5 Training Rules from an Ironman World Champion Coach

0:00No, no, no, no, no. Reece Barclay, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure to have you. And, you know, we've been in touch before. You were very helpful to me with Project 7. Thank you very much. You sourced my Rocker Maverick X3 for me, which was incredibly kind. It made the swims so much easier. Yeah, it's pretty crazy what you achieved there. So hats off to you and well done. And it takes, I think I said this to you at the time, It takes a very unique person, a special person to be able to do what you did. And I've coached world champions. And a lot of them would even say, wow, that's mental.

0:36Especially the last bit when you were sleep deprived, you wanted to be home. And then you're waiting for a flight to go to the Antarctic to finish an Ironman. That's, yeah, pretty mental. That's very kind. I'd like to talk to you more about how you coach people, you know, athletes' mentality, your own mentality. I mean, you're a sports scientist. You are a professional triathlete yourself. You, of course, coach your incredible wife, Lucy, who we've had on the show. She's a world champion, Ironman. How much of these performances is data-driven? How much can you control as a top-level coach? And what is required of an athlete to really get the best out of their performance?

1:18Yeah, well, I think we live in a day of data, science, and everything is analyzed and tracked. But I think if you rewound certainly 50 years ago, most athletes back then were probably doing forms of everything the athletes are doing now, but it wasn't tracked or monitored. And I use the example of my dad. He was a professional boxer and he used to run around in bin liners to make weight. And you fast forward to today, now we have a core suit with a core sensor to label that practice. But it was the same thing back then. And I've kind of gone through both sides of the fence of being a scientist, studying sports science and absolutely loving it, but also being in the field of play as an athlete myself and then later on coaching athletes.

2:08And I see like the latest journals come out and the science behind it and they have a lot of merit. But then when you try to apply those into the real world, they don't always work. So I kind of sit somewhere in the middle of data application and practical real world. And I think that's probably my niche in terms of I don't fit into any one scientist box or coach who doesn't believe in science box. I'm in the middle somewhere. Like, is there something to be said for just training in an old school way and pushing yourself, you know, until you can't go any further? And, you know, because everything is so tailored nowadays, even as a non-professional athlete, you know, with Stephen's help or whatever, if you stick completely to the plan, and I'm sure it's really beneficial, but how do you really know if you're pushing your limit of exactly where that should be?

2:56Yeah, well, I think a lot of people have a misconception of old school means like Rocky. I was actually thinking about Rocky when I said that. Yeah, because we've got the movies, right? You're running up the stairs, but it isn't like that. I think you can get a lot of training benefit by not really even tracking a lot of the stuff, especially at the amateur age group level. As you get towards a professional level, I think it's merited. You know, I see a lot of people who are time constrained, so they've got 10 hours to train a week, such as myself at the moment. I don't really need to track what I'm doing for 10 hours a week.

3:31I just need to get out there and do it. Like if I was tracking myself for 10 hours a week, well, that hour that I spent tracking my 10 hours, I'm better off doing that 11th hour and not tracking it. But as you get towards the very top end, then absolutely, yes, is warranted and merited. You can get a lot done in 10 hours, though. You know, I think some, I mean, a lot of our listeners definitely run and train, and, you know, it's part of the reason they listen to this show. But it's also interesting, you know, the question I get a lot is kind of, oh, you must be, you know, spending so much time training for this goal.

4:06I'm not sure that I train much more than 10 hours a week. I think 10 hours a week is, if used well, is plenty. Absolutely. I would say most, we call them age groupers, but amateurs, 10 to 15 hours is like a lot. I think a lot of the very, very top age group athletes who are winning, say, their age group in triathlon, they're probably doing 15 hours. But you can certainly be at the top with 10 hours if you do it correctly. But it's not about correctly or quality. It's about consistency. If you do 10 weeks of 10 hours a week, that's way better than doing four weeks of 15 hours a week. It's interesting as well when you begin to apply it across different sports.

4:50You know, I think if you're chucking swimming and cycling into the mix, 10 hours probably doesn't feel like very much. Yeah, for sure in triathlon, it gets lost. That's pretty light because like 10 hours to 15 hours of running a week, I think you're a pretty serious runner, I think, if you're covering that much. you know if you're trying to swim cycle lift and run I'd say 10 hours a week is pretty light yeah because then effectively something's going to be very very light especially if you throw in a four-hour bike ride at the weekend most most people who work nine to five five days a week they're called weekend warriors they do a lot at the weekend so you know seven hours of your 10 hour week comes on a Saturday Sunday yeah you're not doing very much during the week and consistency you would say is one of the most important parts of it is hands down the most important part yeah yeah for sure like more important than mileage yeah definitely like you're stacking um fitness stacks it's not built in one big go so and lucy's best performances have always been off the back of just consistency like she's never ever had a massive training camp that's unlocked everything it's just been consistent weeks leading into a training camp then she performs well lucy's training as a professional athlete though is is crazy like her her time training is yeah i'm trying to keep it relatable to i remember being blown away by her sessions but most ironman professionals she's she's not she's you know people train more than her um but yeah she's consistently hitting 25 to 30 hours a week and that's like pure stop start watch cardio time not necessarily all the stuff that goes before that.

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8:43Is it hard to train your wife? And what kind of dynamic does that create in your marriage? So I've said to Vogue when she's not pregnant, of course, and has been into her running, oh, you know, if you like, I can help you, you know, get a little faster or I can help you add like a bit of distance to your runs because she's a real creature of habit. You know, she'd go and run, you know, two laps to the park and then just go home and it would be the same pace every time. And, you know, I would say stuff like, you know, I can add different training sessions to your, you know, to your week so that it's a bit different, a bit varied.

