Your Questions Answered: Race-Day Heart Rate, Training Like the Pros, Cycling Stronger Outside, and More!

TriDot Podcast Episode 300

Your Questions Answered: Race-Day Heart Rate, Training Like the Pros, Cycling Stronger Outside, and More!

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Announcer: This is the TriDot Podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our Podcast is here to educate, inspire and entertain. We'll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let's improve together.

Andrew Harley: Hey everybody. Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. I am saying that for the 300th time, which is pretty freaking wild if you ask me. Thanks so much to all of you. Whether you've listened to one episode or 300 episodes or somewhere in between, thanks for being with us. We're going to keep the show going. We're going to keep learning. Our goal with every episode is to bring you top notch triathlon coaching with every single conversation. And today I'm going to do that with two top notch world famous IRONMAN Champion coaches. I have Mark Allen and Craig Alexander with me today. They agreed to come for episode 300. Mark, how you doing? Good to see you.

Mark Allen: Good. 300 episodes. I know what I'm going to be binge listening to if we ever get into a COVID lockdown again.

Andrew Harley: Just to get that triathlon fix. Yeah, come to us, Mark. Come to me. Happy to supply that for you, Coach Craig. Good to see you.

Craig Alexander: Good to see you both. And thanks for the invitation, Andrew, to come on and chat it up again for episode number 300.

Andrew Harley: Should be fun. Of course. And we always every 25 episodes of the TriDot Podcast, we shut down our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a athlete question episode. So every question I ask Coach Mark and Coach Crowie today is going to be one that came from one of our listeners. So thank you to all the athletes who submitted questions. If your question does not get asked this episode, trust me, they're in our computer system and they'll come up on another episode. There's a lot of good questions that came our way. So, yeah, I'm Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people, captain in the middle of the pack. As always. We're going to start with our warm up question. Settle in for our main set conversation, asking your questions and then wind things down with our cooldown. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: Time to warm up. Let's get moving.

Andrew Harley: All right, Coach Mark, Coach Crowie, for our warm up question today, I want to know what is the most interesting race moment you have seen while working the broadcast of a triathlon event? And this can be working it. This can be watching it and I admittedly asked this because Crowie, at the time we're recording this episode, you were just on the, the broadcast coverage for IRONMAN Cairns over the weekend. Mark, you frequently are on the coverage for Kona and other races around the world. So I'm just curious. And all your time in the broadcast booth, all your time watching the live broadcasts of events around the world, what's the most interesting you've seen happen during a race, live on coverage? Coach Mark?

Mark Allen: Well, I would say for me, the most riveting moment, interesting moment for. There's two, actually. One was in Sydney, 2000, the men's triathlon. Simon Whitfield finally pulling away in just the final meters of that men's event, winning the first ever gold medal. And when he came across the line, his emotion just embodied that Olympic joy and happiness of working really hard for something and making it happen, and the fact that probably a lot of people didn't have him on their list of who was going to win the race. So it was, it was just this incredible, joyous moment for, not only for Simon, but for all of us in the sport. But the other one was when I was in Kona the year that Roderick Sewell crossed the finish line. You know, here's, here's this athlete who is, you know, he's, he's a, he's a para athlete, but he's in the, in the race and, you know, a black kid that, I mean, he, he, he defied every kind of stereotype that you would think a triathlete. He was everything that you would never think of as a triathlete, except he had the biggest heart of any triathlete I think I've ever seen, you know, and when he came across that line, not only did he sort of break that barrier of being the first person, I think, what is it, above the knee? Amputee, double amputee, to do that. But he broke, like, every stereotype you could ever imagine, you know, about what, who, who will, who, who does triathlon.

Andrew Harley: Who can do it. Yeah.

Mark Allen: Anyway, emotional, emotional, emotional moment. And that's. Those two stand out as the absolute top things that I've ever seen at, at the races.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, two great picks there, Mark and I, I, I think Mike Reilly gives that moment as well, a shout out in his book, find your finish line. So that, that's where I know that story from intimately. I was not in Kona for that one, unfortunately, but great picks from Mark. Coach Craig, same question, over to you.

Craig Alexander: I'm gonna, I mean, recency bias. I'm gonna go with something that did happen on the weekend at IRONMAN Cairns and a very interesting, but also inspirational moment and something that you don't see in high level racing or, or any sort of racing too often is a comeback of the magnitude of Matthew Marquart. I mean, he is an athlete. We know his backstory, studying to be a doctor. He has a lot of interests and passions outside of the sport, but he's a very motivated and driven athlete as well. The lead into the race, all the chatter was about how he went on a cruise with his partner who had just graduated and become a physician. And so they were celebrating that and that was already part of their, their family planning and their schedule. So we went on the cruise, made the most of seven days on the cruise, hopped on a plane, flew down to Australia. Recently, he's had a lot of issues, cramping, unexplained issues. You know, typically you think of cramping, it's extreme fatigue or, or electrolyte depletion. His cramping tends to happen at the start of the race, the very beginning, or, or in, in the swim or immediately after the swim. So he and his team have been trying to figure it out. He has the swim of his life, comes out in third spot with the two leaders, and immediately his legs lock up. It was right there on camera. You could see he's got impressive legs, very big legs, but they were locked. He could not move them. And he was just standing there. And you can just imagine the angst of all the, you know, the preparation. Every athlete knows that, the sacrifice and the, the dedication and the travel. So he's gone through all of that. He's in the race, his legs are completely locked up. He lost eight minutes. So not only did he lose eight minutes, he then gets on the bike. I'm imagining he's not full of confidence, wondering if it's going to happen again. But for me, the mental, the resilience and just the mental fortitude to just push on and the way he managed himself and just slowly but surely brought himself back physically and mentally powered through the bike, and then ran a 2:39 marathon, his first pro win, which happened to be an Iron man pro series win. It was just a great story. His mum was there, she traveled down. And so it was an interesting story for me from a performance perspective, but it was also just an inspirational moment. And again, I think it speaks to what Mark was talking about with Roderick and, and even Simon not being one of the favorites. It's just these are the stories that we love in, in the, in the racing. Our sport uncovers these stories and for me that's, I know it's something that happened very recently and our sport is littered with a lot of great examples, but I'll go with that one, the.

