# Ask The Coach: IRONMAN & 70.3 First-Timers' Questions Answered | Ep 533

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 2 Apr 2025, 29 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/100614224/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-2-31%2Ff48b700b-82a7-d71c-8f2f-63c14b709447.m4a

This week Coach Rob answers essential questions from athletes about preparing for their first Ironman or 70.3 triathlon. Key topics include: Appropriate training hours... Avoiding overtraining... Improving bike performance... Incorporating brick sessions... Effective race nutrition strategies... Off-season swim training... The role of strength training... Safely increasing run mileage... Optimal pacing strategies... Structuring the final month before race day. If you've got your first IORNMAN or 70.3 coming up in the next few months, don't miss this episode! * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * ATTENTION First Time IRONMAN / 70.3 Athletes: 🚀 Join Team Oxygenaddict's FREE IRONMAN Accelerator webclass and learn how to dominate your first IRONMAN in as little as 6-8 hours training per week: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/ironman-accelerator 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 - 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. * * * * * * * * * * * * Team Oxygenaddict on YouTube Team Oxygenaddict on Spotify Team Oxygenaddict 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
[0:10] and Hydration. Com.
[0:12] You can get 15% off your first order of electrolyte
[0:16] carbohydrate fuel with the code oxygen fuel 25.
[0:19] That's a new code. So if you have previously used
[0:22] one of our other codes, apparently this code will work
[0:24] again. So happy days.
[0:26] Go and get yourself some more stuff.
[0:27] Oxygen fuel all one word and then the number 25.
[0:31] Welcome to the show everybody. I'm your host coach Rob Wilby
[0:35] from team oxygen addict and every week we've been you an
[0:37] episode of this podcast to help motivate and inspire you for
[0:41] your Iron Man 70.3 and in fact, any distance of triathlon, swim,
[0:46] bike run adventures. On this week's episode, I'm
[0:50] going to be talking about answering questions that have
[0:54] come in from listeners, questions that have come in from
[0:57] our athletes, and it's specifically around questions
[1:02] that have come up preparing for your first Iron Man or 70.3.
[1:06] So I know a lot of our listeners are going to be first time 70
[1:09] point threes or first time Iron men and women this year.
[1:12] So hopefully these questions could really help you out in
[1:15] your preparation. Before we get started though, 2
[1:19] quick things you could do to help us if you wouldn't mind.
[1:21] If you like this episode, please consider following us on Spotify
[1:25] or Apple Podcasts and if you've got the time, if you could leave
[1:28] a review and if even better if it's a good review, we'd really
[1:32] appreciate that. Secondly, if you're looking for
[1:34] coaching for Iron Man or 70.3 Triathlon this year then please
[1:37] get in touch. There's a link in the show notes
[1:39] to book a membership call for coaching with Team Oxygen
[1:42] Addicts. I think we've got the most
[1:43] comprehensive coaching solution for busy age groupers.
[1:47] We've also got a current special offer on of a season long
[1:50] membership and a massive saving compared to our usual rates.
[1:53] There's never been a better time to get in touch.
[1:56] All right, all that being said, let's jump into our Ask the
[2:00] Coach episode about preparing for your first Iron Man and
[2:04] 70.3. So the first question that's
[2:06] come up in various forms, it's it's an oldie, but a goodie.
[2:10] How many hours a week should I be training for a 70.3 or for an
[2:13] Iron Man? So I'm going to, I'm going to
[2:16] work backwards from the point you should be aiming toward, I
[2:19] think. So we'll try and get our
[2:21] athletes to the point where most athletes doing a 70.3 at their
[2:25] peak biggest volume week are going to be training somewhere
[2:29] in the region of eight to 12 hours.
[2:31] And for Iron Man, they're going to be training somewhere in the
[2:34] region of 11 to 14 hours. Now, it'll be different for
[2:36] different athletes depending on what they need, but that gives
[2:39] you a ballpark. Now the important thing here is
[2:42] that doesn't mean that if you're relatively new to the sport, you
[2:45] should should jump straight in and be shooting for an 8 hour
[2:48] week straight away for example. What we find is when athletes
[2:52] join us, the most important thing is that consistency is key
[2:56] and that regular training beats cramming big weeks and then then
[2:59] having to take time off with fatigue, illness, injury
[3:02] niggles, anything like that. So try and get yourself to a
[3:05] regular habit of training regularly.
