Running on tired legs is a big time reality of triathlon training and racing. Triathlon Legend Mirinda "Rinny" Carfrae and running Coach Bobby McGee join the podcast to share all their wisdom for running strong while fatigued. Our Coaches will offer cues for holding proper run form even while tired and will provide tangible tips for strengthening your legs in training. Rinny and Bobby will touch on the importance of cadence and share their own personal stories and experiences. This episode is packed with knowledge and tips to keep your legs spinning during your next long run!
TriDot Podcast Episode 293
Running Strong On Tired Legs
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. Together.
Andrew Harley: Hey everybody. Welcome to the TriDot podcast. I always have a extra soft special place in my heart for our run focused episodes. I love to go for a run and today we are specifically talking about how to run strong when your legs start to get tired. A very unique thing about our sport that's different from some other sports is that when we actually start running, we've already done a couple sports before that and we have some fatigue on our legs. So we have two world class coaches here to talk to us about how to run as well as possible when we reach the run part of a triathlon with our legs already a bit fatigued. Our first guest here to talk about this is Mirinda Carfrae. She is a four-time IRONMAN World Champion who is world renowned for her strong run off the bike. She is the co-founder of Team Salty Bears where she coaches athletes to their own successes in the sport. And Rinny, at the time we're recording this episode, we're actually fresh off of IRONMAN Texas where you had some Team Salty Bears athletes racing. How did that weekend go for your athletes?
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, it went great. I actually did the commentary for that race. So the pro side of the racing was super exciting.
Andrew Harley: I'm sure it was.
Mirinda Carfrae: A lot of the listeners saw that those epic performances from Kat Matthews and of course Kristian Blumenfelt. But our athletes, we only had two athletes down in Texas. I had one athlete who needed to just complete Texas to get her legacy spot for Kona. So she's off to Kona. She got it finished, no problemo. And we had another athlete get a Kona slot, like just outright. So, yeah, basically successful weekend. Two athletes went in looking to get that Kona slot secured and two athletes came out with Kona slots.
Andrew Harley: So.
Mirinda Carfrae: So very successful weekend for the salty bears.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, 100% of your athletes racing IRONMAN Texas are going to Kona. So that's, that's a great stat right there. Our second coach joining us for this conversation is Bobby McGee. Bobby McGee is a run coach and run technique specialist with over 40 years of coaching experience. He has coached athletes of all abilities, including Olympic medalists and world champions. Coach Bobby, it's good to see you again. How are you?
Bobby McGee: Oh, I'm very good, thank you. Just grateful that it's starting to warm up in Boulder and we can. We can get outside a bit more, especially for the bike, right?
Andrew Harley: Yeah, absolutely. And Coach Bobby, I don't know if you. If I've told you this before. Your very first episode when you came on the TriDot Podcast and talked to us about Mental Skills, is our number one most listened to episode of all time to this date. So congratulations to you, sir. Congrats.
Bobby McGee: Oh, thank you. I did not know that. I appreciate that. That's fantastic.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. So, no, no pressure to see if you can repeat the magic here with you and Rinny talking about the run. I am Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people and captain of the middle of the pack, as always. We'll start with our warmup question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with Vanessa taking over the show for our coach. Cool down. Tip of the week. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.
Announcer: Time to warm up. Let's get moving.
Warm Up
Andrew Harley: Keeping in the spirit of running off the bike for our warm up question today, I want to know from both the coaches on our show and the audience listening at home, what is the most tired your legs have ever felt while out on the run? This could be because you were running extra long. It could be because you were running short and fast. I'm just kind of curious to hear what is the most fatigued you've ever felt while on the run? And I'm going to throw this to Coach Rinny first. What. What's your answer here?
Mirinda Carfrae: I mean, this one's hard because this is hap. I mean, tired legs is par for the course in IRONMAN racing.
Andrew Harley: Yeah.
Mirinda Carfrae: But the one run that sticks out in mind most was Kona in 2011. I got off the bike in a great position, but I did lose some nutrition early in the bike ride and clearly did not replace that nutrition. Well, I was coming up on second place female at the halfway point and the wheels literally came off and I basically limped it in. I was on pace for like a 2:50-ish marathon and I ran a 305. So, yeah, it was a tough last half marathon. And again, that was just mostly down to nutrition. But the legs, I felt like both calves were just cramped for the last 10 kilometers.
Andrew Harley: Wow.
Mirinda Carfrae: But we got it done and I did never, did not repeat that again.
Andrew Harley: Well, I know this answer for Bobby is not going to be Kona. While Trying to take the lead. So I'm curious to hear, Coach Bobby, you're, you're, you're not, you're not a former pro triathlete, so this answer is gonna be a little bit different for you. What is the most tired your legs have ever felt on a run?
Bobby McGee: So the truth be told for me is probably running in the military with a 40lb kit. You know, running in combat boots, carrying a rifle, carrying ammunition, wearing a steel helmet. You know, those are my days when I remember, you know, literally that feeling where you can't keep your knees straight. You know, your knees just want to flex. They just want to bend. You just want to sit down. So that was probably my most tired. But your, your question did prompt me in my prep to bring out, you know, the. The only long course race I ever did, 1989. And in those days, that was the old world championship distance. So it was a 3k, swimming was a 120k bike ride and a 32k run. And I remember getting to about 14k. And in those days, you would get a medal if you were in a certain position, right? So gold would go to the top 10, and then from 10 down to a certain time would get. Would get silver, and then everybody else who finished would get bronze, right? And somebody told me it was 10k to go or something and said to me, you're not, you're not going to make a silver medal. And, you know, my legs were just completely shot and I needed to run like 41 minutes or something for 10K and I got the job done. I think I got in by about 20 seconds or something like that. But I remember the legs being, you know, aerobically fine, but just jelly legs. Just trying to get the cadence high enough that I could finish, you know, fast enough and then finding a place rapidly to sit down afterwards, otherwise it would be in an inglorious fall.
