TriDot Podcast .251

Revisiting Embracing Assessments and Realizing the Hidden Benefits

Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot podcast. This is episode 251 and on episode 251 we are going to revisit episode 11 of the podcast. This is kind of a re-run. Kind of, sort of, not really. We’re freshening up this information. The thing is with 251 episodes out there in the wild, there are some of them that are just more crucial to your training than others. There are some principles we talk about on the show that we want to make sure the information stays in front of our athletes and so today we are talking about assessments. Every TriDot athlete knows what their assessment workouts are and back on episode 11 of the show, it originally aired on January 6 of 2020. It was called Embracing Assessments and Realizing the Hidden Benefits. This episode was myself talking with TriDot CEO Jeff Booher and TriDot coach John Mayfield and we just chatted for a full hour about the assessment workouts. It’s a crucial workout in your workout pattern for a number of reasons and man, I can’t believe we’ve gone four years literally without hearing this information again. So here’s what’s going to happen today. I am here with another TriDot coach and we are going to revisit the warmup question from this episode. We are going to play the main set for you that aired on January 6 of 2020 and then we are going to chat a little bit with some fresh commentary just with our thoughts on this episode. So the coach joining me to do all of this today is TriDot coach Ryan Tibball. Ryan, welcome to the show today.

Ryan Tibball: Oh, thank you so much Andrew. Always exciting to talk about assessments. I love them. I embrace them and I think this is so important to revisit for sure.

Andrew: Yep and I see frequently on the Facebook, the I AM TriDot Facebook Group or in the TriDot Community Hub, I’ll see athletes ask about this and they’ll say, “Hey, is it really necessary for me to do an assessment every four weeks? Is it really? Like what if I skip it this week? Do I have to?” It’s like, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” Just do it. When TriDot gives it to you, barring injury or something, just go do it and there’s a lot of reasons for that. We’re going to learn about all of that here in the main set. So really excited to revisit this crucial episode today. Lots of good stuff. Let’s get to it.

Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: Back on episode 11 the warm up question I asked to Jeff Booher and John Mayfield was this: When you are volunteering at a race whether it’s a triathlon event or a run only event or something similar, when you’re volunteering what is your favorite role to serve and have you ever done anything that you would not want to do again? Coach Ryan Tibball, what is your answer to this warm up question?

Ryan: You know, I have a couple answers to the what I would love to do again, one of my favorite roles and one place, two places rather is T1. I love T1 because I get to see all the athletes coming out of the water, coming into transition and it’s fun to cheer them on, encourage them, sometimes even help them find their bike.

Andrew: Yeah. Help them out of their wetsuit.

Ryan: Right. Exactly. So that is a great place and just really give them that little cheer on to get them going into the rest of the race, get to the bike. The other big favorite place– it’s kind of cool. It’s like again, that was T1, kind of the start of things. The finish line. I love the finish line. It’s because maybe some of those athletes that I helped in T1 now see…

Andrew: Sure.

Ryan: …me at the finish line and it’s like to start and finish their day and selfishly I like to be there for my athletes crossing the finish line. So what better place to be is at the finish line and then even actually putting the medal on them. That is so rewarding just to see the smiles and the tears of joy happening during that time. Now, to answer the–

Andrew: Yeah, that was the warm and fuzzies. What’s the other side of it? What don’t you want to do again?

Ryan: Yeah, I– Not long ago I actually volunteered at another race where I actually did body marking.

Andrew: Okay.

Ryan: And while it is a fun place to greet athletes in their nervousness of the day in the morning, I was down on my knees a lot and that right there was like, okay. You know what? Being 52 years old, being on the knees down that long, up and down, up and down, it gets a little old. So that was probably the one place I might not do again.

Andrew: Yeah. We’ve got to give some teenagers that job.

Ryan: Yes.

