บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Thriving as a Triathlete at the Front of the Pack

Nice Andrew: I at this local event, the like and now, now Will, like my 5k PR being a trotted athlete is like 1750. Right. So like I've come a long way since then. But but back then, anyway, with the fitness I had, I ran like a 2130 something. I was fourth overall, second overall male. just to show you what the caliber of this race was. Will Usher: the Andrew: I don't think a a twenty-one thirty should be anyway. So and because of that, I won a fifty dollar gift card to racetrack gas stations. So I got a free tank of gas from Will Usher: Amazing. I remember doing a local race as a kid and I won the under nines or something and I got a £5 gift voucher now. £5 in the 80s was like winning the lottery basically. Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: I think it was expired the next day or something. That was probably one of my most enjoyable wins or memorable wins. Andrew: Yeah, yeah, love it, love it. All right, we're gonna throw this question out to our audience. I want you to brag on yourselves today. So if you're watching us on YouTube or if you're watching us on Spotify, you can comment in the comment section right on that platform. Brag on yourself. Tell us what's the best finish you've ever had at a triathlon. or you can go to the I Am Trot it Facebook group where I will also throw this question out. Can't wait to see what you, our athletes, have to say. Into our main set. And Will, I chose you for this conversation because you were quite the athlete in your prime. Like you said in the warm up question, you've won a few races in your day. And as a coach, I know you've also had the chance to work with some stellar, stellar athletes. So I know you have experience helping front of the Packers optimize everything about their training and everything about their race day. Share with our audience, just for a little context, of some of the notable athletes you've gotten to work with and some who you may be working with now. Will Usher: Yeah, sure. mean, I think there's, I will come more into this later in the show, but what, what, what is a notable athlete? What, know, what, what makes somebody notable? But in terms of sort of outright sort of fame and notoriety, I think probably, one of my sort of career highs certainly was with Billy Munger. I know we had Billy on the podcast a couple of years back. and in that, you know, that world record by more than two hours at Kona. was phenomenal and we're still pushing him now for the Paralympics and so it's very much at that performance end. Outside Billy, there's been plenty of athletes getting on to program with National Federations and so on and at the pointy end. I've had some other fun ones as well like Jamie Lang who, maybe not so much in the US, but he's a BBC Radio 1 DJ. Did a cool project with him where he ran some 550k runs back to back. And then Gordon Ramsay, who you will know, probably in the US, I suspect. But Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Will Usher: that's more notable in general than performance. But Billy, think,

is a career high for me. I really enjoyed that project, and we're seeing where we go next. Andrew: Yeah, Gordon Ramsay. I I'm not a big cooking show guy, but the the two cooking shows I like watching are Bake Off, as you would call it. We call it the Great British Baking Show on Netflix here in the States. And then I love Gordon Ramsay's Master Chef Jr. Could care Will Usher: Right, yeah. Andrew: less about Master Chef, could care less about the adults cooking, but the kids in the kitchen cooking with Gordon, great television. Great television. Absolutely love it. that that would mean meeting Gordon as a tri athlete w would be a a Bucket list item. So it's cool that you've gotten to work with them. I I I'm curious, and I've asked that we've had the same conversation with different coaches where we did an episode on how to thrive as a back of the pack triathlete. we've done a conversation about how to thrive as a middle of the pack triathlete, and now you're coming on to talk about front of the pack. And I've asked this question to every coach in this series just out of curiosity. It's totally subjective, no right or wrong answer. But when we say front of the pack triathlete, What percentage of the population, what what type of at caliber of athlete, if you will, do you think we're talking to today? Will Usher: So I actually think that's a really difficult question and I'll contextualize why shortly. firstly, I'll answer the direct question, right? Because what we're talking about potentially is a statistics question. And so I would say really the front of the pack is the top one to 5%. And then maybe edging out to the top five to 10 % who the guys are. who are on the edge of breaking into that front pack, Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: and basically who are in range if somebody blows up, right? So Andrew: Gotcha. Will Usher: probably in the bigger age groups, just because in terms of volume, I'd say it's where the top 10 is decided, and of course the podium. But if you're in that top 10 range, then something happens, then you're in shooting distance. And we've seen a fair bit of that in some of the world's races. Ironman. was the Norwegian lady Selvig blowing up in the final section. that end of it for sure. But I was listening to a podcast the other day, not nearly as good as this one, of course. But it was talking about what is elite performance, right? And it's kind of the same question. I really agreed with guy doing the talk there and he said, look, if you had somebody at the London marathon, which is like 50,000 athletes, the best performance, most elite performance on that day could be 37,653. Right. Because it was a single mom who works two jobs, can only train two, maybe three times a week, you know, and she actually executed at an elite level for what she, within her parameters. Andrew: Wow. Yeah. Will Usher: Right. And I'm looking to do a post about this as well, because I think there's at the moment there is a little bit of the right phrases, but almost like one-upmanship with distances, right? Someone does a 5k run and they go, right, okay, now I need to do a 10k, that's better than the 5k. Half marathon, marathon, ultra, right? And doing an ultra marathon is