What's Harder: Riding or Running?

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined, as always, by your hosts, former Australian Ironman champion, Jared Donnelly, and I am Jordan Donnelly, in this episode. It is a bit of a random episode because we've been having some great conversations over the last few weeks, getting some great questions from mostly Tribalo athletes. We've spoken a lot about on the podcast, how racing season is coming up. A lot of people have had a pretty funny year with training and thinking about racing, and there's a lot of questions in this period about where people are specifically at. You know, what are people aiming for, where their current ability is at the moment, where their ability can get to in the short term and long term. We've just had some really good questions and conversations with athletes around what's coming up over the next year. So we thought we'd actually take some of those questions and apply them to this podcast and inform you, the listeners, some information that you really find handy in terms of applying it to your own ability and what's next for you. So we're really excited to get into some of those questions, but as always, firstly, dad, what's caught your attention in the last week?

Great question, Jord. It's probably a little bit out of date, but the finish to the Giro was incredible and I really was so excited about talking about it last week and I've had to hold on all of my thoughts until this week. And of course now the welter is on and that's got its own highs and lows and good rides and bad rides happening. But the Giro is what caught my attention. And who would have ever predicted that two second tier riders in the biggest teams of Jumbo Visma and Ineos would be challenging. Sorry, what did I say?

Jumbo Visma, which is what we're used to seeing Roglich and Van Aert and stuff. But yeah, it was somewhere.

Yeah, vying for the Grand Tour victory.

And.

You know, Geraint Thomas was the main writer for Ineos and Kelderman was the main writer for Sunweb. And yet the next level riders, you know, were separated by a second or two coming into the last time trial. So, so many things about that whole scenario that. Yeah, that's what caught my eye.

Yeah, the Jai healing story was incredible. I personally had never heard of him until the Duro. He's been a young gun Aussie, obviously, on a pro team and a Lot of other people in the cycling world would have heard of him, but when I was watching the start of the Giro in the first week, he was in the top 10 after the first few climbs, I thought, gee, I don't know who this Jai Hindley guy is. As an Aussie, I thought it was great. He's in the top 10. I went and looked him up on Instagram, and he had like 3,000 followers or something on Instagram and just said, pro team somewhere. You know, there wasn't much information about him online. And then the second week in the hills, he was still there, and then the next minute, he was coming third. And last week, he got himself into the Mya Rosa, going to the last stage, and he had a chance to win a Tour of Italy, a Grand Tour. Pretty incredible for him. I actually checked his Instagram after that day, and it already blown up to about 10,000 followers on there. And I think a lot of people were going through the same experience. I thought of him as well.

Yeah. And look, another Aussie from Western Australia. So the Western Australians are doing well. Ben o', Connor, he had three sensational days in a row. He got second on one of the hill climb stages. Then the next day, he got on the break again and won. And then the third day, which is where the GC contenders were going hammer and tong, he was away in the break solo with, you know, less than a handful of kilometers to go, and he almost pulled off a third one, except for those guys absolutely hammering. With Rohan Dennis leading the charge, he could have actually won two stages in a row and got second in another. So, you know, it was just an incredible performance by the two young Aussies. And that really caught my attention. And, you know, it's almost like the changing of the guard as we were talking about, you know, Nibali and Full Sang and all those guys just really. Just doing nothing in this Tour. It's almost like the end of their career. And he's seeing a new wave of riders who are just not afraid to ride differently. And I was so intrigued by listening to David Brailsford, who was the instigator of sky, the boring method of riding everybody into the ground so no one could attack. And, you know, sky won so many Grand Tours that way, and. And it was based on, you know, really good coaching and strategizing and. Yeah. And data and knowing in numbers and riding climbs and just riding people, you know, into the ground. And it was such a great, great way to win, to win races, but it was boring as anything People just got so sick of it. And he was excited. Like the interview they had after.

The.

Guy from Ineos1, which was Tao Gagginhart.

That's a funny name, doesn't he?

