Cycling In The Right Training Zones

TriDot Podcast Episode 333      

Cycling In The Right Training Zones

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Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. Today we are talking about how to stay in the correct training zones when we are doing our bike sessions, specifically. And I've got two excellent coaches here to help us tackle this topic. I've got Coach Kurt Madden and Coach Jason Verbracken, both from San Diego, California, and both excellent cyclists with a lot of time on their bikes. And they're going to help us determine when we go for a training session on our bike -- whether we're inside, on the trainer, or outside -- how can we stay in the right zones and get the most out of our workout? I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, we're going to start off with our warm-up question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with our cool down, where our coaches will answer a question from our audience. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: This is the TriDot Podcast, the triathlon show that brings you world class coaching with every conversation. Let's get started with today's warm-up.

Andrew Harley: Alright, guys, we're going to get cracking today with our warm-up question. I'm excited to see what you guys have to say on this one. And what I want to know, Coach Kurt, Coach Verbie, is: when you were a kid -- let's go back a little bit in the years -- who was the first professional athlete that you remember being like, “This is my guy or gal. This is my favorite professional athlete. I'm obsessed with them. I'm following their career.” Maybe not your favorite now or your favorite total, but your very first ‘athlete crush’, so to speak. Coach Kurt, what is this for you?

Kurt Madden: For some of our listeners, they might not remember way, way, way, way back, a long time ago, I actually was a kid at some point in my life. Growing up, I was that kid that was always at the boys club. We'd play every type of game you can imagine, but football was kind of the big thing where I grew up. My dad would take me to see -- back in the day, they were called the San Diego Chargers -- in a place that Ruby might remember, Balboa Stadium. As a kid, I'd go there every Sunday, and I'd have my popcorn and all my stuff, and boy, my eyes got real big. But there was one person that stood head and shoulders above everyone, and his name was Lance Alworth. His nickname was ‘AKA Bambi’. Why was he called Bambi? Because he could literally run like a deer. He was number 19, and he'd go really far in the whiteout. Any ball that was even close to him – one-handed. But his running style was just like a deer. And he had this number 19, he wore these little black things underneath his eyes, wear this nice little mouthpiece. And the more I watched this guy -- I don't know if you guys can remember -- but as a young kid, you would come home, and, “Wait a minute, I want to be like Bambi.” I don't run as fast as Bambi, and I can't have those hands, but we just play pickup football. I put a little jersey on; I'd get a felt pin and put number 19. The more I saw this guy, I wanted to emulate him, but what I didn't have was his speed. At the same time -- it was such an epiphany -- I was at the San Diego International Airport where Ruby and I visit frequently, and all of a sudden, here comes the man, Lance Alworth. His hands were like meat hooks. He said, “Hi, what's your name?” And I said, “Buh, buh, buh, buh, my name is Kurt. Hi.” And he shook my hand. I never wanted to wash that hand again. Just -- Lance Alworth touched this baby. And he went on to be a very successful businessman. But back in the day, inner city Lance Alworth, Bambi -- he was my man.

Andrew Harley: Now, that's an amazing story. This answer for me is Jeff Gordon. I don't really follow NASCAR anymore, but when I was a kid, NASCAR was my obsession. I could tell you every stat and everything about any driver, and their crew chief, and all that jazz. And I was a big Jeff Gordon fan. To this day -- a little show and tell -- I've got a Jeff Gordon Funko Pop on my desk. I have my sporting heroes: I have Jeff Gordon on my desk, I have Dan Marino on my desk, I have Roger Federer in my desk -- all in Funko Pop form. Actually, while I'm doing show and tell -- for anybody watching us on Spotify or YouTube -- I'm going to grab this. This is not a joke, guys. This picture is in our office because my wife finds it hilarious. Here is me with Jeff Gordon as a, I don't know, I'm probably five here? Four or five, yeah? That's me with the guy. My dad, way back then, worked for an auto auction that was a big NASCAR sponsor. So we got tickets to a lot of the races and got to go a lot of the pre-race events and all that jazz. So I met him a number of times as a kid, and that was my guy. I was obsessed with him. Still root for him in his post-racing career, but that was my very first professional athlete that I was obsessed with. Coach Verbie, what's this answer for you?

Jason Verbracken: I'm kind of like Kurt, so where I grew up -- I grew up in Wisconsin -- so I could play- I was skating before they said I could walk. I was on the ice, playing. So my professional hero, from day one, was Wayne Gretzky.

Andrew Harley: I thought that might be coming. Yeah.

Jason Verbracken: Yep, yep. ‘The Great One’. Yeah, always him from when he was on the Rangers till when he went to the Kings. And we were close enough that we could go watch back then -- the Minnesota North Stars, for the older generation. They weren't originally in Dallas. So yeah, I was lucky enough to actually see him play. The Kings played the North Stars; I was there. After the game, got to actually meet him, get an autograph. So yeah, it was always -- same thing -- after seeing him, it would be, “Let's go play hockey. I want to be number 99, and let's get on the ice.” And yeah, I didn't have the speed or skill as him but tried all the time to be just like ‘the Great One’.

Andrew Harley: Yep, great answer here. I love hockey as well, and follow, these days, the Dallas Stars very closely. But yeah, all good answers. I'm curious to hear what our audience has to say on this. So if you're watching us on YouTube or Spotify, you can comment -- in the comment section right below this video -- with your answer to this question. If you are on the TriDot community hub, or if you follow us on the socials, we're going to post this question in those places as well. Because I want to know: who was the very first athlete that you had as your favorite – “This is my guy,” “This is my gal.” Let us know.

Announcer: Let’s go.

Andrew Harley: On to today's main set, getting into some bike training. Goodness. We're triathletes because we like riding our bikes -- at least I hope you do. I certainly do. I know Kurt and Verbie both do. And guys, just to start us with why this conversation is important, I want to hear from the both of you, as a coach, on: when we do a training session, why is it important for us to be intentional with our training zones and make sure we're getting this right in the first place? Coach Kurt?

