# Road To Ironman 70.3 Oceanside

An episode of [The Triathlon Hour](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1595443343), 7 Jan 2026, 1 h 12 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2640942/episodes/19698001-road-to-ironman-70-3-oceanside.mp3

Justin Riele, Jackson Landry & Ari Klau are all racing the biggest 70.3 outside of the world champs to start their seasons in 2026 - Oceanside! And they’re going to take you along for the journey. Every week they’ll get on the podcast and talk about their training for the previous week, what’s going on in their lives and give you the most comprehensive insight into the build into a pro race you’ve heard to date.

## Transcript

[0:16] SPEAKER_03: Welcome to episode one of The Road to Oceanside Pretenders.
[0:21] SPEAKER_03: This is a new weekly podcast where three of the best pro tri athletes in North America will be breaking down their key training sessions every single week, leading into the biggest North American 70.3 of the year down in San Diego.
[0:35] SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Back from the Dead, Justin Rialli, Certified Pretender.
[0:40] SPEAKER_03: Rest in peace.
[0:41] SPEAKER_03: I'm joined by my two co-hosts, a man who really needs no intro on the trial phone hour, Ari Klow, another certified pretender.
[0:49] SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Ari.
[0:50] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me, Justin.
[0:52] SPEAKER_01: Former host of this podcast, then fired from the main feed and now brought back on.
[0:57] SPEAKER_01: Happy to be here.
[0:58] SPEAKER_03: And a new voice to the trial phone hour.
[1:00] SPEAKER_03: Oceanside course record holder himself and former champion has been Jackson Laundry, certified contender.
[1:10] SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was waiting for that.
[1:12] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
[1:12] SPEAKER_00: You know what?
[1:13] SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if I should just call myself a pretender, take that pressure off.
[1:18] SPEAKER_00: I think I did that with my 2025 results, but I actually have been on the podcast before.
[1:24] SPEAKER_00: As a result of that 2022 Oceanside win uh I was on.
[1:28] SPEAKER_00: I think it was still called, what was it called back then?
[1:31] SPEAKER_00: How they train.
[1:32] SPEAKER_00: How they train.
[1:33] SPEAKER_00: So it's good to be back.
[1:35] SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, four years later.
[1:36] SPEAKER_00: Hopefully I can get my results to a point where maybe I deserve to be back on again.
[1:40] SPEAKER_03: Well, thanks for joining me, guys, and obviously a huge shout out to Jack for having us on the main feed.
[1:44] SPEAKER_03: Uh Ari, maybe you can just share a little more color as to what pretenders should expect from this uh from the show we're kicking off here today.
[1:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so as Justin said, it's the Road to Oceanside podcast.
[1:55] SPEAKER_01: We did the Road to Oceanside uh hidden on the Patreon last year, so only the uh true pretenders, the patrons, will know.
[2:03] SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, this year it's the Greg Harper Memorial Road to Oceanside podcast.
[2:07] SPEAKER_01: Greg uh died.
[2:09] SPEAKER_01: Well, no, he'll be racing amateur in 2026, actually.
[2:11] SPEAKER_01: So uh we could I didn't know this.
[2:17] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true.
[2:18] SPEAKER_01: He's gone back to the age group field.
[2:20] SPEAKER_01: But uh each week we're gonna talk about uh how hard we trained, our execution, uh how much how much we trained, and uh we're not gonna go through every single session uh in excruciating detail.
[2:32] SPEAKER_01: I'm sure we're all on Strava, so you can kind of see what we're doing anyway, but we're gonna go in high detail on uh one session of our choosing in each discipline.
[2:41] SPEAKER_01: So one bike, one swim, one run.
[2:43] SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's gonna limit me from talking about the six runs and six bikes I did and zero swims last week.
[2:52] SPEAKER_01: Uh so Justin put that in place as a safeguard against me.
[2:55] SPEAKER_01: Uh one thing I'm curious about, Justin, is uh last year we had a great bet going throughout the whole podcast.
[3:01] SPEAKER_01: Um it was just between me and you, and I would shave my mustache if I lost, um, and then you ended up Venmoing me 500 bucks after the race.
[3:10] SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
[3:11] SPEAKER_01: Um so I don't have a mustache anymore.
[3:17] SPEAKER_01: We'll have to talk about that because that race was amazing.
[3:20] SPEAKER_01: It was awesome in in every way for both of us, honestly.
[3:23] SPEAKER_01: I I mean, any sort of bet we can get going, just starting on episode one.
[3:28] SPEAKER_00: Well, stop stop taking credit for my idea, first off.
[3:31] SPEAKER_01: Oh, you I didn't realize you had an idea.
[3:32] SPEAKER_03: Well, Jackson, Jackson said, should we have a bet?
[3:35] SPEAKER_03: But he's like, Do we need any handicaps?
[3:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do we need handicaps?
[3:38] SPEAKER_00: So, okay, well, back up for a second.
[3:40] SPEAKER_00: I did this is me just learning that Greg is going to amateur.
[3:44] SPEAKER_00: I feel like he held this for me just because he doesn't want me to fire him as my swim coat.
[3:49] SPEAKER_00: Come on, Greg.
[3:51] SPEAKER_00: I guess I can give him a shot, anyways.
[3:53] SPEAKER_00: But yes, bet on the race.
[3:56] SPEAKER_00: Of course we have to do this.
[3:57] SPEAKER_00: Like nobody would listen to the podcast if we don't.
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: I think we should do it straight up.
[4:00] SPEAKER_00: Does anybody feel like they need a handicap?
[4:02] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was injured last year a lot, so maybe I should get a handicap.
[4:05] SPEAKER_00: What do you guys think?
[4:06] SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, yeah, I was two and one against you, Jackson, one and oh against Justin, so I think you guys need a handicap if you're gonna get it.
[4:12] SPEAKER_00: Well, the most recent results.
[4:13] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'll take my chances.
[4:14] SPEAKER_02: I'm one and ten against Jackson, so I like my odds.
[4:19] SPEAKER_00: I haven't even looked, but yeah, I already had my number a little bit last year.
[4:22] SPEAKER_00: Did get one back on him in California.
[4:24] SPEAKER_00: And we're going back to California.
[4:26] SPEAKER_00: It's kind of my it's my place.
[4:28] SPEAKER_00: I've had some good results there, a lot of podiums, so I'm gonna back myself on this one.
[4:33] SPEAKER_00: But historically, historically, if people are looking at it, maybe I've had both your numbers, but you guys have both, I'll give you some credit.
[4:41] SPEAKER_00: You've both been really on the up and up with your results.
[4:45] SPEAKER_00: Um, Ari, it's a full swim distance at Oceanside typically, so that might hurt you a little bit.
[4:50] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's no current.
[4:52] SPEAKER_03: It's probably unlikely to get cancelled.
[4:54] SPEAKER_00: Don't need it.
[4:55] SPEAKER_01: Don't need it, bud.
[4:56] SPEAKER_01: Sorry to tell you.
[4:57] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll see.
[4:58] SPEAKER_03: So, yes, we'll do a bet.
[4:59] SPEAKER_03: I think we'll let uh some of our listeners maybe throw some ideas into the Spotify comments as to what we should actually bet.
[5:05] SPEAKER_03: I don't think that's a week one, uh week one thing to establish, but I think by week three or four we should have it down.
[5:11] SPEAKER_01: Loser has to do a full case of uh nine milligram free nicotine pouches.
[5:17] SPEAKER_01: Oh god.
[5:18] SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say chug a 12-pack of athletic brewing, but I'll probably be doing that for Father Jackson after the after the race anyway.
[5:25] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that one sounds alright, but yeah, uh we could do what you guys did last year with the cash, but then we we kind of uh proportion it to income.
[5:34] SPEAKER_00: So Justin, you might have to pay out a little more.
[5:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 10 grand, I'll give you guys 10 bucks.
[5:42] SPEAKER_03: I don't know about that.
[5:45] SPEAKER_03: It'll be a write-off to the R Cloud charity case.
[5:47] SPEAKER_03: Yep.
[5:50] SPEAKER_01: Send me those Venmos slides.
[5:52] SPEAKER_03: Uh so before we dive into the workouts, what is your best ever Oceanside performance?
[5:57] SPEAKER_03: Obviously, Jackson, you are you still the course record holder at Oceanside?
[6:01] SPEAKER_00: I believe so.
[6:02] SPEAKER_00: So is it the greatest oceanside performance period ever on the mail side?
[6:06] SPEAKER_00: There's an argument to be made.
[6:09] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's my best performance there, 2022, and then 23, 24, I was third both those years.
[6:15] SPEAKER_00: And then 25 I was injured, so I've got a pretty good record there, but um, yeah, that was obviously my best.
[6:22] SPEAKER_01: There's an argument there that it was what I mean, like I don't know how far the history goes, but uh like Alistair was there.
[6:29] SPEAKER_01: Uh I guess people still assumed he was at the sort of peak form.
[6:34] SPEAKER_01: That was the year that uh it was almost overshadowed by the Rudy Lionel sprint finish controversy for second and third.
[6:44] SPEAKER_01: Uh, because that was like a crazy.
[6:45] SPEAKER_01: I remember watching that and I was like, holy shit, Jackson is about to win this race.
[6:49] SPEAKER_01: And all the headlines were you know, no finish line camera.
[6:54] SPEAKER_01: The refs kind of just gave it to Lionel.
[6:56] SPEAKER_01: Rudy thought it was unfair, he thought he won.
[6:58] SPEAKER_01: Um, that was a crazy year.
[7:00] SPEAKER_01: And fastest 345 flat, 345-0-0 course record.
[7:04] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[7:04] SPEAKER_03: PTO site says 344-59.
[7:07] SPEAKER_03: Maybe there's a one-second discrepancy.
[7:09] SPEAKER_03: But what's pretty crazy about that result is that Lionel Rudy and Alistair Brown, they were all inside of one minute from Jackson.
[7:15] SPEAKER_03: So just one of the tightest finishes, I think, in Oceanside history, obviously.
[7:19] SPEAKER_03: Jackson coming away with the W.
[7:21] SPEAKER_00: So the other thing about that race, I I I love to talk about this race as it's my best result in my career.
[7:27] SPEAKER_00: So we can we can, you know, we can dive into it a little bit.
[7:29] SPEAKER_00: But um I believe, so if we are comparing to historical performances, I believe it's the fastest run coming from lead like lead pack off the bike to win the race that there's been.
[7:42] SPEAKER_00: So if you argue, well, there's been people in the lead pack who've won the race, there's been quite a few 110s.
[7:48] SPEAKER_00: Leo Bergere might have been right in there when he won it off the bike with the lead group.
[7:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I believe I was like a 110-09, something like that.
[7:58] SPEAKER_00: Um so people have run faster, but not off the lead group that I can remember or that I've checked.
[8:06] SPEAKER_01: That's your fastest run ever, right?
[8:08] SPEAKER_01: By a good bit.
[8:09] SPEAKER_00: I have run 110 one other time, uh, but I was off of a terrible bike and I finished like fourth or fifth.
[8:16] SPEAKER_00: I've run a couple 111s, a lot of 112s, and a lot of 113s, whatever.
[8:21] SPEAKER_00: But I gotta get back to that.
[8:22] SPEAKER_00: That's that's my goal for this series.
[8:25] SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hold myself accountable.
[8:26] SPEAKER_00: I want to get back to that, you know, 110 would be a great run for me, obviously, in Oceanside.
[8:31] SPEAKER_00: I've done 112 times after that.
[8:34] SPEAKER_00: I at least want to do a 112 or better.
[8:36] SPEAKER_00: And I think I do have that 110 to 111 in me.
[8:39] SPEAKER_00: So we'll see though, because as we're gonna see when we dive into this training, I'm on a little bit of a further back starting point than you guys in terms of where where we are.
