# Making Sense of Test Week: Ask the Coach| Ep 529

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 5 Mar 2025, 33 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/99285346/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-2-3%2Fad148807-c58f-276c-9afc-874dec7aaf56.m4a

In this episode of the Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast, Coach Rob answers athlete questions about interpreting test week results for swim, bike, and run performance. Including: • The importance of CSS tests for swimming, FTP tests for cycling, and submaximal run tests for accurate performance measurement... • Adapting training based on test results... • Managing external factors / variance on test day, such as illness, equipment calibration, and HRV readings... • Why we need to be willing to adjust training efforts based on physiological feedback... • The need for personalized planning tools for optimal race preparation. * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Book an application call to see 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 click this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## 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
[0:09] and hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:12] order with the code Oxygen Addict 2025.
[0:16] That's all one word, Oxygen Addict, and then the numbers 202
[0:20] five. Welcome to the show everyone.
[0:22] I'm your host coach, Rob Wilby from Team Oxygen Addict, and
[0:25] every week we'll bring you an episode of this podcast to help
[0:28] motivate and inspire you. On this week's episode, I've got
[0:31] a special Ask the Coach episode answering all our athletes
[0:35] questions about how to interpret the results of their test week.
[0:39] So if you're an athlete that's coached by us, hopefully I've
[0:43] combined loads of different questions and loads of different
[0:45] queries from our athletes here. So there's there's no one that
[0:48] is actually a real a real question from a real athlete.
[0:51] They're all mixed up. But I thought it'd be a really
[0:54] good idea to combine all of these questions to give
[0:56] everybody an overview. What I've realised is there's
[0:59] tonnes of questions about how to interpret the results of swim
[1:02] test, bike test, run test, what the implications are for your
[1:06] training going forwards. And if you're not coached by us,
[1:09] I thought that would be a really good, helpful insight into how
[1:12] you can analyse your own training test results along the
[1:15] way. So if you like this episode,
[1:17] there's a couple of quick things you could do to help us.
[1:20] If you enjoy it, please consider following us on Spotify, our
[1:22] upper podcasts. And if you're looking for
[1:24] coaching for Ironman or 70.3 triathlon this year and you like
[1:28] what you hear on this call, please get in touch.
[1:30] There's a link in the show notes to book a membership call.
[1:32] We've currently got a massive special offer on on a season
[1:35] long membership. That's just about the best
[1:38] special offer we've ever had on in terms of value to you
[1:41] athletes. If you're interested in finding
[1:43] out more, just click that link in the show notes and we can
[1:46] have a chat with you and see if you're a good fit for coaching.
[1:49] All right, let's jump right in then to these questions
[1:51] regarding interpreting the results of test week, right?
[1:55] First question then regarding the bike test.
[1:57] I've done my FTP test and I saw a 5% improvement.
[2:01] Is that any good? Honestly had a tonne of people
[2:04] asking this question are very similar.
[2:07] So the first thing I would say is it's an 8 week long block of
[2:11] FTP focus training. And what I generally look at for
[2:15] an athlete to get an improvement here is and again, generally
[2:19] speaking, we're looking for somewhere between a 5% and an 8%
[2:23] improvement across an 8 week test block.
[2:25] Now that's not to say you won't get results with a bigger
[2:29] improvement than that, and it's not to say you won't get results
[2:32] sometimes with a smaller improvement than that.
[2:34] But for the average athlete in an average block that's
[2:37] relatively new to training, I would say A5 to 8% improvement
[2:41] over 8 weeks. It's about what we would expect
[2:44] for newer athletes. The biggest jump we've ever seen
[2:48] has been a 31% improvement. I think from memory and
[2:51] honestly, I think largely that's it's not down.
[2:54] It's not down to some magic effect that's happened or some
[2:57] incredible tare Pagacha type athlete who's responded well to
[3:00] the training. It's usually about learning how
[3:03] to do the test better if you like.
[3:05] I remember an old study at university where they studied
[3:09] the results of strength training and new athletes to strength
[3:12] training and the new athletes to strength training saw massive
[3:15] jumps in their strength where athletes who already did
[3:18] strength training didn't get those massive jumps.