Kurt Madden: Andrew, that is a great question, and I think we always have to go back to the ‘why’. What is the purpose? What is the main objective of the workout? When you think about it, when you look at the various zones, it really comes down to a few words: it's really optimizing your performance. And I think in doing that, the beauty of having a very sophisticated system like TriDot, it takes the guesswork out for the athlete, or maybe another coach using our platform. Because when you start to look at it, you know that there's so many metrics that are going to optimize your performance -- at the same time, prevent injury. And I think each zone has a specific ‘golden objective’. But when you really start from a listener standpoint and looking at your zones, I believe -- and I'll be curious to see what Verbie says -- I believe the number one thing that you've got to go to, your North Star, is your threshold history. No matter how good, no matter how bad, it is imperative to set that tone. Do those on a regular basis. That goes right into the other metrics. Think about your training stress profile -- everything that you have in the system that is going to impact that. Think of your weekly training stress. How much of that normalized training stress are you actually putting on your body? If your threshold history isn't dialed in, it's really going to be tough. And then also look at your fitness, your stress, and your readiness. In other words, that's optimizing and seeing your readiness. It's seeing your fitness. It's seeing the residual stress on your body. When everything is done correctly, that goes into RaceX. And on RaceX, it's going to be much more accurate if you go back and utilize all those metrics. So that's the ‘short’ answer.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, right. Yeah, that's the short, just hitting the surface of it all. You could give a 60-minute podcast on a lot of those terms you just mentioned. But I just think to my own experience as an athlete, before -- I think I spent the first three or four years in my triathlon journey not using TriDot, just kind of training myself. I would get off work, and I would go for a bike, or I'd head to the pool, or I'd go for a run -- whatever I felt like doing that day. I was trying to get faster, and I was trying to train with some sort of intentionality -- of mixing up my paces, and mixing up how hard I was going, and how long I was going -- but on my own, I was just getting a little bit better over time. And when I started training with TriDot and, “Okay, here's my Zones. Here's what I'm supposed to do today.” My improvement just began to skyrocket, and how much faster I was getting, how much more comfortable I was getting in longer sessions, and all that. It's because the training zones are there for a reason; the way that they are, they’re for a reason. Coach Verbie, anything to add here on what you tell your athletes when it comes to, “Hey, stay in your zones. It's important.” Why is it important?

Jason Verbracken: One of the big things, Kurt nailed it, but we're training three different disciplines.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, so true.

Jason Verbracken: We're not just one where, “Oh, we get a rest day here and a rest day there.” If you're going outside your zones and, “Every workout, I'm going to train hard.” Well, alright. You train hard on the bike, which then can affect your run, which then can affect your swim. So it's just a whole -- it's a slippery slope. If you're not staying in the zone, you could over-working, which could cause more stress to your body, which you're not recovering for the next workout. It's hurting the next workout. And that could lead into an injury. And all that just starts getting in your head; “Why aren't I getting faster?” So really, just sitting back saying, “Hey, I'm going to trust what TriDot tells me. I'm giving it all the information.” It's got tens of thousands, probably millions now, of data points to read. It knows where you should be training for your next race to make you the best athlete possible, without getting injured or without burning yourself out.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, very well said. Our longtime listeners have probably heard me ask a variation of that question to so many coaches. But it's so important to know -- and we all do it, right? You get in the middle of a training session, you're feeling good, you want to push the pace a little harder than TriDot's telling you, or you want to stay in a certain zone a little longer because of how you're feeling -- and it's like, “No, no, no, no, let me stay in this zone the correct amount of time at the correct pace, because TriDot knows.” I think it's good for us to hear this reminder. So thanks for tackling that question to establish a baseline of why this is important; why staying in the right zone on our work is so important. And when we get that workout -- we pull up TriDot, we see what our bike session is for the day -- our bike sessions are either going to be prescribed by heart rate -- so, stay in these zones between this heart rate and this heart rate -- or it's going to be by power -- stay between this wattage and this wattage for ‘x’ amount of time. How can we know, before we start a workout, whether today's workout is a heart rate-based workout or a wattage-based workout? Coach Jason?

Jason Verbracken: TriDot makes it very simple for you. There is a little box next to where it says the workout, and there's a heart for staying in heart rate, or there is a lightning bolt, power. It's very simple. It shows it for you, so you don't have to guess. It's right there, plain as day.

Andrew Harley: Yep. Love that. Coach Kurt, anything to add?

Kurt Madden: That's really, really important. I think the other thing too, that -- many times I see this with athletes and I'm guilty of it too -- that we get a little bit rushed, and all we know is, “Today I have to bike.” We don't check the finer details. We're 40 minutes into it, and we're like, “Wait a minute, something's not right.” All of a sudden, you stop and say, “I should have fastened my seatbelt before I took off on this ride.” Meaning, “Let me take a look at the app. Maybe what I saw yesterday is not what I saw today. Maybe it's changed. Let me look at the app, let me look at the finer details. What time of the day is it? And also, is it indoors or outdoors?” See, those are little things, where setting that table is really going to refine everything because it will fluctuate, it will vary. And I think all of us -- we know, probably, if you're indoors all the time, it's not going to change too much. You still need to do that setting. But I know in the summertime -- Andrew, especially where you live; where Verbie and I live, especially wherever Verbie is -- it gets really, really warm. And if you don't do that, it's really going to not be quite as accurate.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, and that's a great point, Coach Kurt. You can -- the day before, the morning of -- you can go look at, “Okay, what are my prescribed zones for this? Okay, it's this, it's this, it’s this.” And then maybe you do your workout a few hours after you intend, or maybe you take it outside when you’d normally do that session inside. You need to tell TriDot: what time am I doing this workout? Where am I doing this workout? Because it will adjust your zones based on the temperature, the environment, that you're training in. Guys, is that something you have your athletes check before every workout, or is it just if you're going to be training at a time or in a location that's unusual, you need to toggle those settings?

Kurt Madden: Jason, do you want to go first?

Jason Verbracken: Go ahead.