9:17So it's a bit more fun. And literally because it's me, she just has no real interest in doing that. Whereas I'm sure if her trainer said, like, you should do this, she'd go, okay. But because I'm her husband, she's just not really interested in listening to me helping her with that. Obviously, you're Lucy's trainer. Has it ever created a problem at home? When we first started, I was her sole trainer, as in like I would be setting all of her programs and all of the sessions that she would do was set by me. Were you husband before trainer or trainer then husband? I guess I would say I was trainer before husband because we started doing triathlon properly in 2014 and we weren't married until 2018.

10:03I've always known her in a sports setting. today we have an external coach called Dan Lorang who oversees the total program and there is a reason for that he's exceptionally good but also I can then just focus on the session rather than the plan and he'll set the grand scheme of what the plan is and I will help Lucy deliver that and what that means is basically she'll be doing a session I'll be taking a heart rate lactate all all the kind of stuff and feeding that information back to him. But I do have to step in and change things when she's fatigued or not feeling it, we have to tone it down.

10:40Or if she's very rarely not doing it well enough, I have to say, you've got to try harder here. That doesn't always go down so well. I think the reason why she allows me to do that, and I completely understand, like I would be frustrated if it was the other way around, I guess I would be like, why are you telling me that sort of thing? But she completely has full trust in that I've got her best interest at heart and we're trying to achieve something that is ridiculous because you're trying to be the best in the world at something. There's no one better to tell her something needs to change or she needs to do something slightly different than me, who she knows that I'm never going to sugarcoat it or I'm never going to tell her something that she wants to hear but isn't necessarily true if that does that make sense like she sometimes needs to um do things better which sounds really harsh because she's exceptionally good at everything i'm never like oh my god lucy you're just like so lazy you you're not training well enough it's just not true anyway but i would never do that um and if i did she would just tell me to sod off anyway so it comes naturally and it's never been difficult i mean there are there are the odd occasion where she'll literally just say, I'm not feeling it today, leave me alone.

11:51And that's fine. I understand that. But nine times out of 10, it comes from a joint motive of both of us. And she understands I'm doing it in her best interest. But I understand it's really difficult for like people observing, go, how could you be like that? I often say I have a different hat on. So sometimes I'll say to Lucy, right, I'm talking to you as your husband, but I'm going to have to put the coaching hat on for a minute. Blah, blah, blah. And then she understands, okay, you're talking to me from a different perspective and a different lens. It's like character role-playing, I guess. Very nice.

12:23When you see Lucy race, what is the level of science behind that performance? Yeah, so this is where, like, what I said at the beginning is more applicable to age groupers and amateurs, but at that level, and very distinct at that level, you have to be, because if you're not, someone else is, and they're potentially going to get an advantage. So we will spend countless amounts of time in the wind tunnel looking for a single watt of aerodynamic advantage. That's unbelievable. Yeah. And you would find that one watt would make a difference? Yeah, one watt is about 45 seconds over an Ironman. God, on one watt, sorry, across just the cycle?

13:05Yeah. So are you calculating wattage for running? No. So for the bike ride, because of the speed that they're moving at, drag becomes you know such a 90 % of the resistance that the cyclist faces is aerodynamic drag and there's a little bit comes from friction from the ground but if you can overcome that resistance it's free speed so we've found things like even if Lucy holds her thumb ups slightly little bit like that that's an aerodynamic gain and over the course of an Ironman you can map it and it can save you minutes, it's crazy as someone who's like a probably a weak cyclist at best that is unbelievable to me yeah and those are like that would make a difference it's there's silly things as well like there's been so surely if if thumbs are like make that much of a difference surely overall posture helmet the kit that she wears yeah where where are you finding the biggest gain on the bike probably in years gone by it was position in like so should that they ride a very aggressive position on the front with their arms up.

14:09I'm so sorry to keep interrupting. I'm just like, when I, when I get really excited by a point, I can't kind of hold it back. If the thumbs being up, considering that her whole body is behind her, her thumbs, why, why, how can that make any difference? Cause I would understand if her head were an inch lower, but like her thumbs being up or down, like when, when everything, when all of her mass is behind the thumbs is, is extraordinary that that would matter. There is probably no one in the planet that can give you the answer why. They can just tell you that it's a bit of witchcraft, aerodynamics.

14:47And it's completely different for everyone. Like Lucy's setup would not work for me and mine wouldn't work for her. And it's unique to that person. So it's crazy. We're in the stone age when it comes to aerodynamics. Like there's so much more to come. And we'll be long retired before we ever get to the limit of it. Let's put it that way. This is making me think about the complexity in designing a Formula One car, for example. Exactly. Imagine something travelling, you know, that fast, what difference the rear wing would make, you know. If Lucy's thumbs matter on a bicycle, imagine the difference that, you know, a quarter of an inch on the car would make.

15:26Well, I think they've got to the point, and there's obviously a lot more money investment in Formula One. they've got to the point where they've regulated the advancements they're allowed to have in Formula One but in triathlon it's still the Wild West like we said we joke like Lucy's going to get to the point where she's so aerodynamic she can just spin the bike up to speed and then just sit on it for for six hours or whatever it is and that'd be lovely exactly but that that's the science side of stuff so you have to pay a special attention to that but then comes all of the training and stuff and there's there's trade-offs as well like Lucy can hold a super aggressive really aerodynamic position, but then her back would be hurting for the run.

