Your Questions Answered: Stroke Rate, Heat Adaptation, Post-Race Nausea, & More!

TriDot Podcast Episode 150

Your Questions Answered: Stroke Rate, Heat Adaptation, Post-Race Nausea, & More!

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: Welcome to the show everybody. It is episode 150. Every 25 episodes we dedicate the show to asking a panel of our coaches questions from you, the athletes in our audience. I am a company man, so a quick shameless TriDot plug: the legendary Mark Allen has teamed up with TriDot to launch the Mark Allen Edition of TriDot. Mark Allen Edition athletes will get TriDot's revolutionary training plus Mark's wisdom and personal touch. If that is of interest to you, you can join the waitlist for the Mark Allen Edition by visiting the link in the description. I've got three of our esteemed TriDot coaches with us for this today. First up is Coach John Mayfield. John is a USAT Level 2 and IRONMAN youth certified coach who leads TriDot's Athlete Services, Ambassador and Coaching programs. He's coached hundreds of athletes ranging from first timers to Kona Qualifier and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. John Mayfield, are you ready to hear what the people want to know?

John Mayfield: Ready to hear and man I cannot believe we are doing this for the 150th time. That's like I don't know how I got to be 42 years old and I don't know how we got 150 podcast episodes. So this is cool. But yeah, these are always fun. Always love getting together with my friends to answer questions from my other friends.

Andrew Harley: Next we have Joanna Nami. Joanna is better known as Coach JoJo. She has been coaching athletes with TriDot since 2012. She is a co-founder of Hissy Fit Racing, a third year member of the Betty Design Squad and now has 17 IRONMAN finishes on her accomplished triathlon resume. Coach JoJo qualified for two IRONMAN World Championships and will be racing Kona coming up here in October of 2022. Coach JoJo, welcome back to the podcast.

Joanna Nami: Thanks for having me Andrew.

Andrew Harley: Last but not least we have Coach Jeff Raines. Jeff is a USAT level 2 and IRONMAN U certified coach, has a Master's of Science in Exercise Physiology and was a D1 collegiate runner. He has over 50 IRONMAN event finishes on his resume and has coached hundreds of athletes to the IRONMAN finish line. Jeff, how's it going today?

Jeff Raines: Great. These Athlete Ask episodes are some of my favorite ones and I can't believe this is our sixth one of those, but also the 150th episode. As John alluded to, man, time flies when we're having fun.

Andrew Harley: I'm Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people and captain of the middle of the pack. As always, we will roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set conversation and then wind things down with our cooldown. Here at TriDot we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing in the crowded field of nutrition companies. What separates UCAN from the pack is the science behind LiveSteady, the key ingredient in UCAN products. While most energy powders are filled with sugar or stimulants that cause a spike and crash, UCAN energy powders powered by LiveSteady deliver a steady release of complex carbs to give you stable blood sugar and provide long lasting energy. I personally fuel my workouts with the orange flavored Edge gel and the unflavored UCAN Energy. Between their Energy Mix, energy bars, almond butter and more, there is definitely a LiveSteady product that you will love. So head to their website ucan.co, that is u-c-a-n dot co, and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. It used to be 10% but the fine folks at UCAN have upped it to 20% off for TriDot nation. So once again that's ucan.co promo code TRIDOT. Time to warm up. Let's get moving.

Andrew Harley: Today's warm up question is also a question from the audience. This comes from TriDot Ambassador Walter Cahill. Walter is from the Pacific Northwest and here's what Walter wants to know. He said, hey Andrew, I've got a fun question for the podcast. What is the longest you've worn your M-dot wristband after the race was over? At the time Walter was making this comment he was on day four of wearing his wristband from 70.3 Oregon and basically guys, TriDot had a really solid crew race 70.3 Oregon and 70.3 Lubbock on the same weekend. My tracker app was just blowing up with action all weekend long and afterwards several of our athletes kept posting about how long they were keeping their wristbands on. Shout out especially to Holly Weaver. She kept a daily post going with a picture of what she was up to and where she was still wearing her armband on her wrist for well over a week. So coming off of that weekend, lobbing this question up to our coaches. What is the longest that you have ever kept a race wristband on? Jeff Raines.

Jeff Raines: I mean, probably a week. I mean, I know that's kind of a boring answer, but I will say that I, you know, I'll keep the ones from races that I did well. You know, if I had a bad race, I cut that thing off and throw that thing in the trash. But actually something kind of, I guess fun is I used to like, I save all the race bib numbers, you know, maybe like the ones from your run belt. And I would write on the back, you know, my results, how I did, the place, all that. But I do like a kind of a quick race report and the weather and stuff like that. And it's just kind of fun to refer back to those years later. Right. You got a big stack and oh, I remember that race. Oh, yeah, that's the one that it rained or whatever. So that's kind of related.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I actually, Jeff, have a Google sheet where I kind of do the same thing and I punch in the date of the race and I can look back from my start in the sport all the way to now and I've got all my races there with my results, my splits and kind of some notes about what the day was like. Just for personal reflection, the more of these you do, the more it's easy to forget how certain races went. So it's nice to have it on a spreadsheet. You doing that on your bibs is pretty fun. Coach JoJo, wristbands. How long do you normally keep those suckers on for?

Joanna Nami: This was a nostalgic question I thought about. I think Cindy Reeves and I, when we did our first Iron Man in Coeur d'Alene in like 2010, I know I kept it on so long that the writing wore off. It was just like a neon band that I had on. It probably was, I don't know, months. I did in one year do Maryland and Arizona back to back, which were like seven weeks apart. And I'm pretty sure there was a half involved. And I wanted to have three bands on at the same time to be like the winner, so not competitive. But I did have, I'm pretty sure I had three Iron Man bands on for at a time. So that was about a seven week period.

Jeff Raines: So that's a, that's a podcast question in itself. How many race bands have you worn in one race before? Like stack them all up for the whole year? That's awesome.

