me. I've never been in a situation like that where I've. I've. I mean, I considered quitting, but I go. But there's no option because I can't go backwards because that's towards Switzerland. So the only way home is over the top of this. Over the top of this climb. So I thought stopping is not really an option. I didn't even think to stop into a restaurant. Maybe that would have helped for half hour or something. But. And then I. The first time I stopped and got off the bike and just said, I need to. I just need to sit for five minutes. And I've never done that on a climb. And that felt. It was. It's humbling because that felt like. Like a really going, oh, I'm not happy with myself here that I've actually stopped pedaling. But the further up, up the climb you got, you just saw everyone doing the same thing. You know, I barely saw anyone riding the whole thing. I'm just laughing, going, how the hell are the pros riding this at. At 5 watts per kilo @ the end of a race, at the end of the Giro d'. Italia.

And I love the fact that we sit there and watch it on telly and go, why is he letting them go?

Yeah. Why isn't he attack? Yeah.

Why can't he keep up?

Yeah.

Well, we could barely pedal up at 4Ks an hour. These guys are doing 25Ks an hour, 30 days an hour. And look, I know what you were going through because I was standing there watching you, and it was.

It.

I just experienced it. And you were doing the same thing. And I was watching. I was. I couldn't go down to help you because I wouldn't have got back up. I don't know what I was going to do to help you anyway, but it was, it was sort of funny. And I felt so bad because I was just watching you creeping because you can see the last ten turns.

Yeah, exactly.

And. And it was taking you forever to do that last K. Yeah, yeah. And anyway, when you got up the top, it was like. I did film it. It was.

It's a pretty hilarious clip crawling up. But I happened. I describe it as. I kept making concessions to myself. I kept saying, okay, the first time, it's okay to stop once. Okay. And then I said, all right, I'll stop again. I'll stop again with 8K to go, you know, and then I got to 8K. I went, okay, I'll stop again with 4K to go. And then I said, I'll stop with 2K to go. And I kept doubling the amount of stops I was letting myself have. And it was also I was figuring out my threshold for where the cramp was happening. And so at the start, I was pushing above 250 watts. And then this is a big lesson in being conservative. But then anytime I went over 250, I'd cramp. So I was sitting at 230 and then that threshold was getting lower and lower. And eventually by the end, if I went over 170, 180, I was cramping. And so I just had to pedal as carefully as possible and not push over 150, 160, 170 watts. Every time I did, the crap fringe would happen.

Well, I started riding like the old style riders. I pushed myself as far back on the seat as possible, so I was actually pushing that way because I was. If I went to the normal position and pushed down, I just got full blown cramped. So I just sat right back and it stopped the cramping and I was the only way. And I. I was very disappointed in my performance because stopping is not really something that I like to do. And here I was. I could not care less about how many times I stopped. It reminded me of, you know, I've watched thousands of Ironman races and been in plenty myself and, and not had to have that experience of stopping and walking. And that under preparedness really hit me of. This is something I wouldn't want to experience. Even though it was an epic day for us, it was really a bad experience in a lot of ways. And I think I learned a lot of lessons about preparedness and, and almost going above your level in a certain situation. You know, had we had our time again, you know, we would probably not do the double. We would be a Bit more conservative and do it some other way. But it was just too much on the one day. And you know, that's just one. That was just one day. And, you know, we climbed the Gavia and that was just spectacular. And we had planned to go up there and back and we got to the top and your mum drove the car up there. We got at the top, it was snow everywhere and absolutely pelting down, rain on us. And for anybody who's tried to descend, you know, a climb like that at zero degrees, it's not an enjoyable experience. So I had no hesitation in getting in the car and driving home that night. So. And the next day we had to actually leave the Alps to go to the Dolomite. So we went back over the Garvia and, and it had snowed. That's how much the weather had changed. The day before at Stelvio was brilliant blue sky.

Yeah.

So in one day the weather had gone from 24 degrees to zero.

And in that next 24 hours, actually the Stelvio and the Gavia all got snowed, the roads got snowed over. And so we're actually quite lucky that we did them those days because the roads, the roads were, have been shut the day after. So.

