0:00

Welcome to the ask a cycling coach podcast presented

0:02

by trainer road. The only podcast dedicated to making you

0:04

a faster cyclist. We have our geez, Nate,

0:06

you're with us. Our CEO, Nate Pearson. It's

0:08

exciting to have Nate. Thanks for having me.

0:10

Yeah, it's good

0:11

to have you. No sunglasses. This time,

0:13

people are going to be very upset. Maybe you can go find some

0:16

at some point throughout this episode and bring them in. We

0:18

also have Ventum bikes, IVL drain, and we're going to

0:20

talk about green powders today. We're also going to talk about

0:22

slow tires. We're going to talk about sleep optimization,

0:25

a handful of other things. It's going to be good stuff. But first Nate

0:28

is tradition. Now, when you are on the podcast,

0:30

we talk about new things that we're doing with trainer road. So

0:32

what's new. We have a lot of things we're working

0:35

on, but I guess picking on one specific topic,

0:37

what's new.

0:37

Yeah, this is, this is really proud for us is that apple

0:39

contacted us before they launched this next

0:42

iOS 17 and said, we want you to be part

0:44

of the.

0:45

Companies that launched that support pushing

0:47

workouts to apple watch and then using

0:49

them outside. And for our case, it'd be cycling. So

0:52

we work with apple. The team worked extremely

0:54

hard. There was a team, I think 15 or something

0:56

on it doing it. And they went,

0:59

they worked. It was just amazing. I just, I'm so proud of the team

1:01

about how well they work together, interacting

1:03

with apple and you, when you do things that are unreleased, you'll

1:05

find bugs and stuff and then work together to fix them. So

1:07

anyways, what happens now is that before

1:10

a couple of weeks ago, you could push, you could do your outside workouts

1:12

on a Garmin or a Wahoo outside,

1:15

right? Now you can push them to apple watch, but

1:17

now in iOS 17, what's really cool is. Apple

1:20

watch will mirror that display onto

1:23

your iPhone. So you can put your iPhone onto

1:25

your handlebars. It runs from the

1:27

apple watch, but you can see your ride

1:29

data as you're writing outside, and then once

1:31

you're done, it will upload back to train a road. So

1:34

it's another cool, another option for a different interface.

1:36

So just launched. I'm sure apple will change the interface and improve

1:38

it as it goes on. We don't have control, so we can't really

1:41

edit ourselves, but it's really cool to

1:43

be able to do that. And it's also hits us. This also

1:46

let us get into some things where we connect to

1:48

apple health and apple health is that thing where

1:50

it's a hub where we can connect,

1:52

we can pull in lots of data and you'll

1:54

see in the future us asking for permissions

1:56

on iPhone, and we always have to ask. We can't just pull

1:58

anything. We say, Hey, can.

1:59

we get your cycling workouts from Apple health,

2:02

but you're also going to see in the future are steps,

2:05

sleep, some heart rate stuff, HRV,

2:08

and why we're asking for that data, also

2:10

menstrual cycle tracking, which is going to be really cool for women.

2:13

We're going to pull that data in and then we're

2:15

going to use it in our ML machine learning,

2:18

and it's going to be part of a bigger project

2:20

to help predict how well you're going

2:22

to do on workouts. And what that does is if,

2:24

if data comes in and has an impact on how well

2:27

you're going to do the next day on

2:28

a workout,

2:29

that then improves our ML model and allows

2:31

adaptive training to give you better stuff. So

2:33

for you, you can think of a sleep. If

2:36

you sleep three hours, is that, does

2:38

that impact that next day's workout or maybe an

2:40

impact to work out two days from now, right? You

2:42

have a 20,000 step day. We usually have a thousand

2:44

step day. Does that impact it? Other

2:47

workouts that you do on HRV, that's

2:49

a hot topic, right? Depending on when it can

2:51

change, when you measure it and what company does it, but

2:53

with Apple health kit, we can pull it in and see what

2:55

company, what device did it. And

2:58

we put that into our ML and see if

3:00

you have your, if your HRV is low versus high,

3:02

how does that impact that workout? And then for

3:04

women, what's really cool is pulling in your menstrual

3:07

cycle tracking is that we can use

3:09

that against the data and see based on

3:11

where you are in your cycle, how likely

3:13

you are to do hard workouts versus easy workouts

3:16

and how your RP changes, how heart rate changes,

3:19

all that stuff is so exciting to layer these other, to put these

3:21

other layers in. So please that

3:23

we, so I'm going to say too, we never sell

3:25

any data to anyone. We don't give it to anyone. The

3:28

only thing that we had pushed to other companies like Strava

3:30

would be your cycling workout. You say specifically push

3:33

this cycling workout in trainer road over there. So

3:35

I just want to make sure that we're going to ask for

3:38

some things that could be private for some people, that

3:40

it doesn't go anywhere. And when we use these ML

3:42

models too, they're anonymous, right? The machine learning

3:44

doesn't know who you are. And we just put

3:46

it right. I put it back in the product. So when

3:48

you see that, please enable it. And then for

3:51

the Apple watch stuff, you're gonna

3:53

need iOS 17 and an Apple

3:55

watch updated, and then you can use

3:57

it. And John to go ahead.

3:59

We'll put in the description

4:01

here on YouTube or wherever there we can put

4:04

a description where you find your podcast. We'll put

4:06

the support article to how to push the outside

4:08

workout to the Apple watch so you can find it there. Great.

4:11

Yeah. Good call Ivy. Yeah.

4:14

Super, by the way, good job team. I'll be building those support articles.

4:16

They're like super visual and really helpful. That's awesome stuff. And

4:18

I like this because, so I'm using like

4:20

a Garmin watch right now, but I want to get an Apple

4:22

watch. I just, it's a fine watch

4:25

this one, but it's a pain for being

4:27

a watch, but it's good for tracking activities. Like

4:29

back country skiing, but that's going to, but the cool

4:31

part about this is a lot of the time, like on recovery

4:33

rides, for example, like this week is a recovery

4:35

week. My recovery workouts are all below 0.55

4:38

IF and they're consistent. It's 60

4:40

minutes or 90 minutes at this

4:43

power range. And it's really easy to do. And

4:45

I can just go outside and not having a head

4:47

unit on those rides Nate, like an Ivy, it's

4:49

like a way to detox my brain from like

4:51

having to be so focused. And I can just go out. I

4:54

check in every once in a while, glance at my wrist to

4:56

see what my power is. And I just walk into what that

4:58

feeling is. And that way I can stay really

5:00

consistent. Yeah. Soul riding. Yeah,

5:03

exactly. Like it gives me, it fills my emotional cup a bit.

5:05

And this is really cool because now you can do it on Apple watch.

5:07

And it's funny phone on the handlebars thing.

5:10

Nate, I think you and I probably have had like

5:12

a heated discussion about that in the past or something.

5:16

And because we're, and the point is like,

5:18

we should totally be able to have our phone on our

5:20

bars. Like they're better head units than

5:22

head units. Let's be real, right? There's way more

5:24

capability in a phone, but we don't. And

5:27

there are conveniences about a head unit for sure. But

5:30

I'm starting to notice, I don't know if you've seen this Ivy, I'm

5:32

starting to notice more because originally

5:34

it was just like people that would be riding like a cruiser, a townie

5:37

bike might have their phone on their bars. I'm

5:39

starting to notice more and more people actually

5:41

having their phone on their bars. Like I was at an enduro

5:43

ish down country race a couple of weeks

5:45

ago and I saw five people, I counted

5:47

five in the zero 70. Yeah.

5:50

And they had their phone on a quad lock or something

5:53

like that. And it was because for them, they

5:55

use Strava on their phone and they're like, why in

5:57

the world would I go by a heading?

5:59

Like a trail system that you don't know when you

6:02

have to, that's

6:03

horrible. When you're in a trail system you don't know and

6:05

you have to pull out your phone every few

6:07

hundred feet because you don't know which fork of the trail

6:09

to take. It's miserable. The

6:12

worst. Especially in a place like Bentonville

6:14

or something where like a trail intersection every 15 feet

6:16

it feels like you just, yeah, it's hard to know. But

6:19

anyways, if you're listening to this you probably have strong opinions

6:21

about putting your phone on your bars, why it's a good idea or a bad

6:23

idea. I challenge you to buck convention

6:25

and let us know in the comments about how you feel about it because

6:28

I think in the future

6:30

that's probably just what we'll all have. It

6:32

makes sense to me at least. So it was really cool.

6:34

Bravo to the team working on a bunch of other stuff.

6:37

It's really exciting. I have a prediction.

6:39

I predict they will still be separate but like

6:42

the Hammerhead it will be like an Android

6:44

device but in a different form factor so it's

6:46

more durable battery life and it takes

6:49

away some of the features of a new iPhone can

6:51

be like $2,000. You don't want

6:53

to, and you drive, you see the drop test, you drink like five feet it just

6:55

shatters. But you might not want to do that. But to

6:58

to Ivy's point is that even

7:00

if there are trail forks on some of these devices,

7:03

apps always better, right? It's a better experience

7:06

and the touch was sweat and all that. So there's certain

7:08

things I think that can be better on it and wait

7:10

to I

7:11

think they're merged the Venge

7:13

and the Tarmac. Like what's the difference? I don't know.

7:16

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I've been using the Hammerhead

7:18

recently. Just be we have different

7:21

head units here at the office. So I'm always like trying different ones

7:23

and for Hammerhead listeners, I'm sure you're like why

7:25

aren't you pushing workouts to Hammerhead yet? They're

7:27

still building out some features that we want to have in place

7:29

just for safety reasons for athletes that are doing

7:31

workouts outside like this and over time and demand

7:34

needs to increase to like not enough people have Hammerheads

7:36

too. But I already

7:38

see what you're talking about Nate in the sense that it's running

7:41

Android and it's closer to a phone and there's

7:43

a lot of really nice conveniences from that. So

7:45

I could totally see it. Yeah.

7:48

A lot of people are asking questions about indoor training

7:50

equipment stuff like buying a

7:52

trainer, setting up your indoor setup

7:55

and it makes sense because of the time of season. So I

7:57

want to cover a handful of like rapid fire

7:59

questions on this. Nate and Ivy,

8:01

he can jump in with your thoughts on these ones. Okay.

8:03

First one should wheel on trainers even

8:05

be a consideration in 2023? No.

8:09

You don't think so. That's about it.

8:12

Yeah. I think if it's what you

8:14

have and it's between having

8:17

a trainer and not feeling like you can do

8:19

workouts indoors, especially in the winter. Yeah.

8:22

Just keep it.

8:24

Here's the rub with wheel on today. If

8:26

you have a modern road bike with a through axle, you

8:29

have to put some sort of axle weird

8:31

adapter in there anyway. So

8:34

you're already fussing around with the back of your bike. And

8:36

I hear people say, I want to get a wheel on trainers. I don't have

8:38

to worry about taking my wheel off all the time. You

8:41

wouldn't have to take your wheel off. You'd still have to take

8:43

your axle out, put in the adapter.

8:46

So then that way it actually has something to clamp onto

8:48

because wheel on trainers need something

8:50

to clamp onto. And when we had quick releases, that was easy.

8:52

We don't have those anymore. It's just flush them out with your carbon

8:55

frame. You'd still have to fuss about with it. And

8:58

in most cases, what I've found is that like

9:00

the resistance units, the smoothness,

9:02

all like the good tech that you would want from a smart

9:04

trainer. Doesn't get thrown into the wheel

9:06

on trainer. It gets put into the wheel

9:09

off trainer and the higher end wheel one wheel

9:11

off trainers. So as a result, you're buying, if

9:13

you get wheel off or a wheel on, hopefully

9:16

it's like cheap because you're really buying

9:18

like quite old tech in a lot of cases, like

9:20

not a lot of improvements. And you have to take into consideration

9:23

the wear on the tire.

9:24

And when you like those tires get square,

9:26

then for me is always that safety

9:29

issue too of like, how thin am I making

9:31

this tire? I remember back in 2010 or something

9:33

and they would get, they literally get

9:35

square, right on the back tire. And

9:37

then the tires are expensive too. And then you can say, I've got a training

9:39

wheel with a trainer tire on it. But then

9:42

that that's even more expensive and you're

9:44

getting pretty close to the price of just a wheel off

9:46

trainer.

9:47

Yeah.

9:48

Yeah. Maybe if you train a lot indoors, it

9:50

might be a couple of tires that you burn through.

9:53

And so by the time you get some through

9:55

axle adapter for

9:57

a wheel on trainer and a couple

9:59

of tires.

10:01

I'm trying to look at the cost of what I can

10:03

new wheel on trainer would be right now I don't even know

10:06

they're like 350 to 400 dollars is

10:08

what I've seen recently for a wheel on trainer

10:11

Yeah, exactly

10:13

for a smart trainer. Yeah for a smart

10:15

trainer we okay Yeah, you can get other

10:17

ones that are like a non smart trainer You can get

10:20

those for a lot cheaper close to 200 bucks,

10:22

but right yet. I still around 400 bucks

10:26

So yeah, it's not particularly cheap kickers

10:28

that is 350 and the kicker core

10:31

is 700

10:33

Yeah, and the cores wheel off right Nate. Yes.

10:35

Oh, yeah. Yeah being the difference

10:38

there. So yeah, it's man It's

10:41

a tricky spot to be in for sure and the other side

10:43

I've had friends ruin their carpet with

10:46

wheel on trainer because of the rubber

10:48

that flies off of their tire You

10:50

guys seem like a black strip because

10:53

your tire gets worn out and really hot

10:55

and some of those rollers can be abrasive and It

10:57

can get to the point where it just like sprays like

10:59

a black line underneath and it rubber just accumulates

11:02

and it can mess things up so you can do that with a dirty

11:04

drive-through to I remember I I oiled my

11:06

drivetrain before and it was dirty and then

11:09

The grease flew out to the on the path

11:11

on the mat, but also the carpet in the wall.