Andrew Harley: One I wanted to give a shout out to. I've, I love just Saturday, Sunday, if I'm at home and just going through the motions or, or even doing a trainer ride, right, Just throwing whatever race IRONMAN is broadcasting that weekend, throwing it on the, on the laptop and just watching along. So I watch a lot of races and one that really stood out to me was the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo when the mixed relay made its debut and, and talk about just ju, just the format, right? And it was cool as, as an American seeing USA take the silver against a really competitive field and just, just a really cool moment for, for USA Triathlon. But just the format of watching four top notch Olympic distance triathletes, you know, just doing short bursts one after the other. You know, I finish, you hop in the water, I finish, you hop in the water. And just the different strategies that were at play and it was just, it was just nuts. And it was equally entertaining in 2024 in Paris. And so, so for me, I'm going to say that's, I think the coolest thing I've seen on a, on a triathlon broadcast. But I know our listeners are fans of the sport and surely watch these broadcasts as well. So we're going to throw this question out to you, our audience. Make sure you follow TriDot across all the socials. We're going to post this question out on Facebook, out on Instagram. We're going to post this question in the TriDot Community Hub for all of our TriDot athletes who are active there. Go find this question. Answer this question. Of all the moments you've witnessed in triathlon watching a broadcast, what did you feel was just the most interesting, most special moment you've seen? Can't wait to see what you guys have to say.

Announcer: On to the main set going in 3, 2, 1.

Andrew Harley: All right, on to main set number 300 of the try to Podcast where Coach Crowie and Coach Mark are going to answer some athlete questions. And man, I, I can't wait. Just as IRONMAN champions, you guys were very, very good in your own racing day. You're both very, very good coaches. Guys, this is such a cool thing about the Try to Podcast. Any coach you hear come on the mic and give you advice on this show could be your coach. You can be coached by Mark Allen. You can be coached by Craig Alexander. So if you connect with these guys, if you like what they have to say here today, just keep that in mind. They could be your coach, which is pretty cool. But, guys, we're gonna. We're just gonna go through these. I'll. I'll direct each question to one of you. Both of you are absolutely more than welcome to chime in as the conversation goes. And this first question is from Lindsay. Lindsay wants to know, how can you adjust the training plan when you have life come up? And she says specifically for her case, from soccer games to travel, to caring for little kids to her work schedule. What do I do when I don't have the time? And again, as triathlon coaches, I know both of you guys work with athletes that have a variety of schedules and family obligations, life obligations. What do you tell your athletes when they come to you and say, how do I get all this training in? Coach Mark?

Mark Allen: I. Oh, I. Obviously, I just tell them you have to do your workout first.

Andrew Harley: Every workout.

Mark Allen: No. No. I mean, Lindsay, this is a. This is the question that I probably get the most frequently.

Andrew Harley: Interesting.

Mark Allen: Triathlon is part of your life. It is not your entire life. And even as a professional, I had times where I had to balance those things, those obligations outside of swim, bike, run, lifting weights, you know, recovery, all that kind of stuff. So there's a couple answers to that question or a couple pieces to the answer. If you are short on time, if you can do part of a workout as opposed to the whole thing, that will carry you a long way. Like, ultimately you're going to get better if you're consistent with your training, meaning if you can consistently get in some kind of workout, and that's much more important than the actual length of your workout or the speed that you go in your workouts. So let's say you have an hour run, but you've only got 20 minutes. If you can go do those 20 minutes, that is awesome. That will add to your consistency. If it's just like, you know what? I have a zero time today, then take care of your life. Clear the plate of your life so that tomorrow or the next day, then you're actually just mentally free to go, okay, now I have my time. I can get in my workouts. If you are kind of like sputtering on the consistency part, here's something to consider, too. If you miss one day of working out in a particular sport, your fitness is not going to fall Off. If you miss two days in a particular sport, your fitness is not going to fall off. It's when you miss that third day that there starts to be a little slip in the, in the fitness. But the fitness slide is, is minimal. You don't really get a huge slide in your fitness until about two weeks of complete inactivity. So you know, hopefully, you know, if you, if you do miss a big chunk of time, you try to keep it under that two week window. But again, so think so sort of think about, okay, I've got two workouts today. I can only do one of them. Which one had like the longest period since I did the last workout in that sport. Or you might look at those two workouts and go, okay, I've got to make a choice here. I can't do both. Which one is a higher priority workout? You know, one is a easy recovery run and the other one is, is maybe a harder interval session on the bike. Probably I would suggest doing that interval session. So prioritize the workouts. Cut out the one that is least priority. If you have a couple, if you only have one workout and you gotta cut it down, see if you can at least do a little bit of the workout. And then if you miss a couple days of workout on that third day of not working out in that sport, try to see if you can fit in something on that.

Andrew Harley: Yep, really love that Mark. And, and there's actually for trouted athletes listening, when you're looking at what workouts you have this week, there's gonna be an XP value assigned to the workout. And the higher that XP number, the more important that session is to your training week. And so that's a really good way to tell, okay, I, my week's getting away from me. I see some extra kid stuff, family stuff, work stuff on the schedule. I'm not going to get all this in target the, the sessions and there's going to be one run, one bike and one swim that probably has more XP than everything else. So to Mark's point, that way you're getting in the most important workouts across all three sports. But that's kind of the, that's kind of the TriDot hack, so to speak. It's just saying, okay, you know, which ones have the most XP value and just targeting those. So really good stuff there from Mark, Coach Craig, anything else that you tell your athletes when you're having this kind of a conversation?

Craig Alexander: I think just mentally and emotionally feel good about the fact you're prioritizing the important stuff. In life.

Andrew Harley: Love it.

