# Zone 2 Training is DUMB

An episode of [The Triathlon Hour](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1595443343), 19 Jan 2026, 1 h 47 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2640942/episodes/19697998-zone-2-training-is-dumb.mp3

This week we starts things off by discussing zone 2 training, how to be a good time trialist, polarised training with high volume and ERG mode on the trainer. We then talk about food & diet for a little bit before a short but interesting discussion of what is the most important run session of the week. And, as always, we finish the show off by reading and responding to your Spotify comments! Nord VPN:Take advantage of a great deal with Nord VPN use the code triathlonhour or visit nordvpn.com/triathlonhour to get a huge discount in the 2 year plans PLUS 4 extra months! It is risk free with Nord's 30 days money back guarantee! Precision: Use the code TTH25 to get 15% off your first order with Precision at Precision Fuel & Hydration or subscribe to the Patreon and access the link that will save you 20% on every order, not just your first Patreon Pillar: Use the code TTH to get 15% off your first order with Pillar Performance at Pillar Performance or use The Feed for North American customers Lever: Use the code TTH for 20% off your Lever system Lever Listen to the AFTER HOURS podcast on Patreon here - CLICK HERE

## Transcript

[0:28] SPEAKER_05: Yes, welcome back to the Triathlon Hour Pretenders, Perverts, and Virgins.
[0:35] SPEAKER_05: You might be noticing that it isn't Jack's voice you're hearing after the best intro song in podcasting, but instead mine, Dr.
[0:42] SPEAKER_05: Greg Harper.
[0:43] SPEAKER_05: And yes, I am a doctor.
[0:45] SPEAKER_05: On today's episode, we're going to try to convince each other of a training opinion we have and rate each other's arguments.
[0:51] SPEAKER_05: We're going to ask the pros on the pod about their diet.
[0:54] SPEAKER_05: There's only two pros on the pod.
[0:56] SPEAKER_05: Um, when they're training at their best and worst, and how that might change as well as some general diet chat, because we know everyone loves talking about food.
[1:05] SPEAKER_05: Then we'll do a quick, if you could only pick one segment about running training before finishing off the show by reading and responding to your Spotify comments as always.
[1:14] SPEAKER_05: And I must admit, they are pretty good this week.
[1:16] SPEAKER_05: The whole crew is here, but Jack left his audio recording gear in Andorra on his travels back to Australia, and he's gonna have shit audio quality today, which is why I'm taking over the host duties.
[1:27] SPEAKER_05: Jack, you're an idiot, and welcome to the pod.
[1:29] SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me, Dr.
[1:30] SPEAKER_02: Greg Harper.
[1:31] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it feels weird not doing the intro.
[1:33] SPEAKER_02: Uh, not sure how you did them.
[1:34] SPEAKER_02: Probably give you about a six out of ten.
[1:36] SPEAKER_02: I feel I thought you started really strong and it got a little bit monotone and made me nervous towards the end.
[1:42] SPEAKER_05: Oh.
[1:43] SPEAKER_05: And the Kingdom World America Long Horse Triathlock.
[1:48] SPEAKER_05: Despite being a Bogan from Australia, not sure what that means.
[1:51] SPEAKER_05: Uh Sam Appleton is here.
[1:53] SPEAKER_01: A bogan is like a redneck, but um no, I'm from New South Wales.
[1:57] SPEAKER_01: All the bogans are in uh sorry to my Queensland listeners.
[2:00] SPEAKER_01: Um Bogans are all from Queensland, so um, but yeah, it's good to be back.
[2:04] SPEAKER_01: Um Greg, I think that intro was a little bit monotonous, a little bit dull.
[2:09] SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to lift the energy a little bit.
[2:11] SPEAKER_05: Oh.
[2:13] SPEAKER_05: And every week Jack gets on here and tells you how amazing Vicky is.
[2:17] SPEAKER_05: So I'm gonna go the other way on this one and introduce the last member of the podcast, the most forgettable, Vicky Holland joins us.
[2:26] SPEAKER_07: Well, that seems more appropriate.
[2:27] SPEAKER_07: I'll I'll take that, Greg.
[2:29] SPEAKER_07: And I know that Jack obviously doesn't have his uh audio equipment with him this week, so he's got a valid excuse, which probably is the right moment for me to apologize for my poor audio equipment, which isn't actually that poor.
[2:41] SPEAKER_07: I just haven't been able to use it correctly.
[2:43] SPEAKER_07: I'm working on it, guys, and it will be corrected.
[2:46] SPEAKER_07: I just might need more IT tech support.
[2:48] SPEAKER_05: Alright.
[2:49] SPEAKER_05: Now I will transition us into our first topic.
[2:52] SPEAKER_05: Can you convince us?
[2:54] SPEAKER_05: Now, we're throwing this at Jack first, so he's gonna say his statement, and um, I don't know, I think Apo's gonna disagree with this one, so I'm excited to hear his response.
[3:04] SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Greg.
[3:04] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so might might explain the segment just a little bit more.
[3:08] SPEAKER_02: We're all gonna, like you said, bring like a training opinion that we have to the table and then try and convince everyone else of that opinion.
[3:16] SPEAKER_02: And I guess the big thing is at the end of it, we're all gonna give each other a rating out of 10 uh as to how much you convinced us.
[3:23] SPEAKER_02: So, for example, if Vicky tries to convince us of something and I thought she did really well, I might give her an eight out of ten for how much she convinced me.
[3:30] SPEAKER_02: And then whoever has the highest uh score at the end wins this topic.
[3:34] SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna start us off.
[3:36] SPEAKER_02: And I was going to do mine about maximal metabolic steady state, which sounds super boring, but it's something I'm really passionate about.
[3:44] SPEAKER_02: And I don't think it's come into fashion as something everyone talks about in triathlon, as like the next big secret.
[3:51] SPEAKER_02: But trust me, at some point I think it will become in vogue in triathlon.
[3:57] SPEAKER_02: And when it does, remember this episode.
[3:58] SPEAKER_02: I do reckon there's going to be a point where everyone's talking about maximal metabolic steady state.
[4:03] SPEAKER_02: But I then decided to go with something that I think will make probably 50-ish percent of people agree with me as soon as I say it, and the other 50% of people just think I'm absolutely stupid.
[4:14] SPEAKER_02: And mine is that being obsessed with zone two is dumb.
[4:20] SPEAKER_02: Zone two training is just easy training.
[4:23] SPEAKER_02: That's what it is.
[4:24] SPEAKER_02: And don't think of zone two as some super scientific secret way to get fitted compared to other easy training because guess what?
[4:33] SPEAKER_02: It's not, and it's not enough on its own.
[4:36] SPEAKER_02: The signaling that you get from easy training is not as strong as training on the higher end of the intensity scale.
[4:45] SPEAKER_02: That's provable, that's fact, that is scientific fact at this point, but this is this is a point I'm gonna delve into.
[4:52] SPEAKER_02: Zone two is a little less, a little less kind of explored in the scientific world.
[4:58] SPEAKER_02: Zone two, it's just confusing.
[5:01] SPEAKER_02: And most people listening will hear it and go like zone two, they'll hear zone two and they'll go, yep, I know what zone two is.
[5:06] SPEAKER_02: I know what you're talking about when you mention zone two.
[5:09] SPEAKER_02: But I actually think most people, like myself included sometimes, don't really know exactly what it is.
[5:17] SPEAKER_02: Like broadly speaking, zone two is a range that doesn't have a consensus of where it actually ends.
[5:24] SPEAKER_02: So we have a consensus that the top of zone two is your LT1 or your aerobic threshold.
[5:32] SPEAKER_02: Um, that's the point where you're exercising and your lactate is is pretty stable, maybe rising a little bit, but still stable.
[5:39] SPEAKER_02: And we know that.
[5:41] SPEAKER_02: That's proven.
[5:42] SPEAKER_02: But where the other end of zone two, it just isn't a thing.
[5:46] SPEAKER_02: We don't know.
[5:46] SPEAKER_02: There's no like, hey, here's the top of zone two, uh i.e.
[5:50] SPEAKER_02: your LT1, and here's the bottom of your zone two.
[5:53] SPEAKER_02: That that hasn't been agreed upon.
[5:55] SPEAKER_02: It's just a guess.
[5:57] SPEAKER_02: So what intensity are most people even really training in when they say they're doing zone two training?
[6:03] SPEAKER_02: Are they training close to but just below LT1?
[6:07] SPEAKER_02: Most likely.
[6:08] SPEAKER_02: I think that's most likely what you think of when you think of zone two, but not always.
[6:13] SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they're above that.
[6:15] SPEAKER_02: Like sometimes people are training above their LT1 and thinking they're training zone two.
[6:21] SPEAKER_02: And sometimes they're quite a way below that.
[6:23] SPEAKER_02: Like they might even be training in zone one and thinking they're in zone two.
[6:27] SPEAKER_02: It's just really convoluted, it's really confusing.
[6:31] SPEAKER_02: The fitter you are and the more time you have to train, the more easy training you should do.
[6:37] SPEAKER_02: For example, someone who's training 25 hours a week probably needs more easy training and can potentially focus on their zone two more than someone training five to 10 hours a week.
[6:47] SPEAKER_02: And if you're a triathlete training, say five to 10, even potentially up to about 15 hours a week, and you're talking about zone two and your obsessory zone two, I don't really know what to say to you.
[6:58] SPEAKER_02: Like, but in my opinion, you've just been led down the wrong path by someone somewhere along the line.
[7:04] SPEAKER_02: And I just think you should turn around immediately.
[7:06] SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's what you should be focusing on.
[7:09] SPEAKER_02: But but then again, if you're someone who trains 25 hours a week, like you're someone who does a lot and has historically done a lot, then you've also got to take into account mechanical stress, not just metabolic stress when it comes to zone two.
[7:22] SPEAKER_02: Because metabolically, for you, there might be really minimal to no difference between zone two and zone one training.
[7:30] SPEAKER_02: But mechanically, it might be like almost unbelievably different.
[7:34] SPEAKER_02: For example, you could be training zone two and or zone one, zone two, and running along at 440 per K versus 340 per K, and metabolically there'd be no difference.
[7:47] SPEAKER_02: But mechanically, that's a huge difference.
[7:49] SPEAKER_02: Like we know the impact that running that much faster is going to have on your soft tissue and the injury risk that comes with that.
[7:56] SPEAKER_02: Same with like riding 300 watts versus 200 watts.
[7:59] SPEAKER_02: That's just a huge mechanical difference.
[8:01] SPEAKER_02: There's a huge mechanical load difference there, even though metabolically it might still be zone two and relatively easy, and you think of as something that should be super repeatable and you can do lots and lots and lots of, you actually might not be able to.
[8:14] SPEAKER_02: So even if you are that really experienced trainer, I still don't think it's something you should be obsessed about, like if even thinking about at all.
[8:23] SPEAKER_02: Um, and this lack of metabolical difference between zone one and zone two is interesting because there's no real objective, undisputed data that shows there's a difference in adaptation garnered from training at the start, middle, or end of the easy training intensity range, i.e., like zone one and zone two.
[8:44] SPEAKER_02: And keep in mind that zones are a coaching thing.
[8:47] SPEAKER_02: So like coaches have brought zones into sport, not sports scientists.
[8:51] SPEAKER_02: Sport scientists don't really talk about zones.
[8:54] SPEAKER_02: Like, sure, they might give people zones and they might use them here and there, but they just talk about intensity ranges.
[9:00] SPEAKER_02: And they use different words depending on who they are, but basically it's like easy, medium, and hard training.
[9:06] SPEAKER_02: That's how they talk.
[9:07] SPEAKER_02: And it's coaches who take that and then get these zone ranges from it and start talking about zone one, zone two, zone three, zone four, zone five.
[9:14] SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, I just I just think you really have to understand that the the adaptation you're gonna get depending on where you are inside that easy training intensity range is really no different.
[9:29] SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to actually obsess about training in zone two.
[9:32] SPEAKER_02: You can do your training in zone one.
[9:34] SPEAKER_02: And from an adaptive standpoint, it's gonna be pretty similar.
[9:38] SPEAKER_02: And there is objective, undisputable data that shows a difference in adaptation from training in your easy intensity ranges versus your harder intensity ranges.
[9:48] SPEAKER_02: And it's simple.
[9:49] SPEAKER_02: Harder intensity ranges equal bigger adaptations, and easier intensity ranges equal smaller adaptations.
[9:56] SPEAKER_02: Black and white.
[9:56] SPEAKER_02: You can't argue that.
[9:58] SPEAKER_02: So I guess what can we conclude from all of that I've all that I've just said there?
[10:03] SPEAKER_02: It's really simple.
[10:05] SPEAKER_02: The more time you can spend training in harder intensity ranges, think of maybe the very lowest point being six out of ten on an RP RPE scale, all the way up to maybe 9.5 out of 10 on an RPPE scale, the better.
[10:20] SPEAKER_02: Um, and you should probably just like kind of surround that, the key work, with as much easy training as possible, whether it's zone one or zone two.
[10:29] SPEAKER_02: I don't think it really matters.
[10:31] SPEAKER_02: I don't think it matters where you set sit in that intensity range.
[10:34] SPEAKER_02: In fact, it all almost certainly doesn't matter where you sit in that intensity range.
[10:39] SPEAKER_02: And there's probably a little bit more risk and negative side effects that come with zone two or the upper end of that easy range versus the middle or easier end of that easy intensity range.
[10:50] SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, if you're someone who thinks that zone two is this big secret and thinks you can get into the best shape of your life by doing lots and lots of zone two training, but you're not doing many or any sessions at higher intensity, then that's just probably wrong.
[11:05] SPEAKER_02: And ask yourself if you even know that you're actually doing zone two training.
[11:10] SPEAKER_02: Because if you don't know where your LT1 is, then the reality is you don't actually know what your zone two is.
[11:15] SPEAKER_02: And the reality is that even after lab testing where you've found your LT1, the bottom end of your zone two is a guess.
[11:22] SPEAKER_02: So you'll know where the top of your zone two is because you will have a pretty accurate LT1 that'll come out of some testing you do in a lab, but you don't know where the bottom of it is.
[11:32] SPEAKER_02: So it's really hard to set a zone two anyway.
[11:35] SPEAKER_02: And it's not this like really specific, precise thing that you might think it is.
[11:39] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, knowing how complex and tricky it actually is, just ask yourself, do I really know where my zone two is?
[11:46] SPEAKER_02: Be honest with yourself.
[11:47] SPEAKER_02: Don't guess, don't use what your Garmin or Strava or Training Peaks has told you.
[11:52] SPEAKER_02: Ask yourself, do I really know that this training I'm doing is zone two?
[11:56] SPEAKER_02: Is this thing that I think is the secret actually the secret?
[12:00] SPEAKER_02: Or would I be better off admitting to myself, I don't really know?
[12:04] SPEAKER_02: And I should probably just start referring to my easy training as easy and use a much simpler, easier way to kind of judge easy training.
[12:11] SPEAKER_02: Like, ask yourself, can I do lots of this without it impacting my higher intensity sessions?
[12:16] SPEAKER_02: And if the answer is yes, that's good.
[12:18] SPEAKER_02: That's probably a good spot to do your easier training.
[12:21] SPEAKER_02: But if you're doing the higher end of that, calling it zone two, and it's impacting your higher intensity sessions, which we know garner bigger adaptations, stronger signaling, then that's probably not a good thing.
[12:32] SPEAKER_02: And the last thing is like all my athletes that I train will know I prescribe a lot of what I call moderate intensity training because I think it's just better than prescribing zone two training.
[12:42] SPEAKER_02: Moderate's a broader range.
[12:44] SPEAKER_02: It's, it's, it's like, it's not the easiest of the easy.
[12:48] SPEAKER_02: It's not like easy zone one or recovery.
[12:50] SPEAKER_02: You'd go, okay, this is kind of easy.
[12:52] SPEAKER_02: It's not, it's not hard, but it's not super easy.
[12:55] SPEAKER_02: And it's not, it's not trying to be something that it isn't like precise.
[12:59] SPEAKER_02: It's it's not trying to be precise.
[13:01] SPEAKER_02: And one of my biggest bugbears is how precise zone two tries to be when it isn't a precise thing.
[13:07] SPEAKER_02: The the science on zone two is so limited, like I've talked about, that it just can't be crazy precise.
[13:13] SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, that's where you just acknowledge zone two is easy training.
[13:17] SPEAKER_02: Stop trying to make it sound like it's something more glamorous than that.
[13:20] SPEAKER_02: Get in touch with your RPE scales and then ask yourself: does this training take away from my higher intensity training through the week?
[13:28] SPEAKER_02: If it does, maybe go easier and work backwards in your training.
[13:33] SPEAKER_02: Decide where you want to put your higher intensity days inside your program and then surround it with a lot of easy training.
[13:39] SPEAKER_02: Kind of forget about zone two as a thing.
[13:41] SPEAKER_02: It's not a hard session, it's not a super easy session, it's kind of a really gray session.
[13:46] SPEAKER_02: Ask yourself, doesn't have much meaning in my training program.