very hard, right? But the hardest distance to race well, in all of athletics is a 5k. Hands down, is the hardest. To get fast and be good at a 5k, that's the hardest thing you can do. what I don't want to, I know I'm going off the subject a little bit here, but it's just, you've got to be able to define what it is to that individual. And I think when you're looking at elite performance, elite performance applies to every athlete, just within their own parameters. Andrew: And that's that's an interesting perspective for folks listening to this talk who maybe wouldn't identify themselves as elite because they're not racing at the front of the pack or they're not trying to win races. They're just trying to do the best they can for themselves. Well, yeah, in your context, you can train hard and do the best you can with your context and roll up and have an elite caliber performance, even though you're not finishing first, second, third. Really, really interesting pep talk there that can speak to a lot of people. But the the way I've always viewed this, and for the purposes of this conversation where we're talking to our front of the packers, I think you're one to five percent, maybe extending out to ten percent is is is a really great identifier. to me, you're back of the pack if you're just trying to finish and beat the cutoff times. You're middle of the pack or your front of the pack if you are trying to win, place, qualify, you know, you're you're in the mix. And you're middle of the pack if you're anybody else. Right. So to it's kind of a bell curve. And so today we're talking to those people who identify as I'm fast. I'm showing up on race day trying to win podium qualify. and Coach Will's gonna help us do that a little bit. And Will, something I find interesting, I traveling for Tridot, you know, meeting athletes at the races, I've gotten to talk with a lot of different types of athletes. And I've seen I've seen some faster folks kind of like talk to me tridot and and they think that tridot is beneath them. Not in some derogatory way. That they just think, it's AI training, it's an AI template plan, whatever. That must be for more basic athletes. I I've met back of the packers who see it and say, this is really sophisticated tech. This must be for fast athletes. I'm I don't think I'm good enough for this. And you and I know that Tridot is for every athlete because it's going to meet you where you are and optimize your training where you are. So so for the perspective of an elite athlete. Who I I've seen some athletes will who are on Tridot, have been on Tri Dot for years, get faster, faster, faster, all of a sudden find themselves at the front of the pack and think they need to jump to a different training situation

now that they are in the pointy end of the pack, which is another interesting kind of kind of athlete case. So anyway, for our front of the packers, what would you say to them in terms of the fit that try dot training can be for their situation? Will Usher: so this is one of my favorite subjects actually. So I'm going to try not to wobble on too long about it, Andrew: Go on, my friend. That's why I asked you to come on. Will Usher: accuracy, accuracy matters to everybody. And to no lesser or greater degree, honestly, be it the front or the back of the pack, but I guess when you're at the front of the pack, you're potentially investing more time. Right. And so this is age old, I say age old. It is a long debated topic about what is a stress metric, right? And we have TSS, which you'll see on Strava, you'll see on 20peaks, on multiple other systems, Almost everywhere. We are the only people that Andrew: Almost everywhere. Yeah. Will Usher: really have a decent alternative to it. And TSS was fantastic when it was built 20 years ago, but as you might imagine, things get better over 20 years and people do some work, right? And... TSS has loads of faults in it. NTS, Normalised Training Stress, which is we use, is very accurate. It fixes the faults of TSS. Just to give a basic idea of one of the faults in TSS that everyone will understand is that TSS will assume, if we were to run for an hour, it will say to you that the stress induced on your body in the last 10 minutes is the same as the stress induced in the first 10 minutes. Now that's complete rubbish because you've got 50 minutes of load. And even a layman, somebody who's never done any sort physiological education would go, that's ridiculous. And so that's one of the failures you're dealing with. We've fixed that with NCS, as well as gone further to include environment and age and gender and all these things. Now, why is that important? So if we go and do a session, an hour run, as an example, we need to know the amount of stress induced on that individual. If we do not know that, we can't progressively load. And the very core of endurance training and indeed nearly all training is progressive load. We need to apply consistently more pressure within reason to achieve a better outcome, right? And if you don't know the load that you've incurred, you cannot progressively load it. It's just, it's literally as simple as that. And what we've done in the past is we've known that NTSS has had these faults and so experienced coaches work around it, but politely it's been educated guessing. And the more experienced you are, the better the guess becomes, but it's still a guess. And with NTSS, we're able to progressively load. if you're, what does that mean? It means that you have efficiency. It means that you're not getting injured. That's really key. It matters, I would say the same for a beginner as it does for a pro. But arguably more for the pro because the devastating impact of loss of sponsors, with injury, lack of efficiency and so on, they, really comes into play pretty hard. and it it could be your livelihood, right? That, that you're messing with. then for the top end age group, the one, one 5 % or whatever. again, the amount of time, that you put into the sport in order to, be at the front end of the pack, there's an offset to that. What's the cost of that? The cost of that is maybe not spending as much time with your family, maybe not getting the promotion at work, right? These things have a price. And, if you're not willing to be accurate and to get the best out of your training, which is effectively what you're saying by using