Craig Alexander: Be kind to yourself. You know, just be kind to yourself logistically from a training standpoint, be, be realistic about the, the time you have available to train. I think a 20 minute run is better than no run. You know, you get the endorphin hit, you still feel good. You mightn't get the hour or the 50 minute run in, but. And I think another good little hack is just have your bike set up on the trainer. So if you do get a little window of time, you can jump on and get something done. But having an understanding, like Mark said, of your training priorities and those XP values or if you do, if a window of time does become available, be very clear of what session you're going to jump in and do. And so I think having that, that flexibility is important and then prioritizing within that. So but yeah, just be kind to yourself. The sport's not going anywhere. It's going to be there tomorrow and the next day. And like Mark said, I think athletes often overestimate how quickly you lose fitness. One of the great things about having what we call a good base or a good training background, good training history is you have that foundation of fitness and it does take, you know, time for it to start chipping away and it's a slow decline. So provided you can jump back on the horse pretty quickly, I think you'll be fine.

Mark Allen: I love Craig's comment. Be kind to yourself. That's so important. If you have to skip something or cut something back, do it guilt free. Because again, as we're all sort of emphasizing you're your time in the sport will be much more enjoyable when everything kind of stays in balance.

Andrew Harley: Yep, love that reminder guys, from, from the both of you. Um, our second question comes from Gina Rymal who actually I know is a TriDot coach. So shout out to coach Gina from Tyler, Texas. She wants to know how to incorporate what we see the pros doing on an appropriate and scaled age group level. For example, do we need 200 grams of carbohydrate for per hour when we see the broadcast saying that the Pros are having 200 grams of carb per hour? Or if I see a pro in social media doing a seven hour hill repeat ride or two a day sessions, what from the pros do I take what from the pros do I do I adjust to my age group experience and what do I just leave to the pros? And that is, that's such a loaded question that we have a whole Podcast episode about this. But I'm curious to hear what you guys have to say here with a few minutes. Coach Craig.

Craig Alexander: Look, you, you can't compare an apple to an orange. And I think one of the big misconceptions with fueling and carb intake, it's, it's dependent on intensity. And our top pro athletes are just operating at high intensities. Even In IRONMAN, they're at 4 plus watts per kilo on the bike. Um, whereas most age groupers are, probably in zone 2. Higher zone 2 for the majority of their races. So your carbohydrate requirements are very much dependent on the intensity at which you're operating at. And also the limiting factor is always how much you can absorb. And a part of that is genetic, but a part of it there, there is a trained response. You can, you, you know, there's a lot of research to suggest that you can bump up your tolerance a little bit by practicing it in the right way. So I think the first thing is to know your numbers, to understand what your actual requirements are. Just because Cam Wurf, you know, knocks back 200 grams of carbs per hour in IRONMAN, Texas, it doesn't mean everybody needs to. Even everyone within the pro field, male and female, will have different requirements. So I, I think the biggest message with nutrition and hydration is it's very individualized. Know your numbers. Understand that the, what the pros are doing is what they need to do. And that's come about through a lot of testing. Your carbohydrate requirements is very intensity dependent. Um, so there's that. And, but you can practice in your race rehearsals, your race simulation, so you can improve your tolerance. And, and also I'll finish by saying social media is often an exercise in marketing. Um, so we don't know what's true and what's not. But yeah, I mean, just, just know your numbers and practice your routine, practice your plan, practice your strategy. And if you, if it works well for you in a race rehearsal or a race simulation, chances are it's going to work well for you on race day.

Andrew Harley: Do you think, Crowie, that any pros out there are kind of, kind of fudging what they're doing in their training and making it look more impressive or more volumous than they actually are just to get in their opponents heads, perhaps?

Craig Alexander: I would say yes. I mean, I think it's, it's not a sports specific thing. It's a human nature thing, isn't it? We competitive people will try and get whatever advantage. I mean, and a lot of it, too, is there promoting the brands and the products they work with. So wanting to say how well this product works, look, how much I can take on board, who knows? I mean, most pro athletes I know are pretty down to earth and would be realistic, but, yeah, I think everything on social media, you can sort of take with a grain of salt and. And really just get the learnings from it and then apply it to your own situation.

Andrew Harley: Coach Mark, what are your thoughts on Gina's point about how to emulate the pros, if at all?

Mark Allen: Yeah, the biggest mistake anybody can make, age grouper or pro, is to look at what somebody else is doing and go, oh, I need to do that.

Andrew Harley: Oh, wow.

Mark Allen: Do exactly what they're saying, because that will not work for you. Like Craig said, everybody's body is different. Your needs are different, your demands from your. The rest of your life are very different. And that's why in TriDot, your training plans are specific to you and where you're at and what your fitness is at. However, the real value in looking at what the best people are doing is to see what they're doing and pull the lens back a little bit and ask yourself, am I doing? Am I doing that? So, for example, you see a pro and they talk about doing seven hours of hill climbing, and, you know, you're doing this crazy Kristian Blumenfelt thing that's like nobody else on the planet could possibly do, right? But you ask yourself, okay, so what's. What's the essence of what he's doing?

Mark Allen: He's working hills, and he's doing a long ride. So in my workouts, in the framework with which I can train, it might be good for me to do some hill work and to do a long ride, you know, so, like, and. And to ask yourself, what other things are the top people doing that maybe if I looked at those things, they would also help me out. So, you know, when the class. A great example of this was when the Norwegian method was coming out, and, you know, Kristian and Gustav were like, they were exploding the entire triathlon universe, right? And everybody's like, what are they doing? Like, we thought they were doing these.

Andrew Harley: Really working out a lot. We're just working out a lot. Right?

Mark Allen: Well, so, like, they. They have all this stuff that they're testing, and I. And so I actually spoke with their coach and saw a Podcast that he did, and he said, well, we're. We're. We're measuring a number of things to see how hot their core temperature can get before Their performance falls off. We're seeing how hard they can go before the lactate builds up and they blow up. We're seeing how many calories an hour they can take in before they get sick to their stomach. We, we're looking at how much they have to actually slow down in heat so that they don't explode because their heart rate's so high. And so they're not looking at anything extraordinary. They're just looking at those things. And so as an age grouper go, okay, what are they doing? Maybe I should look at those things for myself. Like, how hard do I go before all of a sudden I can feel, okay, that's not sustainable. So you don't have to look at the pros watts. You just have to look at your watts and go, where's my limit? Same thing with, with calories. Like Craig was saying, you know, one person might take in 200 calories, 200 grams of carbohydrate an hour.