Andrew Harley: Well, yeah, big congrats, Bobby, on securing that silver medal. I'm sure it's a prized possession if you worked that hard for it, as it should be. My answer here is my one full distance IRONMAN that I've done. And I remember, you know, playing, having a sporting background, playing soccer as a kid, playing tennis as a kid. You know, you get deep into a soccer game or deep into a soccer tournament, tennis tournament, and your legs would start to fatigue. And, you know, there's definitely some moments there. And, and you know, you. You become accustomed to playing sport on tired legs. And as a triathlete, you know, doing middle distance you get accustomed to running on tired legs, but when I did that first full distance IRONMAN, I remember it was Iron Man, Waco. I'm running along the Brazos River. I'm somewhere around the. The 20 mile mark and, and I just remember thinking, this is not running on tired legs. This is running on obliterated legs. Like, I'm just trying to will them, like willing that turnover to keep going, you know, to. To keep the pace, you know, respectable there and get that first IRONMAN done. But that is unquestionably the most fatigue my legs have ever been. Was trying to bring it home the last few miles of that first IRONMAN for me. We're going to throw this question out to our audience. I'm curious to hear from all of your sporting history. What is the most tired your legs have ever felt while on a run? Make sure you're part of the TriDot community hub or find this question on the I Am TriDot Facebook group or on our Instagram account. And we're gonna, we're gonna hear the stories of our audience. When were your legs just shattered? Can't wait to see what you had to say.
Announcer: On to the main set going in three, two, one.
Main Set
Andrew Harley: All right. On to our main set conversation where both of our coaches are going to talk us through how to run as strong as possible deep into a race. Now, when we race a triathlon, a question that I think some folks will probably have here is, should our legs even feel that tired late into the run? Is this feeling of deep fatigue that we've already talked about somewhat in our opening stories, Is this feeling inevitable? You know, or if we pace things right and fuel things right? Unlike Rinny in 2011, is it possible to feel strong all the way to the finish line? Coach Bobby, what do you think?
Bobby McGee: You know, Rinny alluded to that in, in what she spoke about is, is that that distinction of tired legs is. Is not really a common one, right? So obviously there's the whole thing. Did you overbike the. The ride and then your legs just are limited, right, to run, but the overall distinction more is fatigue. And so often when I'm coaching, I draw the distinction between central fatigue and peripheral fatigue, right? So when an athlete is doing a workout, like hills versus track work, where you can relate the work to itself, you can ask that question of your athlete, right? You can say, are your legs tired or, or you overall tired, Right? But in this modern era of specific functional weight training and specific preparation for a race, I don't often hear that question put that way, my legs gave out. It's more an overall fatigue thing. But it is a good idea to draw that distinction when you're working with athletes because there's so much you can do in the weight room. There's so much you can do with hiking. There's so much you can do with hill repeats. Right. Where the, where the athlete fatigues overall rather than just feeling my legs have given out.
Andrew Harley: No. Very, very interesting. And running just for you and your own racing career, I mean, you're always curious as, as you know, an age group spectator, right? As you see the pros coming across the finish line and they're collapsing across the finish line, is that overall fatigue? Is it specific to the legs? Like when you're surging toward the finish line and you're fighting for position, do you remember it being ever a leg thing or was it just like your whole body was spent from the effort of the race?
Mirinda Carfrae: I think both. Honestly, I don't recall a race where. And certainly we're talking full IRONMAN distance, 70.3, not as much. I think you can feel strong all the way through to the finish if you're well enough trained. But for the IRONMAN, I think every single athlete that finishes that race is whole body fatigued, leg fatigued. And if you're not, then you maybe had more up your sleeve, in my opinion. I think, I think you should feel tired by the last 10 kilometers. And you know, we could talk more about shoe technology. And I think, I think that fatigue time of the legs is getting pushed further into the marathon. You know, it used to be, you know, 30k in maybe it's 35k or later now. It seems from obviously I didn't race with the super shoes, but it seems like that, like flat out, you know, completely spent moment is just pushing, getting pushed further into the marathon.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, no, it's a great point. And I've heard Mark Allen say something similar. I've heard you talk about that before. And Rinny, you, you with HOKA, I think it was just a few years ago you said you put on HOKA super shoes for the very first time. What was that moment like for you?
Mirinda Carfrae: Oh, my gosh, it's such a treat. I run them once a week now. And actually Tuesdays are our little. I do a little hard run with a friend, a couple of friends, and it's just a whole. It's a completely different ball game. The first time I put them on, I'm like, oh, they can't be that different. But yeah, it was significant, um, significantly different. And for me it's wonderful because now I can, I don't know, maybe if I didn't have the super shoes, I wouldn't be as motivated to go out and run, but I can put those super shoes on and I'm nowhere near the athlete I was before, but I can go and run some six minute miles and yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty wonderful.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. So I, I, I think it's great that we've been able to establish, you know, I'm hearing both of you say, okay, so in long course, yes, the legs should be, if you gave the effort, all the effort you have, your legs should be tired, your whole body should be tired. But anything shorter than that, you can actually, with proper training, proper nutrition, proper fueling, come across feeling strong to the end. I think it's a really key distinguishment in this conversation as we're talking to athletes that tackle all sorts of distances. So for an athlete who's out there on the race course and you know, once our legs begin to actually tire and start feeling heavy, we start struggling with the turn turnover. What is actually happening in our leg muscles that is causing that fatigue or that heaviness? Bobby?