TSS, then you're not being respectful to, in this instance, the family or your work or your own career opportunities. So I know that sounds potentially dramatic, but I think it's quite a serious point. And until people take that on board, then they won't perform to the best of their ability, as simple as that. Andrew: Yeah, and and that's the science of it. And I'll just add the this anecdotally. we have here at TriDot athletes almost every single weekend on the podium of races somewhere around the world. Right. Between between our North American athletes or European athletes, our Australian, South African athletes, somewhere around the world, almost every weekend of the calendar year, somebody's on a podium that trains with Tridot. And people don't realize it because being a Tridot athlete. Th there's there's a fraction of our athletes are are wearing a tridot kit on race course 'cause they want to rep the brand. A lot of them are wearing a a Team Zoot kit or a a local triathlon club kit. Or if if you're if you're with you know, if you have a coach like Will who has a coaching group, you're gonna wear that kit. Or you might just like a design for that some company puts out and you buy it and you wear that kit. And and people don't realize like, you know, you look at a podium and you don't see tri dot. Two of the three athletes on the podium could be tried out athletes and you just don't know it. Will Usher: Yeah. Andrew: yeah, and I I had I had a guy one time kind of say something derogatory about it one time, like, yeah, I I I don't think tried out can be that good because I don't really see tried out on on the podium very often. It's like, buddy, you're we're on the podium probably more than you realize. you just don't you just don't see it. Will Usher: Absolutely. mean, you know, I think it's, it's, it's very unusual that people even that the fact that people actually want to represent Tridoc, right? I don't mean that in a bad sense. I mean, it's, it's, it's, enormously complimentary. Like you don't see people racing for other training platforms, right? You just don't. It's just literally Andrew: Yeah, true. Will Usher: do not. and. so it's a weird thing for people to bring up, he's not known as a trial. Well, no, but for the platform, so you seeing on the, on the podium, right. And I think what's wonderful

though, really is that the community is such that people do want to represent a training platform, which is a strange thing to do, but it's nice. Andrew: Yeah. Not a bad point. so so Will, when you start working with a new athlete and you you realize, you the the onboard, you see their dot scores, okay, this is a strong athlete. when an athlete is more elite front of the pack, what are your conversations like with that athlete? Like what what are talking points you'll go over with that athlete that maybe don't come up with a middle of the pack or back of the packer? Will Usher: Yeah. So, typically I say it's often more of a blank canvas and I'll qualify that now is that, you know, is the time has already been put aside to have this, have their training as one of their, their priorities within their life. Right. And people will have different priorities at times, but they've chosen in this moment to focus on, the sport in almost entirely. So they come to you. as a more blank canvas because you're not trying to juggle things around quite as much to fit in the training perhaps. But interestingly though, there's also a conundrum, right? Because the more experienced the athlete is, often the softer the changes are. And I've looked at, with professional athletes in particular, if you change 3 % of what a professional athlete is doing at the point of the pinnacle of their career, then you've had an enormous impact on them. because they have to pay homage to what has come before. And there's a lot of psychological belief tied up in that as well. So there's a bit of resistance to change there. you have to, my preferred way of coaching, me personally, people are talking about different types of coaching, cheerleaders or whatever, my, like educating. So I'm a big believer with endurance. I'm not going to be there at. 150 K into the bike. might be on the side of the road, you can shout at me, but, you know, I'm not going to be in your ear. so educating athletes about how they react to different situations and so on is really important, but this applies here as well. And it's a soft education often to massage people into new ways of thinking. quite often what you see at an elite end, in terms of the training isn't actually cutting edge, but everyone assumes it's cutting edge, but. those athletes became good 10, 15 years ago, right? They are the product of a system from 10, 15 years ago. And now we're tweaking and doing what we can with the marginal gains to quote team sky, right? But actually we're looking at an old training system. And so when you're bringing in new ideas, you've got to softly, softly, and then nurture them and educate to the right path. And then if you can do that, then you you'll be in a good place. Equally, of course, you have a beginner coming in. they need the same education because they may have read something, maybe they've read nothing, right? Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: And so you can't throw all of them in one go and expect for it to

stick or to be accepted. quite similar, but yet on different ends of scale. Andrew: Yeah, and I I like how you're pointing out for an elite athlete, there's very small differences can make a a big change, right? and I I I and two, like, you know, if if if I'm if I'm racing at an Ironman event and you know, a one percent, two percent better in my perfor my performance might take me from fiftieth to fortieth in the age group. Whereas for an elite, one percent, two percent difference might take them from seventh to sixth, right? It's just, it's the the margins Will Usher: Right. Andrew: are tighter, the improvements are tighter. so for an elite athlete, what are the tangible things in the swim training, the bike training and run training that you find make a big difference or or can add up to those small percentages and improvement for somebody who's more elite? Will Usher: There's nothing massive interesting about this because it's basically been boring. This Andrew: Okay. Yeah, go on. Will Usher: has been said so many times