And so you ask yourself, let me experiment with how much I need to take in to feel good without getting bloated. You know, what happens when I'm in the heat. I know that, I know that my, my zones get adjusted in tri dot based on the external temperature that I'll be working in so that, you know, it doesn't. I don't get it. I don't explode. But maybe my body is either more sensitive to heat or less sensitive to heat than the average, average bear. And so maybe I need to go actually slower or faster, you know, so ask yourself, what is the essence of what they're telling you they're working on? And then figure out, how do I do that within the framework of what I am capable of doing.

Andrew Harley: Uh, question three is also from a TriDot Coach. He's a TriDot Pool School coach as well and a very good swimmer. This is coach Jared Kaminski. Uh, and he's asking a bike question. Uh, he says, I am fine when I'm training indoors on the trainer, but I really struggle outside. Specifically saying that in his case, it's. He starts feeling lower back pain, shoulder stiffness, so some body aching that he only experiences outside, but not indoors on the trainer. And he's asking, is this just because I don't ride outside enough, or is there maybe some other stuff that I should look deeper into? And I think this is going to be different. You know, for Jared, it's, it's some shoulder stiffness, some pain that's not translating well when he goes outside. I know some athletes struggle to hold wattage. Right. They, they can hold a certain wattage indoors. They go outdoors, and those watts are not there anymore. Um, there's a number of things that, as cyclists, we feel good inside and we just can't take it outside. And so just across the board, help us be better cyclists outside. Coach Craig, what would you say to Jared here?

Craig Alexander: Yeah, it sounds very much like a position thing on the bike, a bike setup. So the first thing I always suggest is a professional bike fit. I think it helps maximize. And look, in life, we have our current bike position and an optimal bike position. And often it takes stages of getting from one to the other. You don't just make wholesale changes with a position. Often, you know, there's this goal position that you work towards and it takes a while because you have to work on strength and flexibility.

Andrew Harley: And a good fitter, to be clear, should help you with that journey. Right. A good fitter should be accelerating you to a position you shouldn't be holding.

Craig Alexander: Yeah, exactly right. A good fitter will understand what the optimal position is, but also the stages that we need to go through to get there. And that might be working on some strength and flexibility issues and things like that. So the first thing I would say is, you know, when I, when you first started reading this question, I thought it might be a bike handling issue, but I think it's clear now it's more an athlete on the bike position issue. So. And get that proper bike fit done. Hopefully you get some feedback around your core strength, maybe any issues you have around flexibility and. Because I feel we can always. I mean, how much is enough strength and conditioning for an endurance athlete or enough, enough core work? How long's a piece of string? I mean, the, whether you're a, a beginner or a multiple world champion alike, you can benefit from the relevant and appropriate core work for you and, and strength and conditioning for where you are and where you're at in your journey as an athlete. So that'd be something I would suggest to look at as well. It's interesting. I've heard Mark talk about this. I love the indoor trainer as a tool. I think it eliminates a lot of variables and is very safe. So we can eliminate traffic, traffic lights, and really just focusing on what the parameters of a session are and what are the key points that we need to hit in this session to make it a successful session. But one thing I loved, I heard Mark talk about this and I, I can't remember where it was, but he mentioned that out on the road, you move on the bike a little differently and, and when the bike is locked in generating power, it's, it's a little bit of a different phenomenon to generating it out where the bike can move under you a little bit. So I just always come back to this idea I learned about as a physiotherapy student. Specificity of training and this transfer of training effect. We get the most gains in an area if we subject our body to that exact stimulus or that exact situation. So whilst I love training indoors, I think you've got to get outdoors when you can. Not only for the bike handling and the technical skills that come with riding outdoors, but just how you generate power outdoors is a little bit different. As you mentioned, Andrew, sometimes the power numbers we see outdoor versus indoors a little different. In tri. We can select whether we're training outdoor or indoors because it does change the metrics and the parameters a little bit. But I would suggest in this case go and get a pro bike fit. That would be my first suggestion. And maybe go and see a strength and conditioning coach as well. See if there's any areas particularly that are identified that need to be worked on for just for building strength and, and really good movement patterns.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, really love that answer. Correct. That's definitely two things that come to mind for me. And there are things you can do with your indoor training setup to try to replicate the motion of riding outside. Right. And, and these like I, I have a rocker plate underneath my trainer. That, that and honestly, Craig, where that helps me the most is it helps me with like butt pain. It just makes the indoor ride a little more comfortable. It, it, it doesn't feel all that more realistic to being outside. But I know depending on what trainer you have, you know, TacX has like these little like modules you can clip onto the bottom of your trainer and make it rock in certain directions. And you know, so, so the market's trying to get us there. Right. It's trying to improve that indoor riding experience with, with some new tech and some new gear. But yeah, there's no, no true replacement for getting outside and getting your workout done outside. Really good stuff there, Craig. Mark, do you have anything additional you say to athletes kind of about this problem translating your indoor power, your indoor comfort, your indoor setup to success outside?

Mark Allen: Well, I think Craig nailed it when he talked about getting a bike fit for the discomfort. And you know, when you're, when you're looking at the difference between cycling indoors and cycling outside, just the more you do it outside, the better you're Going to get at, at figuring out how to become efficient. Like when you're, when you're sitting on your trainer, there's a certain level of relaxedness that you can have that you, you just can't have when you're actually balancing your bike and, and navigating little bumps in the road and all of that. And so the more that you get outside and actually just like you said, get out there and do it, you're, you're, you're gonna develop that neuromuscular efficiency and you're going to get a lot of the, as crazy as it sounds, the, the balancing down, you know, and the handling down. And that's a huge mistake that a lot of athletes are making now is. Well, I wouldn't even necessarily call it, call it a mistake. It's just what sort of happens is they do so much of their training indoors and then they get to the race and it's a completely different experience. Some people can't train outdoors because of logistics of they live in a city or it's just too dangerous. And so, you know, if you can, can't get out on a day to day basis, you know, if you can let's say on the weekends drive somewhere and do, do your, your work weekend ride outdoors, that'll carry you, you know, if you have a bunch of those workouts leading into a race that will carry you very far as opposed to just going into the race and hoping for the best.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, very helpful from the both of you. I'm going to move us on to question four. This is from Jamie. Race day heart rate question. A tri series here that I do over the summer has a swim start that has a run down the beach into the water. I'm realizing that I start all of these races in Zone 4 or Zone 5. And compared to other races where you're in the water to start and your heart rate stays in zone 3 and 4. Any tips other than taking my sweet time to keeping my heart rate down on these starts, guys? Not a whole lot of beach start triathlons around. I don't think so. This is a, this is a fun question. I've done in my triathlon career. Two races that were a true beach start where they blew a gun and you were running into the water and getting after it. It's a different experience for sure. Coach Mark, what would you say to Jamie on how to start these kinds of events? Calm, cool, collected, get into the water efficiently but not spike your heart rate.

