# 70.3 Race Pace & TSS Targets, Heat Acclimation Protocol, Training Around Holidays: Listener Q&A | Ep 590 Q&A

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 13 May 2026, 29 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO1552709577.mp3

Coach Rob Wilby answers listener questions on some of the most practical challenges in IRONMAN and 70.3 training. This week: How to calculate the exact pace targets & TSS budget for 70.3... A step-by-step heat acclimation protocol for racing in a hot climate when you've trained somewhere cool... Plus how to plan your training around a family holiday mid-build without losing fitness... And Rob also covers integrating cycle commuting into training and 9:1 run/walk pacing and other questions we've had in from listeners recently * * * * * * * 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
[0:14] order with the code OXYGEN 26. Welcome to the show everybody.
[0:18] I'm your host coach Rob will be from Team Oxygen Addict
[0:20] Triathlon Coaching, and every week I bring you an episode of
[0:23] this podcast to help educate, motivate and inspire you for
[0:26] your Iron Man and 70.3 adventures.
[0:28] If you're attempting your first Iron Man or 70.3 this year, you
[0:32] are in the right place. On this week's episode, I've got
[0:35] a bunch of questions that athletes have sent through to
[0:38] us. These might be some from our
[0:40] athletes that we coach, some from YouTube viewers, some from
[0:44] lessons to the podcast. Happy to answer these questions
[0:47] for you on the podcast because I think any question that anyone
[0:50] has who's involved in this sport usually is the same question
[0:54] that lots of people will have. So please feel free to send
[0:57] those in to help@oxygenaddict.com.
[1:00] Couple of quick things you could do to help us out before we get
[1:02] started, please. The first one is if you like
[1:04] this episode, please follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
[1:08] We also have a YouTube channel. YouTube's really funny.
[1:11] Some weeks I'm getting 2 to 5000 views on a video, some weeks I'm
[1:16] getting 180,000 views on video. So who knows what's going on
[1:20] with YouTube. I think you're completely at the
[1:21] mercy of the algorithm, so all I can do is keep on putting out
[1:25] content that's out there and hope people enjoy it.
[1:28] Comments are usually usually pretty positive and people find
[1:31] them useful and helpful, with the occasional amusing troll
[1:35] thrown in for good measure. But I have heard the rumour that
[1:39] if you subscribe to YouTube channel and then if the video
[1:42] pops up on your feed that day, if you actually watch it, that
[1:46] makes a massive difference, especially on the day it's
[1:48] released, makes a massive difference to whether or not
[1:51] other people get shown the video.
[1:53] So we're totally at the mercy of the YouTube gods and not like I
[1:56] said, we scratch our heads every week and think well why?
[1:59] Why is this video done so much better than that video in terms
[2:03] of downloads? And why is this one sometimes?
[2:06] I mean all the videos I put together I think are genuinely
[2:08] useful and helpful and important for people to help them do the
[2:12] 1st 70.3 in Iron Man. There's no reason why 180,000
[2:16] people are going to watch one particular video and 2000 are
[2:19] going to watch the next one. So do us a favour anyway, if you
[2:21] like the video stuff and you're subscribed, if you could
[2:24] possibly click and watch that video or God knows, even just
[2:27] let it play in the background and a different browser tab when
[2:30] you see it come up. Let's see if that makes a
[2:32] difference to the download numbers because I've got this
[2:34] theory that when you can get through a certain level onto
[2:38] YouTube, they'll start showing you to more people.
[2:41] And at the point you get shown to more people, then more of our
[2:44] people find us. So let's see if that works.
[2:47] Secondly is if you're looking for help training for your first
[2:50] Iron Man, please feel free to check out the coaching
[2:53] memberships over at teamoxygenaddict.com.
[2:55] At this point I've been doing this for about 15 years.
[2:58] I've coached over 1000 first time Iron Man athletes.
[3:01] Perhaps you've got one this year and you're a few months out of
[3:03] race day and you feel as though your training just needs someone
[3:08] to look over it for the last few months and have someone to give
[3:10] you advice and to help you out in your personal situation.