[3:08] So initially that's going to be at least one day a week
[3:11] dedicated to recovery and rest. For some athletes, that's going
[3:15] to be two days a week dedicated to recovery and rest and then
[3:19] spread out the rest of the week using sessions where that makes
[3:22] sense. So in an ideal world, I think
[3:24] we'd have a beginner training two or three times a week on the
[3:28] bike, two or three times a week on the run, and between one and
[3:32] three times a week on the swim, depending on their level of
[3:35] skill and swim background. Now obviously that adds up to
[3:39] more than six days in the week. So what you can think about is
[3:42] ways you can combine those sessions together so that you
[3:45] could both swim and run on the same day by perhaps going to the
[3:49] pool, going for a swim, getting changed straight after the pool
[3:52] and going out from the pool and going and doing a really short
[3:55] run straight away afterwards, for example.
[3:57] Often what we find is getting athletes in the habit of doing
[4:02] those frequent workouts, even if they're only short to start
[4:05] with, can be really beneficial. And if you know if the sessions
[4:09] were only 15 to 20 minutes each to start with, that's absolutely
[4:13] fine because you're building the habit of going consistently.
[4:17] And in the early days, although those of you who've done Iron
[4:20] Man and Multiply Man races will be thinking, well, I wouldn't
[4:23] even bother getting my trunks on for a 20 minutes swim.
[4:27] If you hear people saying things like that to you as a beginner,
[4:30] it's a good idea to not listen to anything that person says
[4:34] because we've all got to start where we are.
[4:37] And for some people just getting in the pool and swimming for 50
[4:40] metres is going to be a massive challenge.
[4:42] So put all those other thoughts out of your mind.
[4:45] Just getting yourself in to get that session started is going to
[4:49] be enough for you. Right now, if all you can do on
[4:51] the run, there's a minutes jog, a minute walk, a minute jog, a
[4:54] minute walk, that's absolutely fine as well.
[4:57] Lots of people have started out that way and ended up being able
[5:00] to build the fitness really significantly across a six month
[5:03] block to the point where a 70.3 is reasonable for the athlete.
[5:08] Similarly on the bike, if you go out for 30 minute bike ride your
[5:11] first time out, you've got time then to build those distances
[5:15] up. Now, most athletes who come to
[5:17] us for coaching, they're already in a regular habit of training,
[5:21] they've already got a bit of a background in at least one of
[5:23] the sports and it's a bit easier to help them fit their training
[5:27] in around their lives. But the key is to work from
[5:30] where you start and go with the principle that consistency is
[5:33] key. Getting yourself in the habit of
[5:35] doing some kind of training every day is much more important
[5:39] than trying to do 1 big session. Going out for a, you know,
[5:43] deciding that you've heard a podcast with I had another
[5:48] classic. I've heard a podcast with David
[5:49] Goggins on and he inspired me. This guy did an ultra marathon
[5:52] and finished with both his feet broken.
[5:54] So I decided I was going to try and go out and run 20 miles
[5:57] today. And after 10 miles I had to
[6:00] phone someone and get a lift home and I was then unable to
[6:02] walk for the next three weeks. Please avoid things like that.
[6:06] Be sensible about this. It's much much harder to be
[6:10] disciplined in the long term and much more rewarding to be
[6:14] disciplined in the long term then it is to decide you're
[6:17] going to go out and do something like 1 great big hero workout
[6:21] that's going to leave you actually in a worse position
[6:23] than where you started. Second question, how do I know
[6:27] if I'm training too hard or not hard enough?
[6:30] That's a really great classic question.
[6:32] So with each of the sports, we're going to need to use
[6:35] metrics like heart rate, like power, like pace, like perceived
[6:39] effort to gauge intensity. And you need to get a good
[6:43] measure of what the correct intensity is for each of those
[6:46] sports so that you don't end up so fatigued you can't train the
[6:51] next day. Fatigue is normal after
[6:53] training, but constant exhaustion or getting to the
[6:56] point where you can't sleep properly, that's signalling
[6:59] overtraining. So it's a really great rule of
[7:02] thumb for athletes who are starting out, unless you're
[7:05] specifically being coached otherwise.