[13:49] SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, that's why I think being obsessed with zone two is dumb.
[13:53] SPEAKER_05: You know, I heard Alistair Brownley say once that you should do you should prioritize all your hard training and then just fit in as much easy training as you could possibly do.
[14:02] SPEAKER_05: And yeah, I remember him saying, Oh yeah, I don't even know if I was riding around at at 200 watts, you know, on those easy days, which is obviously like a zone one for someone like Alistair.
[14:10] SPEAKER_05: So you bring good points, Jack.
[14:12] SPEAKER_05: Now, I'm curious because I think from an age troop perspective, and you know, I coach A troopers, and I know maybe you're taking on a few as well.
[14:20] SPEAKER_05: If you just ride easy and you give them a bike session, I feel like sometimes they could just like spin at such low wall.
[14:25] SPEAKER_05: Like, you know, if you go on a trainer and like really just spin like so easy, like it can be so you can get so little resistance that I feel like it could be sort of a waste of time.
[14:34] SPEAKER_05: I mean, obviously it depends on training age and all that.
[14:37] SPEAKER_05: So I I I agree, but I feel like maybe targeting some of that too and some training is is still applicable.
[14:45] SPEAKER_05: And I feel like you probably prescribe some to your athletes as well, but you just think the hype maybe is is overdone.
[14:51] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, or maybe I tell them to train moderate instead of easy, because I think when someone reads moderate, they think, okay, that's not easy, but it's not hard.
[15:00] SPEAKER_02: And that sounds like it's really vague and not scientific, but it's no less vague or non-scientific than zone two.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: And I think it gives a really easy to understand description of how you want that athlete to do the training versus saying zone two or zone one or just easy.
[15:18] SPEAKER_01: I think the problem with zone two is if you're looking in a like a five-zone model, right?
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: Low zone two is quite easy, but high zone two is closer to that moderate effort.
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: Like my low zone two is like if I'm having a bad day, it could be 200 watts, but a high zone two for me could be close to 250, you know, and that's quite a big difference.
[15:39] SPEAKER_01: Like if I'm going out for a four-hour ride, the difference between averaging 250 and 200 watts, you know, it's a pretty significant change.
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: Um so I think low zone two is yes, it is easy, but high zone two is getting more towards that moderate effort.
[15:54] SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, Apo, the one thing we know, like I said, is where the top of zone two is, and that's your aerobic threshold or your LT1.
[16:02] SPEAKER_02: How we describe your if you don't if you've never been into a lab, right, and you don't know where your LT1 is, you don't know that number.
[16:09] SPEAKER_02: I would say that a really easy way to try and figure out where your LT1 is is on a 0 to 10 RPE scale, a five.
[16:20] SPEAKER_02: Five on an R on a on a 1 to 10 RPE scale, if you're honest with yourself, coincides so accurately with where your LT1 is in a lab.
[16:30] SPEAKER_02: So when you're doing um testing for people, lactate threshold testing, VO2 max testing, and you say, okay, what is the RPE of that?
[16:39] SPEAKER_02: They'll when they say five, it's it's crazy how closely it coincides with when they're exercising right at or pretty much right at their LT1.
[16:49] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, think about the top of zone two as being five out of ten and the lower end of it, who knows where it is, but it might be as low as two out of ten on that same scale, Appo.
[17:00] SPEAKER_02: So it is quite broad, right?
[17:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: Something I tell some of my age group athletes is um to do the talk test.
[17:06] SPEAKER_01: So if you're running or riding next to someone, um, as soon as you start to like have difficulty holding that conversation, like speaking in full sentences, that's kind of where I say to my age group athletes, that's where you might be moving into zone three, um, just to kind of simplify.
[17:23] SPEAKER_01: For those people that haven't done the testing or that don't have access to um, you know, power meters and things like that.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: So that's how I have simplified it as well to some of my newer age groupers that I coach.
[17:34] SPEAKER_02: You know, I you know how I think about it, Apo.
[17:37] SPEAKER_02: I think about it as am I looking for an excuse to like stop?
[17:41] SPEAKER_02: Like, am I like, yeah, if I need to, if I need to go to the toilet here, I'm looking forward to that.
[17:47] SPEAKER_02: Like, because I go for a run and I I try and hydrate a lot, so I often need to pee.
[17:51] SPEAKER_02: If I'm in zone one, I'm frustrated by stopping to pee.
[17:55] SPEAKER_02: But if I'm in like zone two, getting into like maybe zone three, and definitely if I'm above zone two, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm actually looking forward to this.
[18:05] SPEAKER_02: I'll stop, I'll chill, okay, I'll get back into things.
[18:08] SPEAKER_07: My only thing to add is, I mean, I I agree with pretty much everything that's been said.
[18:12] SPEAKER_07: Um, I totally agree with what Apri said.
[18:14] SPEAKER_07: Zone two, I think the range is too big, and that's the real problem with zone two, saying to train in zone two, it's just such a wide spread.
[18:22] SPEAKER_07: And what you're getting at the bottom of zone two and what you're getting at the top of zone two, especially in terms of what it takes out of you, is a big difference.
[18:30] SPEAKER_07: Um, and so in general, I just think training in zone two, the risk of essentially exhausting yourself for very little extra gain than you would get in zone one is not worth it.
[18:41] SPEAKER_07: So for me, that's why I tried to stick as much away from zone two as possible.
[18:45] SPEAKER_02: That is a great point, Vicky, because it goes back to what is the signalling that leads to adaptation from the training?
[18:53] SPEAKER_02: And so you've got to ask yourself then, okay, so if zone two is so dumb, Jack and Vicky, why do we train easy at all?
[19:01] SPEAKER_02: Because you're telling me that zone two isn't this glorious thing, it's just it's a big range of kind of moderate, easy training.
[19:09] SPEAKER_02: So why do it at all if it doesn't lead to the same signaling that leads to the same same adaptation as higher intensity training?
[19:17] SPEAKER_02: Well, the reason why you still need to train easy is A, because you can't just go and train VO2 max all day, every day, even though the signaling is much bigger, leading to bigger adaptation because of injury risk, burnout risk, sickness risk, not enjoying your training risk, all of these things.
[19:35] SPEAKER_02: But just because the adaptation isn't as big from easy training, it doesn't mean it's not there.
[19:40] SPEAKER_02: It just means per unit of time.
[19:42] SPEAKER_02: So let's say per hour of zone one training versus per hour of zone five or VO2 max training, the adaptation is going to be smaller.
[19:51] SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean it's not there.
[19:53] SPEAKER_02: But what does that mean?
[19:55] SPEAKER_02: Well, it means you can stack lots of it to try and get a really big amount of accumulated adaptation over time.
[20:02] SPEAKER_02: How can you stack the most easy training?
[20:05] SPEAKER_02: Well, by making it really easy, not by making it kind of hard all the time, so that then your quality training is suffering, but you also don't end up doing as much easy training as well.
[20:17] SPEAKER_02: So you end up in this really gray area where you're not doing as much volume of easy training because you're training at the hard end of it, and your higher intensity sessions are suffering, so you're not getting the same adaptation from that either.
[20:29] SPEAKER_02: So you kind of end up in this tricky position if you just focus on zone two, which is why I believe it's so dumb, where you're not getting the best of either world.
[20:37] SPEAKER_02: You're not maximizing your volume of easy training, and you're not maximizing your adaptation by being able to do your hard sessions properly and hard.
[20:46] SPEAKER_05: Alright.
[20:46] SPEAKER_05: And I'm in my I'm in my TT beast era, as coach would say.
[20:51] SPEAKER_05: So my thing I'd like you to convince you of, and maybe this doesn't apply to short course athletes, but if you want to be a cycling beast and triathlon, just ditch the road bike.
[21:02] SPEAKER_05: Okay?
[21:03] SPEAKER_05: You need to spend time on your time trial bike.
[21:05] SPEAKER_05: Okay?
[21:06] SPEAKER_05: There are guys in the Twitter France and they're great at group riding and climbing up mountains, and then you put them on a time trial and they suck, okay, because they're not adapted, they don't try that hard, and they get coased by Evanpool and Pagatcha.
[21:19] SPEAKER_05: Okay, so an age group.
[21:20] SPEAKER_05: I see these photos of these age troopers and racist.
[21:23] SPEAKER_05: They're on their fucking base bars and every single photo.
[21:26] SPEAKER_05: Like, get in your TT bars, because you're out there dilly-dallying on your road bike all the time, you're not locking in on the TT, you're not getting strong, you're not trying to become a beast, and you not you gotta prioritize the time trial.
[21:39] SPEAKER_05: If you aren't spending the majority of your time in the time trial position, you're not gonna be a beast in that discipline.
[21:45] SPEAKER_05: You know, and you might think, oh, I need the road bike, I need to, you know, offload my c whatever, like hips or open up.
[21:52] SPEAKER_05: No, you gotta double down.
[21:54] SPEAKER_05: You gotta adapt to more time in the T T.
[21:56] SPEAKER_05: Oh, your hips are feeling tight?
[21:58] SPEAKER_05: More T T work.
[22:00] SPEAKER_05: Do it until the hips are strong enough that they don't even the it doesn't even matter.
[22:04] SPEAKER_05: Okay?
[22:05] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, maybe do some mobility work off the bike, but you gotta you gotta and then some if they're if they get m even tighter, triple down.
[22:11] SPEAKER_05: More TT work, big gear, threshold.
[22:15] SPEAKER_05: Like just adapt.
[22:16] SPEAKER_05: Make your body adapt.
[22:18] SPEAKER_05: We are the most adaptable creatures on this planet.
[22:22] SPEAKER_05: Don't think that you need to like, oh, I need to reserve.
[22:25] SPEAKER_05: Nope.
[22:25] SPEAKER_05: Double down.
[22:26] SPEAKER_05: You're not swimming enough.
[22:27] SPEAKER_05: You're swimming slow, swim more.
[22:30] SPEAKER_05: You know, same mindset.
[22:31] SPEAKER_05: More is more, more TT time, always better.
[22:35] SPEAKER_05: I actually took a hacksaw out of my road bike.
[22:37] SPEAKER_05: It's it's cut in half.
[22:38] SPEAKER_05: I'm only TTing now, and I'm probably one of the best time trials on earth.
[22:44] SPEAKER_05: So that's that's what I think.
[22:47] SPEAKER_05: I'm ready for your comments.
[22:49] SPEAKER_05: I'm ready for my I'm ready for your comments.
[22:51] SPEAKER_01: I call it this week.
[22:54] SPEAKER_01: I haven't ridden my TT bike in ten weeks, Greg.
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: What would you say to that?
[22:58] SPEAKER_05: See, you I'll tell you where your bias lies, Apo.
[23:00] SPEAKER_05: I remember I asked you a question on the podcast a few weeks back, and I was like, oh, did you have to like adapt that much to TT?
[23:05] SPEAKER_05: Like, no, I was like really good at it.
[23:06] SPEAKER_05: It's like, alright, fine.
[23:07] SPEAKER_05: If you're lucky, but that's not common.
[23:09] SPEAKER_05: Alright, some of us have to work for it.
[23:11] SPEAKER_05: Okay, so Apo's gonna come in with this like this bias.
[23:14] SPEAKER_05: Just don't listen to what he says.
[23:15] SPEAKER_05: He's fucking wrong.
[23:16] SPEAKER_05: But yeah, keep going.
[23:18] SPEAKER_01: No, I I um I agree with the sentiment.
[23:22] SPEAKER_01: I would encourage all like specific time trial sessions, key workouts to be done in the time trial position on the TT bike, right?
[23:34] SPEAKER_01: But I don't think there's anything wrong with going out for those zone two rides on your road bike.
[23:39] SPEAKER_01: If you want to go out and just do like a fun ride or something or an endurance ride for a couple of hours that doesn't have specific TT intervals or anything like that.
[23:49] SPEAKER_01: If you want to get up and, you know, here in Boulder, I want to go up in the mountains or something, I want to take my road bike, um, then I'm gonna do that for sure.
[23:56] SPEAKER_01: But I do agree with the general statement of if it's a quality session and you are preparing for a race, I think you should be doing the majority of it in your TT position.
[24:06] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, if you've got the luxury of both bikes, I don't think you should feel guilty for doing a ride or two a week um on the road bike.
[24:12] SPEAKER_05: It's wrong.
[24:13] SPEAKER_05: And I know Vicky's gonna chime in here.
[24:15] SPEAKER_05: Oh, you're going to your local chain gang?
[24:17] SPEAKER_05: T T bike.
[24:18] SPEAKER_05: Bring your TT bike to the local group ride.
[24:20] SPEAKER_05: And and guess what?
[24:21] SPEAKER_05: If they give you looks right off the front, just be like, fuck y'all, that's how you earn respect.
[24:26] SPEAKER_05: Bring the TT to the group ride.
[24:28] SPEAKER_05: That's what they do in UK.
[24:30] SPEAKER_07: They don't do that in the UK, no.
[24:31] SPEAKER_07: But actually, I have known people turn up to the group ride or like a chain gang with the with the TT, but they have to ride off the back.
[24:39] SPEAKER_07: They're not allowed anywhere near the rest of everyone else.
[24:42] SPEAKER_07: They have to ride off the back of the group.
[24:44] SPEAKER_07: Um, I don't really have much to say on this topic, Greg, uh, because I don't ride a TT bank.
[24:50] SPEAKER_07: So this isn't my world.
[24:52] SPEAKER_05: Well, that's why you're uh what that's why your FTP is 140 watts, huh, Vicky?
[24:56] SPEAKER_07: If it is, I'm done very well this week, because it was 130.
[24:59] SPEAKER_07: I think it was intended, wasn't it?
[25:02] SPEAKER_07: Hey, if I've done 30 watts this week, I'll take it.
[25:06] SPEAKER_02: Greg, I want to I want to take this opportunity, piggyback off you to call out one of the athletes I train.
[25:12] SPEAKER_02: It's uh co-host of the Road to Oceanside podcast, which you haven't been listening to, definitely go and check it out.
[25:18] SPEAKER_02: They've done two episodes, we release one a week.
[25:20] SPEAKER_02: Ari Clare.
[25:21] SPEAKER_02: Now, I coach him, and you might think, wow, now that I know you coach Ari Clare, I'm not gonna listen to a word you say because Ari Clau is bad.
[25:29] SPEAKER_02: But I think I've figured out why Ari Clau is so bad.
[25:33] SPEAKER_02: He has been secretly doing a lot of his bike sessions for a long period of time, not in the TT position, and he has really like impressive numbers in training.
[25:44] SPEAKER_02: And then he goes out on a race, and his numbers have never added up to me.
[25:48] SPEAKER_02: I've always been like, why?
[25:51] SPEAKER_02: Why are your power numbers so much lower than what they are in training compared to every other professional triathlet that I coach?
[25:59] SPEAKER_02: They have by far the biggest discrepancy that I've seen with the athletes I've coached.
[26:04] SPEAKER_02: And we figured out during the week, he he comes clean to me.
[26:07] SPEAKER_02: I think he'd been kind of keeping it secret from me because I had asked him in the past.
[26:11] SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we talked about it a lot in the past, but he came clean that he'd actually been spending a lot of time sitting in the uprights on the trainer to ride higher power so that it looks more impressive and not spending the time in the TT position, which is so dumb because it doesn't translate to the race.
[26:29] SPEAKER_02: Because we know with muscle fibers, you only adapt what you use.
[26:34] SPEAKER_02: Whatever muscle fibre is not being used is not adapting.
[26:37] SPEAKER_02: It's just how it works.
[26:38] SPEAKER_02: So you use different muscle fibers in a TT position versus in a road bike position, or even seated in a TT position versus being in your TT bars.
[26:47] SPEAKER_02: So Ari Clow, I'm calling him out.
[26:49] SPEAKER_02: He needs to spend more time in his TT position as close to 100% of time as possible because it will translate to higher power, therefore faster riding out on the race course.
[27:00] SPEAKER_02: I couldn't agree with you more, Greg.
[27:02] SPEAKER_05: I think there's some small the only irony of you coaching Ari Clow is he's proclaimed himself as the zone two king on the road to ocean side.
[27:15] SPEAKER_05: So hey, we'll we'll have to revisit that one.
[27:17] SPEAKER_02: There's this thing with Ari though, Greg, where if you listen to it, it's like it's you just you've got to take everything he says with a grain of salt because he does almost no zone two training, yet he's the the king of zone two.
[27:29] SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
[27:31] SPEAKER_07: So I'm here to convince you that polarized training with a high volume approach is the best way to train.
[27:39] SPEAKER_07: And I should start by saying that a lot of what I'm gonna say has sort of overlaps with Jack.
[27:44] SPEAKER_07: Um lot of the things that he already explained, and I'm also speaking to you from a point of real privilege because polarized training with high volume isn't something that every person in the world can do because you need a significant amount of time to invest into it.
[27:59] SPEAKER_07: So, as a professional athlete, you should be able to, if that's the route you want to go down, you should be able to do it.
[28:05] SPEAKER_07: If you are someone who has all the other trappings of being a you know an age group of participation athlete, a normal life, a normal job, a family, all of those things, very hard to do this approach.