[3:14] I've had four or five athletes join us over the last month or
[3:17] so who are in that position. They're two months, three months
[3:20] out from the Ryman, which is interesting because in previous
[3:22] years I've never seen this. Usually athletes join us for a
[3:25] year or more for coaching. This year people have been
[3:28] coming and saying I've just found you on the podcast or
[3:31] YouTube. Can you help me out for the last
[3:33] three months? So while I've got spaces
[3:35] available, I'm more than happy to do that and squeeze people in
[3:38] for just a few months. And who knows, Hopefully,
[3:41] hopefully people will stay with us for multiple years, athletes
[3:44] have done in the past, but it's all about finding the right
[3:47] athletes to fit in with the athletes we've got at the moment
[3:50] who fit in with our coaching philosophy.
[3:52] So if you've liked what you've heard on the podcast on YouTube
[3:55] and you're interested in finding out about more, please click the
[3:58] link down in the description. All right, then let's jump into
[4:00] these listening questions. And first up, first question
[4:03] here is from James Warren. He says, hi, Rob.
[4:06] I've been listening to the podcast for about 12 months now.
[4:09] And I can't stress enough how much help and insight you've
[4:11] given me during that time. I'm signed up to take part in
[4:14] Outlaw Nottingham the full distance on the 26th of July and
[4:18] I've been training since around September of 2025.
[4:22] I've eased into the volume of the months I've been using your
[4:25] advice and recommendations and I've been able to consistently
[4:28] increase my volume incrementally and remain injury free, which is
[4:33] near enough the exact opposite of the other training box I've
[4:35] completed in the past. The 91 run walk method has
[4:39] really revolutionised my running for this block.
[4:42] So first up James, thanks for the message, really appreciate
[4:44] it and it's great to hear. Sounds like what you're doing is
[4:47] working for you. The most important thing is
[4:49] you're training consistently and you're consistently injury free,
[4:52] so well done. Next he says my long-suffering
[4:56] family couldn't wait until after Outlaw finishes in July, so
[5:00] we're going on holiday at the end of May into the first week
[5:03] of June, which is roughly 7 or 8 weeks out from race day.
[5:07] What would an ideal 7 days of training look like while I'm
[5:10] abroad? I'll have access to a pool to
[5:12] swim in and I'm a confident open water swimmer.
[5:15] So I can swim in the sea, I can run, I could even rent a road
[5:18] bike. All right, so there's a couple
[5:21] of different answers I can give to this one, James.
[5:23] But from a philosophical point of view, I think the most
[5:26] important thing to come back to here is make sure that you have
[5:30] the kind of holiday that you and your family need.
[5:33] Because I could easily say, you know, here's a massive block of
[5:36] training to go and do while you're away on a, on a sunny,
[5:40] sunny holiday and your family end up not seeing you at all,
[5:43] Which, you know, frankly, some athletes might want and frankly,
[5:47] some some athletes families might want.
[5:49] But it doesn't sound like it is in your case, it sounds like the
[5:52] family are ready for family holiday with you.
[5:55] So if that's the case, if what you're doing is going away for
[5:57] family holiday, I think you've got to be clever about how you
[6:00] fit in any kind of training while you're away and what the
[6:03] purpose of it is. So the first thing is you don't
[6:05] need to worry about losing fitness, having even a total
[6:09] week of training at this point, it won't have a negative effect
[6:14] on your Iron Man. You've got plenty of time to
[6:16] train when you get back and it will probably just freshen you
[6:19] up while you're away and you'll come back and you'll feel
[6:21] superhuman because you'll have lost all of that fatigue.
[6:24] So even if all you do is you go away, you have a great time, you
[6:27] get some extra sleep, you go to bed a bit earlier, you stay in
[6:30] bed a bit later, you relax in the sun, lounge and get some
[6:33] extra recovery. You're head of where you started
[6:36] when you came back. So that's the first thing.
[6:38] The next thing is I think it's a great opportunity if you're away
[6:42] somewhere sunny and warm and the sea is warm enough to swim.