[3:21] And they thought it was basically down to athletes
[3:23] learning sort of in a neuromuscular way how to lift
[3:26] the weights more accurately rather than it couldn't be
[3:29] explained just by an increase in muscle mass.
[3:32] And I think a similar thing is true with big jumps in the test
[3:35] results. What I mean by that is the first
[3:39] time you do the test you might not know how hard you can push
[3:42] yourself and on the second test you might have a much better
[3:45] measure of how to push yourself. In the 1st test, it might be
[3:49] you're very new to a training with a power metre and analysing
[3:51] the numbers as you're riding. In the second test it might be
[3:54] you're much more used to it and you've got a much better feel.
[3:57] But generally, I think it's down to just being used to how that
[4:01] feeling of riding a threshold feels after having done an 8
[4:04] week block and having the confidence that you can ride at
[4:08] or about that kind of intensity and push yourself on over the
[4:11] last five to seven minutes of the 20 minute improvement.
[4:14] So I'd say yes, a 5% is a great improvement.
[4:17] I'd be really happy with that with our average athlete.
[4:21] Now, next question related to this.
[4:23] I did my FTP test and there was no increase or in some cases
[4:28] there wasn't just no increase. My numbers decreased by 1% or
[4:32] 2%. What's going on?
[4:34] I'm really demoralised. I've done all the training
[4:36] really well. I felt like I was on for a
[4:38] really good result and maybe there was a mitigating factor or
[4:42] two for a lot of the athletes who've said this and we'll go
[4:44] into these now. So the two mitigating factors
[4:48] I've seen in these in these instances that need to be taken
[4:51] into account. The 1st and most important one
[4:53] is did you calibrate or and or do the 0 offset on your power
[4:59] metre before you did the test? If you didn't as one of my old
[5:03] friends said the test is as much use as going and buying a piece
[5:06] of cheese and rubbing it against your back wheel.
[5:09] You have to calibrate in 0 offset before every ride that
[5:12] you do for the numbers to make sense.
[5:14] And the reason for this is power metres are basically a strain
[5:17] gauge. The strain gauge is affected by
[5:19] lots of environmental factors like temperature, and even the
[5:23] change in temperature inside a standard house from morning to
[5:27] evening can affect the way that the strain gauge measures how
[5:31] much strain is on the metal essentially, and therefore
[5:34] whether it's accurately calibrated or not.
[5:36] It only needs to be out by a percent or two and the whole
[5:38] test is invalid. So you have to do that 0 offset
[5:43] or calibration, whatever you call it before each ride.
[5:46] And if you've forgotten to do it before the test result, again,
[5:50] that's pretty much going to invalidate your test results.
[5:53] So get in the habit of doing it every time.
[5:55] You can set up your Garmin and most of the hedge units to give
[5:59] you an automatic reminder every time you turn it on and it just
[6:02] says calibrate power metre now question mark and you just press
[6:05] yes. And all you have to do is leave
[6:07] the bike standing against the wall for about 3 seconds.
[6:10] Just don't be clipped into the pedals essentially and that will
[6:14] that will do the calibration. So get in the habit of doing it
[6:16] every time. I've had instances in the past
[6:19] where I've forgotten to do the calibration, started riding and
[6:24] I was putting out like honestly massive power numbers like 70
[6:28] watts higher than they should have been.
[6:29] And, and I knew scientifically there's no way I've gained 70
[6:34] watts overnight. But some little inner child part
[6:37] of me wanted to believe that I'd had some miraculous fitness
[6:40] improvement and all of a sudden I was riding at 350 watts
[6:43] instead of 270. I knew it wasn't the case and it
[6:47] was down to the fact I've not done the calibration.
[6:50] Now I've never seen a calibration error that big
[6:52] before, but that's what it was in that day.
[6:54] Sure enough, I stopped riding a press calibrate, started again,
[6:58] the numbers went back to exactly where they should have been, and
[7:00] everything comes back to normal again.
[7:02] So that's the first thing that can give you context.
[7:04] The second thing that can give you context is if you've had a
[7:07] period of training just before test week.
[7:10] So in one athlete's case, they've been ill all the week
[7:13] before test week. We hadn't known, they've done
[7:15] the test on the Monday first thing.