[28:16] SPEAKER_07: But in my opinion, this is the way to go.
[28:20] SPEAKER_07: So, firstly, polarized training is what it sounds like.
[28:23] SPEAKER_07: You rate you train at the extremes, you spend 80% of your time roughly in zone one, and then you spend about 20% of your time up in higher than zone three, basically.
[28:35] SPEAKER_07: You try you don't train in zone three, or I guess what you'd call sweet spot.
[28:39] SPEAKER_07: That's probably where you try and want to try to avoid.
[28:42] SPEAKER_07: And when I say 80-20 in terms of percentage of time, that is measured in sessions.
[28:47] SPEAKER_07: We're not talking about the actual overall volume of time because 20% of your time going really hard takes a huge amount out of you, but we're talking 20% of your sessions.
[28:56] SPEAKER_07: So, say you're doing 10 sessions a week, two of those sessions need to include your VO2 max work or your speed work.
[29:03] SPEAKER_07: Uh, it doesn't have to be the entire session, of course, because that's not really practical.
[29:07] SPEAKER_07: So that's what I'm talking about with polarized training and high volume for me.
[29:11] SPEAKER_07: I think of that as sort of anything over 25-ish hours a week.
[29:16] SPEAKER_07: Um, for me, I would always try to get close to 30.
[29:20] SPEAKER_07: Uh, that was the kind of training that I like to do, and for me, it just provided the best results in my career.
[29:26] SPEAKER_07: I had relative success doing things in different ways.
[29:29] SPEAKER_07: I've tried doing pretty low volume and and I've tried a lot more of that zone two type training.
[29:34] SPEAKER_07: But for me, the best results that I achieved were when I did a high volume and polarized approach.
[29:40] SPEAKER_07: And Greg, you said it earlier.
[29:42] SPEAKER_07: It's do your hard stuff hard.
[29:43] SPEAKER_07: This is what Alistair has said, do your hard stuff hard, and then as much easy stuff around that as you possibly can do, and that is essentially what polarized training is and high volume training is, and let's be honest, it's worked pretty well for Alistair and a lot of other athletes too.
[29:59] SPEAKER_07: So, why do you do high volume?
[30:01] SPEAKER_07: Well, high volume, the best way to describe what you get when you do high volume is that you are building mitochondria in your cells, and mitochondria is kind of like the energy powerhouse of the cells, and so when you build more mitochondria, you can transport more oxygen and glucose, which turns into the energy that you need in the mitochondria, so you are producing more energy by having more mitochondria.
[30:26] SPEAKER_07: That's that's the simplest way to think of it.
[30:29] SPEAKER_07: So lots and lots of volume makes more mitochondria, means more energy, means a fitter person, a larger aerobic base.
[30:36] SPEAKER_07: That's probably the best way I can simplify it, if you like.
[30:39] SPEAKER_07: Then on top of that, you put in the high intensity stuff because that gives you the top end that you need to really have the performance approach.
[30:47] SPEAKER_07: So you have a huge engine and then you have the intensity on top of that for your performance.
[30:52] SPEAKER_05: It's this kind of threshold, like just like really hard, solid threshold and VO2.
[30:56] SPEAKER_05: Are you like really saying that?
[30:57] SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you're not really training between LT1 and LT2.
[31:00] SPEAKER_07: It's difficult because people's description of zones varies, right?
[31:04] SPEAKER_07: And that's where earlier when I said zone three, and I was like, well, is it zone three?
[31:07] SPEAKER_07: I mean, yeah, kind of yeah, it is zone three.
[31:08] SPEAKER_07: So you you don't want to train between LT1 and LT2.
[31:12] SPEAKER_07: That's the that's the big big no-no, if you like, with this approach.
[31:16] SPEAKER_05: So this is like sort of anti-Norwegian, if you had like, I mean you think about it.
[31:20] SPEAKER_05: I mean they do do LT2, but it's like wouldn't you say it's on the s on the easier side, so they can do more, but so it technically is between LT1 and LT2?
[31:30] SPEAKER_05: Or you think it's just right at LT2, like you would consider it polarized.
[31:34] SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I think so.
[31:35] SPEAKER_07: I think that's just about squeaking into polarized.
[31:37] SPEAKER_02: I don't think this is different from what the Norwegians do, Greg.
[31:40] SPEAKER_02: I think maybe it's different from the perception of what the Norwegians do, but I think they train really similarly to what what Vicky is saying.
[31:49] SPEAKER_02: I think they do a lot of volume, a lot of easy volume, and then a lot of high-end stuff, maybe around anaerobic threshold, uh, but definitely still a lot of EO2 max stuff as well, and even some speed work.
[32:01] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I don't think it's as different from the the Norwegian method as you think.
[32:05] SPEAKER_02: And I actually think that that probably you know upper zone two, lower zone three uh are the areas the Norwegians spend the least amount of time from what I've observed in their in their training, both on YouTube and also on Strava stalking.
[32:20] SPEAKER_07: The other next thing I want to say is that with a lot of running volume, especially, that really helps improve your running economy.
[32:27] SPEAKER_07: So that's how efficiently your body moves oxygen around your body.
[32:32] SPEAKER_07: Um, so volume is a massive one for that.
[32:35] SPEAKER_07: And by doing volume of all three sports, it really helps your ability to recover as well.
[32:39] SPEAKER_07: So both in session recoveries and also in between sessions, so volume increases that as well.
[32:45] SPEAKER_07: And I don't think it's a surprise that there is a crossover of people who've come into endurance sport, not just triathlon, relatively late in life, and they've come from things like being in the army, for example, where they've done tons and tons of time, relatively low intensity, like marching and out on these massive, they don't they call it yomps, is it yomping?
[33:04] SPEAKER_07: I think that's what they call it, um, where they they are just really low intensity, but for hours and hours and hours and hours.
[33:12] SPEAKER_07: Other people, like rowers, look at like someone like a Camworth.
[33:15] SPEAKER_07: Um, Nikki Bartlett has a rowing background as well.
[33:17] SPEAKER_07: Yes, they do very, very high intensity when they're rowing, but then they do a lot of cross training out on the bike, and they might spend five, six hours out on the bike doing this really low intensity as well.
[33:28] SPEAKER_07: Those things cross over really well into doing elite sport like or endurance sport like triathlon, not saying rowing isn't an elite sport, but you know, crossing over into pure endurance sport because they've built this massive aerobic base that can be fine-tuned later.
[33:44] SPEAKER_02: The determinants of of training, Vicky, what makes you a good athlete?
[33:48] SPEAKER_02: Well, where's your threshold?
[33:49] SPEAKER_02: Where's your VO2 max?
[33:51] SPEAKER_02: And what's your economy?
[33:52] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[33:52] SPEAKER_02: They're the building blocks.
[33:54] SPEAKER_02: Those are the three things that you need to have at a really high level to be a better athlete.
[33:59] SPEAKER_02: Running economy is a great example of this, Vicky, because what do we know definitely increases running economy?
[34:07] SPEAKER_02: Time running.
[34:09] SPEAKER_02: So the longer you've been running, the more running you've done over time, the the higher volume that you've done over time, the better your running economy.
[34:17] SPEAKER_02: And it is a massive determinant of how good a runner you are.
[34:20] SPEAKER_02: So I couldn't agree more with you.
[34:22] SPEAKER_02: It's a great point you make bringing up economy because it's often forgotten in training talk.
[34:26] SPEAKER_02: Like we talk about where your threshold sits all the time.
[34:29] SPEAKER_02: We talk about what's your VO2 max all the time.
[34:31] SPEAKER_02: But we do often forget about your economy.
[34:33] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, like it's just a surefire way to increase that.
[34:36] SPEAKER_02: Run more, run for a longer period of time, over time.
[34:39] SPEAKER_07: Well, it's a big one for me, running economy, because I know that throughout my career I'd never had a particularly good VO2 Max and I never had a particularly good threshold.
[34:46] SPEAKER_07: But I had a really, really good running economy, and that was why I was a good runner.
[34:49] SPEAKER_07: I basically did all my all my results came from that.
[34:52] SPEAKER_07: My running economy was really, really good.
[34:54] SPEAKER_07: And so it kind of propped up the other two that weren't as good.
[34:57] SPEAKER_07: So for me, yeah, I'm I'm big on getting a good running economy.
[35:01] SPEAKER_02: And I do want to just touch on a point you made, Vicky, because yes, you get mitochondrial benefits from zone one, zone two training, easy training, right?
[35:10] SPEAKER_02: And that's a big thing that people hang the hat on of zone two training.
[35:13] SPEAKER_02: They go, well, Tato Pigac's old coach always talked about the mitochondrial benefits you get from zone two training.
[35:20] SPEAKER_02: Well, it's been shown that you get equally, if not higher, benefits in mitochondrial density and number from higher intensity training.
[35:30] SPEAKER_02: You just also get them from lower intensity training.
[35:33] SPEAKER_02: You know, so it comes back to the signaling I was talking about earlier.
[35:36] SPEAKER_02: When you do training, what adaptation does that training signal?
[35:40] SPEAKER_02: Well, the higher the intensity, the more signaling you get for even things like mitochondrial adaptation.
[35:47] SPEAKER_02: But you can get a lot of it by training in zone one because you can do so much of the training so that over time you get a lot of mitochondrial benefit from it.
[35:56] SPEAKER_02: So just keep that in mind.
[35:57] SPEAKER_02: Zone two isn't this big secret to getting mitochondrial adaptation.
[36:01] SPEAKER_02: Like maybe some people make you think it is when you listen to them on a podcast.
[36:05] SPEAKER_02: It's not.
[36:06] SPEAKER_02: It's just that easy training does actually lead to mitochondrial adaptation, and you can do lots of it whether it's zone one or zone two.
[36:14] SPEAKER_02: It's not zone two being the secret.
[36:16] SPEAKER_07: Well, the thing I would say there is that the way I try to sort of simplify it in my brain is that zone one is where you create more mitochondria, but zone two and high-end training makes you more efficient or makes your mitochondria more efficient.
[36:31] SPEAKER_07: So you are still getting mitochondrial benefits and, as you said, signalling in those higher zones, but it's just easier to get the actual volume of them in at lower intensity with obviously less risk of injury or illness and being able to just do more of it.
[36:47] SPEAKER_02: That is the big key point, and it goes to what you're saying because of the volume you can do of it.
[36:53] SPEAKER_02: Because, for example, a way you can disprove that purely easy training is the solution to everything because you get more mitochondria, is ask yourself this.
[37:04] SPEAKER_02: If you did three 20-minute easy rides every week, would you have a huge number of mitochondria?
[37:12] SPEAKER_02: No, you wouldn't.
[37:13] SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't mean that easy training alone is the solution.
[37:17] SPEAKER_02: It it shows that you can do lots of it.
[37:20] SPEAKER_02: And if if instead of doing three by 20 minute easy rides, you instead do 15 hours of easy riding.
[37:26] SPEAKER_02: Now we're getting into the secret source of why you might be able to get such a high number of mitochondria.
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[38:43] SPEAKER_01: Guys, can I be um vulnerable with you for a uh for a moment?
[38:47] SPEAKER_01: Please.
[38:48] SPEAKER_01: My whole career.
[38:49] SPEAKER_01: No.
[38:50] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
[38:51] SPEAKER_01: Well, anyway, fuck it.
[38:52] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do it anyway.
[38:53] SPEAKER_07: I'm listening.
[38:54] SPEAKER_07: Go ahead.
[38:54] SPEAKER_01: I have used erg mode on the trainer for my whole career, right?
[38:59] SPEAKER_01: And I think this is coming it's becoming a bit topical, right?
[39:03] SPEAKER_01: Is erg mode good?
[39:04] SPEAKER_01: Is it bad?
[39:05] SPEAKER_01: Um, should you turn it off?
[39:07] SPEAKER_01: Does it make the sessions easier?
[39:09] SPEAKER_01: And I'm here to tell you that I think erg mode is completely fine and you shouldn't feel bad for using it on the trainer.
[39:17] SPEAKER_01: And you know, some people will tell you that you shouldn't use erg mode because it's um yeah, it's bad for your development and things like that, but I fundamentally disagree.
[39:26] SPEAKER_01: So basically, erg mode sets your power so you can just set it and forget it, right?
[39:32] SPEAKER_01: It's like running on a treadmill.
[39:33] SPEAKER_01: How good is it when you run on a treadmill and you don't have to worry about the pace, you don't have to spend that mental energy looking at a watch, um, adjusting your pace.
[39:42] SPEAKER_01: That's the same thing with erg mode, right?
[39:44] SPEAKER_01: Like if you're doing threshold or sweet spot intervals, you can just set it, forget it, and focus on, you know, pedaling technique, your breathing, your position on the bike, your cadence.
[39:56] SPEAKER_01: You don't have to worry about looking at the screen, you know, micro adjusting for every part of the of Zwift or anything like that if you're using the um the resistance going up and down the terrain.
[40:08] SPEAKER_01: You don't have to change gears, you can just set it and forget it.
[40:11] SPEAKER_01: It takes that mental load.
[40:12] SPEAKER_01: And Trithlon requires like training for an Iron Man or a 70.3 requires a lot of mental like it's a it's a very big mental task, right?
[40:21] SPEAKER_01: So I'm all for removing barriers and making it mentally easier for you.
[40:28] SPEAKER_01: And I still think you're getting the physiological adaptions, right?
[40:31] SPEAKER_01: If you're pushing 270 watts for 20 minutes, I don't think it matters if it's erg mode or if it's not erg mode, like physiologically, right?
[40:41] SPEAKER_01: But if it's mentally easier for you, I think you should go for it.
[40:44] SPEAKER_01: I also think it's quite good for like lower intensity stuff.
[40:47] SPEAKER_01: If you're doing just a you know a recovery ride, like a 60-minute spin in zone well, I was gonna say zone one, great.
[40:55] SPEAKER_01: Um like you can just set it to like you know, I'm just pulling numbers, but you can just set it to like 180 watts, and you can just like completely ignore Zwift and just like watch a movie, watch Netflix, watch Lionel Sanders' YouTube with 100% focus, right?
[41:12] SPEAKER_01: And I do think that maybe in VO2, like shorter than one minute intervals, I think that it can be a little bit limiting, like you know, it can limit the power output that you're doing.
[41:25] SPEAKER_01: Like if you set one minute to 400 watts, generally what's really difficult about a VO2 effort is that you start out and you feel really good.
[41:34] SPEAKER_01: You push 440 watts for the first 20 seconds and then it starts to, you know, you start to decline.
[41:39] SPEAKER_01: But if you set that at 400 watts, it does become a little bit easier to just hold that steady for a minute.
[41:45] SPEAKER_01: So I can see an argument for VO2 stuff maybe taking erg mode off.
[41:50] SPEAKER_01: But overall, I think erg mode's completely fine and no one should feel bad about using it.
[41:55] SPEAKER_02: So the detractors are gonna say, but what about when you get out on a race course and you don't have erg mode there, but you've done all of your sessions in erg mode, it's gonna be harder for you to generate your own power because you haven't done any of it in training.
[42:09] SPEAKER_01: Yes, I see that argument, but you kind of have done it in training, right?
[42:14] SPEAKER_01: Like you have pushed 270 watts for your intervals, you just haven't spent the mental load looking at the screen and microadjusting your power every 10 seconds.
[42:26] SPEAKER_01: You've just you've physiologically done the work.
[42:29] SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, maybe there is an argument that if you do every single session, so say you're training for an Iron Man and you've done 12 weeks and you've done every session in erg mode, which, you know, that's not what I'm saying, right?
[42:41] SPEAKER_01: That's not what I'm saying.
[42:43] SPEAKER_01: But there can be an argument that you might be like, well, you don't know what it feels like to push that on your own.
[42:49] SPEAKER_01: I can see that argument.
[42:50] SPEAKER_01: So I would encourage some outside riding and maybe a bit of a mixture of, you know, put trying that power out for yourself outdoors.
[42:59] SPEAKER_01: But I think for Iron Man specific 70.3 threshold sessions, I think erg mode's completely fine.
[43:05] SPEAKER_07: Well, I am new to erg mode.
[43:09] SPEAKER_07: So I have only ever used erg mode previously.
[43:14] SPEAKER_02: Why are you laughing at me?
[43:17] SPEAKER_02: Do you really need to use erg mode for 110 watts, Vicky?
[43:21] SPEAKER_02: I will tell you why.
[43:23] SPEAKER_07: This is this is this was gonna be my confession.
[43:26] SPEAKER_07: So my bike is broken.
[43:29] SPEAKER_07: So my bike, my shifters don't work.
[43:32] SPEAKER_07: It's not batteries, we've tried a few things.
[43:35] SPEAKER_07: Basically, my but my bike is a bit poorly, and with life as it is right now, it has not been to the bike shop and it has not been fixed.
[43:42] SPEAKER_07: And the only way I can get the appropriate amount of talk and do the what I want to do on a bike is put it on erg mode.
[43:49] SPEAKER_07: It's the only way I can do it.