[8:49] SPEAKER_00: So I got a I've got a big hill to climb here.
[8:51] SPEAKER_01: I've I've got one follow-up on that race um before we talk about all of Justin's age group wins at Oceanside.
[8:57] SPEAKER_01: How how hard how hard was that bike ride?
[9:01] SPEAKER_01: Because I so this was I was training with Lionel at this point, and um this was like you know, getting into the the Norwegian method like that year and taking lactate and stuff.
[9:12] SPEAKER_01: And so I knew like he came back and told me what sort of power he rode.
[9:16] SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm pretty sure he lost a little bit of time to you guys, and he was in good shape, right?
[9:23] SPEAKER_01: So so um, but you guys had a pack of five or something, I believe.
[9:27] SPEAKER_01: And I think you maybe had to bridge up.
[9:28] SPEAKER_01: Was that a super hard bike ride?
[9:30] SPEAKER_01: Do you remember what power you pushed?
[9:31] SPEAKER_01: Do you remember getting off the bike being like, oh, I'm fucked, or was it like, you know, granted, it's one of the harder courses out there, but give us some some detail.
[9:38] SPEAKER_00: Well, I had the swim of my career.
[9:41] SPEAKER_00: Uh I swam just off the back of the league, like I was with the league group until, and this was the last year they had the actual swim out in the the real ocean, not in the harbor.
[9:51] SPEAKER_00: So I had a great start.
[9:53] SPEAKER_00: I got in the group, kind of faded towards the end.
[9:56] SPEAKER_00: I was something like 20 to 25 seconds behind Ben Knut, who was leading the race, and there was maybe a 10-second gap ahead of me to the lead group.
[10:03] SPEAKER_00: So I started the ride, and I had to ride pretty darn hard for a good like 20 to 30k before while that group was getting established.
[10:12] SPEAKER_00: People were kind of getting popped out of the group, like um, and then there'd be a gap, obviously.
[10:17] SPEAKER_00: So the first you know, 30 minutes-ish was quite solid, and then it settled a fair bit, but the hills were still really hard.
[10:23] SPEAKER_00: Alistair would go to the front and just smash it.
[10:26] SPEAKER_00: I can give you real numbers.
[10:27] SPEAKER_00: Uh, if we want to really get precise here, I can go right to the training peaks file and tell you.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: Most visited page on your internet browser.
[10:38] SPEAKER_03: But that front pack was Sam Appleton, Jackson Laundrie, Alistair Brownley, Rudy Von Berg, and Ben Canu.
[10:43] SPEAKER_03: Right, so pretty studly, and then uh Lionel was chasing.
[10:46] SPEAKER_00: And he had one guy with him, I think it was a French dude who's pretty strong.
[10:50] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Arnod Guillot.
[10:52] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so here we go.
[10:53] SPEAKER_00: 10 minute power, 349, 60 minute, 322, 90 minute, 316, and average.
[11:01] SPEAKER_00: Average was only 294 total.
[11:04] SPEAKER_00: What about normalized?
[11:05] SPEAKER_00: Normalized is definitely higher than that.
[11:10] SPEAKER_00: 319.
[11:11] SPEAKER_00: So that's actually pretty solid.
[11:13] SPEAKER_00: Um, not amazing.
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: And you're you're like a low power, and I've I know this from all my like Strava stocking, like I don't know what your weight is, but you are kind of like a low power guy.
[11:23] SPEAKER_01: Like people kind of don't respect how good your bike is, but you basically like ride even with Sam all the time, the last two or three years.
[11:30] SPEAKER_01: And you'll ride like 320 when he rides 350, even on that fucking crazy ass Ventum bike that you were riding on before that everybody rode slow on.
[11:40] SPEAKER_01: Now you're on the new one, it's faster.
[11:42] SPEAKER_01: But like you were riding like fast, like five minutes faster than anybody else on that on that bike.
[11:48] SPEAKER_01: Um, but with not like crazy power compared to like a lot of guys who are pushing three you know 350, 360 for a 70.3.
[11:56] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I my weight at at the time of this race, I was probably around the 69 kilos, like that 150-ish.
[12:04] SPEAKER_00: Now I'm like 71-ish.
[12:07] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I've always like compared numbers with guys in the group and guys I ride similar to, and I always seem to have lowest, even with like Justin and Sam this past year at Boise.
[12:19] SPEAKER_00: I think I was slightly higher than Sam, but I did make up the two minutes.
[12:23] SPEAKER_00: So like he and he's a pretty slippery guy.
[12:25] SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
[12:26] SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe just have that arrow body type.
[12:31] SPEAKER_00: Like my shoulders can shrug really narrow.
[12:32] SPEAKER_00: Maybe that saves me a few watts.
[12:34] SPEAKER_00: It's got those curves.
[12:35] SPEAKER_03: That's 671 kilo.
[12:37] SPEAKER_03: I got really narrow hips.
[12:38] SPEAKER_00: I got these like tiny little little boy hips that aren't awesome for producing power, but they're they're arrow, so that's my uh claim to fame.
[12:46] SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's about yeah, it's about speed, not power.
[12:49] SPEAKER_01: And it's like there's this I mean, power meters all read slightly differently.
[12:53] SPEAKER_01: Like some guys, you like it doesn't matter what power meter they're on, they're just gonna push huge power, and maybe it's different for you.
[12:59] SPEAKER_01: You kind of just maybe it's a smooth pedal stroke that just transfers into speed.
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: I I'd love to talk to an expert about like why that is, but um, yeah, it's interesting data anyway.
[13:10] SPEAKER_01: Justin, why don't you why don't you tell us about your escapades at at Oceanside in the past?
[13:14] SPEAKER_03: In that race, I was 20 minutes behind Jackson, but I also was a champion and course record holder, but in the amateur division 2022, 70.3 Oceanside.
[13:26] SPEAKER_03: I won the age group race.
[13:27] SPEAKER_03: I finished right next to Holly Lawrence and was yelled at to get the hell out of the way because I was ruining the podium picture.
[13:33] SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I was pretty pumped.
[13:35] SPEAKER_03: So yeah, all the amateurs out there listening, I believe it's four hours and four minutes.
[13:39] SPEAKER_03: Uh maybe.
[13:40] SPEAKER_03: I gotta fact check that.
[13:41] SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's 4.02, 4.01.
[13:42] SPEAKER_03: I don't remember my amateur time.
[13:43] SPEAKER_01: Did our boy Luke Tasker not break it last year?
[13:46] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe he did.
[13:47] SPEAKER_03: I have to check.
[13:48] SPEAKER_03: Obviously, I don't hold my amateur course records close to my heart anymore on a bigger and better things, but it was definitely a great race.
[13:56] SPEAKER_03: And uh yeah, I raced Oceanside as a pro the next three years in a row.
[14:00] SPEAKER_03: 2023, 24, and 25.
[14:02] SPEAKER_03: Um, 23, I was injured with a stress fracture and walked the entire basically the whole run.
[14:10] SPEAKER_03: I think I ran like 128 and then I ended up on crutches for six weeks after that.
[14:14] SPEAKER_03: But I did ride with Jackson for a little while during that race.
[14:17] SPEAKER_03: Uh I just like couldn't feel my hip the whole bike.
[14:20] SPEAKER_03: So it was not a good day.
[14:22] SPEAKER_03: 2024 Oceanside was, I think, kind of like a bit of my coming out party.
[14:27] SPEAKER_03: It was one of my best results.
[14:28] SPEAKER_03: It landed me my first sponsorship deal.
[14:31] SPEAKER_03: Uh, I finished eighth place, my last spot in the money, and I rode with Sam, Jackson, and Lionel in the front pack, and we got away and built a big gap to the rest of the field.
[14:42] SPEAKER_03: And I hung on for eighth place.
[14:44] SPEAKER_03: Just got passed by, I think, two people on the run.
[14:46] SPEAKER_03: So pretty good day.
[14:47] SPEAKER_03: Last year had some high hopes, but I was coming off of a bit of a run injury for anyone who listened to the Road to Oceanside podcast last year.
[14:55] SPEAKER_03: So I had done a ton of swimming and biking and basic basically no running and zero run sessions all year.
[15:00] SPEAKER_03: And I swam really well right behind the front pack, had the bike of my life where I attacked the group on the climb at mile 35 and got away off the front by myself, dropping, you know, Sam, Gustav, Ben Canute, Rudy, and some others.
[15:16] SPEAKER_03: And then I rode the last 20 miles solo by myself for the fastest bike split and a bike course record.
[15:22] SPEAKER_03: Only to basically take my first 5k run, uh moment of glory on the live broadcast in the Iron Man Pro series, and then proceed to crumble and get passed by a ton of different people on the second lap, and then get passed by Ari in the last 200 meters.
[15:35] SPEAKER_03: I think I finished 11th or 12th that day.
[15:37] SPEAKER_03: It was not pretty.
[15:38] SPEAKER_03: I was out of the money.
[15:39] SPEAKER_00: What was your splits?
[15:40] SPEAKER_00: Run splits.
[15:42] SPEAKER_00: Like halfway, how much faster were you than the second half?
[15:45] SPEAKER_03: Not that much faster, honestly.
[15:47] SPEAKER_03: I just wasn't really in run shape.
[15:48] SPEAKER_03: I think I ran uh 122 or 12130.
[15:52] SPEAKER_03: The run splits were a little funky last year.
[15:55] SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I ran 121, and I think I was probably like, I don't know, 39 or 40 minutes through the half.
[16:01] SPEAKER_03: Um and then yeah, fell apart the last 5k for sure.
[16:05] SPEAKER_03: But it was still a really fun day.
[16:07] SPEAKER_03: I don't I don't really have any regrets with the way I raced.
[16:09] SPEAKER_03: It was definitely a pretty cool moment to be leading that race and get off the front solo.
[16:13] SPEAKER_03: It was a nice confidence booster that, like, hey, my bike could be world-class or as uh you know as good as the best of them.
[16:19] SPEAKER_03: And um I just really need to make the bike effort easier this year in 2026.
[16:23] SPEAKER_03: So a big theme I'm gonna be talking about is like unlocking my ability to run.
[16:27] SPEAKER_03: I'm not a bad runner, I'm just never really able to express my ability to run well off the bike because I'm coming off either having overbiked or just a bit too cooked, or maybe don't have the strength, endurance, and resilience uh or volume in my legs um to be able to run well.
[16:41] SPEAKER_03: So that's that's a big theme for this year, and something we're gonna be talking about the next next 12 weeks.
[16:46] SPEAKER_03: Ari, all right, your moment to shine.
[16:48] SPEAKER_03: Talk about how you fucking pass in the end.
[16:50] SPEAKER_01: Well, well, yeah, the same, same, same race, different perspective.
[16:54] SPEAKER_01: I did not swim anywhere close to the front.
[16:56] SPEAKER_01: I was about four minutes behind Greg, three minutes behind Justin out of the water.
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: I this is the only time I've ever done Oceanside too, so it's it's my only experience on that course.
[17:06] SPEAKER_01: Um I also, again, if you had listened to The Road to Oceanside last year, I didn't get my TT bike until like five days before the race.
[17:16] SPEAKER_01: So this was like my second or third outdoor ride and like fifth ride, you know, riding TT position or riding on this bike.
[17:24] SPEAKER_01: Um so I was super nervous about that.
[17:26] SPEAKER_01: I biked okay, about I don't know, I lost what, seven, seven more minutes?
[17:31] SPEAKER_01: Like it was a mostly solo ride.
[17:33] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I wrote 205, you rode 211.
[17:35] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I rode 211, which honestly, it's like look, 205 at Oceanside is is pretty disgusting.
[17:40] SPEAKER_01: Like Lionel had a great ride last year to ride even with Justin.