11:13

My ex-wife was not happy Yeah

11:20

Matt is definitely worth it unless you're on concrete

11:22

like in a garage. I highly recommend

11:24

that

11:25

Between sweat and yeah grease

11:27

and drink mix and everything else that's gonna

11:30

drip on there Yeah, this is why I'm afraid of environments

11:32

and houses with carpets

11:34

because what people do in their

11:35

carpet is doing workouts Yeah, when Spilling

11:39

coffee. Yeah, exactly. I'm

11:41

sure somebody's gonna ask what trainer Do you recommend

11:43

and honestly so I've been over the past little bit.

11:45

I've written elites high-end trainers

11:47

I've written taxes high-end trainer. I've written

11:50

Wahoos high-end trainer Effectively,

11:52

it's like the same experience for me and SARS

11:55

is high-end trainer They're very good like you buy

11:57

if you go for the top of the line on any of the notable

11:59

brands

11:59

be a really good experience. So I was going

12:02

to

12:03

encourage you to ride indoors.

12:06

What's

12:06

going to make it feel easy and convenient to just get on

12:08

the bike

12:08

and do your workout. If it's going to be a pain in

12:10

the butt to do something that's we all on our

12:12

wheel off and you feel like it's an extra, a whole bunch of steps

12:15

to take your wheel off and get your bikes set up. And it might deter

12:17

you from doing your workout. It's maybe not the right

12:19

trainer.

12:21

Said, okay. Next one. Will using my

12:23

full suspension mountain bike on the smart trainer damage

12:25

it? Don't me to take this one. Yeah. Uh,

12:28

it won't, unless like you have something

12:30

that's like going up against the frame and to wheel

12:32

on, but as far as the pivots and the suspension

12:35

and everything else, no, think about all of the abuse your

12:37

bike takes when you ride it down like a hard trail, having

12:39

it locked into the trainer, even locked out. That's

12:42

not going to mess it up. It's not going to mess up bearings and

12:44

pivots. It, what would mess that up is if

12:46

they're totally dry and you don't have any grease

12:48

or the pivots are already worn

12:50

out and the bushings are worn out. Of course, but that would, that's

12:53

not the indoor trainer. That's what it would, it's totally fine.

12:55

So you don't have to worry about it. What fan

12:57

do you recommend? There's another question that we got.

13:00

I, the Lasko performance series, I

13:02

think all of us use those ones, right? It's

13:04

insane. Darn good. You get other, you all

13:06

think you have a fan that's like with the blades and

13:09

this is like a floor cleaning

13:11

or drying play fan and it is,

13:13

it's completely different. I highly

13:15

recommend it. And it can, if you have a big difference

13:17

in power up between outside and inside and

13:20

that you're sweating inside, get one of these. And

13:22

if it hits your body, there'll be no sweat that

13:24

does not get evaporated.

13:26

I never had a sweat drip from my body

13:28

where this fan hits. Yeah.

13:30

They're concentrated hurricanes and

13:32

there's one called the U12104. If

13:35

you look up on Amazon, we'll link down below to this

13:37

one. It's 59 bucks for a fan.

13:40

So I know that sounds like a lot for the box fan,

13:42

but this one's very good. There are a lot of other

13:44

ones that are like a hundred and above, but I

13:46

have those ones. They're pretty compact, which is cool.

13:48

So they can fit in a tight training space. And

13:50

I have two of them. I have one that sprays on me and

13:52

like my head and my torso. Then I have one that kind of sprays

13:55

up from the ground across like my legs and

13:57

my torso, and that is I'm sad.

13:59

cool.

14:00

Okay, wait a minute. I have

14:02

been just using a

14:05

little, you know, like Target or Walmart

14:07

fan because it's affordable and I'm just like

14:10

simplicity, they're minimalist girl.

14:12

And I'm like, I don't want to have anything that's single use.

14:15

So it's like the same fan that I use for

14:17

white noise or to cool my bedroom down at

14:19

night is I'll just move it over to where

14:22

I'm training. But I think

14:25

this one cool my house too. If it's

14:27

that powerful. Yes.

14:29

I've told Tori will shift

14:31

one to you today and you'll probably get it this weekend.

14:34

Just ask her. Okay. You need this.

14:37

Okay. This is equipment for work. That's

14:41

awesome. Thanks. How many of the

14:43

hosts use rocker plates is another question.

14:45

That's like the or motion plates or they

14:47

call it describe them in a lot of ways. I've tried

14:50

one

14:50

so much. I tried to want it so bad.

14:53

And it actually, when it did for me, is

14:55

it like, because it goes back and forth as you ride

14:58

and you're my, I weigh 190 pounds, 200

15:01

pounds. And it was the

15:04

momentum. Let's see the inertia as you

15:06

go back and you go forward, the plate moves

15:08

first and then my body slides and it goes back.

15:10

So what happens is my body rubs

15:12

back and forth on, on

15:15

the saddle at each end of the oscillation.

15:17

And it gave me like pretty bad saddle

15:19

stores. And it was not, I

15:22

had this like dream of how the trainer is going to be comfortable

15:24

for two hour rides. It didn't hang.

15:27

Yeah. I would spend that money on a nice saddle.

15:30

Yes. Don't in my opinion, don't

15:32

buy rocker plates and or don't buy trainers that have built

15:34

in rocker plates. If that's going to cost you a lot

15:36

more money, most of them, if it's built into the

15:39

trainer has an option to lock it. And most

15:41

athletes I know that have those trainers, they

15:43

just lock it out because they don't want, it's

15:45

not natural. I think if the premise is that it

15:47

will feel more natural, but it just doesn't feel natural.

15:49

It feels like your trainer's moving around underneath

15:51

you. And that's a weird feeling

15:54

that doesn't replicate any sort of benefit that you

15:56

get from a natural ride. In

15:59

my opinion. Yeah, okay next one

16:01

which trainer desk do you recommend? There's

16:04

go on Amazon if you're gonna get a cycling

16:06

training specific one and search up trainer desk You

16:08

can get some for cheap that will get the job

16:10

done I have my garage I'm converting

16:13

over to just like small floating shelves that are

16:15

like 10 15 bucks from Target

16:17

like it's super cheap because I'm up against

16:19

a wall and that way I have those in place

16:22

and I Don't have a kind of like a big bulky trainer

16:24

desk in the way because for me That's the

16:26

barrier is having that something big and bulky But

16:28

if you want one Amazon, but otherwise I just get

16:31

some cheap shelves man. It works pretty well These

16:33

questions make me sound so janky

16:36

and it's probably because I am my trainer Desk

16:38

is like a chair with boxes on it and then I put

16:40

my computer on top of it You're

16:43

not alone. It's like whatever people send them pictures of their

16:45

training set up like ironing boards. Yeah Yeah,

16:49

for sure and those honestly like a music standard an

16:51

ironing board. That's awesome It's just as functional

16:53

is what you're gonna get from something else another person

16:56

asks How do I put my phone on my bars when they're indoor

16:58

training? Lots of different options like

17:00

you can get like phone mounts now the ton of people make

17:02

them for bikes if you go on to Amazon And search for something

17:04

like that. There's a ton quad locks really expensive,

17:07

but that's in really solid option I

17:10

KOM cycling makes a little male

17:12

Garmin mount So basically like it's got adhesive

17:14

on one side, but then it's a mount on the other and

17:17

since I have an iPhone I just put that to a mag

17:19

safe little Oval or

17:21

like circle thing so then that way I just twist

17:23

lock that into my bars and my phone just by magnet

17:26

Attaches to it and I don't have to worry about a case or anything.

17:28

The mags is he can take the mount itself off Yeah,

17:32

totally and then I don't have to do a different case or

17:34

have something bulky on my phone all the time It

17:36

works.

17:37

You should do a video on that Yeah,

17:39

I think I should huh? Yeah

17:42

Yeah, I think it's like a 15 or 20 dollars

17:44

all in from Amazon. Oh my yeah, so

17:47

pretty sweet way to do it Okay, what

17:50

shows are you watching or looking forward to watching on the indoor

17:52

trainer this year? Okay

17:55

I am like

17:57

between a hard intervals like I watch take talk

18:00

and then when the intervals coming, I will put

18:02

music back on and pay attention and do the interval.

18:05

And then when I get to rest, I watch.

18:07

Awesome. Nate,

18:09

do you have any shows that you're looking forward to or

18:12

not? Really? Like you're watching right now dropped

18:14

off TV. And I'm trying to think of whatever. I

18:16

don't even remember what I've watched recently.

18:18

Yeah, for me, it's the people that do drive

18:20

to survive that series. They

18:23

also do. It's like a box to box

18:25

productions or something like that. Anyways, they've done a

18:27

ton on different sports like they've done full

18:29

swing on golf. They've done breakpoint on

18:32

tennis. Those are fascinating

18:34

to me. I like watching those a lot. Hoping

18:36

new seasons of those come out. That's like the main thing.

18:39

Now, also GCN plus, this is absolutely

18:41

not an ad. We've yeah, we've even tried

18:44

to work with GCN before in the past and everything else,

18:46

and so this is not an ad, trust me. But

18:49

it's really nice to be able to get all of your cycling

18:52

like races all in one spot. And if you

18:54

have a VPN, then boom, you can watch literally any

18:56

race through GCN. And that's really cool. So

18:59

mountain biking of all disciplines, cyclocross

19:01

racing of all this, like road. It's

19:04

all on there. So that's what I'll do. All

19:06

right. Last one is indoor cycling specific kit

19:08

worth it?

19:10

No, I don't think. Yeah. What's

19:12

the benefit? I don't understand.

19:14

They're all mesh like you wouldn't want to wear it out

19:16

in public because it's quite see through, but

19:19

it's very mesh. And what I found

19:21

is that the mesh flexes and moves way

19:24

easier than like standard bib fabric.

19:26

So as a result, like your shammy, if

19:28

your bibs don't fit absolutely perfectly, you're

19:31

more likely to have shammy disconnection

19:33

from your body and then get saddle sores.

19:35

At least what I found. I've only used one

19:38

pair of bibs like that. Gosh, which

19:40

brand was it from? I can't remember, but so

19:42

your mileage may vary, but I don't like mesh bibs

19:44

for that same reason. Like even mesh bibs underneath

19:46

mountain bike over shorts like that. I don't like

19:49

it. I like normal bibs because I don't want my shammy

19:51

shifting around with super

19:53

stretchy bib. I feel like you get used to them too

19:55

and having the same. If a

19:57

luxury would have six bibs of the same kind.

20:00

And you rotate through them so they all wear at the same

20:02

level for a season or something because when you

20:04

switch them around like your body gets used to one way and then you go to

20:06

another bib whenever I switch Shammy's it

20:08

feels like that's when I get a saddle sore. That's no fun

20:12

Yeah, that mess you up with cyclocross IV going

20:14

like to wear cuz you wear it your skin suit

20:16

for cyclocross and then yeah I thought that you don't

20:18

whoops and I like pop some tags

20:20

on some fresh ones before some races recently

20:23

And I was like whoops should have put

20:25

these shoes wash or something before I did this. Yeah

20:28

Yeah,

20:29

that's a pro tip washing your stuff before you put

20:31

it I know that probably it's just yeah That's what I do

20:33

a lot of cyclists just never wash their

20:36

they don't wash their bib shorts before they ride and

20:38

then the first time and Yeah,

20:40

it's a good way to have a really harsh chamois

20:42

fabric and like really stiff chamois. It softens

20:45

up a ton Just a little more wash All

20:47

right flippers question says how this is

20:50

my second season racing cyclocross and after moving

20:52

from cat 5 to cat 4 I'm quickly realizing

20:54

that fitness plays a much smaller

20:56

role in results than I had realized as

20:58

a novice with decent power I was able to ride away

21:00

from some cat 5 fields, but this is very much

21:02

not the case anymore I'm realizing how much

21:04

time I lose each lap by being bad at things

21:07

like remounting my bike or not carrying speeds returns

21:10

We covered carrying speeds returns at depth with Tobin

21:12

and Ivy in a previous episode listen three

21:14

episodes back I think 441 talk about

21:16

having the pros in house to talk about that those

21:19

two are really qualified for it So check that out one

21:21

thing I can't seem to grasp the concept of is

21:23

remounting my bike without losing momentum

21:26

I suffer from the crow hop that I can't seem

21:28

to shake and I even took a video

21:30

of myself and I'm watching it was horrifying

21:33

I almost came to a stop when I got to remount my

21:35

bike almost certainly losing lots of time each

21:37

lap So please help does Ivy or

21:39

any of the other cross folks on the podcast have any advice

21:42

or tips for being less bad at this? Thanks,

21:44

and five stars you pronounced his name. It's

21:46

not flipper. It's pronounced Nate like I'm

21:48

sorry you didn't realize This

21:51

is your burner You

21:54

see this all the time right in races probably

21:56

half to the field lower you're pretty

21:58

good at it, but I'd be helpful

23:59

on and off the bike to do a really

24:01

big last step before you swing your leg

24:03

over. And you won't

24:06

skip, it's probably easy to do when

24:08

you're just brisk walking, but then you just

24:10

gradually increase the speed

24:13

at which you're remounting and the length of

24:15

your last step until the crow hop

24:17

is gone. And it takes a lot of commitment

24:20

and trust that you're going to actually land on the

24:23

saddle, which is why you just start

24:25

practicing with just a brisk walk and increase

24:27

your speed and the length of that last step.