Andrew: They’re still young, right? They have young knees, young legs. We’re going to throw this question out to you, our TriDot audience. We’re going to put this question in the I AM TriDot Facebook group. I want to hear from you, what is your favorite post to serve volunteering at the races and what’s maybe something that you would shy away from doing again for one reason or another? This post will be in the Facebook group. This post will be in the TriDot Community Hub. So go find me posing this question to you: Where do you like volunteering on race day? Can’t wait to see what you, our TriDot audience, have to say.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

Andrew: As triathletes, the best way to track our progress in all three sports is to regularly test what we are capable of in the most standardized way possible. At TriDot we do this regularly and we call this assessment week. It seems most TriDot athletes have a love, hate relationship with the assessments. I mean, it’s great to see your splits go down and your scores go up, but it does come at the cost of going all out or full send in one swim, one run, and one bike session in the same week. So whenever this important week comes across your training plan, you want to be sure to maximize the opportunity to assess your current fitness. Today Jeff and John are here to talk us through doing just that. Guys, the assessment week serves numerous purposes for both TriDot’s training software and for the athlete. Talk me through the multiple purposes of doing regular assessments.

John Mayfield: So the assessments are among the most important sessions within the training phase. It’s really hard to nail down the most important because every one plays their role, but these are very pivotal and they really impact other sessions and coming weeks, coming phases. So the obvious thing that the assessments do is benchmark progress. So we do these assessments, we get the results and then we’re able to compare those to previous assessments and see how the athlete has advanced, where their gains have been made, but from there there are several other things that the assessments do. First they update the TriDot score which there are several implications to the TriDot score itself. When that TriDot score changes, several other things throughout their training are impacted by those TriDot scores as well. Another very important thing that comes from the assessments is updating the athlete’s intensities. So their paces, their heart rate zones, their power zones, those change. They’re dynamic and we want to make sure that the athlete is always training at the proper intensity.

Andrew: I’ve noticed for myself, like in– You’ll kind of get to a point in your day to day training where like, aw man, this swim session that used to be really hard, now it’s becoming a little bit easier to hold those prescribed paces and sure enough your assessment week comes around, you find out. Oh, I have new zones.

John: And that’s pretty typical. As you work your way through a mesocycle you get fitter, more fit, and so those intensities aren’t as taxing as they were. So you do an assessment, you have new intensities and that first week it takes some getting used to…

Andrew: Yep.

John: …those new intensities and that’s all part of adaptation. Every TriDot session is prescribed with a very specific purpose looking to achieve a very specific training stress and we achieve that by a certain time at a certain intensity so it’s important that those intensities are specific to each athlete in their current fitness level. So updating the intensity is very important. I also mentioned that every session is prescribed to fulfill a very specific purpose and even the assessments are the same. They are achieving a very specific training adaptation and then finally the assessments teach the athlete how to push themselves. So this is a skill that is very necessary on race day, especially for those racing short course races. This is going to be very close to what they’re going to experience out on the race course and that is an acquired skill. You don’t just naturally show up to your first race and know how to maximize your potential, how to push your body to it’s limit. So this is an opportunity for these athletes to dial in that skill on a regular basis so that when race day comes around they will know exactly how and what it feels like to push their body, that knowing—

Andrew: When the effort picks up, the heart rate picks up, the intensity picks up, to know that when your body starts hurting, like…

John: And they have confidence.

Andrew: …I can push through this.

John: Absolutely. They’ve been there before. They’ve experienced it and they know as soon as they cross the finish line it’s all better. But if you put two people against each other and one has been pushing themselves and testing themselves and dialing in their race ability, the race strategy, and someone else that’s just been doing low intensity training for the last six months, I guarantee you that person that’s dialed in that skill is going to win even if they have comparable fitness.

Andrew: So does every athlete do the same assessment or does it– what we actually do in that session differ from athlete to athlete?

