# Long Run Fails, Brick Sessions & B Races: Your IRONMAN Training Questions Answered | Ep 589

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 6 May 2026, 25 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO9211133428.mp3

Coach Rob answers your IRONMAN and 70.3 training questions - this week including how to structure the final 12 weeks of your build, what to do when a long run falls apart, and whether B races are worth it. Joe from New York gets a full breakdown of his training week ahead of IRONMAN Lake Placid — including when to add brick sessions, how to build long ride and run distances, and the only two times Rob has athletes do back-to-back long ride/run weekends. Sydney is four weeks out from her first 70.3 and hit a wall at mile 8 of a long run. Rob explains why this happens, why it's probably not a sign of overtraining, and the one recovery habit most self-coached athletes skip that makes all the difference. If you've got a question for the podcast, email help@teamoxygenaddict.com — chances are thousands of other athletes are wondering the same thing. Topics covered: • Structuring the final 12 weeks of an IRONMAN build • How to build long ride, long run, and long swim distances week by week • When to add brick sessions and how long they should be • Back-to-back ride/run weekends: when to do them and why Rob limits it to twice • B races: if and when they make sense • Why your long run fell apart, and what to check before you panic • Recovery days and recovery weeks: the habit most self-coached athletes get wrong * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Thinking about your first Ironman or 70.3 in 2026? At Team Oxygenaddict, we specialise in helping busy professionals fit high-quality training around demanding jobs and family life. We’ve just reopened for new athletes with only a handful of slots available. Book an application call today to find out if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict for the coming season here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use code OXYGEN26 at checkout to claim your 15% discount

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello, and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:10] and hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:13] order with the code OXYGEN 26. So welcome to the show
[0:17] everybody. I'm your host coach Rob Wilby
[0:19] from Team Oxygen Addict Triathlon Coaching, and every
[0:22] week I bring you an episode of this podcast to help educate,
[0:25] motivate and inspire anyone who is aiming to do a 70.3 or an
[0:30] Iron Man triathlon this year. On this week's episode, I've got
[0:33] a bunch of questions that people have sent through via e-mail.
[0:37] So thank you very much for the people who've sent them in.
[0:39] Please keep them coming. The e-mail address is
[0:41] help@oxygenaddict.com. And the way you approach this is
[0:45] really simple. When I was starting out in
[0:47] triathlon way back at way back at the start of this century,
[0:52] there was very little information out there by way of
[0:54] how to best train for a 70.3 or an Iron Man.
[0:58] And we relied upon folklore and other people who'd managed to do
[1:02] events before kind of passing on the things that had worked for
[1:05] them. I don't want that to be the case
[1:07] for people these days. It's almost the opposite
[1:09] problem. There's so much information out
[1:12] there, so much of it is conflicting.
[1:14] There are so many people contacting me and saying I've
[1:16] had ChatGPT draw me up a training plan and this doesn't
[1:19] look quite right. What do you think to this?
[1:21] I think there's so much conflicting information out
[1:24] there that what I want to do is cut through all of that and give
[1:27] you the benefit of 15 to 20 years of professional triathlon
[1:32] coaching experience. At this point.
[1:35] We've managed to come up with different ways over the years
[1:39] that we can really help people out.
[1:40] That's better than what I assume to be the, you know, the, the
[1:45] conventional wisdom, I guess is the best way to put it.
[1:48] There are other ways to train for people who are busy family.
[1:53] People who have got busy family lives, busy work lives don't
[1:57] necessarily have 20 to 40 hours to put aside for training each
[2:01] week. So that's how I'm going to
[2:03] phrase all these answers here. These are ways that you can make
[2:07] the best use of the limited training time that you've got so
[2:10] that Iron Man doesn't have to take over your life.
[2:12] And you can go forward and get back on with spending time with
[2:15] your kids, with getting the work done that you need to get done,
[2:18] spending time with your husband or your wife or your partner.
[2:21] So hopefully those things will really help you out.