24:30

Would you do this before a race? Do you recommend

24:32

that or like thinking about doing drills?

24:35

Like trying to yourself? Yeah, do it off before

24:37

the race, but then unless you're really good

24:39

at it every race before, that's part of your warmup.

24:42

So like practice or remind yourself

24:44

of how to do this? Oh, yeah. I feel

24:46

like one thing. I've done it before.

24:48

So it's not. Yeah, for sure. Yeah,

24:51

yeah. I

24:54

feel like it's just muscle memory at some degree. And

24:56

that's what you're really trying to do when you do

24:58

this on a practice day or a rest day. When

25:01

you spend a lot of time doing this to do that repetitive

25:03

motion and know what it feels like. And then once

25:05

you get it to keep increasing your speed and keep doing

25:08

it, that's when the muscle memory comes in. And

25:10

I used to have to reacquaint

25:13

myself with this stuff at the beginning of a cross season two.

25:16

And now because I've done it so much

25:18

and no understand the mechanics of it

25:20

and have that muscle memory, I don't need to

25:23

refresh myself to

25:25

remount or remember how to do

25:27

it or what that feels like or

25:29

have a weird buffer period of it being sloppy.

25:31

It just takes a ton of repetition.

25:34

So I want to say it. So I dismount

25:36

on the left side. And so if I'm

25:38

running, I'm right before I'm going to get

25:41

on with my left foot, I'm taking an extra big

25:43

like stride. So whatever it's

25:45

going to feel awkward, right? That left foot at first,

25:47

because I'm going to be long, I'm going to purposely

25:50

overexaggerate. And I've heard too, that kind

25:52

of when you do that, you put it closer to the bike too. You're

25:55

not just is that right? So my left foot is usually

25:57

is like right in front of me. Maybe I'll bring it in about.

26:00

six inches closer to that front wheel to

26:02

get so that I'm closer on the hop up or is that right

26:04

or not? You're too close, you hit the pedal, right? I think

26:06

you would. Right. And so

26:08

I would just focus on. Ouch. My shin just

26:10

hurt. My co-hop's gone. Shin is gone.

26:13

Everybody's shin just hurt right now. You're going to lose that, yeah.

26:15

It would be your thigh, but I mean, your cap, but yeah.

26:18

Yeah.

26:18

And the commitment that it takes

26:20

to really trust how to land on your saddle and that you're going

26:22

to make it, I feel like focusing

26:26

on the length of that big last step,

26:29

I don't know.

26:30

The proximity to you and your bike, like

26:32

laterally, how close you are. I feel like that happens

26:35

fully over

26:35

time when you

26:36

just start practicing slowly. If

26:38

you, because it feels like something that's high risk and

26:41

high consequence when you maybe just are

26:43

starting and just go full run

26:45

and try to remount. That's when you are thinking

26:47

really critically about, oh my gosh, how close am I to the

26:49

bike? How close I need to be? Is it better to be this close?

26:52

But when you start so slowly and do

26:54

like just a brisk walk, you really learn

26:57

intuitively where the saddle is and that stuff

26:59

becomes second nature. This really just takes practice.

27:02

I have a theory that all of us who

27:04

do the Crow Hop, we don't ever

27:06

practice. We only practice in races and

27:08

we never take like that 30 minutes. And I like to hear

27:10

in the comments of the people that are

27:13

good at it. How did you get good at it?

27:15

How did you practice it to get good at it? Or was it in races

27:17

and people who aren't good at it? Are

27:19

you just doing it in races? Like we are maybe like right

27:21

before, or you do it like maybe three or four times.

27:23

You get it that time. You're like, Oh, I did it twice in a row.

27:26

Let's go race. Yeah. It's

27:28

been race day, the speed and the pressure

27:31

and the tiredness and that like when

27:33

you're tired and you're out of gas, cyclo-cross is

27:35

so hard. That extra step is actually

27:37

hard to do. You don't want to do it.

27:39

You revert to habits when stress

27:42

and everything else raises higher. So we

27:44

like revert to what our base programming is. And

27:47

so if you just did it, like you said, Nate,

27:49

like I'll do it in a couple of times of like, Oh, there it is.

27:51

I got it. Cool. We're

27:54

done. That's not a habit. That's not

27:56

my base. Exactly. So it makes it

27:58

a lot tougher to do it. in

28:00

the moment like that. I remember watching a video,

28:02

I think it was last year, of

28:04

Celine Del Carmen Alvarado, and she

28:07

was at one of the World Cups, and

28:09

it looked like it was in practice, like she was recounting

28:11

the course. And I remember

28:13

if you were to slice from her torso

28:17

up to her upper, toward her head and everything else, you

28:19

almost couldn't tell that she remounted her bike.

28:22

Like it was so, they're so smooth,

28:25

and it was just such second nature. The

28:27

when the legs swung over, it swung over perfectly

28:29

onto the pedal, and the pedal was there

28:31

to catch, and it just moved right in. I wanna feel that on

28:33

the cyclocross remount. Cause

28:36

this is a good point, losing momentum. Ivy,

28:39

you talked about that short foot, and then when you stutter

28:41

step, you're halting your momentum. You're literally

28:44

like stopping yourself, dropping

28:46

to zero for a fraction of a second. And

28:48

then when your leg swings over, it might add some

28:50

inertia to move yourself forward, but you have stopped

28:52

at all. But that's like the biggest difference that I see is,

28:55

there is no stopping momentum. And my gosh,

28:57

that would be, I think anybody that's race cyclocross, and

29:00

has been like at their limit,

29:02

how nice would it be to just to have something be a

29:04

slightly easier every single lap? It

29:06

would mean everything to you in the moment in the race. So how

29:08

much, what do you gotta save a second or two each time

29:11

you dismount and mount? And that could be what,

29:13

five times a lap? That's 10 seconds a lap.

29:16

And then you take a minute off, right? During

29:18

the race or more, that is huge. A

29:20

minute, as many places, at least for me.

29:23

What's more

29:23

significant than that is maintaining

29:27

a bunch of momentum. When you're really hauling

29:29

and running and can remount fluidly

29:32

and be in a bigger gear before

29:34

you dismount and run over the feature and stay in

29:36

that bigger gear and not have to do a

29:38

massive acceleration once you get on

29:40

the bike is huge. To feel like you're just

29:42

maintaining speed through a feature instead

29:45

of slowing down and having to get

29:47

back on top of the gear and out of the saddle once

29:49

you remount saves so many matches,

29:52

saves so much energy.

29:54

I have another idea for Instagram

29:57

for a little video. I think it'd be great if we

29:59

have some. some footage of you doing some things that are good. And

30:03

you just do a little, we just used to do the race analysis,

30:05

just like a 30 second one or something with some tips about

30:08

what you did and we can do a little slow-mo and why people

30:10

can do it on these things. So I think it's

30:12

great that we hear you say it, but I would love to see you do

30:15

it at the same time. That'd be amazing. And

30:17

John, you too for mountain biking. You too, I do for mountain biking. Yeah.

30:20

You guys for

30:20

everything. That's who we've got. Yeah. That'd

30:23

be fun. Yeah, yeah. If we have a crow hop of John

30:25

too, internet would love to see that. Oh. Love.

30:29

It's a good comment. It's true. Free month to anyone

30:31

who gets a video. I can do that. Free

30:33

month to anyone who gets a video of John crow hopping. If

30:36

it makes you feel better, I did the crow hop so

30:39

severely for the first, I think, like

30:41

season and a half that I raced cross. And I

30:43

was fine. This is embarrassing. This is enough.

30:46

And went to a park, like two days a week

30:48

for a few weeks and

30:50

just

30:51

worked on it. You can do it. I believe

30:53

in you. Can people let us know in the comments

30:56

on YouTube if there is something we've described that

30:58

would be really helpful if we could describe

31:00

it with video connected, like the

31:03

cornering. There's so many things that we've described. Descending,

31:05

sprinting. We have a sprinting video we could even cut up

31:07

too. That would be great if you give us some ideas

31:10

because when we have ideas like that and people upvote

31:12

them, the ones that you, we just have a list of things of work

31:14

items to go through.

31:16

Yeah. Yeah, that'd be awesome.

31:18

Jolt's question. And Jolt's question here, this

31:20

is very much one of those situations where

31:23

I'd be like, man, I get what

31:25

it's like to have terrible hair. Meanwhile,

31:27

let's assume I have terrible hair. Be like, but I'm not one

31:29

of those people. This is one of those situations.

31:32

Jolt says, I've been using TrainerRoad for more than two

31:34

years and absolutely love it. Since then, I also started

31:37

to race mountain bikes, about one and a half to two hour

31:39

cross country marathon style races and some fun

31:41

cyclocross in the winter. During the

31:43

races, I noticed that I'm somehow unable

31:45

to push the watts on the flats and fall flat

31:48

as on the climbs. I understand that this is somewhat

31:50

normal and expected, but compared to other riders, I

31:52

clearly don't excel in these parts of the races. This

31:54

is that situation right there. I get that this is normal,

31:57

but I'm not in a normal case. So

31:59

just this week. I had a race where there were

32:01

lots of false flats and flat parts

32:03

and I had trouble keeping up with some riders or

32:06

opening gaps But I managed to drop

32:08

in gaps the same riders quite easily

32:10

on the climbs My SCP is currently 305 watts for 77 kilograms

32:12

at 170 pounds So

32:16

feel free to check my train of road calendar if that helps with the question

32:19

I'm gonna cut it up there. He had some more information But the

32:22

relevant question there is so I'm able to

32:24

drop these people on the climbs Why

32:26

isn't it happening when we get to the flats and

32:28

everything else? Why is everybody else relatively stronger

32:31

than I am in those situations? And

32:33

this is like we've all faced this

32:36

I'm sure

32:36

I wonder to that I see two things here one

32:39

is are you actually putting out less watts on

32:41

the flats which has happened? We can talk about that. But

32:44

also even on a false flat Aerodynamics

32:47

on mountain biking are huge and opening up

32:49

gaps And if there is a gap

32:51

people can pull away from you because of if

32:54

they're drafting and 305 77 170 pounds

32:58

there's probably riders that are smaller than you with more aerodynamics

33:00

and with mountain biking too Some people are like

33:02

straight up like Keegan, but he's obviously

33:05

does pretty well with it. He's arrow now arrow eagles Yeah,

33:07

yeah. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah, you're never gonna lose

33:09

again, but you what's actually been the story of

33:12

the year Yeah, which one do you want to talk about false

33:14

flats first? Which one claim?

33:16

I want to talk about like the assumption in

33:18

our mind that I can push hard

33:20

on the climbs and that matters a lot Like

33:23

it doesn't matter that much like everybody

33:25

can push hard on climbs And I

33:27

was just Derek teal from dialed health had this

33:29

crazy ride 320 miles and

33:31

over that same elevation of Everest that

33:34

he was doing this weekend and from Sacramento

33:36

up to our region and then back down And

33:38

I laid out this pacing plan. No and

33:40

this pacing. Yeah, it's pretty crazy I'm

33:42

out of Reno and back or to talk like Sacramento

33:46

to read to trucky to North

33:48

Lake Tahoe up and over Mount Rose

33:50

to Geiger Then down to Gardnerville

33:52

and up Kingsbury then over to Kirkwood and

33:54

from Kirkwood to Placerville and then home So

33:57

all those names said one of those climbs

33:59

at the end It would be a great workout

34:02

like Geiger. Yeah. It's yeah. One of those climbs

34:04

is like one of the big climbing in the, in

34:07

the tour. And yeah, these are like,

34:10

yeah, there's 11 of them in this

34:12

ride. So gnarly day. Anyways, he did this

34:14

thing and he wanted me to lay out a pacing plan. So

34:16

I got a bunch of information on him, built up

34:18

his pacing plan. And I was like, I think you can do it in 18 hours

34:21

and 10 minutes. You would have 185 Watts

34:23

for your average power and 195 for your normalized power. He

34:28

did have an unanticipated rough gravel

34:30

section coming up from Sacramento

34:33

to Tahoe. But all that said,

34:35

he was way behind schedule and continued

34:37

to just trickle further and further behind schedule. I joined

34:40

him from North Lake Tahoe and then all

34:42

the way wrapped around lots of riding and ended up

34:44

in South Lake Tahoe with him, and he

34:46

was not following the pacing plan and

34:48

I want to just share this really quick. So there's

34:50

something called your variability index. Nate, can you

34:52

describe variable variability index

34:54

for people? It's like a metric that people use. It's

34:56

the difference, Joel Friel came up with it and it's the difference between

34:59

your normalized power and your average

35:01

power. And what it was used for is in triathlon,

35:03

to try to tell triathletes, you're being too

35:07

variable. Like you're not being steady because

35:09

in a triathlon, the steady state power on

35:11

most courses, not all courses wins. And

35:14

a one variability index of one means that

35:16

your average power and normalized power are equal.

35:18

There's no such thing as a negative variability

35:20

power because you can't have your normalized power. There's

35:23

some interval cases, but it's very small as two Watts, but don't

35:25

think about that.

35:27

Yep. In this case, I did a variability

35:29

index of 1.06, which

35:32

is like pretty darn stable. And

35:35

that's 185 Watts average and 195 normalized. And

35:38

that would have given him 18 hours and 10 minutes. Now

35:42

I changed the variability in this case to 1.46.

35:45

So that's like typically what you would see if you were doing like

35:47

a criterium, like something like that, like big

35:50

surges. Okay. When you do that,

35:52

the normalized power is within

35:55

two Watts. It's 194 Watts instead of 196 Watts. Okay.