[17:44] SPEAKER_01: Um and 211, I was still like most of the guys who got popped from that front pack it's like rode 213, 214, 215.
[17:53] SPEAKER_01: Like it's a it's a hard course, it's not fast.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: Like if somebody goes faster than 205 there this year, that's crazy.
[18:01] SPEAKER_01: Um but anyway, so I rode 211, got off the bike 12 minutes behind Justin.
[18:05] SPEAKER_01: Granted, I've had I've had a mustache for the last whatever five or six years.
[18:08] SPEAKER_01: It was it was on the line here.
[18:11] SPEAKER_01: Uh if I lost, I had to shave it on Instagram live.
[18:14] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I hear it was 12 minutes, but my friend Evan was there, told me it was 10 minutes, because he thought if he told me 12, I would get like disheartened and and give up and think it wasn't possible.
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: But then he said, Justin's Justin's leading the race, he's off the front, and I was like, oh great, he's on TV, he's gonna go out way too hard and blow up.
[18:33] SPEAKER_01: Uh and anyway, I just I just did my thing.
[18:37] SPEAKER_01: I ran, you know, pretty even-paced it, ran just as fast as I could, closed really well.
[18:41] SPEAKER_01: I thought uh there was no way it was gonna happen because I I would see Justin at the turnarounds, I was getting splits, I was still seven minutes down going into lap two.
[18:51] SPEAKER_01: And the I don't know, a mile to go, I was like, holy shit, there's that yellow kit that's Justin right up there, and then a K to go, you can see the finish line.
[19:02] SPEAKER_01: Like you just come on this long ass stretch and you still got whatever, a solid three minutes to go.
[19:07] SPEAKER_01: And it's I was still like, oh, am I gonna get him?
[19:10] SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
[19:10] SPEAKER_01: And I I just fucking went for it.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: And then uh Braden Curry was between me and Justin, so I stayed behind him just in case Justin looked back and was like, oh fuck, he's right there, and tried to get a second wind and sprint for it.
[19:24] SPEAKER_01: So I literally stayed behind Braden Curry to make sure that Justin wouldn't see me if he looked back.
[19:28] SPEAKER_01: And by that point it was like whatever, 300 or 400 to go, and I was like, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I'm actually gonna get him.
[19:36] SPEAKER_01: It was crazy.
[19:37] SPEAKER_01: Uh and yeah, four-hour race coming down to the final minute.
[19:41] SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a proud moment.
[19:43] SPEAKER_01: And for me, I was ninth place, and I uh first pro series had never had like I'd been like fifth at a couple like really small, pretty watered down 70.3s.
[19:54] SPEAKER_01: So to kind of mix it up, you know, I I beat Justin, I beat Braden, was like not too far behind you know, some big names.
[20:02] SPEAKER_01: Ben Canut was was uh had a good one, Apo had a good one, um Gustav and Rudy were there.
[20:07] SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Lionel won the race.
[20:08] SPEAKER_01: I was like I don't know, I was still six minutes behind the winner in Lionel, but that was the first race where I really like mixed it up, you know, even with a fucking god-awful swim.
[20:19] SPEAKER_01: So you know, hopefully we changed that this year.
[20:21] SPEAKER_03: You ran a 109.
[20:22] SPEAKER_03: You had the second fastest run split behind only Christian Blumefeld, who was on the side of the road with a flat for a while.
[20:28] SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, it was really like a great race to start a breakout year for you last year in 2025 where you were super consistent.
[20:35] SPEAKER_03: So that is why we are all on this show, you know, and not racing in the amateur field.
[20:41] SPEAKER_03: So let's jump into it.
[20:43] SPEAKER_03: Uh, I figured, you know, every single week, now that we've done kind of the banter of what to expect for this show, a little bit of our history at Oceanside, we're gonna get into the meat of the potato meat and potatoes of what we're actually gonna talk about every single week here, which is like we're gonna rate our training weeks on difficulty and execution and total hours, and then we're gonna dive into the bike run and swim workout.
[21:02] SPEAKER_03: So, Ari, why don't you give us, you know, on a scale of one to ten, and we could talk about kind of what you know what we think we mean by this.
[21:10] SPEAKER_03: How hard was last week's training week, your first week of January?
[21:13] SPEAKER_03: How'd you execute it and what was the total volume?
[21:15] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we were talking about this a little before the show and we were kind of doing our ratings.
[21:19] SPEAKER_01: I think it, you know, 10 out of 10 difficulty is obviously like you you could not go any harder.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: I feel like 10 out of 10 is is you you you're just completely cooking yourself every day, or you know, that you could get to the end of the week and you're like, I could not possibly fit in any more training load than that.
[21:37] SPEAKER_01: So that that's a 10.
[21:38] SPEAKER_01: And I think a zero is you did not train.
[21:41] SPEAKER_01: I gave myself an eight out of ten.
[21:43] SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a very, very uh difficult week.
[21:47] SPEAKER_01: Um but there were a couple things in there where I was like, I could s I could still see this progressing from here to a nine or a ten.
[21:56] SPEAKER_01: Um but it was it was really hard.
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: Like I couldn't train that much harder.
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: Than I did last week.
[22:02] SPEAKER_01: And it was actually my highest bike run TSS week ever that I've done.
[22:07] SPEAKER_01: So starting 2026 off on a good note.
[22:11] SPEAKER_01: I executed it a 7 out of 10, I'll say.
[22:14] SPEAKER_01: It was like mostly good.
[22:16] SPEAKER_01: I didn't really fuck anything up majorly.
[22:19] SPEAKER_01: It was all green on training peaks for the most part, but there were a couple snafoos that I could have handled maybe a little bit better.
[22:28] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was good.
[22:28] SPEAKER_01: I gave myself a seven.
[22:29] SPEAKER_01: And it was 26 hours and 31 minutes of training between swim bike run.
[22:34] SPEAKER_01: We don't count yoga or mobility or lifting on this show.
[22:38] SPEAKER_01: So 26 and a half hours.
[22:40] SPEAKER_01: Not lifting.
[22:40] SPEAKER_01: What the hell?
[22:42] SPEAKER_01: Oh, but did you train 12 hours this week?
[22:44] SPEAKER_00: What about what about sauna?
[22:45] SPEAKER_00: Alright, well, I gotta change this.
[22:47] SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't count sauna, but I I think I count lifting, so I gotta go and modify my numbers here.
[22:52] SPEAKER_00: Oh Jackson lifted for nine hours last week.
[22:55] SPEAKER_00: My average heart rate's above 100, I count it.
[22:57] SPEAKER_03: Jackson's doing high rocks.
[22:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[22:59] SPEAKER_00: Max left max lifts.
[23:01] SPEAKER_03: So you just said something interesting.
[23:02] SPEAKER_03: Average heart rate over 100, you count it.
[23:04] SPEAKER_03: But so like if you're in the sauna for 45 minutes and your average heart rate's like 105 and you're just cooking yourself.
[23:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[23:11] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't even think my average heart rate would, because I I don't have a sauna right now, but I have had a sauna for years, and it takes a while before my heart rate gets over 100, and then maybe for like five to ten minutes it's over a hundred, and then I'm like too hot and I have to get out.
[23:26] SPEAKER_03: I have the same experience.
[23:27] SPEAKER_03: I counted it in my volume this week, so I have to modify it all.
[23:30] SPEAKER_00: So okay, okay.
[23:32] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're gonna have to modify.
[23:34] SPEAKER_00: I I only I think I only have to subtract like 45 minutes, so I'm just gonna say 1730.
[23:39] SPEAKER_03: Alright, Jackson, how was your week?
[23:41] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm glad we started this when we did because last week was my first week of actually training out of like a consistent training base um since the offseason.
[23:54] SPEAKER_00: So I would call it a five out of ten difficulty, quite a bit lower than average in all regards.
[24:00] SPEAKER_00: Um honestly, the guys kind of convinced me to push that up.
[24:04] SPEAKER_00: I had it at a four out of ten.
[24:06] SPEAKER_00: Wasn't very difficult.
[24:07] SPEAKER_00: Uh, execution, eight out of ten.
[24:09] SPEAKER_00: When your training's really easy, it's pretty easy to do a good job of it.
[24:13] SPEAKER_00: I still somehow managed to like get to the pool late and have to cut a couple swims short.
[24:18] SPEAKER_00: Um I'll blame that on moving to a new location and trying to figure out all the pools around here, which mostly suck.
[24:24] SPEAKER_00: But but yeah, other than that, I pretty much nailed it.
[24:28] SPEAKER_00: Uh thankfully, because if I couldn't nail that week, then I would be in a bad spot for for this uh for this bet that we're gonna have here.
[24:35] SPEAKER_00: And total hours, 17 and a half hours.
[24:39] SPEAKER_00: So not it was actually more than I thought.
[24:42] SPEAKER_00: Like when I was looking back, I was expecting to see like 15.
[24:45] SPEAKER_00: So I'm pretty pleased that it's in a not that far off.
[24:49] SPEAKER_00: Like I'll I'll be up around the similar numbers within a couple weeks.
[24:52] SPEAKER_01: Wait, you mentioned uh stable training base or whatever, so you moved.
[24:56] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so here's my uh getting all my excuses out of the way for why I'm not in great shape right now.
[25:01] SPEAKER_00: So I did uh Lakinta 70.3 is my last race of the year, beat Ari.
[25:06] SPEAKER_00: Um motherfucker.
[25:08] SPEAKER_00: 37 seconds.
[25:10] SPEAKER_00: Almost beat Lionel, but didn't.
[25:12] SPEAKER_00: So third place.
[25:13] SPEAKER_00: Uh good race there.
[25:15] SPEAKER_00: Then I went home, moved for five days.
[25:18] SPEAKER_00: Um, did a ton of what you do when you move, and of course it's like cold out and everything, and I got it cold.
[25:24] SPEAKER_01: You couldn't put that prize money towards hiring some movers?
[25:26] SPEAKER_01: I I potentially could have, but you know, decided not to.
[25:29] SPEAKER_00: It's like 3,000 bucks, 3,000 US, dude.
[25:32] SPEAKER_00: That's like 50,000 Canadian dollars.
[25:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I'm practically rich.
[25:35] SPEAKER_00: Uh so then did that, and then me and my girlfriend went to Mexico on vacation, and I got sick for the second time.
[25:42] SPEAKER_00: And so I was gonna start training, and I kind of didn't, so I took like nine days completely off training.
[25:48] SPEAKER_00: Then I took like uh I'm this is kind of going in the next section, but then I took probably another eight or nine days where I did like an hour a day average, maybe an hour and a half, so like very little, all easy.
[26:00] SPEAKER_00: And then I got into this training week, which I just, you know, I just graced you guys with the knowledge of how hard I'm training now.
[26:08] SPEAKER_00: So that's where I'm at.
[26:10] SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I'm in a new city, so I feel like I'm actually settled in now, and I kind of have a my mind wrapped around how I'm gonna be able to put together good training in this new spot.
[26:18] SPEAKER_00: So I'm nice, pretty happy with that.
[26:20] SPEAKER_03: All right, so you're basically just getting back into then your first week of the season, Jackson.
[26:24] SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, good to have you on the show.
[26:26] SPEAKER_03: It'll be uh only uphill from here, I guess, coming off this move.
[26:29] SPEAKER_00: For sure.
[26:30] SPEAKER_00: And you get to see my actual training starting from nothing.
[26:33] SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
[26:34] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[26:34] SPEAKER_03: I'm also coming off of a big move.
[26:36] SPEAKER_03: Uh I moved from Las Vegas to San Francisco Bay Area, California.
[26:41] SPEAKER_03: Um, God, what was that?
[26:43] SPEAKER_03: Two a month ago?
[26:44] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, basically a month ago now.