Yeah. So what a great area the Alps was for, for those famous climbs. And there was other clients that we didn't actually get to do. We didn't actually have enough time, which is a real pity. But, but we want to get here to, to the Dolomites and what a, what a different experience that is. And there's just thousands of climbs that you can be on and we've met our good friend Tim Jemison, who's one of the longtime riders in our group and an ex pro and he's been on our podcast in episode six or something. Yeah, something like one of the very first episodes. Who's a 58 year old rider now who rode pro in Italy and in France and, and knows a lot of these roads. Raced the Tour of the Alps as a pro, which is around here or actually around Stelvio region and around here. And so riding with him this week's been fantastic. And such a knowledgeable guy about, about how to, how to ride each day and generally, you know, we would be advocating to have, you know, spread out your, your riding so that you're, you're getting the recovery you need and, and all those things, but there are times where, look, when you're in a period, you've only got a certain amount of days, you don't have to ride hard. But it's relentless riding every day when you, you know, each day we're climbing between 2 and 3,000 meters of climbing every day. You know, again, the preparedness thing, if, you know, if we're doing this as a job and we're riding grand tours where it's 20 days of, three weeks of, of, of riding two minimum thousand meters each day up to 4,000. Your body would adapt to it, but we're not used to it. And it is so hard to back up the next day to, you know, climb the next hill and, but you do. Your legs seem to come good after you adapt here after a little bit of time. And, and as I said, we're not riding with any intensity. It's just, just riding around the hills and enjoying the unbelievable scenery.

It's no, it's no purposeful intensity, but you just, the resistance on the hills is just relentless, and you're either riding up or down, and you just can't escape on it. When it's 7, 8, 10% even, you know, we're riding zone two heart rates in zone two, but it's just the, the, the, the amount of meters climbed per day is, as you said, 2 to 3,000 meters average. Um, it just wears your legs down all day. So even though it's Zone two, if we were scheduling this as a training program, we would just say this is far too much. But the fact is we've got nine available days to ride and we want to make the most of them. And so we're, we haven't been afraid to put ourselves into a bit of a hole. And today is the first, you know, optional rest day that we've chosen just so we can enjoy the last few days of riding. And we've just had some really big days, you know, coming from the Stelvio on Saturday. Um, but we've had to make some decisions each day. Going far. I could have used a rest day two days ago, but there's too much good, good climbing to explain, and you've.

Got to match it with the weather, too, so there's a few things happening. Ah, but I definitely prided myself over my years as being a good climber. Um, and this is proving that I'm very far from a good climber at this present time, but I'm still descending very well. And funny when you look at Strava, where you sit yourself on the climbs, and I'm well, well down in my, in my categories, but I'm always at the top in the, in the descent. So now I'm hanging my hap on. I'm a good descender. That's about all I can do very well.

You're not the best person to be trying to descend behind after you've had a bike crash. You know, first ride back is in the Alps and I stopped trying to follow you pretty quickly, just ascended a bit, a bit more carefully.

Tim broke his collarbone, so he's descending gingerly as well.

Yeah, yeah, we had a pretty horrific descent yesterday where it poured on us up the climb and wasn't too cold to say, which is a bit more bearable than when it's freezing conditions. But yeah, it's a cold descent back down, a cold and careful descent where you're just cruising around. I don't want to risk slipping out. But look, the. One of my favorite things you said when talking about the preparedness was we got to the end of the Stelvio and you said, you know, that was akin to an Ironman experience when you're under prepared. And as humbling as that was, I'm glad you said that because that made me feel better about how horrific the experience was. But we talk about that a lot on the podcast where any event, whether it's 30 minutes long or three hours or 10 hours, when you're underprepared, it's just such a shocking feeling. It's a different kind of pain to if you're doing a 30 minute event or a three hour event or a 10 hour event that you're prepared for, you're going to experience pain in both of them. But the one you prepared for, it's different. It's the intensity that you train for and it's you pushing yourself, whereas you've got no choice in the, in option B, when you're not prepared, it's just suffering. It's just pure suffering and you can't do anything about it.