16:01So that doesn't work. And you have to kind of, it's like dials all the time. You have to turn one thing up and have a one eye on what consequence that may have. What's the smallest detail that you would monitor in one of Lucy's races that we obviously wouldn't know about? I guess if you take aerodynamics out of it, then from a physiological perspective, we're looking at, I guess, core temperature during a race is probably the next most important thing. So she'll wear a core sensor and that will give us almost an accurate picture of how many calories she's burning, how much the fuel utilization is working.

16:40Is she overheating? Is she hydrated? You can extrapolate a lot of data from her watts, her heart rate, her core sensor and her pace. But you can't do it in real time at the moment. That's the real problem. It's always retrospective. Aren't there pills that you can swallow like a device that sits in your stomach. I had it in the desert. Yeah, we did that. And unfortunately, an athlete's metabolism is quite quick. It was meant to be a 24-hour device and we were getting through it in 12 hours. And they're about a thousand pound of pill, those core sensors. They might have come down in price since then.

17:14So it became too costly for me and Lucy to use. That's good to know. We went through a few of them. And they're a one-use thing. You don't want to reuse. No, no. Can the numbers warn you that an athlete is deteriorating then before the athlete knows? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I say that Lucy has got real-time data. She's got her watts and her heart rate. But for sure, she hasn't got as big as like when you look back on, say, last year when she had a heat episode. All of the data suggests that it wasn't a heat episode. So that was like her coach and her coach, Dan Lorang, is an extremely well-known, famous coach, Coach Jan Frodeno, loads of world champions.

17:57He had two athletes, two horses in that race, and both of them experienced heat exhaustion. But Taylor Nib, who made it further than Lucy into the race, had very, very, very different data to Lucy. Like Dan didn't share Taylor's data because quite rightly that's her data. But he sort of said to us, guys, it doesn't look like you had heat exhaustion. This is not adding up because Lucy's core temperature wasn't extremely high. Her post-race recovery was extremely good. Something was amiss. So in the moment, it looked like heat exhaustion. But when we came back home, we did blood tests and there was no heat stress markers.

18:37So something else happened. and it's been kind of like an ongoing investigation for the last year and we finally feel like we've got the answer to it. So yeah, you can kind of save yourself, but you can't always know exactly what's going on, especially not in the moment of a race. Are you able to break it down scientifically? So, you know, I'm aware that obviously it's much easier to run in 10 degrees than 30 degrees. It may sound obvious to people that it's easier to run in cool than heat, but what is the body actually going through in the heat? Yeah, so I guess your body always wants to maintain homeostasis, which is basically an equilibrium of all of your working mechanisms in your body.

19:14And heat is probably the most damaging thing to your brain. When you get heat exhaustion, your brain very, very quickly works in an optimal range of between, say, 36 degrees and 40 degrees is getting hot. After that, your enzymes and your cells start to literally denature. They cannot function at hotter temperatures. So if you can imagine, you're already at about 36 degrees. Then you start exercising. Well, the human body's internal equilibrium is about 36 degrees. 36 to 37, yes. If you take a temperature, you're about 36. Yeah, and they always say, oh, you've got a high temperature. If you're sick, your high temperature may be anything from 38, 39.

19:56If you get into 40, it's like, that's a very high temperature. But when you're doing exercise, especially if it's anything above 15 degrees, even as low as 15 degrees, you can very quickly produce more heat than your body is able to dissipate. And you'll probably find that if you was running a marathon at full speed, your core temperature would be probably high 39s already. So you're already clinically not well. In what kind of temperature? In any temperature? Any temperature above, say, 15 degrees, I would say, you're starting to move into, you're going to get hot. Anything below 15 degrees, you're probably starting to, there's a really optimal window.

20:35I think it's like the marathon pace. They always want it to be between 12 and 15 degrees. It's like perfect. And then you start going the other way and it's too cold. But yeah, once you go above that 15 degrees, if you haven't got wind flow, so cyclists don't suffer as much from that because they've got convection. But if you're a runner, you can very quickly become hot. And as soon as you get into the 20 degrees, then you're really, really getting hot. Like your body is trying to, and this is why your performance drops. So your body prioritizes dissipating heat over delivering oxygen to your muscles.

21:10Oh, wow. So instead of saying, okay, your legs are screaming at you saying, I need oxygen because I'm running hard. And your brain's going, yeah, but we're going to die if I give you that oxygen. I need to get rid of some heat. So it redirects blood flow to your skin. and that's why you get, you know, you get red skin, your sweat rate goes up. That's your body's way of trying to get rid of all this excess heat that you're building up as you're exercising. Could it have an effect on your breathing? Yeah, your breathing rate grows up. So you have like an acute response to heat and then you have a chronic response.

21:41So the chronic response is heat adaptation. You can get better at racing or functioning in the heat with adaptation, but your chronic response, which is like the immediate response, is a survival mechanism because if you let yourself get too hot, you will die. And you see this like actually heat exhaustion is mostly studied in military when they're in hot environments and they've got backpacks on marching through the desert. They're at already extremely hot temperatures and you imagine layering all of that stuff on. And plus they're in an environment where they're with people. Heat exhaustion is very common in the military.

22:16It's well studied as well. The suit in Antarctica was quite problematic. Really? We had two choices, really. It was sort of either where... So what's the temperature? Like, basically zero. Zero, zero. But it was sort of, you know, where a suit that's tailored to like five or six, so, you know, you're going to be freezing. Yeah. Or where this big thing that is designed for like, you know, fixing ships in Antarctica, where, you know, you're not... But the drag of it. Did you get chafing as well? Didn't get any chafing, but there was huge amounts of drag. It slowed me down by like 20 minutes. and it was very hard to swim in very buoyant yeah too buoyant very hot like literally boiling really wow lost hands and feet and face so freezing but boiling it was quite a strange sensation were any of your other all of your other swims before that point more warm right?