[26:46] SPEAKER_03: So we've been settling into our new house, and I feel like I've finally got my feet under me with my routine and uh hosted my buddy for the first time.
[26:54] SPEAKER_03: Uh buddy came up from LA and I did not have any work.
[26:58] SPEAKER_03: So not having my job last week was pretty awesome, and being able to train like a real pro.
[27:04] SPEAKER_03: Um wait, you have a job?
[27:06] SPEAKER_03: I do have a job.
[27:07] SPEAKER_01: Is it part-time?
[27:10] SPEAKER_03: It is a full-time corporate job.
[27:12] SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, are you on LinkedIn?
[27:15] SPEAKER_03: You got a LinkedIn, bro?
[27:16] SPEAKER_03: I knew this was coming.
[27:18] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so just in LinkedIn reality over here.
[27:21] SPEAKER_03: I am uh corporate pro or whatever you want to call it, but trying to raise part-time.
[27:26] SPEAKER_03: And I feel like this last week was a taste into what life could be like if I didn't have a job.
[27:32] SPEAKER_03: And it tasted sweet, let me tell you.
[27:35] SPEAKER_03: Fucking no alarms, long four or five-hour bike rides, zone one, zone two in the middle of the week with no traffic, no, almost no trainer rides except when it was raining.
[27:45] SPEAKER_03: So it was nice.
[27:46] SPEAKER_03: My week was pretty tough.
[27:48] SPEAKER_03: I uh took an early off season after my season wrapped up last September in October, and then started training pretty hard in November and December.
[27:56] SPEAKER_03: So I'm coming off December was the best training month of my life, and we're kind of rolling right into January.
[28:01] SPEAKER_03: So I would rate my difficulty at a seven out of 10 last week.
[28:04] SPEAKER_03: It was quite high volume for me at 25 hours and 30 minutes of swim, bike, and run, plus 45 minutes in the sauna, three, 15, 20 minute sessions.
[28:13] SPEAKER_03: And then uh executed it at probably a nine out of 10.
[28:16] SPEAKER_03: I pretty much nailed every single session, felt like I was really locked in and present.
[28:19] SPEAKER_03: But the one session I could have done better was uh my bike session, which we'll actually just dive right into.
[28:25] SPEAKER_03: So, you know, we'll do our bike workout breakdown.
[28:28] SPEAKER_03: My bike workout of the week was uh a pretty mentally taxing one.
[28:33] SPEAKER_03: It was five hours on the trainer easy, no structure.
[28:37] SPEAKER_03: So basically sat on the trainer on my TT bike.
[28:40] SPEAKER_03: I've been riding a lot of road bike, woke up Saturday morning, had a coffee, and then just hopped on from eight to one.
[28:45] SPEAKER_03: I had like 90 seconds of stoppage time where I just took a piss.
[28:48] SPEAKER_03: And other than that, I watched Sopranos, I made an Instagram reel, talked on the phone with a couple of friends, including me, including Ari.
[28:57] SPEAKER_03: Uh and my average heart rate was 105 BPM, and my average power was 204 watts.
[29:05] SPEAKER_03: So it was pretty easy, pretty boring.
[29:08] SPEAKER_03: But it's funny because my legs were pretty cooked.
[29:10] SPEAKER_03: It was still 3,700 kilojoules of effort, 3,500 calories burned, 116 miles on Tempest fugit in Zwift.
[29:17] SPEAKER_03: That's what really matters.
[29:18] SPEAKER_03: A lot of drops, a lot of tempests.
[29:21] SPEAKER_03: Uh, no pacer groups.
[29:23] SPEAKER_00: You're working on that uh that halo bike upgrade or something?
[29:26] SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
[29:27] SPEAKER_03: I'm level 69 right now, and multiple people DM me saying I can't change my level.
[29:32] SPEAKER_03: So I don't think you're allowed to hold yourself back voluntarily, unfortunately.
[29:37] SPEAKER_03: I know.
[29:38] SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, five hours on the trainer's high is like taxing.
[29:41] SPEAKER_03: I do think about Ari when I do these fucking sessions.
[29:43] SPEAKER_03: I don't know why it's so annoying.
[29:44] SPEAKER_00: Gotta build up my lead.
[29:46] SPEAKER_03: No, I just Ari does you'll you'll come to learn, Jackson.
[29:49] SPEAKER_03: Like Ari just does this stuff.
[29:51] SPEAKER_03: He'll just do five or six hours in his like super shitty pain cave, like under a staircase, like looking at the wall.
[29:58] SPEAKER_00: I watch his YouTube.
[29:59] SPEAKER_00: I've seen I've seen so many of his videos where he's like, Oh my threshold's so high now, and look at these intervals, and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see.
[30:06] SPEAKER_00: And then this year I'm like, ah fuck, he's actually getting pretty good.
[30:09] SPEAKER_00: Damn it.
[30:11] SPEAKER_03: So I'm just like, dude, if I can't do five hours on the trainer, there's no way I'm gonna keep up with the pace that the sport is evolving.
[30:17] SPEAKER_03: That's how I think about it a little bit.
[30:18] SPEAKER_03: And um I'm just highly motivated right now.
[30:21] SPEAKER_00: I don't do five hours on the trainer.
[30:22] SPEAKER_03: You know, I don't know.
[30:23] SPEAKER_03: Maybe I've spent too much time with Ari and I'm turning into a sicko, but that was my session of the week.
[30:27] SPEAKER_03: I also did four hours on the trainer on Thursday, so I'm kind of like just grinding out a big bike volume week.
[30:32] SPEAKER_03: Uh, how about you guys?
[30:33] SPEAKER_03: What were your bike sessions of the week?
[30:34] SPEAKER_00: When I'm like coming off off season, I I mentally to sit on the trainer that long, I gotta like work my way up.
[30:40] SPEAKER_00: So this was my longest ride of the week.
[30:42] SPEAKER_00: I didn't even put how long it was.
[30:43] SPEAKER_00: It was ended up being two hours 15 minutes.
[30:46] SPEAKER_00: Um actually, no, sorry, that's a lie.
[30:48] SPEAKER_00: I did two and a half hours all easy another day.
[30:51] SPEAKER_00: So it was my second longest ride of the week.
[30:53] SPEAKER_00: And my coach loves to give the you know New Year's theme workouts, so it was 26 reps of two minutes with a minute recovery.
[31:03] SPEAKER_00: In groups, uh the first chunk was 12 reps, then you get an extra two minutes, then eight reps, extra two minutes, five reps, extra two minutes, then one rep really hard.
[31:13] SPEAKER_00: So the first 12 were at like it's 95-ish percent FTP of current bike fitness.
[31:21] SPEAKER_01: How do you calculate that?
[31:22] SPEAKER_00: It's just an estimate, honestly.
[31:24] SPEAKER_00: It's just an estimate, okay.
[31:25] SPEAKER_00: Like I I've not I have done 20-minute power tests in the past, um, but I haven't done one for years.
[31:32] SPEAKER_00: My best estimates, honestly, probably come from races.
[31:35] SPEAKER_00: Um, so like my best race powers for two hours in a 70.3 have been like low 330s, and then I'm just like estimating it's probably really hard to hold more than like 90 or 92 percent of FTP for two hours in a race.
[31:51] SPEAKER_00: So my best ever fitness is roughly around 370 um, I would guess, FTP.
[31:57] SPEAKER_00: But right now, I would guess more like maybe 350, probably 340 is my FTP.
[32:04] SPEAKER_00: So for these reps, I was doing the first 12 were like 330, then the next eight were in the low to mid 350s, um, then the five were in the like 375 range, and then the last like hard rep was like 410, 415.
[32:22] SPEAKER_01: So are you TTing these or a road bike or upright?
[32:26] SPEAKER_00: Right now, I've just been riding the road bike on the trainer.
[32:29] SPEAKER_00: Usually I do this off season for the first few weeks, I just ride the road bike, but uh typically in as we get closer to the race, like I'll pretty much switch to all TT bike, and that's not really because I think you have to do it, but because it's easier, and I pretty much only ride the trainer ever, which that's just a thing that I've done the last several years.
[32:50] SPEAKER_00: And I do try to do even most of my hard intervals arrow.
[32:54] SPEAKER_00: Once you're like above 110-ish percent FTP, it's sometimes I'll be like mixing it, but for the most part, I'm pretty much all arrow for these.
[33:03] SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
[33:03] SPEAKER_01: 110.
[33:04] SPEAKER_01: So if you did like four by four minutes at 110% FTP, that's like a V that's a true VO2 workout.
[33:10] SPEAKER_01: You would do that like late season?
[33:12] SPEAKER_00: I'd do about half.
[33:14] SPEAKER_00: About half arrow, half, maybe even more.
[33:16] SPEAKER_00: Like I'd probably do the first couple reps all arrow, and then the next, the last few reps would be like arrow as much as I can, then out of arrow.
[33:24] SPEAKER_00: I don't my power does not drop off much.
[33:27] SPEAKER_00: Like it it, you know, maybe a few percent.
[33:30] SPEAKER_00: I obviously can do more if I stand, but that's like that's basically cheating.
[33:34] SPEAKER_03: Wow.
[33:34] SPEAKER_03: Well, there you have it, Ari.
[33:35] SPEAKER_03: There's that's why Jackson's so slippery and why his power is low.
[33:38] SPEAKER_03: He's doing his 400 watt reps on the in arrow on the trainer.
[33:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's so impressive.
[33:43] SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know what it says about your physiology, because that's that's I would say not the case for like 99% of people.
[33:50] SPEAKER_01: Like, I think as soon as you for for most triathletes and probably cyclists who obviously have like way more aggressive T T positions, like once you start approaching threshold on the especially on the trainer in the TT position, like I mean, I I just mentally struggle with it.
[34:09] SPEAKER_01: I think uh data-wise, maybe it's not actually that different.
[34:12] SPEAKER_01: It feels so much harder.
[34:14] SPEAKER_01: That's yeah, that is like crazy to me that you're basically like you know, until you're pushing like 430 watts or whatever, you're like, ah fuck it, I'll time trial.
[34:22] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm probably in the like 350 range.
[34:24] SPEAKER_03: I think once I pass about 350, 360 watts, I'll definitely be out of arrow.
[34:29] SPEAKER_03: I try to think about it like, okay, what am I doing in a race?
[34:31] SPEAKER_03: And if I'm true pushing above 350, 360, I'm probably attacking up a climb in a 70.3 and probably trying to close a gap and I'm just like hammering out of the saddle.
[34:40] SPEAKER_03: So you know, I I I mean, if look, if you can ride higher than that in arrow on a flat, fast course like a Texas or a European race props, that's probably why you're getting away.
[34:51] SPEAKER_00: Well, I will say two things that maybe help with this.
[34:55] SPEAKER_00: One, I have quite short cranks, and the second is how short?
[35:00] SPEAKER_00: 160.
[35:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was thinking about switching to 160.
[35:04] SPEAKER_01: I've been on 165s.
[35:06] SPEAKER_01: I feel like maybe shorter is just better.
[35:08] SPEAKER_03: I had 155s, and then I switched to 160 after I talked to Jackson.
[35:13] SPEAKER_01: Uh you do that, you talk to Jackson, switch your cranks.
[35:16] SPEAKER_01: You talk to Trevor Foley, get a new chain ring.
[35:18] SPEAKER_00: I'm actually on 185 mil cranks.
[35:21] SPEAKER_00: Um so you should switch to that.
[35:23] SPEAKER_00: Uh so the other thing is my position is not really that aggressive.
[35:27] SPEAKER_00: So there's with when it comes to arrow position, what I think a lot of people, and and most pros are good about this now and they know, but a lot of people drop their bars really low and they're like, oh, this is gonna make me more arrow.
