Speaker 1: 0:00

So you're thinking about running but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's Rombod, Welcome back to the podcast, and it's me, Brian Patterson, to give you an insight into all things running. Well, on the second part of my interview with Dr Geoffrey Sankoff, he gives us some great tips on those runners looking to transition into triathlon. Now, in the first part of this interview, he explains about the fourth discipline of the triathlon the transition. He says even if you're not going for a quick time, you can still gain seconds, if not minutes, on your overall time if you can get this part of the triathlon right. So, anyway, have a listen and I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did. So, moving on, you've kind of got the well we can run so we're runners, and then?

Speaker 1: 1:15

we've done the swimming, would you say, and we've done the cycling, would you say. The next important thing to get right is that transition between either from the swimming to the bike or from the bike to the run. So what would you advise in getting that?

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yeah, absolutely. The transitions are the fourth discipline in triathlon and I think that too many people go into triathlon without spending enough time practicing them and only recognizing after the fact that, hey, I lost a lot of time there and that is potentially free time. And you know, we've talked about swimming and we've talked about how steep a learning curve it is, and I have athletes that I coach who are endlessly frustrated with the fact that, oh, I spend so many hours a week in the pool and I can only get about five or 10 seconds faster after several months. And then I'll talk to them and I'll say, well, how many times did you practice transition? And they'll say, well, I didn't really practice transition. And I said, yeah, but look at your transition. Your transition was like almost a minute slower than the person who is ahead of you.

Speaker 2: 2:22

If you had practiced your transitions, even five or six times, I bet you could have cut off 30 seconds off your transition and it would have cost you almost no effort to do so. So the changeover from swim to bike is called T1 or transition one, and the changeover from bike to run is T2. And the more that you practice both of those, the quicker you can become and the more that can affect your race. And even if you're not there to compete to win like there's no question, transitions can have a major outsized impact for people at the front of the pack and I have personally experienced where I have moved from fourth or third place all the way up to first by virtue of just a fast transition. But even for people in the middle or the back of the back, transitions can be very, very important because there are time cutoffs in these races and people will spend a lot of time just training to be able to make it through those cutoffs. But the transitions are included and if you don't work on making those transitions quick, then you can be cutting it too fine and you can end up in trouble.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So is there one transition more important than the other, or is it best to practice both of those?

Speaker 2: 3:36

Oh, they're both important. It's a little bit harder to practice T1 simply because it's hard to get your like. When I tell people to practice transition, what I want them to do is I want them to do a bike ride, I want them to finish their bike, get off their bike, be, have all their run gear right there, switch into the run gear and go. And that's really easy to do. You can do that at your house or wherever you live, because even if you're doing it in the gym, you know you can. You can hop off the spin bike and immediately switch into your running shoes and jump on the treadmill. So it's very easy to do T2.

Speaker 2: 4:07

T1 is a little bit harder because it's harder to bring your bike to the pool. It's harder to do all those things, but you could still practice it a little bit. I tell people put on your wetsuit. Dry wetsuit is not going to behave like a wet one, but it doesn't matter. At least you can get the hang of it. Set up your little transition area around your bike. Yeah, jump in the shower. Set up your transition area around your bike and then give yourself about 25, 50 meters. Run to your bike. Get your wetsuit off, put on your bike things and go for your bike ride repeatedly can sort of get your mind to understand the different steps that you need to take and kind of solidify places where you can find little things that you can do.

Speaker 1: 4:53

That can save you time and make it quicker so we've we've kind of started to get a really nice picture of you know that you know the types of different disciplines and we're starting to get an idea as to what we need to be doing. You know, for our first triathlon, what, what's the what's the kind of advice would you give to this to someone who is? You know, going to be maybe a little bit nervous. They're going to be doing their first triathlon. What's? What's the advice you'd give them?