[7:18] If we had known, would have advised putting the test back by
[7:20] a week and having a week of normal training.
[7:23] In another instance, an athlete had been away for the entire
[7:25] week of training, hadn't done anything for seven days
[7:27] beforehand, came back and again was desperate to get back into
[7:31] training and did the test very first thing Monday morning
[7:34] without talking to us first. And again, the context there is
[7:37] if you come back, you're going to need a couple of sessions to
[7:40] get back into work after after either having been ill or not
[7:43] been on the bike at all. So let your coach know we can
[7:47] jiggle a test surround to move them by a week or by two weeks.
[7:51] The third context with which it might be explaining of no
[7:55] increase or or even a drop is if your HRV is amber or red.
[8:01] OK, we'll talk about this a little bit more later on.
[8:03] But just real quick, the rule of thumb, we don't test on the day
[8:07] when the number or red HRV, we'll move the test.
[8:09] OK, next question then to to do with swimming.
[8:14] I've reduced my 400 metre time by 25 seconds and my CSS
[8:19] therefore improved by 5 seconds per 100 metres.
[8:22] Is that any good? I don't have any context.
[8:26] So again the context for improvements in swim, we use the
[8:29] CSS test which is a 400 metres followed by a rest and then a
[8:32] 200 metres. And there's a calculator we can
[8:36] do on the 400 and 200 time that will give us our CSS pace.
[8:40] And you can think of that as analogous to your FTP on the
[8:43] bike. So yes, I would say across an 8
[8:46] week block, we're looking for somewhere in the region of 20
[8:49] seconds improvement over 400 metres and about a four or five
[8:53] second improvement over your CSS.
[8:56] More than that, fantastic. But most importantly, less than
[9:00] that isn't the end of the world. What I found over time with
[9:04] swimming is because it's very much more a skill sport than a
[9:08] fitness sport. There are days when you just
[9:11] don't swim well, and it's possible if you test on one of
[9:14] those days, even though you've been seeing consistent
[9:17] improvements in the way you feel and your times during that block
[9:20] of training, you just might not see the increase on test day.
[9:23] In those cases, it's OK to go back and do the test on another
[9:26] day. You don't necessarily have to,
[9:29] but I understand especially the Type A personality really wants
[9:33] to see those changes, those improvements.
[9:35] So by all means we can reschedule that for another day.
[9:38] Like I said about the four to five second improvement at CSS
[9:42] pace is fantastic. And if you can do that across a
[9:45] couple of blocks consistently, then that's really going to move
[9:49] your swimming on. If you haven't made those
[9:52] changes, I'd say to you, look, it isn't the end of the world.
[9:55] There are things that can affect it and I've often used the
[9:58] analogy here of if any of you play golf, you can go and play
[10:03] golf seven times out of 10 and the golf game is really
[10:07] consistent. The 8th time you can be
[10:09] absolutely useless and the ball can be flying left and right and
[10:12] off the fairway because it's this skill based fitness rather
[10:16] than physiologically based fitness if you like.
[10:19] There are some days that those neurological pathways just don't
[10:22] seem to work as well for some reason.
[10:25] And if any of the golfers know, there's not an awful lot you can
[10:27] do on days like that. You just have to pack up your
[10:29] clubs and go home. And I think it's the same with
[10:32] swimming. If you find that you're swimming
[10:34] really terribly in your warm up, I think you do better those days
[10:38] to reprogram yourself and go and work on some technique work
[10:42] rather than by trying to thrash yourself with a fitness swim
[10:45] that day because you're just going to embed the poor
[10:47] technique that's happening that day.
[10:49] Now I really wish I had more of a scientific explanation for it
[10:52] than that, but other than to say here I am a swim coach of 25
[10:57] plus years on pool deck, this is what we've seen with 10s of
[11:01] thousands of athletes over that time.
[11:03] Some days you just have a bad swim day and you just can't grip
[11:08] the water. OK, next swim question.
[11:11] On my CSS test, both my 400 and my 200 metre times were faster,
[11:17] but then my CSS pace actually got slower.
[11:19] Surely that's wrong? Can you help me?