[6:45] And it's a great opportunity to swim every day, couple of days,
[6:49] even a couple of times a day, sorry, even if it's just for a
[6:52] few minutes. I really do believe there's a
[6:54] massive benefit in just getting off your sun lounge.
[6:57] You're jumping in the sea, swimming 100 metres, coming back
[7:00] out again, going to swim for 5 minutes, even come back out
[7:04] again. You do that a couple of times a
[7:06] day while you're away that it really can make a material
[7:09] difference to your swim, especially if you throw in a
[7:12] couple of drills as you're doing that in the ocean.
[7:14] You can make a big difference from just by the frequency of
[7:18] getting into the pool or into the water even.
[7:21] You've got the option to use your wet suit and practise open
[7:24] water swim skills when you're in the ocean there.
[7:26] You've got the option to do a longer open water swim one
[7:29] morning. You've got the option to do
[7:31] drills in the pool. So the fact you've got that pool
[7:34] there I think is, is really well worth, and I say this to our
[7:38] athletes when we have our training camp in Majorca, we've
[7:41] got a pool literally 20 metres from where the dining hall is.
[7:45] So get in the pool even for 5 minutes in the morning before
[7:49] you come to breakfast and just splash up and down every day if
[7:51] you fancy it. It will move your swimming on if
[7:54] you're in that mind of trying to improve for performance.
[7:58] I wouldn't advise you to run every day.
[8:00] This is advice that I give that often conflict with things other
[8:04] people say. If you were triathlete and
[8:05] you're running three times a week alongside your cycling, I
[8:09] think it can be tempting to think I'm going to do six or
[8:12] seven runs this week. Wouldn't advise that I'd still
[8:14] run every other day. I'd still have a couple of them
[8:17] be relatively short, a couple of 20 to 30 minute runs and maybe 1
[8:21] longer run of maybe 45 to 60 minutes even.
[8:25] You might be able to get your long run done that week if you
[8:28] wanted to, if you got U early enough.
[8:30] But again, bear the family in mind.
[8:32] I think that's the most important thing if you want to
[8:34] be in this sport for multiple years.
[8:36] There's got to be some give and take with your family.
[8:38] God knows I was terrible at this when I was competing.
[8:41] So I learned from my mistakes. If you just did 320 minute runs
[8:45] while you're away, you will not lose any run fitness.
[8:48] You don't need to worry about that.
[8:50] And then in terms of in terms of do you need to rent a road bike?
[8:54] Well, you certainly can do it may be a great idea if you
[8:57] negotiate this with the family and say, I'm going to rent a
[8:59] road bike for one day. You pick it up from the shop the
[9:02] night before. You get up early one morning and
[9:04] get out for a few hours on the bike.
[9:06] Fantastic, but do it because you want to do it and you want to
[9:10] ride in that country. You don't necessarily have to
[9:13] think about going out to train for the sake of training because
[9:16] you're not going to lose any fitness just in that one week.
[9:19] So James, I hope you have a great holiday and I hope the
[9:22] family enjoy it as well. And when you come back, you'll
[9:24] have 5 or 6 weeks left to train, get your race rehearsal weekends
[9:28] done. And yeah, you will be feeling
[9:31] fresh and super fit if you get this right.
[9:34] Next question from Jason Sayer. Hi coach Rob, I've been
[9:38] listening for a while and I'm a convert to BF.
[9:41] And HI, would also like to say thank you and give a shout out
[9:43] to Rachel, who I met at Tooting Run Club a while ago, who
[9:46] pointed me in the direction of your podcast.
[9:48] So Rachel at Tooting Run Club, thank you for spreading the
[9:51] word. Much appreciated.
[9:54] Anyways, my question is about cycling to work.
[9:56] I cycle 10K every day into the office and 10K home except on
[10:01] the days when I do my long run into work, so that adds up to
[10:05] cycling 20 KA day just commuting.
[10:08] I don't push on these rides unlike some people who trade who
[10:11] treat Cycle Superhighway 7 like the Tour de France.
[10:15] My heart rate is often only between 100 and 125.
[10:20] How should I factor these cycle commutes into my training plan,
[10:23] if at all? And how much impact will they
[10:26] have on my body? I love the podcast.