[7:08] A great way to think of this is that for 70.3 and Iron Man, the
[7:12] Zone 2 training is going to be your friend initially.
[7:15] And if you can do something that feels easy to steady in terms of
[7:20] perceived effort, that's really, really great place to start.
[7:24] Now, if you're being coached, athletes who come to us, we can
[7:27] give specific fitness tests where we can then say
[7:31] afterwards, ride this percentage of your FTP on the bike, Run at
[7:36] this percentage of your threshold, Harp your threshold
[7:40] run pace on the run. Swim at this percentage or this
[7:44] exact pace in the swim relative to your critical swim speed.
[7:47] But in the early days, especially if you're being self
[7:50] trained, they're much, much more difficult to do.
[7:52] So your guiding principle here is going to be that you need to
[7:55] make sure you're not training too hard rather than worrying
[7:59] that you're training too easily. Question 3.
[8:03] What's the best way for me to improve my bike performance for
[8:07] long distance racing? OK.
[8:09] So there's two things to consider here.
[8:11] The the two competing aspects of fitness, if you like, are your
[8:17] endurance, which is your ability to ride your bike for the
[8:19] duration and the distance that this event is going to demand.
[8:24] And the size of your engine. Your ability to produce bike
[8:27] power at the top end, which is is kind of going to determine
[8:31] how fast it's reasonable for you to ride that distance and still
[8:36] be in the shape to be able to recover for the next training
[8:39] session or on race day in order to get yourself to the point
[8:43] where you can still run successfully off the bike.
[8:46] So for endurance sessions, the long steady session is going to
[8:51] be the thing that helps you gradually increase the distance
[8:56] that you can ride safely. To improve engine size, we're
[9:00] going to be looking at including intervals of harder work at,
[9:05] let's say for for specifically, we talked about Iron Man
[9:08] distance training here. If we're in the season and we
[9:10] want to improve our engine size, then sweet spot intervals are
[9:14] going to be absolutely perfect because there's enough intensity
[9:17] in there that's going to help increase your engine size, but
[9:20] there's not enough that you're going to get lasting fatigue
[9:22] that rolls over into the next day and ends up affecting your
[9:26] ability to do the other training as well.
[9:28] I think the key principle here is that some interval training
[9:31] is going to be necessary, but use it sparingly.
[9:35] So you're effectively building your engine size but not
[9:38] impacting your ability to train again the next day.
[9:41] Again, athletes were coached by us.
[9:43] They'll get specific training sessions that'll say train at X
[9:47] percent of your functional threshold power for this long.
[9:50] With this recovery. Obviously it's much more
[9:52] difficult to give general advice to the general listening public,
[9:55] but that's the kind of session that you want to be including
[9:58] about once a week when you're in the in season training block.
[10:03] Question 4. How often should I do brick
[10:05] sessions and how long should the run be?
[10:08] OK, this is a great session. So to put your mind at rest,
[10:13] typically you don't want to be thinking about including brick
[10:16] runs where you run straight off the bike.
[10:18] You don't want to be thinking about including those until 6 to
[10:22] 8 weeks out from your goal race day.
[10:25] You didn't get any time to build up to the point where you can
[10:28] effectively run off the bike without risk of illness and
[10:31] injury. So I'd say one of those per
[10:33] week, only at the point where you're ready for it.
[10:36] For most of our athletes, that's between 6:00 and 8:00 weeks out
[10:39] from race day. Initially, we'll start with them
[10:42] being really short. They'll start being 15 minutes
[10:44] long. We'll build some of them for
[10:47] some athletes through to the 45 minute run off the bike, but
[10:52] probably no longer than that. And the efforts are always going
[10:57] to be at or easier than goal race pace.
[11:01] So for Iron Man athletes, obviously goal race pace isn't
[11:04] that fast. For 70.3 athletes, we're going
[11:07] to be getting them to back the pace off on those initial few
[11:10] brick runs because we don't want you running at goal 70.3 race
[11:15] race day run pace off the bike in training early on.
[11:19] The key to these is as you run off the bike and as you start to
[11:23] run off the bike, try to get the run started as quickly as
[11:27] possible after finishing your ride.