Speaker 2: 5:23

So it's normal, Everybody's nervous doing their first triathlon especially with the swim and if you're doing a triathlon and it's an open water swim, there are a lot of ways to remove yourself from the fray. Because the things that people get worried about with the open water swim is anytime that there's a mass start, so anytime that you have a larger group of people all starting together. That's done less and less. These days. More and more swim starts are staged in a way that swimmers go off in small groups at a time so that it's easier, it's safer, it's easier for the people who are in the water monitoring the swim to see the swimmers, and so there's less of an issue. But there are still some triathlons that do age group starts, so you might have 20 or 30 people all starting in the water at once and that can be intimidating for somebody doing their first swim.

Speaker 2: 6:12

So if you're a new person doing your first triathlon and you're doing a race where there is going to be more of a large group start, one of the things that you can do to make yourself feel a little more at ease is just wait. Wait five or 10 seconds after the gun goes, let them get away, and then you start from the back and you swim in your own space at your own pace and that way you will not have the contact from other people and you don't have to worry about some of the things that makes people nervous about the open water swim. Another thing you can do is if you're a strong swimmer and you kind of want to compete in the swim but you don't want to be involved in all of the contact is just place yourself on the outside. So if the buoys are going to be on the right, then you put yourself all the way to the left and then you just aim yourself on an angle towards the furthest buoy and you will be able to swim competitively to get there. But you're going to have less contact because you're on the outside.

Speaker 2: 7:04

So that's one thing that people can do going to their first race. Another thing that people can do is just avoid some of the distractions. It's so easy to get overwhelmed by things like oh, look at all the cool equipment they have. I don't have anything like that. You could start self-doubting. You could say, oh, I didn't train hard enough for this, don't get sucked in.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Don't listen to other people telling you about how much they've done and all that jazz. You just go there confident in the fact that you're going to have a good time and remember the vast majority of people that show up at these events. That's what they're there for. They're not there to be at the pointy end of the field. They're there because they want to experience the multi-sport lifestyle, they want to embrace newcomers. So just chat with people in transition.

Speaker 2: 7:50

That was one of the first things I noticed as a huge difference between running events and triathlon events.

Speaker 2: 7:55

When I show up to running events you're standing in the start corral and there's sort of this nervous excitement amongst everybody, but there's not a whole lot of chatter amongst people who don't know each other, but mostly because a lot of people are wearing headphones. People are in their own sort of mind space getting ready for the event that's about to start and it's just not that kind of vibe. But in a triathlon you have this transition area where everybody's kind of setting things up, they're all chatting and it's a very, very social kind of gathering before the race starts. So as a new person who's there, you're going to have lots of people to talk to, lots of people to ask questions and it's going to make you feel at ease almost immediately. So there are a lot of things that, as a new triathlete on race morning, you can do to just enjoy yourself and enjoy the moment and celebrate the fact that you're there Because I always say that it's even looking at things like Instagram or whatever.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Then it's such a community feel. It's about completing the event. It's not about the competition, which is great. Like you said, they're welcoming newcomers and wishing people luck and that kind of thing, so I suppose, in a way, they're there to help you, would you agree?

Speaker 2: 9:19

Absolutely, and I don't want to make it seem like it's not a race. It is. I've been in this for a long time. I am there to try and win every time and I go there with a great deal of seriousness, but I still take the time to be social, to be warm and welcoming and to chat with people, because that, to me, is part of the enjoyment and is part of the whole experience the kind of nutrition side of it or partaking gels.

Speaker 1: 9:49

What sort of advice would you give there on the gel side and getting? I know, let's say, if you're looking at longer events you really do need the calories.

Speaker 2: 9:58

Yeah. So nutrition really becomes important once you get to Olympic distance and beyond. Anytime you're out there for more than an hour or so, you're going to deplete your glycogen and you're going to really need an external source of calories in order to keep pushing at the level. You need to keep pushing and as runners, we all know that. You know any event more than, I'd say, a 10K. You need to start taking some gels or you need to start taking something, and the thing about running is you kind of don't have a lot of options because you can't chew, you can't really be eating solid food. You kind of have to take gels or some kind of liquids that have calories in them and you're a little bit limited in how much you can take, because running and eating and taking calories just don't go together that well because of the bounciness of running.