[11:22] So here's what's happened in that situation.
[11:25] The CSS test has a calculation based on the ratio of your 400
[11:29] to your 200 time. And in some instances where your
[11:33] 200 time increases relatively more than your 400 time, what
[11:39] that tells the CSS calculator is your top end speed has increased
[11:43] more than your endurance speed has.
[11:47] And so it will compensate by slowing your CSS pace down to
[11:51] kind of try and skew your swims to be a little bit slower and a
[11:54] bit more endurance based to help bring that CSS pace down in the
[12:00] long run across the next block. So it isn't a concern that the
[12:03] CSS pace gets slower and I'd encourage you to swim at the
[12:06] slower CSS pace relative to those blocks going forward
[12:10] because it's telling you about different elements of your swim
[12:14] fitness. It's it's comparable to thinking
[12:16] if you were a racing cyclist, you might do some sprints at the
[12:20] very top end and you might do some endurance rides.
[12:23] And if you top end Sprint fitness changes, that might skew
[12:27] the results of a midrange fitness test.
[12:30] And that's the way to think of this.
[12:32] So it's nothing to be concerned about.
[12:34] The good news here is that both your 400 and 200 times have
[12:38] improved and that's the mark of your fitness improvement.
[12:41] So it's great. That's really good.
[12:43] The fact the CSS pace actually gets slower just evens things
[12:46] out across the long run and it helps you swim at the correct
[12:50] pace to make the changes in your fitness that are going to help
[12:53] you. The 70.3 and Iron Man distance.
[12:55] That's if you're following my swim plans, put it that way.
[12:59] So the good news there is you're 400 and you're 200 times
[13:02] improved. You'd swim training is doing the
[13:04] job. Crack on with your training and
[13:06] follow the plan. OK, I'm going to interrupt the
[13:09] podcast at this point for a sponsor shout out to say thanks
[13:11] to our sponsors Precision Fuel and Hydration.
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[13:31] I absolutely love this company. Longtime listeners will know I
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[13:47] solution for either electrolytes or carbohydrate.
[13:50] It's going to take some testing and especially for those of you
[13:53] who are racing in very hot conditions or who are trying to
[13:56] perform that long distance races, you're going to have to
[14:00] experiment with this in training.
[14:01] They've got tonnes of great resources over on their website
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[14:08] importantly, how you can change that across time.
[14:11] How you can keep a record of the amount of carbs and the amount
[14:14] of electrolyte and the amount of fluids you're taking per hour on
[14:17] your long rides and runs and gradually adjust it across time
[14:21] to see what effect that has on your performance.
[14:23] And what we've seen with an awful lot of the, the evidence
[14:27] they've got on the website is that fuelling electrolytes and
[14:30] fluid intake, but certainly carbohydrate and fluid intake
[14:33] can be trained across time and you can teach your body to take
[14:37] more of those in, which is obviously a great thing to be
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[14:44] Let's head over to the precision fuel and hydration.com website.
[14:47] And you can use the free fuel and hydration planning tool
[14:50] there. OK, Next up next question, I
[14:54] entered my CSS test result into the calculator, but I've got an
[14:58] error. What what's happened there?
[15:01] Now almost certainly what's happened here and I've, I've
[15:04] made a note of this on the calculator that we send our
[15:08] athletes to. Usually what's happened is if
[15:11] you've done a 400 and then a 200, but you've either got held
[15:15] up on the 200 by other swimmers in the lane, or you've paced the
[15:19] 200 badly, or you're really tired after the 400.
[15:22] And in some instances, if the 200 is slower than half the 400
[15:28] time, the calculator will return an error.
[15:31] So all you need to do in that instance is divide your 400 time
[15:35] by two and use that as your 200 time.
[15:39] So let's say that you did seven minute 400 and half of 7 minutes
[15:44] would be 330. But in your 200 you were really
[15:47] tired and you ended up swimming 340.
[15:49] What I'd like you to do is enter 330.