[10:29] Thank you for the free incredible advice from Jase.
[10:31] All right, Jase, thanks so much for the for the message.
[10:34] And again, it's quite a common question this one.
[10:36] I'm a massive fan of getting to and from the office on your bike
[10:40] if you can, not necessarily for a training benefit point of
[10:43] view, but just because it feels like an escapade.
[10:46] It's so much better than sitting in a car and being out on your
[10:48] bike for the purposes of transport.
[10:50] I think is brilliant. Now given it's only 10K and
[10:54] assume that somewhere in the region of, I don't know, 20 to
[10:57] 30 minutes worth of riding for you, given traffic and traffic
[10:59] lights and stuff, it's hard to do anything meaningful in that
[11:04] 20 to 30 minute window. So a couple of things I've used
[11:07] with athletes in the past who've commuted by bike.
[11:09] First thing you can do is you can go one way as a pure
[11:13] recovery ride. So by that I mean keep your
[11:16] heart rate in zone one, keep your power under 50% of FTP,
[11:20] really gently spin along. There's no meaningful aerobic
[11:24] load on your heart and lungs. So you're not going to improve
[11:26] fitness. But the purpose of a recovery
[11:28] ride is to help you recover from the other harder training that
[11:31] you've done. So it does that job brilliantly.
[11:33] It's like a free massage, flushes blood through the legs
[11:37] and it leaves you ready to do your training later on in the
[11:39] day or you know, later the next day.
[11:42] So you can do that recovery ride in and you can do a more aerobic
[11:45] ride on the way home. We can do recovery ride both
[11:48] directions. I would advise if you possibly
[11:51] can, to separate the training out from these commutes.
[11:55] Like I said, I don't think you're going to get a massive
[11:58] amount of aerobic volume riding for 20 to 30 minutes in zone 2.
[12:02] It's it's not going to be a, it's not going to be a big
[12:04] driver of any meaningful physiological change.
[12:07] The thing you've got to be careful of is that it ends up
[12:09] being a bit harder than zone 2 and you're in zone 3 or 4 and
[12:13] you get tired, but without again, any real meaningful
[12:16] physiological change at the end of it.
[12:18] So be careful falling in that grey zone.
[12:21] The other thing you can do is extend that ride on the way
[12:26] home. So you turn it and again, this
[12:28] is it's very dependent on how you're commuting situations.
[12:31] If you're commuting through the centre of London, this is going
[12:35] to be a non starter. But if you can extend your ride
[12:38] out into the countryside and you can do an hour, you could then
[12:41] meaningfully, you know, use the 1st 20 minutes or so as a warm
[12:44] up and then get your interval session done when you're out on
[12:47] the bike. So that's something that you can
[12:48] do. If you can't meaningfully do
[12:51] that as part of your commute, I'd advise completely separating
[12:55] them out from your training. Don't include them in training
[12:57] peaks, don't include them in your diary.
[12:59] Just have them as easy or steady recovery rides and then do them
[13:04] with almost with the session you're going to do later or the
[13:08] next day in mind. So just treat that you don't
[13:11] want to do something too hard and impact your ability to do
[13:14] the real training sessions later on.
[13:17] So I hope that has helped for you.
[13:19] More than anything though, keep it going and keep getting
[13:21] yourself out there on the bike to commute because I think it's
[13:23] a brilliant way to get yourself into the office and back.
[13:25] OK, next question from Richard Ferrey.
[13:30] He says, hi Rob. Love the podcasts and I've been
[13:32] listening to them for a few years now.
[13:34] In your most recent question you had a question related to the
[13:37] race SIM weekend for someone doing a 70.3, but your answer
[13:41] focused on a full Iron Man. Similarly, you've referenced to
[13:45] TSS budget for a full and that likely race pace will be in the
[13:50] E pace zone on the run. How about ATSS budget and an
[13:54] expected run pace for 70.3 and what a 70.3 race SIM will look
[13:59] like? Sure.