Bobby McGee: Yeah, it's, it's a multifaceted question, right? So the first thing you look at is there's this great distinction in the Boston Marathon that you do damage to your legs, micro damage to your legs and your legs fatigue. In other words, you are running out of resources, right. At whatever speed you're running at. Right. If you're running really slowly, you might even be running out of fat resources or something like that, but you also have to content with the damage. So if I'm explaining to somebody how to run a, a longer race, I speak about protecting your legs on the downhills and then also protecting your legs from, from an erratic pace. Right. So in other words, an even pace would put you at a point where you do less damage to your legs. But if you have the fitness and you run uneven and fast, the micro damage that you do to your legs is going to get you in the end. Right? So short race, just go for it on the downhills where there is a lot of exception, eccentric micro damage taking place, but the race is too short for it to come back and bite you in the butt later in the race. But if you're doing a longer race, you have to take that really easily. But really if you're training, let's say you're training for a warmer race or something like that you might not get sufficient conditioning, you might not be the athlete that can do sufficient volume, especially the Zone 2 stuff, which is kind of more impactful because you're out there for longer carrying your body weight around. You probably get the most bang for your buck preparing for that in the weight room, you know, so even, even something like downhill hiking is going to, going to prepare you better than just running because you just can't run enough, you know, even for an athlete like Rinny, Right. If she was training for a marathon, she would have comfortably been able to run say 100 miles a week or 80, 90 miles a week. But as an IRONMAN athlete, they're just not the time and the physical wherewithal to run that kind of volume. So you always going to run into trouble and your best bet is doing some sort of power work, plyometric work, lifting work, to prepare you for that impact in the race.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, it's very interesting, Rinny, when you were in your pro career, did you find on your middle distance, your long distance, you changing the strategy, going up and down hills and trying to save your legs in certain moments of the race, or were you just trying to hold a certain pace all the way through?
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, I think throughout my career I always attacked every single run. And I didn't do many IRONMAN races. So I would, you know, race maybe two IRONMAN races a year, a bunch of 70.3s each. 70.3. I would attack from start to finish. And you can do that with IRONMAN training. I think what Bobby was saying, you know, on the max. I mean, I look at Kat Matthews, she's only running around 40 kilometers a week. That's only like 25 miles, which is bonkers. I would run like 50 to 60 miles a week. But even at that level, you're never going to be able to build up the resistance to fatigue and micro, you know, damage that you need for a marathon. And so, yeah, no, I absolutely would not protect my legs at any downhill. I would use every opportunity to gain every extra second. And you gotta remember, racing is, yes, it's about getting from point A to point B the quickest possible. But when you're racing, other athletes is a whole mental component too. And for me, taking big chunks out of the leaders, again, I was always behind off the bike and having to chase, um, that for me buoyed me, so it gave me confidence. Um, and I think for them, hearing those time splits come down, it sort of deflated them too. So even though I inevitably ran out too fast and faded and I would have been smarter to protect my legs a little bit in the beginning to run a faster marathon. For me that was the best way to attack a race. So a couple of different things. As an age grouper, I think, you know, your competitors don't really know you where you are so maybe protecting your legs a little bit on the downhill sections and you know, maybe walking some of the uphill if necessary will play out better for you in the long run.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, no, yeah, totally, totally agree. And that's a question I want to ask Bobby as well is you know, I know you've worked with athletes of all abilities. Right. And so we're talking some somewhat here about the, the, the pro level right. Of running but for age groupers and, and below who probably haven't put in the same miles and haven't put in the same strength training regimen, you know, do, do you find their, they are probably more likely to experience fatigue in their legs during an event than the pros are.
Bobby McGee: Yeah, just the sheer fact that, you know, the longest that Rinny's going to be out on that course on the run is maybe on a bad day. 3 hours and 20 minutes. Right.
Andrew Harley: So that's 3 hours and 5 minutes in Kona when she slowed down.
Bobby McGee: Yeah, exactly. So you have an example. So um, whereas everybody else is thrilled to absolute bits if they can be out there for four or four and a half hours or five hours, you know. So it's a very different kind of training that A, they don't have the ability to train for a five hour run. They never can do the training for a five hour run and the pro does the training that can get them to a four hour run. Right. But they're only going to be running for three hours. So it's, it's that conundrum right where you have to get to a point where you look at what is the likelihood that A, you're going to run the whole way. Right. And B, how long are you going to be on your legs and see what kind of legs are you dealing with after your proposed bike ride? You know, so people that go and run a half marathon five weeks before they run IRONMAN and get some sort of idea from that half marathon how they're going to perform in the marathon off the bike is an incredibly two dimensional way to look at it. Right? Yeah, it's a way more complex picture. And then on top of that, Rinny made that point right at the beginning. Right. Is way more important, you know, you know, pacing is important. Walk, run is important, but way, way more important is that nutritional integrity and that hydrational integrity. It doesn't matter how fit you are. So a lot of people look at their run training relative to what they can do in the run, and it's very much. They need to look at their bike training and the kind of bike ride they intend to ride to give them access to the kind of run that they could have. You know, and it's always going to be math, right? If, if your, if your bike training is going to give you a 10 minute faster time on the bike course and you're going to sacrifice five minutes on the run, well, then it's worth it. Right. But if I remember one year, I think it was 2008, there was a statistic after Kona that the average competitor that year spent more time on the run course than they spent on the bike.
Andrew Harley: Wow.
Bobby McGee: Just because of that very factor that we've spoken about. So people need to be very individualized in terms of how they approach their expectations on the run.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. So I'm curious, Bobby and Rinny, you can, you can probably weigh in here as well from your own experience. When an athlete does begin to fatigue out on the run course, which I think for an age grouper is going to happen somewhere in your triathlon career, uh, you're. You're gonna either go long enough or go hard enough to have your legs start to feel tired toward the end of a run. What happens in our run form in that, in those moments, what starts to break down? Um, and can we do anything to, to alleviate that or, or prevent our form from breaking down even though our legs are getting tired?
Bobby McGee: Absolutely. It's quite a multifactorial question, right? It depends on the kind of gait you have. All right. And it also depends on how, what you've prepared to run. Right. So somebody who's reasonably lightweight and has a long stride and a lower cadence. Right. They always have access to going, I need to cue myself to shorten my stride length, do less damage to myself. From a mental perspective, people need to redefine what tired legs are. Right. Is this an acute thing that I can solve through a little bit of cooling, a little bit of nutrition, a little bit of hydration, a little bit of pace adjustment, a little bit of walking, or is it a slow decline to death? And the mistake that the age group often makes is they think it's the beginning of the end, and it very seldom is. One of the golden rules of endurance events is you will have bad patches and they will pass. So if you have that mindset now, you can start cuing yourself to make changes, right? Where you can eat or drink or walk or shorten your cadence, give yourself cues. But the big thing when you get tired legs is not to lose your rhythm. And if you try and sustain stride length as your go to place and slow down your cadence, all is lost. You've got to shorten your stride length. You've got to keep your rhythm going. Otherwise you're going to get into a hole that's really, really hard to get out. But if you go, okay, I'm just going to slow it down, I'm just going to hydrate. I'm just going to take a little easy, but I'm going to keep my rhythm. I'm just going to keep going, right? And then pretty soon the nutrition starts to take hold or the couple of cold sponges or some cold water on your head and it starts to come back to you. And now you can extend it out again and get back to race space. Definitely in the long course events, that's possible.