Kurt Madden: Yeah, I make it, I won't say mandatory, but the expectation is you definitely will do that. Because again, when you have that adherence -- and that goes into TrainX score for the session, it goes into the TrainX score for the week. The goal that we always set: be close to 80. 70 I would take, but I need to have you close to 80. Especially if it's a recovery ride, you should be able to be almost at 100 all the time. The other thing I was thinking of -- and I know that Verbie and I are both guilty of this, so it's easy to talk about ourselves -- if Verbie goes out for a six-hour bike ride, or I go out for a four-hour bike ride, the temperature at 7am is much different than the temperature at noon.

Andrew Harley: Great point.

Kurt Madden: It can go up 20 degrees. And I have some people like, “I should have got a unicorn on that workout.” Well, hold on, don't beat yourself up. We can look at other metrics, but it's calculating all the time. So your heart rate is definitely going to fluctuate as you look at that spread of, say, four to six hours.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, great point. Now I know a lot of folks are going to be curious on this. The numbers we see -- I had some guys that I would train with here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and we were all on TriDot -- and they were a little older than I was. They were very fit, and we were similar ability in terms of cycling -- but if we were riding together on a heart rate ride, my Zone 2 cap in heart rate is 152-153-154 beats per minute, and these guys, on a heart rate day, can't go above 120ish, 130ish. Just difference in age. So I know it depends on the metric, it depends on the biology of the person -- we could spend an hour on this -- but in your quickest, most efficient possible explanation, what is TriDot doing behind the scenes for each athlete to generate the zones that we see for any given day? Coach Verbie, you want to tackle this one? Sound fun?

Jason Verbracken: Sure, yeah. Well, TriDot -- it's looked at hundreds of thousands of people's data. They're looking at -- depending on how we’re do it -- we have the 20-minute power test, and if you don't have the power, there's a 15-mile bike ride, outside, where we're giving it our all out. We are trying to give it as much information as possible. So hopefully, most people, if you have power and heart rate, you're giving it that. It's taking, again, the climate we were just talking about -- if it was 100 degrees outside when you did it, or you're indoors where it's controlled -- it's looking at all that, and it has all the information and the data from hundreds of thousands of people, and is figuring out our zones by our age, by everything we gave it, and giving us our correct zones to be training in for the heart rate and the power.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, very, very good. I remember when I first started with TriDot -- because it needs to know what your functional power is on the swim, bike, and run, and we do that through --On the bike, you were saying, the 20-minute power test, the 15-mile test. For a run, it's a 5k or 10k. In the pool, it's 200-meter, 400-meter. You need to give TriDot your ability in the three sports, and a lot of people, when they're first onboarding, they might not have a recent 5k time to put in. They might not have a recent 20-minute power test to put in or a recent swim session. And I knew some of those numbers, I didn't know all those numbers. So I think some -- not ‘I think’, I know a lot of people, myself included, what you think is not the right answer. And so for me in particular, I knew what my numbers were for the bike and the run, but for the swim, I just kind of guesstimated based off of my sprint triathlon race results at what my 200 and 400 should be. And it was definitely faster than what I could actually swim at. 200 and 400. And so I start attempting my first couple TriDot swim workouts, and I'm like, “Oh my God, I can't. This is way too fast. What is it thinking?” And then I finally did that 200 and 400 tests, updated those numbers, and, “Oh my goodness, what a breath of fresh air. This is so much better.” So, yeah, very, very good Verbie pointed that out to us. Coach Kurt, anything to add about what TriDot's doing to give you that zone that you see on the screen.

Kurt Madden: In line with what Verbie said, I think maybe there's two different scenarios as I onboard a new athlete, or if someone's new, one of our listeners new to TriDot. What I tell them initially is that: don't panic. Your zones might be a little bit off because you're establishing that baseline. But the beauty of staying with TriDot is -- I think we're learning with AI in general, is a lot of people, even at my house, there's some guy named Claude. He's walking around all the time and just listening as my wife is talking -- I'm not sure if she's talking to Claude, or me, or the dog -- but she's talking, so Claude gets to know her. The beauty of TriDot -- it’s amazing how -- it's just an epiphany, the more you get the data in -- I thoroughly enjoy, and I think Verbie too, is that if I've had an athlete for six or seven years, I've got so much data on that athlete and it's very, very accurate. So I don't want people to panic in the beginning if the zones aren't right. But I would say -- if you have a coach you can work with your coach. If you're just coaching yourself, go back and do the assessments again to make sure they're right. And there's two different -- we talked about this in our Mastermind session yesterday -- if an athlete, I'll give Verbie’s example, if an athlete does a 15-mile time trial in Texas in August, and they have that data they're using for a threshold history, and now it is Tuesday of this week in Texas in the basement and it is 55 degrees, those zones are definitely not going to be accurate when you look at heart rate and you look at power. So just making sure that you do that, I think is really, really, really key. And in doing that, you're going to be fresh. I think a lot of people, they make the assessment a really big deal. It's like, no, no, no, you're not going to the World Championship. It's a formative assessment. You've got nothing to lose. So the mental game with assessments, that's a whole different podcast right there.

Andrew Harley: No, it certainly is.

Kurt Madden: You got to back down, and Verbie's a good example. He just puts the hammer down and he just goes. Someone like him that leads by example, the athletes that he works with, they have it real easy. So again, everyone bite down hard on that mouthpiece. Get into those assessments on a regular basis.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, and I've seen, Kurt, athletes post sometimes their race results and they might have come in -- when an athlete is a little slower than their predicted RaceX times, that's normal. Your predicted RaceX times are like, “Hey, this is probably the best you can do with your fitness.” And so any pacing errors you make, any nutrition errors you make, just if you're feeling a little off -- it's normal for athletes to come in a little slower than their predicted times. But I'll see athletes post that they beat their RaceX predicted times. And in my head I'm like, that probably means you're not testing as hard as you could be on your assessment day, because if you were, you wouldn't have beaten it. But that's a different, like you said, a different podcast for a different day. I do want to clarify this, Kurt, for anybody listening who might be concerned -- if you don't know who Claude is, Claude is not a strange man walking around Kurt and Kelly Madden's house. Claude is an AI assistant through an application on the Internet. So let's just clarify that for people who haven't heard of Claude. Question four on our run sheet today, I'm curious to know this one. This is going to depend somewhat based on people's budgets and what gadgets they can buy, or cannot buy, but when we are training to stay in our zones as best as possible, we need to be measuring our power and/or our heart rate. We need the right gadgets to do so. We need to be able -- it's helpful if you can see in real time, while you're cycling, what your heart rate is, what your power number is, sometimes what your miles per hour is. So what gadgets do you recommend the triathlete have, both indoors and outdoors, to monitor those numbers so we can try to stay in our zones as well as possible? Coach Kurt?