[14:00] So let's let's cover this off firstly, 70.3 race Sims, the
[14:05] broadly going to follow the same principle I've described for an
[14:09] Iron Man racing. So what you're looking at here
[14:11] doing is a broken 70.3 across a weekend.
[14:14] So typically that would be 1.9 K swim on either a Friday night or
[14:19] a Saturday morning. You're then going to go into
[14:23] roughly A90K or three hour ride, whichever comes first and
[14:27] including that. And here's where this is a bit
[14:29] different to the Iron Man ones actually that that focused and
[14:33] specific Iron Man, I'm I'm misspoken and I'm sorry, the
[14:37] specific focused 70.3 power intervals.
[14:42] So what I tend to get our athletes to do here is I'll have
[14:44] them do 10 minutes at 85 to 90% of FTP and then 20 minutes
[14:50] riding about 75%. So you're kind of going over
[14:54] your 70.3 effort and then recovering a bit under your 70.3
[14:57] effort, but still in that meaningful aerobic training
[15:01] zone. So we'll have them do that for
[15:02] the whole period or or maybe a 2 hour main set within a 2 1/2 to
[15:07] 3 hour ride. Then we're going to run off the
[15:09] bike. We're going to run off the bike
[15:11] for 30 minutes and that 30 minute run is going to be
[15:15] focused. It's either going to be done at
[15:17] E pace or for our more competitive athletes, we're
[15:20] going to have them do that at M pace, which is going to be, as
[15:23] I'll describe in a minute, your goal race pace for the half
[15:27] marathon. Come race day the next day, I'm
[15:30] going to have you do an hour and 15 run very first thing the next
[15:34] morning. And again you'll, you'll build
[15:36] into it, you'll warm up and after the 1st 15 minutes try to
[15:39] get that pace up towards goal. 70.3 race pace.
[15:44] So I've referenced before how for the Iron Man race pace on
[15:48] the run will be the E pace zone for 70.3.
[15:51] This is going to be different for 70.3.
[15:54] What we usually find is a best case scenario is people running
[15:57] at the fastest end of their M pace.
[15:59] Now Jack Daniels M pace, he refers to it as marathon pace.
[16:04] In my experience, very few people, except for the very
[16:07] elite runners can hold M pace for the full distance of a
[16:12] marathon. For most people, it's somewhere
[16:14] between the half marathon pace and the marathon race pace.
[16:18] So it's quicker than the marathon pace, but it isn't as
[16:22] fast as their open half marathon pace.
[16:24] And it lines up beautifully for triathletes in that it ends up
[16:28] being about your 70.3 marathon, 70.3 half marathon race pace.
[16:34] So that's obviously going to be a few minutes slower than your
[16:37] open half marathon. But the M pace in the Jack
[16:40] Daniels pace calculator, which if you haven't got access to
[16:43] that, there's a free version on the Oxygen addict.com website,
[16:47] tends to be a really good, I'm not going to say target if you
[16:50] run pace, but if you go out at around M pace, you are going to
[16:55] feel as though you can run a bit faster.
[16:56] But it's good to hold yourself to that at the start of the run.
[16:59] And then second-half is going to be kind of tough.
[17:03] You have to really dig in to be able to hold it.
[17:05] And that's, like I said, there's a best case scenario and most
[17:08] athletes, if they've had a really well paced bike, can hold
[17:12] Jack Daniels and pace for the full half marathon.
[17:14] So that's what I'd advise for running for your 70.3, the total
[17:19] TSS budget for the bike leg on the 70.3, we're going to be
[17:23] looking somewhere in the region of 190 TSS points, 185 to 190,
[17:28] something like that. Again, it's going to feel
[17:31] possibly going to feel conservative to people, but
[17:34] that's the point of it. Remember, it's not how hard can
[17:38] you ride a 70.3 bike leg, it's how hard can you ride a 70.3
[17:43] bike leg and still deliver a Jack Daniels M pace run at the
[17:47] end of it. So well worth, well worth
[17:49] considering. So about 185190 is a is a good
[17:52] TSS budget to aim for that. Let's take a break here to give
[17:56] a shout out to our sponsors Precision Fuel and Hydration,
[17:58] who are the title sponsor of the Iron Man 70.3 World
[18:01] Championships. For the next three years, you
[18:04] can use the free Fuel and Hydration planning tool to
[18:06] receive a personalised strategy for your next race.