[35:40] SPEAKER_00: But your back and like your hip angle knows where like your body naturally knows where it can sit and and be comfortable for a long period of time.
[35:48] SPEAKER_00: So what happens is people drop their shoulders to to reach down to their pads, then they create all this space here.
[35:54] SPEAKER_00: Like you guys are arrow, you know this.
[35:56] SPEAKER_00: This is more just for general people.
[35:58] SPEAKER_00: If you bring your bars up at the front, you actually shrug your shoulders and your back position doesn't change at all, so you're just as low, but you're closing that gap down between like your chin, your arms, and you're just way more arrow, especially if you have bottles in there filling the space.
[36:14] SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I have a pretty high position, and then I can really shrug, and I my back is probably in the same angle as if I had like a lower position.
[36:23] SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's part of it, but it's pretty comfortable the arrow position I use.
[36:26] SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't know.
[36:28] SPEAKER_00: I don't mind being in it.
[36:29] SPEAKER_03: I I mean I think you're right.
[36:30] SPEAKER_03: Like arrow 101 for any amateurs listening is bring your head closer to your hands.
[36:35] SPEAKER_03: And if that means you can comfortably bring your head and shoulders to your hands without sacrificing power, great.
[36:41] SPEAKER_03: But most people you can't, so you gotta bring your hands higher and closer.
[36:45] SPEAKER_03: And that's not you know true for every single person, but you know, most people I think they're they're trying to get a little too aggressive with where their bars are placed.
[36:54] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely.
[36:54] SPEAKER_03: I don't know, maybe Ari disagrees because he went out and down last year and got faster.
[36:58] SPEAKER_01: No, but that was that was I did arrow testing and like I just my position wasn't good.
[37:04] SPEAKER_01: It was like I had I just like I had gotten some bike fits, but then you fuck around with things yourself, you know, like oh, is this more comfortable?
[37:12] SPEAKER_01: Do I have more power this way?
[37:13] SPEAKER_01: Oh, this looks more arrow when I like take a video of it.
[37:16] SPEAKER_01: So I I I had just made all that shit up.
[37:18] SPEAKER_01: Um and I got a new front end which helped me uh just like really dial in the position and and smooth everything out.
[37:25] SPEAKER_01: So um and I did lose a little bit of power, like it took me basically the rest of the year to get back to the power I was pushing in the old position, but uh in theory I was like 25 to 30 watts faster.
[37:38] SPEAKER_01: So I mean it worked out, but it took me it took me months, like it took me up like eight or six months basically to get back to the power I was pushing in the old position.
[37:48] SPEAKER_01: So it's like you do lose some temporarily um, you know, going out and down.
[37:53] SPEAKER_01: But I I do find it incredibly comfortable now.
[37:55] SPEAKER_01: All right, back to training.
[37:57] SPEAKER_01: My bike workout of the week was my Saturday VO2 session, and I do look, I'm not gonna list off all my training, but I do have to give some context of what went into Saturday.
[38:10] SPEAKER_01: Just quick, it'll take it'll it'll only take 20 minutes, I swear.
[38:13] SPEAKER_01: Uh Tuesday was uh threshold ride, Wednesday was a four-hour ride with two hours of tempo, Thursday was a threshold ride, and Friday was a six-hour ride with two hours of tempo.
[38:23] SPEAKER_01: So that and that so that's going into Saturday, so it's like this is a VO2 ride that I looked at the description and I was like, this is fucking impossible.
[38:31] SPEAKER_01: There's no fucking way I'm gonna do this, which is not a good mindset to have.
[38:34] SPEAKER_01: So I tried to shift it and be like, let's just fucking go and and like see what we can do here.
[38:39] SPEAKER_01: Um but I I kind of figured even on a good day, this is a crazy workout, and I assumed that I was gonna be tired.
[38:46] SPEAKER_01: So the workout was on the trainer, erg mode, like specified erg mode on, 30 minutes at 280.
[38:53] SPEAKER_01: Oh, and this was on the road bike, not the TT.
[38:55] SPEAKER_01: I was switching back and forth all week.
[38:57] SPEAKER_01: 30 minutes at 280, then right into two rounds of 90 seconds at 500 watts, 30 seconds at 180 watts, 60 seconds at 510 watts, 20 seconds 180, 30 seconds at 520, then 10 seconds rest, then 15 seconds at 530, and then five minutes rest at 240 watts.
[39:18] SPEAKER_01: So not just soft pedaling, it's still like zone two rest.
[39:22] SPEAKER_01: Um so kind of crazy amount of time at 500 watts uh or above, and two times through that.
[39:29] SPEAKER_01: Uh and the thing with erg mode is that once you just like you can't just push less power, you will literally fail.
[39:36] SPEAKER_01: Like, so if you know I'm trying to do 500 watts, I'm trying to hold like 105 RPM or something, like something super high.
[39:43] SPEAKER_01: As soon as the cadence drops, the trainer uh increases the resistance.
[39:50] SPEAKER_01: And that just like so if you're not pushing the watts, it'll increase the resistance and your drops even more, and then and then yeah, you get to a point where you're pushing 70, 60, 50 rpm and 500 watts at 50 rpm, that would be insane for even a you know a pro tour cyclist.
[40:07] SPEAKER_01: Like that is some crazy torque.
[40:09] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you just fail.
[40:10] SPEAKER_01: So I failed both of the 90-second reps.
[40:12] SPEAKER_01: I got the first one I got through like a little over a minute before I failed, and then you kind of got to wait for erg mode to like disengage and then get going again.
[40:21] SPEAKER_01: So I ended up having like 10 or 15 seconds of like not pedaling in there before getting back to 500 watts.
[40:27] SPEAKER_01: And then the second one I got to like 70 seconds, and then again had like five more seconds of spinning up before I got to the rest.
[40:34] SPEAKER_01: And then for the 60, 30, 15, uh, which were at 510, 520, 530, I like barely made it through those.
[40:42] SPEAKER_01: Like the the death spiral started in like the last kind of 10-15 seconds of the minute, and you just like stand up and sprint with everything, and I just kind of like barely made it to the end.
[40:55] SPEAKER_01: Um, so that was that was fucked.
[40:57] SPEAKER_01: And then uh 20 minutes at 280 between there, and then eight by thirty thirty thirties, where the 30 ons were at 500 and the 30 offs were at 220.
[41:06] SPEAKER_01: And like at that point, my legs were so cooked, I just like I I made it, I didn't fail any of them, but it was like it's fucking it's it's hard at that point, and then 15 minutes at 280 uh on the cooldown, and so it was only a 90-minute ride, but that was like I was looking at that all week as like if I'm gonna fail a ride this week, it's gonna be that one.
[41:28] SPEAKER_01: Um, and technically I did like and I did not make it through either 90 second rep at 500 watts, but um yeah, that's uh that's my bike strategy.
[41:38] SPEAKER_03: So that's like a 10 out of 10 difficulty session where you're literally going till failure.
[41:42] SPEAKER_03: That's that's gotta be our definition of what a 10 is, right?
[41:44] SPEAKER_01: Like yes, I mean if if you fail the workout, it like it's hard to make it any like I couldn't you couldn't make that any harder and expect me to do it because I failed it as it is.
[41:53] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's gnarly.
[41:55] SPEAKER_03: 500 watts for uh 30 seconds.
[41:57] SPEAKER_03: Any of our listeners, go give that a crack.
[41:59] SPEAKER_03: See if you can do one of them because it's not easy.
[42:02] SPEAKER_03: Doing eight is is real impressive.
[42:04] SPEAKER_03: Do you think you can do that workout?
[42:05] SPEAKER_03: I don't think I can do that workout right now, Jackson.
[42:07] SPEAKER_00: Oh god.
[42:09] SPEAKER_00: Not even close.
[42:09] SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, 500 is yeah, I mean uh I'd like to think in in shape I'd be close on that.
[42:17] SPEAKER_00: I I think maybe Ari and I have similar power.
[42:20] SPEAKER_00: He might be a little bit higher in terms of absolute wattage, but yeah, right now that would be an epic fail uh on my end.
[42:27] SPEAKER_00: That's almost a VLA max session.
[42:29] SPEAKER_00: Like it's because you're that's if you were to say like what is your VO2 max power, which is what, like a 10-minute power test or something, you wouldn't be 500 UB.
[42:40] SPEAKER_03: R is working on his sprint finishes on the bike for his local crit race in February.
[42:45] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think fresh, I could probably do I I don't know right now.
[42:54] SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
[42:54] SPEAKER_01: I think I'd be close to I'd be over 500 watts for four or five minutes, or very close, like 480, 490 if I did a five-minute power test.
[43:03] SPEAKER_03: Wow.
[43:04] SPEAKER_03: Um let's hear it next week.
[43:05] SPEAKER_03: I think yeah, give it to him.
[43:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I he'll listen to this and make me do it.
[43:11] SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
[43:11] SPEAKER_01: I'd love to do it.
[43:12] SPEAKER_01: If I can go outside on the road bike, there's a great six and a half minute climb that I've done.
[43:18] SPEAKER_01: I've done it at 470 watts before, and this is kind of the weird thing, is like that's my natural strength is like five to fifteen or twenty minute power.
[43:28] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, physiologically good at that.
[43:31] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you were a miler, it's a four-minute race.
[43:33] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, four minute one second race.
[43:35] SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
[43:36] SPEAKER_00: Wait, were you a four oh one miler?
[43:38] SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's basically just the same as me or Justin, who are probably like four thirty milers.
[43:42] SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
[43:44] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[43:45] SPEAKER_01: But it's uh the it's the the s the strength aspect of like the you know two hours muscular endurance over a seventy point three and then running well off of it.
[43:54] SPEAKER_01: That's kind of where I've struggled.
[43:56] SPEAKER_01: Like the second hour of a seventy point three really gets me, but it's still Like, you know, if VO2 is my strength, I can't just not work on it.
[44:04] SPEAKER_01: I really want that to be like as the higher that is, the higher my threshold is, the higher kind of capacity I have for training and working on that muscular endurance.
[44:13] SPEAKER_01: So I mean this type of year, this time of year, I like last year I was doing three VO2 and true VO2, like you know, like more like five to twenty minute power.
[44:22] SPEAKER_01: I was doing three a week.
[44:23] SPEAKER_01: Um this was the only one of the week.
[44:25] SPEAKER_01: It was a lot more threshold, a lot more tempo, a lot more volume, kind of working on um that sort of you know muscular strength endurance weakness.
[44:34] SPEAKER_03: So did you go into a run workout on the same day?
[44:37] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[44:37] SPEAKER_01: Well that's that's the uh that that's later, right?
[44:42] SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's next.
[44:42] SPEAKER_01: That's next.
[44:43] SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're going overgoing bike run.
[44:45] SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah, okay.
[44:46] SPEAKER_01: So um we can then transition into the run workout, which was uh I don't know, maybe an hour and 90 minutes after that.
[44:53] SPEAKER_01: I so I've been having this thing.
[44:55] SPEAKER_01: I I really want to incorporate more treadmill running in my in my program.
[45:01] SPEAKER_03: How many treadmill runs did you do in 2025?
[45:03] SPEAKER_01: Uh two or three.
[45:05] SPEAKER_01: Like that's what I thought.
[45:07] SPEAKER_01: Barely, barely ever.
[45:08] SPEAKER_00: You don't need to do anything that's gonna improve your running.
[45:10] SPEAKER_00: You're fine.
[45:11] SPEAKER_01: Like you just just run like 30 miles a week and just no, but it's not gonna work because I'm not swimming this year, so I'm just gonna have to I'm just gonna have to make up a four-minute gap on the bike and running.
[45:20] SPEAKER_03: He's only gonna sign up for races where the weather forecast looks shit or the swimming.