[43:51] SPEAKER_07: So, before this, before I just started riding again, you know, the last what's it, six weeks or so, I never used erg.
[44:00] SPEAKER_07: Mode uh unless it was in lab testing where I actually think it's really useful.
[44:04] SPEAKER_07: After that, anything else was always I would have to, you know, I'd have my target watts and I'd have to push them myself and all of that.
[44:10] SPEAKER_07: And I didn't really, whenever someone said, Oh, use a bug mode, I was like, no, thank you, that sounds horrible.
[44:15] SPEAKER_07: But now I'm kind of being converted because I have to.
[44:19] SPEAKER_07: I haven't got any other way of riding my bike at the moment.
[44:22] SPEAKER_07: I don't have my internet's not working in my garage.
[44:25] SPEAKER_07: Um, I've got I've got a bike that doesn't work properly.
[44:28] SPEAKER_07: The Bluetooth drops out all the time, so I get stuck in the wrong power level when I'm trying to change it in early mode from you know 110 to 120 watts.
[44:37] SPEAKER_07: Um, some over-under.
[44:42] SPEAKER_07: So, you know, if anyone ever actually has dived into the power files on my Strava, you might wonder why sometimes they are a bit random.
[44:50] SPEAKER_07: The reason might be like one rep, if you like, and I say an inverted commas rep, um, looks a bit longer than others.
[44:58] SPEAKER_07: It's because I got stuck, it's because my erg mode wasn't connecting properly, and I just got stuck in a certain power zone.
[45:03] SPEAKER_07: So that is my experience of erg mode, and um I I'm actually I'm yeah, I'm I'm relatively newly converted to it.
[45:09] SPEAKER_07: I quite I quite like it.
[45:10] SPEAKER_07: It's alright.
[45:11] SPEAKER_05: I hear your point on the VO2 app oh that it can be like limiting.
[45:14] SPEAKER_05: I think for I feel like it can be limiting, but also can stretch you too.
[45:19] SPEAKER_05: Like if you're gonna do something like this is gonna be really hard, let me let me try to hold it.
[45:23] SPEAKER_05: I think it can be good if that's your mindset.
[45:25] SPEAKER_05: But I found too, maybe the erg mode like feels kind of hard, maybe even harder than you want.
[45:30] SPEAKER_05: And if you turn it off and like focus on doing what you need to do, like maybe you're putting it up a climb, right?
[45:35] SPEAKER_05: So there's some good resistance, you can actually end up producing more power outside of erg mode.
[45:41] SPEAKER_05: Um, even if erg mode felt like it was hard, and now you're it's the same effort, but you're producing more power.
[45:47] SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I think I think like you said, you can't go all one way or the other.
[45:52] SPEAKER_05: It's a kind of kind of a mix of both, but it it can be strategically used.
[45:57] SPEAKER_05: However, I would really encourage people to like try to find their you know, if you're doing a threshold work, maybe your threshold's on the lower side one day, and maybe it's on the higher side one day, and maybe there's a day where you want to turn off or again your power might be higher.
[46:10] SPEAKER_05: So I think that's an an important note to make as well.
[46:13] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm kind of I think it's very similar to talking about, well, if you're saying that you get bigger adaptive benefit from training harder, why don't you do 100% of your training at above threshold?
[46:27] SPEAKER_02: Or if you are a zone two believer, why don't you do a hundred percent of your training at zone two?
[46:33] SPEAKER_02: Well, because you probably need a blend of easy and hard training.
[46:36] SPEAKER_02: You probably need enough easy training that you can get the volume in and recover between your hard sessions, and you need the hard sessions to get the biggest adaptive benefit from the higher intensity.
[46:48] SPEAKER_02: I think that's kind of similar to erg mode versus no erg mode.
[46:52] SPEAKER_02: I think you don't get the most out of yourself by just doing no erg mode or just doing erg mode.
[46:59] SPEAKER_02: Because, like Greg said, there's some days where you can push harder in your higher intensity sessions than other days.
[47:04] SPEAKER_02: And what if you've set this session to these specific powers and it's on erg mode and you can't really change them that much?
[47:12] SPEAKER_02: You can go like plus minus 10%.
[47:13] SPEAKER_02: But what if you could push harder than that and you just don't do it because of the erg mode?
[47:17] SPEAKER_02: Well, you've probably missed a little bit of an opportunity there.
[47:20] SPEAKER_02: So maybe on that day it would have been great if you didn't have the erg mode on.
[47:24] SPEAKER_02: And like Apo said, maybe sometimes you have to go outside and and not use erg mode.
[47:28] SPEAKER_02: So I think it's kind of something that you can come back to with a lot of training talk points, is that it's probably going to be a blend of both things that is the best, not just one way or the other way.
[47:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think all of our um convince us segments are like you need to do a little bit of everything to be the best triathlete you can be.
[47:50] SPEAKER_01: Not roadbaking.
[47:54] SPEAKER_01: Actually, that's true.
[47:55] SPEAKER_01: But I disagreed with Greg.
[47:56] SPEAKER_01: I said a bit of column A, a bit of column B.
[47:58] SPEAKER_02: How much does that just sum up a Greg, though?
[48:00] SPEAKER_02: It's like, you know, whether you like myself, Vicky, or Apple, I think you could probably agree that at times we try and have a little bit of nuance, like maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
[48:10] SPEAKER_02: But with Greg, it's hey, this is how it is.
[48:13] SPEAKER_02: Shut up and listen to me.
[48:14] SPEAKER_02: If you disagree with me, you're wrong, I'm right.
[48:18] SPEAKER_05: Except at the home.
[48:19] SPEAKER_05: I actually uh I agree with everything that my wife says.
[48:25] SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's do our ratings.
[48:27] SPEAKER_02: So we'll start with Apo.
[48:29] SPEAKER_02: Vicky, how much did Apo convince you that erg mode is okay out of ten?
[48:35] SPEAKER_07: I mean, I was already pretty convinced, but I'm gonna give him a strong 8.5.
[48:42] SPEAKER_02: 8.5?
[48:43] SPEAKER_02: Greg?
[48:43] SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
[48:44] SPEAKER_05: I'll say seven.
[48:46] SPEAKER_05: I I was kind of already, I guess, agreed with him.
[48:48] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll give him a seven as well.
[48:50] SPEAKER_02: Um, okay.
[48:51] SPEAKER_02: Greg, how much did Vicky convince you that polarized training with high volume is the best way to train?
[48:58] SPEAKER_05: Hmm.
[49:00] SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna say six and a half.
[49:03] SPEAKER_05: I think that she brings up some some points, but uh you know, she's in that she's uh she comes through this this lens of uh short course, and uh, you know, I don't think she knows what the fuck she's talking about, long course.
[49:14] SPEAKER_07: So you're hating on me this week, aren't you, Greg?
[49:21] SPEAKER_02: Greg's going after Vicky this week.
[49:27] SPEAKER_02: Apo, what did you give Vicky out of 10?
[49:29] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give Vicki an eight.
[49:31] SPEAKER_01: I think I fundamentally agreed with pretty much everything she said.
[49:34] SPEAKER_01: I do like high volume works, right, when they polarise, but it's like it's hard to do.
[49:41] SPEAKER_01: Not everyone can train 30 hours a week with intensity.
[49:44] SPEAKER_01: People break down, people struggle to maintain energy throughout the week and hit those key sessions.
[49:50] SPEAKER_01: So I do agree, and I think it's the best way if your body can sustain it.
[49:55] SPEAKER_02: Uh, nine out of ten for me.
[49:57] SPEAKER_02: So Vicky is on 23.5 out of 30, and Apo 22.5 out of 30.
[50:04] SPEAKER_02: So Vicky is the clubhouse leader.
[50:06] SPEAKER_02: Uh, we'll go to me.
[50:07] SPEAKER_02: Uh Vicki, what did you give me out of ten uh in convincing you that being obsessed with zone two is dumb?
[50:14] SPEAKER_07: Well, I was already with you, wasn't I?
[50:16] SPEAKER_07: Let's be honest.
[50:17] SPEAKER_07: Um, your explanation was very thorough, if a tiny bit long.
[50:22] SPEAKER_07: So I'm gonna go seven.
[50:30] SPEAKER_01: Greg?
[50:30] SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah, eight for me.
[50:32] SPEAKER_01: And Apo.
[50:33] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm gonna go eight point five for you, Jack, because last week on the podcast I also said that zone two is out and it's a fad, so I gotta agree with you.
[50:42] SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then what are we giving Greg out of ten that if you want to be the best cyclist or a beast as he called it in the TT uh world, that you need to ditch your road bike, Apo.
[50:57] SPEAKER_05: It pays.
[50:58] SPEAKER_07: I'm going in there with a two.
[51:00] SPEAKER_05: Oh, all right.
[51:01] SPEAKER_05: I I respect it.
[51:03] SPEAKER_07: You came for me, I'm coming for you.
[51:05] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you a six.
[51:07] SPEAKER_01: I think it was you made some salient points, but I did disagree with some of them.
[51:12] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[51:13] SPEAKER_02: I thought I don't know if Greg actually made much of an argument.
[51:16] SPEAKER_02: That was the problem.
[51:17] SPEAKER_02: I thought he just kind of came on and just started shitting on people who use the road bike and said to get rid of it, which was entertaining.
[51:25] SPEAKER_02: I thought it was fun.
[51:26] SPEAKER_02: But in terms of like valid points to make me go, oh yeah, that that that's that's a good point, Greg.
[51:32] SPEAKER_02: There wasn't a lot of that kind of vibe.
[51:34] SPEAKER_02: So I'll give him a five out of ten.
[51:37] SPEAKER_02: So uh Greg is on 13 in Dead Last, Apo 22 and a half, and myself and Vicky get the win on 23 and a half.
[51:48] SPEAKER_02: How do we split this?
[51:49] SPEAKER_07: To be fair, Jack, you probably deserve more from me.
[51:51] SPEAKER_07: I was just being mean to you.
[51:54] SPEAKER_02: Well, someone said that on the Spotify comments last week, Vicky.
[51:57] SPEAKER_02: They were like, Vicki came onto the podcast this week and she just decided whatever Jack says, I'm gonna disagree with it.
[52:02] SPEAKER_07: That's one of my comments for later.
[52:03] SPEAKER_07: We can just we can discuss that a bit later.
[52:08] SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna talk to you about precision fuel and hydration.
[52:12] SPEAKER_02: I think I can talk about precision at the moment because I'm using them so much.
[52:15] SPEAKER_02: I ran 145k last week.
[52:18] SPEAKER_02: I've ran over 100k for like six weeks in a row now, and I'm going through almost more precision fuel and hydration than I uh I care to admit to.
[52:27] SPEAKER_02: I think the best way to use it is consistently.
[52:31] SPEAKER_02: And I've been thinking about this because I think that over the history of my training, I've been someone who uses gels or electrolyte tablets really haphazardly, really sporadically, and I don't think I was ever getting the most out of myself now that I reflect on it.
[52:46] SPEAKER_02: Whereas now I use them almost every day, like literally almost every day.
[52:50] SPEAKER_02: If I have a long run, then I have three gels with me.
[52:53] SPEAKER_02: I have a PF 30, a PF30 caffeine, and a PF90.
[52:57] SPEAKER_02: Every single long run, whether it's 20k or 30k, whether I take them all or not, I just have them with me at all times.
[53:03] SPEAKER_02: If I'm on the treadmill doing an hour session, I have two gels, two PF30 gels.
[53:08] SPEAKER_02: Every night before bed, if I've got a big session the next day, I have a a pH 1000 electrolyte tablet in a 600mm bottle of water at about 7 pm the night before.
[53:17] SPEAKER_02: And I just feel like so good every day.
[53:20] SPEAKER_02: Like if you go and look at my Strava, my training's been super consistent.
[53:23] SPEAKER_02: I haven't had a bad run in like you know, 12 weeks since I've been running, seriously.
[53:28] SPEAKER_02: And I 100% think it's because of how I've been fueling, and I use precision for that because I just love them.
[53:35] SPEAKER_02: I think the gels have the best texture and flavour of any gel that I've had.
[53:39] SPEAKER_02: Um I really like their electrolyte tablet.
[53:41] SPEAKER_02: Some Evervescency electrolyte tablets have made my gut a bit shit in the past, whereas the pH 1000 hasn't.
[53:48] SPEAKER_02: And I think it's maybe because of the concentration of the minerals in the uh tablets.
[53:53] SPEAKER_02: Like some are stronger than others, some are weaker than others.
[53:56] SPEAKER_02: I think I can't handle a really strong one, like the pH 1500.
[54:00] SPEAKER_02: I don't think I lose enough in my sweat to tolerate that.
[54:03] SPEAKER_02: Whereas the pH 1000, which just has a little bit less, is so good for me, and I never feel sick from it.
[54:08] SPEAKER_02: Um, and if I reflect on my training, like I said, I just used to feel so like randomly bad out of nowhere, randomly fucked out of nowhere, tired, I'd have bad sessions all the time.
[54:20] SPEAKER_02: I'd start to do like a threshold session, and I'd be like, why don't I have it today?
[54:24] SPEAKER_02: I haven't felt that this entire training block.
[54:26] SPEAKER_02: And I do think it's just because I consistently every day am on top of my nutrition, on top of my fueling, on top of my hydration.
[54:33] SPEAKER_02: So if you want to do that as well, if you relate to anything that you just heard me say, then head over to Precision Fuel and Hydration's website.
[54:40] SPEAKER_02: Use the discount code TTH25 that gets you 15% off your first order.
[54:45] SPEAKER_02: Um, and all the details for that are in the description to this podcast as well.
[54:50] SPEAKER_02: All right, we're gonna do a real quick diet chat.
[54:55] SPEAKER_02: It was actually Greg who came up with this idea on the message group, and he said, Hey, can we ask Vicky and Apo some questions about their diet um on the podcast?
[55:04] SPEAKER_02: And I was like, sure.
[55:05] SPEAKER_02: And then he jumps on before the podcast, he's like, This is such a shit topic.
[55:09] SPEAKER_02: Like, why are we doing this?
[55:10] SPEAKER_02: And we're like, it was your idea.
[55:11] SPEAKER_02: We only are doing it because you asked to do it.
[55:14] SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
[55:16] SPEAKER_02: If this is good, um, I guess it's it's Greg who takes credit for it, but if it's shit, blame Greg.
[55:22] SPEAKER_02: Um, so quick fire, Vicky and Apo.
[55:26] SPEAKER_02: We'll start with you, Vicky.
[55:27] SPEAKER_02: What have you eaten when you felt your best in training and racing over your career?
[55:32] SPEAKER_07: For the record, I also didn't like this segment, but I'm going with it.
[55:35] SPEAKER_07: We're here now.
[55:37] SPEAKER_05: Um can I just chime in for one second?
[55:39] SPEAKER_05: Um uh everyone's probably curious about my diet, um, but it's this is the pros chat, so I will be sitting this one out.
[55:50] SPEAKER_06: Okay.
[55:51] SPEAKER_07: Uh anyway, I would say just pretty simple, lots of carbs.
[55:55] SPEAKER_07: For me, my favorites are bread, pasta, and oats.
[55:58] SPEAKER_07: Um, and then also lots of fruit.
[56:01] SPEAKER_07: Um, I just think that makes me feel good, but having to know when to put that into your diet can't be pre-run sessions and things like that.
[56:10] SPEAKER_07: Um, so putting in at the appropriate times, and of course, cake.
[56:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, mine was pretty similar, like dense foods with lots of carbs, like bagels, spread, yeah, bread, but I prefer bagels because they've got more carbs, more calories in them.
[56:24] SPEAKER_01: Before racing, um, for like the last 10 years, I've actually eaten I eat like muffins, like a big muffin from a bakery before I race.
[56:33] SPEAKER_01: Like uh that's what I have for breakfast because it's dense, it's caloric, and it's not like not too much volume, right?
[56:39] SPEAKER_01: You're not shoving in a massive amount of volume into your stomach that you need to digest, but it's still got a lot of calories and a lot of carbs in it.
[56:46] SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and I know um Greg is gonna counter this at some point, but for me, my pre-race has been oats for a long time now.
[56:54] SPEAKER_07: And so uh we'll we'll leave that to a bit later.
[56:57] SPEAKER_07: But uh yeah, big, big, big on oats for me.
[56:59] SPEAKER_02: And so on the flip side of this, what have you eaten when you felt your absolute worst in training and racing?
[57:06] SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna say oats, Vicky.
[57:10] SPEAKER_01: I do love oats.
[57:12] SPEAKER_01: I um I eat oats quite a lot, but I find when I eat them, I can eat them and then go out for like a long, easy ride.
[57:19] SPEAKER_01: But if I have to run, I find they keep expanding in my stomach for like an hour or two after eating, and I get quite bloated.
[57:26] SPEAKER_01: Um so I skip oats before running and hard bike sessions.
[57:30] SPEAKER_01: But if I'm going out for a three, four-hour zone two ride, I'll um I'll take on board some oats.
[57:36] SPEAKER_01: And I skip dairy as well before running as well.