35:59

But then that. average power drops to 132 watts. And

36:02

what this looks like is on the climbs, you're going way

36:04

harder. And then on false flats, on

36:06

descents, on flat sections, you're

36:08

going way easier. That's what this looks like, okay? So

36:11

in other words, it's how we all naturally ride

36:13

before we start to pay attention to this stuff. Everybody

36:16

goes hard at the bottom of every

36:18

climb. Everyone does that. And

36:21

then everybody eases up when the gradient

36:23

eases up. And if it doesn't ease up, everybody

36:25

gets a lot slower because you

36:27

shot your shot. You have no more matches, right?

36:29

For that moment at least, when you've gone too

36:32

hard at the bottom of a climb. Guess what

36:34

the time difference is between those things. Remember, same,

36:36

effectively the same normalized power. And

36:39

it's 20 hours and 25 minutes versus 18

36:41

hours and 10 minutes. So that's 12% slower

36:44

just by allowing your power to vary. This

36:46

is like really important for cyclists to keep in

36:48

mind. It's not faster to

36:51

surge hard at the bottom of a climb, even though it

36:53

feels like you're going hard. So that must be

36:55

fast in your mind. It's not. Stay

36:57

stable and then keep the

36:59

power on as you go over the tops

37:01

of climbs. You can let your power drop a bit

37:04

when the gradient drops down and it gets into

37:06

downhills and flats. But you are

37:08

not coasting. You're staying even with your

37:10

power. So the reason that

37:13

you feel like you can drop them might be because

37:15

they are being smart about their pacing. And

37:19

if they're being smart about their pacing, they're playing chess

37:21

while you're playing checkers. Like you're sitting

37:23

here going, ha, I can drop you on the climbs. And they're

37:25

like, go ahead, dude. Wear yourself out.

37:28

I need to be even power and I'm going to be way faster.

37:30

That's my thought. There are times though in races

37:33

where you would want to, if there's a group in a long climb,

37:35

you want a separation so that you can, or

37:37

you want to be with a group for aerodynamics and that sort

37:39

of thing. But in general, especially too, if

37:41

you're not at the front of the race, I

37:44

think like Keegan attacks on Columbine,

37:46

right? To get a separation on purpose. But

37:48

if you're not at the front of the race, usually in where I am,

37:50

there's so many people that there's

37:52

always someone to draft. And if you just ride your pace, it's

37:54

much more likely to get onto a train. That's

37:57

the right level as you, when you go too hard, you're

37:59

going to train or you just. It's gonna burn you up and

38:01

you can't like you're gonna you're gonna go slower

38:04

in the long run. Yeah, I

38:05

I agree with that Ivy, what are your thoughts because you've

38:07

raced like Rodan cyclocross like you've

38:09

done fuller opposites with yeah

38:11

And I think reading this question

38:14

and this is not a slam on this rider at all I would just

38:16

be really surprised if this person having raced

38:18

for less than two years Really

38:21

would understand the nuances of when is the right time

38:23

to go when is the right time to? exert

38:26

your power to

38:28

end so I didn't even need to look at this athletes

38:31

calendar or know their FTP

38:32

or Look at their numbers

38:34

on a false flap versus a climb or anything.

38:37

I just think that they're fixating

38:39

on

38:40

Why was the outcome of the race this

38:42

way? Why couldn't I? Control

38:45

it in this way when I can control

38:47

the outcome in these circumstances And

38:50

I just feel like trying to this is

38:52

a thing that you learn pretty early on in

38:54

racing trying to control the outcome of any Of these scenarios

38:57

in a race is in a race is totally a fool's

38:59

errand. Like you have no idea

39:02

What how

39:03

deep other people you're racing with are

39:05

willing to dig in certain moments

39:08

that are more consequential than others And

39:10

there's a chance that they know that it's a more consequential

39:13

moment than maybe you understand and so

39:16

This race scenario is not a good

39:18

opportunity to look at your strengths

39:21

as a rider and be like where am I falling

39:23

short? Why are

39:25

my Fitness weaknesses

39:28

as such This is not

39:30

a good way to measure where you

39:32

need to build your fitness because you can drop

39:34

people in some race scenarios And not

39:36

in others,

39:37

you know, I

39:38

wonder yeah I wonder how much of this just comes

39:40

from the fact that we watch bike racing and

39:43

we're watching the world's best run

39:45

a race of attrition Where typically

39:48

big climbs and the tour always comes to mind

39:50

and it's like a team is like holding stable

39:53

power And then after that once the

39:55

pace is just ratcheting up and up it gets

39:57

to the point where there's only a couple more cyclists left and

39:59

in our mind, we see that as BAM, they're really attacking

40:02

each other going super hard on the climb. So thus

40:05

in a race, that's what I need to do. And

40:07

that's like what forms our view of how we

40:09

should bike race. But in the end, like

40:12

Nate said,

40:13

if you're one of the leaders, that's like fighting for position,

40:15

then you are going to have to make those sort of digs.

40:18

If you're not one of those leaders that's fighting for position,

40:20

it's. And maybe if you have crazy

40:23

headwinds and you don't want to be alone, that's one thing that you

40:25

got to stay with groups. But

40:26

in a lot of other cases, I would say a

40:28

majority of cases, it's better to

40:31

just pace evenly. It's going to pay off.

40:33

You're going to go faster by the end of that race.

40:36

Fighting for single track too. That's huge. If you're

40:38

a good descender, I'm the opposite. Sometimes I'll let people

40:40

go first because I don't want to have that

40:42

pressure and we'll have to pull over in the middle. That's

40:44

even slower. So I'm going to, how do you

40:46

say zolst? I'm

40:48

going to be a lot according to the internet. I might

40:50

be wrong. Sure. I'm sorry. I looked it up and that's what it

40:53

said. Yeah. I'm

40:55

going to let's just, let's say that let's

40:58

ignore the kind of stuff that y'all said, and let's just

41:00

imagine that they do just have trouble putting up the

41:02

exact same lots on the climbers at the flats. Cause

41:05

that's the thing. And the reason there's a few

41:07

reasons why this could be. And I think

41:09

as a beginner rider, I always have this issue

41:11

too. One, when you're on a climb,

41:14

you get that instant feedback that you're going

41:16

slower. And when you start, when

41:18

you put out less watts, you slow down really fast

41:20

versus the flat you even

41:23

a false flat, you put out like 10, 20% less power. You

41:25

still coast and you don't notice that you start slowing

41:27

down. You have to really look at that power

41:30

and get that feedback too. When

41:32

you're on that really good point. Yeah. The, where

41:34

the pedal stroke is hard. Is that

41:36

like that first and second quadrant

41:38

of the pedal stroke. And you, again, you get a lot

41:40

of feedback there. And on the

41:43

flats, when you push through that, it's

41:45

a little bit easier to go through and you

41:47

might need to be on a bigger gear on the flats

41:49

to simulate that more what it's like

41:51

with climbing. So I would try that constant resistance.

41:54

Yeah. Cause like it where if you ease up on

41:56

the pedals, it's you have to put out pressure

41:58

on the pedals throughout 360. more of 360 degrees

42:00

of the pedal stroke. Whereas when you're

42:02

not going on a hill, you don't have to. And you don't necessarily

42:05

have to do that to have that experience, but to go fast.

42:08

But if you find that as a limiter, I would try that

42:10

and see if you need that feedback. Abby.

42:12

I see people say this who only do

42:14

intervals or structure training on climbs.

42:18

And then they get to a really high

42:20

pace flat race. And it's like

42:23

they're trying to recruit muscles they've never used before.

42:26

Or create like a, that tension on the cranks.

42:28

So you're describing Nate, like that they've never

42:30

tried to do before because they just want to

42:32

do intervals on climbs. Cause it's easier.

42:35

And if I was to pick an environment, if

42:38

I had to pick one, this is unrealistic, but if I had

42:40

to pick one only train on the flats or only train

42:42

on the climbs, I would train on the flats

42:44

because I feel like anybody

42:46

can put out power on the climbs, like it's, it's

42:49

more common. That's easy for everybody. Whereas

42:51

putting out power, that same power on the flats

42:54

is more commonly hard for everybody. And if

42:56

you can do it in the flats, it's crazy how

42:58

like relatively easy it feels when you're doing

43:00

it on the climbs. It's, there really

43:02

is like something to that constant pressure that

43:05

you need to put out. I had to choose one. I

43:07

picked the trainer. I don't know about you man, but in

43:10

all the trainer, it's gearing, right? That's how you, that's

43:13

how you emulate it. So my next point is on the trainer,

43:15

you said

43:15

you're using TR normally inside or outside, but

43:17

I would do a smaller gear on the trainer. So you

43:19

have a faster cadence and in those intervals,

43:22

especially threshold intervals, some VO two max

43:24

intervals, try like a higher cadence around 100 110. And

43:27

what that will do is on the trainer, you won't have that. It

43:30

will feel more fluid and maybe that'll help your pedal

43:32

stroke on there. And as long as

43:35

you keep your cadence up on that situation,

43:37

you'll get kind of get used to that. Next one is hip

43:39

angle. A lot of people don't think about on those

43:41

steep, steep lines, especially mountain biking, your

43:43

hip angle naturally opens up because you're leaning

43:45

back. And that can be a huge

43:48

thing for triathletes or anyone, right? And especially for

43:50

me with my long femurs, hip angle is

43:52

a huge limiter for me. And then when you're

43:54

on the flats, you might be punching

43:56

down an arrow, getting lower, effectively

43:59

doing it. trial position and that will then

44:01

also make that part harder to put

44:03

out. So the way to get around it is you train

44:06

with specificity and you do either

44:08

train on the flats with some arrow position or on the trainer

44:11

you put in that arrow position. Another way to test

44:13

that would be indoors you can put a block

44:16

underneath your wheel, do an interval with

44:18

your wheel pretty high like you would on a climb and you can

44:20

even use your iPhone on the handlebars to see the like

44:23

what the elevation is with the measure app and

44:25

then yeah what the grade would be and

44:27

then on then do it again with the flat. And

44:29

I think what you might see is that because

44:32

of hip angle like because because in this situation

44:35

the resistance is the same right there's no hill that

44:37

you're pushing against it's just the trainer but

44:40

you probably will find that with the the steeper

44:42

one the hip angle open it will be easier

44:45

and to get around that because racing is not just climbs

44:48

as we've heard here is do more

44:50

with flat stuff and train more there. You might be a

44:52

bike position issue I've had

44:54

luck with raising your saddle and pushing it forward

44:57

a little bit that opens your hip angle up

44:59

a little bit you might have to raise your bars though if you do that

45:01

and bike fit is such a hard hard

45:03

thing and it's really hard to describe over here and I

45:06

want to do a video on it. Biking over podcasts works great.

45:08

Yeah exactly perfect medium

45:10

for it yeah that's really good that's

45:13

a really good point. Yeah so I'm gonna say it's

45:15

actually happening to you it's not on your head but

45:17

this has happened it's happened to me when I started riding too and

45:19

then on the opposite though once you get good at

45:22

it especially like you're a little

45:24

bit bigger rider you put power on the flats and

45:26

other people can you hit that separation

45:29

and see you later you're gone.

45:31

Yeah take that power that you're putting out on those climbs

45:33

to drop people save it and start using

45:36

it over the top of the climb and into the sense and then

45:38

you're gonna really influence races and change

45:40

up how they happen and yeah I've I used

45:42

to suck at this too I bet everybody listening to

45:44

this that's like an experienced cyclist says yeah I was really

45:47

bad at this too but it is something like Ivy

45:49

said that over time you're gonna build and you'll get

45:51

better at as long as you're putting in concerted

45:53

efforts to work on it so the two you mentioned

45:55

fighting into sing oh go ahead I see two other analogies

45:57

on this is one is I'm not like when you climb

45:59

with somebody and they're a little bit faster than

46:02

you and you try to go a little

46:04

bit slower but you can't because they're with you and

46:06

suddenly you put out more power right that happens

46:08

all the time and we're in a group race right in a race

46:11

because you have that feedback when you slow down instantly

46:14

that there's oh wow there's two inches gone you know

46:16

like nope I'm gonna do it the other one is on the trainer

46:18

when you first if you've not used ERG mode and

46:21

you ever try to do it you look away for 10 seconds and

46:23

then you realize that oh a power is dropped if it's

46:25

really hard interval but when you use ERG mode you're stuck

46:27

there that's why we're like ERG mode I think

46:29

all the trainers if you don't have an ERG mode trainer like I

46:31

highly recommend upgrading to one of those that's

46:34

where it locks you in as you no matter what your gearing

46:36

or cadence is you're gonna throw the same power it's

46:38

like the same analogy of that where yeah

46:41

it locks you in and those kind of things outside that

46:44

make it give you that extra motivation to keep that power

46:46

up are inside too but

46:48

you don't get to nothing motivation but you just can't slow

46:51

down

46:52

yeah and try playing with something on this too

46:54

in your the middle of your interval when you're using

46:56

ERG mode be in the normal gear that you're in and

46:59

then everyone style as long as it doesn't compromise the quality

47:01

of your workout shift to a different gear and

47:03

feel if it feels a bit different because of the inertia

47:05

of the flywheel and everything else and that's the

47:08

sort of small little details that you can incorporate

47:10

into your training that can help with this so Nate

47:13

you mentioned fighting for position in the single track

47:15

that's the next question from Reese. Reese

47:17

says big fan you encourage me to

47:19

give racing a shot and it's been exactly what I needed to

47:21

satisfy my competitive urges I just

47:23

finished the last local mountain bike race of the season

47:25

and I went from getting last to battling for top fives

47:28

by the end of the year and I credit you with that

47:30

improvement nice work that's yeah your

47:32

tips on race execution were invaluable and played

47:34

in my head during every race however as the season

47:36

went on and I got faster I kept running into the same

47:39

problem our races start on a paved road

47:41

with the slight climb before taking a hard

47:43

left off the road into tight

47:45

single track for almost the entire 15 minute

47:48

loop then back onto the pavement and

47:50

repeat for a total of five times

47:52

my issue is the fight for single track I've

47:55

gotten much better on single track and in slick

47:57

conditions but I find myself

47:59

unable to use use those skills and I'm caught behind 25

48:02

riders on the first lap. It's really frustrating.