You've lost control. I think that's, that's the thing that I am disappointed with when, that, when I get to that situation. It hasn't happened a lot in my career, but I was certainly had lost control of the day and I was, I was doing everything in my power, my capacity to get to the top of that hill. And it was, it was, you know, took all of my willpower mentally and physically to actually get myself up that hill when I was completely done. And, and it's not, it's not a good feeling at all. You, you are at, you're at the mercy of whatever's happening around you. And, and somehow you miraculously get to the finish and. And I see that when I watch almost. I call it the walk of death in. In the Ironman Marathon. You know, people have lost control. They can't run, and they're good athletes, but they're just not prepared well enough for. For that experience of what's going to happen on race day. And. And, you know, under. Prepare at your peril. That's what I think.

Yeah, you couldn't have put it any better. You're really proud of yourself for getting through it and getting to the end, but you're just not doing it in the way that you want to. And. And yeah, it's the same lesson that, you know, I wouldn't attack the Stelvio again like that. I wouldn't. If I want to do both days, I'd make sure I was. I was more prepared for it so I could do it properly and. Cause we didn't. We didn't override too hard the first climb. We rode solid and we rode within what our potential range was. It was just the. We rode well, I thought. But it's just the endurance of the actual day that we probably need to drop that back another 30 watts.

First climb, you get your lessons handed to you on a silver platter very quickly. That's. That's great. You learn from all. You know, when we do this podcast, it seems like we're experts and we've never made mistakes. It's actually the opposite. We're experts because we've made so many mistakes and we're trying to stop people from copying the things that we do wrong. And here's another example of, you know, what a really day riddled with mistakes that we don't want others to replicate. And you learn a lot from those days, and it gives you perspective straight away about. I thought I was okay for that, but clearly I wasn't.

Yeah, for sure. And speaking of that's the topic of the episode is mistakes around power. And we kind of just. We always said to each other the other day, and that's why it's the title of this episode, we're almost done with power. You know, we're sick of some of the mistakes that we're seeing with it or the misuse of it. And it's a bit of a sensationalist headline, because we love power. And if you've listened to one single episode of this, let alone 50 or 100 or 200, you know that we're just all about power. We're power, power, power. We're so Power focused. So much so that we won't let you join our coaching program without a power meter. But we want to get something really clear. We're seeing a lot of people take the use of power and rely on that as the most important piece of information and almost the sole piece of information as to whether something's good or not. And that is absolutely the wrong way to use power. And so we want to kind of go through right now what we're seeing and what's happening and kind of just realign the thinking around power a little bit, just so you understand where it sits in the context of everything. A really cool example. And actually, funny enough, the person we're riding with this whole trip, Tim, does not use power and couldn't care less for it. And he's real old school riding and just loves it. And he's got such experience that when I'm sitting behind him and I'm looking at the power, it's remarkable how relatively even he rides without looking at any power or any data. But you can see the differences where he just uses experience and rides a little bit differently. And someone else that just did it recently was Lockie Morton at the Unbound Gravel. Probably not. Probably the biggest gravel race in the world. There's a really, really great photo of him winning in exceptional fashion. And if you haven't heard our episode with Locky Morton on the podcast, it was about 50 or 60 episodes ago. It was unbelievable. He's just spoke to us in depth two hours about his love cycling and seeing him win that race was just awesome. And there's a really, really great photo of him. Just dirt, sweat, blood, tears covering his face. He's just holding up his Garmin. And there's just one bit of data. It's two bits of data. It's just time and average speed. Maybe I can't, I can't remember if there's anything else, but it's got, it's got three second power not available. Average power not available. Lap power not available. He's just got all. He's not paying. He did the whole nine hours, nine and a half hours without looking at power. And while that's possible, we've explained for many reasons over the course of this podcast why that's not advised for 99.9% of age group athletes. But yeah, why don't you take us through kind of the trend that we've been seeing recently about people being too power focused.