[57:39] SPEAKER_01: Like I love yogurt, I love full fat yogurt and stuff, but um, yeah, before running it just doesn't sit that well for me.
[57:45] SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, I'm Vicky.
[57:47] SPEAKER_03: Um I think eating not enough, but also very sugar-rich fruits and watery fruits before high intensity runs can be bad because they give me the shits.
[58:01] SPEAKER_02: So, for those of you who don't know, Vicky's internet has shut itself, and um Greg just pretended to be Vicky for that answer, and I think we're actually gonna keep it in the podcast because that is pretty much what what we suspect she was gonna say.
[58:16] SPEAKER_05: Two or three foods that you think are healthy, easy, and all athletes should have in their diets.
[58:20] SPEAKER_05: Apo, he just put one down.
[58:22] SPEAKER_05: This is his because he eats three times the amount of a normal person.
[58:25] SPEAKER_05: Apo, what is it?
[58:27] SPEAKER_01: I eat a shit ton of eggs, um, like five to six eggs every single day.
[58:32] SPEAKER_01: Um, I think they're just like a powerhouse, right?
[58:34] SPEAKER_01: And I know people, a lot of some of our listeners might be vegan and stuff, but um, yeah, I think eggs are honestly one of the best things humans can eat.
[58:43] SPEAKER_01: Great fats, great protein, and I have probably yeah, five to six every single day.
[58:49] SPEAKER_01: Um, Vicky did write also full fat milk and yogurt, which I fundamentally agree with as well.
[58:54] SPEAKER_01: And I think that like I never subscribed to that uh low-fat diet that was around what like ten years ago.
[59:01] SPEAKER_01: I was always full fat, and yeah, I think full fat dairy is really good for you.
[59:06] SPEAKER_01: Butter is not the enemy as well.
[59:08] SPEAKER_01: Butter's really, really good superfood.
[59:10] SPEAKER_02: Wasn't there a phase where you were kind of on the Daryl Griffiths pathway appo of of diet?
[59:15] SPEAKER_02: Like you were eating quite a high fat diet, if anything.
[59:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was a phase where I went quite high fat and lower carb.
[59:25] SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say low carb, but definitely like lower carb that I would never do these days.
[59:30] SPEAKER_01: I just think the sports evolved so much, like the training, the science and everything, particularly the training, like the intensity that I'm doing now in training is much higher than it was 10, 12 years ago, where you could get away with lower carb.
[59:43] SPEAKER_01: But there was a period there where I was eating maybe 150 grams of carbs a day, um, which is pretty low carb.
[59:50] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, lots of fats, uh, lots of protein.
[59:52] SPEAKER_01: But um I found you know, I was racing okay.
[59:56] SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, the sport's just evolved past that, right?
[59:58] SPEAKER_01: And um, I think as more science and studies and data comes out, it's actually proven that um yeah, carbs are king.
[1:00:06] SPEAKER_01: And I think even those really high, you know, those staunch high-fat, low carb advocates like the um Dan Plews and stuff are even like I think Dan is still a little bit lower carb, but I think he's also coming around to maybe bringing in a bit more carb as well.
[1:00:21] SPEAKER_02: So and Dan's become a little bit more focused on protein intake.
[1:00:25] SPEAKER_02: I think another good example in Triton is Pete Jacobs.
[1:00:28] SPEAKER_02: There was at one stage he was pretty much only eating like organ meat and really high fat, low carb diet, but he's maybe come back a little bit to normality as well, I think.
[1:00:39] SPEAKER_02: That sounds like I'm shit.
[1:00:40] SPEAKER_02: Not even I'm not, I think he has just come back to a little bit of a more kind of average, normal diet, if not maybe still slightly on the higher fat, lower carb end of things.
[1:00:49] SPEAKER_02: Alright, so the last one on this topic was what advice do you have for people that maybe isn't something they've heard a million times already with their diet?
[1:00:58] SPEAKER_02: So we'll start with you, Vicky.
[1:01:00] SPEAKER_04: Oh guys, sorry about that.
[1:01:01] SPEAKER_04: My internet went out.
[1:01:02] SPEAKER_04: Alright, a healthy diet is a not a restrictive on, but too much of any one thing that will probably make you feel crap.
[1:01:09] SPEAKER_04: So zero fat, zero sugar products are terrible.
[1:01:13] SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
[1:01:14] SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Vicky and Appo.
[1:01:16] SPEAKER_01: That was the worst British accent I've ever heard in the world.
[1:01:19] SPEAKER_05: I was trying to do a girl and a British accent.
[1:01:21] SPEAKER_05: It's fucking hard, okay.
[1:01:25] SPEAKER_02: Vicki's back.
[1:01:26] SPEAKER_02: The brief internet issues have been resolved.
[1:01:28] SPEAKER_02: So we'll finish off this diet chat with what advice do you have for people that isn't something they've maybe heard a million times already with their diet and when it comes to advice about their diet?
[1:01:39] SPEAKER_07: Well, for me, I'd I'd just caveat this by saying there's no secrets, there's nothing good, there's nothing that's terrible, there's nothing that's a um super food.
[1:01:49] SPEAKER_07: I don't believe in any of that, and any nutritionist worth their salt was not going to be telling you that there is a secret that you need to be buying into or something that is absolutely a no-no.
[1:01:58] SPEAKER_07: And for that, that kind of is the summary of what I'm gonna say, and that is just simply that a healthy diet is not restrictive of any one food group or anything.
[1:02:07] SPEAKER_07: Ultra-processed food should never be completely cut out.
[1:02:11] SPEAKER_07: That's it's okay in small amounts, all fine.
[1:02:14] SPEAKER_07: And uh, yeah, if you have too much of any one thing, it's probably gonna make you feel like crap.
[1:02:19] SPEAKER_07: The one other tiny bit of advice I've got is that I don't particularly love zero fat or zero sugar products because for me, I don't think they give you what you might get from the product if you actually had the fat and the sugar in it, and they probably don't taste that nice.
[1:02:32] SPEAKER_01: I agree, Vicky.
[1:02:33] SPEAKER_01: Um, and a famous man once told me, limit your sugar, limit your performance.
[1:02:38] SPEAKER_01: And that famous man was Gustav Eden on a YouTube video a few years ago.
[1:02:42] SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, kind of the same as what Vicky said.
[1:02:44] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, try not to restrict too much, and yeah, I think you just in this day and age, I think it's coming more and more evident that we just need to you need to fuel the training, right?
[1:02:54] SPEAKER_01: And I think the the craze of being ultra skinny and restricting to become really lean is actually detrimental to performance.
[1:03:02] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I'm uh I'm big into the carnivore diet, that's my thing.
[1:03:06] SPEAKER_02: I hear that Atho, but if you go back to the daily pods in Nice, do you remember how skinny all three of the Norwegians got and the first traps they were posting on Instagram?
[1:03:16] SPEAKER_02: Like, sure, maybe they are fueling their training and and uh and going really high sugar.
[1:03:22] SPEAKER_02: But to lose any weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit, right?
[1:03:26] SPEAKER_02: Just a fact.
[1:03:28] SPEAKER_02: They were clearly at some points in that training block in a little bit of a calorie deficit deficit because they all got so much lighter.
[1:03:36] SPEAKER_01: For sure.
[1:03:36] SPEAKER_01: And I think I think that calorie deficit is just coming from training so much, right?
[1:03:42] SPEAKER_01: Like they're still fueling and they're still trying to put those calories back in.
[1:03:46] SPEAKER_01: But when you're training at the intensity and the volume that those guys are training, like it's just so hard to like you're never going to be able to replenish everything that you're burning.
[1:03:55] SPEAKER_01: So I think, yeah, they've obviously got skinny from just doing so much volume, so much intensity, and you know, the oven's just burning really hot.
[1:04:04] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they probably didn't limit their sugar in and around training.
[1:04:08] SPEAKER_02: They maybe just cut out a little bit here and there in their day-to-day diet outside of that.
[1:04:12] SPEAKER_02: Maybe they cut out a little bit of junk outside of that, but it probably wasn't extreme, right?
[1:04:16] SPEAKER_01: Yep, for sure, for sure.
[1:04:18] SPEAKER_02: Okay, topic three for the day.
[1:04:20] SPEAKER_02: This is going to be quick fire.
[1:04:21] SPEAKER_02: This isn't a big long training discussion.
[1:04:24] SPEAKER_02: It's almost just a little bit of a thing to make you sit back, ponder, and think what you might answer.
[1:04:29] SPEAKER_02: So, pretty simply, it's called If You Could Only Have One.
[1:04:33] SPEAKER_02: And the topic is if you could only have one in your weekly training program and everything else was just zone one, easy jogging, about 30 to 60 minutes in length, what would you pick and why?
[1:04:47] SPEAKER_02: Would you pick a long run?
[1:04:49] SPEAKER_02: Would you pick or multiple long runs it could be?
[1:04:51] SPEAKER_02: Would you pick tempo runs, which is about marathon pace?
[1:04:56] SPEAKER_02: Would you pick threshold runs, which is somewhere between 10 kilometer and half marathon pace?
[1:05:02] SPEAKER_02: Would you pick VO2 max runs, which is about five to ten kilometre pace?
[1:05:06] SPEAKER_02: Or would you pick speed sessions, which is anywhere faster than five kilometer pace?
[1:05:11] SPEAKER_02: Vicky, start us off.
[1:05:13] SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I'm looking at this as me, the athlete who did short course racing, and for me, I would actually pick speed because I think for me.
[1:05:21] SPEAKER_04: What a surprise.
[1:05:23] SPEAKER_07: Thank you for that, Greg.
[1:05:25] SPEAKER_07: Um it's it gave me the best bang for buck.
[1:05:29] SPEAKER_07: I would get massive improvements in just a few weeks.
[1:05:31] SPEAKER_07: Yes, there's a higher injury risk to it.
[1:05:34] SPEAKER_07: Um, but for me, it was my favourite way to train, and yeah, it just worked the best for me.
[1:05:38] SPEAKER_01: Concise.
[1:05:39] SPEAKER_01: I like it.
[1:05:40] SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm gonna go next.
[1:05:41] SPEAKER_01: Mine is gonna be threshold, right?
[1:05:43] SPEAKER_01: It strikes the right balance for endurance and speed than the other options provide, in my opinion.
[1:05:49] SPEAKER_01: You can get really fit and fast for seventy point three and iron man from threshold running.
[1:05:53] SPEAKER_01: They're pretty scalable.
[1:05:54] SPEAKER_01: You can do more, you can do less.
[1:05:56] SPEAKER_01: Like, if you do a long threshold session, you've done a long run.
[1:06:00] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[1:06:00] SPEAKER_01: So it makes no sense to choose the long run, in my opinion.
[1:06:03] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I think if you are restricting it to picking one, I think best bang for your buck's gonna be from threshold.
[1:06:08] SPEAKER_02: When you say a long threshold session, Apo, give me an idea of what you're thinking.
[1:06:13] SPEAKER_01: Well, if you do warm-up three times twelve minutes at threshold with a minute or two jog between and then a cooldown, you're well over, you know, you're well over an hour of running there.
[1:06:26] SPEAKER_01: So and you're if you're doing you know, three by twelve minute at threshold, that's thirty-six minutes at threshold, so you're probably covering a pretty good distance as well.
[1:06:33] SPEAKER_02: I agree with you for what it's worth.
[1:06:35] SPEAKER_02: I think I would pick threshold runs as well.
[1:06:38] SPEAKER_02: I was very close to saying VO2 max runs, really close, but how I think about this question is you're not limited in the amount of these sessions you can do.
[1:06:48] SPEAKER_02: The only rule is you can only do one of them outside of zone one, easy jogging.
[1:06:53] SPEAKER_02: And I think that threshold running is far more repeatable, so you can layer way more of it than if you go a little bit above that into VO2 max running or what Vicky loves, which is speed running.
[1:07:05] SPEAKER_02: And Vicky just loves running speed sessions because she's fast and she's good at them.
[1:07:10] SPEAKER_02: It's got nothing to do with how beneficial they are for you, it's that she loves doing them because she's one of the best in the world at it and it makes her feel amazing.
[1:07:19] SPEAKER_02: Just want to put that out there.
[1:07:20] SPEAKER_02: Whereas I'm good at none of these, I'm good at none of these.
[1:07:24] SPEAKER_02: So I'm a little bit more uh less biased, I would say.
[1:07:27] SPEAKER_02: So I think the beauty of threshold running and it being repeatable is that if done properly with good, adequate progressive overload, it's very low risk.
[1:07:37] SPEAKER_02: It's actually very low risk when it comes to injury.
[1:07:40] SPEAKER_02: Whereas VO2 max running or anything faster than 10k pace running, particularly faster than 5k pace running, comes with huge soft tissue injury risk, huge bone stress injury risk.
[1:07:53] SPEAKER_02: That's why I lean towards threshold running over VO2 max running.
[1:07:58] SPEAKER_02: The problem with threshold running is most people do it too fast, so they can't do enough of it.
[1:08:02] SPEAKER_02: I think of it as something that you should be able to do two to three sessions of a week, not something that you can just do one session of a week.
[1:08:08] SPEAKER_02: Whereas VO2 max running, I kind of think of that as like, oh, if I'm doing two of these a week, I'm pretty bloody cooked.
[1:08:15] SPEAKER_02: And it's really impossible to do three of these a week, like both from a breakdown perspective, but also just a mental perspective.
[1:08:22] SPEAKER_02: You're like, I can't, I just can't bring myself to do that again.
[1:08:25] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I think threshold running done properly is something you can do a lot of, and it is the highest up that intensity scale that I talked about earlier.
[1:08:34] SPEAKER_02: So the higher you move up an intensity scale, the bigger adaptive benefit you get from it.
[1:08:39] SPEAKER_02: So I think it's the highest point that you can do a lot of.
[1:08:41] SPEAKER_05: I I'm gonna say tempo, because like we've talked about in the podcast, zone three is king.
[1:08:47] SPEAKER_05: We talked about that a lot earlier.
[1:08:49] SPEAKER_05: So we all love zone three on this podcast.
[1:08:51] SPEAKER_05: And and look, I just think people like, oh, it's tempo, oh, it's threshold.
[1:08:55] SPEAKER_05: If you do a 30-minute tempo run, you start at tempo and you end at threshold, essentially.
[1:08:59] SPEAKER_05: I don't know, I just feel like there there's there's much overlap between the two.
[1:09:03] SPEAKER_05: Now you could get into the nitty-gritty of it, but I once you do enough easy jogging, tempo is just kind of fun, right?
[1:09:09] SPEAKER_05: Because you start out and it's like comfortable and you're like, oh, I'm feeling fast, but I'm not working like crazy hard.
[1:09:13] SPEAKER_05: And then it just gets a little bit harder as you go and you can break it up.
[1:09:16] SPEAKER_05: I just think it's like uh manageable, like mentally, and I think like Jack said, you can accumulate quite a bit of it.
[1:09:22] SPEAKER_05: You always hear pro runners are like, oh, it's crazy how good I just ran on the track.
[1:09:26] SPEAKER_05: Like we've just been doing hill work and tempos, and you can get super frickin' fit before you even step foot on the track for for speed work too.
[1:09:33] SPEAKER_05: So I think it's a good bang for your buck as well.
[1:09:35] SPEAKER_02: Vicky, I want to come back to yours really quickly.
[1:09:38] SPEAKER_02: What's your favorite speed session you've ever done?
[1:09:41] SPEAKER_07: I'd probably still say things like a K is probably too long to be speed work, even though it's over 5k or faster than 5k pace, maybe something like 10-falls on the track, where you're probably looking at for me running um probably 67, 68, something like that.
[1:10:00] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[1:10:01] SPEAKER_00: Humble bra.
[1:10:02] SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Craig, could you not do that?
[1:10:04] SPEAKER_00: That's so arrogant.
[1:10:07] SPEAKER_07: But that's that again, that's what I like.
[1:10:09] SPEAKER_05: I could do that.
[1:10:09] SPEAKER_05: I mean, if you were there, I could easily do it.
[1:10:11] SPEAKER_05: I could just hang on.
[1:10:12] SPEAKER_07: Come on, man.
[1:10:12] SPEAKER_05: And that was pre-super shoes as well.
[1:10:15] SPEAKER_05: Pre-super shoes.
[1:10:16] SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
[1:10:16] SPEAKER_07: Yeah, pre-supershoes.
[1:10:18] SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
[1:10:18] SPEAKER_05: Jack doesn't think I can do it.
[1:10:19] SPEAKER_05: I see it in his face.
[1:10:21] SPEAKER_02: Vicky, what rest on the 10400s?
[1:10:23] SPEAKER_07: Probably probably significant.
[1:10:25] SPEAKER_07: Um, 200, really, really joggy, like taking 90 seconds, even maybe two minutes, to just literally shuffle your way round half a track.
[1:10:36] SPEAKER_02: I would say 67 second reps with a 200 shuffle, 10 of them.
[1:10:41] SPEAKER_02: That is right on the borderline of what Greg could do.
[1:10:45] SPEAKER_02: I'm not, I'm not.
[1:10:47] SPEAKER_02: We should probably do that this week just to see Greg.