Andrew Harley: I really like that mindset of if you feel that pace starting to slip, you feel your legs starting to get tight, starting to get heavy, don't just assume it's the end. Don't just assume, okay, I'm, I'm gonna fall apart now until the wheels totally come off. Ask yourself, well, what can I do? What, what can I change in this moment? What can I change up? What different stimulus can I throw up my body? What can I do to kind of collect myself? Really like that advice there. Coach Bobby. And running for you. As you're talking with your athletes before their own races, are you having any kind of conversations along these lines as well?
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, absolutely. I think the key that Bobby mentioned there was that you are going to have dark patches in an IRONMAN race. And it's not the end of your race. And IRONMAN racing is about troubleshooting and making good decisions. In those moments, you can obviously mentally implode. That's always an option. And that's always an option. You want to school or train your athletes out of, you know, okay, what can I do? Let's switch to, yes, things are tough right now. Let's do a systems check. Okay, what, what is the limiting factor for me right now? Is it hydration? Am I hot? You can. These are things you can start to try and troubleshoot through aid stations. Is it that I just need a reset? Do I just need to walk for a minute, pull myself back together? And you know, just give myself a good talking to. There's lots of things you can do in those dark patches and yeah, I think just reminding them that this is not, you know, a slow death. You've trained hard, you've done the work, you know, yes, it's going to be tough. That's why we do this sport. But you can troubleshoot your way out of most dark patches.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, I, I had a, my high school soccer coach. I remember that there was certain practices, you know, most, most times we roll at the soccer practice after school and the balls would come out and you'd start doing drills or scrimmaging or whatever. But there was sometimes where in our 90 minute, 2 hour, 3 hour practice, whatever it was, he would just have us running and running and running and suicides and different forms of sprints and intervals and, and then after running us to an oblivion for an hour or so, a ball would come out and we would scrimmage for a half of soccer. And, and the purpose was, okay, let's, let's play practice playing a game scenario on tired legs, because that's obviously in a game scenario you're going to get deep into the first half, deep into the second half, and you're playing team soccer on tired legs. And so in our training week, you know, a lot of our training sessions, you know, are, are not designed to bury our legs. They're designed to take us through certain intervals or keep us all, you know, at heart rate zone 2 for a while. But there are some, like running off the bike or like stamina runs, long runs that are built for us to get some time on tired legs. And some of those, when you're getting ready for a middle distance or a full distance in TriDot, I'll have a long run where my long run might be two hours and I have some intervals in the second half of that run. And all of a sudden you've run at zone two pace for an hour and a half and all of a sudden try that's like, hey, bump it up to zone four. And you're like, what? Um, so I say all that to say like, when we're in those moments where TriDot does give us a session where we get to really run on fatigued legs and practice that feeling. What can we focus on in those training sessions to, to help us handle it even better on race day? Coach Rinny?
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, I think once I made that change in my training back, back in the day, pretty much all of my training was about training on tired legs and Again, when you're training 30 hours a week, you pretty much never have fresh legs and so you save that for race day. But running off the bike, running the day, or doing quality the day after a hard bike, it was really seldom that we actually did run on fresh, fresh legs. I want to say maybe not right off the bike or right after a hard bike day. Um, and triathlon is that it is your bread and butter, running on tired legs. That's all our sport is about, being able to hold form as you fatigued. Um, and yeah, like I, I have my athletes try does a great job of putting in those runs off the bike and those intervals at the back end of sessions. The problem is athletes want to go there right away and you have to build up a run foundation before you can go and do that because if you're running on tired legs from the get go, you're just going to be running with poor form. So I think it's something that you have to build up over time. And I think obviously the AI does a really great job of making sure the athletes are in a good enough fitness state before they bring in the.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, for sure.
Mirinda Carfrae: Zone 3 at the end of a two hour run type session.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah. You're not, you're not just getting that session out of the blue?
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, no, absolutely not. Like it can't. It comes sort of when you're usually starting to get ready for races, when you've done a good base and you're ready. But yeah, I mean I think this is, that is our bread and butter, the build runs or progression runs. So running and then building the pace and then finishing off at your zone four pace. I think there's nothing more relevant in our sport. And that's what we just hammered throughout my racing career. And I think one of the reasons why I was able to run well off the bike.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. And Rinny, when you were doing those sessions personally, what was there anything like kind of form checks or form cues or race day vis visualization or was there anything in particular other than just going out, completing the session, you know, hitting the zones correctly, you know, were you focused on anything specific that you would try to carry into race day?
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, for me it was always like a little bit of a systems check, like relaxing my shoulders. I, for me, I would, you know, once I started to get tired, I would like force it more. And for me I carried a little bit more tension in my shoulders and when I felt my shoulders sort of coming up towards my ears, it's a cue. My Coach would always say, you know, relax your shoulders and also cadence, like I keeping my cadence high. And that's one of the things we always focused on, trying to keep, you know, the cadence up around a hundred for as long as possible. Um, yeah, that they were two things that I really focused on when fatigue started to creep in.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, very interesting. And coach Bobby, kind of same thing over to you as you're working with athletes. You know, what are, what are the things you would tell an athlete to focus on when they get deep into a training session and their legs are starting to go? You know, what, what can they do to get the most out of those kinds of sessions and training that they can carry over the race day?