23:11ish Cape Town was cold oh yeah okay Cape Town was 7-8 degrees oh yeah it's cold I mean you had the Roker on for that one yeah but not the cold water one so I was freezing like I was really cold Yeah, they're only good for like 13, 14 degrees, and then you need the thermal one. I knew as soon as I jumped in that it was a massive problem. Yeah, that can ruin your day, you know. Mate, well, I then had the cycle and the marathon to contend with, but the swim was probably one of the scariest experiences of my life. Dark, five in the morning, obviously wildlife, lots of seals everywhere. Did you see anything?

23:45Yeah. Seals were diving on me. Oh, my God. No, it's gross. Yeah. Well, seals aren't gross. I've seen a clip of Lucy swimming in Vancouver and there was a killer whale. So they're all swimming in the... Can we get the clip? It's in the middle of the race. Oh, that's sick. They go around the buoy and then it zooms out and then this killer whale comes up with its pups and all the commentators go, oh, this is amazing. And then people afterwards are going, no, what that killer whale was actually doing was warning the swimmers don't come any nearer because I've got pups. and it's like literally 20 meters away from the swimmers.

24:22Obviously, you don't know how you'll react until you see these things. But there was a story that we heard before embarking on Project 7 that there were these two killer whales called Port and Starburn. Yeah. And they had cleared out all the great white sharks from this particular area. So they killed all the great white sharks. They'd caused the kind of white shark industry like a massive issue. Yeah. Because they'd literally come and hunt down the white sharks. They just kill for fun, I think. They don't eat them. But I think they know that white sharks are a threat. So I think the idea anyway that we were told were that these whales were protecting humans from sharks.

25:01Really? I don't think there's ever been an instance of a killer whale killing a human being outside of captivity. So in the wild, I think, broadly speaking, they're very safe. There was a case of, I'm sure it was a killer whale who was playing with a human and it fought by playing. It grabbed her and pulled her down really far. In a tank? In the wild. I'm sure I've read that. And I was like, that must be so petrifying because the killer whale thinks it's playing. They do that in the tank. So they would take the guy down. So this guy, one of the killer whales in SeaWorld missed one of the cues because he was busy doing a trick.

25:39Yeah, yeah. And he missed the cue, couldn't hear it. Right. And he came round and he thought he'd done a good job. and the guy didn't give him his fish because he punished him and he thought that was really unfair. What, the killer whale? Yeah, so when the guy jumped in, he grabbed him by the toe and dragged him down to the bottom of the tank. He played dead type thing. It's all on camera. Waited for him to be out of breath completely. Took him up, let him get breath, swapped foot and did it again and then let him go. So it's like they know what they're doing. Yeah, that's ridiculous, yeah. Anyway.

26:14Hi, this is Monica Reinagle of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms. It's chicken that's just chicken, and their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy, and soy. Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices.

27:12Everything you need. It's Walmart built for your business. Sign up for a free Walmart business account today at business.walmart.com. Mod.com is changing the way people battle excessive fatigue. Ever hit a wall in the middle of the day and a third coffee just doesn't do it anymore? Here's what's actually happening. Coffee only briefly blocks adenosine, the chemical that tires you out. When it stops working, your system is flooded and you crash. Modafinil is a prescription treatment that works in a completely different way. Modafinil works by stimulating multiple receptors in the brain associated with wakefulness, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, histamine, glutamate, and orexin.

27:58It's a more complete solution that gives you 10 to 12 hours of steady focus and energy. To learn more, go to mod.com. Fill out your intake form, meet with a licensed provider, and if approved, ModAlert ships straight to your door. Go to mod.com to get started. That's M-O-D dot com.

28:24When you open an athlete's data after the session, what are the first three things that you look at and care about? So I use a platform called TrainingPeaks and basically the first thing I would naturally look at is the color compliance. so if it's red it means the session either didn't happen or something was way above what the session plan was orange orange don't do that to steven i don't i mean i can tell you this right i don't think there's ever been a training week in lucy's calendar that has always gone to plan like there's always something that's either more or less or not in the order that was meant to be and I always say like to all of my athletes, plan looks good on paper, but in the practical real world, take it with a pinch of salt because we're not robots.

29:16And you know, you might have kids screaming at night, so you don't get a good night's sleep. And then you wake up the next morning, then you've got a really hard session on the plan. What's the right thing to do there? Go and do it and flog yourself. Or do you go, okay, I need to adjust that. How do you know when kind of increasing your training load will improve performance versus cause damage? Oh, that's a really good question. Thank you. I think most people will get to the point where they cause damage when they are in peak training and at an already incredibly fit position. And that's the risk zone.

29:58You get really, really fit. Everything's going great. And you're feeling like you're on top of everything. And you're four or five weeks out from the race. And then you blow a hamstring. And the reason is because you've reached a point where your body's never been before. And you're full of enthusiasm, which is perfectly good. That's when you really, really have to be careful. I see it so many times. Lucy's done it as well. Those are the danger zones. I think it's, to actually answer your question, I think it's when you're approaching a new level in your performance, that's when you are very susceptible to injuries because you're, by definition, taking your body to somewhere it hasn't been.

30:37And there's a calibration process that goes on with that. So when you're really fit, you're mechanically better at everything, but your body needs time to catch up. That's when it's time to really like go, okay, I'm in a really good position here, but I need to just chill and let it sink in a bit. When you look at science in the way that you do and data and I know you spoke about, you know, both the physical elements of training, obviously, and the data. How much of, say, Lucy's race is predetermined before she kicks off? So at the start line, could you predict Lucy's Ironman time to the minute?