[15:52] That's half the 400 time into the planning tool and that will
[15:56] return a valid CSS swim test because what we'll assume here
[16:00] is you can at least swim half of 400 time because you had to at
[16:06] the halfway point of your 400. And even if you looked at your
[16:10] watch, you glanced at your watch at the halfway point and you saw
[16:12] what your 200 metre split was, you can use that as your 200
[16:16] metre time if it's in some cases that would be faster than half
[16:19] of the 400 time. Now next question, run tests.
[16:26] How do I interpret the result of my run test?
[16:30] Now for those of you who are not coached by us, we use a sub
[16:35] maximal run test. We don't send athletes out to
[16:38] run a flat out 5K or 10K as a session written into our plans.
[16:44] We will allow athletes to go away and do those at a time when
[16:47] is appropriate for them. But my standard run test is to
[16:51] get warmed up and it's to run for 45 minutes at end pace.
[16:55] So for those of you who've used the Jack Daniels run pace
[16:58] calculator, that usually translates for most athletes or
[17:01] most triathletes to about your open half marathon pace.
[17:05] Confusingly, Daniels calls it marathon pace.
[17:09] But what we've found is it's really only marathon pace for
[17:14] pure runners and for extremely well prepared pure runners who
[17:19] are preparing for marathon. I've, I've, I've seen one
[17:23] athlete in 20 years of coaching managed to turn out a marathon
[17:28] at Jack Daniels and pace. So how I translate it is M pace
[17:32] is your open half marathon pace and it's really useful for
[17:36] marathon runners to do some tempo runs and intervals at M
[17:40] pace to help prepare you because it's going to be a little bit
[17:43] faster than how you end up running on race day, but still
[17:46] really useful training pace and training.
[17:49] Almost nobody is going to run a marathon at Jack Daniels M pace.
[17:54] So think of it like this. M pace is your open half
[17:57] marathon pace for triathletes. It seems to line up really well
[18:02] with what you can hope for as a best case scenario in a 70.3
[18:07] half marathon run. So it's a really good run pace
[18:10] to run at and get dialled into. So we get warmed up, we do 45
[18:15] minutes and pace and then we cool down.
[18:18] So we're going to firstly work out what your end pace is based
[18:22] on either a recent run race that you've done or the best estimate
[18:29] of your current run form. Either one of those will do for
[18:32] the purposes of our test. That's going to generate as an M
[18:35] pace. And then you're going to go out
[18:37] and do 45 minutes M pace with a heart rate monitor on.
[18:41] And afterwards we're going to analyse the results and we're
[18:43] going to make a note of the average pace across the run and
[18:47] the average heart rate across the run.
[18:50] And then an ideal world, you're going to do this run.
[18:52] And we say in a in a perfect world, you're going to do it on
[18:55] a running track on a day when it isn't windy, so it's dead flat,
[18:58] so there's no wind to interfere with it.
[19:01] And then you just go round and round and round around 45
[19:04] minutes. It's not very interesting, but
[19:06] you get a really good result from that.
[19:09] Now we don't work, we don't live in a perfect world.
[19:11] So if you're not near enough to a running track to do it, as
[19:14] long as you've got a relatively flat loop that you can run at
[19:17] home. So if you can go out and run
[19:19] repeated laps of a mile or even 2 miles, that's great.
[19:23] You can use that a little bit more interesting as well than
[19:26] going around the track for 45 minutes.
[19:29] But what we want to try and avoid if at all possible, is a
[19:33] route that's got significant elevation changes on it, or a
[19:37] day when it's really, really windy and you've got huge
[19:40] stretches into a headwind, huge stretches with a tailwind.
[19:43] Because of course, all of that is going to skew your result.
[19:45] So you need to have a little bit of an eye on the weather here
[19:48] with these tests. And if you can move the test by
[19:50] a day or two to get a decent weather day, then great.
[19:53] So that's what we do. We do our run test and at the
[19:56] end of it, we know we've run at our end pace.
[20:00] We know what the average pace is because we can analyse it in
[20:02] training peaks. And we know what the average
[20:04] heart rate is because we're going to analyse it in training
[20:06] peaks. And again, in the ideal world,
[20:08] that heart rate is going to stay relatively flat or flat across
[20:13] the 45 minutes. Because it's submaximal, you're
[20:16] not going to see a massive amount of heart rate drift
[20:19] upwards like you might do in an FTP test because it's it's not
[20:23] that intention, not going up toward or above threshold.