Andrew Harley: Coach John Mayfield, I know you're one who is nostalgic for the races of days gone by. How long do you usually keep your race wristbands on for?

John Mayfield: My memories last a lot longer than my wristbands. I hate those things. They drive me crazy. So for me, it's like as soon as I can get to a pair of scissors and cut the thing off, I cut it off. I can't stand it on my wrist. Drives me crazy. I hate sleeping, showering, all that. Yeah. So I'm not - now I keep them. So I have, I think, all of them from even the fulls, the halves, other races that I've done that have wristbands. They're just kind of a cool little memento. But I like them on the shelf, not on my wrist, so.

Andrew Harley: So you're not totally an Ebenezer Scrooge when it comes to wristbands. You just like to get them off your wrist, but you still have them. So I usually keep them. Jeff, I'm kind of like you. I keep them on for about a week, and then I get rid of them. It's always nice to kind of go to the pool for those recovery workouts, you know, immediately following a race and kind of show off that you just did a race that weekend. So I keep them on for a week. I cut them off. I don't store them in a specific place. But, John, kind of like you, I have a hard time throwing them away because they are a memento of the race day. So since I don't store them in a particular place, I mean, I come across them all the time when I'm like digging through drawers looking for something. It's like, oh, there's my 70.3 Greece one, and there's my 70.3 Waco one, and there's this one, there's that one. So it's kind of cool just to kind of come across them day to day as I'm looking for other things in all my little trinket drawers around the house. So hey, guys, we're going to throw this question out to you, our audience. Are you a Coach JoJo who hangs on to these things as long as you possibly can? Are you an Andrew or Jeff who keeps them on for a little bit? Are you a John Mayfield who cuts those suckers off as soon as the race is over? We're going to throw this question out to you on Facebook. Make sure you're a part of the I Am TriDot Facebook group and let us know when a race is over, how long do you keep your race wristband on?

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

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Andrew Harley: It always makes for a great show to simply be able to ask our coaches your questions. I procure these questions from the I Am TriDot Facebook group. I procure them from my email, Facebook messages I receive from athletes and our podcast voicemail system. So if you have a question you would like to have answered on a future episode like this, we'll do it all again on episode 175. You can go to tridot.com/podcast and click on leave us a voicemail to ask your question with your voice. Guys, let's get to the questions. Athlete question number one here on episode 150 comes from John Gir. He's one of our Canadian athletes. He wants to know this: how do you deal with nausea, particularly puking at the end of an iron distance race? Jeff Raines, what do you got for us man?

Jeff Raines: We, I think we've mostly all been there, so I've been there, done that, know how you feel. I know it's not a fun feeling or experience, but so yeah, we, you know, we all know the later half of the marathon many can tend to kind of feel like maybe you're behind on nutrition, fueling, you know, that nausea might be starting to kick in. You know, I've been there, right? And actually, even the next 12, maybe 24 hours after an IRONMAN, you're feeling kind of that way too. And I think we can also agree that like, you're kind of sort of like so hungry the day after an IRONMAN, or that, you know, that night or the next morning, you're so hungry that you're not hungry. You know, that just kind of horrible nausea feeling, right? It's like, oh man, I did an IRONMAN. I want a giant burger, right? A beer or whatever. And you go and you order this giant meal and you like take two bites and you're full. But, you know, I think a lot can be kind of -

Andrew Harley: Yeah, a lot of -

Jeff Raines: It's probably the way you were fueling in the race. A lot of times it's swallowing water during the swim. You know, a lot of people have GI issues on the bike, and I think they kind of forget or don't think about, you know, oh, I swallowed three or four gulps of that nasty water. So maybe that bacteria there is affecting maybe your absorption on the bike and creating some of that palate fatigue. So maybe by the time you get to the run, it's too late and you're behind, right? I know some experiment with charcoal, you know, maybe before the swim, if they know that that's an issue for them. I definitely practice with that. But, you know, you can maybe, you know, the answer is, if that's the issue, is to fix your body roll or, you know, fix your swim form, right? And not, you know, fix the symptoms, but fix the issue of the problem. But really, you might want to tweak your breathing strategy or your body roll or something like that. But like mid-run, if you're feeling nauseous or maybe you're at mile 20, you know, you can take a little soda. A little bit of carbonation can kind of help settle that stomach a little bit. And then, you know, maybe by the aid station after that, you feel like maybe eating again, actually eating. And sometimes it can negate some of that nausea. But a lot also has to do with elevated core body temperature. Maybe you overheated a little on the bike there. There's a ton of things that could cause it.

Andrew Harley: Right.

Jeff Raines: But how do you deal with it? You know, maybe you can put some Pepto Bismol in personal needs, right? Just that insurance policy just in case, something like that. But really, you know, you want to check your pacing, you want to check your fueling and you want to try to prevent those things in the first place. And if you're starting to feel a little bit of nausea somewhere in the race, but it's not full force yet, start doing immediate detective work like, you know, what is causing this? Did I drop a bottle on the bike? Am I behind? You know, whatever you need to do there.

