Why Triathletes Should NEVER Do Running Intervals

Today's episode is going to challenge a belief that so many runners and triathletes get stuck on, that the only way to run faster is to train fast. But what if that's not true? What if you could set a new PB without smashing out intervals or chasing high speed sessions? Today we're diving into real world case studies from our own athletes who run faster than ever without hammering speed work or traditional running training. And in some cases, without even running that much at all. You're going to hear different approaches to achieve running pbs, how a certain athlete ran back to back PBS of limited run volume but a strong bar bike base. And how another athlete overcame injury and still broke through a performance plateau of just 30km of running per week. Whether you're building for a marathon, recovering from running injury, or deep in triathlon training, in this episode, we want to give you a fresh and proven perspective on what actually makes you faster on the run. So, Dad, a topic we love. Let's get into it to open the discussion. Give us your overall thoughts on running fast and the mistakes you see with the mindset of running training.

Oh, it's such a minefield of conversation on this one. I absolutely love it because we could, you know, anybody can find data and twist it the way you want to. And over the years I've done that with myself. If I want to be a more competitive runner, I have to run faster. And I never got to the start line on a lot of races because I was so injured. And the minute I gave up on trying to run faster and trying to be stronger and more resilient, that's the minute I became a really good runner, not just in triathlon, but in individual single sport marathons, 10Ks half marathons. And that's the thing we want to really get across in this podcast today.

Yeah, look, and I want to start off with a pretty fair question that we get a lot because our own Travelo approach and running approach is one that tries to build that strength and resilience because we want our athletes on the start line. And the biggest limiter for age groupers is injury and not getting to the start line. And therefore speed just becomes less of a priority. But very commonly when we get an athlete come through, eventually they get to a point and they go, what do I need to do on the run? You know, am I doing enough? I don't feel like I'm running fast. How am I going to pb? And that's a great question. And it's, it brings up a really important discussion that you need to have with the athlete about what we're trying to do. And so when an athlete asks that, how do you answer? You know, what do you, what do you answer with? About. About, you know, their question around, am I going to be able to actually get a PB with this type of running I'm doing?

Early on, when I was a coach and probably going back 15 or 20 years, I just had the belief that in order to run fast, you had to train fast. And to some extent I still believe that, but I've really changed my mindset that you don't need to run fast a lot. As long as you can sprinkle some fast running in your program, then you're going to reap the reward of that. Because if you're just a runner, then it's a bit of a different discussion than if you're a runner in a triathlon. And, you know, the question that you ask, the answer is always going to be, it depends on who you are. What is your background as a runner? What history do you have? Or do you have no history? Are you just new to running? And there's a huge running boom going on around the world at the moment. Events are filling up, marathons are filling up everywhere. You can't even get into a marathon when it opens. If you don't get on the computer and enter within the first hour. You know you've missed out, you're on the wait list. There's 40,000 people on a wait list. And so, you know, a lot of people going into these races, I feel very underprepared. They just want to tick off a half marathon or a 10k or 5k or even the biggest challenge is the marathon. They just want to be a part of it because, you know, we're social beings, we want to do what the majority of people are doing. All my mates are running. I can run. Anybody can run. Let's have a crack at this half marathon or marathon. And when you dig deeper, they haven't done any 5 or 10ks and they entered a half marathon. And, you know, for some people, you'll get away with it. There's, you know, we're not, we're not saying you won't, but for the majority of people, you'll end up breaking down before you get to the start line. And if you do get to the start line, you will probably do some damage that may be taking you six months or a year to recover from. And for me, that's. That's not what we should be doing that's, I think that's irresponsible. And, and for people who want to have really good health and fitness for their whole life, they should be looking after themselves when they're 19, so that when they're my age, at nearly 70, you, you are still able to run. And I'm in the category that can't. And so I'm giving you advice based on, I have regrets about what I did and I push myself way beyond when I was injured instead of rehab, rehabbing and getting the strength and conditioning work. And so this is what we're trying to prevent people from doing. And injury is the huge sticking stone or stumbling block that, that derails everybody's preparation. And so, so we're really adamant that too much intensity as a runner, unless you are a runner who's been running for 15 or 20 years, they're different. We're talking, we're talking about new people to the sport and people have only been in it for maybe five or six years as a runner. As an 18 year old, you haven't got that resilience unless you've been running since you were 12. As a, as a 28 year old, you might have just started in the last three or four years. So you don't have that resilience of 16 years of running. Resilience is the big thing. Your body can cope with the training load or it can't. They're the two things. The reason it can is because you've been doing it a long time doesn't necessarily mean that it's right. It just means your body's used to coping with the really hard load that running, you know, instills onto the body. And so every time you try to run faster, you're putting yourself at risk by a higher percentage. And so I just believe you're better off getting to the start line healthy than getting to the start line injured. And yeah, sure, you've done some great fast runs, but you're so injured you can't actually do what you want to do anyway. So the question's pretty tough, Gerard. It does depend on who you are and how much running you've done. That's my summary.