That Lockheed Morton example. And there are other exceptions of every rule we have. There's always exceptions that are very successful. And that's something that we want to make sure that everybody hears us say loud and clear. There are some incredibly talented athletes who can get great outcomes without the use of power. But if it's an, if it's an advantage, why wouldn't you actually use it? And I would say, yeah, he won that race, but he probably could have used the power for some advantage because he got dropped at some point where he had to make up time on the others. And he could have measured his effort a bit more with power. And at the end, people go, what are you talking about? He won't. It doesn't matter, you know, but it, but it's the way, you know, next time it might not be that position. You could you anything you want to use, nutrition, you know, better bike equipment, power meters, heart rate, all those little things are going to contribute to the end result. And, and just because you win doesn't mean that's the perfect way to ride or train or to compete. And we've had a couple of podcasts where we've had people who just say they can race and train by feel. And unless you win every race and have never been defeated, then I'll actually agree that that's possible. But I haven't met anybody who hasn't been defeated in any race yet. And so they might win some races, but I think one particular athlete who hasn't actually won a race, but refuses to use power because they tell me that they're so in line with, in tune with their feelings that their body's giving them. They know what they're doing, but they're not being successful that way. And I would beg to the gif they just had to add this one element. They actually might improve their results.

Yeah, yeah. I think we get so power focused because it's such a valuable piece of data, but we forget that the entire goal is to go from A to B as fast as possible. And so that is the marker of how successful that leg was. Swim, bike or run. And that's the metric that you kind of want to look at the end, but you don't want to focus that as the execution. You use the power as the execution. And so we really want to make that distinction. And that's where a lot of people are getting mixed up, is they're basing their success on their power number. But it's just a metric, and these metrics can be wrong. And yeah, that's kind of the next point we want to go into.

Just before you talk about that. That is the key thing about using all the metrics that I just mentioned, like rate of perceived exertion, RPE power meters, heart rate meters, lactate meters, temperature meters. These are all things that will help you make better decisions about how hard or how easy or to stay the same in your effort. So these are the things you should be always looking at when you're competing or training all the time asking yourself, what's this telling me? What's that telling me? What are those metrics telling me the whole time? And so at the end of the day, if, if you're getting all those pieces of information to you, then that's really the input that you're looking at. If I pedal like this or run like this, or swim like this, that's the effort, that's the input. But the input is determining how quickly I get from A to B in a swimming pool, four laps, how quickly can I do that? That's the result, the time, the average pace that I swim at will determine that. It's how well I swim, what technique have I got, how's my kick, how's my stroke? That's the input part. And as a runner, the same thing. You're determined to run at an average pace, it's going to give you the result you want. That's the input. The result is what you averaged. And as a rider, I think people get confused. The power is the input, how much effort you're putting into the pedaling action. As long as you're aerodynamic and your bike and all that information is all accurate and, and as, as good as it can be, then the average speed that you ride will determine how fast you go. So, so we're trying to ride power into a headwind or with a tailwind, and that's when we, that's where we get into the detail of why it's good to have a power meter, because it'll allow us to have a faster average speed from A to B. And at the end of the day, the result is based on how quick you ride, not how much power you do. How much power you do helps you ride quick.

And so this is where people get confused because with swimming and running, the pace that you go equals the time. But that's not the same with power. And so for running, if you run 5 minute K pace, you know, if you go slower, then it's a slower time. And so when you get to the end and the pace isn't what you wanted, then, yeah, you're going to be disappointed. Because it won't be the time you wanted. But if power is lower, you still might have ridden a similar time or faster time. And that's the difference that I don't think people necessarily get understand. It's that writing the right power doesn't automatically equal faster. There's so many things that are happening. It's just power is one of the best metrics that you can use to control that input. But yeah, with running, for example, your pace is your pace and that is what's going to result in your time. If you run slower, you run a slower time. If you run faster, it's faster time. But it's not the same with power. If you write how power in sections, it could be the wrong section or it could. There's a whole bunch of things which we talk about a lot.