Speaker 2: 10:43

But when you're on the bike, you actually have the option to eat solids, you have the option to take gels, you have the option to take all manner of different forms of food. I've seen people stuff peanut butter sandwiches into their little bike bags. I've seen people take eggs, potatoes, all kinds of different things depending on the kind of race they're in, and whatever works works. The point is you have to be taking in more than 250 calories per hour.

Speaker 2: 11:10

When I race in a half Ironman, I'm actually taking 400 calories an hour once I get on the bike, and I'm on the bike for about two and a half hours, so that turns into about a thousand calories. And then, once I get on the run, I'm taking calories in the form of gels at a rate of around two to 300 calories an hour. So you really and that's something that you practice, it's not something that you just decide one day and then do. It's something you have to train your body to be able to do, because it's not something your body will just accept right off the bat. And so everybody dials in their nutrition, over their training, so that when they show up at a race, they know what to do and how to get it.

Speaker 1: 11:50

I suppose everyone's different and I suppose it's like you said. If you do that as part of your training, you kind of know as to when you need or do you have to be quite disciplined that so many k, then you need to be taking stuff, taking food.

Speaker 2: 12:09

You have to be disciplined and people most people do it by time as opposed to kilometers because of course your speed can vary, so it can take different amounts of kilometers to or, sorry, different amounts of time to get to cover the kilometers.

Speaker 2: 12:22

So when I coach my athletes we have a very specific plan based on how many hours we anticipate it to take them for their race. But everybody I coach is doing in training what they're going to do in racing and they'll test different products in their long training, rides and runs and they'll find the product that works for them, that doesn't cause them any stomach issues, and then when they get to a race they just take what they've been training and they apply it in the race. And yeah, it's definitely something you have to experiment, you have to be disciplined about and I could tell you I've had athletes who were supremely well-trained for events and their events came undone because they did not execute the nutrition plan that they had done so well in their training. They just kind of let it fly during a race and it came to note all kinds of grief.

Speaker 1: 13:14

Is there any let's say, maybe you've done maybe two or three triathlons. Is there any sort of strategies one could adopt, like for instance oh, you know I take it easy on the swim sort of pace myself on the bike and then kind of you know, go hell or hell for leather on the run or something like that.

Speaker 2: 13:35

I don't know, are there?

Speaker 1: 13:36

any particular strategies that one could adopt.

Speaker 2: 13:39

Well, that's where a coach comes in, and that's where a coach can be really helpful is knowing what your strengths are and helping you leverage those for a good race plan. But in general, as long as you've trained effectively, you can go pretty hard on the swim, because you're not going to use your arms again for the rest of the race and you'll exit the water with if your fitness is good. Your heart rate's going to be a little bit elevated, but it should come down fairly quickly once you get on the bike. So the swim is the shortest part of the day and is the one where you can exert yourself pretty hard.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Once you get on the bike, though, that becomes a challenge, because, for example, I'm a very strong cyclist and the thing that took me quite a long time to learn was to be able to restrain myself on the bike, because how you bike dramatically influences how you run, and that's the, I would say one of the hardest part for new triathletes to learn is understanding how the relationship between bike and run goes, because too often you'll find people who are strong cyclists, like me, who just do not have the patience to hold something in reserve so that they're able to run. Sometimes you'll find runners who are just really, really strong runners and can't figure out why they're not running well, because they're over biked or because they just forget the fact that you listen. Running fresh versus running after biking is not the same thing.

Speaker 2: 15:05

So it's, it's a learning experience.

Speaker 1: 15:07

I mean, I've been doing this for 20 plus years and I continue to learn after every single race going from a bike, you know you're using different muscles, and then you're going straight into a run and then again you're using different. It's not the same thing, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 15:23

just like you said, and it, like you know, yeah, just highlights that transition is so important yeah, and that first mile of the run always feels so great because you've been biking and you're just so happy to be in a different position and using different muscles and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel wonderful.

Speaker 1: 15:42

But man, you hit that, the end of that first mile, and suddenly it all becomes real right, we're nearly coming to the end of the podcast but, as I said, I thought I'd do like a bit of a quick fire round. I did give you the questions prior to the podcast. Do you have a favorite song or playlist when you're training?