And for that reason, we're going to give a few different examples in this episode because we're going to show how different athletes can respond to a slight variety of running training. But the main premise that and point we're trying to get across is that you don't have to do traditional fast work and you don't have to do, you know, really big volume of training to be able to run well and run fast. But it's going to sound a little bit contradictory throughout the episode, and we're doing that on purpose because we were trying to show a variety of ways that, you know, it's really important in the coaching process to take an athlete and just change enough things that based on what they need and exactly what you spoke about, where they've come from and their base. Because the example you gave about the running, boom. A lot of these runners aren't doing enough volume, and that's their problem. They're jumping into races without enough volume, and that's a really, really big problem. But we're seeing kind of sometimes in the triathlon world a bit of a shift the other way, because all the pro triathletes are doing monster, monster Ks and age groupers are trying to match that, and they're just running far too much and breaking down because of it. So we're trying to stop athletes from potentially running too much when it's unnecessary. If you do the right amount of sessions, you can. You can get the volume required without overdoing it and making sure the sessions you're doing are quality. Quality doesn't have to mean fast, but quality means training at the right zones that we're trying to aim for. And at the end of all that, PB the run, which is the whole point of this topic and what we're trying to do. And so the first example I wanted to go through is actually that we spoke about the podcast before Harris, who, yeah, he. We did a great case study on him where he got a fantastic result at a half ironman, and that was last year. And then this year he was aiming for another 70.3, which he performed very well in. But the running was a big question mark about how it was going to go. And so the timeline of things was he did a PB10K in February of 3909 at 352 pace. Then he basically had, for various reasons, a lack of running for about eight weeks. And really he sort of averaged literally 10 or 12k a week of running. So, so very little running. But then he managed to pull it together for kind of the last month leading into the. Into the race and. And pick those kilometers back up. But at that point, you can't rush anything. You know, you can't just try and jump back into big volume. So every session you do has to be quality. And so we have to make some decisions around, okay, what's what are we trying to achieve here? We need some strength back with some endurance work. But you can't go too long cause you haven't been doing your long runs. We just need some 70.3 intensity off the bike. Um, the beauty was in this time he was training on the bike really well. And this is the first point we want to make is that triathletes have a huge advantage that they can get cross training in that will improve their running. That's where you get your intensity. So kind of the first myth we want to get rid of is you don't have to run fast to get fast, but you do have to do VO2 work to lift that, that VO2 engine of yours. And you get that from the bike, and that does translate to your running. We think a lot of people aren't understanding how much that translates for him. He ended up doing a 10k time trial the week out from the race and he PB'd again. So from such limited running across average for the 12 weeks, he PB'd again. And then he ended up running a five minute faster half marathon in the race than last year. Last year he ran a 135. This year it was a 130. So he's not a slow runner. So the argument there could be for a beginner, let's say that they're running a 2 hour 20 marathon, a half marathon. They would just improve with any amount of training to 205. But he's very much towards the point end of running. He's running Quite quick, a 135 to a 130 half marathon. And so we put that down to some quality training in what we decide to do with a limited amount of Ks and really making sure you're getting that strength off the bike. Yeah.