[2:24] All that I ask in return is if you wouldn't mind, if you enjoy
[2:27] this episode, please give us a like on Spotify or Apple
[2:30] Podcasts and follow the show. That really helps us get shown
[2:34] to more people and more people then find the show and we can
[2:37] help more people, which is as simple as that.
[2:39] Really. We've got some weird start, like
[2:43] 80% of all listeners are not subscribed.
[2:45] So if you're not, all it involves is just pressing that
[2:49] follow button. And then that way you get
[2:51] notified when we get a new show come through and it shows the
[2:54] algorithm that we're hopefully good at doing what we do and
[2:57] other people will benefit from it if they're also into Ironman
[3:00] triathlon. And secondly, if you're looking
[3:02] for help training for your first Ironman or 70.3, please feel
[3:06] free to check out the coaching memberships that I've got over
[3:09] at the Team Oxygen addict.com website.
[3:11] I think we've built the most comprehensive triathlon coaching
[3:14] programme that's specifically designed for busy age group Is
[3:18] there. If you're interested, there's a
[3:19] link in the show notes. You can book a membership call
[3:22] with me. We'll talk about your
[3:23] background, what you've got going on, what events you're
[3:26] building towards. I can show you some training
[3:28] plans and show you how I build those out for athletes.
[3:30] I can show you our athlete communication app and how we
[3:33] talk to athletes. I can show you how we help you
[3:36] keep track of the training that you've done and whether you're
[3:39] on track for your upcoming event using our Race Ready system.
[3:43] Talk about the ways we talk to athletes either written in our
[3:47] athlete app or over Zoom calls. Hopefully we then give you an
[3:52] idea of how we can remove the worry from your mind that the
[3:57] training that you're doing is right or not, stop you having to
[4:00] worry about that. And then you can just focus all
[4:03] your energies and getting your training done, recovering,
[4:06] spending time with your family and getting your job done.
[4:09] So link in the show notes to book a membership call if you're
[4:13] interested, right? So we'll leap straight in then
[4:16] into these questions. And again, thanks very much for
[4:18] sending these in. It really does help.
[4:20] I love answering these questions and from the feedback that I've
[4:24] been getting, it seems like people find that these answers
[4:27] genuinely helpful. So if you're sitting there
[4:29] thinking, well, I've got this question and I'm not sure if
[4:32] anyone else would care about it, the chances are thousands of
[4:36] other people probably have the same question.
[4:38] So please feel free to send it in and we'll get that answered.
[4:42] So first question then, this is from Jo Merry.
[4:46] Hugh. Jo's writing to us from New
[4:48] York. So he says, hey Rob, I've been
[4:51] very diligent with my training. I'm training for Iron Man Lake
[4:54] Placid on July the 19th. I just have a few questions
[4:58] based on how I've been training. I totally understand if you
[5:00] don't have the time to answer. I know you're a busy guy.
[5:03] I've watched and listened to hours of your content and your
[5:05] ideas are fantastic. So first up, thanks Joe.
[5:07] I really appreciate that that the kind words are very much
[5:11] appreciated. It's nice to know that the
[5:12] things we do are helping. So Next up, he says my current
[5:16] stats, my FTP indoors is 245 watts.
[5:20] My 5K time is 1930. My swim CSS is unknown, but I'm
[5:25] comfortably swimming my long endurance swims at about 155 per
[5:30] 100. So at a first glance there, Joe,
[5:33] that's all great. You've got numbers there right
[5:37] where we'd want to see them. You're going to be front of the
[5:39] middle of the pack in your race based on the sort of raw
[5:43] athletic potential that I see there, you're at no concern of
[5:47] missing those cut offs. The one thing you haven't told
[5:49] me is your weight, but based on the fact you're running a sub 20
[5:52] minute 5 Ki would surmise from that that you're either an
[5:56] extremely good runner or you're not very overweight.
[6:01] So, so I'm going to assume that we're somewhere in the kind of
[6:04] the 80K mark is is usually where a peg that sort of, I don't
[6:09] know, I don't want to say average athlete, but if you're
[6:11] running under 20 minutes, then it's pretty hard to do that if
[6:14] you're much heavier than that. So, so well done, you've got
[6:16] yourself in great shape there. He goes on to say basic training
[6:20] wake. Sorry, basic training week for
[6:22] me. Sunday long ride, I'm still on
[6:25] the trainer. I'm doing 2 hours in zone 2.