[45:24] SPEAKER_01: Swim cancelled or downriver type thing.
[45:26] SPEAKER_01: I've been looking around Seattle for gyms that have treadmills that go over 12 miles an hour.
[45:32] SPEAKER_01: And it is infuriating because every gym, especially like new gyms, like I find older treadmills tend to go higher, but like all these gyms that got new treadmills, like everything is capped at 12 miles an hour.
[45:47] SPEAKER_01: Or what is that?
[45:48] SPEAKER_01: That's uh it's 307 per K.
[45:50] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's even not even 12 and a half, eh?
[45:53] SPEAKER_00: Because a lot around here go 12 and a half.
[45:54] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like 19.2k per hour.
[45:57] SPEAKER_01: So it's not even 20k an hour.
[45:59] SPEAKER_01: Um so I mean that's solid enough for like threshold stuff, but I'm not a big fan of like upping the incline.
[46:06] SPEAKER_01: I think one of the benefits of the treadmill is um like your mechanics.
[46:11] SPEAKER_01: Like it might be easier to run the pace, but you run with great mechanics.
[46:14] SPEAKER_01: So anyway, yeah, I I went to the fucking Planet Fitness, I called ahead, I said, what's the max speed of your treadmills?
[46:20] SPEAKER_01: They told me 15 miles an hour.
[46:21] SPEAKER_01: I was like, 15?
[46:22] SPEAKER_01: Awesome, amazing.
[46:24] SPEAKER_01: I'll be in.
[46:24] SPEAKER_01: I got a free trial pass, and I fucking get there, and it's a max speed of 12 miles an hour, and whatever.
[46:30] SPEAKER_01: Anyway, onto the the workout itself was um it was supposed to be five by six minutes on, one minute off, uh starting around 3.15 per K.
[46:40] SPEAKER_01: So that'd be like 11.7 miles an hour, and then getting to like over threshold, what felt like maybe 10k pace or you know, 30 minute pace.
[46:50] SPEAKER_01: Um and so I got there, I was at 12 miles an hour trying to go higher on rep three, and that just fucking killed my vibe so hard.
[46:57] SPEAKER_00: Wait, you didn't test it before, you just trusted it?
[47:00] SPEAKER_01: Well, they t I called the gym and they told me it goes to 15.
[47:03] SPEAKER_00: Every front desk staff in history just tells you an answer so that they can be done that call.
[47:09] SPEAKER_01: Well, no, they put me on hold.
[47:10] SPEAKER_01: So I thought they went to the treadmill and tested it.
[47:12] SPEAKER_01: And then I so spoiler alert, I went after the workout, I was like, hey, someone on the phone told me the treadmills go to 15.
[47:18] SPEAKER_01: They were like, oh yeah, we just guessed.
[47:22] SPEAKER_01: Like, fuck, you just like kind of wasted my afternoon a little bit.
[47:27] SPEAKER_01: Um but anyway, uh, so I just hung out there at 12 miles an hour for uh reps three, four, and five.
[47:34] SPEAKER_01: And I was like, well, fuck, that wasn't hard enough.
[47:36] SPEAKER_01: So I added on a sixth rep, which ended up being like pretty hard, like a good effort where I was like, okay, rep seven would be really, really hard.
[47:44] SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the effort I wanted.
[47:46] SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, it was it was uh like 13 and a half miles on the treadmill, but I took off a mile because I had basically uh you know five one-minute rests where I was just on the side of the treadmill.
[48:01] SPEAKER_01: So 12 and a half miles total.
[48:03] SPEAKER_01: Most of the warm-up and cooldown was like uh 615, 620 pace.
[48:08] SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the ons were obviously you know around five-minute mile pace.
[48:11] SPEAKER_00: I'm noticing a trend here.
[48:13] SPEAKER_00: All your easy isn't really easy, and then your hard is also really hard.
[48:18] SPEAKER_00: So like you have that all up and you just basically a puddle of tears at the end of the day.
[48:24] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I mean I'm loving it.
[48:25] SPEAKER_01: I uh it's uh God, I I just love training hard.
[48:31] SPEAKER_01: And like I'm the guy who on YouTube has like, oh fuck, I I cooked myself, you know.
[48:36] SPEAKER_01: And you even said it, like I'll post on Instagram or YouTube and be like, my threshold's so high, and then I go and I ride a 220 at Indian Wells or whatever.
[48:44] SPEAKER_00: You know Ari's a professional trainer.
[48:47] SPEAKER_00: That is this is actually awesome because we're gonna we're gonna see how this plays out, but I'm kind of the opposite of that.
[48:54] SPEAKER_00: Like anyone looks at my training, they'd be like, Hey yeah, this guy's maybe like a hundred to two hundredth ranked pro tra athlete in the world.
[49:02] SPEAKER_00: And then I go and I do better in the race than what any would expect anyone would expect on my training, especially I would say on the bike run.
[49:11] SPEAKER_00: Um, typically, like your guys are gonna be like, This guy's shit, we're gonna crush this guy at freaking oceanside, and then I'm probably gonna beat you both, but we'll see.
[49:18] SPEAKER_00: Uh put some money on it then.
[49:20] SPEAKER_01: It's pretty fair.
[49:21] SPEAKER_03: I know I I was kind of similar, Jackson.
[49:23] SPEAKER_03: And I feel like as I've spent the last year with Ari, I'm like, damn, maybe I should train harder.
[49:29] SPEAKER_03: But Ari's also so busy outside of his training.
[49:33] SPEAKER_03: He has to fold his laundry, he has to pour bowls of cereal in the morning.
[49:38] SPEAKER_01: Dude, that's tough.
[49:39] SPEAKER_03: When you train as hard as I do, you have to make one YouTube video every six weeks with no editing.
[49:44] SPEAKER_03: It's a tough one.
[49:44] SPEAKER_03: That kind of sounds like my life.
[49:48] SPEAKER_01: It's a good life.
[49:49] SPEAKER_01: It's a good life.
[49:49] SPEAKER_01: No, but hold on, but back on your point, Jackson.
[49:52] SPEAKER_01: I have overcooked myself so many times, but just come out stronger out the other side.
[49:58] SPEAKER_01: Where I got to this point last year where I was kind of just able to train like as hard as I wanted to, and was be like, Oh, I'm probably gonna be cooked tomorrow, and I'm not, and be like, okay, I'll train hard again.
[50:08] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm probably gonna be cooked tomorrow.
[50:10] SPEAKER_01: And then I would do I would like make it through a full month of like the craziest training I've ever done and be like, oh, I'm actually okay.
[50:16] SPEAKER_01: And it finally started translating to results.
[50:19] SPEAKER_01: And like, I think I mean that's just the way it has always been for me.
[50:23] SPEAKER_01: Is like as when I was a runner, I was running more mileage and just like training harder than everybody I knew.
[50:28] SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, I don't I don't think it would work out very well for me if I kind of trained like like the way you're saying.
[50:35] SPEAKER_01: I don't think I've I have the training age to do that.
[50:37] SPEAKER_01: But so like this year, I'm like, let's fucking lean into this.
[50:40] SPEAKER_01: Let's let's be the guy that like people look at my training and are like, oh, he's insane.
[50:44] SPEAKER_01: Or like you know, that's just a crazy amount of intensity.
[50:47] SPEAKER_01: So I'm really, really trying to lean into that into 2026 and like whatever, maybe I'll crack, you know, I'll overcook myself at some point.
[50:54] SPEAKER_01: But uh maybe, or maybe I won't.
[50:56] SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's kind of the experiment, is like basically every single day I'm gonna train as hard as I can, and it worked out for me last year.
[51:04] SPEAKER_01: So um, and that's how I'm going to beat these two at Oceanside 2026.
[51:10] SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
[51:11] SPEAKER_00: Well, you do have to know what works for you, and obviously, if you and I switch training plans, I think we'd both go into Oceanside and have a shit day.
[51:19] SPEAKER_00: So okay, my turn.
[51:22] SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm gonna change on the spot here and do a different treadmill workout because this one was boring.
[51:26] SPEAKER_00: My my session that I did was um it was 10 times 40 second uphill sprint, not sprint, uphill solid effort on the treadmill, 40 second walk, 40-second jog.
[51:43] SPEAKER_00: So that's 10 times two minutes total, and I actually ended up doing 12 times.
[51:47] SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, I just built from I so you have all these problems with treadmill.
[51:53] SPEAKER_00: I have I can't believe I haven't bragged about this yet.
[51:56] SPEAKER_00: I bought a used wood way in 2020 for 2500 bucks Canadian, so whatever that is, 15, 17, 1800 US.
[52:07] SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I have it programmed to go up to 15 miles an hour.
[52:13] SPEAKER_00: And so I just have had the wood way all these years, and I use it a lot in the winter, especially.
[52:19] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so I had it at 6% incline, and I started at like 11 miles an hour and then built up to 12 miles an hour uh for the 40-second reps, which was it probably started honestly only at like maybe a little above a threshold effort for 40 seconds, and then by the end it was it was decently hard, but it's only 40 seconds, and you get a minute 20 rest, so not really a hard session at all.
[52:41] SPEAKER_00: But that was my first actual run workout that wasn't just like steady zone two kind of thing, so it was it was a good kind of way to break into it.
[52:50] SPEAKER_00: And I'm realizing now that my workout descriptions are gonna be about a quarter as long as Ari's, but that's okay.
[52:55] SPEAKER_00: Um, we're learning about each other, balance it out.
[52:58] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've done a very similar session lately, Jackson, like 12200 hard with an easy one-minute walk jog between.
[53:06] SPEAKER_03: And I find it's a really nice, like upper stimulus, like just a little bit of turnover, forces great mechanics, great efficiency.
[53:14] SPEAKER_03: It's probably one that our listeners can do without a ton of injury risk, uh kind of coming from anywhere.
[53:20] SPEAKER_03: Like 10 times 40 seconds, really approachable.
[53:23] SPEAKER_03: You get the speed, you get the turnover, it's long enough just to get your heart rate up.
[53:27] SPEAKER_03: Um, I like it a lot, and it's a lot lower risk in my opinion than doing a session like Ari.
[53:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[53:32] SPEAKER_00: That's true.
[53:33] SPEAKER_00: The treadmill reduces, I find a lot.
[53:36] SPEAKER_00: There maybe that's another reason to include one workout a week or something on the treadmill.
[53:40] SPEAKER_00: Lower injury risk, I think.
[53:41] SPEAKER_00: But that's one reason I'm including it.
[53:43] SPEAKER_01: But you're the wood way has the slats, right?
[53:44] SPEAKER_01: You've got one with the slats, not a belt.
[53:47] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I actually think it's better.
[53:49] SPEAKER_00: Like the cushioning, maybe it works different for different people, but the cushioning of a standard treadmill, if you watch it, like it cushions really slowly, which is not really like how a road surface would react outside.
[54:02] SPEAKER_00: Whereas with the woodway, it's still rubber.
[54:05] SPEAKER_00: Like running on rubber would feel like if you were, for example, running on a track and it wasn't curved, it would feel pretty soft.
[54:12] SPEAKER_00: Like you wouldn't be running on that surface thinking, oh, I'm gonna get injured.
[54:15] SPEAKER_00: Um, I I like the way the woodway feels better than a regular treadmill, even though technically it has less cushioning, but like I don't know the science.
[54:23] SPEAKER_00: I'm probably way off on this.
[54:24] SPEAKER_00: Somebody's gonna call me out.
[54:25] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I also bought a used woodway last year, and uh sorry, you're next after you win your No, I'm just gonna drive to one of your houses.
[54:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that should be the rule.
[54:35] SPEAKER_03: Uh the bet is the loser has to give the winner their woodway.
[54:39] SPEAKER_03: Oh no, no, no, no.
[54:42] SPEAKER_03: Kidding.