But also, Jord, if people can just understand this one key concept, what you said summarized it beautifully. He hardly had any running training yet he PB from February in his 10k to just before the half marathon with very limited running. And that's a point that you've made, but let's just not gloss over that. How's that possible? How is it possible for a guy to do basically 5 to 12k a week because of various reasons, yet he can run faster from February to his last pre race hit out. And the answer is on the bike, the cross training, the VO2 work that you had him doing, and the threshold work on the bike that enabled him to, to be able to run like that. So we've got two things happening in our fitness environment, we've got a cardiovascular system, heart and lungs, that needs to be trained. And if you do threshold and vo2work, you are really stressing the cardiovascular system that huffing and puffing is what we're trying to get you to do. In those sessions, you should be breathing heavy and if you're not, you're not doing it at the right level. And so that can be whether you're swimming, riding or running or jumping or skipping, or as long as you're huffing and puffing, it doesn't really matter. We want to stimulate your cardio cardiovascular system to a point where you're going to get the real growth from the improvement. And so the second part of it is, can your body absorb the load of running? And so we don't need to do the hard, high intensity cardiovascular stuff as a runner. If your body can cope with that, it's actually a better thing to be able to do that as a runner, to be able to do VO2 sessions and threshold sessions, because your body can cope. But from what we've found, not many people are in that category. So we've got to find another way. And so this is what we're saying. We're trying to give evidence of guys who've done it where they've had very little running and yet they've come out and smashed pbs. It shouldn't make sense, but we're trying to actually give the reasons why. And it's because they still have really highly developed cardiovascular system from other forms of training, and yet they've still maintained some, some muscular skeletal strength from actually doing some easy running. And, you know, you shake your head going, I just don't understand that. I've hardly run. Not only have I hardly run, I've done no intensity as a runner. And you gave him some intensity runs towards the end of that program, which really helped. And so you got to be careful when we're saying this. People say, oh, you just said don't give any intensity. That's not what we're saying. We're saying have intensity sprinkled through your program, whether you do a 5k PB or a 10k time trial that you're, you know, you're using in your training. They're the days where you, where you're going to get that intensity which is going to enable you when race day comes, that you, you're not just going from, you know, one race to another without doing any intensity. That's not what we're saying. So hope that's clear we've got two things happening. Cardiovascular system and our resilience, strength and conditioning from the absorbing the training load as a runner.

Yeah, and look, when we're not going to be able to give someone like him a 10k to do if he's done no running at that, at that pace, which is, you know, he ended up running 349pace for his PB and so we have to make sure that he could actually run that pace before the 10k time trial and we're comfortable to that. He's going to be able to get through that. We can't just go from no running or limited running to say, okay, now have another crack at a 10k at 349. That's not feasible. So yeah, there's, there's some gaps that need to be filled in there which, which we speak about. But the next point to think about, and you'll hear that with this, with this next athlete is just. Athletes still undervalue the notion of consistency and just chipping away at their running. You know, it's the same as chipping away at your FTP. But athletes set these, these big audacious run goals and it really comes from what we dislike, which is aiming for these arbitrary marathon, a half marathon time, PBS where they go, I want to be a sub three hour runner or I want to be a sub three 30 runner or four hour, you know, and, and they might be a four hour 17 marathon runner. And so we never say that those goals aren't achievable. We just want athletes to rethink the time frame and go, you can absolutely get there, but it might take, you know, one year, it might take three years or four years, but you can definitely get there if you keep chipping away. And athletes need to understand that if they keep just showing up with the running training and just stay on this approach. We see it time and time again with our athletes. Suddenly after a year and a half, you know, they're, they've wiped off a minute or two each time and suddenly they're eight minutes quicker or 12 minutes quicker, you know, depending on whether it's a 10k or a half or a, or a full. Um, and this next athlete I think is a really good example of that because she had a lot of interruptions and she's someone that probably averaged just, just around 30 to 40 kilometer weeks, up to 40 kilometer on her best periods. Um, but in a lot of her 10k Olympic distance triathlons she was averaging 4:30 plus pace. 4:30 to 4:40. And for this particular race she had, I can't remember the order she had either gotten sick in the last 12 weeks but then got an inflamed knee as well and that put her out of running. And then once again we're kind of in a position where in the last three to four weeks we were really limited with our running and then we only had a, you know, a few key sessions each week for the last three weeks to try and get her running form back. Um, but what happened is, you know, she got managed to get some key sessions in some key race ready sessions in some running intensity off the bike with safe building back and she came out in the race and she actually went sub 4:30 for the first time in the race. Now I want to give her a lot of credit here Natalie, and say that that was a really big mental effort. It was the Australian Olympic distance oz champs. Um, and it, I just think that was, you know, mostly just mindset going. I'm going to absolutely guts this out and get a sub 4 30. But to even run remotely that pace, but a PB10K pace in the race I think was a, a matter of doing, you know, not crazy volume 30 to 40 kilometer weeks, but just layering that over the last 18 months of training where even with interruptions over that 18 months, it hasn't been perfect. Just it's always the two steps up, maybe one step back, three steps up, one step back, kind of layering of running fitness that gets you that strength to finally get to a point where even if you have an interruption, you've got that base you can rely on to run really well.