That is, yep. You know, the exciting way that he ended up winning the Tour was that unpredictable. Have a crack and risk everything and you know, it paid off dividends. And he was having a ball as the director, you know, you could see the enjoyment in his eyes and, and his comments is, you know, the old style is boring, I think I heard him say. And you know, this is the way of the future and you've still got to use your numbers tactically but not have six or seven riders sitting on the front. Just, you know, just blowing people up one by one. Just, you know, being able to have some tactics that are different and exciting and people want to come and watch that, you know, that's what the sport's about. Not, not the same old predictable style of riding, you know, race in, race out. And I think cycling needs to reinvent itself a bit. Even though it's a hugely popular sport around the world. This is the future of how races should be and they should be all individual one day classics, you know, in a Grand Tour. And you know, the Giro has done that for years, I think better than the Tour de France has done. It's such a better spectacle. Even though the Tour de France has got the reputation and everybody loves the Tour, but the Giro has better races because there's so many opportunities for other people to either win stages or win the Tour. And whereas the Tour de France is a very predictable, obviously the best riders do eventually win, but the Giro, it's kind of, you know, anybody's got an opportunity, which I love. And the welter is the same. And I think Those stages of 250 to 300K stages, they're a thing of the past. You're still going to get the same result if it's a flat sprinting stage. Whether you ride 250 or you ride 150, you know, what's the point? Just trying to get riders to be on their knees by the end of three weeks. So I think there's a limit to what you can do to riders and their health and well being is kind of more important than in seeing who's the best survivor at the end. You want to see the best bike rider win rather than the person who can survive the three weeks. So yeah, look, the other thing I wanted to say was Rohan Dennis's fortunes over the years have been maligned a lot. And, you know, he's a three time world champion on the time trial bike. And he pulled out of a Tour last year when he was riding with Bahrain. Merida stepped off the bike the day before the time trial, which he was expected to win. And he couldn't ride the time trial for nuts in that team as compared to when he won three titles. And it came down to the bike. And the bike fit just didn't suit him with that team and the different bikes that they were using. And you wouldn't think it would be that important. And it's one of those things that we've talked about many times for our triathletes and for our cyclists that even yourself, Jordan, your brother, you know, you can create all sorts of injuries by having a really poor setup on the bike. And you don't get the value out of the power you're pushing in the pedals if you're. If you're not sitting well to push the right power, if you're not aerodynamic to be, you know, slippery through the air to go faster. So there's so much in that. Even from the best time trial in the world had a setup that, you know, basically stunk and he couldn't ride. And that's, you know, he's changed teams again. And here he is back to the best form that he's ever been in his life and seriously rode the whole peloton off his wheel bar, the two, you know, sunweb and his own rider, his own teammate. And, you know, there was a couple of stages there where he was the best rider out of the three of them, except he was doing all the work. And it was fantastic to see him come back. And that's kind of one of the topics that we want to talk about today is, you know, the fortunes of athletes. Whether you're a triathlete or runner or a cyclist, they ebb and flow. And it's how you manage all of that that determines what sort of future you have or how enjoyable your sport is. And, you know, if you're someone who's always half empty and negative, you're not going to reap the rewards of when things go well. You've got to have a better positive outlook about everything you're doing. And. And, you know, there's some of the things that I've witnessed firsthand, as in the professional ranks. So, you know, it's so much more prevalent as an everyday cyclist, you know, who's just doing it as a recreational sport, you know, life's too serious to be down the dumps about having, you know, some, some periods where you're not able to train consistently and, you know, you've got injured or you've been sick. You've got to, you've got to put that in perspective and, you know, really make sure that when the opportunities come, you take them with both hand because they can slip away very quickly. And, you know, before you know it, you're growing very old and you've missed your opportunities.

Ineos did that, didn't they? They really didn't have the Tour de France that they wanted and they came back and made the most of the Duro.

Yeah, it's one of the points we made at the end of the Tour. How shocking they went in the Tour de France and how disappointed they would have been. And we both said, you know, look out. I bet you they make amends. They can either do one or two things and not really have much of a season in 2020 because everything's going against them. Like, it seems like everything's going against everybody in the world at the moment. But boy, did they turn that around. They won a record eight stages. Ghana won four stages. They won the Tour. The last time I did that was when Froome in 2012 at the Tour de France. They won seven stages and they won the Tour. So they've eclipsed their previous best Grand Tour performance. They won over a third of the stages in the Tour, which is what a comeback. That's, that's not going away and crying in the corner. That's coming out and showing people, you know, we might not have done well there, but now look at us. Which I really admire.