in the past, but there's a reason for it. It's consistency and recovery. If you can be consistently boring, by which I mean achieving your sessions, maybe it's not the best session in the world. but it's those layers on layers and layers. You you maybe hear the expression, another brick in the wall, right? And it's exactly that. It's getting those down on her. It's not hero sessions, right? It's years of being boring, of getting those sessions in consistently. That will sort you out. when you, typically when you get to an elite or top end athlete, they're maximized on the training that they should be. inducing on themselves from a load perspective. So then how can we improve that? Well, to add any more load, if that were possible, the only way to improve that is recovery. Their sleep, their nutrition, and so on. But that accuracy of doing the boring sessions well, and by which I mean mostly zone two, Andrew: Interesting. Yeah. Will Usher: that's where they make the big gains. And you look at any pro athlete, certainly they'll spend an awful lot of time in uneasy sessions. There will be a lot of volume, but you know, that's because they built up to be able to sustain that. But what they'll be very good at is the routine. These would be people that prep their food, right? On a weekend for the week, that sort of thing. Stuff that the mere mortals amongst us... struggle to do once or twice a year, right? New year comes, I'm to prepper my food every week and it lasts for week, maybe two weeks and then you stop. But yeah, that's the thing, it's doing the boring stuff well on repeat and just hitting that schedule consistently. Andrew: Yeah, yeah, no, that that's really interesting. I I I did have a question on our run sheet. It might be farther down. but while we're talking about it. So so you're talking about being being boring in the training, right? Just do the training consistently, execute it consistently. what the the I I call them like the training extras, right? Like we can't just do Will Usher: Yeah. Andrew: our swim bike and run sessions, right? We have to not have to. Like there's the the the training extras a tra athlete should probably look at are How am I recovering? How am I sleeping? How am I fueling? how what what am I doing with my strength training? and some folks have a lot of time to invest in those extras. Some folks l like me have very little time to invest in those extras. for our front of the packers, what should they be looking at on the training extras to optimize their performance as a front of the packer? Will Usher: Though it's actually quite a similar answer in many ways and it's all of the above. Balance though is everything. What you'll sometimes find with nutrition supplements and so on, it's people trying to create a shortcut. Now the truth is supplements are super useful because say for example protein, it's difficult to get the required amount in every day and so using some form of helps. The key word is supplement. Right? This is not to take over your protein content input for the day, right? It's to add to, to supplement. And where people sometimes fall down, as you'll see them having like five protein shakes a day and never looking at a chicken, right? But, you know, that balance is super important. the balance also includes things like time with family, friends, work. particularly for those sort of top end age groupers, right? If you manage that balance, then you'll be happy. And if you're happy, then you'll generally succeed. We use a pint glass analogy for stress, managing stress, because that's really what it comes down to. And stress is not just physical stress like from training. We can accurately measure that really, really well now, as we discussed with NCS. Brilliant. What's harder to manage is things like... the stress you get from the morning commute, right? Because there's loads of traffic or something, or maybe you've got a new baby and they're sick, so they're crying through the night. Now you're sleep deprived, additional stress to the body. Work's not going so well, or it is, or you've got a big project which you're excited about, but it's all things that add up in your pint glass, right? And if we say there's a hundred units of stress in everybody's pint glass before it overflows, right? Well, all of that stress metric is all mixed up together. Okay. So when it overflows, everything dropped falls apart because you don't even know what to try and save at that point. Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: And that's the point where you're a bit of meltdown and everything's going wrong and, so on and so forth. And as a coach, our job is to keep you just below the brim as much as possible. Certainly, Andrew: Hm. Will Usher: you know, and then get as close to brim as you can with some of the guys with training load, but then we might need to back it off a little bit. But if we're not balanced, if we're not happy in all aspects of your

life, then You won't succeed. It's as simple as that. Andrew: So so when it comes to a front of the pack athlete when you're working with one, the answer is yes. You need all the training extras. So do you do you talk with them about, okay, let's examine your sleep, let's examine what you're doing for strength, let's examine Will Usher: Yeah. Andrew: how you're recovering from your sessions? Will Usher: I think typically with the best athletes are often decent communicators as well. So you'll get to know them and you establish a relationship or rapport and the more information you get from them, the better, the more likely you are to be able to manage their stress efficiently and smoothly, right? Because I had an athlete once who was dead being hit by a car. And there was a court case and that was happening and they're trying to sell a house at the same their own house at the same time to the potentially most stressful things that could happen you like and they didn't tell me about it right and then they started failing their sessions and I well There's no reason for this. I can't see a reason for this and then suddenly they sort of but yeah, this is happening. I'm like right Okay, this this makes a huge amount of sense now. And so I think for the top lessons that could be learned for all athletes from the pointy end is be better at communicating, right? Be open. And Andrew: Interesting. Will Usher: obviously