[11:30] So that usually involves having the kit prepared beforehand so
[11:32] it's ready to go running shoes by the front door and accept
[11:37] your legs are going to feel very strange, funny and fatigued when
[11:40] you first start running. That usually passes in between
[11:45] three to 10 minutes into your run.
[11:48] Usually it starts off and you can't believe you're ever going
[11:51] to be running normally again. And within that three to
[11:54] certainly within 10 minute phase, you're back running again
[11:58] for your first brick runs. At the point where you're
[12:00] starting to feel like you're feeling normal again, that's the
[12:04] appropriate time to stop. All we're doing is we're running
[12:07] to remind ourselves our legs will feel normal again at some
[12:10] point and that when they do, we'll be able to run normally
[12:13] again. And we'll gradually increase the
[12:15] length of these runs off the bike.
[12:17] Eventually we'll get to the point, like I said, where we'll
[12:19] have a 45 minute run off a long ride and we'll then in some
[12:23] instances with our with our athletes, have them back that up
[12:26] the next day early in the morning with another run.
[12:30] So they've ended up doing a run straight off the bike and then
[12:33] the next morning they do another long run as well.
[12:37] But I will never get my athletes to do a really long run off the
[12:40] bike just because I think the kind of fatigue that you're
[12:43] preparing for is so hard to replicate in training and it's
[12:48] so difficult to recover from. You'll do a race or two in the
[12:51] lead up to your Iron Man or 70.3 anyway and those are the
[12:55] specific times to be loading yourself up with those kind of
[12:58] fatigue where you can have a proper recovery from it
[13:01] afterwards. Question 5.
[13:04] What's the most effective way to practise race, nutrition and
[13:07] training? So this this is a great time for
[13:11] us to talk about the reality of Iron Man and 70.3.
[13:15] It's a fuel limited sport as much as as a fitness limited
[13:19] sport. Your success on race day,
[13:21] especially at Iron Man, is going to be largely down to how well
[13:25] your body can access the energy it needs as much as by how fit
[13:30] you are. You are going to have to have
[13:33] supplementary carbohydrate as part of this or you're going to
[13:36] have to slow down. It's as simple as that on a
[13:38] really, really long race like an Iron Man.
[13:41] So we're going to make sure we practise fuelling on our long
[13:45] rides and our long runs in terms of both fluid carbohydrate and
[13:49] electrolyte balance. If we get used to doing this on
[13:52] our long sessions in training, it'll help us avoid stomach
[13:55] issues on race day. Initially, let's aim for between
[14:00] 60 to 90 grammes of carbohydrate per hour on the bike, and
[14:03] between 30 to 60 grammes of carbohydrate per hour on the
[14:07] run. A really good rough rule of
[14:09] thumb here is 1 gramme, 1 gramme of carbohydrate per kilo of body
[14:14] weight, or 60 grammes per hour on the bike.
[14:19] Whichever of those is lower, start at that and then increase
[14:24] it by 5 grammes an hour. And then you'll gradually across
[14:27] time, find that's trainable. You'll be able to train that you
[14:31] can take more in across time. And you'll also then avoid the
[14:36] risk of, you know, I've heard stories where people said I read
[14:39] about this elite marathon runner taking in 110 grammes per hour.
[14:42] So I tried to take in 110 grammes per hour and after 2 1/2
[14:46] hours on the bike, had to run into a local pub and I had
[14:49] explosive diarrhoea. Those stories were unfortunate,
[14:53] but they're very, very real. If you try and cram in a massive
[14:56] amount of carbohydrate and you're not ready for it and
[14:58] trained for it, your body simply won't digest it and it will try
[15:02] and get it out of your system that way.
[15:04] So build up towards it gradually.
[15:06] It's easier to absorb carbs on the bike, which is why we say 60
[15:10] to 90 on the bike and 30 to 60 on the run.
[15:14] It's a lot easier to absorb the carbs on the bike than it is on
[15:17] the run. But again, both are trainable.
[15:20] I'd advise you to be making that five grammes per hour per
[15:24] increase per week and see how you get on in training.
[15:28] And then come race day, you can back that off a little bit away
[15:31] from what your biggest numbers were in training because usually
[15:35] the intensity is a bit higher on race day.
[15:37] Stress and excitement are a bit higher on race day.