48:04

And once riders get onto the single track, they seem to

48:06

sit up and chill. And I bet when they

48:09

get back onto the pave section, they jam it and they

48:11

go really hard to it is, but it's like

48:13

really frustrating for sure. I wonder if they are

48:15

killing or

48:16

if Reese is just that much

48:18

better writing single track that

48:20

they're just like, Oh, they're going to flow now. Good

48:24

point. Cause if you think that they're chilling, it's probably going

48:26

to make you more frustrated and flustered in the race.

48:28

Whereas if you just respect that this is where their

48:30

abilities lie, that might make

48:33

you not so upset. Really good point Ivy. Now

48:35

I know you're probably thinking I should just pedal harder

48:38

and fight for better position, but the guy that wins

48:40

every week almost always gets caught behind

48:42

the same scrum like me on the first lap, but he

48:44

seems to just get stronger as the race goes on.

48:47

So is there such a thing as a race strategy where

48:49

not fighting for position into the single track

48:51

is a good idea. And if so, how do

48:53

I know when to use it?

48:57

No. I don't

48:59

know. I wouldn't, I can see if

49:02

wanting to

49:04

work on how to safely

49:07

move through a field and pass

49:09

writers on single track, I can see that being

49:11

a skill you'd want to have.

49:14

But as a race strategy, I can't

49:16

think of any.

49:18

I want to say to this writer who gets

49:20

stronger as the race goes on and beats them, they

49:22

could honestly be just a watt per kg

49:24

higher than everyone. And so don't just

49:26

because they do this doesn't mean it's the, it's because

49:29

they win, it could be in spite of their fitness.

49:31

Like they can still win.

49:33

They might be making a foot like they're to walk kg above

49:35

and they're making it fun for themselves. You know what

49:37

I mean? Yeah. And so they're

49:39

on purpose doing a bad strategy maybe just

49:41

because they, it makes it more fun.

49:44

You really think, John, do you really think that

49:46

come

49:47

on? Look man, some

49:49

people are like, I'm thinking locally of like

49:51

Justin Thomas, a really fast cyclist.

49:53

We've talked to him before on the podcast. He's multi-time

49:56

national champion ex Terra podium,

49:58

a pro podium like. World Championships

50:01

like legit athlete and when he

50:03

shows up to our local races Sometimes

50:05

I feel bad for him like he must be bored or

50:07

Lucas Myers is another he's a junior

50:09

who's now not he's actually Good luck.

50:11

Lucas. He's got selected to represent team

50:14

USA It's no shoe World Cup really exciting for

50:16

one of our junior devo athletes to get that but

50:18

when he shows up to race He's probably he's bored man

50:20

Like I come across second usually and he's not

50:23

even breathing hard and he's at the finish line He's been he's

50:25

changed out of his clothes and it's a short track race

50:27

and like It might be boring

50:29

for

50:29

him I don't know it could be the case but probably not likely

50:32

Fun fact if you Google what to

50:34

do when you get caught with two to go you can

50:36

see me beating Justin by

50:39

a quarter tire in a crit Because

50:44

of what there weren't any hills there's like a two-second hill and

50:46

if there was any hill you would destroy me by I don't

50:48

know an hour Justin's

50:53

awesome. Yeah, really good. Yes My

50:55

thought on this one is The only

50:57

time where it might make sense not to get caught up

50:59

in this fight for single track is if it's a race Where

51:01

you will have a lot of other passing opportunities throughout

51:04

the rest of the race and you anticipate people will get tired

51:07

I did this at single track six to a certain extent

51:09

on some of the stages because I figured the day

51:11

is really long There's like fire

51:13

road sections that are really long. We'll get to sort out

51:15

and I didn't fight for every single position But

51:18

it's all about passing opportunities to me And

51:21

if you think that fight for single track is going

51:23

to blow people up and you can take advantage of that but

51:25

it's always a risk if you do that like

51:28

you're always risking something because You

51:30

get caught behind somebody and there's a big pile

51:32

up or something and it makes you crash You're stuck

51:35

and it's not just you're stuck. You might be hurt So

51:37

it's there's a difference between slowing down in terms

51:39

of and not and losing time But

51:41

there's also the opportunity of crashing and having

51:43

a mechanical or hurting yourself And when you fight

51:45

for single track you remove those potential

51:48

liabilities from existing It's an insurance

51:51

plan. Basically you have to weigh all of those

51:53

options like it could be that case But I

51:56

don't know in this case in the left

51:58

Of course, you've got to fight for it

51:59

Like you got a race, I would think Nate,

52:02

you did those full sum races and I feel like they had pinch

52:04

points where you had to fight for this is

52:06

how did you get to the point where you got comfortable

52:09

fighting for position? Yeah. That one is interesting

52:11

race. We're at the beginning. People go so

52:14

hard at the beginning and it's open. There's some turns

52:16

and I'm literally in last place or second

52:19

last place. But then there is a like

52:21

this long stretch that has like a crosswind

52:23

on a little like damn thing that's maybe

52:25

like a quarter mile. And I would get

52:27

to first second position right

52:29

there. I just go by everybody. Like they,

52:31

everyone would just line up and I would just pass them. And

52:34

then, and that would help so much to then when we went

52:36

in a single track, I was in second or third and

52:39

you would hear sometimes to someone behind, take a

52:41

turn poorly, screech everyone like us.

52:43

And I would just be like laughing in my head. And I was like, 10

52:45

seconds because the further back you are

52:48

usually the worst that the skills are and then

52:50

you get more, you'll affect, you have to use the breaks more

52:53

aware than if you're up at the top and

52:55

over the front, it is so much easier. I

52:58

think for you to, I think

53:00

people don't realize if you'd go in a single track early,

53:03

how hard do you actually go? So

53:06

hard is it's all out, John, right? Like

53:09

you risk your race, right? Ivy, like

53:11

for cyclocross and stuff, you start as

53:13

if you aren't thinking about the fact that you have 45

53:16

minutes to race. You're like,

53:18

I'm just racing to that corner.

53:20

It feels so ballistic. Like

53:22

it's horrible. It's almost like it's

53:25

almost un

53:27

duplicatable

53:28

in training for me. Like I cannot

53:31

emphasize how when you decide

53:33

to go in all in for a start and race

53:35

to a first feature, it's

53:37

yeah, you really are risking the

53:39

rest of the race. But the reality is

53:41

everything other person is too.

53:43

If they're going hard. It's

53:46

like the opposite of the last question, right? Where we're like,

53:48

even pacing do this because of the

53:50

positioning. And I think too, Faris, when

53:52

people say they just seem to chill, it's

53:55

because they just got in position and now

53:57

they are recovering. Blown. Yeah,

54:00

but they're recovering for a while though. And then, and

54:02

then they'll push harder later. And Reese, because you say

54:04

you're top five, but you're 25 behind. Like

54:08

going in a single track. I just

54:10

don't think Reese's issue with either

54:12

lining up in the correct place for

54:15

Reese, if top five should be in the front row

54:17

or two clip ins, like

54:19

getting the right gear, you two should talk about this,

54:21

how fast they start. And then that, that early

54:23

on sprint. Can we, can you

54:26

talk about those three things, please?

54:28

Starts would be great Ivy, because

54:30

in, how do you select your gear? I've

54:33

seen a couple of different ways to do that, but

54:35

for cyclocross is even more important because you're

54:37

more traction limited than even a mountain bike. And

54:39

it depends also upon like, sometimes they'll

54:42

stage you in grass and

54:44

a pile of gravel. I usually

54:46

do. Gravel starts are such a pain. Chip

54:48

seal, or it's just like a bunch of ground up asphalt

54:50

or something. Yeah. When that

54:52

does happen, after they call

54:55

us up and we're all lined up, I'll use my rear tire

54:57

to scoot a little path in the gravel for

54:59

the rear tire. So that once I clip in and get going, I'm not

55:02

like peeling out on gravel,

55:03

but I usually do, can you

55:05

say that more? Cause that's important. So

55:08

you're clearing, like you're pushing the ground.

55:10

So there's no gravel. There's just follow

55:13

your tires and then you don't spin out. That's

55:14

a cool pro tip. Hand on the front hand

55:17

on the front brake so that my bike isn't moving. And then

55:19

just with my one foot clipped in. So I'm just picking

55:21

up the bike with my crank and just scooting the rear tire

55:24

left and right to clear a little path,

55:26

clear the gravel away from my tires that once

55:29

the race starts and I'm clipped in, I don't

55:31

lose a bunch of traction

55:32

because I'm trying to start hard on a pile

55:34

of gravel. Do you ever clear

55:36

out

55:37

forward of your rear tire as well?

55:39

Like up to your front tire or even beyond? I

55:41

don't know if there's a UCI rule against that.

55:43

That'd be interesting. Just like a path, a trail for Ivy.

55:47

Like if there's no rule against it. Yeah.

55:49

Yeah. This is a secret trick. I

55:51

don't tell anyone. It's

55:54

a free podcast. They're getting

55:56

circle trapped here. I,

55:59

so after they call us up. and we're tight and

56:01

we're waiting and we get the minute or 30 seconds,

56:04

actually roll back a little

56:06

bit as much as half a tire length

56:08

because there's that moment when people are,

56:11

when we start and we're trying to get in our pedals

56:13

and there's like an initial, when you get on the

56:16

bike, a surge and then it like slows down

56:18

before you get out of the saddle and start really starting. And

56:21

so if you're really close to the person in front of you

56:23

and you start and you have a good start

56:25

and a bunch of momentum, you have to stop

56:28

or hit the brakes sometimes

56:30

if the person in front of you doesn't have as

56:32

good of a start. So I will scoot

56:34

back and create a little space so that

56:36

I can start and just get rolling

56:39

even if the person in front

56:40

of me fumbles in a little bit. Anyways,

56:43

in motocross, we could

56:44

pat down and walk ahead of the gate depending

56:47

on the race. And you would like I would

56:49

send my dad ahead of me and he'd be

56:51

stomping with heavy boots as hard as he possibly could

56:53

to have a line that was like compacted

56:55

in front of me and it made a huge difference. And

56:59

for mountain biking, I have absolutely been

57:02

in front of my bike before and

57:04

clearing out with my foot rocks and that

57:06

sort of thing. So not even just from the back tire

57:08

to the front tire, but even ahead of that, you just

57:10

have to, I guess, I don't know if it's

57:13

against the rules. I've never been called out on it, but that

57:15

it matters for sure. How about

57:18

gear selection though? How do you pick the right gear? Because

57:21

that can sink your ship. You can have everything

57:23

in great position, but then that ruins it. Yeah,

57:26

there's a gear that I know that all,

57:28

if it's just a really straightforward start, but

57:32

you should practice like a false start,

57:34

like practice it in your pre-ride or it's

57:36

embarrassing, super embarrassing to go stand on

57:38

the start line and practice clipping in and doing a really

57:41

hard start. But like it, it gets the

57:43

cobwebs out and it makes you make

57:45

sure that you understand if the start is

57:48

really bumpy or something, or if you start

57:50

climbing right away, that it just helps you

57:52

practice

57:52

and know which gear you actually want to be in and if

57:54

it feels good.

57:56

Yeah, we should normalize that because I think that

57:58

I've seen Haley Smith. the way Hunter Smith,

58:00

she does that. I remember I've seen it at

58:02

the handful of races like cross country Olympic races.

58:05

And tons of top athletes I

58:08

see in cross country Olympic, they'll

58:10

practice starts like that before the

58:12

race. And they're trying to find the right

58:14

gear. They're trying to find the right position, the

58:17

right surface, because from one

58:19

rider, like from one foot to the next, the

58:21

surface might change and you might want to figure

58:23

it out. And I don't know what cog

58:26

I go into for a start. I

58:28

don't have, it's the fourth cog down or something like

58:30

that. I just go

58:32

there to wherever the start is and I

58:35

feel out what it's like to roll. And then I test

58:37

it out and I see what it's like.

58:39

If I have to grab a ton of gears when I start, that's

58:42

bad. If I'm to the point where I feel

58:44

like I'm standing on top of something and barely

58:46

turning over the gear, it's also bad because I'm going to

58:48

lose traction. So like, I

58:50

try to find one where I'm going to clip

58:52

in and like, I'll have enough time

58:54

to be able to get my other foot clipped

58:57

in before I have to grab another gear in

58:59

a race. Is that accurate for what you

59:01

do too? I mean, yeah,

59:02

totally. And I would say that like being in a gear

59:05

that's so easy because you

59:07

want to not be super bogged down. If

59:09

you have to dump a bunch of gears

59:11

in the first few seconds,

59:12

not the right start gear.

59:15

Yeah. Cause

59:16

you have to ease up every time you shift like that. I

59:18

guess if you have transmission, you don't have to, which is

59:20

pretty cool. That would be sweet on cyclocross bikes

59:22

because that one's designed to shift better under load.

59:25

Maybe that would be pretty sweet.