A better example is if I was on a flat bit of road and, and there was no wind. If I decided that I wanted to ride 300 watts for 10 minutes and the only way I could do that is to sit up high and, and that way I'll get better leverage because my hip angle is low. And if I got in the time trial position, I can't do the 300 watts, but if I sit up I can. But if, if I did 290 watts in the time trial position, I'm more likely going to beat myself. Who's sitting up doing 300 watts? So why would be so infatuated by. I did 300 watts at 40Ks an hour, but I did 290 watts in the TT position at 41Ks an hour. I'm going to be happy with 390 as compared to 290 as compared to 300 watts, because the speed that I did is faster. So there's no value in me getting to an un aerodynamic position to push higher watts when I'm going to ride slower. That's the point we're trying to make. And the power you know for yourself when you're comparing yourself with yourself is all determined by all those things I talked about. You know, your heart rate, your body temperature, your power meter, your aerodynamics, the technical advantage your bike has, the wheels, your position, all those things are important to make sure that you go from A to B quicker than the other guys. And if you're riding higher power and you ride slower, then. Are you happy with that? I'm certainly not. If I ride lower power and my speed's brilliant, I don't care what my power is. I do care, but it's not as Important as me getting from A to B faster. That's my power today. But it was fast. Today was fast because of whatever reason my power meter was reading low. You know, it could be a technical thing where, as we know, in triathlon, if it sits in transition whilst you've, you know, on the morning of the race, you would go to transition, set your bike up, get your power meter all sorted, get your Garmin already, and then when you go and swim, and it could be literally an hour or two hours later from that 5 o' clock to the 7 o' clock start, the temperature has changed on the day from 5 degrees to 15. The power meter has a strain gauge which is going to be expanding, so it could read 5% different by the time you get out of the water. So there are reasons why power. If you find out that it's reading low, then you can adapt your session based around, this is my new power for today because that equals the speed that I Normally do. If 300 watts normally equals 40Ks an hour, and today I'm doing 40Ks an hour, it's reading 270. Fine, 270 is my number today. And we've talked about that before in many podcasts, but we're trying to explain it so that what I worry about is people at the end of the race. I've said this to many people, that's a magnificent ride today. That's the fastest you've ever ridden a 90k time trial or a 40k time trial in a triathlon or an individual time trial. As a cyclist, you've ridden 43Ks an hour or 40Ks an hour, or 36Ks an hour. And I get the answer back. That was the worst power I've ever ridden. And I'm dumbfounded looking at them saying, are they taking the piss out of me or are they really seriously upset that they rode lower power with a PB time trial? And that's the point I want to get across. Writing from A to B, the fastest is the most important criteria that you should be looking at. And the fact that your power meter might read higher or lower is irrelevant because that's the input for the result. So I want to get that across, that you should be looking at how fast you've ridden in compared to the time on that course on any other time you've ridden that course. And whether your power is higher or lower, you could have changed power meters and they could read differently. It's the speed you do on that day. And if the day has got really bad Weather conditions that'll affect your speed as well. So, you know, comparing yourself to perfectly calm conditions on the same course compared to really horrendous headwind tailwind on the same course. There are reasons why you have to actually ride differently to get the same result or better result. So just looking at power, and that's why the heading is what it is, we're done with power. We're done with power because people are so obsessed that that's more important than getting from A to B faster. And at the end of the day I want us people to stop thinking like that. I want them to think like, well, I just rode 43ks an hour or I rode 36 and it's 4ks an hour better than I've ever done before. Don't be disappointed with that outcome because your power meter rode 10 watts lower. It's just not real, it's not relevant.

Yeah, we had a really great example from an athlete at Ironman Cairns last week who rode slightly lower power than they were expecting, but faster speed. It was half a kilometre or 0.7 km an hour faster than the race ready sessions and conditions they'd been practicing in. Um, and his response was perfect. He said I couldn't care if my power was a hundred watts slower. I rode faster and the fastest time I've done. And that is the, that is the perfect response. You could get to the end of your ride and if you've written two minutes quicker than your last, what maybe what you're expecting or, or your last time on that course or what you normally do in training, your, your wattage could say 80 watts and, and it doesn't matter. And funnily enough, Tim, who we just said we've been riding with, when, if you ask him what, what, what did you write today? He will sarcastically say 8 watts. You know, because he just couldn't get less. He said I've got a big PB today or a 9 watts. And he's, he's kind of taken the mickey that you don't have to rely on it. So look, we're jumping back and forth between, between saying power's really important, power is not important. And it's both, both are true.