[54:43] SPEAKER_03: I have like a little short one.
[54:44] SPEAKER_03: It's like a little chode woodway.
[54:46] SPEAKER_03: It's the normal width, but it's like short.
[54:49] SPEAKER_03: So it works because I'm five foot nine.
[54:51] SPEAKER_03: Uh, but you wouldn't want to be on it if you were Sam Long.
[54:53] SPEAKER_03: You'd be like literally falling off the back of it.
[54:55] SPEAKER_03: It's pretty cool.
[54:57] SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, uh, but you know, my new house, a huge benefit, and one of the reasons we chose this one is the back gate opens up to this beautiful 10-mile running path with like tons of babies and dogs and trees, and it's just awesome.
[55:10] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love running paths with tons of babies.
[55:12] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's great.
[55:14] SPEAKER_03: These they're smiling, they're giggling at you.
[55:16] SPEAKER_03: Oh, funny story.
[55:17] SPEAKER_03: On Friday, I was on this run, actually, the workout I'm about to share, and my wife is riding the bike next to me.
[55:22] SPEAKER_03: She's been riding her mountain bike while I run, and we're on the path, and I'm in the middle of one of these hard efforts running, like, you know, I don't know, 520 per mile pace type thing.
[55:30] SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, good effort locked in.
[55:32] SPEAKER_03: And like this woman who's wearing sunglasses, I like look over at her, she's walking towards me, and I swear we make eye contact.
[55:38] SPEAKER_03: Like, and right as we make eye contact, she's like, Great job, bud.
[55:41] SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, Oh, thank you.
[55:43] SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
[55:44] SPEAKER_03: And then we like pass her, and my wife's like, You actually thought she was talking to you?
[55:49] SPEAKER_03: Like, and then we turn around, and it's like her three-year-old boy like riding his little bike towards her.
[55:54] SPEAKER_01: Nah, she was talking to you, dude.
[55:57] SPEAKER_01: I think, I think she wants you, dude.
[55:59] SPEAKER_03: I think she's like, and I turned around and she was just like crying, laughing.
[56:02] SPEAKER_03: She was cracking up.
[56:03] SPEAKER_03: I was like, Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
[56:05] SPEAKER_03: I thought you were talking to me.
[56:06] SPEAKER_03: Anyway, it was pretty nervous thing.
[56:09] SPEAKER_01: Good job, bud.
[56:10] SPEAKER_03: So now my wife's just like, good job, bud.
[56:13] SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
[56:15] SPEAKER_03: Anyway, uh, my session was a fartlic as 10 rounds of four minutes easy, one minute hard.
[56:22] SPEAKER_03: Um, it begs the question: what is a fartlick?
[56:26] SPEAKER_01: I think that counts.
[56:27] SPEAKER_01: Fart lick is such a broad definition.
[56:29] SPEAKER_01: It's weird that it's like mostly easy and a little bit hard, but it counts.
[56:34] SPEAKER_03: It's a weird one, right?
[56:35] SPEAKER_03: My training peak said fart run, and my wife saw it, and she's like, Why are we going on a like is this a joke?
[56:40] SPEAKER_03: Like, are you just gonna fart during this run?
[56:43] SPEAKER_00: Eat six eggs before the run, then complete the workout.
[56:45] SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
[56:46] SPEAKER_03: So, anyway, it was uh it was a good run, it was an hour.
[56:49] SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, basically four minutes easy, which these days has been like seven to seven thirty per mile, kind of like heart rate 120, 125.
[56:58] SPEAKER_03: But I'm not really looking at pace, just kind of running easy, and it's it's the best my easy pace has ever been.
[57:03] SPEAKER_03: Um, and then one minute LT2 effort.
[57:06] SPEAKER_03: Uh not looking at pace, but like also kind of begs the question like what is threshold effort when you're doing one minute?
[57:12] SPEAKER_03: It's pretty hard.
[57:13] SPEAKER_03: Um, so I kind of ran them at like a seven or eight out of ten perceived effort.
[57:17] SPEAKER_03: I wasn't sprinting, but yeah, just getting that turnover, kind of similar workout to Jackson, 10 times a minute finding some turnover.
[57:24] SPEAKER_03: And it was a really high volume week for me, 26 hours, 25 hours minus the sauna is not a normal training week for me.
[57:31] SPEAKER_03: Normally I average around 19 hours or 20 hours.
[57:34] SPEAKER_03: Um, so we kind of cut back some of the run intensity and have a little bit of a history with some stress reactions um when I increase the run intensity.
[57:43] SPEAKER_03: So it's I'm coming off like the best 16-week run block that I've had in a long time, and we're just kind of trying to stay patient, not chase a lot of intensity, and not chase a lot of mileage.
[57:53] SPEAKER_01: Smart.
[57:54] SPEAKER_01: Enough of running onto the main event.
[57:56] SPEAKER_00: Main event.
[57:57] SPEAKER_00: So wait, how is this organized?
[57:58] SPEAKER_00: Is this like because it was like Justin first for the bike and then Ari first for the run, and now Justin first for the swim?
[58:04] SPEAKER_00: Is this supposed to be organized in terms of like who's the best at that sport?
[58:09] SPEAKER_00: Because I'm just in the middle on all of these.
[58:11] SPEAKER_01: Freudian, Freudian slip there, Justin, with your organization here.
[58:15] SPEAKER_01: Because I'm just in the middle on all these.
[58:17] SPEAKER_01: Oh, you guys think I'm the worst at the bike, though?
[58:19] SPEAKER_01: What the fuck?
[58:20] SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at our splits.
[58:22] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's race results.
[58:24] SPEAKER_01: All that matters is is the power you pushed in training.
[58:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[58:28] SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
[58:29] SPEAKER_03: All that matters is how many reps of 500 watt 30-second reps you can take.
[58:33] SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, no, I that is funny.
[58:35] SPEAKER_03: That was not that was an accident.
[58:37] SPEAKER_03: But uh I'll kick it off for the swim.
[58:39] SPEAKER_03: If uh if you're a serious swimmer, the first week of January brings a special set once a year that is kind of a little bit of a rite of passage.
[58:49] SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
[58:50] SPEAKER_03: It feels like it's blown up in the last couple of weeks.
[58:52] SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, last couple of years.
[58:55] SPEAKER_03: But everybody I know, their aunt, their cousin, their training partner, they're all doing 100-100s to start the year off.
[59:02] SPEAKER_03: So I did it on Tuesday, uh, and it was my first time doing it long course meters.
[59:07] SPEAKER_03: So it was pretty hard.
[59:08] SPEAKER_03: I did 100 hundreds on 130 long course holding 120 uh with no breaks.
[59:14] SPEAKER_03: So it was pretty boring.
[59:15] SPEAKER_03: Took me two and a half hours, and it was probably like a you know, started off at like a three out of 10 difficulty and finished at like a six out of ten difficulty the last 20 or 30.
[59:27] SPEAKER_03: Um it was just like I was tired all day, but it was never like hard.
[59:32] SPEAKER_03: Now I certainly could have swam faster, but then I was able to swim 5k the next day, and I feel like that's how you know you didn't overcook it.
[59:38] SPEAKER_03: So I had a huge swim week.
[59:40] SPEAKER_03: I swam like 26k or something last week.
[59:42] SPEAKER_00: I wonder if Greg approved, Greg Harper uh Rest in peace approves of that session, 100 by 100.
[59:48] SPEAKER_03: I know.
[59:48] SPEAKER_03: And what's funny is my session yesterday, I joined people who were doing hundred hundreds and I just did 5100s.
[59:54] SPEAKER_03: So I did just like a lot of hundreds this week, aerobic.
[59:57] SPEAKER_03: But I'm really trying to make my swim a huge weapon this year.
[1:00:00] SPEAKER_03: And I'll say it on the podcast at Oceanside, I want to be not at the back of the front pack, but at the front of the front pack and like put making people hurt the first five minutes of the bike this year, because I'm really quite committed and motivated on my swim.
[1:00:13] SPEAKER_03: I'm swimming the best I've ever swim right now.
[1:00:14] SPEAKER_03: And I feel like like something that's been missing in my swim bike run and my just my triathlon ability generally is being able to like be like a canoe or a harper and being at the front of the swim instead of being on the back foot.
[1:00:25] SPEAKER_03: And at the very least, even if I don't quite get to that level, it's it's gonna make my bike stronger because I won't be hurting as much in the swim.
[1:00:32] SPEAKER_03: Because I've had some pretty painful swims where I like barely make the front pack and I'm like walking through T1.
[1:00:37] SPEAKER_00: I would take the front of the lead pack if you're offering.
[1:00:42] SPEAKER_00: If we could trace.
[1:00:43] SPEAKER_00: That's an impressive session.
[1:00:45] SPEAKER_00: Honestly, like that's yeah, that's moving, especially since you weren't obviously pushing that hard.
[1:00:51] SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, my swim, this is this is basically my simplest swim of the week because Greg Harper's my coach, and as you know, he likes to put 14,000 different little small pieces into each swim.
[1:01:01] SPEAKER_00: So uh it was about a 400 warm-up, then uh 50.
[1:01:06] SPEAKER_00: So the theme of this workout is descending reps of descending distance.
[1:01:12] SPEAKER_00: And between each set, I put a paddle, swim paddle, on my head and do 50 meters of paddle cap where I have to like not let it fall off my head.
[1:01:21] SPEAKER_00: This is serious.
[1:01:22] SPEAKER_00: Do you flip turn with the paddle?
[1:01:23] SPEAKER_00: Can you flip with the paddle?
[1:01:25] SPEAKER_00: I haven't tried that yet, but that's the next level.
[1:01:28] SPEAKER_00: So it's three two hundreds, three one fifties, three one hundreds, and three fifties with like 10 to 15 seconds rest, and you're descending one to three uh across each of those.
[1:01:39] SPEAKER_00: So the 200s starting at like uh 125 pace is the short course meters, and then my last rep was like a 229 and the one in slightly getting faster each time.
[1:01:51] SPEAKER_00: The 150s, I think I did like a 210 to start, and then I was like two minutes, then 150.
[1:01:58] SPEAKER_00: For the 100s, I went roughly 125, then 118, then 112, and for the 50s, I did like 43, 38, and then 34.
[1:02:09] SPEAKER_00: Um, not super hard.
[1:02:11] SPEAKER_00: Like I could have for each of these, I probably could have done a fourth rep, like even a little bit harder.
[1:02:15] SPEAKER_00: Um, but again, I'm just getting back into it, so I don't like to tax myself too much mentally on that first week.
[1:02:22] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the paddle cap in between each of these rounds, so I do the three two hundreds, then I do a 50 with the paddle cap on, so it's it's head position.
[1:02:29] SPEAKER_00: So Greg likes to do this, it's like incorporating drills into the actual main side of a swim.
[1:02:35] SPEAKER_00: And this is honestly the only coach I've ever seen who does this, and maybe he's a complete genius for it.
[1:02:41] SPEAKER_00: I'm curious your guys' thoughts.
[1:02:43] SPEAKER_00: I like it, and maybe it's because it makes it kind of easier, low-key, because you're like, oh, now I'm just gonna do this easy 50.
[1:02:50] SPEAKER_02: No, I'm gonna put on my paddle cap.
[1:02:52] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, put on my paddle cap.
[1:02:54] SPEAKER_00: And like it does give you that cue.
[1:02:56] SPEAKER_00: I don't know, like, obviously, there's swims where he doesn't do that, and it's just a hard switch hard main set, and you're not doing drills, but it's kind of an interesting idea.
[1:03:04] SPEAKER_00: We'll see how it pays off.
[1:03:06] SPEAKER_00: I have been swimming well under Greg, except for one swim, the most important swim of the year at Worlds.