Bobby McGee: Yeah, I have like a three step process, right. The first one is lucid, right. So you know, some, something sweet, making sure that your brain's working properly. Right. And so a more glucose dominant kind of drink helps you think better, right. And then assess, do, do a full body check. And then the third one is go only to a place which you can access. It's pointless saying to yourself, be strong, be tough, hang in there, keep pushing. Those things are what spectators say to you, right? But they're not places that you can actually use. But if you go, oh, I'm looking over the horizon, so I'm obviously too upright, or you go, wow, my hands are like real low, so I'm slowing my legs down. Let me bend my elbows a little bit. Or I can hear myself hitting the road really hard. Let me just pay a little bit more attention to stiffening my legs. And so normally the place that you have access to something is something that you were doing earlier and that you can do that you now notice you no longer do doing and you can go back to that. So you can always change your form because it's not requiring of more nutrition. Right? You've fallen into that. Like in the swim, how you swimming and how you progressing tells you that your form's off, right? And similarly on the bike, if you sit up straight and you straighten your elbows and you get out of the tuck and stuff like that, you can feel, whoa now, now I'm starting to struggle. But that doesn't happen on the run. People, when they did research on stitches, you know, people are like really arched up right when they get the stitch, but when they're running the first 40 minutes, you notice they aren't like that. So it was actually a postural change that created the stitch. And so that kind of self assessment and then using your cues to get back to where you were. That's a logical possible process that you can do to help yourself. And it's nice and contained. You go, okay, I'm struggling a little bit. What am I no longer doing that I was doing half an hour or an hour ago? Go through that assessment. Where are you looking? Where are your arms? Where's your chest? What's, you know, what's your angle of attack like, how are you putting your feet down on the ground and address those if they are problematic.
Andrew Harley: Bobby, you mentioned earlier how important strength training can be to running strong when you're fatigued. And when we've talked some here about the training itself, we've talked about some things that we can do in our training. We've talked about run form itself, but apart from the training and, and Rinny, like you said, athletes using their following the TriDot training plan should be primed and ready to go for race day. But what can we do in addition to the swimming, biking and running to improve how strong we run off the bike is, Is it just strength training? Is there anything else we need to throw into the mix to, to really help unlock the key to a strong run, or is it just beefing up our strength training? Coach Bobby?
Bobby McGee: Yeah, so firstly, even if you look at strength training, there are multiple components of strength training, right? So we now know from the modern research that we want to do our strength training to prepare ourselves to be able to do the real strength training that we need to do, right? Which is carry heavy stuff, you know, pick up heavy stuff. We need to get to a point where we pick up heavy stuff, right? You look at the trend that cycling is going. I read a quote the other day that cyclists are going to be 8 to 12% heavier in the next generation. They're going to be much bigger athletes, right? So that whole trend towards being stronger, even at the cost of carrying a bit more muscle, is, is definitely coming for us, right? So you look inside of strength training, there's conditioning to get strong. What does running need? Running doesn't need strength. It needs power. Why does it need power? To stabilize joints. Now, now you start saying, okay, at a point I have to move my strength training too heavy, and I also have to move my strength training to plyometrics. So why do we have to do plyometrics? That's the power component. I need to be able to stabilize my arch, my ankle, my knee, my hip, my low back very quickly when I'm on the ground so that I can spring load. Okay, so that's the plyometric spot. But now we get to the springs. Now this whole new trend, which is fantastic, of isotonic holes to increase the tendons ability to load elastically. Right. So now you're getting a lot more work done at like up to, you know, at least 4% improvement through ISO holds in running performance, but sometimes 10, 12% improvement. Right. So super shoes being put into your tendons. Right. So doing those very simple, very high intensity but very short duration ISO hold work, right. Is starting to come into the conversation and then one that is often missed, especially for the age grouper, is doing muscle endurance work. We've moved away from go for the burn when you're doing weight training right now we know we need to go heavy, but what happens when form deteriorates is because support musculature and core musculature has fatigued and it's not being strengthened sufficiently in the run because there are other limitations. Similarly on the bike, similarly on the run, Right. So you know, simple little things like Sebastian Coe used to do partial single legged leg presses 800 at a time. That's just building muscle endurance. Now that was for a, you know, a one and a half, one and three quarter minute event. Fair enough. But we need to be able to hold on to our form. So I like that idea of maybe you can only do a 90 minute long run, maybe you're doing it on a 6:1 interval. Right. But after that 90 minutes you can still go and climb a dirty great hill for 45 minutes of walking. That's the kind of strength that you need for a long course race. Right. So what are you doing this weekend? Well, I'm going to do a two hour swim, all easy, right. And then come home and I'm going to stay standing and I'm going to stay busy and then I'm going to go and ride for four hours or something like that. And then that afternoon I'm going for a four hour hike or a three hour hike. Right. So there's none of that eccentric damage from the run, but everything you've done has supported your ability to be strong enough to be on your legs for a very long period of time.
Andrew Harley: Very, very interesting, Rinny, kicking this over to you just with your, in your pro career again with you just being such a strong runner off the bike. How much of these things that Bobby's talking about are things that you implemented personally to make sure you were running strong those last few kilometers, trying to make that podium or that the top step in particular on the podium.
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, super interesting. You know, a lot of the things Bobby said, I'm like, yeah, we, we did that a different way. We did plyometric training. I had a strength coach in Aaron Carson. We did lift heavy from time to time, but sometimes later in my career we would, you know, go run up to war like ward. And that's 20. How far is that? That's like a 15 mile uphill run. And I wouldn't, wouldn't run back down. But that's a big stimulus, a strength workout. And that's the strength endurance component. Like, and that was a day after a six hour ride with the run off the bike. So in the, you know, 24 hours, I was probably running a marathon, but yeah, finishing with that, like just running uphill. I wasn't hiking up the hill. I was, I was running. And so, and I was able to do that because I had the fitness to do that and I was, you know, training, you know, running 60 miles, ish a week. So yeah, super interesting to hear, uh, that the trends are sort of going that way and I feel that I was kind of hitting a lot of those marks in my training, you know, 10 years ago.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. One thing that I did when I was getting ready for IRONMAN, Waco, living in Texas, doing a Texas full distance IRONMAN, you know, the, the sun will be shining, it will be quite warm. Uh, and so honestly I was doing this to get more time in the sun leading up to race day. Not so much to strengthen my legs and, and increase the strength training, but I would do my, my TriDot Saturday long bike ride. I would do the run off the bike, you know, so three hour ride, three and a half hour ride, four hour ride and then a 20 minute runoff. And you know, I would go inside, I would hydrate, I would get, you know, a recovery meal and then I'd head back outside and mow the lawn and do, you know, an hour's worth of yard work. Right. And it's not hiking. You know, we live in flat Texas, but in the suburbs of Dallas. I'm mowing my lawn and you know, edging and weed whacking and pulling weeds. And um, again, in my head I was getting more time in the sun before race day. Um, but that probably did a little bit of what Bobby and Rinny are talking about in my own suburban way. So really, really interesting. Um, and, and Rinny, as you're coaching athletes now, you know, are, are you look, are you in Tim, both working with your athletes? Are you looking to get some of these extra modalities onto their, their training schedule as they're getting ready for these bigger races.