[1:10:50] SPEAKER_06: Okay.
[1:10:51] SPEAKER_02: 65?
[1:10:52] SPEAKER_02: No way.
[1:10:53] SPEAKER_02: 67 major.
[1:10:54] SPEAKER_05: Okay.
[1:10:55] SPEAKER_05: Alright, I got my training plan.
[1:10:56] SPEAKER_05: We'll do that on Wednesday, and then on this weekend, I'll run a sub-three hour marathon because it's fucking easy, and everyone's like, Greg needs to put his money where his mouth is.
[1:11:04] SPEAKER_05: Just write it in my training.
[1:11:05] SPEAKER_05: I'll just let's just bang it out.
[1:11:06] SPEAKER_05: Let's get it done.
[1:11:07] SPEAKER_05: Let's move on.
[1:11:08] SPEAKER_01: 413 post.
[1:11:09] SPEAKER_01: Do you actually want to do that?
[1:11:10] SPEAKER_05: By the way, I also never said it was easy.
[1:11:12] SPEAKER_05: I just didn't say it was fast.
[1:11:14] SPEAKER_05: It's still a good accomplishment, but it's not fast.
[1:11:16] SPEAKER_02: That might be coming.
[1:11:17] SPEAKER_02: Greg might do a marathon this week.
[1:11:18] SPEAKER_02: Let's wait and see.
[1:11:21] SPEAKER_07: Alright, so I am gonna talk about pillar performance.
[1:11:25] SPEAKER_07: And before I start, I have to make a bit of a disclaimer because throughout my career, I sort of tried to stay away from too many supplements.
[1:11:33] SPEAKER_07: Largely, I didn't believe in them.
[1:11:35] SPEAKER_07: I was hadn't done the research and I was a bit scared of contamination risk.
[1:11:40] SPEAKER_07: So the evidence out there, though, is really strong enough that I should have been looking into certain supplements.
[1:11:46] SPEAKER_07: And when you come across a brand that you trust, like Pillar Performance, you really need to invest and you'd be silly not to.
[1:11:54] SPEAKER_07: Now, whether it's for performance benefits, your immune health, or sleep and recovery, Pillar have got you covered.
[1:12:02] SPEAKER_07: Jack is a very well-known fan of triple magnesium, which by the way now comes in peach iced tea flavour, if you didn't know already.
[1:12:10] SPEAKER_07: Because it assists with your sleep and recovery, and whether that's because you're someone who is looking to optimise your training, or whether it's simply to get the sleep that you need after stressful work, travel days, or maybe perhaps you're a mum like me who really, really values high-quality sleep.
[1:12:27] SPEAKER_07: Whatever it is, magnesium is what you need.
[1:12:30] SPEAKER_07: When it comes to athletic performance, Pillar also got you covered.
[1:12:34] SPEAKER_07: They have both creatine monohydrate and collagen, which are two of the most studied, researched, and proven supplements in the world.
[1:12:42] SPEAKER_07: If you don't already know, then creatine monohydrate promotes strength and power.
[1:12:46] SPEAKER_07: And then there is collagen for both tendon and ligament health and repair, something that's just more and more important to me as an athlete as I age.
[1:12:55] SPEAKER_07: The benefits of collagen, however, are far reaching.
[1:12:59] SPEAKER_07: And I did a little bit of a Google dive.
[1:13:01] SPEAKER_07: It's been known to help anti-aging, joint support, tissue strength, help with skin elasticity and hydration, reduce your wrinkles, strengthen hair, nails, easing joint pain, especially post-menopause when levels of collagen naturally drop.
[1:13:17] SPEAKER_07: It's also great in supporting bone density, promoting your gut health, aiding in postpartum recovery, which again is something that's really important for me right now.
[1:13:26] SPEAKER_07: It helps by rebuilding connective tissues.
[1:13:28] SPEAKER_07: So there's just such a multitude of reasons there.
[1:13:31] SPEAKER_07: If one of those doesn't hit home for you, then I don't know what I can say.
[1:13:34] SPEAKER_07: You're just perfect.
[1:13:35] SPEAKER_07: Go away.
[1:13:35] SPEAKER_07: We don't want you to listen.
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[1:13:49] SPEAKER_07: If you're not in the UK or Europe, if you're in the States, go to the feed.
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[1:13:55] SPEAKER_07: Again, code TTH for 15% off.
[1:13:58] SPEAKER_02: It's our favorite topic every week.
[1:14:01] SPEAKER_02: It's the last thing we do to end the show.
[1:14:03] SPEAKER_02: Uh, your Spotify comments.
[1:14:05] SPEAKER_02: There was so there was a hundred of them this week.
[1:14:07] SPEAKER_02: There were so many of them, to the point where there were so many and so many good ones that we might have to come back next week and do some from this week.
[1:14:15] SPEAKER_02: But also, if you thought your comment was good this week and it didn't get picked up, just drop it again.
[1:14:20] SPEAKER_02: Chances are we saw it, we wrote it down to do it next week, but drop it again on this episode to remind us and uh and we'll try and get it done next week.
[1:14:28] SPEAKER_02: Uh overwhelming and and really fun.
[1:14:31] SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna start us off.
[1:14:33] SPEAKER_02: Gerard Balnaves says, Can we stop calling it a retirement and start calling it quitting?
[1:14:41] SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to read Jared's comment because I had a question for all of you.
[1:14:45] SPEAKER_02: At what point are you entitled to say you're retiring versus when are you just quitting?
[1:14:53] SPEAKER_05: I've got a thought.
[1:14:55] SPEAKER_05: Here we go.
[1:14:56] SPEAKER_05: So if you retire and you're still good, it's retirement.
[1:15:00] SPEAKER_05: If you start getting shitty and then you retire, you quit because you weren't good enough before.
[1:15:03] SPEAKER_06: Here we go.
[1:15:07] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've got to at least wan a couple of like big races, right?
[1:15:11] SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not talking local park runs, I'm talking a WTCS, couple of 70.3s, an Iron Man.
[1:15:19] SPEAKER_01: Then you can retire, right?
[1:15:20] SPEAKER_01: I think if you're just like scraping into the prize money, a top eight here and there, that's quitting.
[1:15:26] SPEAKER_05: Oh, I wasn't even thinking about it in that lens.
[1:15:28] SPEAKER_05: I like that too, Apple.
[1:15:30] SPEAKER_05: Like if you haven't won a race, dude, like you're not retiring, dude.
[1:15:32] SPEAKER_05: You didn't have a career, dog.
[1:15:35] SPEAKER_05: Like right now, I can't be like, I'm retiring.
[1:15:38] SPEAKER_05: But they'd be like, from what?
[1:15:39] SPEAKER_05: Oh, you're a pro?
[1:15:40] SPEAKER_05: Oh, sick, cool.
[1:15:41] SPEAKER_05: No, dude, like I'm just I'm just speeding away into the background.
[1:15:44] SPEAKER_05: But I'm not I didn't have a career, so I'm not gonna.
[1:15:46] SPEAKER_01: Greg's gonna retire after he runs 259 next week.
[1:15:51] SPEAKER_02: Okay, so can I ask two examples?
[1:15:54] SPEAKER_02: So we had two people who I look at with high regard retire this year.
[1:15:59] SPEAKER_02: Javier Gomez and Jody Stimpson.
[1:16:02] SPEAKER_02: We don't need to talk about what Javier Gomez did.
[1:16:04] SPEAKER_02: He won everything.
[1:16:05] SPEAKER_02: He was about a 15-time world champion, five legit world titles.
[1:16:09] SPEAKER_02: Vicky has one of them, not three like she sometimes claims.
[1:16:12] SPEAKER_02: And Jodie Stimpson, well, if you don't know her, you probably just haven't been in the sport long enough, but Commonwealth Games Champion, one of the best British short course athletes ever.
[1:16:21] SPEAKER_02: They both retired this year.
[1:16:22] SPEAKER_02: But would you three agree that they are both retirements, even though they haven't been performing well for quite a while at this point and it dragged out?
[1:16:31] SPEAKER_02: Or did they quit because now they weren't good enough?
[1:16:34] SPEAKER_02: No, that's retirement, 100%.
[1:16:35] SPEAKER_02: 100%, yeah.
[1:16:37] SPEAKER_02: Quitting.
[1:16:38] SPEAKER_05: No, I'm just kidding, I agree.
[1:16:40] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it comes down to more how good you've been at some point in your career.
[1:16:44] SPEAKER_02: And if you've been good enough, if you've made money from the sport, then you can probably call it a retirement.
[1:16:50] SPEAKER_02: But if you never got there, you didn't retire because you never had a career to begin with, so you quit.
[1:16:54] SPEAKER_02: That's what you guys are saying.
[1:16:56] SPEAKER_00: Basically, yeah.
[1:16:57] SPEAKER_00: I like it.
[1:16:58] SPEAKER_00: That's a good threshold.
[1:16:59] SPEAKER_05: Alright, Fry's DW22 says, After listening to this podcast, I was in disbelief that everyone is peeing in the pool.
[1:17:06] SPEAKER_05: I had tons of trainings that I couldn't finish because I had to run to the toilet.
[1:17:11] SPEAKER_05: If this is not a crime, should I start doing this for training?
[1:17:14] SPEAKER_05: Because in my last Iron Man, I was not able to do the job during the swim and lost two minutes in tea too.
[1:17:19] SPEAKER_05: So my question is, do you guys pee in races as well?
[1:17:23] SPEAKER_05: Spill the pee.
[1:17:24] SPEAKER_05: I mean tea.
[1:17:25] SPEAKER_05: Yes.
[1:17:25] SPEAKER_05: This is the trick my dad taught me in one of my first races ever when the water was very cold.
[1:17:30] SPEAKER_05: You get in and you pee in your wetsuit and it warms you right up.
[1:17:33] SPEAKER_05: Okay, so then you can get that nice warm feeling in your wetsuit and it warms you up.
[1:17:37] SPEAKER_05: Now, the wetsuit should hold your feet up a bit.
[1:17:40] SPEAKER_05: So if you really need to pee in an Iron Man, just like try to not kick and just get the flow started, and then once the flow starts, then it then you can bring in the legs a little bit if you need to.
[1:17:49] SPEAKER_05: But getting the flow started is the hardest part.
[1:17:52] SPEAKER_05: So just try to get past that breaking point and then let it flow.
[1:17:56] SPEAKER_01: And I would say to the other part of that question, I would say the majority of Iron Man athletes pee at some point during the race without stopping at the Portageon, right?
[1:18:05] SPEAKER_01: Like I did an Iron Man and I just I just let it go in T2.
[1:18:08] SPEAKER_01: I was sitting on one of those benches putting my shoes and socks on, and there it went.
[1:18:12] SPEAKER_05: Isn't it technically a penalty?
[1:18:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but yeah.
[1:18:16] SPEAKER_01: I think so.
[1:18:16] SPEAKER_01: But then you just grab a thing of a couple of cups of water and just throw it on you and off you go.
[1:18:21] SPEAKER_05: It can be a tactic for age groupers.
[1:18:23] SPEAKER_05: When you guys are out there in your Peloton, someone's drafting you, just take a little piss on the bike and they will back ride it.
[1:18:29] SPEAKER_02: Something to think about post-race though, isn't it?
[1:18:31] SPEAKER_02: If you are gonna hug someone who's done an Iron Man or even a 70.3, just know that if you're clean, showered, hygienic, you are gonna be covered in pee, spew, spit, and potentially poo.
[1:18:45] SPEAKER_01: Well, on that, Jack, I've got a hypothetical for you guys.
[1:18:49] SPEAKER_01: What position and what circumstance would you have to be in to shit yourself in a race?
[1:18:57] SPEAKER_01: Like I've never done that, you know, I'm just putting this out there.
[1:19:00] SPEAKER_01: But I think about that quite a lot, right?
[1:19:02] SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I don't know if I could bring myself to do it, but if you're if you're challenging for a podium at Kona or 70.3 Worlds, you'd do it, you know, ten times out of ten, right?
[1:19:13] SPEAKER_01: But would you do it for fifth place at uh Boulder 70.3?
[1:19:17] SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
[1:19:17] SPEAKER_05: I'd do it for 33rd at Oceanside 70.3.
[1:19:21] SPEAKER_05: Oddly specific.
[1:19:24] SPEAKER_07: Is that because you did?
[1:19:26] SPEAKER_05: I just think that's a great performance.
[1:19:28] SPEAKER_05: So I would do it if I had to.
[1:19:30] SPEAKER_02: I'd do it probably if I was fighting for the win at T100 Dubai versus versus Ash Gentle and Julie Durong.
[1:19:38] SPEAKER_07: Again, oddly specific.
[1:19:40] SPEAKER_07: I'm gonna uh I'm gonna move it on.
[1:19:42] SPEAKER_07: Wills13 says, Vicki, today, whatever Jack says, I'm just gonna disagree with him.
[1:19:47] SPEAKER_07: For the record, I'm totally down with this approach.
[1:19:50] SPEAKER_07: And again, Jack, you touched on it earlier, and I did listen back and I thought, yeah, I've been quite um antagonistic today or last week.
[1:19:58] SPEAKER_07: I did sort of just disagree with everything you said.
[1:20:01] SPEAKER_07: I think I was having a bad week.
[1:20:02] SPEAKER_07: I'm sorry, everybody, it didn't come across very well.
[1:20:04] SPEAKER_07: There you go.
[1:20:06] SPEAKER_02: It sucks, Vicky, because of us four, I would say me and you are by far the closest friends outside of this podcast, and yet we get on the podcast and you treat me like that.
[1:20:17] SPEAKER_07: It's all for entertainment, Jack.
[1:20:18] SPEAKER_07: What can I say?
[1:20:19] SPEAKER_07: Trying to just make good entertainment for the people.
[1:20:22] SPEAKER_02: It's because I'm not involved in this fucking stupid kids message group.
[1:20:26] SPEAKER_02: I'm not ever since that message group got started, I've become I've been pushed to the outer of this group.
[1:20:32] SPEAKER_01: Alright.
[1:20:33] SPEAKER_01: Jiao Trig says, In general, I feel like some opinions severely lack understanding of how age group athletes deal with training.
[1:20:41] SPEAKER_01: I had a few takes on this week's episode, talking about last week, but comments are limited in length for me to go into too much depth.
[1:20:48] SPEAKER_01: Particularly, watch in the pool or PR times in the bio.
[1:20:52] SPEAKER_01: People want to log their training time and share it on social media.
[1:20:55] SPEAKER_01: Also, someone who works full time and has a family, finishing an Iron Man, even if it's 13 plus hours, is something to be proud of.
[1:21:03] SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
[1:21:04] SPEAKER_01: I've actually turned a corner on this and I did some soul searching during the week, and I agree.
[1:21:10] SPEAKER_01: If you want to put it in your bio, go for it.
[1:21:13] SPEAKER_01: You know?
[1:21:13] SPEAKER_01: I think doing an Iron Man, like that's a pretty epic achievement, right?
[1:21:17] SPEAKER_01: And if you want to put your time in your bio, I think that's perfectly fine.
[1:21:20] SPEAKER_01: Who am I to judge, right?
[1:21:22] SPEAKER_01: And I think that's how we should all live.
[1:21:24] SPEAKER_07: I think these were both my outs last week.
[1:21:28] SPEAKER_07: So I think reading through the comments, I've touched a nerve with quite a few people.
[1:21:33] SPEAKER_07: So I'm gonna address it.
[1:21:34] SPEAKER_07: And again, I was obviously having quite double down.
[1:21:38] SPEAKER_07: This is it, right?
[1:21:38] SPEAKER_07: I've got two choices here, haven't I?
[1:21:40] SPEAKER_07: I either double down or I do Apo and I do some soul circles.
[1:21:44] SPEAKER_04: Fucking double down now.
[1:21:46] SPEAKER_02: Every time Greg's in this position, Vicky, he doubles down.
[1:21:50] SPEAKER_02: He gets a little bit of feedback that something he said might upset someone, he upsets them even more.
[1:21:55] SPEAKER_07: So you know what I've gone?
[1:21:56] SPEAKER_07: I've gone down the middle.
[1:21:57] SPEAKER_07: For watches, I'm doubling down.
[1:21:59] SPEAKER_07: I'm sorry, I am still watches for me, not in the pool.
[1:22:03] SPEAKER_07: Um, I saw you reply to a comment, Greg, about how just take use a use a little portable pace clock.
[1:22:09] SPEAKER_07: You can use your phone.
[1:22:10] SPEAKER_07: Literally just use your phone at the end of the pool.
[1:22:12] SPEAKER_07: Can be a if you haven't got a pace clock in the pool.
[1:22:14] SPEAKER_07: Um, I still don't see a reason really that I can that I'm convinced that watches are okay.
[1:22:20] SPEAKER_07: But as for Iron Man times in bios, it's still not for me, right?
[1:22:25] SPEAKER_07: I wouldn't do it.
[1:22:26] SPEAKER_07: But if you are, if that is such a huge event in your life that you want to put it in there, go ahead.
[1:22:33] SPEAKER_07: You've got my blessing.