Yeah, you and I were talking off air and Liam was asking your brother Liam was asking, how do These guys run 60, 60 minute half marathons and 57 minute half marathons. What's setting them apart from the guys running 112s who are really good runners? Like you've just done 120s, 130 runners. They're still really competent runners. Even the 140s and 145 runners, they've really trained well. And people who've got to break two hours, you know, we've got this whole how does someone be able to run 57 minutes compared to someone who can only run two hours? And so that's the thing we were talking about before. You've got this opportunity just to be consistent over time with just doing the training. And this is a time thing. If you allow yourself 15 years worth of consistent running, whether you ran some High intensity or not, you will be a better runner. You will improve. So just getting that fitness back, you know how we talk about that in triathlon a lot, where if you've been sick for four or five weeks or two or three weeks and you've been training well for three or four years, you've got this huge fitness bank that, you know, you come back after the time off. It doesn't matter the reason the time was off, whether it's an injury or whether it's sickness, you come back quite quickly. For those people who've only been at the sport for, you know, 12 months, if you take four or five weeks off, it doesn't come back that quick because you don't have this fitness base. So the consistency thing creates the fitness space that you're the bank, the bank that we're always talking about, that big fitness bank. We want to fill that bank up with training, regular consistent training. We want to fill our money bank up with good work and earning money as a working person. So they parallel those two analogies. And if you can get that consistency going, then you can do things like Natalie did, which is struggle for the whole last year trying to break 4:30. And then, yeah, she got a good period of consistency in. There wasn't much intensity in there, but there's a little bit like we've been talking about and yet she's come out and run faster and, and every time we, we give an example, it's just not one reason. There's many reasons why. And so, you know, she's done all the hard work on the bike and this and in the pool, all the, all the VO2 stuff and the threshold stuff, but she got that consistency in her running. So if you just went out and trained, whether you did any intensity or not, you would still improve that. You got to make that clear, you know, just go running and you'll be a better runner in six weeks time. Just go running. Don't, don't have any program that's got fanciness about it, you know, intervals, you know, just go running regularly, you know, four, four or five times a week. Just go running and you will be a better runner in five or six weeks. That's pretty bloody, obviously it would say. But you've got to be able to do it. You've got to be able to, you know, the body gets tired, you know, three, four, five runs a week. You know, it's physically demanding on you if you're not used to it. But the, the athlet, the point I'M trying to make is the athlete who's been doing it a long time has no problem with 80 to 160k. The athlete who's been doing it a short time has a big problem with 40k. And so you can't substitute time. It's just you have to do the time to get your body resilient enough to cope with 40 plus. And I can give you 50,000 examples of athletes who've come to me, who've said to me, I'm a good runner, I've got good times, but I keep breaking down. Okay, let's just get rid of that fact. Let's just stop the breaking down bit. And even though the examples we've given already, we still talk about people who for some reason becoming consistent. So it's just so common, Jordan. And people think it's not. You know, anybody who's listening to this will go, oh, yeah, I've had niggles which have cost me consistency. And because they haven't been able to cross train, they're just pure runners. And I always say to pure runners, oh, if you only had a bike, we could so much help you here. And, you know, the people who are motivated, what I have to get a bike, is that going to help me? They'll go and buy a bike and they'll start cross training. And, you know, the other athletes don't have that opportunity. They can maybe go to the pool and do some running in the water and do some VO2, work as a swimmer. And most runners are pretty bad swimmers. From my history of watching sport, the best elite runners cannot swim more than 100 meters. So there are exceptions to everything. I know, but people will send me messages saying, oh, I know this guy can run the house down and can swim, but. Which is true. So at the end of the day, I really want to implode. What's the word? Get people to really understand the concept of just be consistent and you will still be a potential improvement in your running.

And we'll get Tom Page back on the podcast next week for a bit of a training and racing update, which everyone's been loving. But he just in training ran a 113 half marathon, which is just another example of four years ago. He was a 121 half marathon. And every year he's just chipped away and it's just like, like clockwork. You know, It's. He's a 119 and 117, a 115 and now 113. You know, it just keeps Chipping down.