59:26

Maybe this is a mentality thing for Reese

59:28

to not necessarily a mechanics of am I in the right

59:30

gear? Am I getting my pedal fast enough? All

59:32

of that. Maybe it starts with

59:34

a bunch of people are stressful and it

59:37

takes a really specific mindset

59:40

to be

59:41

willing to like battle

59:43

folks out there in the first few moments of

59:46

bike race. Yeah. Oh, and I

59:48

think it may be the best tip for handling that

59:50

and even just handling starts in general is you

59:52

probably know in this case, Reese, who is going to get

59:54

the whole shot. Who's going to be the first into the turn. It's

59:57

probably consistently one of three

59:59

or five people. people, line

1:00:01

up behind them and then just make sure

1:00:03

that you stay on that wheel. And that's the

1:00:05

wheel that you hold. And you don't think about anything else

1:00:08

other than just holding that wheel. That

1:00:10

can remove a whole lot of the decisions

1:00:12

about what you need to do. And instead you're just

1:00:14

following them, makes it easier. And

1:00:16

if you're behind them, that means you're going to be in a better start

1:00:19

position. Hopefully you're in a situation where you're not

1:00:21

writing checks that are going to bounce later on. But honestly,

1:00:23

you need to do that at times in races,

1:00:25

especially these local races. Like you do need

1:00:27

to cross the line and blow yourself up

1:00:29

because then you'll figure out where the line is and how

1:00:32

far you can push it. Cause if you're afraid of blowing up

1:00:34

on the start, you're going to hold back too

1:00:36

much and you're always going to be too far back.

1:00:38

Reset trials, some small steps on this. So if you're coming

1:00:41

in 25th, try 20th or 15,

1:00:44

have that be your goal. And you can feel, cause

1:00:47

you could blow yourself up and you probably won't get

1:00:49

the whole shot. But if you move from 25th to

1:00:51

15th, let's see what happens in your race. I bet you'll do a

1:00:53

lot better. And then 15th, then go try to go to top 10.

1:00:56

Then a top five and maybe top five is plenty

1:00:58

for you. Like you don't, like you don't have

1:01:01

to get the whole shot to win the race, but top five, you're

1:01:03

probably not going to be slowed down on single track

1:01:05

by the other four people ahead of you, which is that. I think

1:01:07

that's the real key is that you don't lose

1:01:10

so much time in this and the single track that you

1:01:12

can't make up later on the flats.

1:01:14

Yeah.

1:01:15

Agreed. Agreed. Can we

1:01:17

get into Shelley's question? Okay. That's a good one. Shelley

1:01:20

says, what's the deal with greens powders? Should

1:01:22

I let myself be influenced by my favorite

1:01:24

cycling athletes and give them a try or

1:01:26

are they worth the hype and cost? Thanks

1:01:28

for all you do. Shelley, I've had this same question

1:01:31

so many times. IVA. But

1:01:36

for real, don't,

1:01:36

and someone

1:01:39

that has sponsors and posts about them.

1:01:41

When I see other athletes post,

1:01:44

I'm very lucky that the sponsors that I

1:01:46

have, I like, and I actually use and

1:01:49

would choose them otherwise, but it's

1:01:51

so funny to know those athletes that have

1:01:54

sponsors and posts about that. And then behind closed nerves,

1:01:56

like, man, I don't know, like that. Like, I'm

1:01:59

just trying to secure the back. I just got a post about

1:02:01

it. And so don't always don't

1:02:03

think that because an influencer

1:02:06

or an athlete is posting about something that

1:02:08

they actually believe in it. So

1:02:10

anyways, it is very

1:02:12

crazy. This is inside industry stuff and

1:02:15

we don't have sponsors, but we even say anything. Yeah.

1:02:18

But there are people who, like Ivy

1:02:20

said, they might be sponsored by all these

1:02:22

things and they don't actually use them. They

1:02:24

only say that they use them. And I

1:02:26

know that's like the trust and stuff. And I mean,

1:02:29

I'm on tick. So I said, I didn't watch TV anymore. TikTok

1:02:31

still there. And I bought

1:02:34

one thing from the TikTok shop and now

1:02:36

TikTok, like 75% of my stuff is from TikTok

1:02:38

shop and all those influencers are like, this

1:02:40

is my favorite, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like,

1:02:43

they just want to sell stuff. And sometimes what

1:02:46

happens is you trust somebody for so long

1:02:48

for years and then they get the ability to sell

1:02:50

you stuff. And then they, I mean, we're selling train of road, but

1:02:53

it's, this is, we've been consistent the whole

1:02:55

time on this. And then it's

1:02:57

just whatever is available for them, right? Whatever company

1:02:59

approaches them, whatever companies in the TikTok shop, whatever

1:03:02

they can get paid the most. And they'll, they use that

1:03:04

currency that they built up on genuine

1:03:07

recommendations over time. And nutrition might

1:03:09

be the trickiest one too, particularly when you're

1:03:11

talking about athletes, because you don't have

1:03:13

to

1:03:13

see them taking it. They can take in whatever they

1:03:15

want and say, you don't know what they do every

1:03:17

morning in the morning routine, that sort of stuff. I've had this

1:03:19

same question. I think I've had an athletic

1:03:21

green subscription in my cart, like 40 times probably

1:03:24

over the past, I don't even know how many years and I never

1:03:27

do it. It's like a hundred, it's a hundred bucks a month. And that's,

1:03:29

that's a not small amount of money. And

1:03:31

I think that they capitalize on this guilt that

1:03:33

all of us have that isn't totally founded. Every

1:03:36

one of us probably feels like I could be eating better

1:03:38

because it's probably true to some extent,

1:03:41

but could we, are we missing something that

1:03:43

this drink will give us that will give us

1:03:45

an end? That will be the thing that

1:03:48

improves our health or improves our performance.

1:03:50

And that's the question. So I went

1:03:53

because of this, Shelley, you finally prompted me to

1:03:55

do a full deep dive and I went into every single

1:03:57

ingredient that exists within athletic

1:03:59

greens. And I reviewed every single one

1:04:01

of them and I tried to find situations

1:04:04

I've found studies and then I found which ones

1:04:06

are performance enhancing potentially and which ones were not

1:04:09

But before I say any of that, I just want to say

1:04:11

if your goal is general health a Green

1:04:13

supplement is not gonna hurt like it's not gonna

1:04:15

hurt It's going to be something that is likely going

1:04:18

to it might not be beneficial But it's probably

1:04:20

not gonna hurt for you to take in this sort of thing

1:04:22

with a whole bunch of different ingredients If your goal is just like

1:04:24

general health achieve a more well-rounded diet,

1:04:26

it'll probably do that But in terms of it making

1:04:29

us faster That's the lens that I took on this

1:04:31

and I went through it So something to keep in mind you'll

1:04:33

see on the nutritional facts or the supplemental

1:04:35

facts of this sort of thing You'll see like the breakdown

1:04:38

of all the different micro nutrients macro

1:04:40

nutrients that sort of thing And then you'll

1:04:42

also see the ingredient list now

1:04:45

proprietary blends are these things that

1:04:47

particularly in the supplement industry exist

1:04:50

and the companies Because of

1:04:52

privacy they don't and they're protected

1:04:54

by the FDA for this They don't have to

1:04:57

list how much of each individual

1:04:59

ingredient is within and within a proprietary

1:05:01

blend However, they do have to list which

1:05:03

ingredients are in that blend, but in terms

1:05:05

of their proportion you have no clue So

1:05:07

there are three main like things within

1:05:10

this they say an alkaline nutrient dense

1:05:12

raw superfood complex That's

1:05:14

the first thing and it composes the majority of

1:05:16

it 7.4 grams out of each serving

1:05:19

Then there's a nutrient dense extracts

1:05:21

herbs and antioxidants and that

1:05:24

composes 2.7 grams of a

1:05:26

serving and then there's a digestive

1:05:28

enzyme and super mushroom complex, which

1:05:30

is very small It's only it's a fraction of a gram

1:05:33

and that one and then they have pro Probiotics

1:05:35

at the end so within that

1:05:38

there are a lot of different ingredients in

1:05:40

that first group of the raw superfood complex

1:05:42

There's 25 ingredients I could only find

1:05:45

studies that potentially show performance improvement

1:05:47

for 17 of these first for seven

1:05:49

of these Sorry out of all of those So

1:05:52

we're gonna cover that and then in the next groups,

1:05:54

there's even less but I want you to focus

1:05:56

on one really important thing 7.4 grams

1:06:00

is in each serving

1:06:03

this

1:06:03

dense raw superfood complex is only 7.4

1:06:06

grams and most of

1:06:08

these things if you're trying to get performance improvement

1:06:10

require way more than 7.4 grams

1:06:13

but it's split up in between 25 ingredients.

1:06:17

Now that doesn't mean that they're equally split up so

1:06:19

that every one of them is an equal portion it actually

1:06:21

likely is the fact that there's one

1:06:23

or two that are almost all of it and then the rest

1:06:25

are probably like a really small portion of that but

1:06:28

just the same keep that in mind. They have

1:06:30

spirulina that makes things green and I'll

1:06:33

link to all the studies on this that makes things really

1:06:35

green it's like a really good for making a green powder

1:06:37

look even extra more green

1:06:38

and it could theoretically

1:06:41

be an antioxidant

1:06:41

that could support performance but

1:06:44

you would need eight to ten grams to get to the point

1:06:46

where that would be measurable and that's more than this 7.4 grams

1:06:49

that's probably not going to improve your performance

1:06:51

and there's studies to back that up I'll share it. Inulin

1:06:54

that's a prebiotic again

1:06:56

you would need five to fifteen grams

1:06:58

of this to see some sort of potential improvement

1:07:00

but the studies are mixed. Beetroot powder

1:07:03

nowhere near enough beetroot powder to get the sort of benefits

1:07:05

that you would want there if you take a beetroot supplement

1:07:08

like prescribed alt red or anything

1:07:10

like that if you're taking that's going to be like 10-15

1:07:13

times the sort of dosage that could potentially

1:07:15

exist but likely doesn't exist within

1:07:17

this so beetroot powder isn't gonna be there. Cocoa

1:07:20

bean polyphenol extracts this

1:07:22

one would theoretically also be like an antioxidant

1:07:25

that would help with inflammation but

1:07:27

it shows that in studies it doesn't improve

1:07:29

exercise performance so that one's not the case.

1:07:32

Great seed extract same thing they

1:07:34

haven't even shown in performance improvement with

1:07:36

eight grams a day which this one has far

1:07:39

less than that I would assume at this point. Green

1:07:41

tea that's another one that it's likely

1:07:43

not going to show performance improvement studies haven't shown

1:07:46

performance improvement with it and then

1:07:48

ginger rhizome powder which is supposed to be like a

1:07:50

painkiller an anti-inflammatory no performance

1:07:53

improvement has been shown with studies with this either when

1:07:55

you look at meta-analyses.

1:07:56

Like you're saying how much ginger

1:07:59

could be point

1:07:59

Yeah, yeah, could be 0.0000 who

1:08:03

knows how much within this or could be seven

1:08:05

grams They could be the whole thing We don't know but

1:08:07

that's the proprietary blend But in short with

1:08:09

those ones and then if you look at the herbs and antioxidants

1:08:12

same story None of them adds up to something

1:08:14

that would actually improve your performance on the

1:08:16

bike Even when you get into the mushroom

1:08:19

complex There's no performance benefits found

1:08:21

for any of the ingredients within that and then the

1:08:23

prebiotics. This is a really interesting one so

1:08:25

they say that they have seven point two billion CFU

1:08:28

which is like the measurement that they use for probiotics

1:08:30

and In studies

1:08:33

they haven't shown Performance improvement

1:08:35

for this even when people are taking up to ten billion

1:08:38

CFUs and here's the trickiest part

1:08:40

with probiotics Like we always

1:08:42

we hear this like we need to have a healthy gut Microbiotic

1:08:45

and that's the thing that we're all going for and probiotics

1:08:47

can do that but what

1:08:50

you're trying to do there is your Everybody's

1:08:52

gut is so entirely different that

1:08:54

just taking a probiotic does not guarantee

1:08:57

that it will improve it's a very complex

1:09:00

thing and Trying to influence

1:09:02

it in specific ways to improve it We

1:09:04

simply don't know how to improve it best

1:09:06

the one thing that does show that it has a more

1:09:09

consistent across the board Benefit than taking

1:09:11

any sort of probiotic is fiber as

1:09:14

a prebiotic effectively and when you're taking

1:09:17

a lot of fiber And when you

1:09:19

take in a lot of fiber that does have a much more

1:09:21

consistent positive effect on

1:09:23

the gut microbiome now All

1:09:25

that said if you were to eat all of these things

1:09:27

in whole foods You'd be getting a whole lot more fiber and it

1:09:29

would likely help you more with this sort of prebiotic

1:09:32

and probiotic effect that you're trying To go for

1:09:35

so I need a link to all these studies I think

1:09:37

it's important to show due diligence for this sort

1:09:39

of stuff when you're going through Went through

1:09:41

a ton of them I'll link them down below But my

1:09:44

assessment from the current body of research

1:09:46

and a lot of these studies even some of these studies three

1:09:48

of them have come Up this week. So it's like recent

1:09:50

research and it's meta analyses and systematic

1:09:52

reviews almost all of them that I'm linking to here It's

1:09:56

not conclusive that any of this stuff will improve

1:09:58

performance on the bike. But if your goal

1:09:59

as just general health, it seems like it. Nate,

1:10:02

you take like a, I've seen like you, you've

1:10:04

had like a cereal bowl of, of

1:10:06

vitamins that you've taken in the morning at different

1:10:08

times. You still do that. And do you take a

1:10:10

green supplement like this? I've done green supplements,

1:10:13

but I didn't notice any difference. And the

1:10:15

supplements that I take from sports performance are none

1:10:17

of these. And I, I've changed

1:10:19

a little bit to be more just vitamin

1:10:21

D magnesium. And I

1:10:25

think that's in some maybe sisterly. Creatine?