[18:09] The planner will help you understand your own
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[18:14] You can even book a free one to one video consultation with
[18:16] PFNH's Athlete Support team. I really believe in this
[18:20] company. They've supported us for over 10
[18:22] years now and I genuinely mean this.
[18:25] I think your success on race day in an Iron Man or a 70.3 is it's
[18:29] as dependent on your carbohydrate, electrolyte and
[18:34] fluid intake and getting that right as it is on getting your
[18:37] training right. If you've got the training right
[18:39] and you're super fit and you mess those three things up on
[18:41] race day, believe you me, as I have done many times on race
[18:45] days, things fall apart because you get those things wrong and
[18:49] you don't get to see the fruits of all the fitness work that
[18:53] you've put in. And you do have to train this in
[18:56] order to be able to absorb 68 to 100 grammes of carbs per hour.
[19:01] You have to train it and practise and learn what what
[19:04] products you can take in order to be drinking 750 to 1000
[19:08] millilitres an hour with the electrolyte mixed in.
[19:11] To have the confidence it settles in your stomach.
[19:14] You have to practise in training.
[19:16] It's not enough to do it in a few sessions.
[19:18] It has to be bedded into every long ride and every long run.
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[19:29] OK, next question then Graham Brown says, hey Rob, I listen to
[19:33] your podcast every week. I'd love to join your coaching,
[19:35] but at the moment I can't get this past my CFO in bracket's
[19:39] wife. I have eventually taken the jump
[19:42] to your 91 running strategy. Two weeks ago I did 14 miles as
[19:46] non-stop and then this week I did 12 miles but on the 91
[19:50] strategy. And I have to say you were
[19:52] right. Who would have guessed?
[19:54] Total convert to the strategy and we'll be training this way
[19:58] until the Iron Man in Portugal. Now my question is, I'm pacing
[20:01] with the straight run. I was running 9 minutes thirty
[20:04] per mile E pace with the 91 run. Do I run faster in the run phase
[20:10] to keep my average at 9:30 or do I do the run at that same pace?
[20:15] So great question. I always get this question.
[20:18] You still do the running section at your E pace, so still do the
[20:22] running section at 930 mile and then have your minutes walk.
[20:26] Is this going to make your overall runtime a little bit
[20:29] slower? Yes it is, but only by about an
[20:32] average of 15 or 20 seconds a mile.
[20:34] And you might be then sitting there thinking, well why would I
[20:36] want to choose to do something that is going to make my overall
[20:39] runtime slower? And the reason is this.
[20:42] It's going to make you faster compared to the people who have
[20:46] to walk the entire second-half of the marathon.
[20:49] It's going to make you faster compared to the version of you
[20:53] that runs the whole first half of the marathon and then has to
[20:56] walk in 13 miles, really painful legs and you end up taking two
[21:01] hours longer than you needed to do.
[21:03] I think it worked out. It ends up costing.
[21:05] If someone's a three hour 30 marathon runner, I think it cost
[21:08] them about 10 minutes on the marathon time.
[21:11] But that's against the person who can run an entire marathon
[21:14] without stopping in 330. Almost nobody can do that.
[21:18] The person who tries or the majority of Iron Man age groups
[21:21] who tries to do this end up doing a four hour 30 or a five
[21:25] hour 30 marathon. So you end up faster overall
[21:29] because you can keep on doing this 91 strategy all the way
[21:32] through and you have a really strong finish.
[21:35] And a lot of times athletes find they can then run hard for the
[21:38] last 6 miles as if it's a running race, which almost
[21:41] nobody can do in an Iron Man marathon.
[21:43] So you end up winning overall. So I hope that helps, Graham.
[21:46] Next question is from Nick Fatsus.
[21:50] He says, hey, Robin team, love the podcast.
[21:53] You guys rock. Thanks man.