[1:22:34] SPEAKER_07: So there you go.
[1:22:35] SPEAKER_07: One double down and one flip.
[1:22:37] SPEAKER_02: Danny Bluff says Jack keeps calling out others for not posting everything on Strava, yet claims he's running 150 kilometres per week.
[1:22:45] SPEAKER_02: Well, according to his Strava, he's been averaging 80 to 100 kilometres most weeks.
[1:22:50] SPEAKER_02: What is with that?
[1:22:51] SPEAKER_02: Is Jack the new Iron Ryan?
[1:22:53] SPEAKER_02: So again, I'm coming to the group for support, knowing that, you know, based on previous form like Vicky last week, I'm probably going to get thrown under the bus.
[1:23:01] SPEAKER_02: But I've never called anyone out for not posting all of their stuff on Strava, as far as I'm aware.
[1:23:07] SPEAKER_02: Yes, I've taken the piss out of Vicky for her pathetic bike rides that she's putting on Strava.
[1:23:12] SPEAKER_02: Come on, Vicky, you had a kid.
[1:23:13] SPEAKER_02: It's got to be, it's all, what is it, 16 weeks ago at this point?
[1:23:17] SPEAKER_02: We need you out there doing some of these speed sessions on the track that you talk about all the time.
[1:23:22] SPEAKER_02: I'm sick of seeing 110 rocks pop up for 45 minutes on my Strava.
[1:23:26] SPEAKER_02: But I don't think I've ever called anyone out for not uh for not posting everything they do on Strava.
[1:23:32] SPEAKER_02: For the record, Danny Bluff, I don't post my treadmill runs on Strava.
[1:23:36] SPEAKER_02: Um, I haven't calibrated my watch properly.
[1:23:38] SPEAKER_02: I'm not going in and doing the auto-upload thing.
[1:23:41] SPEAKER_02: I just think that's so lame.
[1:23:43] SPEAKER_02: Every time I see someone put up a treadmill run, I'm like, just leave it off Strava.
[1:23:46] SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be there.
[1:23:47] SPEAKER_02: So that's the big reason why some of my mileage isn't on there because it's on the treadmill.
[1:23:52] SPEAKER_02: Or my watch actually died and I don't have a charger with me at the moment.
[1:23:56] SPEAKER_02: I've lost my charger.
[1:23:57] SPEAKER_02: So I've been running without a watch for the last few days.
[1:23:59] SPEAKER_02: That's that's another reason.
[1:24:00] SPEAKER_02: But if it's a non-treadmill run and I have my watch, I will put it on Strava.
[1:24:05] SPEAKER_05: I saw another comment that said Jack has in his bio no secrets here, but he's obviously doing secret trade.
[1:24:11] SPEAKER_05: But I think that that stands out.
[1:24:12] SPEAKER_05: And I honestly, pretenders, I was in the Strava group the other day, seeing a lot of swims in there.
[1:24:16] SPEAKER_05: So let's tighten that up and take those out.
[1:24:18] SPEAKER_05: No one wants to see your swims on Strava either.
[1:24:21] SPEAKER_05: Alright, so Fred says, guys, peeing in the pool really works.
[1:24:25] SPEAKER_05: I just tried it and dropped five seconds per 100 meters.
[1:24:28] SPEAKER_05: Going to shave bald and give myself up cussion so I read poorly.
[1:24:33] SPEAKER_05: Maybe I'll be as fast as Greg soon.
[1:24:36] SPEAKER_05: I just Fred knows.
[1:24:37] SPEAKER_05: He knows the way, and I just really like that comment.
[1:24:40] SPEAKER_05: So go go ahead, Fred.
[1:24:41] SPEAKER_05: Keep it up.
[1:24:41] SPEAKER_07: Katie says, I was listening on my way to the pool, so I took Vicky's outlist to heart.
[1:24:46] SPEAKER_07: I left my watch in the locker and I went back to my swimming roots using the clock.
[1:24:49] SPEAKER_07: It was the best I felt during and the most I've enjoyed a pool set in years.
[1:24:53] SPEAKER_07: Moral of the story, always listen to Vicky.
[1:24:56] SPEAKER_07: Admittedly, I did lose count at one point, but what harm is a couple more hundreds going to be?
[1:25:01] SPEAKER_07: So I read that because again, just a bit of self-gratulation there, really.
[1:25:05] SPEAKER_07: And I'm really glad, Katie, that you enjoyed your swim.
[1:25:07] SPEAKER_07: I think using the clock is the way forward for you.
[1:25:10] SPEAKER_05: This is insane because the no watch in the pool is my thing.
[1:25:12] SPEAKER_05: Like I've been hyping on this for fucking two years over here.
[1:25:16] SPEAKER_05: Like I'm making Instagram reels that I've gone viral, and Vicki just comes in, she's like, oh, hey, hey guys, listen to this new thing about no watches in the pool.
[1:25:24] SPEAKER_05: That's my whole brand, dog.
[1:25:27] SPEAKER_04: Sorry, am I not allowed to have this thing?
[1:25:29] SPEAKER_04: It's all I have, Vicky.
[1:25:31] SPEAKER_01: It's all I have.
[1:25:32] SPEAKER_01: Also, a life pro tip for swimming is something something that I do.
[1:25:35] SPEAKER_01: I always jump in, uh I always look at the clock and I always jump in on a whole number, right?
[1:25:41] SPEAKER_01: Like a four or five or a fifteen.
[1:25:43] SPEAKER_01: So then if I lose count of my laps, I can look and be like, alright, I've been swimming for seven and a half minutes.
[1:25:49] SPEAKER_01: That is, I know I'm swimming about 120 pace per 100, so I've done this much.
[1:25:54] SPEAKER_01: So if you know how fast you swim per hundred, then you should be able to do the math and uh and know how much laps you've done.
[1:26:00] SPEAKER_01: Greg, sorry, why are you shaking your head?
[1:26:02] SPEAKER_05: No, I just I totally agreed.
[1:26:04] SPEAKER_05: I think that maybe there's a comment going down there.
[1:26:06] SPEAKER_05: People are like, I can't keep track of it.
[1:26:07] SPEAKER_05: I'm like, use the clock to figure out what you're on.
[1:26:10] SPEAKER_05: What?
[1:26:11] SPEAKER_02: Like, it's called basic math, dog.
[1:26:14] SPEAKER_02: Come on.
[1:26:15] SPEAKER_02: You know, Katie taking this advice from Vicky, and Greg said this on the podcast since he's been on.
[1:26:21] SPEAKER_02: He said it a lot more than Vicky, but it's a classic example of sometimes it's not what's being said to you, it's who's saying it to you that matters.
[1:26:30] SPEAKER_02: Clearly, Katie, a big fan of Vicky, and clearly doesn't listen to a fucking word Greg says because he said this at least 20 times before Vicky said it.
[1:26:37] SPEAKER_05: The irony is KDK Y is a very specific spelling, and that's exactly how my wife spells her name.
[1:26:43] SPEAKER_05: So uh it it might be my wife complimenting.
[1:26:47] SPEAKER_05: I'm not I'm not actually sure.
[1:26:49] SPEAKER_05: Because she doesn't listen to what I say, so it would check out.
[1:26:52] SPEAKER_01: Alright, Bobby Grangier says two things.
[1:26:54] SPEAKER_01: I would listen to a try to parent podcast hosted by Vicky, Greg, and Apo.
[1:26:58] SPEAKER_01: I love hearing other parents bitch about their kids, but also talk about training and how to get and how it gets done.
[1:27:04] SPEAKER_01: And second question's for me, Apo, would you ever consider X-Tri, like Norseman, Patagon Man, etc.
[1:27:10] SPEAKER_01: when done with Iron Man and 70.3?
[1:27:12] SPEAKER_01: Or have you ever had an interest in completing one?
[1:27:15] SPEAKER_01: Amberger and Alistair Alistair recently had a second and third in Patagonia.
[1:27:19] SPEAKER_01: Um and it's not in his bio, but he did Norseman in 2019.
[1:27:23] SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, I think I would like to do something like that as a uh, you know, to round out the career, a bit of a fun race, something like a bucket list event.
[1:27:32] SPEAKER_01: Um, but probably not this year.
[1:27:34] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like there is a lot of retirement talk around me.
[1:27:37] SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm just gonna push back a little bit.
[1:27:39] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I've thought about it and I think it would be fun to do.
[1:27:42] SPEAKER_01: But man, some of those I don't know, I it some of it looks kind of like miserable, right?
[1:27:48] SPEAKER_01: Like type two fun, like really cold swim.
[1:27:51] SPEAKER_01: I hate being cold, um, just quite brutal.
[1:27:53] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure it's beautiful, but yeah, I I definitely think it's one of those things that you do and you don't particularly enjoy.
[1:28:00] SPEAKER_01: At the time, but then when you've done it, you kind of love it.
[1:28:02] SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
[1:28:03] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:28:04] SPEAKER_02: Jacob Darlinson says pro athletes never got sucked into zone two.
[1:28:09] SPEAKER_02: Dot dot dot tady pagaca question mark.
[1:28:12] SPEAKER_02: So what Jacob's saying there is in response to us last week saying that really the zone two fad never actually got into the top of high-end sport.
[1:28:21] SPEAKER_02: Well, okay.
[1:28:22] SPEAKER_02: Obviously, zone two, like we've talked about, isn't this big special thing that's separated from zone one.
[1:28:28] SPEAKER_02: Zone one and zone two are just easy training.
[1:28:31] SPEAKER_02: Obviously, the better athlete you are, the more volume you do, the more volume you do, the higher percentage of it has to be easy training because you can't just go out and train high intensity all the time.
[1:28:41] SPEAKER_02: We talked about this all night long on the podcast.
[1:28:44] SPEAKER_02: However, Tade Pagacha's coach, who was a big proponent of zone two training, Milan, Tade left him.
[1:28:52] SPEAKER_02: He left him and he got better after he left him and he moved to Javier Sola, and Javier Sola came out and said that he credited the improvement in Tade's performance to doing higher intensity training.
[1:29:03] SPEAKER_02: So Jacob, dot dot dot question mark.
[1:29:07] SPEAKER_02: Even Tade Pagaccha agrees with me that at some point the zone two training isn't all you need to be the best in the world.
[1:29:14] SPEAKER_02: And Tade came out in 2025 and had the best year of his career, and he did more intensity on his way to doing it in training.
[1:29:20] SPEAKER_02: So how you like them, Apples?
[1:29:22] SPEAKER_05: Boom, roasted.
[1:29:23] SPEAKER_05: Richie Egan says, Great episode, team.
[1:29:26] SPEAKER_05: Really enjoyed it.
[1:29:27] SPEAKER_05: Except for Greg's supposed training highlight of the week.
[1:29:30] SPEAKER_05: Wow, dude, you swam a lazy 18k for the week.
[1:29:33] SPEAKER_05: Good job, buddy.
[1:29:34] SPEAKER_05: Kudos.
[1:29:35] SPEAKER_05: Serious though.
[1:29:36] SPEAKER_05: You're already one of the best age troop swimmers there is.
[1:29:39] SPEAKER_05: How about your next highlight is you working on an ex actual weakness to become a better triathlete?
[1:29:44] SPEAKER_05: Maybe get in the saddle or lace up those running shoes.
[1:29:48] SPEAKER_05: Just a thought.
[1:29:52] SPEAKER_05: Richie, you're a funny guy.
[1:29:54] SPEAKER_05: Alright, so I did some digging on Richie.
[1:29:57] SPEAKER_05: He's got a PR in his bio.
[1:29:59] SPEAKER_05: And you know, you might think 222 is a good marathon, buddy, but hey, how about you get the Olympic trial standard of 216 before you put that in your bio?
[1:30:07] SPEAKER_05: Maybe, hey, maybe you should go lace up those shoes as well, my friend.
[1:30:10] SPEAKER_05: So um that wasn't as good as as I I thought it in my head.
[1:30:15] SPEAKER_05: 222 is actually quite fast.
[1:30:19] SPEAKER_05: It's really good.
[1:30:20] SPEAKER_05: But I you gotta have under 220 if you want it in your bio.
[1:30:23] SPEAKER_05: Um no, Richie's obviously a good uh runner, and I think he's a friend of Jack, and I think they know each other or maybe something.
[1:30:30] SPEAKER_05: He seems like a uh a funny guy, but um we didn't do trading highlights, and hopefully next week we can, and I'll talk talk to you about how my daughter rolled over this week.
[1:30:39] SPEAKER_02: Greg, I had a proposal that I wanted to put to the group, and it's about this whole thing with you racing age group in 2026.
[1:30:50] SPEAKER_02: I thought that in all of the races you do in 2026, you could donate$10 to the podcast for every 30 to 35 age grouper who beats you in a race this year, and then at the end of the year, with all of that money, whether it's ten dollars or ten thousand dollars, we do something nice for one listener.
[1:31:12] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, make it a thousand.
[1:31:13] SPEAKER_02: I don't who cares, Greg.
[1:31:18] SPEAKER_02: A thousand bucks for every 30 to 35 age group who beats you this year.
[1:31:23] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Australia, and so like 13 US dollars.
[1:31:26] SPEAKER_02: So 500 US dollars.
[1:31:28] SPEAKER_02: Don't say it if you don't mean it.
[1:31:31] SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
[1:31:32] SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
[1:31:34] SPEAKER_02: Don't double down.
[1:31:36] SPEAKER_02: Retract.
[1:31:37] SPEAKER_05: Double down, yeah.
[1:31:38] SPEAKER_05: A hundred.
[1:31:40] SPEAKER_05: A hundred.
[1:31:41] SPEAKER_02: A hundred.
[1:31:42] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[1:31:42] SPEAKER_02: You heard it.
[1:31:43] SPEAKER_02: So everyone's everyone has heard this.
[1:31:45] SPEAKER_02: If you are in the same race as Greg Harper this year, he'll be racing in the pro field.
[1:31:49] SPEAKER_02: He's not actually racing in as an age group.
[1:31:51] SPEAKER_02: But if you're in the 30 to 35 age group, which is Greg's age group, and you beat him, Greg will give$100 to the podcast.
[1:31:59] SPEAKER_02: We'll collect it, we'll tally it up at the end of the year, we'll come up with something great to do with that money for someone who listens to this podcast.
[1:32:06] SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
[1:32:07] SPEAKER_02: Everyone's heard it.
[1:32:08] SPEAKER_07: So this is my last one for the day because I'm afraid I've got to go back to my parenting duties.
[1:32:14] SPEAKER_07: So Kean Ryan says, I know the panel are all elite athletes, but knocking someone who puts a 13-hour Iron Man in their bio is not the flex you think it is.
[1:32:23] SPEAKER_07: Could be a lifetime achievement for someone.
[1:32:25] SPEAKER_07: Not all of us can easily knock out a sub-8 Iron Man like Greg.
[1:32:29] SPEAKER_07: So obviously, this has come off the back of my chat last week about whether your times should go into your bio.
[1:32:37] SPEAKER_07: And I don't think it was meant to be knocking someone.
[1:32:41] SPEAKER_07: It definitely wasn't from my point of view meant to be knocking someone who's done a 13-hour Iron Man.
[1:32:45] SPEAKER_07: I mean, it's if that is your lifetime achievement, that is amazing.
[1:32:48] SPEAKER_07: I think anyone who does an Iron Man is amazing.
[1:32:50] SPEAKER_07: I've not done an Iron Man, but yeah, it just wasn't for me.
[1:32:53] SPEAKER_07: The times in the bio, but as we've seen already, I have done a bit of soul searching, just like Apo, and I've decided if that is what makes you happy, you go for it.
[1:33:01] SPEAKER_01: Celebrate the success.
[1:33:03] SPEAKER_02: For those who aren't watching this, because Greg often forgets this is an audio only podcast.
[1:33:09] SPEAKER_02: Greg was giving Vicky some absolute dirty looks for that.
[1:33:12] SPEAKER_02: That's false.
[1:33:14] SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Vicky.
[1:33:15] SPEAKER_02: You're awesome as always.
[1:33:17] SPEAKER_02: Despite what Greg is.
[1:33:18] SPEAKER_02: Bye everyone, not you, Greg.
[1:33:19] SPEAKER_02: Bye.
[1:33:22] SPEAKER_02: I love you.
[1:33:24] SPEAKER_02: Bye, everyone, not you, Greg.
[1:33:26] SPEAKER_02: That's classic.
[1:33:28] SPEAKER_02: The single hardest thing about training is being consistent.
[1:33:32] SPEAKER_02: And there's nothing more frustrating than when you want to be consistent or you've finally found some consistency and you get yet another running-related injury, like Achilles pain, a stress fractural reaction, runner's knee, or some plant fasciitis.
[1:33:44] SPEAKER_02: That's exactly where lever can help.
[1:33:46] SPEAKER_02: Lever is a tool that allows you to keep training while reducing impact so you can recover, rebuild, and stay on track with your running.
[1:33:54] SPEAKER_02: Lever is a bodyweight support system that attaches to your treadmill and can remove up to 45 pounds or 20 kilos of your body weight while you run.