[6:27] Monday I do an easy run in zone 245 minutes.
[6:32] Tuesday morning swim, usually about 1500 metres for technique
[6:37] and intervals in the afternoon 45 minutes zone 2 bike.
[6:42] Wednesday long run using the 91 strategy, keeping it zone 2.
[6:46] I'm up to one hour 45 at the moment.
[6:49] Thursday 60 minute indoor rides with zone 3 intervals.
[6:53] Or if you're on power that'll be sweet spot intervals.
[6:56] Friday long swim, currently about 2000 metres but the pool
[7:00] is very hot, 30 to 31° C. It's harder to go long safely.
[7:05] Yes, that's a very, very warm pool.
[7:08] And then Saturday is my Family Day and the day off.
[7:11] So my first question is, how does that training look?
[7:14] Well, you're doing everything right at the moment there.
[7:17] The things that I typically look for, Joe, is that we're getting
[7:19] two or three versions of each sport done during the week that
[7:23] we're ticking off our key sessions, which is your long
[7:27] run, your long ride, your endurance swim, some kind of
[7:29] sweets, but intervals on the bike.
[7:31] So you're getting all of those done.
[7:33] You've then got another couple of bikes, you've got another
[7:35] run, you've got another swimming, and most importantly,
[7:39] you've got a dedicated recovery day there.
[7:42] So you're making sure you recover at the end of each week.
[7:45] So at first glance, that's really, really good.
[7:48] A couple of things I would look to change for you or adapt over
[7:53] time. So at the moment you're training
[7:55] for Lake Placid as I'm recording this, you're you're about 12
[7:58] weeks away. Over the final 12 weeks, the
[8:01] things that we're going to look to change are we're going to
[8:03] gradually increase the length of your long endurance sessions.
[8:07] So at the moment you're 2 hours on the bike.
[8:10] Let's add 30 minutes to that each week.
[8:13] Every 4th week, I want you to cut that back to 90 minutes.
[8:16] So for example, you'll go 233 hours, 330 and drop it back down
[8:22] to 90 minutes. I would also advise you as soon
[8:25] as the weather allows you to start to shift that train and
[8:28] ride outside. Because of those last three
[8:31] months, we want the majority of your riding to be done outside
[8:34] if you possibly can. Your long run, you're currently
[8:36] at 1:45, so again, let's build that, but this time build it by
[8:40] 15 minutes a week. So 145, two hours, 215, drop it
[8:45] back down to 45 minutes for your recovery week and then build
[8:48] that to about 3 hours with your long ride.
[8:52] I didn't mention this, but I'd be looking for you to build that
[8:54] to about six to seven hours. Or ideally, let's have you do
[8:58] one ride of 180 K before race day at the very least, and then
[9:03] with your long swim you're currently at 2K.
[9:05] Let's have you build that by say 400 metres a week, so you'll go
[9:09] 2K24283236 and up to 4K. There you go.
[9:15] Over the 12 weeks you've got yourself up to 4K.
[9:17] My concern there is that pool is too hot to be swimming more than
[9:20] two K and you're going to stop melting.
[9:23] So let's see if you can find either an opportunity to do that
[9:25] swim in a cooler pool or hopefully soon the temperature
[9:30] of the lake water is going to be at the point where you can do
[9:32] your long endurance swim outdoors.
[9:34] You can practise in your wetsuit.
[9:36] That's going to make it even more specific.
[9:38] So there's nothing needs to change in your structure.
[9:41] You've done a great job splitting out your long ride and
[9:43] your long run through the week. And I'm, I'm really happy with
[9:46] that overall. Yeah, good stuff.
[9:48] Second question, he says, when should I change it up to do the
[9:52] long ride or run closer together?
[9:55] And when should I add in brick sessions?