[21:55] I'm training for my first try races this summer including two
[21:58] sprints and an Olympic here in Colorado.
[22:01] My long term aspirations are to complete a 70.3 and the full
[22:05] Iron Man and to go on to become a competitive age grouper in the
[22:09] 40 to 45 age group. I realise I've got a long way to
[22:12] go. Do you know what though Nick,
[22:14] good on you. If you found a sport that you
[22:16] love, why not be inspired and want to do these things and
[22:19] complete an Iron Man and then go on to race an Iron Man and be at
[22:22] the top of your age group. Good on you.
[22:24] I've got a busy do life with kids and my own business and
[22:27] I've been averaging 5 hours a week.
[22:29] The big picture question is training time per week and per
[22:33] seasonal linear. Meaning, does 10 hours a week
[22:36] over 16 weeks prepare you in the same way that five hours a week
[22:40] over 32 weeks does? Considering applying for your
[22:44] coaching programme for next year?
[22:45] Thanks for everything you do with the podcast.
[22:47] It's helped me greatly. All right, Nick, well, listen,
[22:50] first up, thanks very much for the message and we'd love to
[22:52] talk to you about coaching. So do drop us a message when the
[22:54] time's right. The next thing is, no, I don't
[22:57] think that five hours a week over 32 weeks is the same as 10
[23:02] hours a week over 16 weeks. I actually think you're better
[23:05] off with those five hours a week over 32 weeks.
[23:08] I think if you can build a habit of exercising for 45 minutes to
[23:11] an hour every day and make that repeatable over a year, I think
[23:16] you put yourself in a fantastic position.
[23:18] Because what ends up happening is as the summer comes round,
[23:21] your long run is naturally going to get a little bit longer.
[23:24] Your long rides in particular are going to get a little bit
[23:27] longer. And probably the difference
[23:29] between a 5 hour week and a 10 hour week is a long ride that
[23:34] goes from maybe, I don't know, an hour or an hour and a half at
[23:37] the weekend to a long ride in the summer when you've got
[23:39] really fit. That might be up to five or six
[23:41] hours and a long run that's gone from 45 minutes to maybe, I
[23:45] don't know, 90 minutes or two hours.
[23:48] All of a sudden there you've you just roll in the same week, but
[23:51] just with two bigger sessions interspersed in there.
[23:54] So I'd go with rolling that five hours a week as often as you
[23:58] can. And then as the summer comes
[24:00] around, take the opportunities as you get them to get out for a
[24:03] few extra hours on the bike or extend the run by a little bit.
[24:07] Keep your eye open for events you can do, like local trail
[24:09] races for the running or local sporty events for the bike
[24:13] rides. Just naturally go and do some
[24:15] stuff and you'll find over time that you're going to be able to
[24:19] roll into a bigger programme and gradually increase the time of
[24:22] your training that way. So I hope that's helped you,
[24:25] Nick, take good care and we look forward to hearing from you for
[24:28] coaching when the time is right. And last question for today,
[24:32] this is from Ryder Carey down in Australia.
[24:35] He says, hey, Rob, Ryder here from Australia, big fan of the
[24:39] podcast from down in Australia. I have a couple of questions.
[24:42] Firstly regarding heat training, 11 training Adelaide SA which
[24:47] this time of year is quite cool for Australia and getting colder
[24:51] and I'm currently training for my first 70.3 in Cairns which is
[24:54] in the North East tropics of Australia, a much hotter and
[24:58] much more humid climate. I'm just wondering if any heat
[25:01] training is necessary for someone like me training in a
[25:04] cooler climate and then going to race when it'll be hot.
[25:08] If so, how do I go about heat training the correct way?
[25:11] Great question. And this is a really common
[25:14] question for anyone who lives in a slightly cooler climate in the
[25:16] UK. Obviously it's cool.
[25:18] Well, I'd say 11 months of the year to be honest.
[25:20] It's May and it's freezing outside at the moment.
[25:22] And the challenge is we've had seasons.
[25:26] In fact, pretty much every season I go to races where, you
[25:29] know, it's ten, 1112° outside at the moment.
[25:32] Most people get all the training done like this.