[1:34:02] SPEAKER_02: By reducing impact, it helps you train through little niggly injuries, safely rebuild after some time off running, and increase your mileage without fear of breaking down.
[1:34:11] SPEAKER_02: And it's not just for rehabbing, although that is a great use for it, it's also a tool for performance.
[1:34:16] SPEAKER_02: What many people don't know is that seven of the top 11 women at the 2024 IMAN World Championships used Lever to train and recover in the lead up to the race, including the world champion.
[1:34:28] SPEAKER_02: Lever is lightweight, it's portable, and connects with a digital scale so you can dial in exactly how much load you want to take off while you run.
[1:34:37] SPEAKER_02: Exclusive to the triathlon hour listeners, you can use the code TTH to get you 20% off your Lever system.
[1:34:45] SPEAKER_02: To do that, just visit levermovement.com and start running smarter today.
[1:34:50] SPEAKER_02: Get consistent in your running.
[1:34:52] SPEAKER_02: It's the main thing that will get you running faster.
[1:34:56] SPEAKER_01: Nick Dawn says Justin and Jackson were just glazing Ari Clau on the Road to Oceanside podcast last week for doing 30-second reps at 500 watts.
[1:35:06] SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, Apo just casually drops that he's doing 4020s at 500 watts.
[1:35:10] SPEAKER_01: We already know that he has the lowest CDA in the pro field.
[1:35:14] SPEAKER_01: Apo, please sign up for Oceanside.
[1:35:16] SPEAKER_01: And you know what, Nick?
[1:35:17] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you just gotta come out and um, you know, you just gotta flex a little bit on these pretenders on this uh, you know, these road to oceanside.
[1:35:25] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:35:25] SPEAKER_01: I listened to it this morning.
[1:35:27] SPEAKER_01: I'm not that impressed.
[1:35:29] SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I am doing Oceanside, and I also might have been rounding up a little bit for those 4020s.
[1:35:36] SPEAKER_01: What's 70 or 80 watts rounding up, you know, between friends?
[1:35:44] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[1:35:45] SPEAKER_02: Parker Kirth says, Jack, how do you set threshold?
[1:35:49] SPEAKER_02: Is it lactate?
[1:35:50] SPEAKER_02: If so, what levels of lactate, or is it heart rate, or is it RPE?
[1:35:55] SPEAKER_02: Parker, great question.
[1:35:57] SPEAKER_02: Really, so much to this, and you've heard me waffle on about training too much tonight as it is.
[1:36:03] SPEAKER_02: But the probably the best way, it's not the gold standard, but the most practical best way to go about it is to go into a lab and do a test.
[1:36:11] SPEAKER_02: You can do a test yourself if you have a lactate monitor.
[1:36:14] SPEAKER_02: You know, you can do a ramp test, whether it's you know increasing the speed that you run at or the power that you ride at every three to five minutes, take lactate afterwards, try and get those points, those really clear points in in lactate threshold one and lactate threshold two.
[1:36:28] SPEAKER_02: It's a bit hard to do yourself if you don't know what you're doing.
[1:36:31] SPEAKER_02: So I just suggest going into a lab to do that.
[1:36:33] SPEAKER_02: And then if you can get your LT2, it makes everything so easy because lactate, uh, your your anaerobic threshold or your second lactic threshold is the thing that you can really set all zones around, in my opinion.
[1:36:47] SPEAKER_02: However, keep in mind that a lot of sport scientists don't really refer to these specific zones as much as coaches do.
[1:36:56] SPEAKER_02: Coaches are the ones who drive home a three-zone model or a five-zone model far more than what sports scientists do.
[1:37:04] SPEAKER_02: Sports scientists just often put it into intensity ranges.
[1:37:07] SPEAKER_02: Was it easy?
[1:37:08] SPEAKER_02: Was it moderate?
[1:37:09] SPEAKER_02: Was it hard?
[1:37:10] SPEAKER_02: Was it extreme?
[1:37:11] SPEAKER_02: Was it severe?
[1:37:12] SPEAKER_02: They use these terms.
[1:37:14] SPEAKER_02: So I think that something really simple everyone can do at home.
[1:37:18] SPEAKER_02: It's just easy, medium, hard.
[1:37:20] SPEAKER_02: It sounds so dumb.
[1:37:21] SPEAKER_02: It sounds like the old school Brett Sutton method, it sounds like someone who doesn't know what they're talking about and is stuck in the 60s, but it really works and it's easy.
[1:37:30] SPEAKER_02: Just set set set your training as easy, medium, or hard at all times.
[1:37:35] SPEAKER_02: When it's hard, go hard.
[1:37:36] SPEAKER_02: When it's medium, go medium, when it's easy, go easy, and be honest with yourself.
[1:37:40] SPEAKER_02: And that's some advice that I would give to not only age groupers who don't really know what they're talking about, but even seasoned professionals I I think can benefit really strongly from a model like that without getting too stuck in the weeds of the sport science.
[1:37:53] SPEAKER_05: Last one about the watches.
[1:37:54] SPEAKER_05: Brian Vellarte says, I see Greg has Vicky on the no watch bandwagon.
[1:37:58] SPEAKER_05: Good way to rage bait.
[1:38:00] SPEAKER_05: See Siri Lindy's post where she chews out age groupers during her clinic.
[1:38:04] SPEAKER_05: Comments got so bad they shut them off.
[1:38:06] SPEAKER_05: Plenty of reasons to wear a watch.
[1:38:08] SPEAKER_05: Try fifty by fifties in a 25-yard pool with no watch.
[1:38:13] SPEAKER_05: With no clock.
[1:38:14] SPEAKER_05: Oh, you didn't wear a watch?
[1:38:15] SPEAKER_05: I guess you don't really know if you did it.
[1:38:17] SPEAKER_05: Like I said before, you can use the clock to count your reps.
[1:38:22] SPEAKER_05: So I'll say this again.
[1:38:24] SPEAKER_05: I've never heard one valid excuse for wearing a watch in the pool.
[1:38:27] SPEAKER_05: Still haven't.
[1:38:28] SPEAKER_05: Brian and I chirp back and forth in some comments.
[1:38:30] SPEAKER_05: He made some bad points about it.
[1:38:32] SPEAKER_05: And yeah, there's just there's just literally n I have not heard one legit reason in my entire life about why wearing a watch in the pool.
[1:38:40] SPEAKER_05: If you can't if you're la if you're so lazy that you can't count what rep you're on or use the clock to do a bit of mental math, you're probably way too lazy to have a good swim program, and you're probably not gonna get better.
[1:38:51] SPEAKER_05: So if that's too hard for you, like turn on your brain a little bit.
[1:38:54] SPEAKER_05: Swimming is a very neurological sport and get good, kid.
[1:38:56] SPEAKER_05: Let's go.
[1:39:01] SPEAKER_02: What about what about how he just threw in that like Brian?
[1:39:05] SPEAKER_02: He like he just throws this subtle shade at people all the time, like it's no big deal.
[1:39:10] SPEAKER_02: He's like, Brian made some points that were bad.
[1:39:13] SPEAKER_02: Like Brian can't argue back with Greg, like it's just a one-sided argument.
[1:39:21] SPEAKER_02: Shout out Brian.
[1:39:22] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, shout out Brian.
[1:39:24] SPEAKER_01: Shout out, Brian.
[1:39:24] SPEAKER_01: We love you.
[1:39:25] SPEAKER_01: Alright, Sean Watson says, How do we feel about the return of Thomas Rodriguez this year?
[1:39:31] SPEAKER_01: Do you think he'll light up races and make a spectacular return?
[1:39:35] SPEAKER_01: And we had a couple of comments on um on our friend Thomas Roddy, and no one feels good about it, right?
[1:39:42] SPEAKER_01: But he's just gonna He's gonna just be so looked down upon by every single pro.
[1:39:49] SPEAKER_01: Every race that he maybe does or does well at is gonna be a question mark.
[1:39:54] SPEAKER_01: Like his name's just Mud, right?
[1:39:55] SPEAKER_01: And it's it like I just don't understand these people that come back to sport and um you know, after serving a suspension and wanting to just go through all of that.
[1:40:07] SPEAKER_01: Like every pro looking at you with the stain, every result that you have, um, questionable.
[1:40:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just don't know.
[1:40:15] SPEAKER_01: I just don't know why you'd come back, and I feel pretty bad about it, and I hope he has a bad season.
[1:40:22] SPEAKER_02: I I know that all dopers are dopers, Appo, but I particularly fucking dislike Thomas Rodriguez because of how arrogant he is on social media.
[1:40:31] SPEAKER_02: Let's say let's say it how it is.
[1:40:32] SPEAKER_02: I can see your face, I can see what you're wanting to say, but you're scared to say it.
[1:40:36] SPEAKER_02: This guy, it's not Imogen Simmons where she got uh the positive doping tests, and then it came out that it was no fault of her own, and it's very, you know, grey and complex, and part of you feels bad for for her, and part of you is like, but the drugs were in her system, and it's just complicated, and you can have some empathy and some understanding.
[1:40:56] SPEAKER_02: And maybe you do want to welcome her back into Triton, like personally, I do, which might be controversial, but I have none of those fucking feelings for Thomas Rodriguez.
[1:41:04] SPEAKER_02: This guy is a dirty cheat.
[1:41:06] SPEAKER_02: He was trying to rob people like Apo and Greg, who have been fighting for this sport for, you know, two decades, Apo even longer than two decades, and he came in and he did it the cheap, easy, fucking bullshit way.
[1:41:20] SPEAKER_02: He took the shortcuts because he wasn't fucking good enough, because he didn't have the confidence to back himself, put in the work, do the work, and try and beat people off his own merit.
[1:41:30] SPEAKER_02: He's a dirty drug cheat.
[1:41:31] SPEAKER_02: He flashes it around on Instagram, he acts like it's not a big deal.
[1:41:35] SPEAKER_02: Mate, as far as I'm concerned, Thomas Rodriguez can get fucked.
[1:41:38] SPEAKER_02: I'm happy for him to never race again.
[1:41:41] SPEAKER_02: I hate how he's gone about it.
[1:41:43] SPEAKER_02: Come out and own it, Thomas.
[1:41:44] SPEAKER_02: Stop being soft.
[1:41:45] SPEAKER_02: Come out and own it.
[1:41:46] SPEAKER_02: Come out and admit that you cheated.
[1:41:48] SPEAKER_02: Come out and admit that you did the wrong thing.
[1:41:51] SPEAKER_02: Come out and admit that you want to be a better version of yourself, a better person.
[1:41:55] SPEAKER_02: Maybe you want to change how you were being, correct the way you were going about your life.
[1:42:00] SPEAKER_02: But this arrogant, you know, I'm better than you, I cheated, I don't give a fuck, I'm coming back attitude, fuck off.
[1:42:06] SPEAKER_02: Well said.
[1:42:07] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I don't think he's gonna be very good anyway, so.
[1:42:10] SPEAKER_05: Alex Samida says, How are we letting Justin Reale get away with this?
[1:42:15] SPEAKER_05: A couple of weeks ago, I saw Justin upload a sauna session to Strava, and I assumed, like his other 12 followers, that that was a mistake.
[1:42:24] SPEAKER_05: I then listened to the Road to Oceanside podcast and realized that not only was it not a mistake, but he was actually trying to count that as training hours.
[1:42:32] SPEAKER_05: If Jack is gonna flame Cam Worth for his yoga sessions on Strava, I feel like this behavior from Justin can't go unpunished.
[1:42:39] SPEAKER_05: I agree, you know, and uh Justin will he's inflating his numbers and he'll say that he works full-time, and we know his job is Cush and he does not work full-time.
[1:42:50] SPEAKER_05: Mr.
[1:42:50] SPEAKER_05: Corporate Pro, who coined the term, no one calls him corporate pro except for himself.
[1:42:55] SPEAKER_05: That's LinkedIn, Justin Realli.
[1:42:58] SPEAKER_05: Stop posting your sauna sessions on Strava, sir.
[1:43:02] SPEAKER_02: I will say, I prefer him to post his sauna sessions to Strava than his flexing sessions to Strava.
[1:43:08] SPEAKER_02: We know he spends a lot of time doing that, but I'm glad he's not trying to claim that as training time.
[1:43:13] SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'll finish us off.
[1:43:15] SPEAKER_02: Last Spotify comment for this week.
[1:43:16] SPEAKER_02: Like we said, there were so many.
[1:43:18] SPEAKER_02: We wish we could have read them all out.
[1:43:19] SPEAKER_02: Sorry, we can't.
[1:43:20] SPEAKER_02: We'll try and get back to a few of them next week.
[1:43:22] SPEAKER_02: Um, Willem says, What do we think about the Iron Man all-world athlete rankings?
[1:43:29] SPEAKER_02: Are they glorified loyalty programs or is it a legit age group ranking?
[1:43:36] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've just gone out and been pretty controversial about Thomas Rodriguez there.
[1:43:39] SPEAKER_02: Or maybe I haven't.
[1:43:40] SPEAKER_02: Maybe most people agree with that.
[1:43:42] SPEAKER_02: So don't want to get myself into too much trouble because look, I think there's something to be said if you're someone who stays around in the sport of Iron Man and does more than one or two races.
[1:43:54] SPEAKER_02: I really do.
[1:43:55] SPEAKER_02: I also think that it's a hundred percent a money ploy from Iron Man to make you feel special.
[1:44:00] SPEAKER_02: So they have a program in place that incentivizes you to do more races and spend more money so that you can get this title next to your name that makes you feel good.
[1:44:10] SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's inherently a bad thing, particularly if you know what it is, understand that that's all it is.
[1:44:16] SPEAKER_02: It but doesn't really have much say in how good you actually are.
[1:44:21] SPEAKER_02: It doesn't hold that much weight in how good you actually are.
[1:44:25] SPEAKER_02: So if you're thinking that it does and that you need to do races because of that, it doesn't.
[1:44:31] SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe there's some minor benefits that come with being an all-world athlete that make it worth your while.
[1:44:36] SPEAKER_02: But I also don't think it's something to shit on.
[1:44:38] SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, I think it's so good if you can stick around and have longevity in this sport and do lots of races because it's the hardest fucking sport on the planet, and it's so easy to come into this sport and do one 70.3 or one Iron Man and bounce because the training's too hard and the racing's too hard.
[1:44:54] SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, maybe, maybe a bit of both, to be honest.
[1:44:57] SPEAKER_05: Alright, I think that wraps up the show for us.
[1:45:00] SPEAKER_05: Uh, I guess I'm doing the outro uh as well.
[1:45:02] SPEAKER_05: So we enjoyed having all the pretenders out here tune into the Road to Oceanside as well.
[1:45:09] SPEAKER_05: Uh, as they coined it, the Greg Harper Memorial Podcast.
[1:45:13] SPEAKER_05: Um, it's actually been quite funny.
[1:45:15] SPEAKER_05: I've been cracking up a lot.
[1:45:16] SPEAKER_05: Um, and uh, Patreon, subscribe to us there.
[1:45:19] SPEAKER_05: We should probably do an after hours podcast for you guys.
[1:45:23] SPEAKER_05: And uh, Jack's putting a lot of other fun things on there as well, and we got a lot going on.
[1:45:27] SPEAKER_05: So, pretenders, Jack, Apo, thanks for being on.
[1:45:31] SPEAKER_05: Thanks for having us.
[1:45:31] SPEAKER_02: Peace out.
[1:45:32] SPEAKER_02: And like you said, Greg, read the Patreon.
[1:45:34] SPEAKER_02: We had a little bit of a break on it over the uh over the Christmas period, but next week we're back strong with the Patreon.
[1:45:40] SPEAKER_02: We've got lots of bonus episodes coming your way.
[1:45:43] SPEAKER_02: So for all of the loyal Patreon subscribers, you are the main way we make money from this podcast.
[1:45:48] SPEAKER_02: You are the main reason that you can have all four of us come on and talk for two hours for free every week.
[1:45:53] SPEAKER_02: You are the main reason that we can have the three boys over on the road to Oceanside come on every week for 12 weeks and give up 90 minutes of their life.
[1:46:01] SPEAKER_02: That's what makes it possible.
[1:46:02] SPEAKER_02: The money from the Patreon goes into that kind of stuff.
[1:46:05] SPEAKER_02: It doesn't go into the pockets of us to go and spend on, you know, whatever it is, playing video games or drinking coffees.
[1:46:12] SPEAKER_02: It goes directly back into the podcast to make the content possible.
[1:46:15] SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much for your loyal, continued support.
[1:46:18] SPEAKER_02: And if you you're not a Patreon and a subscriber and you do want to sign up, the link's in the description.
[1:46:23] SPEAKER_02: We really appreciate it.
[1:46:24] SPEAKER_02: It doesn't go unnoticed.
[1:46:25] SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, Appo, Greg, Vicky, thanks for thanks for another great podcast today.
[1:46:30] SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
[1:46:30] SPEAKER_01: See you next week.
[1:46:31] SPEAKER_05: Thanks, Jack.
[1:46:32] SPEAKER_05: Sorry, I did a bad job on the outro.

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