[9:58] OK, so first up, brick sessions. Let's look to add those in six
[10:02] to eight weeks away from race day.
[10:04] That's my usual advice. They only need to be 15 minutes
[10:08] at first. Just do a short run off the bike
[10:10] just so you have that experience of your legs feeling horrific.
[10:15] And then they come back to you within 3 or 4 minutes and then
[10:17] you can tell your mind. I know that my legs felt awful,
[10:20] but I know that my legs will come back.
[10:22] That's the kind of mantra that you've got to go through for the
[10:24] first few minutes. When you've done your 15 minutes
[10:28] finish and call it and go back home again.
[10:31] As you get closer to race day, I'll have you do a brick run
[10:35] that's 30 minutes long and then at your race simulation weekend,
[10:38] we'll have you do a brick run that's 45 minutes long, but
[10:41] that's the longest brick run that I'll have you do.
[10:43] For the majority of them they just need to be that mental
[10:47] practise of telling yourself that your legs are going to come
[10:50] back. And I can't stress this enough,
[10:52] it is so common to feel horrific when you start to run off the
[10:56] bike. Not just that your legs are
[10:57] tired, but your neck and your shoulders and your back are
[11:00] sore. Everything will loosen up within
[11:02] a few minutes and again, progressively over the weeks
[11:05] things are going to get better for you as well.
[11:07] There. So that's the the brick run part
[11:09] and you've said when should I change it up to do my long ride
[11:12] and run closer together? So typically I'll have athletes
[11:16] do this only on 2 occasions before the Iron Man 5 weeks out
[11:21] from race day and two weekends out from race day.
[11:24] What we'll have you do there is long swim on the Friday, long
[11:30] ride on the Saturday, run off the bike and then do your long
[11:34] run the day after. For that first racing weekend 5
[11:38] weeks out, I usually advise you ride about 150K, run 30 minutes
[11:43] off the bike, run an hour and a half the next morning.
[11:46] Two weeks before race day, I'll have you ride the full 180K, run
[11:51] 45 minutes off the bike, and then next morning run 2 hours.
[11:55] Those will be the only two times I'll have an athlete run the day
[12:00] after they've done the long ride.
[12:03] It's really hard this. There are some trains of thought
[12:06] that say we should always do our long run the day after the long
[12:09] ride because that's when we're going to be most fatigued.
[12:11] My, my working on this is let's be as safe as we can.
[12:15] Let's remove any potential for catastrophe.
[12:19] The biggest risk of injury niggle to you is going to be
[12:21] doing a long run on tired legs. So even though there's the
[12:24] theory that you've got to do this long run the day after the
[12:28] long ride, and even though you might see a lot of young,
[12:32] durable pro athletes doing this, it doesn't tend to work as well
[12:37] for age groupers who are working all week.
[12:39] For older guys and women, you know, if you're getting into
[12:41] your 50s, that weekend can be a hell weekend.
[12:45] So expected to be difficult when you do them, but especially for
[12:48] the second one that you do 2 weeks before race day, you are
[12:52] going to be in the peak fitness of your life for that.
[12:55] And so it's going to be significantly easier to do that
[12:58] run the day after the long ride because you're at your most
[13:01] durable. From there, you're just tapering
[13:03] down to race day. So that would be my advice to
[13:06] you. That's the way I would go about
[13:07] it. Lastly, he says I've got a four
[13:10] mile trail race that I'd like to do as a sea race on June the
[13:14] 15th. So that's about four weeks out.
[13:16] I was thinking of making it part of a long run and just keep
[13:19] running. So yeah, I mean go along and do
[13:21] something like that. I'm a I'm a big fan of of doing
[13:25] run trail event type things as part of your training because
[13:28] it's easier than doing it on your own.
[13:30] Essentially great motivation. You've just got to be super
[13:32] careful that you don't end up pushing harder than you would
[13:36] like to make sure it's genuinely at your goal.
[13:39] Iron Man run pace. So that's the first thing about
[13:42] it. And then Joe goes on to say I
[13:45] was also wondering about doing AB race.