Jeff Booher: Well, it will differ some from athlete to athlete. Sometimes on a swim it’s a short course, long course, meters, yards pool. So they’re slightly different there. That’s the most standardized the 400, 200. On the bike some people have power meters and can do it on a smart trainer. Other people are outdoors doing a 15 mile or 25 mile. So there’s differences in the facility or the equipment available. Obviously the most consistent method to do the assessments is best. So the most controlled environment and the one that you can replicate most often is easy. Some do it different on a 5K or a 10K run. So it depends on the athlete’s fitness. Whenever we’re doing anything, we’ve talked about this before, when we’re prescribing training it’s not about the distance. It’s about an intensity level for a certain amount of time. So if you have an intensity level which we are shooting for a threshold effort, we’re trying to extrapolate what that is, if an athlete’s running a 50 minute 5K, that’s not a good– they’re not in their threshold. They’re going to be in a different energy system than someone who runs a 20 minute 5K. So a 20 minute 5K for someone that does it in 20 versus 50 is very different. So we’ll have faster athletes under 45 minute 10K, they can do the 10K as their assessment. For everyone else is a 5K. So there’s some difference, but we try to keep it– There are preferred assessments that are more accurate and more easily repeatable.

Andrew: So with so many different, you know, places to train; you kind of touched on it a little bit. I could do my run assessment at the track. I could do it, you know, through the park, down the road. The bike assessment some people can do them inside and on a platform like Zwift or just with their power meter indoors. People can go outside and ride the 15 minute time trial. Is there maybe a best method to ensure the accuracy?

John: So the best way to set up accuracy is to be consistent. As you mentioned, it’s repeating the same conditions assessment to assessment as best you can and that’s going to allow us to draw meaningful conclusions simply because the course is the same, the environment is going to be similar and when the environment is different we can account for that. So consistency is important. Best case is same pool, same methodology for your bike assessment. If you’re going out and doing the 15 mile or 25K bike assessment, do the same route over and over so that you have similar elevation profile, so the course is the same. Then similar on the run. The track is great because it’s a known distance, it’s flat, there’s no traffic, that sort of thing.

Jeff: It’s great for checking your pace for 400s.

John: Yeah, so you can dial it in and that’s going to allow you to have that consistency month over month so you can really see; you can know. If you do different track for example, not a different track, but a different route, there’s going to be a certain variability of that that is going to be attributed to the different course. So one course may be faster than another.

Andrew: And how well you know that course.

John: Right.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: How many turns does it have? Is it a net uphill? Is it net downhill? Just things like that. How much elevation gain is there on the course? That’s going to impact the assessment and that’s what we don’t want. We want to minimize that. We want to get to as much, what is the fitness of that? So control the environment. Repeat the environment as best you can and then accuracy is critical. So we mentioned before that these results impact the training that is prescribed. They establish the training intensities. So they’re very important to the individualized training. Accuracy is paramount. It comes in to the garbage in, garbage out. So if we have bad data, bad information, or if it’s stale data. If it’s outdated it’s not going to be as high quality. So all this is going to impact the training plan so it’s always important to have accurate data and current data so that all these other things can be accurate as well.

Jeff: I’d add to that, the athlete should do everything that they can to make it as accurate as possible, as consistent as possible, but if stuff happens then don’t stress about it. We do a lot of stuff on our end to normalize and to parse the data and take different things into account to normalize it. So yes, the more accurate it can be the better.

Andrew: Because even on the same loop, if you’re cycling the same 15 mile loop, the weather, the environment, there’s a ton of different factors that could be slightly different even on the same track.

Jeff: Correct. Correct. We take care of some of that– the wind, stopping at a light, traffic, dog runs out in front of you– there’s a lot of things. So if you can’t control it, just go with it. It’s that consistency over time and as accurate as you can is just the best way to do it.

John: The implications of those are going to be small and so over a 15 mile time trial, if you slow down for a car, obviously we want to be safe. Slowing down for that car to pass or whatever isn’t going to have a material effect.

Jeff: Yes, liability disclaimer. Always slow down for cars, stop at those stop lights, and that sort of thing.

John: And that’s part of it too is selecting the course where you minimize those things.

Andrew: Those risks.

John: Stop signs, stop lights, traffic. You know, do the best you can. Find the best route possible.

Jeff: Better to find a boring route that’s safe that you can repeat than a cooler, easier to get to route that’s dangerous.