[15:41] This is a great point to give a shout out to our sponsors
[15:43] Precision Fuel and Hydration. All of this stuff can appear
[15:46] really complex, so they've got a free fuel and hydration planning
[15:50] tool on the website where you can receive a personalised
[15:52] strategy for your next race. The plan will help you
[15:56] understand your own carbohydrate, electrolytes and
[15:59] fluid needs and essentially at the end of it you get a print
[16:02] out that tells you how much you're using right now, what's
[16:05] appropriate for you right now and a way you can then plan to
[16:08] try and train your body and increase this slightly across
[16:11] your training in a systematic way so you can absorb more
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[16:35] present their products and I think the fact that gels and the
[16:38] tubes have got the grammes of carbs printed on them makes
[16:42] planning really easy. The electrolyte tablets and
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[16:48] on, so it makes the planning really easy.
[16:50] They've got a way to help you plan how much fluid intake
[16:53] you're going to take in. So again, it makes the planning
[16:55] really easy. So get over there to
[16:56] precisionfuelandhydration.com and use the free fuel and
[17:00] hydration planning tool. Question 6.
[17:03] How can I improve my swim if I don't have access to open water
[17:07] yet? So this is a really great
[17:09] question for athletes who are racing early season.
[17:12] And often, you know, the water's just too cold to swim in early
[17:16] season. But what we can do is work on
[17:18] the skills that you're going to need in open water.
[17:20] You can work on those in the pool.
[17:21] So you can work on sighting when you're swimming in a pool.
[17:25] Obviously you don't need to for the purposes of pool swimming,
[17:29] but when you're swimming in open water, you're going to be
[17:32] looking up to sight probably every three to five breaths.
[17:38] So I think it's a really great idea to practise sighting on the
[17:42] end of the pool, lifting your head to sight halfway down the
[17:46] length each time. It really gets you used to the
[17:49] idea that it is. It is different to lift your
[17:53] head up to see where you're going, whether you lift your
[17:56] entire head up, whether you do the crocodile eyes practise,
[18:00] it's really good to mimic that. Another thing that you can do is
[18:04] thinking about the other skills of open water swimming, such as
[18:10] drafting people. That's totally practicable in a
[18:13] pool. Now you're going to have to have
[18:15] very clearly defined how and who you're doing this with.
[18:18] But practising swimming directly on somebody else's feet is
[18:22] really good practise in the pool as much as anything for learning
[18:26] how the water feels different when you're swimming right
[18:29] behind somebody. Learning how long that drafting
[18:32] distance is behind somebody, where you effectively get a bit
[18:36] of a toe effects when behind the athletes and how far behind the
[18:41] athlete you drop back before that towing effect disappears
[18:46] completely. Typically what happens here is
[18:49] as as the athlete in front gets to the end of the lane, does a
[18:52] flip turn and pushes off, that's usually a point where if you're
[18:56] struggling to keep up, you'll have to make a bit more of an
[18:59] effort to get back into the draught of the person.
[19:01] So you learn a lot about how the water feels and about judging
[19:05] how quickly you're swimming in the water and learning to judge
[19:08] whether you're still in the draught of the swimming in front
[19:10] of you. And also it's really good for
[19:12] that idea of practising sighting.
[19:14] You will find yourself looking up more naturally and trying to
[19:17] focus on the feet of the swimming in front of you, which
[19:19] can change your body position and get you used to the fact you
[19:22] have to swim with a different body position.
[19:26] Next question, should I include strength training as part of my
[19:30] Iron Man or 70.3 training plan? So my answer here is, is
[19:34] absolutely yes, but keep it simple and focus on what's
[19:38] important to your Iron Man and your 70.3.
[19:41] So let's focus on core strength, let's focus on mobility, and
[19:45] let's function, let's focus on functional strength.
[19:48] Heavy lifting isn't necessary for Iron Man and for 70.3
[19:52] success. I understand there are people
[19:54] who are going to want to do heavy lifting as part of their
[19:58] training because you know that they like the way that it has an
[20:01] effect on the body composition. I think heavy lifting is
[20:04] necessary for our older athletes at 50 plus at certain times of
[20:09] the year. But let's remember the heavy
[20:13] lifting is going to make you very sore and that's going to
[20:16] directly be at odds with the kind of training you need to be
[20:19] doing for swimming, biking and running.