[13:48] I've got the option to do a Sprint Olympic or 70.33 weeks
[13:51] out from my A race. So here I'm going to say no, I'm
[13:55] going to say don't do that. You've got more to be gained 3
[13:58] weeks out from race day by doing the training as is planned than
[14:02] doing a race potentially then needing a week to recover.
[14:05] Especially because at the end of that week, you're going to have
[14:09] your race SIM weekend trade. Treat that as an event
[14:12] basically. And you had to treat it as
[14:15] wearing race day kit, wearing the helmet, shaving your legs,
[14:19] all of the stuff that you do for race day.
[14:21] Do that for your race rehearsal weekend.
[14:22] I wouldn't have you do that race in an ideal world three weeks
[14:26] before your Iron Man. Should I maybe try and find the
[14:28] B race actually after my A race in August sometime?
[14:31] Absolutely. That's the way to go after
[14:34] you've had a couple of weeks of recovery from your Iron Man and
[14:36] you've stopped wearing the medal around the house all the time.
[14:39] You are then as fit as you're probably ever going to be,
[14:42] certainly for that season. Get out and do whatever event
[14:46] you want to do. You can race Sprint, Olympic
[14:49] distance, do duathlons, go and do running races, go and do bike
[14:52] time trials, sporty events. You'll have fitness up the Wahoo
[14:57] for the next three months essentially.
[14:59] So just go out and enjoy yourself.
[15:01] I'm aware that a lot of people feel like, you know, they, they
[15:05] have to not do some of the things they want to do as
[15:08] they're training for an Iron Man.
[15:09] They've got to sacrifice some things in order to get the Iron
[15:12] Man done. I think the payback comes after
[15:15] you've done the event when you're super fit.
[15:16] If you don't want to focus on, I don't know, running fast, 5 KS
[15:20] or park runs or 10 KS or whatever you want to do, if
[15:23] that's the appropriate time to do it.
[15:24] You've got this massive aerobic base.
[15:26] Your body is as durable as ever going to be.
[15:28] That's the time that's probably safest in the season to
[15:31] introduce the faster running and go and do that stuff if you
[15:34] enjoy doing that. So by all means, go and do that.
[15:38] And he signs off from Joe in the mountains of New York.
[15:40] So Joe, I hope that hope that helps you.
[15:42] It sounds like you've got lots of stuff right there.
[15:44] There's just a few little tweaks, but it sounds like we're
[15:47] just making polishes to a training plan that is really
[15:51] solid. I'd say you've clearly taken the
[15:53] principles I've talked about in the podcast here and applied
[15:56] them to Rd training and I absolutely wish you all the best
[16:00] with this. And please let us know how Iron
[16:01] Man Lake Placid goes this point. I'm going to give a shout out to
[16:05] our sponsors, Precision Fuel and Hydration.
[16:08] They are the title sponsor of the Iron Man 70.3 World
[16:11] Championships for the next three years and it's just fantastic to
[16:14] see Andy and Dave and the company have grown to this size
[16:17] from, you know, essentially 3 scrappy guys sleeping in the
[16:21] back of a van that I met Iron Man UK back in 2014.
[16:25] Now these guys have done it the right way.
[16:28] They have found and made a product that genuinely is as
[16:33] important to race. Their success for Iron Man
[16:36] triathletes as getting the training done is getting your
[16:38] hydration and your electrolytes the correct for race day.
[16:43] Getting your fuel incorrect for race day I genuinely believe is
[16:47] as important a part of your Iron Man race day success as getting
[16:51] the training was along the way. And in order to do that for race
[16:54] day, you've obviously got to practise it in training.
[16:57] Usual caveat applies here. You don't have to buy their
[16:59] products, there's lots of different products out there,
[17:01] but I would highly recommend using firstly products that are
[17:07] entirely designed around success.
[17:09] Iron Man, which these guys are built from the ground up.
[17:12] Andy Blow was one of the guys who was finishing top 3IN Iron
[17:15] Man's and 70 point threes when I was racing back in the very
[17:18] early 2000s. So he's made this product to fix
[17:22] the product. The problem he had, which was
[17:24] he's an incredibly salty sweater.