31:11I would, no, I don't think I could. I mean, external factors play too much of a role. But I could pretty much tell you what her power and her heart rate would be. I couldn't tell you what her bike split would be because I don't know the weather conditions to minute detail on that. But I certainly know when she's going into a race if she's going to have a very strong chance of winning or not. Fortunately, a lot of times she does. But there are some races where she goes into it. I'm like, you're not 100 % here, and we just have to see how the day unfolds. But there's other races where I'm like, you're going to be fighting for the win.

31:43We need to be patient and decide when you're going to do that attack. That's a good place to be. That's where we always want to be. Life doesn't always work that way, though. No. Do you coach her from a mental standpoint as well? Or does she just have kind of very strong mental health? I find that it's hard to always be like violently fighting, you know, in your own corner. I think it's quite normal to have occasional moments of doubt. You know, it's easy to just say like, believe in yourself, be the best, you're a legend. But like, but actually like when you're being real, you know, as you said earlier, there's always people who are faster than you, maybe not in Lucy's case, obviously she's world champion, but you know, there will come a time when someone comes through when they're faster than Lucy.

32:29and you know it's not always possible to kind of run the sessions that you want like what what would your advice be to like our listeners to Lucy to to me like when things feel tough rough when the confidence isn't quite there when the sessions aren't going as smoothly as you want and you've kind of got demons in the back of your mind you're finding it really hard to break out of that negativity what would you advise us runners to to do first of all you're not robots so you know lucy always has struggles like outwardly looking you look at her on social media and you look at her race results you're like oh it's easy she just waltzes through and wins everything so not true every single person has struggles um and in training like i don't know i think probably 90 % of the time something will go wrong.

33:19Like you're not going to have a perfect session all the time. When do you have a perfect session? Like I remember like two or three times where I've absolutely nailed a session and I've been happy about it, but nine times out of 10, there's something else has not been quite right. And I think it's like important to just take that as like a, everyone else is in the same boat. Like I think sometimes athletes, particularly age groupers, um, think that everything needs to be perfect all the time. But if you look left and right and you look what left and right are doing by that i mean if you look on social media and you're posting that you've just nailed a run workout and then you're stressed because yours your run workout hasn't been good then you're going to be like blindsided by the truth and the truth of it is nine times out of ten it's not always perfect and it's good to know that and good to talk to people about that and at the very highest level it's true and also as an age grouper it's true i also think as an age grouper as an amateur like you've got to remember you're doing this as a hobby, right?

34:11If you're getting like massively stressed out about a run, it's your hobby. It's not your job. And I don't mean that disrespectfully. I mean, you should be always getting pleasure out of your hobby. You shouldn't be getting so angry that you go home, like pissed off because you've just failed a run workout. That's not a good mental place to be in. Speaking about the right thing to do, can I ask you your advice on like the perfect 5k? Well, this is my opinion, and I'm not a 5K specialist by any stretch, but I know from experience if you go off too hard, that's the worst way to do it. So we can rule that out.

34:47If you want to run a 17 and a half minute 5K, in your example, if you go off on three minute K, then the chances are you're going to be doing four minute K on that last K. Being there. Yes, and that's painful. Not quite three minute K, but I think I set off at 315s, and about 500 meters in, I was like, cooked. Yeah, yeah, you're done. And very quickly done. There was four and a half K of hell. No one wants to experience that. And it's just dire. Like it's just genuinely, it's my least favorite distance, I'd say. But I think everyone should experience hell not to do that as well. Like you learn that and then you go, okay, I'm not doing that again.

35:27So you pull back from that. I think you've got to give yourself that natural, you know, the first, I always say the first two minutes is free. So if I'm doing a park run, I'll just go with the race for two minutes. And I know exactly where that is roughly on my local park run. I get to this little bit and I'm like, okay, now I need to settle into my pace. And then I would say you want to hold the next three kilometers on from that point at exactly what feels comfortable and then build the last, say, 1 ,500 meters. So it's like a free speed two minutes, control for 3K, and then everything you've got, but slowly wind up that last 1 ,500.

36:02Is there any sense or logic in, so my favorite sessions are over under. Yeah. So. No, it's the answer. Can, could, could you not look at each K as, as 500 meters over 500 meters under, then you've got like five sets of work, but there are only 500 meters. So mentally I get where you're coming from and it's easier to break it down into bite sides, but you've got the problem of acceleration. So accelerating is costly. If you're in a car and you want to get from 50 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour, you have to put your foot on the accelerator. You're burning fuel. Once you're at 60 kilometers an hour or 60 miles per hour, you coast in the car, right?

36:49Same thing with your human body. Once you get from 345 a K up to 330 a K, it's a lot of energy to get there. And then when you're there, you have economy, you're there and you can stay there. but going backwards and forwards it's like it would be like trying to average in a car revving up to 60 miles an hour and then back to 50 miles an hour like your fuel economy is going to go through the roof by doing that and I know you're not going to run out of fuel in a 5k but you are going to flood your system with lactate and you're going to probably end up most likely going to end up like putting a bad performance I'm terrified of this thing tomorrow like it's so weird I'll gladly go and do an Ironman in Antarctica but I'm freaking out about this 5k tomorrow morning 5k is painful I hate it.