And this is a training session, George. You've got to, you know.

Yeah, this is not.

This is not a race, but it's probably a 111 in a race.

Yeah. Yep. And it's nothing special. One of the key things we spoke about early on in that journey for this year for those boys turning pro was not trying to change too much and just trying to keep what's working, working and that chipping away. And that should be the exciting part for people. You know, that doesn't take any magic work. So, yeah, it's going to be a really fun one to discuss with Tom.

Yeah, look, I want to jump in here and look, I know you never like talking about this, but, you know, your journey to the Gold Coast Half Marathon, which you just completed, we've had, you know, had a whole heap of trivalor athletes do the half marathon at the Gold coast recently. And. And, you know, quite a few do the marathon as well. And we're going to talk about a couple of examples. But your lead up wasn't that spectacular either. You actually got kind of covered, you know, heavy sweating for four or five days. You were unable to train at all. You know, everything happened. You lost your, you know, you bought a brand new pair of shoes. You. You had inconsistency that got stolen. You had so many inconsistencies happening in the last three weeks. I'm going to say maybe four. And you traveled from. You traveled from Bali to Melbourne to see us for family reasons. Then you went back. Then you had to fly the Gold Coast. So there's just so much happening that was interrupting your preparation. So you didn't really have. You and I were talking about adjusting your goals based on. We felt that you were a little bit. Not quite right, 90%. So I'm telling this example so that, you know, remember we talked about the fitness Bank. You know, you had trained really well up until this point. You had some really good experiences that told you your form was. Was where we were going to predict you. And so we were trying to, you know, break your previous run, which is a 114. That was the first goal. And, you know, we wanted to run in the 112s, and we, we thought maybe we have to adjust of the last couple of weeks, but as it turned out, you know, you actually did that. And it was because of all those things that, you know, that we. That we use for all of our athletes. We got you back on the bike, doing some intensity there. And so it was. It was another great example. And of course, you had to execute well on the day and start conservative. And you did, you did all those things well and it got the result you wanted. And so, you know, without using other case studies, using yourself as one, it's a great example of how when seemingly everything is going wrong, that could possibly go wrong, and yet you still ended up with the goal that you set out for.

It's funny, I used the motivation from all our athletes and I tipped into that knowledge bank and kind of experienced jar to go well in those last 10 days when I'd barely run. And you're going, it's just not the tape you want. And we speak about it so much on the podcast that things don't have to go perfectly to still run unwell. And a few days out from the race, you're exactly right. We're having me and you're having a conversation going, what, what's the plan here? Do we, do we go for it when the body's just not right? Or do you go conservative? And. And yeah, I leaned into a lot of the experiences that our athletes have had where they still managed to run really well because of the train. The work was done a lot earlier. You know, the work is done in all the months leading up, and if you're trying to rush the work in the last two, three, four weeks, then you're not coming from a good place anyway. And, and yeah, we decided to go for it with the risk of blowing up knowing that the taper hadn't been good, but trying to trust the work had been done. But one lesson in that I think is worth mentioning is the difference in prep from my training to get the 114pb compared to my training to get the 112pb. And I want to get your thoughts on this, but when I did the 114, I was probably only running 50, 60 kilometer weeks, which for triathletes might seem heavier load, but for the running community, and my own running is extremely light. Um, but I was doing, I was very bike fit and I was doing a lot of bike riding and, and yeah, was, was really racing fit on the bike. Whereas this prep you and I sat down because the main goal of the year is the marathon at the end of the year. So we decided that we're really going to do the opposite to kind of what we push for a lot of triathletes and run bigger run volume and get back up to 80 plus kilometer running weeks. And so I guess my point here is that to run this 112 it's back up to 80 kilometer weeks with very minimal to no cycling because I'm trying to get Marafit. But I think I've run two very good times with two different approaches. And I guess that's the point here, is that we're not creating brand new programs for everyone. I'm on a very similar program to Tom PA and all our other athletes, but just with some slight variations and little tweaks in volume and which key sessions to pay attention to. And that was off your advice. But it's interesting how you can get two similar and good results off two different approaches.