[20:26] So heart rate should stay relatively flat.
[20:32] We'll then redo that test every eight weeks.
[20:35] We've got 2 choices. When we redo the test, we either
[20:39] run at the same end pace again and look for a change in heart
[20:44] rate, or we can do the run test at the same average heart rate
[20:49] as last time and see what increase in run pace we get.
[20:53] Now my favourite way to do this the second time is to have you
[20:57] still run at M pace and look what the change in heart rate
[21:01] is. So a couple of good examples
[21:03] here. We had an athlete who is
[21:06] obviously a very high responder to training and he's had a
[21:10] change in heart rate from the first Test to the second test of
[21:14] about 7 beats a minute and then from the second test to the
[21:17] third test of about 16 beats a minute.
[21:21] So that's a massive shift in aerobic fitness across the 16
[21:24] week block. Running at the same the same
[21:28] pace each time again, did the same course each time, same loop
[21:33] weather was about the same. So we've controlled a lot of the
[21:36] things we can control. Again, it's not lab conditions,
[21:38] but it's as it's as close as we're going to get in the real
[21:41] world as I like to think of it. So what we're seeing now is big
[21:46] improvement. How we interpret the the result
[21:51] of that run test is what I like to say is if you've seen an
[21:56] improvement of five beats a minute lower on the run test at
[22:01] the same pace than the previous one, then we've got a
[22:04] significant change in fitness. We're either going to say to you
[22:08] at this point time to think about going to do a race, either
[22:11] a 5K or 10K if it's the appropriate time of year.
[22:15] If it's not, we can make an adjustment to an athlete's run
[22:17] pace. And as a rough rule of thumb
[22:19] with that 5 beats per minute improvement, I'll increase their
[22:24] run paces by 10 seconds a kilometre.
[22:26] It's not a massive change, but it's going to be enough to get
[22:29] them running a little bit faster.
[22:30] And again, at some point in the near future, we're going to do a
[22:34] race to validate this, but an improvement of five seconds or
[22:38] more at the same run pace is indicative of a significant run
[22:45] fitness change. So we'll make that 10 seconds
[22:47] improvement in run paces, then we'll go and do the next block
[22:50] at that new improved pace. So our athletes will talk to you
[22:53] about that in your private athletes spaces.
[22:55] We can make those changes. We won't tend to advise people
[23:01] to do running races during the winter unless they're from pure
[23:04] running background. But as we get out of our winter
[23:08] block, as we get into springtime, So athletes who are
[23:10] listening to this podcast as it's being recorded and sort of
[23:13] late February, going out early March, this is the appropriate
[23:18] time to start thinking about, OK, I quite fancy doing a 5K or
[23:24] A10K. We'll add in a little bit of
[23:26] faster running into the training programme where appropriate,
[23:29] just so you're not making a massive jump from from no fast
[23:32] running to go into a race and then go and see where your run
[23:35] paces are at. Now.
[23:38] Almost all of you will have seen an increase in your run fitness
[23:40] because it's been measured by that heart rate dropping across
[23:45] time at the same pace. So that's telling you that
[23:47] you're improving. But I recognise some of you will
[23:50] want to go and race A to see the improvement and B, because
[23:53] racing is fun, right? That's what we do this for.
[23:56] And so we'll then readjust the run paces accurately after
[24:01] we've, or more accurately after we've got the result of an
[24:04] accurate 5K10K half marathon, whichever one of those you want
[24:07] to go and do. OK, So we can talk about
[24:11] scheduling a run race. Again, from a coaching point of
[24:13] view, especially for athletes focusing on the longer, longer
[24:17] distances, the Ironman athletes, I don't feel that you need to go
[24:21] out and do run races over 5K and 10K in order to validate the
[24:26] increase in pace that we're going to see.
[24:28] But in some athletes it is going to be, is going to be
[24:32] appropriate. And also, I mean, I've got some
[24:34] athletes here, they've been with us for 16 weeks.