Mark Allen: All right, well, I think Jamie answered the question already saying, other than slowing down, what can I do? You know, sometimes the, the, the, the best answers are the most simplest and obvious and right in front of your face. So clearly there might. And you also have to remember that sometimes the devices measuring our heart rates, they get jumbled up a little bit when we're moving around and going from different positions and all that kind of stuff. So there might, there's a chance that the heart rate might not actually be elevating as much as the watch is indicating. But anyway, you know, just slow it down. First of all, you're running, so you're, you're weight bearing. That's going to elevate your heart rate. And if you know that this is happening and you do not want to have it happen, you know, just, just take it slower. Not, not a lot I can add to that one. Maybe Craig has a super secret thing.

Craig Alexander: It's a good question, Jamie. I was the opposite. In Australia, the first three or four years of the sport were all beach starts. So Mark raises a great point. The difference in your heart rate between weight bearing and not weight bearing is, is quite large. So I would say take your own advice, take your sweet time, be disciplined. Another thing you can do is just practice. Again, that's specificity of training or specific training if there's somewhere close to where you live that mimics the race start. We used to do specific sessions exactly like that once a week if we knew we had a race like that coming up. And other sessions which we also called ins and outs. So where you just transitioning quickly between running and swimming and it is, there is a physiological adaptation that's required. And mentally it's a, an uneasy or awkward feeling as well when you're switching from running to swimming and vice versa. So, but something like any acquired skill, I think you can prepare your body physically for it and also mentally by, by just practicing.

Andrew Harley: I love that suggestion, Craig. Even Jamie, if you can get some of a couple of their triathlete friends to the same lake, beach or beach, beach, and, and intentionally run side by side, right, so you're experiencing the contact you'll experience on race day, um, that'll take some of the nerves away, hopefully on race day. And yeah, just don't take it too, too fast. When Greg, when, when the pros are doing this, right? Like at a, at a professional event, is everybody just booking it into the water, trying to be first and get into the water first? Or, or do some of the pros take their sweet time a little bit to keep their heart rate down.

Craig Alexander: Mark's like, no, you're booking, you're, I love your word, booking. Yeah, they're booking it. They're going full sense, flat out because you're going from, you got, you're going from a, the fastest discipline running to the slowest swimming and you want to carry as much speed off the beach or off dry land as possible and carry that momentum into the water. And when we used to practice, we had, we used to go down with a lot of the surf lifesavers who were all bigger guys and they have their own events which involve a lot of running and swimming. So we used to do it with them and it was, there was a bit of rough and tumble as you mentioned, Andrew. It wasn't intentionally rough, but you're sort of bumping shoulders. But no, we would, we would set up like a 40 or 50 meter run and you would just go flat out down the beach into the water and then we'd take like 50 or 100 strokes, almost max at like a max effort level out into the deeper water and then regroup out there and then just sprint in swimming and then sprint up the beach as well. So. And we would do it both ways and we'd, we'd do it for a while and it, you, it is like I mentioned, an acquired skill. You pick up the ability quite quickly to do it and you, you learn to deal with the discomfort of it as well.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Yep. And one other thing, just as an average athlete, right. It's, you know, again, the pros are trying to win. There's some age groupers that are trying to win podium set PRs. But if you're not, you know, if you're like me and you know, the six seconds you might save running a little faster might be the difference between 56th place and 57th place in your age group. Yeah. Okay. You know, take it down a notch. Keep your heart rate down. You're going to get in the, into the water 4 seconds slower, 3 seconds slower, 6 seconds slower. Right.

Mark Allen: Another thing is just kind of ask yourself, is it, is, is that rise in my heart rate going to cost me anything later in the race? And if it's not, then it really doesn't matter, you know. But if at any point in the race, if you do something short that's really stupid, that's going to cost you later, that's something to avoid. Whether it's trying to climb up a little rise in the road too fast and it just elevates your heart rate and you can't get it down for the rest of the bike ride. That's a cost. But if, if you can slow down a little bit, that slight loss in time will ensure that you have a great race. And that's the most important thing.

Andrew Harley: Question five comes from Mark. He says, if the tri bike is advantageous for running after biking, why do some triathletes utilize a road bike frequently in training? Shouldn't we just use our tri bikes all the time to get most of our, our muscles the most acclimated for a tri race? And, and I, I think it's this, this depends on your circle of tri friends. I think 99% of my tri friends are riding a tri bike 99.9% of the time. I personally just sold my road bike because I never ride it. I'm always on my tri bike because that's just, that's just my lifestyle. But I think Mark, who's asking this question, must have a lot of triathlete friends who are going back and forth between the roadie and the TT bike. So let's talk about this point here. You know, what's, is there a disadvantage to training on, on both back and forth? Should we be spending a majority of our time on a TT bike? What do you guys think about this?

Mark Allen: Well, you know, my personal choice when I was competing was to do all of my cycling on my TT bike because I did want to get efficient in that position. I wanted to see how that position worked and to make sure that I was comfortable in it and if, if I needed to make some small changes that I could make them. And if I found that if I went back and forth between the bikes as, as, you know, Craig has actually mentioned a lot on some of the other things we've done together. You know, the, the geometry on road frame is very different from a tri bike. And, and you know, you're, you're pedaling, your pedaling motion is going to be different. And so when, when you go back and forth, you just, your body never really settles, has a full chance to settle into that TT bike and make sure that that position is dialed in and there's a whole neuromuscular efficiency thing that takes place. So when you do a, a motion over and over and over in a particular pattern, and so that's what you want to do is to get your, your, your brain to be as, as efficient at sending those signals to the, to the leg muscles to generate the power you're trying to get in that TT position. And you Know if you're going back and forth it, you don't you lose some of that, that time where you could be developing that efficiency, you know, I mean there, if it's the off season and you just don't want to be on that, that TT bike, you know, and it's, you're just going out for a ride with a bunch of friends and especially if it's a bunch of people who are not on TT bikes, you know, handling, handling a TT bike is a little bit more dicey I'd say than a road frame. You know, like you see in the Olympics, the triathlon, they're all on road frames because it would be too dangerous if they were on TT bikes. So there's, there's a safety factor. But in general I'm all in on the TT bike.