Yeah, Two things really stood out to me in the One is that it reinforced the point that you always make about whether it's a one day race or a three week Tour. The Giro really highlights managing your effort because almost every year we see a different top 10 in the first week and a half to the top 10 in the second week and a half, or a massive reshuffling in that top 10 order. You know, in the Tour de France, like you said, the best riders stay at the front the whole time and the best rider normally ends up winning, whereas always the whoever's leading in the end of week two is generally blows up and is six minutes behind at the end of week three because it's so hard to manage your effort in those grueling stages for three weeks. And we saw that again on show in that final week of the Giro where It ended up being the two first and second, Jai and Tao, battling it out. But even they were on their limit on certain days. And then the second point about it all was the domination of or just how great it was to see Australia so present throughout the whole Giro. You know, Simon Clark was in about 17 breaks. He was almost in a breakaway every single day. Rowan Deminis was one of the strongest riders, as you said, in the most important stages. Two boys from wa, you know, showing their guns in the hill stages, and then a chance for one of them to actually win. It's absolutely incredible.

It was. It's funny you should say that, because there was one stage, I think it was the penultimate stage, where Rohan Dennis was on the front, Ben was up the road, and Jai was on his wheel. And then they caught Ben. And so there were four riders left. Three of them were Australian. That's incredible. That hasn't happened in a long time. And now Simon Clark, the day before, as you say, was in the. The break the day before, and he was in everything going, just trying to get himself up into a stage win, which he can't knock him for trying. So, you know, the cycling, the young cyclists in Australia are really, you know, performing quite well internationally, and it's really.

Great to see one disappointing thing, which we won't. We won't harp on this. I just thought it was worth mentioning was the disappointment that the commentator showed. And I agree with this, he was a British commentator, but he spoke about how on the Sunday morning when Jar was in the pink jersey with a chance to win the stage in the last title trial, he opened up the West Australian, the newspapers in Australia, and there was not one article on it. He's in a chance to win one of the biggest grand tours in the world. And there was obviously a lot of articles about the AFL Grand Final, which is you'd expect, but you'd think there'd be one article on it. I found that really disappointing as well, that coverage. And maybe you have to knock the sport of cycling a little bit for there's a bit of distrust among the public about why would you watch it when, you know, the 2000s were full of so many cheats. Maybe they're still recovering from that. But regardless, it's a really good sport to watch now, and I wish the Australian media, not just sbs, covered it more.

I would agree with you. And, you know, but, you know, the example of the AFL with the peptide saga, you know, that's just been dismissed. So, yeah, I don't know if that's I think it's just that, you know, it just seems like Australians don't rate cycling as a sport compared to the rest of the world, which is disappointing. I know Rupert Guinness has been a massive journalist who's well recognized worldwide as an expert journalist who can report on any event and knows all the riders back to front for the last 30 years, 40 years probably. But, you know, it just amazes me that we just don't give our guys, you know, the accolades they deserve. And it's just such a dominated media for the, you know, it's cricket and footy and that's it. No other sports get to go.

Yeah.

Well, we'll get into the questions for the day. We're going to fly through some questions that we think are really valuable for listeners to hear. And the first one was something that caught my attention over the last few weeks. I said on the podcast a few weeks ago that I'm personally riding a little bit more and I'm experiencing the difference between riding and running, especially for triathletes. And I have found that when you're on your limit, there is a difference in fatigue levels when you're running a five kilometer threshold effort, for example, or a 20 minute running effort or longer endurance compared to an endurance cycling effort. And I wanted to get your thoughts on, especially being a former elite ironman, what it's like to hold a certain speed or wattage or power or effort on the bike and how I my theory is that you can actually hold it longer on the bike compared to what you can hold that lactate level running. What do you think about that?