Andrew Harley: Well, at the time we're recording this, you know, the PTO Edmonton race just occurred over the weekend and I was watching it and Alistair Brownlee, you know, a very seasoned, very experienced, high level pro triathlete, he got on the run course and got shut down for what looked like an upset stomach and some stomach cramps, couldn't even run through it. And so no matter how experienced you are and no matter how much you know about yourself and your body and your nutrition strategy, it can happen. And like you said, Jeff, you kind of have to play detective mid-race and see what you can do to prevent it or alleviate it. And sometimes you're able to troubleshoot and sometimes you just gotta power through. I never really had that experience before myself until my first iron distance race when I did IRONMAN Waco. You know, I had some nausea midway through that run course. It was the weirdest feeling after I crossed the finish line. It was like I stopped running and immediately like, you know that tingly feeling when your feet fall asleep or like an arm falls asleep because you have it propped up too high or something like that and that extremity starts tingling? I had that tingling sensation in my tummy after that race, in my core, and it was the weirdest thing. It was kind of freaking me out a little bit. So I grabbed two slices of pizza and I was waiting for that tingling sensation in my stomach to go away before I ate my post-race pizza. And thankfully it finally did. But after the race, reviewing my nutrition strategy, reviewing what nutrition I took in during IRONMAN Waco, I was talking with the team from Precision Fuel and Hydration and they were looking at my numbers, they were looking at how much fuel I should have been taking in. And on the run course they were like, you actually took in too much electrolyte and too much calories there and that was probably causing the nausea. So I can't emphasize enough like knowing your numbers, knowing how much electrolyte you need to be taking in, knowing how much calories you need to be taking in, because knowing those and kind of sticking to a plan can really, really help. So connect with our friends from Precision Fuel and Hydration and they can certainly help prevent you from having nausea in the first place. Question number two, this comes from Maria Depanfilis and John, we met Maria at 70.3 Galveston earlier this year and you in particular met her in a very fun location. Before I ask her question, tell us where you met Maria.

John Mayfield: So I met Maria in line for the porta potties. So coming full circle to Maria having a question on the podcast that I have the privilege to answer. I was chatting with somebody in line for the bathroom and she recognized my voice and was kind enough to introduce herself and I made sure to come find you and make sure that she got to meet you. And then we connected later and she came on. She was not training with TriDot at the time, but said she was going to be. And true to her word, she came on and recently got married, recently moved from New York to Texas. So we are very happy to have her here in the Lone Star State. And yeah, so it's just been really cool to get to meet her and work with her and welcome her both to TriDot and to Texas.

Andrew Harley: So Maria wants to know about back to back races in general and more specifically back to back IRONMANs. How close is too close to pull off back to back IRONMANs? And she's also wondering what about doing a half after a full Iron Man? So John Mayfield, after a full Iron Man, how close is too close? How should we spread out doing a race on the backside of an Iron Man?

John Mayfield: There's gonna be a whole lot of variables at play here. First is going to depend on what are your goals, what are your goals specifically for that second IRONMAN race? And that's really going to determine how much time is necessary for you to achieve that goal. So it's going to be all about recovery. You're going to do a lot of damage to your body during that IRONMAN. There's going to be a whole lot of musculoskeletal injury. You're going to be depleted in all sorts of electrolytes and hormones and all that. Your body's going to be all out of whack and it's going to take a certain amount of time for you to get back to that place where you can complete that distance again, where you can kind of impose that same damage on your body. And it's quite feasible to do IRONMAN back to back weeks. We've seen that. We've seen it as frequently as back to back days. Several years ago, Iron Man Maryland and IRONMAN Chattanooga were on the same weekend and there was a group of people that did Maryland on Saturday and went to Chattanooga on Sunday. And then of course there's the DECA where they do 10 in a row, not 10 in a day, 10 in a row. And then there's those that have done 20, 30, 50, 100 IRONMANs in a row. So that's kind of all in a different aspect of it. But as far as actually going and racing IRONMAN races back to back, kind of my rule of thumb - what I like to do, I think the sweet spot for me, and I would say for most folks is somewhere in that four to six weeks. It really takes about two to three weeks where you're really starting to kind of feel better, starting to shake the lingering effects of having raced an IRONMAN. And that just gives you a little bit of time to hit a couple quality workouts, kind of get that feeling back and then taper in, rest up a couple days before doing it again. So what I like to do, and this is kind of my preferred strategy, is to race an IRONMAN and schedule another one four to six weeks out. What I would say is like, it's kind of like buy one, get one free. You train for one, you get to race twice. You're doing two IRONMANs without having to go through full IRONMAN training cycles two times. So, you know, it really is going to depend on the athlete, how quickly you recover, what are your goals for that second race specifically. And then as far as racing a 70.3, that's largely going to be the same. You still need to be either completely recovered if you're going after that PR or qualification. You need to be adequately recovered to race a 70.3. So it's kind of the same for the 70.3. It's really about how quickly you recover and then how quickly or how recovered do you need to be in order to perform at the level you want to perform at?

Andrew Harley: I remember doing my first 70.3, John. It was 70.3 New Zealand. And the pro triathlete who won that race was from New Zealand. And he won that race and then the next weekend he won a 70.3 in Argentina. And I remember just blowing my mind. Like I just felt so destroyed after that very, very first half IRONMAN, when that distance just felt so long and it just blew my mind that a pro could win that one and the next weekend then win again in Argentina. It was just wild to me, right? But for him that recovery was very easy at that distance.

John Mayfield: Well, he's only out there for four hours. I would say that the kind of what is impressive there is to go from Greece to Argentina, have that -

Andrew Harley: Yeah, right.

John Mayfield: Very long, very tiring, stressful flight and then to be able to perform back to back. So it's less about the recovery in that case and more about that travel. That's what I'm impressed with.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And that was pro triathlete Terenzo Bozone. Took me a second to remember his name. But the other thing I was reminded of there, John, I have a training partner here that I ride with frequently. Her name's April. And April told me one time like she loves scheduling a 70.3 in the weeks following a full because she's like you're trained for that full distance and after you accomplish the full distance, three, four, five weeks later, you go to your 70.3 and it feels like the shortest, easiest 70.3 you're ever going to do.

John Mayfield: Yeah.

Andrew Harley: Because mentally you're ready for a much longer race. And I always thought that was an interesting take on doing it.

Jeff Raines: That's my season. My season is six weeks long. This year it's IRONMAN California and then six weeks later the Daytona 70.3. So kind of that same idea, six weeks, go for that speed right after.