that comes down to your coach as well. You know, clearly I'd fail to build a sufficient rapport in that instance. But you know, as a coach, you need to nudge around the edges. Something I talk about with my coaches that I sort of support is the language of injury or the language of stress, right? And so what you're looking for is the detail in somebody's WhatsApp or iMessage or the comments back in the comment section of the training program, right? Where is there a missing comma? Are they pausing? Are they usually really chatty? And they're not now, right? Look for changes of tone and nudge around the edges to find out what's actually going on. And usually if you do that, then you're to get much better results. Andrew: Yeah, really interesting. I I want to go back one step, and this is an unscheduled question, so I'm putting Will on the spot and we're gonna see how he handles it. Will Usher: All right. Andrew: you know, but so you talked about in the training that the key thing isn't necessarily like one tweak or one overhauling this or that. It's just being boringly consistent in your training. totally understand that. I'm what I'm thinking to and I'm thinking to athletes who are better in one or two of the sports and weaker in one or two of the sports. Right. And we know at the professional level there are professionals who are famously bad at one of the three, but but can still land on a podium. Lionel Sanders for a long time has been a bad a rubbish swimmer by pro standards and you Will Usher: Yeah. Andrew: know can land on a podium. and and that there's there's that ver you know, there's there's ones there's pros that are mediocre in the water or mediocre on the bike, but then can run their way onto a podium. so I imagine at the age group level that there's the same thing, right? There's there's people out there listening who are in the front of the pack and they rely on one or two disciplines being stronger than the other to get themselves there. Is there a way? Is is there a tweak or two or a training tip or something that you would address with them as a coach if you knew this about them, to if they are weak in the swim or weak on the bike or weak on the run to boost that one discipline? Or is it just Do the training and it's gonna improve you slowly over time. Will Usher: No, it feels... Marginal dramatic, but it's also very simple if somebody's really serious about improving a discipline that's weaker and they're already at the front of the field, but they're not quite making it Then they should take a year out from racing right a year is not actually that big amount of time right and by the time you get around to February here in the UK, so only what four months time Bearing in mind, we just had the world championships, right? So the end of season is and still races going on 70.3 turkeys, but sometime in November, this Ironman, West Australia, whatever, that's December. So, you know, it's like endless season and for age groups and pros alike, they're back to racing really quickly, right? So they don't have time, the development phase for them to improve, roll back their technique, say, for example, Simon's on a swim. Roll it back, take the time, take a season out and go and really focus on that, that one thing. I think Sanders or, you know, pros are particularly vulnerable to this because then their, sponsorship and their, their money, their livelihood is associated with racing, right? Yeah. Some of the best pros, unfortunate and, you know, well marketed, et cetera, get paid for wearing some brands, but mostly they want them to be racing. in that kit as well, right? They'd already want them to go on, training forever and never really ready. Right. Andrew: They gotta stay relevant. Yeah. Gotta stay relevant. Will Usher: And so my advice I would say to, if you have an aspiring age group who's consistently hitting the top of the field and I, I want to get my pro card, right? Consider what that means. If it is it that you just want to get your pro card, tick the box, done right. Go and have a career somewhere else. Right. Or is it you want to really do well in the sport? Cause if it's the latter, then you should look at your weaknesses. and go, yeah, I'm on the cusp of getting my pro card, but what's going to happen when I actually get into that pro field? Because once I'm there, I have much less time to actually fix the issues that I've got. Because the top end age groups and the pros, it's not dissimilar in terms of the hours that they're training and so on. So there's

no magic improvement that's going to happen because your status has changed, effectively. But if you're serious, take the year out. If it's swimming, go and work with a swim specialist coach. Chelsea Sodaro did that. She didn't take the year out, but she went and worked with a swim specialist coach in order to do this. a year is not very long. are races all year round, and the temptation just to hit back into a race cycle is overwhelming. So be strong. Andrew: Yeah, no, I I love that. And I I didn't take a year off, but I'll I'll use myself as just just to kind of give a non swim example. I always felt like that my bike leg was a weakness for me. my my run dot score, I'm like a seventy-two. my my my bike split has all you know, a lot of people just as age groupers gain a ton of time on the bike compared to me. and so I I started kind of working with a coach on some strength. Okay, let's let's beef up my leg strength a little bit. you know, I kind of revisited my arrow position, got a got a new bike fit and All of a sudden, my bike split at a half Iron Man goes from a 302 to a 242. right through through it, after a training cycle and after really working on, okay, let me optimize my bike. and because of that, even though I was kind of just achieving a homeostasis on the swim or the run, I wasn't like trying to make huge gains in the swim or the run in that time. I was really biking more, you know, strength training for the bike more. Well, all of a sudden. I'm off the bike 20 minutes faster, I've got more energy for the run. And so f so at the at the same with the same run ability, I'm running five, six, seven minutes faster because I'm I'm that much fresher coming off the bike. So it even it c it compounds, right? If you dramatically Will Usher: Yep. Andrew: improve in one discipline, it has positive impact on the other disciplines. So don't be afraid to to do that. Will Usher: hugely. One year, I I remember I had a similar thing. was a similar runner and the bike was more of a weakness and I needed, I was proper masher, right? Like stomping on the pedals. Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: And so I spent a winter and I was only allowed on long, rides with the clubs and stuff outside. I was only allowed in a small chain ring. Right. So I had to develop a faster cadence, but much more efficient as well, because I couldn't allow for any power drops. So I couldn't get it back by just smashing the pedals. And so that was, that's how I improved my efficiency quite considerably. And it was notable in a period of three months through October through end of January, suddenly I was a much better cyclist. But it's having that focus Andrew: Interesting. Will Usher: on the weakness. Yeah. Andrew: Yeah, no, really love that. th let's let's talk about gear for a second. You mentioned chain ring. you know, we've we've talked Will Usher: Hmm. Andrew: about if you are a elite triathlete, you here's some swim bike run advice, here's some training advice. You can buy speed

in this sport. You can buy, you can buy time. You can buy watts, right? Just by having better equipment. If somebody is an elite triathlete or a front of the pack triathlete, if they're gonna spend a little money to to to look at their equipment and see what they can upgrade, what would you say are the most important things to chase that can make a a bigger difference for a front of the packer in terms of equipment? Will Usher: Yeah. hands down, it's your cockpit. it's your, Andrew: Wow. Will Usher: your bars on the front end of your bike. cockpit has changed quite a bit over the last five, six years. think Dan Biggan really was the change of that with the Who Bought Bike. What he did as an aerodynamicist, he's a former F1 aerodynamicist. I think he's working for, Red Bull, on a, pro tour soon now. But, it was, was incredible. And. The downside of that is cockpits have got expensive. To get a top end cockpit, you're talking about really sort of tune off a thousand pounds, $3,000, something like that. However, it is more important than the frame, right? And so if you have an Andrew: Well. Will Usher: aspiring athlete coming in, aerodynamics in frames have, I mean, despite what all the big brands will tell you, are not hugely wildly different between, say for example, a mid-range superbike and the superbike. It's the same mould in most instances, right? To point fingers, specialise with the Expert versus the S-Works. It's the same mould. So the frame is no different. You can save some money there, but you could then spend the money on the cockpit. And that could be worth as much as 50 to 60 watts. I was seeing this consistently anecdotally, but also in the wind tunnels. Right. Which is Andrew: Fi fifty to sixty is it's a big number. Will Usher: of course, you know, I'm, I wouldn't want to be pinned to the number exactly because of course it depends very much on your CDI, your position, you know, how tall you are, what other clothing you've got, broadly that's where you can make a big shift. So brands like Cantana Roo are really good for this. Right. So, They say, we are experts in building beautiful bikes, well considered, got good storage, all that stuff. So we are not the experts on cockpits because there's so many aftermarket really incredible offerings out there. So what they've done is they've designed their front end to be as compatible with as many of these aftermarket componentry as possible. Now, not everyone's done that, especially as a good example, have not. It is notoriously really difficult to get different components onto specialized. But Contamaru, as a good example, have really leant into that and realized that that's where the value is to be had for a lot of So Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: yeah, front end cockpit. Andrew: Yeah, so that's your number if if someone's an elite and you're chasing you're chasing every second you can, that's that's the biggest bang for the buck right there, is is that expensive cockpit. And I it's interesting you say that. I I'm seeing that more and more in just just pictures, right? Footage from race weekends, right? As I as I follow what the pros are up to. I mean, everybody just has one of those ridiculous cockpits now, right? Even at the age group level, if somebody is c really competing, regardless of what bike they're on. Yeah, they've got a good cockpit. the latest one, the newest one, Will, that I saw watching Kona not too long ago was people using the aerodynamic foil on in different places. Did you see some of that? Will Usher: right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, suspect that's going to get stamped down on. I mean, Andrew: Think so? Yeah. Will Usher: there's all sorts of different rules and regulations about sizes of bento boxes and where you can have your bottles and whatever else. Right. Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: But yeah, so I suspect, you know, the great thing about triathlon is that it's always been an innovative sport. Right. And Tri bars didn't exist. Cyclists to reference call the bars when they put them on their Tundra bikes, tri bars, right? Because it was Triathlon that first tried them and then cyclists went, actually, that's a pretty good idea. So, you know, Andrew: Ha ha ha. Will Usher: that's what's nice about, UCI is pretty strict in cycling. It's less strict in World Triathlon. So it allows for that innovation, which is cool to see. It's always very exciting going into the race, going, that guy saved 0.3 of a watt on that or something. But how much did cost? A million pounds. OK, great. Maybe we'll not do that. But, Andrew: Ha ha ha. Will Usher: it's cool to see. Andrew: Yep. So, the last thing I want to cover in in the main set here, is race day. race day, I think, for a front of the packer is different from the middle of the pack and the back of the pack. I if you're in the middle of the pack and the back the pack, you're trying to do the best you can with your fit the fitness you have on the day, right? If you're in the front of the pack, you're racing. you you are racing people, you are are trying to jockey for position, whether it's a rolling start or a wave start, right? It's It's still you're still you're racing. What would you say to our front of the packers on the approach they need to take heading in the race day? is there any different strategies? Is there any different pacing stuff that you go over with the front of the packer versus a middle of the packer? talk to us about optimizing our time on the race course if we are indeed fighting for positions. Will Usher: Yeah, absolutely. is a different beast. There's a lot of similarities of course, they're always trying to do their best. But execution and understanding your limits are super important. as with an age group, as with a mid-pack or someone bringing up their ear, build the score. It's always important regardless, right? If you go out like a mad person and thrash yourself in the first 100 meters of the swim, you're have a really bad day. so that, know,