Andrew Harley: Coach Crowie.

Craig Alexander: Yeah, Mark, I love it. I was going to say the same thing. I think in a perfect world you would have a roadie and a TT bike. I think in season when big races are approaching again, that specificity transfer of training, you want to be on the TT bike almost 100% of the time. I know we would live five or six months of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Later in my career I would only take the TT bike. So you know, I think during off season if you're riding in group rides because of that safety element or you're doing rides where you're, you're sort of switching and swapping turns. Because I used to do races like that early in my career, I just got so comfortable on a road bike as well. So I always kept one in the garage. But I think when you're building up very specifically for non drafting events, your time will be better served. Um, not only from a fitness and a neuromuscular and, and an efficiency standpoint, but also a handling standpoint, the bike's handled differently. So you need to be comfortable handling a TT bike where your weight's further forward towards or over the bottom bracket. Um, and I think if you are, you know, if you upskill and, and your, your technical ability improves on a TT bike, which it will the more time you spend on it and there are group rides in your area, other riders will get to know your level of ability and if, if they know you're a safe, courteous rider who doesn't sort of cross wheels or do any of the no no's in in pack riding, then most, most groups allow, or some groups will allow athletes on TT bikes if they know that athlete well on their level of ability. So, but from a, a performance standpoint, if you're going to be racing on a TT bike, I would say train on it as much as possible.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, when I, I started in the sport on just an entry level Specialized delay aluminum road bike, uh, it, it was just the cheapest point of entry into the sport. I didn't know is this gonna be a, a, a, a short lived hobby or am I gonna do this for a long time? Here I am now, you know, doing this for a long time. And when, when I was in the tri bike store kind of looking at making my, my second bike purchase. Okay, let me, I like this a lot. I've done a few tries. I want to upgrade my bike. I was really back and forth between like a, like a really sexy aero carbon road bike that was versatile, I could use in a lot of ways, or do I get a comparable TT bike? And I'm talking to the guy in the store and he was like, well, what do you want to do with this bike? I was like, you know, I want to, I want to do triathlons. I want to race, sprint Olympic triathlons. Okay, like get a TT bike. Why are we having this conversation? Like if that's the primary purpose you get in this bike, you need to be on a TT bike. If your primary purpose on this bike is just to like go out there and do a lot of different things. Okay, let's talk about a road bike. And really good advice from him in the store that day. It definitely paid dividends for me. You can always add a road bike down the road. But yeah, here's Mark having advice from Mark and Craig saying, yeah, ride your TT bike as much as you can. Not a huge point mixing it up with the road unless you're riding with some roadies. So thanks for that, guys. Question six comes from Charles. He wants to know how can I fix my breathing in swimming in the pool and in open water, especially cold water. So a little, a little vague here, which isn't a bad thing. It lets us speak to people with different breathing issues in the water. But when an athlete comes to you and they're saying, man, I just don't feel like I'm getting out of breath and I don't feel like I'm breathing. Well, what's the fix here? What do you say to that kind of an athlete Coach Craig?

Craig Alexander: That's a tough one, isn't it? I mean, I think exposure therapy, you have to expose yourself to it. But it's one thing to expose yourself to it. You need some strategies as well. And I mean, it's never enough just to say to an athlete or to anyone, just relax. I mean, what does that even mean? If something creates anxiety or tension in us, we need some sort of distraction or some strategy to reverse that or counteract it. And saying relax is not good enough. I remember doing IRONMAN Coeur d' Alene one year, and it's an interesting race, that one, because the water temp was in the low 50s, but when we hit the marathon later that day, it was over a hundred Fahrenheit. So. So I think one of the things is you need to dress appropriately for the cold water. That would be my first suggestion. Make sure you're doing some of those external things. That will help. So not all wetsuits are created equally. Some companies, some brands have cold water wetsuits. So I would look into that. If you're going to be doing a lot of cold water swimming, definitely get yourself one of those bonnets. We, we tend to dissipate or lose a lot of heat through our head. So you want to make sure you cover that up and your extremities, your hands and your feet, if you can. But one thing that worked for me at that racing, Coeur d' Alene because I didn't have a lot of experience swimming in cold water. And I just googled what, what were the suggestions? Yeah, yeah, I just googled it. So this was 15 years ago. And because I was concerned, once we got out of the water, the temperature was going to rise rapidly. So I was worried about that. So that neural cramping that can come on when you go for temperature changes from a cold sort of cold water to a warmer ambient climate. And one thing that it said to me was go and hop in the water for, I think it was 90 seconds to three minutes, about 15 minutes before the start. And so that's what I did. And only there was myself and two others did it. Everyone else stood on the beach. I went and hopped in the water, and it was like hopping into an ice bath. There was an initial shock. It felt just awful. And then I went a little numb. I went numb. But the physiological. I'm not exactly sure of the physiological basis, but I think what it did is it causes like a constriction and then a dilation of the vessels. And so then what happened was I had to come out of the water, put a beanie on, get a towel on, put shoes and socks back on for the 15 minutes to warm right up and stay warm, and Then when I did a little bit of a dry land warmup, and then when the gun went off and I hit the water, it didn't feel cold at all. I didn't have that initial shock that I had when I got in 15 minutes prior, so. But I had to make sure I dried off and got warm in that 15 minutes.

Andrew Harley: No kidding.