Yeah, and one of the things that we often speak about is how valuable the endurance component is as a triathlete to get those long rides and those long runs in. But as a runner it's even more critical. And that was one of the things we really picked up on, was getting you to run longer, not fun, faster. But, but we extended your endurance run and you're in the difficult environment with humidity and temperature, so it's kind of almost a restriction on your training. So you know, if you're out there in 95 humidity at, you know, you know, mid 30 degree temperature at 6:00am, it's really hard to run with the intensity you want to. So you really were forced to run with a lot more endurance as your goal. And that's where we brought you up from 50 to some weeks of 70 to 80k. And your body can cope with it because you've had that layer upon layer of years of running and so you're now so much more prepared. That's why we didn't need to do so much bike stuff because you could do some intensity in the running. Because let's face it, I had you running as a little kid at doing intervals at 8 and 9 and 10 years of age. So you have had a long career of, of 20 so years of understanding what the load is for your body. Your body understands that load. So that's an exception as well. So what you do doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for others, but the key thing was that you did some more endurance there. And I think that really, and we said before, it's not about running all these hard efforts, it's not about running longer, but they all help if you do a sprinkling of them. And I think that's what you have done quite well. And the proof is going to be in the pudding as we head to the marathon in October, how Well the next 13 weeks are post this little measuring point of your lead into the marathon.

And so another example we want to touch on, I think we've spoken about many athletes who have done this, but absolutely zero fast running. So not even sprinkling it in. And these are the athletes often who are training for a pure marathon. Or we had Rachel who we spoke about, who actually came on the podcast training for ultras and she did the, the, the ultra Mont Blanc, the world champs, the insane run. I can't remember. It's so big that I can't remember. It's 160 kilometer ultra or something. 272 absurd with. Yeah, it's ridiculous. 40 hours of run. I can't. Once the numbers get that big, you just, you just lose track of, of how nuts it is. And, but that episode was really, really cool with Rachel. We encourage you to go back and listen to that and her experience training for that and the monster hours she was doing. But for a lot of these athletes who were training for an Ironman or a marathon or ultras, they tend to do seriously zero fast running. That's not always the case. You know, there's no blanket rules here where it's black and white, but often it's, it's the max intensity they're kind of going is their marathon race pace. Um, yet a lot of them are running 5 and 10 KPBS. You know, they're getting such good strength from endurance. They're running 5 and 10 KBBS. And, and we spoke about Shelby in a previous case study, was just training for the Ironman and she's doing a 10kpb inside her triathlon races and inside her, her, her progressive, you know, half marathon runs or her progressive longer runs. So again, that's just another example of what we're trying to prove here that, you know, that strength can carry you so far for an age group and as a triathlete. Yeah.

And the examples you've given are great. And look, you know that we try to replicate the requirements of the event that you're. You're in. If it's an ultra, you know, the goal is to be layer upon layer fit, not having interruptions, not be injured. So you can't go into an ultra, you can't go to any event. But more so you've got to do the volume. As you know, that's the example we're using there with ultras or marathons. And at the end of the day, if you do that work, you can still run fast. And we've seen so many examples of people doing pbs when they're not even trying to do any intensity. And, and it just blows your mind. And that is why the endurance component is such a crucial part and that's exactly where I finished your summary off was get the long runs in, see your time improve. I just think people just overlook that fact. And that's one thing I want to make crystal clear. You ignore that endurance run at your own peril.

One final example we want to touch on is, is a cool, cool example for us is a coaching case study where couldn't quite work out why there was a gap for this athlete between, you know, what they could do 10k, fresh in races and their half marathon time in, in, in a 70.3. And it turned out to be one key session that were missing and one key session that needed to come back to the program. And, and this athlete, it's, it's still a work in progress, but they could run at work, what a 34 minute 10k kind of 33, like really, really.

Fast between 32 and 33 minute 10k up there with the top, our top runners in the trivelo squad. Yet in a, in a 70.3, he wasn't running the same as the Tom Page and Roland Crandock, Matt Phillips, Stevie Mack, all the guys who can run, you know, anywhere between 114 and 119, which is where Tyler should be. And so he can do these, he still wins, you know, the 5 local, 5k, local 10k in these fantastic times. But it's not replicating across to his triathlon training. And this is a real, you know, question mark about how am I going to fix this? How is, how are Tyler and I going to fix this? And so I can't wait to report back. We've changed our philosophy a little bit. He lives in an environment where, similar to you, where it's somewhere between 100 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit, which is, you know, 34 to 42 degrees Celsius, where by 9 o' clock you just can't, you just can't train. It's just too hot. And so he would, you know, be missing all these runs off the bike. The key 70.3 runs off the bike, the one session of the week which was not to be missed. And so now I'm saying to him, right, you have to do all these sessions on the trainer, indoor, in air conditioning and you cannot not get the volume, the duration of this effort and the actual pace. So this is what we're working on now and I can't wait to see how this progresses with his next results.