37:29Yeah, but they're a good thing. I don't even want to do it. Genuinely, I don't even want to do it. It's just like, I don't, yeah. But my best 5Ks have always been on just like... What is your 5K, PB? 15.42. 15? That was a long time ago. Couldn't do that now. 15.42. It's just mad. But all of them have always, all of my best, I mean, I do parkrun pretty much every week, so I've probably done like 1 ,000 5Ks in my time. You do parkrun every week? More or less. What do you run now? My last one, I actually haven't done one in a while. We've been away. I'm around like the low 17s at the moment. 16 if I'm really doing well.

38:08But I'm nowhere near as fit as I used to be. All my best 5Ks have been on just chilled. I've turned up going, just see what happens today. So you start casual. Always, yeah. That's what needs to happen. I literally, I can't bet. I know that the gun's going to go tomorrow. that I'm going to go like the clappers, and then I'm going to look down and go, oh my God, I need to slow down. And then it's kind of like, there's always that bullshit at the beginning. Yeah, but I think that's the whole point of it, right? You need to allow yourself that moment in the beginning, but then you've got to put a hard cap on it, like say two minutes, and you go, okay, Spencer, you've been excited for two minutes, now control.

38:46Because otherwise, there's always going to be someone quicker than you, right? Even when you're a 17 and a half. I'm not trying to win. No, no, but what I'm saying is, if you went and did this by yourself, you haven't got a rabbit to chase. in parkour there's always a rabbit to chase yeah and you can chase it for as long as you want but then you're going to end up like hell what we just said you don't want to be that four and a half k painful march back finish like set off at three minute k and then it's it's hell for four and a half k you don't want that experience no no we don't no no one wants that experience how important is it when you are trying to maintain a fast pace to lean forward into it yeah should you always be aiming to be kind of neutral?

39:24Well, so my cues are you literally want to feel like you are leaning forward and scraping dog poo off of your shoe. And what I mean by that is you're activating your posterior chain and your hamstrings. And if you imagine when you've got dog poo on your shoe, you want to scrape it off. With a forward lean and a scrape off, you are going to run forward with good posture. Doing that under fatigue is really difficult, really so difficult. Doing it on a treadmill with a mirror in front of you is easy. Yeah. Like I sometimes feel, were we to be joysticks, like I sometimes feel like I'm like back and to the left.

39:59Yes, yes, yes, yes. Like I'm completely like skew-whiff and just like, even when I'm running, I'm just like this. I'm wondering if I look like one of those like wind things, you know, like you'd see outside car washes. I think you can't look at a professional runner and say, I want to be like that. That's like... Did you see Josh Kerr's mile? Yeah, that was incredible. Yeah, he's a perfect example. Who's going to look like that? God, he looks, he looks, he honestly, he looks like a legend running like that. He's brilliant. It's fantastic to watch. Sick glasses as well. Yeah. The whole thing. Good looking guy.

40:3165, was it 65 ,000 people in the stadium? Don't know. Amazing. Full stadium anyway. Yeah. Crazy. I mean, I wonder what Ingebrigtsen sat at home thinking. That was mega. That was huge. Yeah. God, it was cool. Last time I was at that stadium, we watched Usain Bolt's last race and he lost to Justin Gatlin. so it was like the whole stadium booed because it was like you know Gatlin was the you know the villain and Usain Bolt was the hero so but yeah I would have loved to have been in that stadium and watched that. Anyway back to running you can't expect to look like that it's not realistic. He looks tremendous.

41:05Yeah I wish everyone looked like that. Imagine like how quick would you be if you had that technique but you can't you can't look at that and go okay how do I train myself to be like that it's not realistic everyone has a good middle ground though I was watching his striking. Like, it's just perfect. Also, they're traveling. He's doing 235 a kilometer at the end or something absolutely absurd. Like, we could not do that for 100 meters. No. Perhaps 100 meters, that's it. You might be able to, but I don't even think I could. I literally, like, you know, I told you about my headspace going a bit wonky recently.

41:40Like, in Spain the other day, I ran quite a hard session and I had strides at the end. And in my mind, I was like, right, I'm going to hammer these strides as hard as I can. I really want the stride data at least to be like 250s or whatever, like Kipchoge marathon pace. Surely I can hold that for 100 meters. No one near it. I was at like 315s. And I was like basically sprinting. End of a hard sesh. But I was literally like, how do these lads run marathons? At 245, 250? I can't even get to that pace full stop. And I was like, I think if you lined up for a 100-meter sprint on a track, then it would be faster, right?

42:25But at the end of a long sesh, boiling hot, whatever, I couldn't even get there. No, I mean, I've… Couldn't even get to Kipchoge pace for any meters. I think probably one kilometer. You could do. Yeah, not now. Once upon a time, I could. And that's just that. And I could run a 1540 at that point. and I remember doing 5x1k on the track. And my fastest one was 250 or something. And I was like, that's not even the pace that he's running a marathon at. I don't actually think there's other sports where really, really, really good athletes like yourself running a 249 is, what's that, top 99 % or top 1 %?

43:04I'm not quite there yet, but yeah, I ran a 257. I'm aiming for a 245, but I think I could run a 249. but my point is if you run a 249 you're in the top 1 % of marathon runners right I think I don't know what the late stats are well you'd certainly be up there you'd be up there right 249 and 159 is in that 1 % I'm pretty sure there is another sport where the top 1 % are so far off the top like if you was the top 1 % powerlifter you're not gonna be you'd be like a kilo off each other or a few kilos off each other I think so maybe we can fact check it but I think marathon runners is so absurd. I'm pretty sure the top 1 % cyclists in the world would not be that far off of Tour de France riders.