Look, I, I want to clarify that after all I just said training to power is super important to keep you in your ranges and as long as the technology is working accurately then you, you'll be training in the right zones and you, you'll progress your improvement in fitness to get to your a race using power. That is the way to train. And, and if. If you don't have those opportunities, you're. You're really guessing along the way. So, yes, it's super important. Another key reason that the power meter is super important is at the start of any event, it will stop you from killing yourself for the rest of the day. If you take notice of what the power meter is saying, if it's reading properly. And just hold yourself back because you're fresh, you're ready, you're feeling good. It's the start of an event. It's, you know, 5k into 90k or 10k into 180k. Of course, the feeling is that it's too easy and that's what you're trying to prevent. It's too easy. So I'll write a bit harder. This is too easy, this first 10K. But you tape it and you're well prepared for this one big day. So you throw all of the stuff that you've learned in training out the window. I feel great. I'll just ride a little bit harder. That's what the power meter is there to stop you doing, as long as it's reading accurately. So now I won't ride harder because I'm riding in the right range. This is the stuff I've ridden to all my training sessions. Why would I go above that number when I know if I do in 80k's time or 130k time, I'll be riding way slower than I am now? So that's the value of the power meter, is to train accurately with it so you improve. And then on race day, to stop you from blowing up. And at the end of the day, we don't ask you, how did you go today? What was your power? We asked you, how'd you go? How fast did you ride? Was that close to your best speed? And then, oh, by the way, what was your power?

It's always a secondary question and it's just. And we kind of. We just followed up with each one and it's almost order of how it was. Oh, yeah, what was your heart rate then? How'd your heart rate go and how did it feel? You know, how hard was it? And were there any other factors to consider in the race? And so whenever you're talking to someone about their race, they're the questions we're asking to get the whole picture, you know, and yeah, I guess we just want to stop people from just looking at the power. It's one tiny piece of the puzzle. At the end of the race, it's one tiny piece of the puzzle in the whole buildup, in all the training. It's kind of the most important piece of the puzzle. It's the big thing you're focusing on in every training session as well as speed, as well as heart rate. Because as we've spoken about, you need all these metrics to keep working with in conjunction with each other. But that is how the conversation goes. Because I couldn't. Once I've spoken to someone for a couple of minutes, then I can figure out what the result kind of was. Especially if the first thing they say is what's a pb? And the bike, then that's a brilliant start. But just off one question like, oh, what was your power? I can't tell if it was a good ride or not. They might say a certain number. But what did that actually mean? What did that result in for the race? And so that's why these, this follow up is so important. And it's, I think that last point you made is, is the most important point is that essentially the main priority of power in these races is to stop you going too hard. And it's just, it's really there to prevent you from overdoing it so that you can execute really well. And you, you basically it's almost impossible to negative split without, you know, being able to check your power or your pace on the run, you know, because guarantee you almost guarantee you're going to run or ride too hard at the start. If you don't have something there to keep you back, then you make it very difficult for yourself to negative split.