Andrew Harley: Let's go. We'll talk about it on the podcast in the future. But we're gonna have a jolly good time in Daytona. If you're a TriDotter and you can get yourself to Daytona for Challenge Daytona this December, do it because it's going to be bananas. Question number three. This comes from Kurt Yanish. He says here in Wyoming, our daily temperature ranges from 40 degrees in the morning to 80 in the afternoon. The predicted temperature for my next race is in the 90s. Should I be training in the heat of the day? So just regardless guys, if you have a hot race coming up, is it advisable to get out there and train in the heat leading into that race? Coach JoJo.

Joanna Nami: Setting for a side note here because when I read this question it made me laugh. You know, John and I, or all four of us are located in Texas. Usually our temperatures are over 100 daily. Humidity is wonderful, usually about 95 to 100 percent. And I'm in the midst of being about nine weeks out from Kona, a lot of hot runs, a lot of hot bike sessions on the weekends. But I have two friends that are a power couple of TriDot, Megan and Chris Dorito and they are also training for Kona. They live in Pennsylvania. And I got a text one morning early on in training from Chris Dorito that said, and I have to laugh, it tickles me so much. He said, are you going to do any heat adaptation protocol?

Andrew Harley: And you don't need to because -

Joanna Nami: I said, Chris, walking to the mailbox, heat adaptation protocol, it is 102 degrees today. So it just cracked me up. It really tickled me that he was like, wow. But back to this question, yes and no. As far as, do I need to run in the heat of the day? I think there needs to be some variety in planning your sessions throughout the week because the body does react differently in super warm temps. Your GI can be greatly affected. You need to experience that. You need to have some longer runs that are definitely in warmer temperatures if you're training for a race that is predicted to be pretty warm. But you know, I talked about this with Jeff Raines beforehand and he mentioned that, you know, you don't want to have back to back sessions where you're going to get so depleted. I had a run this week, really sabotaged myself in training for a day. After running 12 miles at about 100 degrees, 100% humidity, recovering from that kind of depletion is really hard to turn around and work out the next day. You're taking so much out of your body. But the other real issue I find that I think a lot of my athletes that I coach that don't live in super warm climates is the mental aspect of running in heat. Your mind, it can get away from you in a race when you are not in a good place. And the heat is probably one of the number one factors that causes that. Within a couple miles of running, usually on the last leg of a triathlon, it's real easy to throw in the towel and to give up mentally in the fight when you're not used to suffering like that. So it's kind of like any other mental strategy I ask my athletes to undertake in order to build some mental fortitude - you need to be used to what that feels like. You need to know that it's going to hurt and that, you know, you may need a wardrobe change and a shoe change, hence my run on Wednesday. You may need to be changing your clothes midway because you can no longer run in the shoes or outfit that you are wearing. But yeah, definitely, definitely need some exposure. But it's good to vary those workouts throughout the week so that you can recover efficiently.

Jeff Raines: Yeah, I'll just add that if you're going to actually get out in the heat of the day and it's 104 degrees out, just be careful. You know, I do loops. Do a half mile loop around your neighborhood, go to a track, do something to where that water bottle is very close or always at hand in case you're five miles out from your house and something happens. So just be safe and be strategic in how you set up that heat adapted training session.

Joanna Nami: Exactly, Jeff. I think people may have thought I was a crazy person at 4am walking with a wine bag that holds water bottles around my neighborhood. I like to drop that wine bag with all my bottles at a strategic location so that you can have easy access. But there's no shame in that.

John Mayfield: I think it's important to note that the wine bag and bottles are actually water bottles, not wine bottles.

Andrew Harley: Coach JoJo has an interesting hydration protocol.

John Mayfield: Great system.

Andrew Harley: The one thing I'll add here because again, we're all Texans, so we're all experienced with this somewhat just by having to train in the summer here - I'll make sure that a lot of that time in the heat that I'm training to get used to the heat a little bit is zone two. It's not great to try to do your quality stuff in the heat. You just can't hit those paces that you're supposed to hit when you're supposed to hold zone four, zone five. So a lot of times, you know, when I have a longer race and I have a stamina session, you know, I'll do my intervals inside on the treadmill, you know, get them in, make sure that quality is as fast as it's supposed to be. And then for the back half of the run, I'll head outside and spend some time in the heat. I also consider, you know, one hour of working in the yard at 100 degrees on Saturday afternoon heat adaptation as well. So there's some creative things you can do to get out in the heat and be in the heat without trying to force your quality workouts to be done in the heat. So next question. This is Heather Hodges. She says due to knee issues, I've been sticking to aqua bikes and I've been avoiding running for years. I'm slowly trying to get back to running and I just signed up for Atlantic City 70.3. My plan is to do a walk-run regimen in training and during the race. So what is the best way to incorporate this into my assessments and into my training? So if somebody, for a variety of reasons, is planning to implement walk-run on race day, how can we implement that into our training?

John Mayfield: Yeah, we could actually probably do a whole podcast on the benefits of integrating walking into your running. So for me, any session longer than 30, maybe 45 minutes, I'm including walk breaks in there. So it's not always about the ability to run without taking any walk breaks. It's more about the benefits of including walk breaks in there. It's kind of like something like your zone 2 running - running slower than you could or maybe even enjoy because there are benefits to running slow. It's kind of that same thing. A lot of times it could even be swallowing some pride or ego. But there are actually a whole lot of benefits of including walk intervals into those run sessions.