43:49But in running terms, it's just ridiculous. I think it is getting... The top 1%, I think, is probably a little bit narrower than what we're talking about. I think I'm right in saying that in London this year, 6 % of marathon runners ran a sub 3. Okay. Which is actually quite a lot, if you think about it. Yeah, that's why they keep changing the parameters of good for age and stuff. We won't go into the shoe topic. So as I understand it, good for age is 18 to 39. And it's kind of like there's a… Oh, well, then age group after that. So for me, for example, for me to qualify for a championship pen, I think I need to run a 238, something like that.

44:33Yeah. But I'm in a pool with 18-year-olds to 39-year-olds. So once I'm 39, which is in two years time, I'll qualify for the championship pen because it will be a 240 something. And I'll hopefully have achieved that by then because I'm not going to give up. Right. I'm just going to go get faster and faster. So I imagine I'll be in the championship pen when I'm 40. But like, I probably won't make it before because I'm competing with a bunch of 19 year olds. Who are probably really, really, really fast. I just think it's unfair. I reckon 18, 19-year-olds look at us and go like, what the fuck are we doing in a pool with them?

45:15Yeah, they probably go, we're going to smash you. But you were that guy once, so you've got to give them their… Well, when I was 18, I wasn't running at all. Oh, yeah, fair enough. I was a different time. I think breathing is massive, isn't it? Yeah, breath work. I'm going to do some breath work tonight just because… We just started doing loads of that. That's something that's been hugely like… I always used to think that breath work was something that other people did. I don't need to do breath work. better off just going to the gym. But now I'm like, I still have a lot in this. Like you can lower your, you can lower your heart rate.

45:46You can lower your, you can lower your blood lactate by breathing differently. And I'm like, wow, this is like an untapped area. Yeah. I mean, I think most people feel that way. Yeah. But, but you know, when I first discovered Wim Hof, I was astounded. I couldn't believe it. Like I did it and like, couldn't believe how I was feeling. Like, you know, made quite a big difference to my, to all kinds of stuff. And I think it makes sense for athletes as well, right? It's like probably the opposite of smoking. Yeah, exactly. Exactly that. That is the nail on the head, yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, yeah, we've only just started doing it, so.

46:22I'm going to do it tonight in the hope that it shaves a minute off my 5K time. Do it before the 5K as well. I will do it. Oxygenate yourself. What kind of exercises is she doing? So we've been doing like long in-house hold, long exhale hold. Four seconds, four seconds. Yeah. What's it called? Do you know? Sean Stafford was talking to me about that this morning like breathe in as hard as you can hold for four seconds breathe out as hard as you can hold for four seconds breathe in how long do you do it for? do it for five minutes before a really hard workout and it's like quite substantial how much better your lungs feel imagine just for a second that you do the breath work just before the race and then you take off and it's just like a piece of piss like you're just flying Have you had those days where you just like, you were smashing it and everything's easy?

47:12Yeah. No, I've had days where like, I've gone, I've gone to do what should be a really hard session on paper and just cruised it like low heart rate, like faster than it's supposed to be. And yeah, like you feel like you feel like you're floating. And how often do you have those days? I really felt like since it's got incredibly hot. Yeah. It's been quite difficult to feel that way. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like I think when the temperatures start to drop again and potentially there's benefit from all this training in the heat and like we hit the track and it's 12 degrees, I reckon we're going to fly, right?

47:44But, you know, I'm looking forward to that day because at the moment it just kind of feels painful. I feel like a warthog or something. Last night in the park, I reckon you could hear me like a while off. When I had my music on, I could still hear myself. You know, they call me the hog. Oh, really? Yeah, I have a group of runners that I run with that call me the hog. Are you asthmatic? No, no. But you would have thought I might be. Maybe a Ventolin could talk me. But I'm a heavy breather, to say the least, in hard sessions. I'm a grunter. Yeah, I grunt. I breathe heavy. You're like the worst person to have behind you on the track.

48:25I couldn't creep up on you. You'd hear me coming. And also, you know, the person that I'm directly behind in tomorrow's race will know where I am. Yeah. And it might encourage them to... No, I hate running behind that person or in front of that person. Yeah, well, you know. I have that, like, I used to do cross country and I used to be this guy and he was always around the same pace as me. He was a really nice guy, but he breathed so heavily. And I used to, like, actively, like, try and... Just be no way to give him the place. And by the end of the race, I was always with him. And it just... Yeah.

48:56That's me, mate. Yeah, well, I wouldn't like that. well I guess we you're better off being that guy than being that guy that's following that guy music no music do you train listening to music love music on the bike yeah don't on the run really yeah god I can't like I I literally can't comprehend really seeing people who run with no music I just I don't get I think I get my fix of it on the bike like I just because I'm a grunter right I grunt and like and all I hear is like plodding and grunting and it just makes me think oh this sounds hard yeah so you run with music all the time yeah pretty much whereas if I've got like Eminem or like you know Fall Out Boy thumping in my ears then firstly I can't hear my own suffering yeah and I'm just kind of like dialed in to them and I'd rather be dialed in to them than my breathing so even when you do parkrun music on I think there's a good chance that I will have music on tomorrow morning really when I'm doing like a treadmill session I don't know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here the night before your big park run and give you advice to change something.

50:02I think if I set off with no music, I wouldn't know what to do. Really? Do you think it's harder to control yourself, though, if you've got, like, Eminem blaring in your ear? You get to that two-minute mark and you're like, I'm on for a 14.30. Yeah, probably. It is harder. But I think I'd rather be in that position where literally I'm trying to slow down. Yeah, true. That would be nice, right? Getting, like, a Battersea Park run is two laps. Getting the first lap done where you're almost stopping yourself from bolting in an ideal world at 340. If I can run the first lap at 340 average pace and get to halfway wanting to hammer it, then we've already won.