Andrew: So when an athlete heads into an assessment, I mean, these are hard efforts for the swim, bike and run. You know, we’re really pushing ourselves in these sessions and so we could do a whole podcast and we probably will on how to pace yourself when you’re racing and how to pace yourself in hard sessions, but for these assessments in particular, John, what is kind of the best strategy for an athlete to pace themselves to try to get the most out of their potential?

John: So the purpose of the assessment is an all out effort. What is the fastest we can achieve these distances or if it’s a 20 minute power test, what is the maximum power you can sustain for that 20 minute period? So it is an all out, best effort. So there are a couple ways that you can set yourself up for success in that. First thing I always recommend is having a plan, especially as you go into the bike and the run. Know exactly where you are. Look at your previous assessments. Know what you think you’re capable of and then set yourself up for that. So if it’s a power test, what was your average power the previous time? So now you’re fitter than you were before so you can push a little bit more. I always recommend a negative split. That’s going to help produce a better result. So in starting–

Andrew: Starting a little bit easier.

John: Starting conservative and then build throughout. So your lowest power should be the first couple minutes. Your highest power should be the last couple minutes. Same thing with your 5K. It’s your slowest pace is maybe that first mile and your fastest mile is that third mile.

Jeff: And not by much, just–

John: Right. So like on a 5K, maybe its 10 seconds per mile slower and then you build throughout. It’s going to hold back a little bit of energy. It’s going to help pass the time so to speak because you’re starting off a little easier. It’s going to shorten the time that you’re just going all out and it’s really going to allow you to gauge your energy level, your ability, how hard can you push in those last few minutes and that’s what’s going to help produce those best results. But as I mentioned before, it really is an acquired skill. So you’re not just going to show up to your first assessment and know how to absolutely 100% nail it. But when we do these month after month on a regular basis, that skill will come and you will dial in your ability to go out and nail these assessments. So it’s going to– It’s a combination of fitness and execution, but that’s what we’re going to rely on on race day as well. You can have all the fitness in the world, but if you execute poorly, you’re not going to have your best race. So it’s again, it’s about learning how to race. It’s maximizing your fitness and putting those two things together. So, then you have the intangible of it as well. As you’re going out there, you’re pushing your body, you’re learning what it feels like to push to that “pain” area and you’re building that grit factor that is going to be extremely valuable on race day because at some point racing becomes difficult and that’s kind of one of the things that people love about the sport is that sensation we don’t particularly experience elsewhere. So the more you can learn how to push your body and learn that grit factor, these are things well beyond the initial benchmark and all those things that we talked about. So again, there are a whole lot of things that we accomplish through these ongoing assessments.

Andrew: Yeah, you don’t even as an athlete in every single training session get to practice that grit factor. So to have a regular session like this where you’re going to that place and pushing yourself and seeing what your body can do is really, really valuable. I’m going to take just a second and humble brag on myself. I had my assessments last week and I had a 10K run assessment and it was probably the best I have ever negative split a 10K.

John: Nice.

Andrew: And I’m going to be candid. It’s not because of my incredible ability to pace myself on the run. People listening right now, I’m looking at the founder and essentially lead coach of TriDot and admitting I skipped my assessments for a month or so and so I think going into that session knowing, “Okay, I haven’t pushed myself on a 10K in a couple months.” I think I was a little scared of it, I was a little intimidated, and so I wanted to hold back and just okay, I want to make sure I don’t push myself too hard too quickly and I ended up really pacing it quite well because I did exactly what you said. I held back on the first mile. I was able to pick up the pace through the middle four miles and then kick a little bit at the end. So just, that’s my humble brag for today.

Jeff: Well done.

Andrew: If we recorded this episode a month from now I might not be able to say the same thing, but on that particular 10K it went really, really well and I was pleased with the result. So, people– strive for the negative split. You don’t always nail it, but the more you practice nailing that in your assessments, the more ready you’re going to be to nail the negative split on race day.

John: This also can prevent you from blowing up. That’s something else athletes will do is they go out too hard too early and that’s not going to produce an accurate result if you’re 15 minutes into a 20 minute power test and all of a sudden your power drops significantly. That’s not good data. That average 20 minute is not going to be your true 20 minute max power. So that negative split is also going to help prevent that blowing up because you don’t want to go out too hard too soon. Save that for the back end.