1:10:28

Creatine is proven to make you faster. Boom. Right

1:10:31

there. Protein. Stronger.

1:10:34

But the brain function, the cognitive benefits of creatine too, especially

1:10:36

with like concussions is what I've liked too.

1:10:39

And this is, I was going to do a video about this, but somebody

1:10:42

used like mid volume train road

1:10:44

plan and took an hour off the race time. Wouldn't

1:10:46

it be nice if like you could take out that a greens and take an hour

1:10:49

off a long race, like your

1:10:51

performance. And

1:10:53

what we're talking about here is that people take these and

1:10:55

I bet you

1:10:58

you don't notice any change in your FTP,

1:11:01

the ones that do make a change consistency

1:11:03

and you get consistently through sleeping

1:11:06

enough and eating carbs. And

1:11:08

then the rest of this stuff is when your carbs, if

1:11:10

you can have them wrapped in fiber,

1:11:14

which is going to be like vegetables, fruit,

1:11:16

whole grains. Then you get what John said with the fiber

1:11:18

thing. And then when you're on the bike, you eat simple

1:11:20

carbs and then you get enough protein

1:11:23

and maybe 1.8 to 2.2

1:11:25

grams per kilogram of body weight. Somewhere

1:11:28

there are 2.2 is probably a little bit high for cyclists, but 1.8 and you're pretty

1:11:32

set. And then just don't overdo it. If you have

1:11:34

a, you can still eat, you still should

1:11:36

eat fat, but if you want to maintain

1:11:39

your total caloric intake for the day, don't

1:11:43

have more fat, grams of fat than carbs or protein,

1:11:45

because that's going to be really hard to then keep it

1:11:47

down. And that'd be a lot of fat, right? That's, but

1:11:49

in American diet, you can do that going to McDonald's

1:11:51

and KFC and that sort of thing, if that's where you get it. But

1:11:53

if you're getting it from whole foods, your

1:11:56

carbs, it's going to be really hard then to, to

1:11:58

beat that. That's, that's pretty much. much like

1:12:00

the secret recipe of the train road. That's the secret recipe

1:12:02

for getting faster. And then some of these other things, I know

1:12:06

I'm very much into the, I'm

1:12:08

going to pay by avenge to

1:12:10

get the save that like 25 seconds on a 40 K T

1:12:12

T. So

1:12:15

I can feel the want to buy these things and

1:12:17

just hope that they work. But I mean,

1:12:19

even the B-root powder too, like the time when you take it

1:12:21

and all this stuff, I just, I

1:12:23

bet if they call it, they didn't call it athletic greens.

1:12:25

We wouldn't even be talking about it. Yeah.

1:12:27

Good

1:12:29

marketing. I can understand the appeal of how

1:12:32

convenient this sounds to just get

1:12:34

all of your, or

1:12:36

so many nutritional needs from this

1:12:39

like little powder and you just have to have, I didn't get

1:12:41

it. Like when will it relent?

1:12:43

All we have to like all day, every day, I was like,

1:12:45

what, how was what we're going

1:12:48

to eat next and how to prepare it. Yeah. And

1:12:50

prison, I get it. But I just feel like

1:12:53

this doesn't feel like

1:12:56

a,

1:12:56

even when John, you're

1:12:58

framing it as if you want to do something like this for

1:13:01

overall health benefits, it's still to me from

1:13:03

what these studies that you're showing and

1:13:05

from our unknowns of how much of

1:13:08

any of this is in one serving. It doesn't

1:13:10

even feel in that regard, like a guaranteed

1:13:13

or sure bet way to make sure that

1:13:15

you're getting these just general baseline

1:13:17

health benefits

1:13:18

versus just eating food. Yeah.

1:13:22

There's alkaline pea protein powder in this

1:13:24

one, which by the way, there was just a study published this week

1:13:27

that looked at athletes and it dose them. I'll link

1:13:29

to this study too. It does them with the same diet,

1:13:31

same everything, same exercise regimen. The

1:13:33

only difference was one group got pea protein,

1:13:36

one group got a whey protein, and then they

1:13:38

switched them. And so it was a double, and

1:13:40

it was a double-blinded study too. What they did is really

1:13:42

good solid study. And they found no

1:13:44

difference in terms of like hypertrophy

1:13:46

and everything else in different markers that they were testing

1:13:48

with pea protein and whey proteins. That's pretty cool. I

1:13:51

got my hopes up when I saw that it was in here, but

1:13:54

the pea protein is part of their nutrient

1:13:56

dense extract, herbs, and antioxidant

1:13:58

blend, and that's all. only 2.7 grams.

1:14:02

And in order to take enough P protein to

1:14:04

get the sort of benefit that you would want, you want to be taking

1:14:06

in like 2.2 grams per kilogram of body

1:14:08

weight. So for me at 68 kilograms,

1:14:11

that's only 1.8% of the protein

1:14:13

that I would need in order to accomplish that sort of goal.

1:14:16

So total daily protein, total

1:14:19

daily protein. But if you're getting it from a recovery

1:14:21

drink or anything else like that, you'd want a lot of

1:14:23

more protein then

1:14:25

let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say 2.6 grams.

1:14:28

So it leaves 0.1 gram, but 2.6

1:14:32

grams still isn't going to move the needle beneficially

1:14:34

for what I need. When you've taken protein,

1:14:36

it's for the hot cheese. I'm going to mess this up.

1:14:39

It's not the insulin response. Maybe it is. I forget.

1:14:41

But in order to get the right response to your body, you want to

1:14:43

have at least 20 grams in a bolus

1:14:45

of protein. And that will work

1:14:47

better than if you do like these, like two, three grams

1:14:50

throughout the day and meals.

1:14:52

So if you can, if you're going to have at least 20 grams

1:14:54

per meal in the space that out during the day, you

1:14:57

don't have to be that way, but there's a better response.

1:14:59

Total protein takes the day trumps that then

1:15:02

to space it out. But yeah, at least 20, let's

1:15:04

say we're at 2025. I think around

1:15:08

there. Yeah.

1:15:10

It almost takes away the convenience factor

1:15:12

for me to have to consider what you've

1:15:14

just considered of

1:15:15

how many grams are actually in and how, how many

1:15:17

I would need, especially Nate in one serving

1:15:20

or at one time

1:15:21

in order to get a benefit, like it almost takes away the convenience

1:15:23

part of having

1:15:24

something like this. It's immediately available.

1:15:27

Yeah. I'm such a killjoy today

1:15:30

and about this. I'm so sorry, but I just run

1:15:32

from stuff like this. It feels like snake oil.

1:15:34

Yeah, for sure. 6.3. It's

1:15:36

like a 6.3 times

1:15:39

the cost of a train of roads description, an annual

1:15:41

one. And this one won't even make you faster. Yeah.

1:15:44

Science doesn't back up. It'll make you faster. I don't know.

1:15:46

I wouldn't do it. This, this helped me. Thank you very

1:15:48

much for asking this question because it's helped me satisfy

1:15:50

that curiosity. I'm no longer going back to that cart

1:15:53

and like sitting there and waiting and thinking to do it. So

1:15:56

super helpful science wins again. McDonald's

1:15:59

question says, good afternoon. I'm a very happy trainer

1:16:01

road user and a very average triathlete. We

1:16:03

like you McDonald's. You're not average. You're great I

1:16:06

love the band. Sure. I would it's like top

1:16:08

point zero one percent of the world

1:16:10

for perfect. Yeah Good

1:16:13

for you. I'm even higher. Yeah

1:16:15

Yeah, McDonald's says love the banter and working

1:16:17

my way through the back catalog even though I have a coach I

1:16:19

hang on to my subscription because I have big cycling

1:16:21

goals. I live and train in the Cayman Islands Oh

1:16:24

pretty cool, which is pancake flat obviously

1:16:26

and has 70 miles of beautiful and

1:16:28

but dangerous riding I'm new to cycling and traveling

1:16:31

to Jamaica for a hundred and sixty miles

1:16:33

semi competitive grand fondo in mid-october with

1:16:36

2500 feet of climbing called ride your bike, Jamaica

1:16:39

The roads are reportedly awful. So I went out and bought 28

1:16:41

millimeter gator skins as a knee jerk

1:16:44

reaction My aim is one

1:16:46

to finish two to enjoy three be

1:16:48

mid packs for the final push to the end So

1:16:51

my question is and I've googled endlessly to

1:16:53

find answers But would love to hear your take am

1:16:55

I going to be desperately unhappy on gator skins?

1:16:58

I usually ride Pirelli race or GP

1:17:00

5000s and I've been too cautious with

1:17:02

these gator skins Thanks

1:17:04

in advance I

1:17:07

regret Like just to this

1:17:10

person right here.

1:17:10

Do you remember the last time you tried to get the?

1:17:14

Gator skin like the bead over the rim

1:17:18

I think I snapped four tire levers. I just

1:17:21

it's rough. It means all

1:17:24

goals are to

1:17:26

finish and enjoy the ride

1:17:29

and be mid-pack ish I

1:17:31

think that you should be focusing

1:17:33

on things that you can control

1:17:36

to try to prevent punctures and

1:17:38

flats and while

1:17:41

the gator skins have this reputation for being

1:17:44

impervious to punctures

1:17:47

and bad roads conditions and that you're less likely to

1:17:50

Flat I feel like once you

1:17:52

do flat You're gonna spend so

1:17:54

much time trying to put another tube in and might

1:17:56

just puncture or pinch again And

1:17:59

I know that these are not like carnals

1:18:01

does not make too loose gator skins these are for sure

1:18:03

just standard clinchers am I right about yeah

1:18:05

they're just yeah they're just clinchers they

1:18:07

don't make them and I don't know

1:18:09

if it would sell very well sure

1:18:12

yeah. Causinals, you can

1:18:14

compress man. That's

1:18:17

a good point

1:18:17

though Ivy is that look if the roads have

1:18:20

a ton of sharp things on them gator skins

1:18:22

are probably gonna help a lot if the roads have

1:18:24

a lot of potholes are you gonna pinch flat this

1:18:26

is not gonna help like gator skins are not

1:18:28

going to help against your pinch flats the

1:18:30

pinch flats that would happen the way to go

1:18:32

against that is a lot more expensive that's going

1:18:35

to a tubeless wheelset running a tubeless tire

1:18:38

and then possibly even running inserts that

1:18:40

would be a really good combo if the roads

1:18:42

are rough with potholes and the sort of thing

1:18:44

that are gonna give you pinch flats but if it is just

1:18:46

like sharp thorns all over the place yes gator

1:18:48

skins will help with that but I

1:18:51

ran this course through best bike split for

1:18:53

me and it said that I would do it roughly around seven

1:18:55

hours and then I looked up

1:18:57

on bicycle rolling resistance which I have my doubts

1:19:00

about the accuracy of this in terms of real world conditions

1:19:02

but just the same bicycle rolling resistance

1:19:05

says that compared and this isn't 25 so

1:19:07

your 28 is gonna have a bit less drag

1:19:10

than this but just the same for 25

1:19:12

if you compare gator skins to GP 5000 is an

1:19:15

additional 20 watts of drag 10 watts

1:19:17

per tire that you're gonna have to deal with if

1:19:19

you run that through best bikes but that would mean that it would

1:19:22

add on an additional roughly 30 minutes

1:19:24

to that course so out of seven hours

1:19:26

just having those tires on would make me 30 minutes

1:19:28

slower that's a huge chunk of time that's

1:19:31

like a lot so your goal

1:19:33

is going back to them my aim is number one to finish

1:19:35

I'm not sure the gator skins will help

1:19:37

you against pinch flats and I would assume that's

1:19:40

the problem if the roads are bad so I don't

1:19:43

know if they'll help with that number two enjoy

1:19:45

it's gonna make you be out there for 30

1:19:47

minutes extra and that will make

1:19:49

it less enjoyable I would assume and then

1:19:51

three big big be mid-pack for the final push to the

1:19:53

end if you're 30 minutes behind I don't know it

1:19:56

might push you further away from that but

1:19:58

the only thing I'm thinking of is Scared I've

1:20:00

been when I've ridden gator skins before I've ridden

1:20:02

them before and they felt terrible Like

1:20:05

I I felt like they were slippery

1:20:07

and like hard rubber and I had no clue and

1:20:09

they I don't used to ride them I remember it didn't you?

1:20:11

Yeah, I would have been some of the top

1:20:13

ten

1:20:14

Like some

1:20:16

of my only what the heck just happened How

1:20:18

did I just crash randomly for no reason some

1:20:21

of my only crashes like that have been on caterer skins?

1:20:24

Yeah, so I would do Gp 5000

1:20:27

to the tubeless you can do

1:20:29

tubeless if you haven't upgraded a tubeless

1:20:33

There are reasons not to do it, but yeah Second

1:20:36

you in the Cayman Islands and what happens is in places

1:20:39

that are don't have freezing So

1:20:41

the roads so what happens when it were in a freezes, you know water

1:20:44

gets into cracks it freezes expands and you get these

1:20:46

huge potholes and Cayman

1:20:48

Islands I've been there They

1:20:50

don't have freezing right like it's just amazing

1:20:53

smooth and probably great roads I just look at

1:20:55

some YouTube videos of ride your bike Jamaica and relative

1:20:58

to the Caymans it is Still

1:21:02

pretty good, but relative to Northern California,

1:21:04

this would be a dream to ride on it looks like like

1:21:06

I When

1:21:09

South Africa like those roads were amazing like Jamaica,

1:21:12

it's not freezing either or snowing It

1:21:15

looks really nice and you look at some

1:21:17

of our race analysis in Northern, California Like

1:21:19

I'm thinking that one what's the bridge

1:21:21

I forget But there's a video where there's a bridge and just have 12

1:21:25

Water bottles all around because you just get ejected

1:21:29

Look on here and look at more of the YouTube

1:21:32

videos from people's races to see if there really are some potholes

1:21:34

and there's some like greats and not greats But things they

1:21:36

put in the road the the covers and

1:21:38

you got to watch out for those but like regular tires

1:21:40

Over those just fine. I Would totally

1:21:43

do the GPL 5000 TL's they have

1:21:45

good flat protection. They have a good balance of rolling resistance

1:21:47

They corner pretty well You're probably not gonna be railing

1:21:49

corners too much to on this but they're great

1:21:51

tires save 20 watts. That's

1:21:54

insane That's insane Yeah,

1:21:58

so when somebody says it's bad roads, it might be relative

1:22:00

to what you're used to, but I want to send

1:22:02

it to you guys and just look at this thing. It looks like

1:22:05

I would love it if Reno was like this. Yeah.