[17:26] Same exact problem I've got now. We had a guy on our training
[17:30] camp in Majorca a couple of weeks back.
[17:32] He had an in person sweat test done and he found out he was
[17:36] sweating 1200 millilitres per hour and it was something like
[17:42] 1300 milligrammes of sodium. So he was sweating twice as much
[17:46] as he was drinking and it was twice as salty as he was
[17:49] replacing. So it was a total game changer
[17:52] for him. The next day he came out with
[17:54] firstly much bigger water bottles with more water with
[17:57] more sodium mixed into it. He felt fantastic during that
[18:00] ride and he said to me afterwards, this is such a game
[18:03] changer for me because now I'm replacing all of the fluids that
[18:07] I'm missing. I'm not cramping all the time,
[18:09] I'm not exhausted when I get back from the rides.
[18:12] So it's a great thing to do if you've got opportunity to have
[18:15] an in person sweat test. But honestly, you'll know this
[18:18] if you look at yourself. If you're one of the guys
[18:19] drenched in sweat whose whose gear is completely drenched
[18:23] after an hour riding in the sun, chances are you are a very heavy
[18:27] sweater. If you have loads of salt caked
[18:30] all over your kit on a hot day like I did, you are a very salty
[18:35] sweater. You can go online and take that
[18:37] online sweat test and that'll give you a really good lead to
[18:40] this. But you can do a lot of this
[18:41] just by eyeballing it. And if you then want to go and
[18:43] have a sweat test in person, you can do you can even book a free
[18:47] one to one video consultation with PFNHS athlete support team.
[18:51] Great company, great education, loads of free resources on the
[18:54] website. Get on there and educate
[18:56] yourself. And if you decide to make a
[18:58] purchase you can use the code oxygen 26 for 15% off your first
[19:03] order. OK next question, this is from
[19:06] Sydney, Carolina. I am currently 4 weeks out for
[19:09] my first 70.3 which is a practise slash prep race for my
[19:14] goal A race. I'm on Barcelona later this
[19:17] year. Overall I think training is
[19:19] going well but this week I just couldn't make it through my long
[19:23] run. My aerobic fitness seems fine.
[19:25] The heart rate was low and it was steady.
[19:28] There were no good tissues, there's no cramping or pain, but
[19:32] my legs just felt like lead around mile 8 and I simply
[19:35] couldn't go another mile and finish the 10 that I had on my
[19:38] training plan. It's freaking me out because
[19:40] I've got 13.1 to UN race day. In the past I've run a marathon
[19:44] and several halves before. I'm not a super great runner and
[19:48] it's definitely the weakest of my 3 disciplines.
[19:51] I've been using your training structure advice of three runs
[19:54] per week, nothing hard 9 in one method on long runs.
[19:58] So nice work Sydney. That's that's a big part of it
[20:00] to start with and I'm incorporating consistent light
[20:03] strength training 2 times per week.
[20:06] Do you think it's a major concern?
[20:08] Is that a sign of overtraining that will severely impact race
[20:11] day? Is it just a lot of fatigue that
[20:13] will shed itself during the taper?
[20:15] And what would be your advice to address this if it happens again
[20:18] during my full Iron Man build? Well, first up, Sydney, you've
[20:21] taken care of the what you're doing in training part here.
[20:24] Three runs per week, none of them really hard, 91 on your
[20:27] long runs. So you've been doing the right
[20:29] stuff. You've got light strength
[20:31] conditioning twice a week as well, so your durability is
[20:34] great. The advice I'm going to give you
[20:36] here are the reassurances. Sometimes this happens to
[20:40] athletes. Sometimes you have a day when
[20:42] you just feel horrific and you've done the right thing by
[20:45] stopping and resetting. Now there could be a multitude
[20:48] of reasons for this and we'll probably never know what it is.
[20:51] But my best advice is that this is probably just a one off.