Yeah. And if you imagine, you know, I think of when you go ten pin bowling, there's the two, the lane and the bumpers are on the side. You know, the real experienced guys, they don't need the bumpers. But the young kids, when they're learning, you know, without those bumpers they're, they're going all over the shop and training and racing. And it's the same when you first start to use these metrics. You're going too low, you're going too high. Just like in the bowling alley, you're hitting the bumpers. You know, you need to stay in that lane and keep is as middle to the, to the range as possible. And then once you start understanding the nuances of the day, the course, the uphills and downhills, the direction of the wind, they're the things that are going to make you slightly deviate to the left or to the right of that mid range. And that's the thing that the power meter can do really well is keep you in that range. And if you come to a hill and you don't actually take much notice of what the power meters, how high it's going, you think that's okay and you look down, you're actually 30 watts above where your range is. Keep doing that five or six times and all of a sudden you're starting to burn more energy, you're spiking. The whole power number is going out of control and therefore too many of those high bits. Guess what happens? You start having to recover in the low bits. And that's what the power meter is going to stop you doing. It's going to make you have a much better outcome on the day because it's keeping you in the lanes that you, you're well prepared for. And, you know, if you want to have a blinder on, on any given day, go to the top of the range the whole day. Just don't keep spiking out of it. And, you know, if you're feeling like you're struggling, go to the bottom of the range, you'll still have a good day. But if you think, oh, you know, just, I'll just snap over this hill really quick and get my speed up and that'll help my average. Well, as soon as you do that, you've spiked, you've burned energy, you've burnt nutrition, you've increased your heart rate, increase your lactate, and then you have to recover down the other side, which means the bike goes slow again. So you're actually going to go slower overall. So, so the reason we're really focusing on, and we, we are adamant that power is, is one of those things that we can't help you as a coach without. Because, you know, I could ring you, Jordan, say, you know, I can't see any of the data. I'll say to you, how did you feel on today's session? And you'll go, I don't have a power meter, but I felt like I really rode really strong today and I think I, you know, I did all eight efforts and I didn't fade. We actually don't know whether you're in that range. Not like as a runner where you could say, I'm doing six by 400 reps and I want to do 70 seconds for each 400. You look at the watch and I did 70, 69, 70. You've got all this feedback, so you're getting this information without a power meter. You're just saying, I felt okay. And if I put that power meter and you didn't know you were doing it and then we looked at your data, I guarantee you your first efforts would be high and you would slowly get lower in your speed as you went through the efforts.

And look, you could do that on a velodrome. You could do six laps and time yourself each time and compare the times of each six laps. You could pick a course and do the same amount of time, but.

And you can do, you know, time one effort on a hill. These are ways around it, which is what we used to do in the old days before we had power meter. And I know that that hill on a bike is five minutes. And if I get to that hill in 458 and then, and the next time I do it in 504, I know I've gone slower. I don't know what my power is, but I know that I've actually gone slower as long as the wind stayed the same.

And it's a trend we notice a lot in intervals is that once again, people will potentially, let's say the interval they have to average 270, they might average that. But if you looked at that interval, they spent the first 30 seconds at 3:10, 3:20, and they spent the last 90 seconds at 240. And that's a really poorly executed interval, even though they rode the average. And so they might actually, if it was just a timed thing and they didn't have power, they might be getting the same time each time, but they're not riding it very well. They're not really practicing riding that, even, even pacing. So that's another reason why it's important.

And look, as, as a triathlete or as a time trialist or as a marathon runner, you don't want to have variations all the time. You know, the over under type of racing is harder and, and the guy who's really good or girl who's, you know, on top of their form, they're the best athlete. If they want to destroy the other athletes, it's sometimes better to push hard and then recover and push hard because they can, they're running within their limits. Whereas if they push hard and push the other athletes outside their limits, they're going to actually destroy them and make it an easier race for them. So there's times when it's okay to do that, but you're still going to risk it yourself. And you know, using a Brita a lot, he never does that. He never, never goes out hard. He always steadily, progressively goes Faster rather than the other way. So, so you know, the power meter is doing that. It's, it's, it's helping you measure your effort. And that's all we're trying to say. It is crucially important to have it as a tool, but it, you know, it's not that you can't be defined by your number of power. And especially we've got so many examples of some fantastic lady riders who, their, their max 20 minute power is 160. That X was 40Ks an hour. And you know, we've got some brutally huge guys who can average 400 watts and their average is 38ks an hour. I know who I'd rather be. I'd rather be 160 watts. So, so they're examples of the power is just a number, but it's a number that'll help you do a lot of things. But at the end of the day it has to be taken in, in the context of what it's meant to be.

And so the only adjustment I'd make to your bowling analogy is that essentially we never take the bumpers off because the difference is the pros in the bowling, they'll eventually take the bumpers off. But the only, only context where someone would take the bumpers off in terms of power is maybe the Olympics in, you know, the Olympic distance triathlon where you know, someone gets in a breakaway and, and it's just hell for leather and they just need to get away and it's time for them to go nuts.