[25:34] There's a brief heat wave in the middle of the summer, it's 2530°
[25:38] on race day and people absolutely cook in the sun
[25:42] because they just, the bodies just don't know how to handle
[25:45] that kind of heat. So I think heat acclamation for
[25:48] 14 days in the lead up to an event, especially in Iron Man
[25:51] can be really, really useful. So if you know it's going to be
[25:54] hot on race day. So for you rider, absolutely.
[25:57] We'll talk this through for anyone in the UK who's going to
[26:00] race in Europe. If you're racing in Europe in
[26:02] the summer, if you're going to do Austria, Roth, Germany,
[26:04] Switzerland, any of those events, bet your bottom dollar
[26:08] on it being absolutely roasting on race day, slash pissing it
[26:12] down and freezing cold, quite frankly.
[26:15] So you need to be thinking about how you can prepare your body to
[26:19] ride, run, race in the heat in general.
[26:23] So we've got a heat training protocol that we use with our
[26:25] athletes at team auction. Edit And there's two parts to
[26:28] it. There's heat acclamation using
[26:31] either hot water protocol or a sauna protocol.
[26:34] And then there's heat acclamation training of actual
[26:36] doing some of the sessions in the heat.
[26:39] So first of the hot water protocol or sauna protocol, it's
[26:42] dead, dead simple. You start 14 days before race
[26:45] day and as soon as you finish the session you get into either
[26:50] a hot bath or into a hot sauna and you stay there for three
[26:53] minutes. Day 2 you do it for 6 minutes,
[26:56] day three do it for 9 minutes and you increase by three
[26:59] minutes a day till you get to the point where you can do that
[27:01] for 30 minutes. Now there are some common sense
[27:04] caveats here which are if you start to feel dizzy, sick,
[27:07] nauseous, you need to get out of the hot water or the sauna
[27:10] straight away. But the key is you get into
[27:12] these, whichever 1 you use straight after a session when
[27:16] your body is already hot. So your body is dealing with the
[27:19] heat stress of something whilst you're not exercising.
[27:23] That's the first part of it. The second part of this that you
[27:26] can do is actually heat training, and this involves
[27:29] sessions of up to 60 minutes long running on a treadmill or
[27:34] riding on an indoor trainer with more clothes on than usual
[27:38] without a fan on. So your body gets very hot and
[27:41] you don't get the usual cooling effect of fan.
[27:44] So it's much much hotter than usual.
[27:46] And again, the evidence says that 14 days in the lead up to
[27:50] race day is the optimal time for doing this.
[27:54] I'd advise you leaving this until you taper and doing some
[27:57] of these easy sessions as you taper.
[28:01] So don't try and do anything hard or intense in the heat, but
[28:05] you can do your easier recovery sessions with extra layers on
[28:08] and get really hot and your body then gets used to exercising
[28:11] being really hot. 14 days is enough time for your body to
[28:14] make those material changes for it to learn to shunt heat to the
[28:17] skin, for blood plasma volume to increase, all that good stuff.
[28:21] But the 14 days is going to be enough.
[28:23] So fingers crossed those answers will really help you out.
[28:27] OK, so to wrap this up then here are some discount codes and
[28:30] deals for you at precisionfuelandhydration.com.
[28:33] You can use the code Oxygen 26 for 15% off your first
[28:36] electrolyte order. At teamoxygenaddict.com.
[28:40] I think we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching
[28:42] programme that's specifically designed for busy age groupers
[28:45] like you. If you're looking for coaching
[28:47] for Ironman this year, please Get in touch.
[28:49] Will help you essentially balance training against the
[28:53] demands of a busy family life, a busy work life, and make sure
[28:56] that the sessions you've got and the plan you've got complement
[28:59] your life rather than working against it.
[29:02] There's a link in the show notes to book a call with me, see if
[29:04] you'd be a good fit for joining the team.
[29:07] So remember, there's links in the show notes.
[29:08] You don't have to remember them. And until next week, have a
[29:12] great safe training and racing week.
[29:14] I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've been listening to the Oxygen
[29:16] Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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