Jeff: The more you do them, the more consistent you are. You dial that in, that perception, so your negative splitting is more and more– umm, smaller. You know, and you dial in that ability, but up front it’s way more valuable.

Andrew: Yeah, so after completing an assessment the athlete will then need to submit their results into the assessments portion of the TriDot interface. What information do they need to input for each sport?

John: So for the swim, it’s their time. That’s the CSS test. It’s a 400 for time, 200 for time. So that’s it. Just what are your times for the 400 and the 200. Moving onto the bike, it depends on which test you’re doing. The 20 minute power test for those that have a power meter or smart trainer or they are able to track their power, we’re looking for average power for the 20 minute segment and average heart rate for that same 20 minutes.

Andrew: Not average over the whole session.

John: Right.

Andrew: But average for that 20 minute block.

John: Just the 20 minute, just the 20 minute segment. Then for the run it is time and average heart rate for the distance. So then what happens is that information is utilized to determine thresholds. So these are threshold paces for the swim and the run. Also threshold heart rate for the bike and run and threshold power for the bike and this information is then used to establish each individuals training zones. So for the swim there are individual paces. For the bike there are heart rate zones and power zones for those that have power. For the run there are paces and heart rate zones as well. So those are established for each individual and then updated each time these assessments are done. Then that information is also used in the RaceX pacing guide. So this is where race day pacing comes from. So another reason it’s very important to have current information is your pacing on race day is going to be based on your most recent assessment.

Andrew: If you’re not regularly updated on assessment, you’re not going to have a very accurate RaceX recommendation.

John: Correct.

Andrew: So John, I think there’s a lot of athletes that are like me. For the bike I do my assessment indoors, right? It’s just a controlled environment. It’s going to be the same every time. I’m not dealing with cars and roads and traffic and stoplights and heat and weather. So I always do it indoors and a ton of athletes do their assessment just like that, inside on their trainer and the platforms that we’re using to do those 20 minute power test indoors, there’s already built in algorithms, there’s already things that say “Oh, you put out this much power for 20 minutes and so let’s take 95% of that and that’s your FTP.” and we’re given that FTP number. Now that FTP number isn’t the number we’re supposed to be putting in to TriDot. We want to put in the raw, average power that we produce for those 20 minutes. So tell me a little bit why TriDot doesn’t use the FTP number most platforms kind of spit out.

John: So all those platforms, and there’s a lot of different ones and they use different calculations, but that’s exactly what it is. It’s a generic calculation. It’s common to apply 95% or something like that to that 20 minute average power to estimate a functional threshold power number. Where it’s one of those things where when we apply it across the board to everyone, it’s not accurate to anybody. So what we’re able to do with that 20 minute power is qualify that for each individual athlete and then take into consideration numerous factors that are specific to that individual so that we can now determine a very accurate functional threshold power and really the difference is oftentimes athletes aren’t really using their functional threshold power. It’s a bragging right, but it really doesn’t impact their training.

Andrew: Oh, look at my FTP.

John: Exactly.

Andrew: Look at how strong my legs are.

Jeff: How much do you bench?

John: So as we mentioned before that functional threshold power is a key metric that goes into establishing athlete’s training, their training zones, their race day pacing. It is actually used in numerous ways throughout their training and racing. So accuracy of that individual’s functional threshold power is actually a very important piece of data so again it goes back to that data needs to be accurate. It needs to be accurate to that individual. So just applying a blanket, generic percentage to a 20 minute power is not the proper way to establish an accurate functional threshold power number. So that’s where we’ll see the difference and you know, a broken clock is right twice a day kind of a thing where an athlete might have a very close FTP in TriDot compared to what’s spit out by the platform. But if it’s not the same, if it’s off by a certain amount it’s because one was most likely created through just a generic, estimated, made up percentage and the other is actually created based on that individual’s makeup and their data.

Andrew: So after completing an assessment, an athlete’s swim dot, bike dot, and run dot numbers will then increase or decrease depending on the results of the assessment. Jeff, talk us through what those three TriDot numbers mean for the athlete.