that, that's the same for age groups as it is for, for elites. That said, positioning comes really, really important. So like getting on some good feet in the swim. If you're an age group and you've got a wave of 200 people or you're in a mass participation start and there's like rolling six people at a time, you've got really broadly, no idea who's around you, unless you're swimming with a friend. you know, in nearly 28 years of racing, I've only really had good feet that I can. Say that I've worked really well with an account on one hand, right? Because it's people I've raced Week in year and year out with and we've shared the work in the swim or something like that, right? but very rare that that happens, but when you in the pro end or the very sharp end of the Age group field typically when you quite often know the people around you and you have a good understanding of what speed they're gonna swim and that sort of thing so that becomes more important, you, I would say, the best athletes have a really deep understanding of how hard they can go. All right. and they're prepared to hurt. actually say that, you know, I think sprint distance racing is probably the hardest racing, people never do because it's about hurting as much as you could possibly do accepting that Andrew: Ha ha ha ha. Will Usher: and holding onto it for an hour. Right. Whereas yeah, the backend of an Ironman run or whatever is, it's, it's pain, but of a different sort. But then tactics is an example of tactics coming into play. If we look at the World Championships, 70.3 World Champs this year in Nice, that was one of the most amazing races. The women's great, but the men's, the battle that those men had, because there was quite a few of them off the front together. Watching my favourite part of the race, obviously Christian's run was insane and whatever else, but... is Helle Giennes coming through. Now he was chasing down a pack. I think he ran into the pack of Gustav and a couple of other athletes, right? But he did two things, which was really clever. The Heidlmaulder is out front and he is already on the leg coming back. And so what Helle did, he'd been eating up the meters to get to the Gustav group. He got there and he chilled out. because he knew that Hayden was going to be coming the other way. And what he wanted to do was not effectively hide to make it look like he wasn't gaining the speed, not the Andrew: Yeah. Not not not show that I'm coming for you. Will Usher: show that he's coming. So he sat in that little group and as soon as Hayden's gone, boom, he's out front again. And so it's that sort of thing. A lovely little overtake, tactical overtake, if you can do it, is I like to get athletes to run accelerate onto the back of somebody's feet, sorry, onto the back of the runner in front, run through them five to 10 meters, and then slow down a little bit, or hold pace, right? Then recover. What happens is enough of an incentive for the runner that's now behind to go, ooh, they've just blown, I reckon I can catch them. And so they surge to catch, and as soon as they touch, you know, get in line, you go again. And most people can't double surge. So it just then breaks the Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: you'll them. But having little tactics like that, you'll see, watch the Tour de France or whatever, and they talk about burning matches. These are the matches. You only have a limited number, but you use them tactically. And I think that's a big difference, whereas an age group or middle pack should really try and be a much smoother race, because it's all about the Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: smoother the better. Andrew: Yeah, really, really interesting. For yeah, so I I think for again, for a middle of the packer, which is what I identify as, and a back of the packer, again, going into a race weekend, we're trying to do the best we can for ourselves. But I I'm curious about for our our front of the pack athletes, when it comes to goal settings, when it comes to setting dreams and and deciding what you want to accomplish next in the sport, there are some elites that the desire is to earn their pro card, like you mentioned earlier. I think the desire for a lot of folks is to qualify for a world championship in their age group, right? Whether it's Kona, going to Kona or going to the half Iron Man World Championships. something if they're a short course athlete, they can be trying to to qualify for the the Olympics or for the the the worlds there to represent you know their their country. for our elites, how can an athlete kind of identify What is a good goal for me to chase as opposed to something that might be unrealistic or out of reach and is not worth chasing? How how do you how do you steer these athletes in in their in and out of their seasons on what they're capable of? Will Usher: So I think outcome goals are, is what we're talking about there, effectively are interesting, right? They're often aspirational. There may be what's, yeah, so it's something that's inspired somebody to get into the sport. You know, they want to go to the world championships. Great. But in order for that to happen, there's a whole host of other things that have to come before it. And so I'd actually say that I prefer not to concentrate too much on the outcome goal because it's not that helpful. And if I was to use an analogy, We're talking about an Ironman, we're racing an Ironman, and I want to race sub 10 hours or something, good, Ironman, right? If I start thinking about that in the swim, then it's not going to go well. It's a very long day and you can't conceptualize all the things that you have to do right almost to get to that point. I often say to people, don't think about the next discipline or don't think about the next until you're on. onto it, right? Or you're within a couple of minutes of getting to it. Because otherwise it's overwhelming. If you're on the bike, 100 miles in, you're like, this hurts a bit, and I've got to