Kurt Madden: As we know, budget drives a lot of things in life. So let's start with a person that's coming into the sport; they have a limited budget. Please don't feel you need to get a second on your house to go out and buy all that gadget stuff. Keep it super simple. But I would say, if we start indoors, the thing that I would tell people is: get a reliable indoor trainer. I know that if you go online, you can get a used, say for example -- and I'm not endorsing, but as an example -- a Wahoo KICKR that was maybe $1,000. My athletes, “Coach, I picked one up for $200.” That's a big W right there. You've got the Wahoo KICKR, so that's going to really help out to make sure things are accurate. The next thing, ideally, if you can, I would go with a power meter -- at least a crank arm. I know that back in the day, my first one, when I first started, it was the Stages, it was just a crank arm. I think it was $250. I had that for three years. I was a happy kid. It's like, “Man, this is getting me to paradise.” I thought it was fairly accurate. And then again, as time goes on and you want to get more sophisticated. So some form of power would be good; an indoor trainer. With the heart rate, I would tell you that something on your bony little wrist is probably going to be very inaccurate. Ideally, you can invest about $100 to get a chest strap for heart rate. I think those are the big three indoors. As we go outdoors, it kind of replicates that. But again, it's going to come down to your budget. You could go with the crank arm at $250. If you want something on your crank set, you can get up to $1,500, and I think you can overdo that. And then also just a reliable computer. The two variables that I'm old school on: all I need is two figures. All I need is heart rate and power. If you show me that, I'm going to be just fine. Now, all the other stuff; the maps, and Siri doing this, and you can order your lunch, and all that -- I'm just old school. Just give me those two metrics right there. So going outside, I think that would be good. But I don't want to take it all because I know Verbie's got a few things up his sleeve regarding gadgets.

Andrew Harley: I like the suggestion of starting used if you're on a budget. I personally sold a really nice Garmin Tacx Flux indoor Smart trainer, because I got a new setup for myself, and gave somebody a good price on it. And a lot of those things are indestructible; they're going to last for a decade, and you can totally save on new. I like the power pedals. These days you can get power pedals for $300 to $600, depending on the model you're looking at. And to me, you're saving a little money because you gotta buy pedals anyway, right? And so instead of buying $100 dollar pedals and then a power meter that's additional money, you can kill two birds with one stone and get that power through your pedals. And then you can take those pedals from your indoor setup to your outdoor setup, and vice versa, and have power in both places. So just a little two cents there from me and how I approached it when I was accumulating these toys early in my triathlon journey. Coach Jason, over to you.

Jason Verbracken: Yeah, I mean, you guys hit most of everything right on. And like you said, a good pair of pedals, and next thing you: may have a road bike. You want a road bike, and those pedals are just hopping from one to the next. It's transferable and easy to go, and you're not digging yourself in a hole going, “Oh, gosh, I need power on three different bikes all of a sudden.” No, you got the pedals, just switch them over. You guys are saying -- you hit it all -- heart rate monitor, the power pedals, those are the key. But again, they're not make or break. If you're starting out, that's the one big thing. Talking to new athletes like, “Oh, I got to go buy this, I got to buy that.” You do not have to. You can start out with just a bike, and then get that heart rate monitor. That's our number one. And then go to the power. You don't need to, like Kurt said, take a second mortgage out on your home or tell the kids they're not going to eat for the next month because you need a pair of power pedals.

Andrew Harley: You can't go to college. Sorry.

Jason Verbracken: Exactly. But no, you get those couple things and you're golden.

Kurt Madden: Yeah, that's what's nice, hanging out with you guys -- synapses start to fire. I think the thing that I have learned -- and Verbie, I want your input too, on this one -- the more technology you load into your system, meaning indoors or outdoors, the reality is you get technology dependent. There are going to be days, there are going to be times where the technology blows up. In other words, it just does not work. I find that people that are so linear in their thinking, they've got to have X, Y and Z, when the stuff really hits the fan -- not the fan that's blowing on you, but the other stuff -- it's not a pretty picture. And I'll give you one good example that, as I was getting ready for Nice last year, I rode and I rode and I rode -- 9,000 vertical feet, 7 hours -- I was looking at my power. My RaceX was up. I was good to go. Hopped on the airplane, got over there two days before the race. I see that my battery is low on my power meter. I try to take the cover off, it seems to be jammed. I take it to a bike shop. I don't speak French, but I wish I would have. I told the guy very nicely with my hands, “Go real easy. Just take it off real easy.” He used so much torque, he popped the whole power meter off the crank set. My wife looked at me and she said, “I think you look really mad.” “Oh, no, I'm happy.” And there wasn't a question -- Andrew, don't laugh.

Andrew Harley: ‘I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.’

Kurt Madden: There was no question, do I think I'm going to have power. I walk into a World Championship on 9000 vertical feet with no power to start with. It was just heart rate and RPE. Guess what? The sun actually set that day, and I got off that bike and still ran a marathon. So I want to share that. Verbie, I know you've got a couple stories.

Jason Verbracken: For sure, and -- I don't know how it is, Murphy's Law -- 99% of the time it's not going to happen on a training session. Somehow, it always waits until race day. I had a heart rate monitor snap right in half while I was out on the run. Right in the beginning, there goes my heart rate. Then a little further in the run, my watch just automatically shut off and reboot, and then I couldn't get it to start back up. Never had happened any other time but race day. Things like that happen. And that's why you're saying, it's great to have these gadgets, but also, sometimes it's okay to just put the gadget to the side and just go by feel. Or you can be on the trainer and almost play that game: don't look at what watt you're riding at and just try to guess it. “I feel like I'm at 150 watts,” and then look down at it. Make sure you know that RPE, how it feels, how you're breathing. Playing that little game, it makes the workout go faster too, Because you're trying to guess the number. It's kind of like guessing the winning lottery numbers -- how close can you get. Pretty soon you know that feel, and when something happens -- and hopefully it's not on race day; you have all your info -- but if it does, you're all, “I know what it's supposed to feel like. I know what 150 watts feels like. I've been doing it. I've played this game. I'm going to be good.” And you're not stressing out.