[20:56] If you've been consistently training, if you've been
[20:58] building the length of your long run as I talk about by 15
[21:01] minutes a week, and crucially, if you've been making sure that
[21:05] you have that one recovery focused day every week and a
[21:09] recovery focus week every four weeks, this will take care of
[21:13] itself. That's what I would be really
[21:15] interested to know the answer to at this point, Sydney, is you've
[21:19] definitely been paying the right attention and doing the right
[21:21] things in your training. Often the 1st place I go when
[21:25] there's a situation like this is to look at how an athlete's been
[21:27] recovering and to check that they are having that recovery
[21:31] day every week, every seven days.
[21:34] Are you then having the recovery week every 4th week and making
[21:38] sure you really back the volume off?
[21:40] Because often self coached athletes or self trained
[21:43] athletes, that's the big difference is if they miss a
[21:48] session, they'll try and catch it up later in the week or the
[21:51] next week at the expense of a rest day.
[21:53] If they've missed a long run the week before, they'll miss the
[21:56] recovery week at the expense of making sure they get that long
[21:59] run done. And sometimes that fatigue just
[22:02] builds and builds and builds and eventually your body just says
[22:04] no, I've had enough. And if I had to guess, I'm
[22:08] wondering if that's possibly what's happened with you.
[22:11] So rather than trying to do more, I would make sure and go
[22:15] back in your training diary, check that you've had those
[22:18] recovery days planned in that recovery week plan then.
[22:21] And if you do feel like that again, listen to your body.
[22:23] You've done exactly the right thing.
[22:25] Stop when you're tired, take the recovery when you're tired,
[22:29] Don't push on through and think, well, I have to do dot dot dot
[22:33] in the future because it's on the plan.
[22:35] Honestly, as a self coached athlete, they are the mistakes
[22:38] that I made forcing myself to decide that I'm I'm going to
[22:41] push to do 120 kilometre run week because that's what I
[22:45] decided I needed to do. That probably put me in a bigger
[22:48] hole the year I was just trying to train for a marathon than
[22:51] anything else that I did that year.
[22:53] I was absolutely ruined for a whole week and I was forcing
[22:56] myself to go out and run twice a day because that's what other
[23:00] people I was training with were doing.
[23:02] It took me weeks, possibly months to dig myself out of that
[23:05] fatigue health. I just listened and said, you
[23:06] know what, I'm not absorbing this.
[23:08] There's no point doing any more and had a few days of rest.
[23:11] I'm sure I would have bounced back and maybe it's the same
[23:14] with you. So that's where I would err on
[23:16] the side of caution. Make sure you get in a recovery
[23:19] day and every week, maybe even schedule 2 recovery days for the
[23:22] next week or two if you need to, and try and see if you can make
[23:27] sure you're taking care of your body's recovery needs.
[23:30] All right, well, that's why we're going to wrap this up for
[23:32] this week. To finish this up, here are some
[23:34] discount codes and deals for you over at
[23:36] precisionfuelandhydration.com. They are, of course, the
[23:40] official title sponsor of the Iron Man 70.3 World
[23:42] Championships for this year and the coming three years.
[23:46] You can use the code Oxygen 26 for 15% off your first
[23:50] electrolyte and carb order. And over at Team Oxygen Addict,
[23:54] if you're looking for coaching for your first Ironman or 70.3,
[23:58] we've genuinely tried to build what I think is the most
[24:00] comprehensive triathlon coaching programme specifically for busy
[24:04] age groupers. If you're looking for coaching
[24:06] for Ironman this year, please get in touch with us.
[24:08] There's a link in the show notes to book a membership call with
[24:10] us. Honestly, if you like what
[24:13] you've heard on the podcast or on the YouTube channel, the
[24:16] chances are you would super enjoy what we do.
[24:20] We've got a couple of memberships available at the
[24:22] moment. We've got athletes who are
[24:23] coming to the end of their time with us.
[24:25] I think I've got three slots opening up in May as we talk, so
[24:29] if you're interested in one of those, I'd love to talk to you.
[24:32] So remember, there's links in the show notes so you don't have
[24:35] to remember them. Until next week, have a great
[24:38] safe training and racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[24:41] been listening to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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