Mirinda Carfrae: I think it's, it's a little bit dangerous to throw athletes into plyometric type training because you need to have the musculature to support it. So I, I think from, for us, our first priority is to get them into some form of strength training and have them make sure they start to be able to lift heavy. I think the running uphill or hiking uphill is a much more gentle way too. And I haven't implemented uphill running or hiking yet. But that, you know, now that Bobby says it, it makes total sense and it is a great added extra for our athletes. So that's something that I'm going to be thinking about a little bit more as we get towards, you know, racing our athletes, racing more IRONMAN events.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah, no, love to hear it. Love to hear it. So, so something I wanted to talk about with the both of you is how I've heard athletes talk about this and I've experienced this myself somewhat. You know, when you get late into a race, you know, sometimes it, it when you start getting sluggish, you start slowing down, you start losing focus. Sometimes it can feel like our head is what's holding us back more so than our legs. Right. And it's manifesting as, oh, my legs are heavy, my turnover slowing down, I'm feeling tired. And it feels in, in the moment like a physiology issue, but it's really a, a mental issue of your head stepping in and, and holding you back. Coach Bobby, how can we push past the mental side of fatigue?
Bobby McGee: There's so many ways to answer this question. It's so very cool actually, because it really is the key to unlocking that. And I was working with an athlete yesterday, just explaining the zone again, right? So normally the place in a race where you start to have problems is that you've come too far to quit. You've stayed really close to your pacing targets and so on. You now hit a bad patch. You're too far from home to smell the barn and to start saying, okay, I can just hang on now until the end. So you think of what you need to finish the race strongly and you think of the damage that the race has done to you so far. And what you actually do is you go non present, you start thinking about what you've done and you start thinking about what you have to do and you're not present in the moment. And when you're not present in the moment, you Lose access to what you actually have. So you really have to teach yourself in the pool when you're training on the run, when you're doing those long runs, that you just need to narrow your focus. All right. And then another one is exactly the opposite. You need to step back and say, hey, what am I doing? I'm doing something incredible. I'm doing something that I've dreamt about. I'm doing something that I trained really, really hard for. I knew this was going to be hard and now's the time. So I'm really happy that I've got here to this point of extreme fatigue because it's really real and this is what I wanted and that's the thrive mentality. This part of the race I am best at. And now it's arrived and it's time for me to show my stuff. So that's the one. So perspective on the one side and then on the other side, just get really present to. All I need to do is put one foot in front of the other. I can do that. But if I'm going to start thinking about the end or I've lost sight of my targets along the way because now I'm feeling tired, then I'm just in the wrong place mentally. I just need to get to a place where I'm effective. And it's the recognition that starts that whole process.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. Something I've heard Jeff Bower tried out CEO talk about before and he would give his athletes advice sometimes, when particularly his athletes who on the bike had some concerns about either making a certain distance or blowing up or, or, or whatever. And he would tell them like, okay, on your next training ride, when you're out on your bike, the next time you hit a decent hill, really push yourself up that hill and, and let yourself literally in the process of going up a hill, let yourself blow up a little bit to where you barely crest over the top. You've gone over the top on your watch, you've gone over the top on the effort you're supposed to expend and take inventory at the top on how you feel 10 seconds after that effort, 20 seconds after that effort, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, 120 seconds. Because typically what you find is that we have this impression that, oh, I'm going to blow up, I'm going to go too hard and it's going to be game over. And he's like, but you're going to find that your body actually has more in reserves than you think it does. And it can recover from a Certain moment better than you think it can. And I'm curious, Bobby Rinny, do you think that kind of translates to the run? Maybe sometimes where, where maybe we. We think we've. We've gone overboard, we've tapped out, we're starting to feel tired. But if we take a second to cool down for a second recollect ourselves, there's actually more in the tank. Rinny, what do you think about that?
Mirinda Carfrae: Well, first off, I love everything that Bobby said. And I think for me, I always tell my athletes, yeah, being in the moment is the most important thing. Right. Like figuring out, troubleshooting, but feeling out that pain and being like, you know what? I didn't do this because it was easy. I knew it was going to be hard. I've trained for this. I've been through these dark patches in training. And yeah, like, I love also, you know, what Jeff said, you know, going and pushing yourself beyond what you should in the moment and then feeling what, feeling that out, what it feels like and, and watching your body feel better and be able to go again and again and again. Um, so, yeah, I think it all just comes back to doing the training and doing the work, being well prepared for the race and then being real about, okay, it's not gonna be all unicorns and rainbow, rainbows out there. There are going to be, or there is going to be moments in that race where, you know, you have to really take a. A long look in the mirror and, okay, is this, what am I made of? Am I going to quit in this moment? Am I going to give up? Or am I going to show myself yet again that I am stronger and more capable than you could ever imagine? And I think giving yourself the permission or the challenge of that moment, I think that's the reason people come and do IRONMAN, because of that moment. Right. And overcoming that moment and then ultimately getting to that finish line.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. And I like the way Bobby framed it. You know, when you get to that moment on race day, you know, whether you're doing a sprint all the way up to a full distance IRONMAN, you know, when you get to the point on the run where it's hard. Yeah, that's worth celebrating. Like, that's, that's cool. It's like, hey, I knew this moment would come and now it's here. Cool. I'm experiencing it. I'm part of the fraternity of endurance athletes that gets to experience this on race day. Um, now I'm curious to hear both of your take on this. You know, walking Slowing down and walking has been mentioned a couple times here, but we haven't talked about it specifically. And I think it's a little bit controversial for runners and triathletes alike. I think there's this stigma. There's some people that have a stigma of, I don't want to walk, I want to press on. I will do the slowest jog humanly, possibly imaginable before I stop and walk. And you have other people that enter race day with a plan to stop and walk in certain spots, certain time intervals, whatever it is. Um, what, what is, what is your take on walking on race day, particularly with the mindset of on tired legs? If our legs are tired, we're deep into the race. Does stopping to walk, can that be a good way to collect ourselves? Or like Bobby, like you said, sh. Should we just try to keep our rhythm to the end and not lose that time? Um, Rinny, what are your thoughts on this?