It's a great topic and one that you and I have discussed many times with your brother as well. Look, I definitely think the effort you put in as a runner, it's a full body effort and you're providing the momentum, whereas on a bike you're putting the effort through the pedals and the wheels, allowing you to propel yourself forward. And I think that's the key difference between the two. It's such a grueling thing to run where you're having to generate everything about the, the forward movement so you don't get these micro fractures of recovery that you get on a bike. And you know, whether you're running uphill or downhill, whether you're riding uphill or downhill, they're completely different. If you're riding downhill and you're in the hardest race you've ever been, you get recovery. If you're running downhill, you still have to take each step and it's actually an eccentric and concentric contraction up and downhill, which is worse on you as a runner. So I just think, I think people forget how much you do get to recover in a cycling. We're talking bike races rather than time trials. But time trials, you still got that undulation on the road where there's, the pressure is off for fractions of a second. You don't get that in running, it's just constantly on. And, and if, if, if you can't keep up as a runner to the pace that set, you just drop off to, to go back to the pace that you can sustain and whether that's an 800 or a 5K or a marathon. Whereas as a cyclist you can sit in and, and recover by getting 30% drafting, you know, just by sitting in for 10 seconds. And, and you know, most cyclists are well trained to do over efforts, under efforts and, and just micro fractures of a recovery. You're able to sustain efforts for longer because you're getting this recovery. The difference is on a climb, if you know the question you've asked me in general cycling, but if I said, let's see how you go on a climb, climb is as close to running as possible. Because on a climb if you take the pedal, the pressure off the pedals on a climb, you bike almost stops and the momentum's gone because of the angle of the hill. And that's similar to running. So I think hill climbing closely resembles running. But general cycling, there's so many periods where you've got recovery that you don't realize and that's the difference. And that's why you're able to, it feels like you can sustain high intensity efforts for longer. In fact, you're not really doing that. You're having lots of little mini rests. And the example of the hill climbing shows you when you know it's constant pressure up the hill and if you took a rest, your bike will slow down and the bunch will leave you just like it would in a running race on a flat course or whatever. The example is as a runner, if you slow down fractionally, the pack of runners you're running with will just leave you. Does that make sense, the difference between the two?

Yeah, that makes it, that's a really good point. And I guess the reason I bring it up is because for me I feel like it gives you a bit of a mental edge when you are riding not a hill effort like you're saying, but when you're cycling and even just holding an effort over some undulations or in a triathlon setting, holding that sub threshold effort, it gives you that mental edge to know that you can stick in there because mentally you just have to hang on a little bit, you know, you're going to get a little bit respite, you know, you're going to get a little bit of rest and you can. It allows you to push on that little bit further. Whereas I know mentally it's running. Once you start fading with your pace, you really can't do much about it. You just start just a horrible feeling. And so I guess I would ask, I know that you want people to always be conservative in all aspects, especially in a time trial setting or a triathlon setting where you do not want to be fading no matter what the leg, swim, bike or run. But would it be. Could you say it's more important to be conservative in the run compared to the bike?

Yeah. Just before I answer that question, the example I want to give to what.

We were talking about. And you've jumped from, you know, from a lot of riding, a lot of running. In your whole 28 years of existence, it's been mainly about running. And all of a sudden you've jumped onto the bike.

And as a runner, all runners develop.

This massive engine that they can sustain threshold because that's all, that's what they do in, in all sports, you will be good at what you practice.

And in running, you practice running at.

Threshold pretty much the majority of the time. All the races are a threshold race, whether it's a 5K, a 10K or a marathon. There's hardly any times when you're surging and relaxing and surging and relaxing. You know, that does come into tactics.

A little bit in the elite level.

But the majority of time in a running race, you run from A to B as fast as you can. And when runners transfer to bike riding.

They are incredibly good at holding power.

For long periods of time. And they're normally good bike riders because they've got a great engine from all that running.

And then in a bike race, all.

Of a sudden they're getting periods where they rest so they recover so quick compared to bike riders.

Um, and then it can go again.

And look, people have been on our swift rides on a Thursday night or have witnessed you jumping on Zwift, doing a couple of races from not doing any races and you being able to go with our best riders because you're getting, you know, A, you've got a great engine, but B, you're getting little rests that enable you to know and because you, you're very clever at tactics already because you've listened to tactics for the last, you know, 25 years about how to do things.

You know, that last Thursday night race.

Was, you know, this, for example, there's three hills. You just have to hang on on those three hills and you'll get a good opportunity at the end. You executed that way better than I did.

And, and that's, that's an example of.

Understanding the tactics of racing, using your ability properly.