[1:03:11] SPEAKER_00: Um, but that was, you know, I wasn't really doing his swimming leading into that, to be completely honest.
[1:03:17] SPEAKER_00: I kind of just did everything the Norwegians did when I was in uh Spain.
[1:03:20] SPEAKER_01: So there you have it.
[1:03:21] SPEAKER_01: 10 by 400 LT2 in the pool.
[1:03:23] SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work.
[1:03:24] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not really.
[1:03:26] SPEAKER_03: I like the idea, uh, you know, as much as I should on Greg, I like the idea a lot of introducing drills into the middle of your workouts.
[1:03:33] SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's like kind of what we do, maybe not run specific drills, but like it's the same kind of concept as introducing like a couple of hard 25s, like resetting the form or reminding yourself of those mental cues, and like so much of swimming is deep psychological programming.
[1:03:50] SPEAKER_03: And I don't know, you know, you guys are have to make that next little tiny jump to try to find a margin of being able to sustain the longer stuff in it with perfect form.
[1:04:00] SPEAKER_03: Obviously, you have the high injection, and are you kind of thrown everything at it?
[1:04:04] SPEAKER_03: So how's your swimming going?
[1:04:07] SPEAKER_03: I mean, you say you're not gonna swim at all this year, but what would you swim this week?
[1:04:11] SPEAKER_01: The opposite.
[1:04:12] SPEAKER_01: My so my swim this week, my uh I I only swam three times.
[1:04:17] SPEAKER_01: It was like really just let's get fit, bike and run.
[1:04:20] SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to swim camp next week for a month in Texas.
[1:04:24] SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, yeah, with uh Tim Floyd.
[1:04:29] SPEAKER_01: Um because so he's he worked with in the woodlands, so like where Iron Man, Texas is.
[1:04:35] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so he worked, I mean, Jack really likes him because um he's worked with uh like Matt Hansen basically took him from an age group or two, like and he's had some some pretty solid swims.
[1:04:46] SPEAKER_01: And uh Jocelyn, who now swims, you know, in the Iron Man races, like exactly where she needs to.
[1:04:52] SPEAKER_01: I feel like I don't know, he's maybe just the model of like he can take a pretty shitty triathlete to a a good enough level, which is ultimately where I need to get to.
[1:05:00] SPEAKER_01: Or that's the hope anyway.
[1:05:02] SPEAKER_01: Um and you that doesn't happen in a month, but um yeah, it's gonna be pretty swim focused for a month with uh I'm guessing a lot of a lot of technique.
[1:05:11] SPEAKER_01: I don't know exactly what he has planned, but I don't think it's gonna be Australian method, uh just swimming 50k and um swimming as hard as you can every day.
[1:05:20] SPEAKER_01: But so I I mean for me it does it's just gonna come down to technique.
[1:05:25] SPEAKER_01: I think like that's my biggest weakness is I can't I can swim okay in the yards pool, um, get exposed in open water, get pretty exposed in the 50-meter pool.
[1:05:37] SPEAKER_01: And I think it's my my biggest thing, I think, you know, we'll have to have a coach confirm this, is body position.
[1:05:44] SPEAKER_01: And Justin, you posted some shit at the Olympic Club the other day the other day last week on Instagram, and I was like, God, his hips are just so high in the water.
[1:05:51] SPEAKER_01: Like, that's why he can do fucking four hundreds all day long, you know, and not do the, you know, quote unquote Greg Harper method, is because your body position And this is all my theory anyway.
[1:06:01] SPEAKER_01: It's just great.
[1:06:02] SPEAKER_01: And I watch a video of myself and I'm fucking swimming diagonal.
[1:06:05] SPEAKER_01: Like my hips are just So anyway, my one swim this week, I was or not one, one of my all my swims this week, I was just trying to like engage my core slash like lower back and keep my head positioned like really low and and not rise like raise it up when I breathe.
[1:06:23] SPEAKER_01: Because when I see video of myself, that's m that's like I I breathe really high, maybe out of a fear of fucking drowning.
[1:06:31] SPEAKER_01: But so I did three rounds of six by one hundred, the first round on one twenty, second on one thirty, third on one forty.
[1:06:36] SPEAKER_01: Um just trying to like really, really focus on keeping my ass up and my core engaged and breathing like low, keeping my head in a good position.
[1:06:48] SPEAKER_01: And first round was like 109s to 110s on 120, second round was 107s, 108, third round was like 106 to 107.
[1:06:56] SPEAKER_01: Um and it wasn't mechanically very hard.
[1:07:01] SPEAKER_01: It's like when I'm kind of keeping my shit together and swimming with at least what feels to me like good technique.
[1:07:08] SPEAKER_01: It's like swimming a 110 in yards is like pretty easy.
[1:07:12] SPEAKER_01: Um but I can't do it for longer reps just because everything breaks down, technique falls apart.
[1:07:18] SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, it's like you know, it's not a fitness issue.
[1:07:21] SPEAKER_01: I I think I just need to ingrain those patterns properly, and I I can't really do it for much longer than a hundred as it stands.
[1:07:29] SPEAKER_01: So that whole swim was just trying to like get swimming a little bit faster, um, but be mindful of really just keeping my hips up was uh was the only thing.
[1:07:40] SPEAKER_01: So and we'll see what Tim Floyd says starting at swim camp next week.
[1:07:44] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I'm I'm not not swimming.
[1:07:46] SPEAKER_01: It's like obvious obviously the swim is the one thing holding me back from from you know doing really well, like or winning races.
[1:07:54] SPEAKER_00: Like it's at the end of the Quinta race, Ari crosses the line.
[1:07:57] SPEAKER_00: He's like, You guys are screwed when I learn how to swim.
[1:08:00] SPEAKER_01: I'm learning if what if and when I figure it out.
[1:08:04] SPEAKER_00: I mean, for fuck's sake, it's like it's true, yeah.
[1:08:06] SPEAKER_00: It's it's true, it is true, but it is hard.
[1:08:09] SPEAKER_00: And I will definitely agree with you.
[1:08:11] SPEAKER_00: Justin's body position is great.
[1:08:13] SPEAKER_00: All that's the one thing.
[1:08:15] SPEAKER_00: If you look at every single lead pack swimmer who's consistent lead pack swimmer, body position is always great.
[1:08:20] SPEAKER_00: Their hips are high in the water.
[1:08:22] SPEAKER_00: And the question becomes are their hips high in the water, which makes them fast, or are they fast, which makes their hips high in the water?
[1:08:29] SPEAKER_03: The question is like you know, if we're swimming the same speed in an easy, like you know, it's not like I was swimming hard when I was doing 100 hundreds on 130.
[1:08:38] SPEAKER_03: That's not, you know, Ari could do five of those, ten of those for sure.
[1:08:42] SPEAKER_03: But it's like efficiency.
[1:08:45] SPEAKER_00: You're just not pushing through as much water.
[1:08:47] SPEAKER_00: The higher you are, the the more air you're pushing through instead of water, and water's obviously way harder to move through.
[1:08:52] SPEAKER_00: And it's uh I've noticed it too.
[1:08:54] SPEAKER_00: And it's I've heard Greg explain it like to me that if your body position's great, then your energy can all go towards just moving you forward.
[1:09:04] SPEAKER_00: And mine's not.
[1:09:06] SPEAKER_00: I'm maybe part way between Ari and Justin somewhere on the body position scale.
[1:09:10] SPEAKER_01: I feel like sometimes you swim pretty lights out, and some and sometimes you swim like you know, with with Sam and Lionel.
[1:09:17] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[1:09:18] SPEAKER_03: Do you guys ever go uh band around the ankles with a pull buoy?
[1:09:22] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when I pull, I always have a band on.
[1:09:23] SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
[1:09:24] SPEAKER_00: That's yeah.
[1:09:25] SPEAKER_00: I've done it a lot.
[1:09:26] SPEAKER_00: I have gotten a little bit out of it lately, but I like doing pull with a band.
[1:09:30] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[1:09:30] SPEAKER_03: Do you ever do band with no buoy?
[1:09:32] SPEAKER_03: Where you like your feet start dragging if you don't buy for short reps, yeah.
[1:09:36] SPEAKER_00: That's the that's like the next level.
[1:09:38] SPEAKER_01: I'd I'd love to see a video of you doing that.
[1:09:40] SPEAKER_01: Because again, I'm my legs sink so hard.
[1:09:42] SPEAKER_01: Like, do you still stay up like pretty for a 25 or something?
[1:09:45] SPEAKER_01: Do you still stay pretty on top of the water?
[1:09:47] SPEAKER_03: Uh for a 25, yes.
[1:09:49] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:09:50] SPEAKER_03: But a 50, it gets hard.
[1:09:51] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:09:52] SPEAKER_03: But like real swimmers can do that like for a 400, no problem.
[1:09:56] SPEAKER_03: And just like they just stay up.
[1:09:57] SPEAKER_01: So that's just like balance.
[1:09:59] SPEAKER_01: Yep.
[1:09:59] SPEAKER_01: And probably genetics too.
[1:10:01] SPEAKER_01: Like maybe their legs just.
[1:10:03] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know.
[1:10:03] SPEAKER_03: It's just my chubby, my chubby winter belly right now.
[1:10:07] SPEAKER_03: I'm like 75.
[1:10:08] SPEAKER_03: You guys are a little light.
[1:10:09] SPEAKER_03: You gotta pack on some pounds.
[1:10:12] SPEAKER_00: I haven't been on a scale.
[1:10:13] SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
[1:10:13] SPEAKER_00: We don't want to we don't want to go.
[1:10:16] SPEAKER_00: I did one quick thing here, and I asked AI.
[1:10:20] SPEAKER_00: I said, Who would win in a triathlon race over the Iron Man 70.3 distance?
[1:10:25] SPEAKER_00: Ari Clout, Justin Riel, Riale, Reale, or Jackson Laundrie.
[1:10:32] SPEAKER_00: And the conclusion is Laundry's balance, discipline, strengths, and head-to-head edges ahead of both at shared races like Chattanooga Indian Wells favor him on a standard 70.3 course.
[1:10:43] SPEAKER_00: Clow's run speed poses a threat if he closes the swim gap.
[1:10:47] SPEAKER_00: But Laundrie's bike power often builds insurmountable lead.
[1:10:50] SPEAKER_00: Rielli competes well but lacks Laundry's podium frequency.
[1:10:56] SPEAKER_02: Hard to argue with that.
[1:10:57] SPEAKER_02: That's pretty accurate.
[1:10:59] SPEAKER_00: Not bad.
[1:11:00] SPEAKER_00: Not bad.
[1:11:00] SPEAKER_00: ChatGPT didn't actually, it was like, I don't know anything.
[1:11:04] SPEAKER_00: And then I put it into perplexity and it uh it came up with that.
[1:11:07] SPEAKER_04: So I like it.
[1:11:08] SPEAKER_00: So there, putting the pressure on myself as the favorite going into the 70.3 Oceanside uh battle.
[1:11:13] SPEAKER_03: Well, if we want to take it to the next level, you can import the transcripts from this podcast and keep training ChatGPT, and then it'll give us a real uh it'll be like, oh, Ari's gonna beat them by 10 minutes.
[1:11:24] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, take my training peaks data.
[1:11:26] SPEAKER_01: I'll give you my training peaks data.
[1:11:28] SPEAKER_03: All right, boys.
[1:11:29] SPEAKER_03: Well, thanks for joining me on episode one of twelve on the road to oceanside.
[1:11:34] SPEAKER_03: Pretenders, thanks for uh sticking along with us.
[1:11:37] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 2026 is here, boys.
[1:11:39] SPEAKER_03: Time to get after it.
[1:11:40] SPEAKER_00: All right, peace out everybody for having me.
[1:11:42] SPEAKER_00: See ya.

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