[20:21] So I'm a much bigger fan of the people who.
[20:24] For whom it's appropriate or want to do the heavy lifting, do
[20:28] that in the out season. Once you get into the triathlon
[20:31] season itself, certainly in this sort of 16 weeks to race day
[20:35] phase, really dial that down. So it just becomes maintenance
[20:39] training, switch over to body wake and resistance work, and
[20:42] again, a focus on core mobility activation, activation
[20:46] activities, things that are going to help prevent injury.
[20:50] Those are much, much more important and more specific to
[20:53] training during that block leading up to your eye -70.3
[20:57] than doing heavy lifting in the gym.
[21:01] Next question, how do I avoid injury while still increasing my
[21:06] run mileage? OK, so a lot of you will have
[21:09] heard the 10% rule. Don't increase the distance or
[21:13] duration. If you run by more than 10% each
[21:15] week. I think you can actually be a
[21:18] little bit more aggressive is the wrong word, but you can be a
[21:21] bit more lenient than this. I think 20% is, is possibly a
[21:24] little bit more useful. So the rule for my users with
[21:29] long runs don't do more than a 15 minute increase from week to
[21:34] week and with long rides don't do more than a 30 minute
[21:37] increase from week to week. That especially holds true if
[21:40] this is your first 70.3 or Iron Man.
[21:42] So I think if you you're currently at say a 45 minute
[21:45] long run, you'll be fine to go up to 60 minutes and then 75
[21:50] minutes and then 90 minutes. But I'd advise taking a step
[21:53] back every 4th week. So going back to 45 minutes for
[21:56] you recovery week. And then you can go back to
[21:58] where you were before and add on another 15 minutes.
[22:01] And then that way you can see that really only takes a sort of
[22:05] an 8 week block to go from in the region of a 45 minute long
[22:09] run to in the region of a 2 hour long run in a safe and
[22:12] progressive way. And as long as everything feels
[22:15] OK from week to week, then that's completely fine.
[22:19] It's, it's even a bit more relaxed on the bike.
[22:21] I think my rule of thumb here is 30 minutes a week.
[22:23] But in some instances we've seen athletes who have have done more
[22:26] than that and had up to an hour's extra on the bike.
[22:29] As long as you're not pushing too hard, there's much less
[22:32] injury and niggle risk while that's going on.
[22:37] So that's totally fine. I think the next key to avoiding
[22:42] injury is keep your easy runs really, really easy.
[22:46] Make sure you know exactly what pace you're meant to be running
[22:49] at. Again, with our athletes that we
[22:50] coach, they'll have a very specific E pace band.
[22:53] You know, do you run between this pace and this pace between
[22:57] 5:30 and 6:00 minutes per kilometre, for example.
[23:01] And the real key here is to avoid the excessive high
[23:04] intensity interval run sessions. People who've come from a
[23:08] running background are used to go into a run club running
[23:10] session and doing track reps or high intensity intervals or or
[23:15] hill runs. You've got to be extremely
[23:17] careful trying to build those ends.
[23:20] Any kind of meaningful effect for 70.3 and Iron Man, but
[23:25] everyone except our very, very top end age groups who are
[23:29] competing for the win. I really believe that the vast
[23:32] majority of athletes are better off cutting those out because
[23:35] the risk massively outweighs the reward.
[23:39] And the other thing you can do here is strengthen key areas
[23:41] like your core, your hips, your glutes to make sure that your
[23:46] body is in great shape to support your running mechanics.
[23:49] And again, often a combination of keeping on top of the decor
[23:53] and running mechanics, strength and conditioning work and just
[23:57] avoiding excessive high intensity work that's going to
[24:00] get rid of 90% of the problems for most triathletes.
[24:05] Next question here, what's the best pacing strategy for my
[24:08] first Iron Man or 70.3? OK, so I think the, the key
[24:13] thing that you don't depend on all of this is you want to
[24:16] finish the event feeling like you can run well in the back
[24:19] half of the run. So last half marathon in the
[24:22] Iron Man, last 10K of the 70.3, you want to feel like you can
[24:27] run well. And so everything should be
[24:29] built around that idea. So we don't need to get into the
[24:33] the the tiny details of percentages of FTP and things
[24:37] like that. If you take the example of a
[24:38] marathon, you're trying to run well in the back half of a
[24:42] marathon that you've ridden a bike for 180 kilometres and swam
[24:47] for 2.4 miles before that. So what strategy makes sense for
[24:52] us to approach that bike ride and for us to approach that
[24:55] swim? Well, it's obvious.