do a marathon, and I get back, it's overwhelming. And in the same way, if you say, well, I want to get to the world championships, I need to race to sub 10, sub 9, whatever it is, right? It feels, it can feel quite quickly insurmountable. And so, anyone can say that they want to win a race, but it's the breaking down of the month, month, week on week, the day on day and the session on session. Right. That's where it's built. the process goals. Yeah. So if you focus on the outcome goal, there's a risk that you, put too much pressure on your training. you try and, outperform your Andrew: Yeah. Will Usher: training and the balance falls out of alignment. And then you crash both physically and mentally. I think outcome goals are interesting, but they are, they are literally just. the output. If you do all the other stuff, you're going to get there. Right. And yes, it's important to be able to be mindful of what's realistic or what's not. think, you know, the Tridot is really powerful with that with raceX because, know, we can put in the thresholds as they are today and assuming you train at a reasonable level, this is the probable outcome. Now, also useful thing there is that that raceX document is a living document. So if you do train and train well and adhere to everything, and get faster as a result, that number will start coming down. If you don't, then it goes up. Yeah, right. Andrew: Or if you slack, that number's gonna get a little slower. Will Usher: Exactly. But so that's really useful for finding a ballpark of what's an appropriate outcome goal. But generally, I'd get them to focus on say, that's fantastic. I think, you know, looking at your times, there's a chance that we can take sufficient time off to get there. But now let's focus really hard on how you're to structure your week with family, work, whatever, to allow this to happen. And if we can do that, then better chance of it, we'll get there in the end. Andrew: Moving on to the cooldown for today's episode. This is where we ask our coach a question from the audience. I pulled this question from Jan from Orlando, Florida. I'm on try dot with standard volume in all three sports. This gives me two swims per week. If I want to improve in this swim, is there any benefit to upping how many times I swim per week? And if so, how would I balance it with the bike and the run? Coach Will. Will Usher: Okay, so this is. Andrew: And I don't know for the record, I don't know if Jan is is front of the back, middle of the back, or back of the pack. So this Will Usher: Okay. Andrew: may or may not relate to the conversation we've had today already. Will Usher: Well, I actually, to be honest, I think this applies to everyone, right? So in the first instance for long-term gains to maximize the efficiency of her swims, it's technique, right? whether you're a pro like Sanders who needs some work on his swim, Joe Skipper, another example, right? Then work on your technique and it's going to give you gains over both the sessions that you have. If in fact it's that your technique is incredible, maybe you're an ex ex swimmer and incredibly fast swimmer, but you've only got time for two, two hours of swimming and swimming is, is, difficult because logistically is the hardest one to do. You got to get to the pool, you got to get changed, Andrew: It is. Yeah. Will Usher: fight people in the lane because you know, somebody's doing grand invest stroke in front of you or there's a kid throwing a ball, whatever. Right. it is the one that's the most likely to be disrupted. I. I've just started looking at a product which made its debut, I think, at the last, the world championship just gone, Swim. Formerly Zen8, and it's effectively indoor stretch cords and trainer, and it's like inflatable bench that you lie on. It is incredibly powerful. As a swimmer, we used to use stretch cords all the time in swim benches. This is not, this is no secret from the world of swimming. but for triathletes, it's incredibly beneficial one because you can do it in 20, 30 minutes at home, right? you can do it in between calls, right? It look a bit red in the face when you go onto your second call, but it's worth, it's worth the risk. but the really cool thing about it is not only does it strengthen you in the actual plane of motion of swimming, which is incredibly difficult to do in a gym, by the way. and an appropriate intensity and appropriate resistance, you are able to look at your swim. catch and this thing gives you, an efficiency score, right? Whilst you're in real time. So, you can tell whether you've got a sufficient angle in your, in your hand, in your elbow, are you following through in an appropriate way, et cetera? Are you accelerating the stroke? and because you're not, you know, trying to breathe because your head is underwater, you've got time to appreciate it. Plus you can see yourself on screen, right? So, I think honestly, I think this will be one of the biggest products to, impact swimming in triathlon since triathlon started. it is huge gains in efficiency, for a lot of 85 % of triathletes that don't come from swim background, that natural positioning and so on is very difficult to achieve. Even on our own pool, Andrew: Yeah, it is. Will Usher: which I thoroughly recommend doing pool school. We don't actually train sections of that because it takes a long time to build up that. power to do that. This allows you to do that. So if you're able to do improved technique, maybe do a pull school, which will then increase the efficiency of the sessions that you're doing and then build this strength on top and amplify the efficiency of stroke and strength in an appropriate pattern of movement, you're gold. Andrew: Yeah, so so the the response to Jan is is very likely you will benefit more from spending the time investing in your form as opposed to just tacking on more volume, right? Will Usher: Yeah, yeah, totally.