I don't want to talk about myself, but I will say that in terms of conserving, you know, I've listened to, you say the word conserve. I would say, I don't know, tens of thousands of times on, throughout, throughout my whole life, especially on these podcasts. And I will say that I think I over conserve in cycling because I've heard you say it so much. And I think I was able to perform well in those races because I was hyper, consistent, conservative, and I really wasn't helping the group out very much because I was trying to over conserve and so it allowed me to be fresher. Um, but yeah, I guess is, is that still that part two of the question? Is that still accurate that you can be less conservative on the bike compared to running, especially for triathletes?

Yeah, and that's why I wanted to give that example before I answered the question, because that relates exactly to the question. Um, so, so if you're a person with a great engine, you can take one way more risks because you know that no matter what happens, you're going to get a little recovery and, or you can force a little recovery by sitting in on the wheel and, and making someone else do the work. And then you're going to be back to, you know, 100% again within 10 seconds or 20 or 30 seconds to go again. So, so you can be. The question you're saying is you've been taught to be conservative and measure your effort. Yes. You can do, be more risk taker as a bike rider compared to a runner. And, and that's one of the things that you know as triathletes, it's just not worth it. You should not be doing that. You should be measuring your effort from start to finish. And the more times you spike your efforts, the more it's going to hurt you when you come to run. Because running, if you're, if you've got any levels of fatigue, it's going to be the most excruciating experience at the end of a triathlon. Whereas, you know, Just a pure bike riding, you've got so much more opportunity to take risks because coming from that background, and that's one of the things why we talk about having the complete rider where he's got threshold, he's got sprint, he's got endurance, he's got all these things to his armory that he can use, he's got good recovery. And if you're just a sit on sprinter, you are just relying on one thing happening every race and that's a really narrow way to race and very unenjoyable because you're just relying on the brakes always being brought back and you have no say in the race except for the last hundred meters. And it's fantastic. When you win, you know, the rest of the field hate you, but you know, you just want to have more fun as a bike rider than just that. So it's, you know, the point is to bring all of the components that require in a bike race, bring that in your training and you will have so much more fun in races. And you're the example of someone coming with a huge engine. We have plenty of real. Julian Painser is a great Olympian who's a really good bike rider, but was a 5k runner at Olympic level. And he's got this massive engine and that enables him to be such a good bike rider because he can take huge risks knowing that he'll get a recovery period and he'll be ready to go again when the next attack happens. And that's such a weapon to have as a bike rider. So, yes, to answer the question, you should be taking more risks because there's so many opportunities for you to recover.

In a bike race.

And in terms of being a more complete athlete, you often speak about how riding can complement your running and running can complement your riding, vice versa. But if you are just a cyclist, and this applies to triathletes as well, how do you actually become that more complete athlete, that more complete person who can hold threshold, who can do over efforts and then be able to recover, who can build that massive engine? How do you actually achieve that?

Yeah, well, you need a program that's going to allow you to do some of those sessions. And, you know, there's two things here. You can be born physiologically advanced, you know, so your VO2 can, you know, the elite writers of the world or, you know, cross country skiers, or the elite in anything you would say the majority of them are above 85 to 90. So if I'm a VO2 of 44 and I'm competing against someone with 85, no matter what training I do, I'm going to be up against it. If it comes down to who's going to sustain threshold effort, whether it's bike riding, whether it's running, or whether it's cross country skiing or swimming, going to be up against it because they're just naturally got better engines. Does that mean I don't try? Of course not. You know, tactics come into it, especially in bike riding. You know, the person who's the best bike rider should win the race, but it doesn't always happen. As a runner, the person who's the best runner normally would win the race because tactics aren't as important. But you can still train the engine. You can get the most out of yourself and, and you know, areas where you're weak, that's the areas you need to concentrate on. And if you don't have an engine, you can spend time, but it is going to take time. It's not going to happen in a four week block. It could possibly take four years to build your engine and people might laugh at that. But that's a realistic appraisal of someone who's got no threshold ability. It just doesn't happen overnight. And you know, I've got countless examples of athletes who we've coached who were absolute crap at time trialing and that's a threshold event on a bike and their weapons as a time trialist. Now that took four or five years to get them there and patience and consistency and all the things we talk about. So, so yeah, you know, to answer that question, it's definitely an advantage to have some sort of genealogy that's going to, you know, give you that head start, but it doesn't mean that they're the only ones who are going to win races.