Andrew Harley: And I imagine that would be so valuable for heart rate too, to know what your heart rate zones feel like. To know, “Okay, let me not look at my watch on this ride, and let me guess where my heart rate's at based on how I'm feeling right now,” and just kind of see. Do you actually -- when you think you're still in Zone 2 keeping it easy, have you actually climbed into Zone 3? Or has it behaved itself? Learning what each of the heart rate zones feels like would probably be very valuable as well, so I love that, Verbie. Let me ask you this, Jason, because I know you do a lot of rides outdoors, and you have a killer pain cave set up indoors as well. And so obviously when we're indoors, we've got all the screens, and we can have whatever on us. But when you go outdoors, do you think there's value in having a multi-sport watch and having a separate bike computer? Or are most triathletes just fine seeing their data on their watch and not having to buy a second device?

Jason Verbracken: It could be a double-edged sword. I know for me, being a little older, eyes aren't as great, and when I'm riding and I'm down an arrow and my arms are up like this, it's either turning that watch over -- and it's still at a little distance where it's harder for me to see, personally. I don't race with my glasses on, so my bike computer's a little bigger. I can have -- depending how many different matrix I have on the screen -- I can have just the power so it's a nice big number, so I can glance down quickly and see it. So you don't need it. I mean, again, if the budget's there, I personally like having that computer, for me, because it's just easier for me to see. I feel it's safer than trying to -- and again, all of a sudden, you have it on the side, and you come out of your aero bars, and you're up on your hoods, and now you can't see your watch as good because you had it set perfect to where you wanted it on your aero bar. Having that computer is definitely a luxury that you can just quick glance down, and your back, eyes on the road where they should be, making sure you're not hitting a pothole or something, and being safe.

Andrew Harley: Yep. Coach Kurt?

Kurt Madden: Gadgets, gadgets, and gadgets. Let's spend just a minute or two. And Verbie, please chime in. But, Andrew, I think you remember this race. That's the beauty of just hanging out with you, Andrew. We can always go back and talk about a race, but this one was in St. George, Utah, and you remember that one very well. For me, as an example, as an athlete, if I'm in my heart rate zone of Zone 4, I know my ceiling. If I go above 140 -- I know if I stay there for longer than five or ten minutes, I am burning so many matches. Things are not good. So I'm at mile 96. I see John Mayfield, and he waves like, “I think you're in third place.” And I said, “Thank you so much, John.” So I go up that infamous climb. What's that place called, Andrew? Is it called Snow Canyon?

Andrew Harley: Snow Canyon State Park in St. George, Utah.

Kurt Madden: There was no snow on this day. I got to mile 99, two miles from the top. Then my heart rate -- it said on the computer it was 244 beats per minute. Now, I think if it truly was, I would have been dead right there. But it got into my head, and I'm like, I almost kind of started to panic. I'm like, how could it spike up to 244? I can still say my name. I wasn't panting like a puppy dog. It must be really off. But I'll tell you, when I got to the very top of that mountain, I'm like, “I've got six miles of that downhill. Just breathe deeply, do some box breathing. You need to get your heart rate down.” So athletes, listeners, please know: the heart rate monitor sometimes is not all that accurate. It'll drift a little bit, it'll be a little bit off. So if you see that on the bike, take stock like Verbie said on your RPE, because I think your reality versus what it's showing you, there can be a major gap there.

Andrew Harley: Very, very good. Love St. George. I would love to go back there. Yeah, I would love to take the family there and just -- I've always been there for a race. I've always wanted to go back and relax. But great city. And I was happy, Kurt, to be on the sidelines cheering for you at that course and not racing that course myself, that's for sure. Anybody who's been in St. George knows what I'm saying when I say that. So, guys, I have a couple questions on the workouts themselves. Once we're into our workout, how we can make sure we're staying in the right zones throughout that workout. And the first thing that comes to mind is 4-hour workouts that are heart rate based; I've got a couple questions about these. So a lot of times, a heart rate-based session means that we're going to be in Zone 2 and your pace, your miles per hour, doesn't matter. Your watts, your power doesn't matter. TriDot wants you to stay in Zone 2 for that workout no matter what. Do you guys have any tricks that you give your athletes on how to make sure -- it's easier said than done, right -- how to make sure that we're staying in that easy heart rate Zone 2 during a Zone 2 session on the bike? Coach Verbie?

Jason Verbracken: I always tell mine, you should be able to have a conversation. If you're on your trainer and your wife comes up next to you, that's a conversational pace. You should be able to talk to her, answer her questions. I mean, you may want to pretend that you can't talk so you don't have to answer -- if she's yelling at you that you need to go make dinner or something, then it's okay to fake it, but you should be able to hold the conversation and talk to her. Or if you're out, you do an outdoor ride together, and you're just supposed to keep it easy, and you're with somebody, you guys should be able to have a nice talk while you're out riding. That's going to tell you that you're at in that Zone 2. That that's the best thing I tell my athletes. But if you're talking, and huffing, and only getting those few words out, and gasping for air, then you need to bring it down some.

Andrew Harley: What about -- because both you guys ride outside more often than I do -- if you hit some terrain where, “Okay, well, just the road I'm on, I've got to climb a hill.” Or maybe it's starting to get hot, and you can slow down but you still gotta get up that hill, or you still gotta get down that stretch of road. Or maybe you're in a headwind. Or if environmental factors are causing you to have to work a little harder than you should. The heart rate's starting to climb. What should an athlete do in that kind of a scenario, Kurt?