Speaker 2: 16:03

So I don't really have a playlist because I don't listen to music when I run. And the reason for that is because in tri band a band I'm sure you will not have heard of they're called the Tragically Hip. It's a Canadian band and they have a song called Ahead by a Century which I always enjoy listening to and running to. And your favorite athlete. So I'm not one of those people who really has an athlete that I kind of. I mean, when I was a kid I loved various hockey players, but at this point I would say that if I had a favorite athlete, it's going to be in the world of triathlon. It's going to be Lionel Sanders.

Speaker 2: 16:53

He's a Canadian professional who has a really good story. He was as a teenager he had been a cross country runner in high school and had a great success, but then in his late teens found himself falling into a world of drug abuse and was actually really spiraled into a very bad place. So I was near death a couple of times because of his drug abuse and then got out of it and found triathlon and had success in triathlon and has used triathlon to really be his tale of redemption and he is one of the best in the world in 70.3 and Ironman racing and he's a very genuine, very vulnerable kind of guy and he's somebody that I admire very much.

Speaker 1: 17:42

What's the best tech? Do you think for you?

Speaker 2: 17:46

The world is full of tech and there's so much of it, especially in triathlon or even. Yeah Well, I definitely love my bike. I mean, I have many bikes, as so many cyclists do, and I definitely love my tri bike. It's a pretty sweet ride. I'd say that the thing that's probably made the most impact on me as an athlete is probably my power meter on my bike, which is it helps me understand how much effort I'm putting into the pedals and it helps me train and race more effectively.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Can we just touch on that, because I've heard about kind of power wattage and things like that. I mean how, how does that, how can that help somebody?

Speaker 2: 18:30

yeah, sure, there's a variety of ways that you can sort of monitor your effort on the bike. You can. You can't look at speed, because speed is influenced by way too many things. If you're riding into the wind, then your speed can be very low even though your effort is monumental. If you're riding up mont ventoux, your speed may be very low even though your effort is monumental. If you're riding up Mont Ventoux, your speed may be very low, but your effort is going to be gigantic.

Speaker 2: 18:52

You can use heart rate, but heart rate is impacted by a lot of things as well. I live at high altitude so my heart rate's high here, but if I go down to sea level, I could be putting in a very high effort and have a heart rate that doesn't show that. So heart rate is impacted by things like caffeine it's how much sleep did you have? So there's a lot of things that can make heart rate a little bit untrustworthy. People use RPE, which is a rating of perceived exertion, and that one is pretty good. So if I know that I feel like I'm putting out a perceived exertion of five today and tomorrow I'm putting out a perceived exertion of five, they should track.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Okay, but the number that is really the most reliable is power, and what that does is we have these strain gauges that are the strain that is being put on a minor in the pedals, but power meters can be found in the chain rings, it could be found in the hub, they could be found in various places in the bike, but they all work the same.

Speaker 2: 19:49

They measure the amount of strain being applied to the drivetrain and it's translated into watts and how many watts are being applied by the rider. And it doesn't matter what terrain I'm on, what the temperature is, how tired I am or whatever. If I'm riding at 200 Watts today and I'm riding at 200 Watts tomorrow, the amount of effort I'm putting in that those 200 Watts is identical. So I know what my functional threshold power is, I know what my maximum power for a one hour ride would be and I can gauge my race efforts based on that. I can gauge my training based on that and it just makes a more scientific way of training and racing. So it's, it's, it's. It's a nice little tool and something that technologically has made my coaching and my my ability as an athlete.

Speaker 1: 20:39

I mean it's not because going at a certain wattage means that a you can complete the distance and also you can also measure over time whether if you're going at a certain wattage, then if you do it at a faster time, then you're getting fitter or you're fitter than you were. Is that as I understand it?