Yeah, because being that fast a 10k runner, but kind of can't crack 124, 125 in a half marathon, there's a big gap there. And yeah, to put him on the treadmill because you just found that he was trying to run off the bike outdoor, and it's just too hot. And he could only manage 15 minutes or 25 minutes compared to getting a really solid 8 to 12 kilometers or 50 minutes to an hour at 70.3 pace broken up. But on the treadmill, you know, should really do him good. So, yeah, we can't wait to see how that goes.

This is a highly motivated athlete. Tyler is one up there with, you know, just what, Tell me what to do, coach. I'm doing it. And, you know, so I'm saying, okay, we just, we just can't miss this. And even though, you know, you're not intentionally missing, it's just because it's physically too hard. He's, you know, anybody who's tried to train in the heat, it is so debilitating, and it destroys your weekend and your day.

So when we were writing down notes for this one last example, just a bonus we thought we'd mention was you brought up a really good point that, you know, one athlete finally ran really well and ran a PB when we fixed their riding. So for triathletes, if you're, if you're not riding properly and executing properly, your legs are too gone to run well. And this athlete was able to run a pb, not necessarily getting running, run fit faster. Their times weren't faster, but they rode better, so they're fresher enough off the bike to run better. And that's a really, really key point.

Yeah, we didn't do anything different. It was same fitness, except we just fixed the ride and just stopped him from overriding. And, you know, Andrew would love to hear this about himself, but he ran, ran the house down in cairns like he should be. You know, he's a 320 marathon runner, and he did it. And his bike time wasn't any slower. He just rode it more the way we wanted to ride it, executed better, and for the same fitness level, he can literally run 15, 20 minutes faster just by actually doing something else other than running better.

And here's the last kicker we want to finish with, and it's. You don't run PBS just off your training. It's actually about your execution. And you can train the absolute house down and be in Peak form. And if you stuff up your execution, you're not, you're not going to run a pb, which is just so frustrating to see. We still see so many people race poorly with their run leg and, and not realize that's the problem. And even on the weekend at the Gold coast, half and full, I just spoke to so many people and I, and one person really frustrated me because I wanted the best for them. And they just said I paced it really well, but I just faded in the, in the last 7k or so. And I said, well, you didn't, you didn't pace it well. Then you pace it above what you could hold and therefore you faded. You didn't fade for any random rogue reason. And sometimes that could be the case. They did stuff up the nutrition or something happened where they faded for a different reason. But in this case, they set a pace that was too high. They start off at a pace that was too high and faded and really had a positive split. And we get really sick of people saying that a slight positive split is okay or it's within reason. A few minutes off, it's within reason. We just go, no, that's not what, that's not running properly. And it's actually you. You're not getting the most out of yourself. And you will enjoy the experience so much more with a disciplined negative split in the run. Yeah.

And look, one of the guys who won't mind me mentioning him, Paul o', Brien, have been coaching him for a very long time and he, like the family, go up and do the Gold Coast a lot of years in a row, I think, I think they've done five or six in a row. And so he'll go into that race with various levels of fitness. And coincidentally, he's probably got the same fitness this year as he had last year. I'm always worried that he's probably not prepared enough, but he's adamant he's going to do these events anyway. So I'm forever trying to get him to slow down earlier so he can enjoy the race far more than, and you know his experience last year where I think he ran 4 minutes 30 pace for the first half marathon and over 6:15 for the second half marathon in the marathon, which is, as you can think about those times, they're just, you know, it's just a horrible way to do a marathon where, you know, you're barely moving at the end. And this year with the same fitness, I think he was 17 minutes quicker. And that's an example of pure execution. By going out slower, not going out at 4:30, going out at 5 minute k pace and finishing around 455 minute k pace gives you a 17 minute result difference. It's just astonishing. I just shake my head saying, just by changing your mindset about what should I pace myself at early will give you. And he said himself it was so much more fun. Even though it still wasn't a negative split, it was very close to it. As you just said, we shouldn't even be congratulating that. But to be able to run 17 minutes quicker than you did last year just by changing the execution, there's very little fitness difference. That shows to me that how important it is to really have the right pace strategy going into these events.