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, I absolutely think walking can be a great reset. I think it's also triathlon set up for that in that we have aid stations every mile, so having the opportunity to, you know, walk through that a station. But I think it's nice before the race to have a plan. And you're not walking because you're fatigued and you've run for 20 miles and now you're just going to walk it in. It's like, okay, this is what time I would love to run or would like to run. How am I going to get there? And there are smart ways to use those walk breaks that will help reset, get on calories. And there's also like, if there's a hill in a race, you're not slowing down to a barely, you know, barely a jog that sort of keeps your heart rates, heart rate up. Whereas if you just walk, you're probably going to be a similar pace if you sort of power walk up that hill, yet allow your heart rate to come down and sort of reset. So I think it's it. Can I. I personally never was a fan of walking, but I knew, yeah.
Andrew Harley: You didn't need it, Rinny. You didn't need it. Yeah, yeah.
Mirinda Carfrae: You know, Pete Jacobs, that year he won Kona, he was running like 6 minute mile pace and then he walked every aid station and still won the race. So from professional to amateur, saw Kat Matthews on the weekend, take a couple of walk breaks through aid stations. Texas is hot, you know, worth cooling down the jets a little bit. And then you make a deal with yourself. I'm going to Walk to the end of this aid station and then I'm getting back into pace and getting back into rhythm and my next walk stop will be X amount of time away. So yeah, I absolutely think it can be used. You just have to be calculated about it and not let yourself sort of spiral and be like I'm just going to walk the rest of the way now that that's not an option.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, I, I love that mindset, Rinny, of going into the race with your strategy and knowing is that part of your strategy or not? Bobby kicking the same question over to you. I mean do you think that, that maybe if it wasn't part of your plan but you feel your, your form slipping, you feel your energy reserves dipping. Can walking be a beneficial way to kind of recollect yourself?
Bobby McGee: Do you have an hour? I am probably after Jeff Galloway. I am the biggest supporter of Walk Run.
Andrew Harley: Okay.
Bobby McGee: Right from the beginning, from a mental perspective, from a physiological capability, perspective, average person that wants to do and is doing an IRONMAN's perspective, you know, is doing an IRONMAN perspective. It is so far superior. Right. Because and I, and you know you said to me if you get to a point you feel you need to walk, then you should walk, you should walk with purpose. But I'm much more about what Rinny said is calculated about. It must be proactive, must be part of the process. Right? So why walk / run works so well? There's a hundred reasons, right. But especially in IRONMAN races that have any kind of heat involved with massively slows down your cardiac drift. Massively. All right, so if you're capable of running say a 4:22 marathon, which is 10 minute miles, right. You can go 9:1 and walk the one minute at 15 minute mile pace. Right. Because you use the word stop and walk. No, it's not stop and walk, it's just walk. You are still going forward at a very good pace at a tiny percentage, right? So now you run 9:35 pace for a portion of that mile, right? The last part of that mile. Then you walk for, for a minute which you probably walk 60 meters. So you walk 60 meters in a minute. At 15 minute miles, you're running 9:25. You're also going to, to a 422. But you much more likely to get your 422 because you're not going to overheat. All right? You're going to be able to digest your, your nutrition, you're going to be able to absorb your fluids because your cardiac drift is going to be much, much less. So your heart rate overall is going to be much less. And now with the advent of power meters, you use like 20% less power, which is way efficient to finish a marathon than you would have if you try to run the whole way. So I coached Leadville runners for a long time and I was a crew chief and my rule was if somebody passes you on an incline and they walking and you trying to run, walk, damn it. It's just absolutely ridiculous, you know, so the whole thing to, to go the whole way running if you're in deep trouble or you just don't have that capacity is an ego conversation. When you get to the end of the race, nobody's going to ask you what how much of the race you ran and how much of the race you walked. They're just going to ask you what your time is. So if somebody said, well, I took five hours but I ran the whole way, and the other person said, Well, I went 4, 15 and I walk ran, you know, it's just, it's a ridiculous conversation. So I'm a huge proponent of it. You're going to recover quicker. You can also, if you use walk run in training, you can increase your mileage and your runtime by so much more without the negative effects, right? You, you get injured less, all of those things. And then my last point is, is it's so much easier to pace because you just say, I've got a minute now. I'm going to, I'm going to get my nutrition, I'm going to get my hydration, I'm going to do all that sort of stuff. Then I'm going to reset my mind. And now I've got nine minutes or six minutes or something. That's all I have to run and then I get a little reset again and then I go. So for anybody running three and a half hours or slower, a walk run strategy is going to bring you way better results every single time.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, really interesting. And, and charter athletes will actually see in your long runs your stamina runs, your race rehearsal runs. TriDot. What will tell you if you are planning on doing a walk run strategy on race day? This is the workout to implement that and practice that and not have it be a new thing on race day. Have it be something that you've actually rehearsed so that you know what it feels like, you know how it affects your body and you can play with the timing of your intervals. And Bobby, I hadn't considered the part about if it's helping Keep your heart rate down. Well, now your body's absorbing fluids better, it's absorbing calories better. That there's, there's so many benefits beyond just, you know, get having that minute or two to collect yourself or just slow down for a second. So really, really interesting stuff. We, we are coming up on, on the end of our time together here for the main set and the way I want to end it, I want the both of you as coaches to just take 60 seconds, 90 seconds, you know, whatever, whatever's most appropriate here, and just pretend like me, Andrew, the podcast host and our audience listening today. Just pretend like we are one of your athletes and you are. You are discussing the final miles of our upcoming run with us and you're talking us through. You know what, what would you actually tell one of your athletes the day before race on, hey, when you hit those that last kilometer or two or three, here's what I want you thinking about. Here's what I want you focused on. Here's what I want you to do in that moment. Just take 60 seconds, put your coach hat on, and tell us what you would tell your athlete in that kind of a conversation. Coach Bobby, I'll throw it to you first.