Andrew Harley: So -

John Mayfield: But again, that could be a whole other podcast. But as far as what Heather's doing here, I would say it's about finding the right intervals. So what is the appropriate run interval? What is the appropriate recovery? Walk, jog, whatever it may be. You know, maybe it's slowing down a little bit, maybe it's taking a walk, whatever that is. So I would say in finding that, start with a one to one and it may be one minute run, one minute walk. And then what you want to do from there is increase the amount of running that you're doing and see if you can decrease the recovery in between. And that's really kind of not necessarily specific to someone with the knee issue, though it can be, but that's kind of the protocol for establishing your run. Personally, for me, some sessions I like to do a nine to one - nine minutes running, one minute walk - just because that's easy math to keep up with. Others, when I'm running on the track, it's more like I'll do six or seven laps around the track and then I'll do a short walk. But yeah, there's a lot of benefit to it. Find what those intervals are for you, and as you go through your training, you can adjust those. But again, kind of start off a little conservative, add a little bit of time, decrease the amount of time on the recovery as you're able to, but especially pay attention to how are you feeling afterwards. Those walk breaks are really going to help with the knee issues and that's one of the benefits for everyone in including those walk breaks into the run session. Yeah, great point - there's micro recovery in there. You wouldn't necessarily think so, but you are actually able to have some small recoveries in there. You're actually able to have small amounts of glycogen replenishment. There are a whole bunch of things that are happening when the body is able to just rest a little bit, drop the heart rate a little bit. A whole lot of benefits that allow you to go longer. They also allow you to recover quicker, you do less damage. So again, there's a whole bunch of benefits to it. So to actually answer the question, just find that ratio that's right for you and then as race day approaches, have that dialed in and know what your protocol for race day is going to be.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, so I'm an 18 minute 5K-er. The run is my best discipline of all of them. And as an often injured athlete, those micro breaks you're referring to John - I mean, walk breaks have just been invaluable for me. I don't do it every session, but a lot of times those interval workouts, you know, it just helps you hit those quality intervals as hard as you're supposed to if you just give yourself that minute of walking in between. The only thing that is impacted by it is your average pace on Strava. So just, you know, lay the pride aside. Let your average pace on Strava be lower but let your body really enjoy that one minute, two minutes of downtime in between those efforts at running. And maybe we're due John for a full episode on run-walk methodology so we'll just stash that in our back pocket for a future episode. So great question there, Heather. Throwing this next question to Coach JoJo. This comes from Jeff Moses. He says a question I've seen posted a lot are about respiratory issues. What methods are best to recover from sickness and to restart training? Kind of average days off, how many should you take? Should you sub in strength training? Should you do low zone 2 workouts instead to kind of shorten your recovery? So just in general kind of bouncing back from whether it's sickness or whether it's just taking a break for a while and maybe you've had some respiratory issues. How do you come back from that?

Joanna Nami: Well, Andrew, you probably know that triathletes tend to be a little bit obsessive, Type A personality. We focus on -

Andrew Harley: Stop it, stop it.

Joanna Nami: We focus on train hard, train hard, train every day, you know. And as I've gotten older and done Iron Man for a very long time, I've thought about, you know, asking myself every day what is the smart thing to do? And this is very, very hard to do. It's very -

Andrew Harley: I like that.

Joanna Nami: Yeah, it's very hard to make those decisions. And then I think about this question and thought, what if we were as diligent and eager about recovering in general or recovering from illness as we are to get that session in, you know? And it's, you know, what is the smart thing to do? I think recovering from illness, there's - if we make it more of a system of thinking, okay, I'm going to do this as I do my training. I'm going to come back to the sessions, but I'm going to be ultra cautious and hypersensitive to what I'm feeling. Am I short of breath? Do I have accelerated heart rate? Am I nauseous? Am I feeling off? All of these factors that say, hey, I'm not right yet, I'm not better, I'm not ready for this. When we do start feeling better, I do advocate for my athletes to - I'm like, hey, just do a great 20 minute yoga stretch session in front of the TV. Go for a walk with your partner, go for a walk with your kids, do things that you sometimes neglect or don't have time for. Still can be active in some form and recovering, but allowing yourself the time you need to rest and recover fully. If we try to come back too quickly, I know a lot of athletes push through Covid - I'm not, it might be myself, it might be myself - but push through each day thinking I can't miss this session and may have set themselves back training-wise. So it's often nice in the whole realm of training for a very long training season to take a week off in general, you know, let your whole body recover, come back stronger. So just some food for thought on coming back from illness.

Andrew Harley: And I will tease that we are going to do a full length episode talking about just coming back off of a break. Just in general, whether that break was taken because you got injured or because you got sick or just because some life obligations cropped up that are more important - you know, whatever reason you might have taken a break, we want to cover how to properly come back into training. So that is a future episode that we have on the docket for at some point here. Coming up, next question on this episode. This is Brandon Barker, one of our chartered athletes from Austin, Texas. He wants to know, can strong before long and fast before far be applied over the years and not just a single race? For some context he says, I am 44 and a year into triathlon and I hope to become an age group competitive athlete. I know that this will take several years and I'm wondering if it would be best to focus on short course for a few years before turning to long course. Would this allow me to focus my full attention on strength and speed before focusing on full IRONMAN? John, this is in your wheelhouse. What are your thoughts here?

John Mayfield: Yeah, so this is a cool answer. I like the question. So the answer is yes. But really it's not so much always about what you're racing but what is your focus in training. So basically it really takes years to develop the fitness and everything that goes around that for you to be racing at your peak. This is why we often see PRs year to year to year with newer athletes and they tend to stagnate after a couple years because the training isn't always done properly. Oftentimes athletes will focus almost solely, if not at least emphasizing the stamina. They race a whole lot of long course races which require that focus. But really if we are going to perform at our best, we need to be focusing on building our strength, building our power, getting faster. Then we only add stamina when we have to. Stamina is short lived. It's kind of easy come, easy go. You can build the stamina relatively quickly. You also lose it relatively quickly when you are no longer doing those long sessions. The good news is the power, the strength, the functional threshold that you're doing in those sessions where you're building the strength, where you're getting fast and strong - that sticks around, that's going to last. So that is what is going to accrue and increase year over year over year. So regardless of what distance you're going to be racing, sure in a cycle you may have to temporarily switch over to building your stamina so that you can complete the distance of that 70.3 or IRONMAN distance race. But you should still focus on building that power, building the stamina - excuse me, building the power, building your speed, increasing the functional threshold. That is what's going to allow you to produce your fastest race results.