50:46Whatever happens after that is gold. But, you know, if you get to halfway and you're completely fucked and full of lactic and you still have M &M blaring and you can't breathe, then... That's not where you want to be. That's no good. Non bueno, as they'd say in Spain. I think sometimes music makes you more encouraged to be that second scenario. Yeah. That's why I don't particularly use it in running. Cycling, no, it's fine. This is so exciting. What's your favourite shoe? Asics Metaspeed Sky. I'm hearing a lot of good stuff about the old Metaspeed. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm biased because Lucy races in Asics and I get all of the shoes along with her and they've got a load of prototypes out at the moment.

51:25So we're testing the, I guess it's the 5. It's such a cool shoe. Like, I cannot believe how light it is. Even like when my parents come over and they know bugger all about running, I give them this shoe and they're like, is that it? Is that safe to running? It's like you throw it in the air and it takes a while to come down. It's that light. It's ridiculous. Yeah, love it. Really cool. I tried the Puma Fast Stars for the first time last night. What do they like? They're good? I love them, yeah. I mean, they are, if I put one on your head, you wouldn't know it. Really? Like, genuinely, it's like, I could sneak up behind you and put a Puma Fast R.

52:02What are they? I don't know what they are, but they're essentially weightless. Yeah. I mean, it feels weird holding that in your hand, thinking that is on your foot, and you are putting your full force of that through a marathon. It's also, like, super aggressive. Like, it's like an Aladdin. Oh, like a flick up at the top. Oh, God. It's got, like, a little tongue at the front. Yeah. And it's like you feel like Sonic the Hedgehog vibes in it. You know, they're pretty full on. Do you always run in super shoes? I love running in super shoes. Yeah. And I find that when I don't run, and this is probably just me and it's probably completely wrong.

52:39When I don't run in super shoes, so if I run in these, for example, my calves flare up. That's interesting. I can't, I don't mind pace, heart rate. It's all similar stuff. I can run quite fast in a Nike Vamero, but I will feel quite a lot of pain if it's a longer session. If it's like 15K, the last 5K, I'll feel quite flary. In a super shoe, I won't at all. I know it's doing a lot of work for you. It's probably not great. As a heavier person as well, I think there's a lot in that. You want to be a little bit more forgiving on your feet. and I suppose you came into running, really coming to running around the era when super shoes were in their infancy.

53:24So you've always had them, right? You haven't had a big period of before the super shoes. No. So yeah, I understand completely what you're saying with that. The reason why I don't like running in them, me personally, is because I love putting them on and then you feel like you've got trampoline on your feet. And I always feel like if I can hit a session with them not on, then when I put them on, I'm going to be flying. Yeah. And it's like a placebo thing in my head, but... Yeah, for me, it's like the opposite. Really? Yeah, because I'm so used to running in them that when I wear normal shoes, I feel like a lump.

53:51Yeah, yeah. I feel like a... Well, you run differently in them. A cranked rhino when I run in shoes that are not super. Not a warthog. Well, you know, no, something far heavier. Warthogs are actually quite fast. They're very fast, yeah. So are rhinos, but in a different way. Yeah. Warthog more nimble. Have you seen a warthog in the wild? No, apparently they were in Epping Forest at one point where we live. What? Yeah, apparently. I've never seen one. Seen warthogs in Africa. Good luck. No chance of catching one. They get away from cheetahs and stuff. They're animals, mate. Yeah, they're fishers.

54:22I mean, I know they're animals, but they're animals in the kind of beastly sense of the word. I would rather see a warthog than a rhino, though, I guess, charging at you. Indeed. So obviously you train Lucy, who's a professional athlete, and you were once a professional triathlete. Do you have any training tips for us mere mortals to become better at swimming, cycling, running? I already touched on the main one, but I think consistency is key. I would look at your weekly schedule. I always say that age groupers or amateurs are way more stressed than professionals because professionals have the luxury of eat, sleep, train, repeat.

54:58They've always gotten their eight hours or nine hours a night. They're always eating healthily and they're always maximizing their recovery between sessions. So they've got an easy job compared to you guys who have got a completely hectic schedule. You've got kids, you've got travel, you've got commute times. You basically need to be so organized that you know exactly when your hours of training are going to be and plan around those. But you also need to be adaptive to a lot of stuff going wrong in your week. So what can we learn from what I do with Lucy to age groupers? I think the number one thing would be plan ahead, but be prepared for the plan to change.

55:38And don't lose your mind if it does. I think you're a good example of that. I think you're probably one of the, actually, I know you would be stressed if you didn't do a session. You've already said that. You need to look at it from a week perspective and then a month perspective, then a year perspective. One missed session or one slightly altered session is not going to change anything in the grand scheme of things. A string of two or three weeks of that will. So yeah, always be adaptive with the plan. Don't be like stressed if it changes, particularly when you've got other work stresses. And the number one thing is value the amount of stress that your life adds to a training program.

56:17Because stress is real. Like professional athletes have 30 hours of training stress a week. Amateur athletes have 50 hours of life stress a week. And the key point there is stress. They're the same thing. And they take a little bit out of you mentally and physically. Always add that value into your training program. If you've had a really, really busy day at work, you can't expect to come home and absolutely nail a session. Your body's stressed and that's okay because, like I said before, it's your hobby. It's not your job. Bruce Barkley, wise words. Thank you very much for coming in. No worries.

56:53Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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