[24:36] We talked to a guy the other day who shifted 11 kilos over 16
[24:39] weeks. So there's been a massive shift
[24:41] in his run paces just purely as a function of that weight coming
[24:46] off. You lose weight, you're going to
[24:48] run faster, especially if you if you're one of the heavier
[24:51] athletes to start with. So recalibrating those run
[24:55] paces, it's kind of done along the way because you're just
[24:58] naturally going to get faster for the same efforts.
[25:01] But we want to keep track of that along the way as well.
[25:04] Now, next question, I got about run test and we got a
[25:07] combination of this from different athletes.
[25:10] I did do my run test, but I'm struggling on how to interpret
[25:14] my results. I did the run test and we'll
[25:17] combine all of these into one here to make the, you know, like
[25:20] the worst case scenario I did on a totally different course to
[25:23] the first one. There was lots of elevation
[25:26] change on this one. I ran at a totally different
[25:29] speed to my first Test, and I also got a completely different
[25:33] heart rate to my first Test. So how do I interpret these
[25:35] results? And so the answer here is it's
[25:39] very difficult, if not impossible to make a judgement
[25:43] on a changed run fitness when all of those things have
[25:47] changed. Now in an ideal world, one of
[25:50] those things will be the same and we can then go away and kind
[25:53] of make a judgement call. But even if you're on the same
[25:56] course and you ran at a different speed and you got a
[25:58] different heart rate or you ran at a different heart rate and
[26:01] saw a different speed, vice versa, it's very hard to make
[26:05] that judgement change. So I'd advise you to stick as
[26:10] closely as you possibly can to the protocol and the test, which
[26:13] is go out and run at the known pace.
[26:16] Keep looking at your watch and hold yourself to whatever your
[26:19] end pace is. Let your heart rate be what your
[26:22] heart rate is and we can do the analysis of it afterwards.
[26:25] If you want to push yourself really hard, that's OK, but
[26:28] let's do it at the appropriate time.
[26:30] Let's talk about scheduling a run race.
[26:32] Let's get the right little mini build in for that.
[26:34] So you're not going to be at the risk of niggler injuries and go
[26:37] and push yourself in a run event, OK.
[26:39] But the run test needs to be as many things controlled as
[26:43] possible. OK.
[26:44] And lastly, and I've, I've already alluded to this a little
[26:47] bit, I had an amber or even a red HRV on test day.
[26:52] I really didn't want to miss the test because we're psyched up
[26:54] for it. So I did the test anyway.
[26:56] I felt OK, but I saw little or no improvement.
[27:00] I'm really demoralised because, you know, even though my HRV was
[27:03] red, I felt OK. So I don't think it's down to
[27:05] that, but I didn't see an improvement.
[27:07] But look, there's, there's a combination of athletes queries
[27:10] in this one. The reality is, if you've had an
[27:13] amber or a red HRV day, even if you feel fine, the HRV being
[27:19] read or amber is telling you there's a physiological sign
[27:22] here that you're under a lot of stress and that you're not going
[27:26] to respond well to intensity on this day.
[27:28] That's the way to think of it. If you've, if you've got a red
[27:31] or an amber on a test day, the HRV warning is telling you, you
[27:35] are not going to see a representative test results
[27:38] today. Just think of it as black and
[27:40] white as that. So we'll move the test to
[27:43] another day. I understand it's frustrating if
[27:45] you've psyched yourself up for it.
[27:46] And then some athletes kind of see it like HRV is telling me I
[27:50] can't do the things that I want to do.
[27:52] The way to look at it is we've got extra information these
[27:55] days. You're learning something about
[27:57] your internal body state that's giving you an early warning
[28:00] sign. You're not going to respond well
[28:03] to intensity today. So you wouldn't do a hard
[28:05] training session. Certainly let's not push you
[28:08] even harder and do a test, but you're not going to see the
[28:11] result that's representative of the training that you've done in
[28:14] in most likely scenarios, let's put it that way.
[28:17] So let's to talk to your coaches.
[28:19] We can move the test around. You can put it back by a few
[28:22] days. We can move it to a different
[28:23] week for you and keep track of that.
[28:25] The key to this is listening to your body and using tools that
[28:30] are there to listen in a way that we're not consciously aware
[28:33] of. That's the way to think of it.