Kurt Madden: Well, if you're outside, I would say that if it's a recovery ride, try to pick a terrain, time of the day that's going to be conducive to a recovery ride. If you're trying to do hill repeats in Zone 2, that was not a good choice at all. I say that respectfully. And then kind of back to the question -- I'm going to add to what Verbie said. It's aerobic in nature, and the beauty of that, the benefit physiologically, you're enhancing those mitochondria, and I think that's what we always needed. Those are the powerhouse of the cell. Know, too, that I find that some people -- if they're not literally warmed up, they have to actually do something to get their heart rate a little bit elevated before they can even start session. Otherwise, they might be in Zone 1 for 10 minutes unless they just get on the trainer, if you're indoors, and just do some massive spin ups to elevate that heart rate. But typically, once you're there, stay right there. I think the bigger challenge I see -- and it's something where you, like you said, Andrew, you let us write into the question, disregard power -- but know that if it's a recovery ride later in the day, for example, say you've done that 2 hour and 45 minute run, you've done a swim, you get on that bike for the third session of the day – woah, you need to really back that power down to the point. Like, “Man, it's spiking already. I'm almost in a Zone 3.” So just know that because the objective is a Zone 2 heart rate ride. So just know if you're gonna do that later in the day for recovery, you've got to really tone that power down.

Andrew Harley: Do you guys ever, on a Zone 2 – really on a heart rate-based session -- do you guys look at power at all? Or how fast you're riding at all? Or do you just look at heart rate and pay attention to heart rate?

Kurt Madden: Verbie, you want to go first?

Jason Verbracken: Yeah, for me personally -- and I tell my athletes -- turn that power off, honestly, because we all know what number we could be hitting in, “Oh, I could be at the top of that Zone 2 power. Let me push it a little more. Oh, it's okay. My heart rate's creeping up some, kind of dipping into Zone 3, but my power's looking good.” We are very sometimes obsessive watching that power number and I'm very, very guilty of it myself. Because we the kudos. Oh, we look at how much power we pushed and we still were in Zone 2. But you should -- I always think of it as this is the time to relax, enjoy it. Don't get caught up in the number. I turn the power off; I don't look at the power. I just watch my heart rate and enjoy it. And, again, if I'm indoors or outdoors, I pick an easy, flatter ride on Zwift or a flatter ride outside where I'm not going to be having to climb any hills, and throw on a movie or whatever, and keep that heart rate low, and know that's the job I'm supposed to be doing. This is where my heart rate is. Don't get caught up in that power number.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, great. Choosing the right route, I think is everything, especially outside. If I'm doing a Zone 2 ride outside, I find that easier -- just as long as it's not hilly. There's a lot of distraction that it goes by. Just keep it nice and breezy. Enjoy the ride. Almost like you're a kid riding around the neighborhood. I find this more difficult inside, because I can get -- if I've got intervals in my indoor bike session, the time flies, right? You're paying attention to numbers. You're paying attention to effort. You're watching your little Zwift or Ruvi avatar on the screen or something. I've got to throw on a podcast, or a movie, or a YouTube video, or something, or I will get bored out of my mind riding in Zone 2 inside. But maybe that's just me. I am curious about this. And Kurt, I'll throw this over to you first. For our athletes that don't have power in their training setup yet -- just for budget, or maybe they're just new. I didn't have power for the first few years I was a triathlete. If they're trying to do their TriDot workouts, they will get quality sessions that are going to prompt them to go into Zone 3, Zone 4, Zone 5, Zone 6, and it's going to be based on heart rate and not power. A little harder -- you can still train this way -- a little bit harder to get the training zones as exact as if you have power. But what do you say to these athletes on how to do that? How to best execute their session by heart rate when there are intervals throughout?

Kurt Madden: I think we've already touched on it. It's your rate of perceived effort (RPE). And I think I like that. That's always my fallback. And this is why, I think, as you watch people that are world class in our sport of triathlons or even the Tour de France, they're very intuitive. They've put their 10,000 hours in. They're just so intuitive. Like Verbie said, they don't really need to look at it. Visually, it's good to look at it, but they know their heart rate, they know their power. So with your rate of perceived effort, it's really trying to rely on that. And typically the scale -- each athlete can adjust it -- but ideally it's going to be from two to seven. So when you look at the numbers two or three, you're probably in a Zone 2. When you come up to three or four, you're starting to bump things up. You're getting into that Zone 3 kind of tempo. You get up to a Zone 4, and that's really an RPE of a five or six. You go to that next level; that's that all out. You're just going to do some spin ups for 30 seconds, or a minute; your RPE is at a six or a seven. That is not a bad thing. And actually, before we had power meters, there were things called triathlons. We did them on road bikes. Mark and I can tell you stories and we actually did okay with that. But I think it's good to have both. But don't feel that you -- again -- you've got to invest $1,000,000. Rate of perceived effort is really your ‘go to’ at all times.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, the one thing I'll add here is just -- if you are one of those athletes, your TrainX scores aren't going to be as high. Heart rate is a delayed response. So as soon as you start increasing your effort -- say TriDot wants you to cycle the next eight minutes in Zone 4 and say, “Okay, let me pick up my RPE to feel like I'm in Zone 4.” You might do that for a full minute before your heart rate really begins to climb to match the effort you're putting out. And so just the numbers, right. “Okay. I'm supposed to be -- by the end of this workout, I'm supposed to be in this zone for this amount of minutes.” You're not going to hit that as exactly as if you're training by power. And that's okay. I mean, don't expect 95s and 100s on your TrainX score, but you're still doing the intent of the workout just by heart rate instead of powers. Let me encourage you with that. I do want to slide in the power. For our triathletes who are training by power, I've got a couple questions on just how to try to stay in our zones as well as possible when our workout is based on power. And typically with these workouts we've got a mix of intensities. We're in Zone 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way up to all out sprints. Each of these zones are going to have a wattage range. So my Zone 4 might be, “Hold from 190 to 210.” That's probably the Verbie Zone 1, but that's probably my Zone 4. When we see those ranges -- we're looking at our workout. We're about to do the workout. We see what our ranges are for each zone. How do we stay in those zones while we're actually doing our workout? What do you think, Verbie?