[24:57] I would hope that the approach is we need to be swimming really
[25:00] easy or steady and we need to be biking really steadily at a
[25:05] controlled effort. So we can then be really
[25:08] controlled in the first half of our run.
[25:10] So we're in great shape to run well in the back half of the
[25:13] marathon. If you do that, you have a great
[25:16] second-half of you run, no matter what the time on the
[25:19] clock shows, your experience is going to be that your getting
[25:24] faster and stronger at the back end as everybody else is falling
[25:27] apart and you'll have a really great positive experience.
[25:31] So I think that that's the guiding principles for
[25:35] everybody. It should be a lot less about
[25:37] what time can I expect to swim and bike and a lot more about
[25:42] how do I want to feel at the back end of the run and what can
[25:46] I do to best set that up. OK, and final question, how
[25:51] should I structure my final month of training before race
[25:54] day? So I'd advise all our athletes
[25:56] here, we want you to be doing your your two biggest weeks of
[26:01] higher volume training so that two weeks out before race day,
[26:07] all the hard long work is done. We're going to have two weeks of
[26:11] taper. So week four and week 3 before
[26:15] the race are going to be your two biggest weeks of training.
[26:18] And Week 2 and week one we're going to cut the intensity right
[26:21] back down. We're going to cut, sorry, we're
[26:22] going to cut the duration right down and we're going to make
[26:26] sure your body's fully recovered.
[26:28] But the key to this is we have to confidently build to the
[26:31] point where we can do those two really big weeks of training,
[26:35] weeks 4 and week 3 away from race day.
[26:38] Now a really common question is what am I going to do with
[26:41] myself in the last two weeks if I'm not going out training?
[26:44] I've got all these extra rest days and recovery days.
[26:47] I'm only doing sessions that are 30 minutes in length.
[26:50] What am I going to do with all this extra time?
[26:52] So it's a great time to practise mentally rehearsing how race day
[26:55] is going to go, planning out your nutrition strategy,
[26:59] practising the race day routines, thinking about how
[27:02] you're going to get through both transitions and even.
[27:05] I'd advise you spending some time practising the bike
[27:09] maintenance stuff that might come up on race day and possibly
[27:12] derail your race. So if you're not sure about
[27:14] changing punctures, great time to learn.
[27:17] Great time to practise while sitting on the sofa watching TV.
[27:21] If you don't know the basics of bike mechanics, great time to
[27:25] learn how to put a chain back on, or how to fix a broken
[27:28] chain, for example. Things that can just ruin your
[27:30] race. Really simple to learn how to
[27:32] do. It can be a great use of time as
[27:36] you're approaching that that lead up to race day itself.
[27:41] So I really hope that these tips and questions today will helpful
[27:44] for you. If anything's come up that
[27:45] you're not clear on and you want more advice, and please feel
[27:48] free to e-mail us over at help@oxygenaddict.com.
[27:53] Just to wrap up today's episode, here are some discount codes and
[27:56] deals for you over at precisionfuelandhydration.com.
[27:59] You can use the code Oxygen Fuel 25 for 15% off your first order.
[28:04] And if you think that you would benefit from triathlon coaching
[28:07] a lead up to your event, I'd love to talk to you.
[28:09] I think we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching
[28:12] programme that's aimed specifically at people like you,
[28:14] busy age groupers with jobs and families.
[28:17] If you're looking for coaching. So please get in touch.
[28:20] We've currently got a special offer on of a season long
[28:23] membership at a massive saving versus our our usual monthly
[28:27] coaching price. In fact, it's even better then
[28:31] the value offered by our annual coaching package is the best
[28:34] offer we've ever had. So if you've ever been
[28:36] considering coaching, there isn't a better time to think
[28:39] about it than right now. If you're interested, there's a
[28:41] link in the show notes to book a membership call and I'd love to
[28:44] have a chat with you. So remember, there's links in
[28:46] the show notes. You don't have to remember them.
[28:48] Till next week. Have a great safe training and
[28:51] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[28:54] been listening to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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