[28:36] So if you have been in that situation, if you've done a test
[28:39] on the day when you had an amber or a red, talk to us about it.
[28:42] Honestly, these things happen, people make mistakes.
[28:44] It's no drama. We'll move it back and we'll
[28:46] have you do a test either the week after, the week after that.
[28:49] I guarantee you'll see a better result if you test on a Green
[28:53] Day than if you test on an amber or a red HRV day.
[28:58] OK, so that's all the questions related to test week that have
[29:02] come up this week. I hope that's helped out our
[29:04] athletes and give you a little bit of context there.
[29:06] I hope if you're a self trained athlete at home and you've been
[29:11] doing some of the tests and maybe you've been following
[29:13] along with our articles and you've tried these tests, I hope
[29:15] that gives you some context of ways to analyse those results,
[29:21] the ways that you can start to get confidence.
[29:23] Because ultimately what I exist for as a coach is to help
[29:28] athletes feel more confident about their training going
[29:32] forward. Whether the test result is
[29:34] positive, whether it's neutral, whether it's negative, It's to
[29:37] put framing around it that helps us understand the why and
[29:40] that'll help us understand going forwards what we can change if
[29:44] we need to change anything and how we can support athletes a
[29:47] little bit more going forward. Now, obviously it's it's harder
[29:50] for me if athletes are not coached by me, but part of the
[29:53] reason that we put the podcast out is I really think it's
[29:56] helpful for athletes to get into the mindset a little bit of what
[30:00] a supportive coach would be doing and would be saying to you
[30:04] in these situations. And you can then hopefully start
[30:07] to use a little bit of positive self talk.
[30:09] And I think it's very easy to be hard and very critical on
[30:13] yourself if you're a self trained athlete.
[30:15] It's a very lonely place to be great when things are going
[30:18] well. It's very difficult when things
[30:20] are not going well. And I've said this before, I
[30:22] think you can be self trained, but you can't be self coached
[30:25] because coaching is like a two way collaborative process and it
[30:29] it involves getting somebody else's opinion on your data and
[30:34] feelings. And sometimes it's a coach
[30:37] overlaying facts on top of your feelings.
[30:39] And sometimes it's a coach helping you see that your
[30:42] feelings might not be fully representative of the facts that
[30:45] we see in front of us. So if that's you, I hope it's
[30:48] helped you and keep up the good work.
[30:51] Keep on with the training. All right then, so to wrap some
[30:54] things up here today, here are some discount codes and deals
[30:58] for you over at precisionfuelandhydration.com.
[31:01] You can use the code Oxygen Addict 2025.
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[32:01] If you're interested, there's a link in the show notes.
[32:03] You can book a membership call with me and see if you'd be a
[32:05] good fit for joining the team. And again, if you're sitting
[32:08] there thinking, I don't know whether this really applies to
[32:10] me. I don't know whether I should
[32:11] get in touch. I've been thinking about it for
[32:12] a while. I really encourage you to just
[32:15] click the link and book a call because I've had had three calls
[32:17] last week with people who said exactly that.
[32:20] I'm so glad you said that Coach Rob at the end of the call
[32:22] because I was sitting there thinking I've meant to book this
[32:24] call for ages and I've never got round to it or I'm not sure
[32:27] whether coaching's for me. In all three instances when we
[32:31] chatted to them, we decided the athlete was a good fit.
[32:33] We brought them on board. We're now working with them
[32:35] towards completing their Iron Man this year and we've had
[32:38] really great feedback after the first week about how much
[32:41] difference it's made having a structured plan and having
[32:44] honest, factual feedback at the end of the week for them.
[32:46] So if you're wondering if it might work for you, let's at
[32:49] least have a conversation. So there's links in the show
[32:51] notes. You don't have to remember them
[32:53] till next week. Have a great safe training and
[32:55] racing week. I'm coach Rob will be and you've
[32:57] been listening to the Oxygen Addict podcast.
[32:59] And if you look out the window tonight as the sun setting,
[33:03] you'll see it's still light at 6:00 PM.
[33:05] Spring and summer are coming everybody, and races are on the
[33:07] horizon. Have a great one.
[33:09] Take care, see ya.

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