Jason Verbracken: Yeah, well, it was Zone 1. You hit it. I think it might have been Zone 0 for me --just playing. Thankfully, power's instant. Soon as we start pedaling, we're going to see that power. We hit on it many times -- try to get that perceived effort knowing where you're at, but otherwise you're glancing down taking a look at it. Obviously, if you're on an indoor trainer, most likely you have the app on a laptop or on your TV in front of you; the power’s in your face. You're looking right at it. You're able to watch that and seeing where you're at for every second. Sometimes I try to give even more. Obviously, the ranges of these zones are pretty big. You could be between 150 to 190 for your Zone 4; that's a pretty big gap. You're doing three sets of eight minutes, and if you're trying to be at the top of that, by that third set, you're hurting. So I even give my athletes even more micro goals inside that, depending what they have done already.

Andrew Harley: Great idea.

Jason Verbracken: Or even telling them, “Alright, the first one, be at a 250 to 260. Try to keep it in there. And the next one, 260 to 270. And the third one, let's give it everything. We're going 270 to 280, and keep it inside there,” because there's so much room to play in. And then just, again, watching in front of you, you're looking down and doing the best you can to hold on. I mean, especially those workouts where they're having you go into Zone 5. Sometimes you're at the bottom of that; you're doing everything just to hold that the best you can. And even if you don't hit it exactly and you don't stay in it that whole time, you're still getting in a good workout. The biggest thing I always try to say: don't beat yourself up over, “Oh my gosh, I was supposed to have 24 minutes total in Zone 4, and I was at 19.” That's 19 good quality minutes, and looking at your numbers, we see the other time was in Zone 3. Like, you're still working, you're still getting in workouts. So again, don't beat yourself up and get too involved with that number and punishing yourself.

Andrew Harley: I love you pointing out it is a range, and we can do some ‘playing’ in that range to help us stay in that range through each interval in our workout. Kurt, is there anything else that you would add there on -- usually this is easy for your very first interval or two. You see the number, you see the range, you stay in it, and it gets more and more difficult the longer the workout goes. So, Coach Kurt, anything else you tell your athletes?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, I mean, Verbie's really captured it, but there's a few things, I think for our listeners too, that you want to be aware of. I'll give you a couple different scenarios. You see a workout that's somewhat common. It's a Tuesday workout, threshold repeats. It's three by five minutes at Zone 4. You have three one-minute spin ups. Some athletes, because they're, maybe, striving for almost perfection -- they thrive in that 100 -- there's something called ERG mode. And this is what they'll tell me very nicely: “Coach, I don't want to think. I just want the workout to kind of tell me what to do, and I react and respond to that.” Okay, they're clicking the boxes and bless their hearts, they complete the workout and they get a hundred. However, on race day, we're not going to have erg mode. At least Verbie and I haven't been in a race yet with ERG mode, and I've got to go back to that muscle memory. So I have to kind of take one on the chin to say, “I'm striving for excellence. I might not get a hundred, but I'm going to try three one-minute spin ups at Zone 4.” Literally spin ups where I'm going over 100 RPMs. For me to maintain that range, like Verbie said, that is just a challenge. It's just like -- don't bounce like that. Just stay at 220, stay at 230. There's a 250; there's a 210, and you're fighting. But I do that three times. You do it again, and again, and again, and again. What are you doing, the outcome? You're actually going to spin pretty well. But then you jump into the heart of it, the three by five minutes. Several ways to look at it. You could be more of a spinner, and spin and be close to 90rpms. You could be more of a masher. You can mix it up. Some of the workouts are very prescribed. If it's an indoor session, I would look at that -- from a coach with an athlete, or even yourself -- if you're not using ERG mode, honestly, you have to go through a Zone 3 to get to a Zone 4. You can't just skip up immediately. You're going to have a little bit of time there. Your score will be impacted, but you're executing the workout. So if you get a 90, 85, 92 -- that's a huge win. Now take the same workout and go outside -- and Verbie knows this, too. Do a three by five minutes with your one-minute spin ups. The athlete will say, “Why would I do spin ups?” Because it's actually in the program. “Well, I never do spin ups when I'm outside. It's kind of like pool school or running. I don't do drills before my long run.” You might want to do that. So they skip the spin ups. You're just going around a turn, and oh my gosh, here comes a head when your power just spikes, so you're literally all over the board. So outside, I find, is much, much more difficult to get a better score. Typically your power will go up when you're outside. Again, we talked about this in our Mastermind. We were looking at the weekly training sets of an athlete. One coach asked the other coach, “Do you bike all the time outside?” Yes, I do. Your normalized training stress is a lot higher, easier to attain, as compared to being inside on a trainer -- where you just can't do that, because you're inside on the trainer. But outside with the wind, environmental conditions, a few rolling hills – especially, I bike with Verbie, I know -- bam, you're going to hit 400 watts just going around a corner, hitting an incline.

Andrew Harley: And that's something I did want to talk about as well, is that transition from indoors to outdoors. I've seen athletes -- obviously there's the execution, right? There's the variables of the environment: turning in and out of the wind, turning in and out of different weather patterns, it heating up, it cooling down while you're out there, et cetera, et cetera, rain, hills. So there will be more variability; it will be harder to score that 100 when you're outdoors just by default, even with power. But something I've seen a lot of athletes express is: if their zone says 200 watts -- just for an even number, 200 watts is my Zone 3 number. A lot of athletes report, “That's very easy for me to hit when I'm indoors, and then I go outdoors and all of a sudden, that same 200 watts -- it's the same number, same power meter, same everything -- but it feels a lot harder to hold outdoors than indoors.” And part of the reason why I wanted both of you guys on this podcast is you guys both do a lot of outdoor and indoor riding. I know you know both environments very well. Is that normal for it to be that way? Are we doing something wrong if that's the case? What would you tell an athlete in terms of reconciling how a certain wattage feels when they're doing those training sessions indoors versus doing them outdoors? Verbie, over to you.