But even as you said, drafting race, that's a different race if you're time trialing and you just go hell for leather, you're going above your ranges and you won't run well. Yeah, the Brownlee brothers have proven that many times and they've won many times. They've won more than they've lost. But recently they're just doing the same style they used to when they were 10 years younger and it's backfiring big time.

Yeah, I just mean there's, there's circumstances where they're, they're trying to do something that hasn't been done before. These world class athletes and therefore they might need to push higher power than they've ever pushed before. But again they're just increasing the risk that they'll, they'll run, they'll run worse. And that definitely happens a lot. And yeah, it happens a lot in the Ironman races or 70.3 races with the pros where they're, they're trying a race where they're trying to break away.

And yeah, the pros are a little bit different and a lot of our podcast is directed at age groupers. But there are exceptions with the pros who can just really smash out the ride and has minimal effect on their running because they're actually well prepared.

Yes. And they've trained that way as well, which is very different. So yeah, I mean that's the last point I want to make as well is, is that, you know, the 400 watt versus 160 watt comparison you just made around about very two different weighted athletes. And some people would argue that, you know, watts per kilo matters the most, but even then it's can just be not be such an arbitrary number. And for me it just seems so insignificant to think about a wattage target. Almost like I want to hit 300 watts or I want to hit 400 watts, I want to hit 5 watts per kilo because, you know, you might be. And this has happened to plenty of athletes and I laugh about it because it's happened to me last week, this week with a new bike, but brand new power meter. I actually have no idea what, whether I've done a test on it. So I don't know if the watts I'm riding is that accurate to me or not. And so I could have spent all this time aiming for X wattage and then I change bikes and then this power meter is 30 watts lower and it's like, well, now I'm never going to get there, you know, because.

Yeah, so that's happened to a lot of the athletes we coach where they've changed power meters and the new power meter. I know Dave's been trying to ride 300 watts for, for three or four years and he slowly was getting there. 280, 290. And he's changed power meters and the new one for the same speed and better speed. Dave can ride 44Ks an hour for a time trial, which is pretty special. Yeah, he's now his new power meter for 44Ks an hour reach 260, 270 and he's just going, whoa. But he knows that. He's so happy that he's riding 44Ks an hour. That's the most important criteria to him. But you know, that was a thing when he first started. I want to ride 300 watts and, and so you know, 300 smee hundred. Yeah, it's, it's 45Ks an hour as his target. Whatever power number it takes to get that, that's what you do.

Yeah. So we get it for sure. And it is really nice to chase the wattage. It's nice to chase those goals. It's nice to. We use those numbers for sure. But we're just saying that, yeah, be really careful with the way you use these. And we just notice a lot of people relying on it for some of the wrong reasons. And that's a big trend. We're very glad that a lot of people are on board with the powertrain now. You know, it's across triathlon races. There is exceptionally more people using it now than four years ago and two years ago, but we wouldn't want people to be using it incorrectly.

Yeah, I think a lot of the feedback that we get when we're at races or people are really coming up to us and being so grateful for the information. And some people are emailing us and texting us and they're highlighting the fact that their power is, you know, so much improved, of which we're really congratulating them for. But they've only heard half the story about the power meter and that's the whole thing they're focusing on is, oh, you know, I did my PB at that race, but I was just a bit confused. My power was down and there was a disappointment, almost comment rather than I smashed my pb. I'm so happy. Don't know what happened with my power meter. That's actually how it should be. I'm super excited about what I just did, but my power meter was reading funny, whereas they're coming from the opposite way. They're going, not that happy. My power is down. Oh, yeah. But I did a pb.

That's as simple as we can say it. So we hope that we get that message across and, yeah, we're done. With power being the only barometer for which you measure success, that's just not the way it's intended to be used. It's an input, as there are many inputs on the bike and in triathlon as a whole and in racing as a whole, and you've got to use each one smartly. So that's it for this episode. Thanks, as always, for listening and we'll see you on the next one. One.