Andrew Harley: Yep. Great. Very, very smart question there from Brandon. It shows he's been listening to the podcast and wondering that for himself. Next question comes from John Hoskins. He wants to know what matters more in swimming, a high stroke count or more power in each stroke. He said I recently started using a Finis Tempo trainer and I love it. However, I've already noticed I can alter pace per 100 by swimming easy or hard at the same stroke rate. I want to believe my goal should be more power with each stroke, but that wears me out quicker. To get faster in the water, should I focus on stronger strokes or more strokes?

Jeff Raines: Good question, John. You know, many are hearing and reading that to get faster at swimming you need to have higher stroke rates. And that's not necessarily true. You know, a lot depends on what is your next A race, the type of water you'll be in, stuff like - for example, right, Iron Man California. I mentioned it earlier, right? Something that I'm focusing on. It's a point to point in a river with the current, right? And so you probably don't - I probably won't need to have a super high stroke rate and, you know, arguably the whole season, right? If that's my A race, you know, I'm going to focus on potentially getting more out of the stroke as much as I can out of slightly lower stroke rates before I start increasing the stroke rates or playing around with that. So there's always an "it depends," right? If your next race is an ocean swim and it's white capping and there's just going to be current everywhere, if you have too low of a stroke rate, right, you might get pushed backwards, let's say. And so there's an "it depends" factor there. But you know, swimming in general is different than biking and running in that about 80% of your weight is taken against gravity due to the buoyancy of water. And also water is much denser than air, right? And so it's kind of the opposite, let's say, of running. You know, people think that running you have to increase your cadence going from, you know, holding a zone two to then holding a zone four pace. Right? Oh, I'm just trotting zone two. My cadence is 165. Oh, I got a zone four surge. Oh, I got to hold a 180 plus cadence doing that zone four run. That is not true. That is a misconception, right? So running stride length is manipulated more than that cadence, right? And so then in swimming, there is a point, however, and it's usually with more elite swimmers that you do or maybe would need to slightly increase your stroke rate to get faster. But it's not something that, if you haven't perfected where you're at or gotten as fast as you can at your current stroke rate, that you just need to go start increasing your swim speed or your swim arm swing, right? Your cadence. But you know, you need to get as fast as you can at a lower or your current, you know, average stroke rate before you just start wailing your arms and significantly increasing those rates, right? And swimming stroke rates are measured on a stroke per minute with both arms, right? And our Garmins, though, are on one wrist and they're recording one of the arms. And so most will see 20 to 30-ish. You know, you go swim a TriDot 3K workout in the pool. You get home, on the drive home, you pull it up, you might see 22 strokes per minute, right? Well, that would be 44 strokes per minute with both arms. So it's kind of a per minute and both arm measurement. But you don't want to increase your stroke rate so much that you're bailing out of that finish phase of the underwater stroke, right? You don't want to bail out early and throw water up to the sky, right? Water against air does nothing for you. Your propulsion in swimming is water against water, right? So there's a right way and a wrong way to increase stroke rate or manipulate stroke rate in my experience. Maybe to answer your question, to kind of bring this home, 25 to 30, right, or 50 to 60 strokes per minute with both arms tends to be the fastest that upper age group swimmers can swing their arms and still get the majority or the most out of that stroke, right? And so, and that's upper age groupers, right? If you're not top three out of the water in your half or full IRONMAN, let's say, then I wouldn't be increasing your stroke rate higher than that 25 to 30 range. But it's different for everybody, right? And so it's hard to put a specific number on it. But the answer is start lower and get as fast as you can at that lower stroke rate. And then after months, let's say, slightly increase it one to three strokes per minute. Stay there, right? And see how fast you get. But largely, you know, until you're swimming 1:30 per hundred average or faster and holding that for a half iron, let's say, I wouldn't hold super high stroke rates. You can get more out of that stroke. So hopefully that answered your question a little bit.

Andrew Harley: Our next question. This is actually a Coach Joanna Nami coached athlete, April Spilde, which at the time this episode is coming out, April just raced IRONMAN Alaska yesterday. So congrats April.

Joanna Nami: April!

Andrew Harley: I'm so sorry that we did not get this question answered back to you before you raced IRONMAN Alaska, but you'll have it for the next time you toe the line at a race. So here's what April said. She said, what are the transition times we should be aiming for in T1 and T2 for a sprint, Olympic, 70.3 and full? She said I just think there's a lot to think about and learn when breaking down the different distances. For example, I was so used to fast T1s and T2s in sprints and Olympics that I made a critical error of not putting on sunblock in T1 during a 70.3 and I got a horribly bad sunburn. I would love to hear y'all's thoughts. So John, what should our expectations be in transition for a sprint and Olympic versus a 70.3 or a full?

John Mayfield: So in kind of thinking about this, I kind of have that same thought of like long course versus short course - you have a little bit more opportunity. Especially like when racing that 70.3, you're out there for several hours. Going an extra minute in transition probably isn't going to be that big of a deal. Kind of depends on where you're at. Are you going for that PR? Are you going for a world championship slot, podium? But if you're out there, you know, more so for completion, taking the extra 30 seconds to do whatever - like for example, one thing I do in a 70.3 is I typically have regular shoelaces in my shoes, as opposed to the elastic laces that I'll use in a sprint or Olympic distance race. For me, it's kind of worth the extra, I don't know, 15 seconds to have the more comfortable tied laces. So that's something that I will do in there. But as a rule, I would say more so accurately, the sprint, Olympic and 70.3 transition times should be pretty comparable simply because we're largely doing the same things in those transitions. Like we said, in the 70.3, you may have an extra step or two in there, but largely the same kinds of things that we're doing. So it's really about mapping it out and knowing exactly what you want to do, what you need to do. So keeping those things simple and practicing so you have that routine dialed in so you know and you remember that you need to put on that sunscreen before you head out on T1. It also has to do with predominantly having things there so they're hard to forget. You got a tube or can of sunscreen right there in your line of sight. You're going to remember to use it. So planning it out to make it easy, quick and efficient. Now, IRONMAN is a completely different thing. A lot of times you have long transitions from the swim to the area where the bags are into the change tent and then out to the bike. So times are hard, but kind of as a rule of thumb, depending on - especially once you get into kind of that area where your bike is - sprint, Olympic, 70.3, you should be spending one to two minutes there in T1 and T2. For your IRONMAN, again, it's really going to depend on how long that transition area is and then how many things you need to do to have a successful bike or run leg once you're in there in that change tent. But it can really vary. I'd say most IRONMAN transitions are five to 10 minutes and that again can vary by venue.