Craig Alexander: Interim. But that's. That. That would be my one suggestion. And one thing that comes to mind immediately is. Or two things. Get the appropriate equipment, wetsuits, booties, bonnet, and then try some exposure. Try exposing yourself to it and seeing if that makes any difference to your swimming performance 10 or 15 minutes later. And also just regularly exposing yourself to it. If I knew I was going to be doing that race in Coeur d', Alene, I jumped into at the last minute through injury and travel, and I had no other options to qualify. Generally speaking, when we plan our schedules, professionals and age groupers alike, we know well in advance the conditions. So do a little bit of homework, do some research, see what kind of conditions you're going to be racing in and prepare accordingly. Go and train in those conditions.

Andrew Harley: Coach Mark, same thing over to you. What would you tell an athlete just struggling with breathing issues on the swim?

Mark Allen: Maybe when you're in the pool, see, are you exhaling under the water? If you're blowing most of your air out after your, after your mouth sort of exits the water, there's just not enough time to blow it out and to breathe new air in. And that can give you that feeling of sort of panic breathing, you know. But if it's just like a slow, controlled, steady blowing the water, blowing the air out when your face is in the water and you kind of give that last little puff as you clear the water so that you're not sucking in water, and then breathe in, you know, and then as opposed to. I can't even. As opposed to, you know, that's a, that's a panic kind of breathing. And that'll definitely feel like you're out of breath and that you, you can't get enough oxygen. So, you know, maybe start working if that is something that you're thinking that might be me, you know, start by, by having like a pull buoy between your legs in the water so you can have your body position taken care of and just do super relaxed, controlled stroke work where you're, you're just breathing every stroke and you can really focus on the breathing. You're not having to worry about body position, anything like that. And then work into once you kind of have that feel then work into without the pull buoy. You know, when you're, when you're talking about that sort of shock thing in, in cold water. You know, one, one thing about wetsuits is they don't get, they don't keep you warm until they actually get wet. And so that cold water has to get in there. And that is, no matter how much you practice it, your body is going to sort of register that a little bit like, oh, this is a little bit of a shock. And that can sort of give you that feeling like, oh, no, I can't breathe. And so my guess is that it probably, Greg, it probably really worked because you got the wetsuit wet and even though you dried yourself off, the interior environment right there next to your skin was wet and the wetsuit was doing its job of keeping you warm. And so if you do get in the water and can get out and keep yourself warm in the interim, that's a great way so that you don't have that initial shock in a cold water swim. And if you can't do that for whatever reason, just reassure yourself that that sort of cold shock, you'll feel it for the first 15, 30 seconds and then after that your, your body will start to warm up that water that's inside the wetsuit with you and it won't feel, it won't feel that same, you won't have that shock feeling anymore.

Andrew Harley: I think we got time for one more audience question on this show on the main set and I, I'm gonna throw a body hair one your way. This, this feels like a, this feels like a good closer. With Mark Allen and Craig Alexander. Babatunde Adedepo, who is a tri daughter from Maryland State. I've met him at a, at a couple races. He and I share the same birthday March 4th. So shout out to my birthday buddy Babatunde. He wants to know about body hair causing drag. And specifically, you know, there's, there's a lot of different places for body hair. Which ones? As an athlete, do we need to be concerned about slowing us down? Like in the swim, if, if you have a beard, is that going to slow you down on the bike? You know, I think we know about leg hair and arm hair and then on, on the run. Question mark, is there any, any concern here when it comes to body hair on the run? So really overarching question when you're talking an athlete through just saving as much time as we can through the free speed of shaving before a race, what body Hair. Should we be concerned about potentially slowing us down in one of the three disciplines? Coach Mark let's hear it.

Mark Allen: Well, body hair. Any, any body hair that is interacting with the water in the swim will slow you down. If you shave all of your body hair off and you've got your swim cap on, there's no body hair slowing you down. And if you've never shaved down before and you get in the water without a wetsuit and you swim, you will feel slick. I mean, it's like you won't even be, you won't even be able to actually sort of feel the water. It's like the coolest feeling. Will a beard slow you down? Yeah. But the question is, if you like your body hair and you like your beard and, and you shave it all off and you save, you know, 3, 10 of a second per hundred, you know, maybe you come out of the water 15 seconds faster or 20 seconds faster, is it worth it to you? I don't know. It was worth it to me. But I, I had no problem shaving because I did it for big swim meets when I was a swimmer and I did it for every triathlon. But so then you get on the bike. Yes. There is a slight drag that happens from your hair. So if you've got a long ponytail hanging out of the back of your helmet, that's going to slow you down. I look at some of the, the long hair races I did and I thought, what was I thinking? I should have chopped that stuff.

Andrew Harley: It looked cool. You looked cool.

Mark Allen: I look so darn cool. Like, people were jealous, you know, but so anyway. But now let's go to the run. Now there is a benefit to shaving, especially if you're pretty hairy shaving your legs and your arms for the run that nobody ever talks about. And that, that advantage is that you are actually going to run cooler with that hair not on your body. And I know this for a fact because a number of years ago when I was training in Boulder, Colorado, place that both Craig and I have spent many years and miles and hours training, there was a great marathon runner who comes from Craig's homeland, Rob Dicostella, world record holder. I think he held the world record. He had the Boston Marathon record for a while and his wife was a triathlete. Galene Clues at that time. And so, you know the topic of should I shave? And we said yes. And so he was probably one of the most hair, hairiest humans that wasn't a gorilla on the planet. And so, and he had a track workout one afternoon. And so he thought he had given himself plenty of time to shave his legs before the track workout. But he, you know, three or four blades later, after he dulled practically the lawnmower, you know, he only had one leg done. And so he shows up at the track with one shaved leg and then one gorilla leg. It was like, I wish I had a picture. But anyway, so he's running along in the workout and was in the summer and it's hot and he's like, oh, my God, the shaved leg is so much cooler than the hairy leg. And so that's a savings that if you're going to be doing a hot race somewhere and you do have a lot of body hair for the run, for that alone, I would shave it.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, that's a really great point. My. So my per. As an average age grouper who's not winning money at races or any medals or anything like that, other than the finisher metal, my personal policy now on this is if. If I'm doing a full iron man, I'm gonna shave. It's such a long race. There's so. There's so much free time you're getting. Right. Just by shaving. Oh, and if. If I'm gonna do a 70.3, where I have a chance at a PR, I will shave. And if it. If the race doesn't meet those two requirements, I'm not going to put myself through it. I don't mind the process of shaving. I don't mind, like, my. My arms and legs being shaved. What I. The part I don't like, guys, is like the, the weeks of it growing back and you're prickly, then you're pricklier, and then you're. It's just, you're. That. That part of it drives me bonkers. And so my policy is full iron man. Yeah, I'm going to shave half iron man, where I might PR. I'm gonna shave. If I'm not gonna pr, what's the point of those couple minutes? And if it's. If it's sprint Olympic, I'm. I'm not gonna shave. It's a sprinter Olympic, so I'm just gonna be hairy.