Jason Verbracken: Yeah, it definitely can feel a lot different. A big one -- like the scenario you're just talking about -- is, you could be going on a slight downhill, so you're trying to hit that 200, and you've already got the speed going downhill, and it's going to be harder to get that power up. Plus your mind's watching everything environment wise. There's cars going by you, potholes -- so your mind's going on 100 different things. Whereas inside on the trainer, one, you could be on ERG mode. So you're just pedaling, and that 200 is there, it's simple. You don't have everything else adding that extra stress around you where you're trying to hit that number. The number can be easier to hit if you're, again, like Kurt said, you're, all sudden, going up a hill. Well, that power jumps right up and then it's even--

Andrew Harley: Just naturally.

Jason Verbracken: --naturally goes up and you may be, “Well, I can't even keep it at that 200 because I can't go that slow going up this hill. I got to ride at 280, because otherwise I'm going to fall over, because I'm going four miles an hour, because it's a steep hill, and I shouldn't have gone this way.” So again, there's a big difference trying to get that session in. I tell my athletes, sometimes you have a ten-minute interval, and you only can ride outside, and you're going downhill, and you're going plus 30 miles an hour, and you're spinning at 100, and you're like, “I'm never going to hit 200.” It's okay to break that up. Wait. Maybe you only got two minutes in. Then do that other eight minutes when you come to where you're able to get that power back up. Don't feel like you're ‘handcuffed in’ to that ten minutes exactly. Otherwise, alright, maybe it's two minutes here, and then you kind of crest the top of hill, and you drop down, and there's another hill, and I got another four minutes in here where I was able to get that power up. You're getting in the session, you're getting in the workout. Outside is so many different changes. Don't think it's going to end up perfect. Be okay to go to plan B, plan C, out there, because that's what's going to happen in a race. Doing that out there, you're going to get used to, again, “I can't hold. I'm going down the hill at Oceanside, 40 miles an hour.” You're not hitting the power you're supposed to be at, but that's okay. The speed's there. Just understand that.

[Transition Sound Effect]

Andrew Harley: Onto our Cool Down question where I'm going to ask our coaches one question that came from a member of our audience. Coach Verbie, I'll kick this to you first, and then, Kurt, feel free to add in if you have some additional thoughts. But just to switch gears a little bit, I plucked a running question, and this came from Josie. She said, “Hi, I have a question regarding VO2 max. I just restarted with TriDot in December following a break to focus on other training. Since restarting, my VO2 max for running keeps decreasing, despite my running feeling easier, and my running economy seemingly improving. I wear a Garmin watch, and I use a heart rate monitor. Is there a reason why this is happening?” So, Coach Verbie, what do you know about -- we talked about gadgets a little bit on this episode -- but what do you know about why her Garmin might be telling her one thing even though, in her training, she's feeling better.

Jason Verbracken: Oh, Garmin and what it tells us. There. I think we could have a whole podcast just on that. But seriously. One thing I try to tell my athletes is: don't live and die by what Garmin tells us, specifically. Especially with VO2 Max just testing on the wrist. It can fluctuate with so many different things. If she's not being tested in a lab somewhere, you definitely take it with a grain of salt. I hate to ‘not’ answer her that way, but it's also hard, too, knowing what she's been doing for training to get the VO2 max up. We can get it up by doing a lot of sprints, and speed work, to help get that going back up. She said her running's feeling easier, so I'm guessing she's getting back into shape, it's going to start feeling easier. A VO2 Max could -- if she's just doing nice, easy, long runs -- it could be just staying there and/or decreasing even though her fitness is getting better.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, you got to know what Garmin devices are good at, and what they're not good at. They're fantastic devices; we're not, by any means, trying to poopoo on Garmin. But there's things they're good at; there's things they're not good at. Guys, I'm not even joking with you, I had already selected this question days ago, when I was writing this script up for us, and today -- the day we're recording -- Garmin posted on social media, a joke saying, “Another day, another unproductive workout, according to Garmin.” And so like, they're joking. They're joking about their famous, “What? What do you mean that workout was unproductive?” Because they tell you that every single day when you work out, and it's like, “What?” Yeah, but in the science of it, we had a podcast episode, I don't know, probably 120 episodes ago -- it's been a minute now -- where Coach Chris Navin from Chicago, Illinois -- if you guys have met Coach Chris, super knowledgeable guy -- he has a triathlon studio where he does blood lactate testing and a lot of VO2 max tests. He has a company called Metabolic Athlete where he will test athletes. So he knows all this stuff very well. And he said something very interesting one time. He said, “For your Garmin watch to even have a chance at being accurate and giving you a VO2 max number, you would need to wear it 24/7.” And so if you're not wearing that watch 24/7, whatever it's telling you is a loose guess already. And it would be a slightly-less loose guess if you were to wear it 24/7. So anyway, Coach Verbie, I love the perspective you put on it. If you're feeling better, that's the important thing. Know that that number Garmin tells you isn't great. Coach Kurt, please say something smarter than what I just said.

Kurt Madden: Oh, no, I would echo what Verbie says. I think it's one indicator; it's not the Holy Grail. I know a world class coach that has a world class wife, who's a world class marathoner, and he told me, actually, if I listen to Garmin every day, I can never train because I'm always going to be in that state of mind. He's done very well. I would say with Josie -- back to your question -- I'm going to tap into what Verbie said. You can look that, but really look at your training; if you're doing MAV shuttles, if you're doing hill repeats, if you're doing drills, if you're doing strides, if you're doing strength training. Also know with VO2, if your weight is not accurate -- I tell people, because I go back to my graduate work and exercise physiology, if you really want to get a nice little bump in your VO2, cut about five or six pounds, and it'll definitely elevate right away. But I think, again, don't get hung up on that, because it can be very deceiving. It can be very fulfilling when it's at all that accurate. So the lab is the way to go. A lot of people ask, “Well, how often should I be tested?” I think honestly, ideally, if you're testing at least twice a year, maybe now in the development phase, and then you might be 6 weeks out from an A race, you can do that again. But try to test at least two times. And the price has really come down. I mean, it's more economical, but the key is it's got to be accurate.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to the TriDot Podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on your listening platform of choice. For more opportunities to learn from our coaches, check out our YouTube channel and follow @TriDotTraining on social. Ready to train with us? Head to tridot.com and get started for free. Until next time. Happy training.

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