Speaker 2: 21:01

Well, the bigger thing is. So what will happen is is, as you become stronger and fitter, you'll be able to push a higher number of watts for longer. Happen is is, as you become stronger and fitter, you'll be able to push a higher number of watts for longer. But the bigger thing is is like for for what I said earlier about being able to run off the bike. So if my ftp is I'm just going to make up a number if my ftp is 200, then I know that if I want to run well off the bike, I have to keep my power during the race well under 200. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, okay, for this race I'm gonna ride at 150 watts, because that way I know that when I get to the run I'm gonna have energy in my legs to run, whereas if I tried to ride at 210 watts, which is higher than my ftp, there's no way I'm gonna be able to run.

Speaker 2: 21:45

Do you have a favorite training block? I nah, not really. I mean, I like it when I'm in the. I like it when I'm in the blocks where I'm putting in a lot of volume. I respond well to volume and I like being pushed. I like the, the feeling of of really coming home after a long day of training. So long bike rides and long runs make me happy. So, like you know, next week I've got a four hour ride that I'll go up and do in the mountains and do a lot of climbing and I know that that's going to be rewarding. I have a two and a quarter hour run on Sunday, which I probably won't enjoy quite as much, only because running beats me down a little bit. But I know that I will be happy when I complete it and happy with the effort.

Speaker 1: 22:27

That's a very understanding wife then.

Speaker 2: 22:32

Oh well, yeah, I mean with triathlon because of the number of hours involved, even though it's a very selfish pursuit, you have to have a supportive team, and my team is yeah, 100% there Best race.

Speaker 2: 22:44

Yeah, I don't have any one particular race. I mean, I guess if I was going to pick one it would have to be, of course, kona. The world championships for the iron man that I have had the good fortune to complete twice, and that's just a special event, but I've done over a hundred half ironmans and eight different ironmans and I've. They're all special to me in different ways, but Kona is kind of a big deal Brilliant.

Speaker 1: 23:07

Thank you very much. Any before we round up, is there any advice, general advice you'd give to people who are looking to transition to to the triathlon Anything? You know that people should think about.

Speaker 2: 23:22

Yeah, I would say, like you know, resist the urge to buy your way into the sport. It can be very expensive. I would say that the urge to buy your way into the sport, it can be very expensive. I would say that investing in yourself is more important than investing in any equipment. I think the one thing that is probably the best investment is a coach.

Speaker 2: 23:39

I say that, obviously with a certain amount of self-awareness that I am a coach, but at the same time, I know from my own experience that I made all of my major gains in this sport once I hired a coach, and it's because triathlon isn't totally straightforward.

Speaker 2: 23:55

There's a lot of nuance to it, there's a lot of things to be learned and having a coach who's been in the sport and has had success and has coached other athletes, that's going to be able to impart a lot to you and save you from making a lot of mistakes that you might make otherwise. So if you're, even if you're only going to try it once, it's not a bad idea to speak with a coach just to get a sense of some of the things that you might want to, to make sure that you do as you go into your first event. And the other advice I would give is like, even if you don't get a coach, if you're thinking about it, you should do it. You should try it because, honestly it is. Crossing the finish line at a running event is terrific. I love finishing running events, but crossing the finish line at a triathlon is is a different experience. It just feels different when you've done those three events together. It's just a very I don't know.

Speaker 1: 24:49

It's rewarding in a different way. I remember seeing a. There was a film on Netflix about a Spanish triathlete. There's an Ironman who had been in a really bad car accident. He couldn't walk and he, I can't remember. I don't remember the film.

Speaker 2: 25:06

Yeah, I'll have to look for that yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:08

And he was determined he was going to do that. Do we try to do an Ironman? And you know he he managed to do that. I think the training within a year from not being able to not to be on. And it was a Spanish film very inspiring, but I'll put put it in the show notes if I find out what it is. I just want to say thank you very much for coming. Any links and you know we can you know?

Speaker 2: 25:32

let my viewers know about yeah, I would say, definitely check out the tri-doc podcast. I think that's a good place for people to begin. I do a lot of reviews of supplements and different devices that are marketed not just to triathletes but to runners as well, so you might find some things of interest there. And TriDot Coaching is my website. I have an Instagram by the same name and, yeah, be great to have you along.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming on.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Absolutely, it was my pleasure.