So one question that you've been getting a lot of recently is, you know, kind of based on that, it's your genealogy kind of impacts your limits, but also the programming that you do and then how long you stick to it will impact where you can get to and what your ceiling is. You get a lot of people asking you, Jared, where's my ceiling? You know, where, where can I get to? You know, you have a lot of questions, coach, where can you get me to? And how do you go about answering that? I know it depends on the person, but what's the process you go through about considering how long someone wants to attempt it for? You know, if they want to be an endurance athlete like you said, do you say to them, it's Going to be four years. I imagine that for a lot of people they're thinking much more short term goals. I want to get to this wattage by 3 months time or I have this race goal and I want to run this time. But you know what should you be picking goals based on what it you know I want to get to 250 watts or for two hours or I want to get to sub 12 hour Ironman which, which factors should you be thinking about? How long should you be thinking about them? And one last point on that is, you know I think a lot of people get deterred from a goal when it's going to take too long. And like you said before, four years might sound too ridiculous. But is a fair point on that. You know, if a goal is only going to take you a year and then you're done with it, it could be kind of boring because you invest all this, all this time and money into a bike. Especially in cycling and triathlon. If you achieve your goal in the first year then you'd have nothing to do for the next five to 10 years. So you probably want to span out your goals a little bit over a longer period of time, wouldn't you?

Yeah, look, that's such a loaded question, Jordan. I don't even know where to begin.

But.

I think the process is something that people should have as a goal if you're not going to be. I'm a big goal setter and I want people to have goals and I believe that goal setting is the key to anything that you do in life is if you haven't got a purpose to get up for, you're not going to get up. And so that's the main driver. But there's climbing Everest goals and there's little goals along the way. Climbing your local, your local hill sort of thing. So stepping stones along the way. But you've got to love the process. And I think for me if someone's coming to me and they're just wanting a short term outcome, I've got to say it's not as inspiring to me as someone who's got big goals that might take a long time and that's a journey then. So we're on a journey and that's exciting to me because no matter what level you start at, you can progress. And we have, we see this a lot. Thousands of athletes who come with a level who want to go to that level and it might take that particular person A twice as long as person B with the same goal because of their Genealogy. But the person who's willing to stick at it will eventually succeed. But they can't be goals that are unrealistic. You know, I can't say to some 55 year old who says he wants to ride at 6.2 watts per kilo, that's his goal. Well, that's just not going to happen, you know, unless he's got a VO2 of 90 still at age 55. So that's an example of that. That's just an unrealistic goal. So stepping stones along the way and the journey is the thing that I think should be the emphasis that, you know, if you've got a passion to get somewhere, you should love the process and the journey about achieving it. And that's what should be inspiring you to make you a better athlete. And if someone's not improving in our group, I just had some conversations already this week about that. I will do everything I can to find out what is going wrong. What, what are we, what are we missing here? Because, you know, every, every session you do for, for a different athlete is not going to get the same result. So, so we've got to find what works for you. So you, Jordan, you, you know, we know you've got an engine, but, you know, can you replicate, you know, repeated sprints at 1200 watts? No, you can't because you're not trained in that yet. But that's a goal for you to be as good at the end as you are throughout the race. And, you know, that's a really simple thing that we can change by giving you some practice sessions when you're sprinting tired. We do that in training. We just don't sprint fresh because in races that doesn't happen. So you need to practice things like that. So they're just examples of how each athlete can, can progress through their journey. But they're going to have roadblocks along the way. And that's where I'm passionate about finding out, what do we need to change here? What's stopping athlete A from getting to where he wants to go? And I'm not saying he wants it quickly, it's just not improving. What we're doing with him is not helping. And they're staying the same, which, by the way, is what happens to 95% of triathletes and cyclists day in, day out. And we were quite happy with that. But the people who come to us, they come to us because they want to improve. And, you know, that's our success is not getting people to win things. Although That's a bonus. But just to improve themselves and show that they can go from 250 watts to 275. But the point I'm making is you have to be on board with the journey and the process and have little mini goals along the journey for your big goal. So that's kind of how I would answer that question.

Yeah, definitely. Would you encourage people to have, are you really pushing athletes to have both short term and longer term goals at the same time and tell you what they are? You know, do you really want athletes to have a short term, six month goal? But then Sadie, but I also want to be here in three years.