Andrew Harley: Our last major audience question, athlete question here before we get to our quick hitters is from Hillary Munch. He's from Las Vegas, Nevada. And Hillary wants to know about run workouts. Which ones are suggested to be done on a treadmill, the road or the track?

Joanna Nami: Good question, Hillary. I get this question a lot from my athletes and you know, we're very fortunate to have options when it comes to running. Some of us hate the treadmill, some of us love it, but the convenience of treadmill is pretty great. There's also a number of benefits that I have found over the years in doing some of my workouts on treadmill and that - especially as TriDot users - we can nail our intervals. It's seeing the minutes going by in front of us holding that pace. It's very effective training. Secondly, a lot of us are experiencing super warm temperatures right now and it can be kind of like I talked about before, it can kind of sabotage long runs in that we get so depleted when we're in these, you know, 100 plus temperatures. So being able to run in a controlled climate inside is super nice. You know, as far as the workouts themselves, it's nice that we can control elevation on the treadmill, do some hill repeats when, if you live in a very flat area. Secondly, I like my athletes to vary whether they're going to run track, run the road, run the treadmill. Track is fantastic for those speed interval workouts. You can really push yourself mentally. John Mayfield and I have been known to run, I think up to 14 miles, maybe more on track before. That's a true mental fortitude workout. But I also encourage my athletes, if they're in different locations, traveling, vacation and have access to some beautiful trails, to change it up. Training can be very monotonous. And if you have those opportunities to get out there and clear your mind and to take advantage of some beautiful trail runs, I encourage you to. And the only thing left I would say about varying your runs is I give most of my athletes the three T's in that - treadmill, trail and track. If we're trying to prevent injury, I really encourage athletes to not just run on concrete roads. It's very tough on our body, very tough on our joints, harder to recover. If you have access to treadmill or trail or to a track that's a little bit softer on the body, so I encourage my athletes to take advantage of those.

Andrew Harley: So quick hitting question number one. This comes from Roberta Gonzalez from Texas. She wants to know what is the most important swim drill to do all the time?

Joanna Nami: That is a good question, but that is a trick question. In doing a lot of swim analysis this year, I've noticed that everyone's weaknesses and strengths within their stroke are very individualistic. Finding a correct drill plan for each individual is very important where we address the weaknesses they have in their stroke and reinforce things that they are doing correctly. So that's very much on an individual basis. I will say that we've been working on a pretty nifty swim methodology in our upcoming TriDot pool schools that we will be teaching at. And one of the basis of the drilling for this method is to reach a very strong lengthened extended side body position where you are at about a 45 degree angle. Very similar to what we've seen in the past in a swim on side drilling. Very, very effective to do drilling in a one arm stroke on that side repetitively to reinforce a really powerful recovery as well as propulsion underwater. So it's very important that people master this swim on side drill. And there'll be more of this that we are learning about and instructing as we begin to instruct at the TriDot pool schools.

Andrew Harley: Quick hitting question number two. Kurt Yanish wants to know my bike feels more stable with the rear disc wheel on. Is there any reason not to use my disc wheel when I'm training?

John Mayfield: So one, the answer is it is more stable. So there's a whole bunch of physics that play into that. Center of gravity, center of mass, all those - there's several things in play there. So actually having that disc wheel is actually making the bike more stable. So I would say there's not a great reason to not use it in training other than the wear on that wheel. So typically those disc wheels are pretty expensive. We like to save them for race day. That's also going to preserve the tire and the gear and that sort of thing. Keep it fresh for race day. One, I would say it's not really necessary in training, so you might as well save it for race day. There's really not a benefit of training with it other than just enough to be familiar with it. So I would say, like, if you're going to be racing with that disc wheel, utilize it in your race rehearsals. But I would say other than that, save it for race day. Keep it in top shape.

Andrew Harley: All right, we've got a quick hitting question from Brandon Barker. He had a fantastic question a little bit higher up in the main set, but here's a nice little quick hitter from him. He wants to know how do you balance doing the right training with also going on group or club workouts?

Jeff Raines: Good question, Brandon. I had the privilege of managing a team through a facility in Austin for a number of years. We had 120 something adult triathletes and about 40 of them were on TriDot, so TriDot was what we used. If anyone at our facility wanted a coach or a plan, they, you know, use TriDot. And so yeah, we'd have these giant group rides and half the people were just out there doing their own thing and half the people were doing their own workout. What do I do? But you can definitely have your cake and eat it too, right? You can - the big thing is getting your quality in, right? And let the group know, like, hey, you know, my coach or you know, my plan has me doing some 10 minute surges today out there. So I'm gonna pick it up. I'm gonna do my thing. I need to follow my plan. I'm not being a hero out there, but I am going to do some surges and I'm gonna turn around and maybe you just regroup with the peloton or that group after you do those surges. So maybe just let the group know. But also I'll have my athletes pick sections of that course ahead of time where you're going to do those pickups. So be strategic in how you hit those. You don't want to start, you know, a random surge and there's five stop lights or something, a bunch of turns along the way, right? So let the group know beforehand you know what you're doing, but also be strategic on that route and plan ahead on when and where you're going to do those surges.

Andrew Harley: Another really good quick hitting question from Kurt is I am doing a 70.3 that has a 2pm start time. How do I adjust my morning hydration and fueling for the later start?