Bobby McGee: All right? So the first thing I would do is I would have them concentrate on after 75% of the run to about 90% of the run, because the last 5% of the race is going to take care of itself. If you've got to that point, you are all fired up. You don't find anybody sitting at the side of the road deciding to call it a day when they've got, you know, a mile and a half to go, everybody can do that last two miles, right? So I'm concentrating a little bit on that before, but when, if they want to finish strong and so on, I'm saying start thinking here about the nutrition, the pacing, the hydration that you're going to need to finish like a hero, all right? So that they know that, you know, my calories are going to take so much for me to absorb for them to be available then, Right. And that, you know, if you trying to sip a Coke with a half a mile to go, it's going to help you in transition while you're celebrating. It's not going to help the half a mile, right? So that's my mindset. And all the time in trading, I say that if they have to do like ten half mile repeats, right? I'm concentrating on seven, I'm concentrating on eight. I'm having them focus Deeply seven, eight and nine. And then they say let's have a race over the last one. I'm saying, no, it's fine. That's where you're going to get, it's going to take care of itself on race day. You don't need your best mile to be your last half mile. You need them to be here just after halfway. That's where you need to run strong. So with my school kids I used to put a bottle of soda down in that and I said the ones that win these reps are going to get the soda. The one that wins the last rep is not going to get the soda. So that's how I've always worked from, from that perspective. So if I was with, with an athlete now I'm not even worrying about the loss. I said that's personal. That's for your soul, that's for your heart. You've got that if you've done the training. Let's not lose sight of the end goal here when it starts to get tough. You know, my mental coach used to say to me at, you know, in an Olympic 800 meter final, there's eight guys sitting in that room, one of them is wearing the underwear of the Olympic champion, It might as well be you. Right? So that, that kind of approach. Right. If you've done the training and you stay focused and you believe in your goals even at that point in time, then the end takes care of itself.
Andrew Harley: Now. Wonderful Bobby. Coach Rinny, same question over to you.
Mirinda Carfrae: Yeah, I don't think there's much to add to that. I think as Bobbi said, the last few miles they take care of themselves. Yeah, I mean I just tell my athletes to enjoy it and hopefully they've had enough nutrition that they're coherent for that finish line and post race. But yeah, I think the last few miles kind of take care of themselves. It's a journey to get there.
Announcer: Great set everyone. Let's cool down.
Cool Down
Vanessa Ronksley: Hi friends, I'm Vanessa, your average triathlete with elite level enthusiasm. And joining us today for the coach cooldown tip is one of TriDot's rockstar coaches, Kelly Mulvaney. Kelly is a very accomplished triathlete who has competed in both the 70.3 and the IRONMAN World Championships. She has been on the podium multiple times in both triathlon and running events. In addition to a top 10 finish at Ultraman Arizona. Kelly specializes in coaching beginner to experienced athletes who have wild goals for ultra distance races in trail running, triathlon and multi sport. Kelly, it is my absolute Pleasure to welcome you to the cool down.
Kelly Mulvaney: Hi Vanessa, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here today.
Vanessa Ronksley: Well, I'm happy to have you here today. You have a massive background in strength training. Can you tell us about your tip today which has to do with strength training, I believe.
Kelly Mulvaney: Absolutely. So my coach tip today is capital letters, stop skipping the strength workouts. All my athletes right now that are listening are rolling their eyes because they hear this all the time. But it is so important, it really is so important. And I know that our schedules with work and family and our training schedules, it's already very full and so it's a big ask to throw, you know, another two 30 minute sessions in a week. But in honestly an honesty, I would cut a swim bike run out of my athlete's schedule in order to include strength training because it's just that important. You know, success in this sport, it's not measured by who sweats the most or who puts in the most hours on this on the, on the treadmill or on the trainer or in the pool. It goes to who stays the most injury free and who moves the best.
Vanessa Ronksley: Right?
Kelly Mulvaney: So we have a little saying here at TriDot, right, Strong before long and fast, AKA power, which is speed before far. Right? Strong before long, fast before far. And that is big capital letters. Where strength training is going to come in our bodies, the joints and muscles, they need to be able to handle the load efficiently before we applied that load, right? So that's strong before long. We can't have you go run 20 miles if your body's not capable of moving efficiently and taking that load on. Similarly we are, we need to be capable of producing power safely. So power is speed before we give it a go. So we have fast before far as well. And strength training is meant really what it comes down to. A strength training is meant to unlock the athlete's full potential as an athlete by increasing your time to fatigue. So we're going to increase your time to fatigue through strength training. We're also going to improve your efficiency, AKA form and we're going to reduce the likelihood of injury.
Vanessa Ronksley: I think that that is one of the most important things to note as a, as any triathlete is it's, it's something that you need to be proud of if you can actually make it to the start line of your race. And I think that you're right, like strength training has a massive part to play in, in your ability to make it there because it means that you've maintained or you've not been injured so much that you can actually complete that race. Um, I'm just curious if you had one or two exercises. Just quickly shout out the one or two exercises that you think are the most valuable for those time crunched athletes, what would you recommend?
Kelly Mulvaney: The single leg deadlift. All right, so we have a, we have a very, we're a very single sided athlete with biking and running, right? So the single leg deadlifts can work on those, those glutes and that's going to be a lot of your power, a lot of your drive for the swim. We have, you know, that rotator cuff. Anything that is helping to strengthen the muscles around that rotator cuff to make it a more stable joint is going to be hugely beneficial for longevity of that joint.
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