Yeah, definitely. And look, most of the goals that athletes come to us are short term anyway. You know, someone will say, I want to do Amy's Gran Fonda, I want to do Three Peaks or as a triathlete, I want to do the first Olympic distance of the season or half ironman or I want to do an Ironman. And you and I know that people ask us to do an Ironman in six months and some of them have never done one before. So that's a big goal with such a short time limit. So, you know, I would always direct them to say, why don't you have a lot of little goals before that push your ironman, go back another year and tick off some Olympic and then tip off some 70.3s so that you're actually getting some success along the journey and you're getting experience in the execution of those events. And you know, over the weekend we did a double brick session where, you know, guys really texted me saying far out. That was so valuable because it, it just gave me an idea of where my power numbers are for, for that and where I could run pace off the bike, you know, and by doing that in a training session that was really scripted as a race, your own personal race, you know, preparation before the event, getting your gear ready and nutrition, thinking about the pace and the power you're going to ride at and trying to do it and then at the end going, well, did I do it? Did I set the race plan properly? All of that was, was just so valuable and they're little stepping stone goals along the journey so that when it comes to the real thing, the a, the A day, you're pretty confident that you'll execute and get the result you want. So, so that's kind of the way I look at it. And, and, and, and if I'm not enjoying the process or the journey, I, I definitely don't get the result. And that's happened to me many times where I've just gone through the motions, as they say, instead of being an active participant. There's two differences there. You know, use the criterion race. You can just be part of the bunch rolling around an hour on a Thursday night, or you can be a player where you're dictating things, you're attacking, you're following, you're jumping. So, you know, 10% of the people are dictating the race and 90% are followers. Which one do you want to be? So that's how you should be scheduling your goals and your mini goals and the journey in the process. That's how I think that's how it should be for most athletes. And if they get that right, then I'm sure they will enjoy the experience of being just a recreational runner or swimmer or triathlete or rider and really get the most out of themselves and their sport and it will be enjoyable. And that takes away that negativity all the time of I'm not improving and things aren't going well. And this year is a classic example for that, with so many things being against everybody in the world, but you've seen people stand up and go, no, I'm going to plan something that I've got control of, which is my training. There may not be any races, but, you know, I'm going to control the controllables. And boy, you know, our weekend experience where we did some trials outdoors for the first time, was incredible to see how well I think we had on one particular course. 100% improvement on every rider who went in there into the time trial. They beat their previous time, which was in the middle of lockdown. And this is the first time they've been out on the road for majority of them for, you know, sometimes eight, 10 weeks. And it was a real classic example of people taking control of their own destiny.

So to finish off, do you personally have three plus year goals, four year goals, where you're going to be in three, four, five years with your cycling performances?

Yeah, look, definitely my goal is to stay fit and healthy. That is the number one goal that I have. And I was actually thinking about the other day, it's funny you asked that question because we didn't discuss this question without notice, which I love, because every, every question you can, you can have, you know, and I might not know the answer, but for me, I was thinking about this the other day and there's a lot of things that I've ticked off that I'm really satisfied with, in, in what I've done with my riding and triathlon and running and all those things. But definitely my number one goal is to stay healthy and fit because I've seen, you know, my brother's going through incredible illness at the moment and you just, you just really realize how valuable every moment you've got when you're healthy is. And my goal is to stay in that shape that I can have a full and functioning life and, you know, just had a new granddaughter born and you want to be around for those things. So my mental approach to that is it sounds quite general to be healthy and fit, but. But I'm not going to get out of bed because I want to be healthy and fit to go training. I definitely put races in front of myself, which will give me the health and fitness I want, but it makes me get out of bed and without those goals, I'm more than likely to go, I don't feel like it today at 6 o' clock when the alarm goes off, or 5,30, and I'm more. I'm more than likely going to be less consistent. So. So my number one goal has always been lately to really look after my health and fitness. And the only way I can do that for myself is to put little competitive events where I detest losing more than I care to like. So it really is a driver for me to get the ultimate goal, which is to stay healthy.

That's a really good way to finish. And I think that's a really important question that we could all ask ourselves either in the short term and thinking about the long term, you know, what's going to get you out of bed in the short term and what's going to get you out of the bed in two, three, four, five years. That's a really good way to finish. I think we'll leave it there. Thank you very much for listening, everyone, and we'll see you on the podcast next week.