Yeah, there was a ton of interesting examples found from the race on the weekend. And I remember going past someone at the, the 4K mark and at the start, you know, you just, just had hundreds of people running past me at the start and I was looking around going, gee, I thought I was in the top kind of 1% of runners in the race. And to have that many people going past, you know, you do get surprised. And I went past someone about 3 or 4k mark and they were just breathing so heavy and gasping for air. And I just, you just kind of go, you've, you've just really mucked up your next 17k and really put yourself into a hole and a bit of unenjoyable experience just by flying out of the gate and we do it. There's a really fine line here between not trying to say it to be arrogant or to say that, you know, that this is to tell people what to do. But, but it's just when you experience it yourself and you experience a negative split, you just want everyone else to experience the same thing and go. This is just, it's just a far more enjoyable way to run and actually a really good mate of Min. And he really wasn't sure on his fitness level and he sent me a race plan beforehand and said, I'm thinking about this. And I just said that's, that's, that seems reasonable. It seems like it's what you can do. Um, I think there's no problem with going with that. He started that plan, found it was really conservative straight away, but still kind of stuck to it and then slowly lifted and then came home, you know, 20 seconds faster per kilometer than what his original plan was and he just finished and he was, he was absolutely chuffed, but he was going, oh, I left too much time on the table. I said, trust me, you didn't. You probably left a little bit of time, but you've just had the most enjoyable run. And he was really smiling from ear to ear. And I said, that's the first time I've seen him execute like that. And it's. It's a world of difference.

Yeah, there's some great stats, Jord. When I was looking at the half marathon, I love digging into the stats, and one of them is the actual app has what your pace was against your category and what your overall rank was. So, for example, we've got Sam Dunstan, who broke three hours by the way, around 255, massive PB and big shout out to him for execution 101. And he started at 740th as a male runner in the marathon. When they got through the first 5K, that's where he was. Guess where he finished. He finished 550. So he literally passed 200 people from 5K to the finish. That's how to do it. And then if you just click on what his pace was, he started at 4:10 and he finished at 4:05. And, you know, that's how. That's gold, you know, And I just keep clicking through the people I've. That are part of our group. Fiona Mann, she did the marathon in 343. Her rank at the start was 1086 in the 5k mark. And then she finished 680th. So she passed 400 people. They're just unbelievably good stats to show you how. And if you just think about that, if you're out there and you're running past one person or two person, you get a little bit of a lift. You pass 400, you know, it's. And people might say, well, she started too, too slow. Well, she didn't. She ran pretty much the same pace the whole way she. She started. Yeah, I could rattle off the stats. You know, she started at 5:25 pace and she finished at 4. 44 for last. But she. She ran, you know, 5:18 for the majority of it. So, yeah, it's just because she executed so brilliantly and. And you know, she's kind of laughing at people who are just running past her at the start. Just like you said, everybody's running past me, and then slowly but surely they stop running past me and then I start running past people. And we've said this so many times, but it is a great feeling. You may not be running any faster yourself, but because people around you are actually running way slower than they were. It feels like you're running faster and you get this adrenaline rush of I'm flying, you know, and people are yelling at you, oh, way to go. You know, trivelo, you know, looking good. And it's people who are really struggling to actually breathe are yelling out, you know, it's a really good commitment, camaraderie, and people respect people who have done it well in their own brain. They're going, why aren't I doing that? You know, why am I struggling here to think about finishing?

Yeah, no, it is everything. And so the topic of the day was how to PB and how to pb. What's the right training for it? But you can't forget the actual execution, which is so, so important. So we hope this episode has inspired you and helped you to think about your running a little bit differently and, and not fall into the same traps that we see a lot of runners do and actually get your running right and get to the start line in good shape to execute well. And if you want help with that, you can go to trivelocoaching.com and apply to get coached. And that's not just for running. We're talking about running in the triathlon and how to make sure that you get your run leg right. And so, as you've heard from a lot of these case study examples, this is exactly what we're helping each athlete do and use the same principles, but tweak them to each person to get the best out of themselves, running wise. So that's tribalocoaching.com au to apply to get coached. Thank you very much as always for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.