Joanna Nami: That's a great question. We are seeing more and more of these later start 70.3 or different distance races. Practicing your nutrition plan, when I talk about that with my athletes, that's not only what occurs during the race, but approximately the three to four days before. As far as carb loading, as far as eating dinner early the night before, the tricky part comes into question is what do we do on a race where we are not starting our wave or we're not entering the water until 2pm? We still need to be consuming our breakfast in that three to four hour before start time range. So backing that out as to hey, I'm starting at 2pm, 9 to 10am we need to be having our normal breakfast, but that doesn't mean that we're not consuming anything before 9 to 10am. When I've had athletes racing at 2pm, I often ask them to take in maybe a smaller breakfast of sorts, something they're very, very used to, or a smoothie of sorts so they're not packing in too much solid food before 2pm during that day. So suggestion-wise is maybe a smaller breakfast, something that easily settles or a smoothie, then having their normal breakfast that they are used to before racing at about 9 to 10am, and then again the last thing I always suggest is for them to consume about 100 to 150 calories one hour before race start. And with some salt.

Andrew Harley: Yep. Love that approach. Our last quick hitting question comes from Diane Volpe. She says I'm a weak runner and I've never done a marathon. I just completed my first 70.3. Congratulations Diane. And now she wants to do a full in 2023. Getting ready for that full, would a few 13.1 run races be better to prepare or would a marathon be better to prepare or neither?

John Mayfield: So as a weak runner, distance will not make you a strong runner. In fact, running those extra miles are going to probably stagnate you. You have an increased risk of injury, and over those miles, your form is actually going to deteriorate. So the important things to do to improve your run is to fix it. Why are you a weak runner? Is it just a fitness thing? Are there technique issues that need to be addressed? So it's really more about focusing on those drills. Those are going to be prescribed for you. So make sure you're doing those and make sure you're doing those properly. So reinforcing the drills, fixing any technique issues that need to be addressed, and then focusing on power. We talked about this a little bit earlier. So it's more so about increasing your functional threshold than increasing your stamina. So that stamina is just going to allow you to go further, but increasing that functional threshold is going to allow you to go faster and then we can add stamina to it so you can go as far as you need to. So kind of our rule of thumb, and I think this is a great one, is whatever distance triathlon you are focusing on in the future, months prior to that, focus on half that distance. So as you approach your IRONMAN distance race next year, it's a good idea to focus on half marathon or shorter throughout this fall, this winter. That's going to allow you to increase your functional threshold, increase your speed, still work on all those things and begin to increase your stamina and get a feel for running longer. So the person that has an A race of a 70.3 next year, nail the 10K. If you're focusing on the Olympic distance in the future, nail your 5K. So it's half the distance of what you're going to be running in your A race for the following year. That's really going to allow you to focus on those things that are truly going to make you better. And then once the race season rolls around, adding the stamina necessary to complete whatever distance you're racing is quite simple. Great set, everyone.

Andrew Harley: Let's cool down. Very fittingly, our cooldown also comes from a TriDot athlete, TriDot ambassador Carrie Lubinow. She said this: I feel like there have been a ton of questions on the page recently about the extent to which adding a coach can be beneficial, the optimal timing for doing so, or how the process of being matched with a coach even works. Carrie added, it could even be a cool episode in itself, maybe to hear from Cindy how she goes about matchmaking athletes. So, Carrie, we do in fact now have an episode about triathlon coaching where our coaches address some of the questions that you raise here. Go back. It's episode 127. It's called Enhancing Your Tri Experience with a Coach. But what I did do here in regards to Carrie's question is I consulted TriDot's very own Cindy Reeves to share with us her methodology for matchmaking coaches and athletes. So here is what Cindy had to say about her matchmaking process.

Cindy Reeves: Hey everyone, Cindy Reeves here with TriDot. I'm sure you realize this by now, whether you're listening to the podcast or reading the posts on I Am TriDot Facebook page, we have got a lot of really good coaches with TriDot. And one of the best parts of my job is being able to help connect an athlete with the right coach. If that's something you're ever interested in, feel free to let me know. We can set up a one-on-one chat or we can go back and forth via email. But what I like to do just to ensure that I make that coach selection the right one is to ask a lot of questions. First, I like to find out from an athlete, what's their history in the sport? What are their goals moving forward? Are there any challenges that they have, whether it be with training or with their nutrition? One of the biggest questions is, what else in life do you juggle besides the sport? And in the past, have you used a coach? And if you did use a coach, what did you like or what did you not like? Once we get all those questions answered, then normally I have a pretty good idea of who I think you should talk to first. You know, if you're a young parent with young kids and you're doing a lot of driving around, you know, we've got coaches that are familiar with that season in life. If you're an athlete that's on a weight loss journey, we've got great coaches that have been through that too. You might be an athlete that's more seasoned in age and has some more time on your hands to spend with training and racing. Or you might be in the military. We've got coaches that have been in the military and understand that life. If you've got a specific health issue or an injury, most likely we've got a coach that's been through that also. So really my goal after communicating with an athlete is to make that first connection with a coach, the one that will fit. Now, if it doesn't, after your first consultation, you can always touch base with me and share with me how that consultation went and we can set up a second consultation. But it really is my goal to get to know you as an athlete. So when I do connect you with a call with a coach, that will be the coach that is the best fit. So if that's something that ever interests any of you, please connect with me and I'll be happy to chat.

Andrew Harley: That's it for today folks. I want to thank TriDot's very own Jeff Raines, John Mayfield and Joanna Nami for answering some audience swim, bike, run, triathlon questions today. A big thanks to UCAN for partnering with us on the TriDot podcast. At TriDot, we're huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. To experience UCAN's LiveSteady products for yourself, head to their website ucan.co, use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. Also a shout out to Delta G for partnering with us on the show today. To experience the performance boost of Delta G Ketone drinks, head to deltagketones.com and use promo code TRIDOT20 for 20% off your entire order. Thanks so much for listening. We'll do it all again soon. Until then, happy training.

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