Mark Allen: So a shaving tip. If you're like a super hairy dude or even if you're not a super hairy dude, but you're. You're full hair, right? So start by trimming it as. As close as you can with like the. The barber clippers, you know, like, you know, so do the first layer with that and then Come back over it with, with, you know, some shaving cream and an actual razor. If you, if you go with a razor right off the bat, you end up like Rob Di Costello.

Andrew Harley: One leg shaving tips for Mark Allen. Coach Craig, shut down our main set with your thoughts on body, but really like crow. What do you tell your athletes? Race day's coming. They're talking with you about this. Hey, what, what should I get rid of? What do you tell them?

Craig Alexander: Who would have thought episode 300 would turn into it took this long. I mean, you should consider waxing Andrew. And then you, you, I've heard apparently you. You pass over that prickly phase, so.

Andrew Harley: Interesting. Interesting.

Craig Alexander: No, I think what Mark said, I mean, you've got to. It depends on your goals, aspirations in the race. I, I remember, I think it was the 88 Olympics. One of the best swimmers in the world from the US, Matt Biondi, came out for the heats of the 200 freestyle with a beard and then turned up for the final. Bully shaved, but he's trying to get hundreds of a second, tenth of a second, you know, so in that arena and that environment, you know, not every second counts, every hundredth of a second counts. So. And then there's that mental feeling of, you know, you're not shaved down in the heat. And then the final word. Like Mark says, when you shave down and hit the water, it feels amazing. So I think there's a mental component to it as well. But, yeah, I mean, the reason I remember one of the guys I used to race, Andy Potts, didn't shave his legs because he claimed he'd tested in the wind tunnel and there was half a watt in it or. And he thought, I'm not going to go through all of the. So what he's what became. And at that point in our evolution as a sport, what was becoming apparent was race suits that were longer and would cover more skin. So sleeves, sleeve kits or even full sleeves, which is more aerodynamic. The. The air sort of buffers off those materials better than it does on skin. It creates a bit of turbulence and grips the skin. So who knows with all the testing, but I would just say, if you wanted to. One of the reasons I did it on the bike was I was getting massaged a lot. And my massage therapist said, you know what, if you shaved your legs, I could get a lot deeper and it wouldn't hurt as much. And that was true. So that was one thing. And also, you know, all the pro bike riders swear by, because when you crash, you know, not always but when you crash, depending on what angle you hit the road at, you lose less skin if you, if you shave down, you get a bit of road rash, but the hair pulls out the skin in plugs. So you tend to get a lot more road rash if you've got hairy legs. I never thought I'd be talking about this on a TriDot Podcast, but here we are. But I mean it. Yeah, I, I, I. The big performance thing that I think everyone feels is what Mark spoke about at the end there. The if you're racing in Kona or a climate like that, you do dissipate heat off your body, and the evaporative cooling apparently has a greater effect if you've removed the hair from your skin. So I tend not to give my athletes unsolicited beauty tips or advice around this unless they specifically ask. And then I just go with my own experience because I haven't done extensive testing in the tunnel. But the massage thing, that was real. That definitely felt better.

Announcer: Great set, everyone. Let's cool down.

Andrew Harley: And for our cool down today, I have one more athlete question that I'm going to answer and I'm going to take this one. I'm going to let you, Mark and Crowie, we get about the best the rest of their day. They've given us some fantastic coaching today. And this question comes from John. He says, we know who is the captain of the middle of the pack, but I want to know who is the captain of the back of the pack. If you're a longtime listener of the show, you've heard me for 300 episodes announce myself as Andrew, the average triathlete captain of the middle of the pack. I wear that with a badge of honor. So I truly am a middle of the pack athlete. And every question I ask on all of our podcast episodes, I try to make sure I'm representing anybody and everybody, every corner from the front of the pack to the back of the pack to where I am in the middle of the pack. And hopefully you guys find this show helpful and that really shines through. But to answer John's question, I am going to give a shout out to a couple athletes. If you did not know this TriDot Podcast Episode 155 is literally called Stories and Strategies from the Back of the Pack. And that episode is all about how to be a triathlete. It kind of represents the back of the pack experience of race day, what it's like to know that you're going to clock in with a back of the pack time. And we had Triathlon coach Joanna Nami, who is not back of the pack. She's very fast. But we had Shannon Cranston and Simon Williams on that episode of the show and they represented, they're, they're two TriDot Ambassadors, Shannon Cranston actually now as a coach. But they represent the back of the pack athlete population. When they line up at a local sprinter, Olympic or a half IRONMAN or a full IRONMAN, they finish toward the back of the pack, they finish strong, they finish well, but they're back of the pack athletes and Shannon Cranston specifically. So this is TriDot coach Shannon Cranston. She for she's, she's a Texas based athlete. So I see her around to the Texas races throughout the year and she had told me a couple times we, we should do a back of the pack episode. We should do a back of the pack episode. And so I want to give full credit to her. We have that wonderful episode that's episode 155. Because Shannon kept knocking on my door saying I really want to come on and do a back of the pack episode of the TriDot Podcast. And it was fantastic. If you're looking for a triathlon coach who is gifted at working with back of the pack athletes because she is one, Shannon is your girl. So long story short, me rambling like any good Podcast host can ramble, my answer to this question, who is the captain at the back of the pack? She doesn't know. I'm going to give her this shout out, but my answer is TriDot coach Shannon Cranston. Hope she's out there somewhere having a great day today. That's all for episode 300. We'll see you guys soon for 301.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot Podcast with your triathlon crew for more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today. TriDot, the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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