1:22:09

Yeah. Our roads are not that great. Yeah. That's what

1:22:11

I would say. Go back to your GP five thousands does

1:22:13

it. You're using before. And if you can switch over to tubeless

1:22:15

boom, that's going to help a ton. If

1:22:17

you're going to get inserts, Vittoria has some inserts

1:22:20

that you can use in road tires that look fantastic. I haven't

1:22:22

tried them, but they look great and they wouldn't make

1:22:24

it harder to change your tire necessarily either,

1:22:26

which is really cool. So that's what I would recommend

1:22:28

doing. I just sent it to both of you guys. You just check for a second.

1:22:31

Yeah. For sure. Uh, maybe

1:22:33

we can edit this part out or we can just talk,

1:22:35

but I look at that pictures too, I don't

1:22:38

see a, what you got to do is you can't look

1:22:40

at the race providers pictures, right? You gotta look at,

1:22:43

uh, like camera footage from people's GoPros. Yeah.

1:22:45

To see what it's really like. There are multi

1:22:48

hour YouTube videos of like roads

1:22:50

around here and you can see. What

1:22:52

it's going to look like.

1:22:54

And they're pulling it up. I'm just scanning

1:22:56

through and it looks

1:22:59

really good.

1:23:00

It's in an urban area though. So maybe when you get

1:23:02

into like rural areas, it's rougher, but yeah,

1:23:06

I'm looking at another video and it's still good to this. Yeah.

1:23:09

Yeah. Ride your bike, Jamaica organizers.

1:23:11

We want to go. Uh, that looks amazing.

1:23:14

Yeah. So that's what I would say. Consider

1:23:16

those GP five thousands again. I see another

1:23:19

video with a couple like stuff, but it's not,

1:23:22

it's still not the level of, of Northern California

1:23:24

and Northern California. I would, I don't do the bitorias

1:23:26

that are like super fast. I would do GPO five thousand TL's

1:23:29

and that into you can be able

1:23:31

to change them later if you get a flat and put a tube

1:23:34

in that that's the way to go. Yeah. Yep.

1:23:37

And with that too, if you, if it's

1:23:39

thorns and you're worried about that thing, going to two lists

1:23:41

is going to help you. It's so much

1:23:43

more than going to a Gator skin. Two lists is amazing

1:23:45

with thorns. All right. Last question from James. This one's going

1:23:47

to be pretty quick. It says I have a question about how to

1:23:49

handle pre-race nerves the night before a race. I recently

1:23:52

did my first Olympic distance triathlon the

1:23:54

night before the race. I barely slept. My mind was

1:23:56

just going and I couldn't turn it off. Given

1:23:58

what we all know about sleep and. how it's beneficial.

1:24:00

I can't help but think this inhibited my performance.

1:24:03

I definitely felt it during the race and I definitely feel

1:24:05

I could have gone faster. What are your recommendations

1:24:08

for reducing these pre-race nerves to help get

1:24:10

a good night's sleep the night before a big race? Thanks

1:24:12

for your help from James. I

1:24:14

threw this one in. Ivy, you just had your first

1:24:17

UCI races. You had your first one, then this

1:24:19

weekend another one. Do you struggle with this? Not

1:24:22

anymore because I don't

1:24:24

lay awake thinking of every mistake I've ever

1:24:26

made anymore. So that's cool. Good

1:24:29

for you, Ivy. Yeah,

1:24:32

this is tricky. I feel like folks

1:24:34

that, and I used to be this person too, that

1:24:36

would just lie awake and stress out about

1:24:39

all of these possible outcomes and probable

1:24:42

expectations I should have and if it's

1:24:44

realistic and what if this happens and

1:24:46

did I do enough? What were my competitors doing

1:24:48

to prepare? Did I do enough to prepare? I

1:24:50

feel like I stopped doing

1:24:52

this and really found a lot of peace

1:24:55

and ease in believing

1:24:58

that I did everything I could. Whether

1:25:00

it was enough or not to be competitive

1:25:03

or not, I did what I could with what

1:25:06

I had and now I'm here and there's nothing

1:25:08

more

1:25:08

I can control or change

1:25:11

right now other

1:25:12

than going to sleep and

1:25:14

getting rest and making sure I'm squared

1:25:16

away in the morning. So I think letting go of a lot of

1:25:18

those

1:25:19

unknowns about how I can turn

1:25:21

out and did I do enough and all that stuff,

1:25:23

just understanding and

1:25:25

reconciling with I can't change anything

1:25:28

now has really helped me. Plus

1:25:30

CBD.

1:25:33

Yeah.

1:25:34

Nate, you've been a big sleep optimizer

1:25:36

in the past.

1:25:37

I'm a big nervous person too. James,

1:25:40

first anything,

1:25:42

this is going to happen. It happens when most

1:25:45

people, Ivy's obviously experienced so when

1:25:47

she does those high class race, how many high class race have

1:25:49

you done? Ivy.

1:25:51

Oh my God. No, I don't know

1:25:53

a lot. Over 12?

1:25:56

More than 12. More than 10.

1:25:59

So lots and lots of

1:26:02

races. But I used to worry

1:26:04

about this too. And I actually alluded to

1:26:06

it earlier on in the podcast about sleep

1:26:08

the night before versus how many days,

1:26:11

does that really impact that next day or

1:26:13

does it days past that? And

1:26:15

I remember watching an interview with

1:26:17

Chrissy Wellington, and it

1:26:19

was after she had won Iron

1:26:22

Man World Championships. And she's probably one of the most dominant

1:26:25

in the history of the world.

1:26:28

And she told the race, the

1:26:30

interviewer by Bob Abbott or something, she says, I

1:26:32

didn't sleep at all before this race. I

1:26:34

was so nervous. She was every time a world champions,

1:26:37

I try to sleep. Like I don't sleep a

1:26:39

single bit. I am so nervous and so scared. But

1:26:41

as soon as the gun goes off, then I feel good. And

1:26:44

I was like, Oh,

1:26:45

if she can do it, I can do it. And I'm

1:26:47

sure she rests later. But

1:26:49

considering the length of that race so

1:26:51

hard compared to most races, we do that

1:26:54

I don't, until you have a taper coming in, you're not doing

1:26:56

a hard workout the day before. The idea

1:26:58

is you can get past that one. I'm sure if you did this three or

1:27:00

four days in a row, it'd be hard. But I wouldn't

1:27:02

sweat a chance and just be like, if the world champ does

1:27:05

this and a lot of people do it, I've heard it too with Olympians

1:27:07

and stuff, because it's, they only get a shot

1:27:09

every four years. How nervous can you be

1:27:11

doing those things? Even if it's your sport that you do all

1:27:13

the time, Olympics are a different level. I

1:27:15

would just, you're with good company.

1:27:17

They're all doing it. Just get as much as you can and

1:27:20

visualize success. So inside of these

1:27:22

things, instead of visualizing the worst that could

1:27:24

happen, think about going through your,

1:27:27

your transitions. What am I going to do in what order?

1:27:29

What kind of thing you can do meditation during the day.

1:27:31

That'll help too. Deep breathing. We just did one at training

1:27:33

road. It was pretty cool. Some breathing exercises. You

1:27:35

don't want to meditate right before bed. Cause I can do some stuff that will

1:27:37

make it actually stay up later. And

1:27:39

I wouldn't do any like Benadryl or therapy.

1:27:41

Yeah. I wouldn't do any Benadryl or stuff like that too, the

1:27:44

night before, because that the hangover of doing that

1:27:46

can be, I'd be worried about performance

1:27:48

hitting the other side. But yeah, there's studies

1:27:50

about that specifically about Benadryl

1:27:52

being like a performance inhibitor. I think directly.

1:27:55

Correct.

1:27:55

Yeah. Histamines do that for

1:27:57

me to feel what Ivy feels that I've done all that.

1:28:00

can and I'm set there. It's more about

1:28:02

just being prepared. So I

1:28:04

have to know when I'm gonna wake

1:28:06

up already, know when I'm gonna eat my breakfast,

1:28:09

know when I'm gonna get to the race, and I write all

1:28:11

that down. I write my schedule down beforehand

1:28:14

and then I make sure that I have everything packed

1:28:16

beforehand. It's all those little things that

1:28:18

might cause me to feel rushed or nervous or scared

1:28:20

or something or frustrated in the morning. I take care

1:28:22

of those beforehand and just taking

1:28:25

care of those little details really helps me personally

1:28:27

sleep better. The other thing is I try

1:28:29

to anticipate my sleep schedule coming in to the

1:28:31

race. If I'm gonna have to go to bed earlier than normal,

1:28:34

then I start doing that a week before, getting

1:28:36

as close as I can to it because then it

1:28:38

makes it a lot easier to not and suddenly just,

1:28:40

oh race night I have to completely change up

1:28:42

my routine and go to bed way earlier.

1:28:44

That makes it really tough. Then you find yourself

1:28:47

sitting there and if you're by your phone you end up scrolling on

1:28:49

your phone and staying up extra late or something. Modify

1:28:51

your routine beforehand and that can really help with

1:28:53

it. There's a ton of different sleep

1:28:55

hacks. We were just talking about athletic greens. There's a lot

1:28:58

of different things that you can do to spend a lot of money

1:29:00

on sleep stuff that will promise to improve your

1:29:02

sleep. Honestly, if you're

1:29:04

just trying to get close to

1:29:06

eight hours and then if you're making

1:29:09

sure that you have a consistent routine beforehand, it's

1:29:11

gonna help a ton. If that doesn't have to change

1:29:13

for race day, boom, that's great. Then

1:29:16

you're really in a good spot because then

1:29:18

it's just your normal routine. If you can go

1:29:20

into your race feeling like it's a normal day, that just puts

1:29:22

you way, way far ahead on things.

1:29:25

James, trust in the work that you've done. Control

1:29:28

what you can control. That's within

1:29:30

your means to control and chill out. It's

1:29:33

fine. It's the being anxious

1:29:35

or anxiety is worrying about the unknown,

1:29:37

what's gonna happen. What John just said is

1:29:40

laying things out so there's a system to walk through.

1:29:42

It removes variables of unknown. These

1:29:44

two people, I would always try to

1:29:46

find people who get scared about the swim. Am

1:29:49

I gonna finish? Am I gonna make this

1:29:51

mistake or something like that? Am I not gonna eat or drink?

1:29:53

Gonna drown. Yeah, yeah. For

1:29:55

some of us. Yeah, and so the more

1:29:58

you can prepare, you can identify. what

1:30:00

these are and prepare yourself that these aren't

1:30:02

going to be an issue. It really helped. I've had so many,

1:30:04

some recurring nightmare for me is

1:30:06

I get to T1 and my tires not

1:30:09

pumped up or there's like, my

1:30:11

bike is not put together for some reason and

1:30:13

I have to do it as everyone else goes. Like

1:30:16

I probably had the dream 10 times. It was crazy.

1:30:18

Yeah. So that before the, but was that

1:30:20

before the torquing your bolts scenario? My

1:30:22

body was trying to tell me like, you, my

1:30:25

subconscious was saying pay attention, but

1:30:27

I didn't listen. My tires were not so. Crazy.

1:30:30

Is the entire thing, even a thing that

1:30:32

happened or just like an hypothetical

1:30:34

that you're afraid of? Hypothetical.

1:30:36

Yeah.

1:30:37

Not a hypothetical. It was just something I don't, I'm not afraid

1:30:39

of it. Like with my conscious mind, but my subconscious

1:30:42

was like

1:30:43

the idea of getting there and something not be ready.

1:30:46

I think that when you race more and more, you become

1:30:48

more aware of those subconscious fears that exist

1:30:50

and you find ways to be able to engineer against them

1:30:52

so then you can put that at ease better and better.

1:30:55

Cool. Thanks a bunch for submitting your questions. You can do that at

1:30:57

train road.com slash podcast. And if you're listening to this podcast

1:30:59

and you want to get faster, we've covered a bunch of different ways

1:31:01

to do it. Best way is to go sign

1:31:03

up for train road. Go use plan builder,

1:31:05

build out your whole season of training for

1:31:08

whatever goals you have, and that's the

1:31:10

way to do it. If you like this podcast, the best

1:31:12

way to do it is to share our best way to share appreciation

1:31:14

is to share it with your friends, review it on any

1:31:16

podcast app that you're using and on YouTube,

1:31:19

you should go there, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Give us a thumbs

1:31:21

up. Go on Instagram. Find us go on tech

1:31:23

talk. You'll see fantastic content from

1:31:25

Sarah, Ivy and myself. We're always trying

1:31:28

to find different ways to help you get faster.

1:31:30

You can get all that stuff there, but we appreciate you all talk

1:31:33

to you next time. Thanks.

1:31:34

Bye bye.