Jeff: Alright, so up to this point we’ve been talking about benchmarking and for a lot of people who have been training and racing a while all this may sound familiar; benchmark, make progress over time. Well, here’s where we start to really differentiate and use this data differently. First of all the swim, bike, and run dot scores they’re a scale from 1 to 100 of ability where 1 is a pace or power that barely qualifies for that discipline. You’re barely moving. You’re not running. You’re a little bit more than walking, jogging. Then all the way up to 100 which would be world class effort for whatever that discipline and distance would be. Then it’s the same bell curve you’d expect to see in the middle where 50 would be in the middle. So, one of the things is the correlation between the two over years. The origin, actually, of TriDot of that standard was from Jack Daniels and no, not drinking too much, getting drunk and having a bright idea, but Jack Daniels the famous running coach was amazing. I saw him at a symposium one time, got introduced to his work, what he had done. I read his book. It’s just wonderful stuff. It’s a very methodical approach to running where he was looking at the differences in ability and, you know, some people’s threshold pace was impacted most by their aerobic efficiency or running efficiency, their mechanics, and others their VO2 max, so their aerobic potential. So he came up with a number that took both of those into account. So, okay, whatever reason however good you excel at one and not so much the other, there is this pace at which is your functional threshold. So it was your velocity of VO2 max. So that’s the VDot; velocity of VO2 max. So he had a–

Andrew: So he called that number was your VDot.

Jeff: Your VDot. So that was just from statistics and so he had a scale that was 30 to 85 was his range of these times. So he was working with a lot of great athletes, elite athletes and so it didn’t encompass all of the abilities. So what I did from that is I said, “That’s a great approach to doing this.” So to apply it to triathlon first of all we extended it from 1 to 100 so athletes kind of sense that scale, 1 to 100, kind of like school days.

Andrew: We’re used to that scale our whole lives, right? Yeah.

Jeff: And then extending it to abilities below that which he would measure working with elite athletes and then converting the run piece not only to the run assessments which are stand alone efforts, but to off the bike runs and then correlation those scales. So the swim, bike, and run dot all correspond to a similar ability. So a 60 would be the same point on that bell curve for the swim as a 60 on the bike as a 60 on the run.

Andrew: Okay. Gotcha.

Jeff: So it becomes this absolute standard or ruler by which you measure.

Andrew: So it really helps you know where you’re at in relation to the field of the sport.

Jeff: Absolutely. So it has some value to that. The biggest value is not to the field and to everyone else, but it’s to yourself. So that interdisciplinary evaluation comparison. If you’re trying to improve let’s say in the bike or the run, first of all we’re able to assess it better because if one athlete has a higher, like a 60 on the bike and a 50 on the run. If that athlete has great body composition then we can conclude that they need to, or they can improve more on the run than the bike because there’s more room for improvement.

Andrew: That’s going to benefit them more overall as a triathlete.

Jeff: Correct. But if that same 60 on the bike and 50 on the run is from let’s say a 50 year old athlete like me, maybe weighs 220 pounds like maybe someone I know, then they’re going to have the mechanical advantage of the bike. So I should perform better on the bike. So that’s not a fitness. That’s not a physiological opportunity for improvement on the run. I’m carrying body weight. So a lot of my energy is spent carrying the body weight. So we’re able to look at different athletes differently with different, been doing the sport for longer, their sport age is longer, the body composition is different. A whole number of factors. Maybe their position on the bike is more upright and so they’re pushing a lot of drag so their bike dot may be lower but it’s not because their fitness is lower. It’s because they have upright position due to lack of mobility or road helmet or who knows what. A lot of things could impact the pace at which they could go for a 15 mile–

Andrew: So your TriDot numbers aren’t just generated by your assessment. They’re generated by a whole lot of factors.

Jeff: A whole lot of other factors. Right. And that makes it– If you don’t do those things then you can’t correlate and compare apples to apples outcomes of training because your base assessment is not right and first of all before even the assessment is not right, the prescription is not right. So you can’t prescribe right and you can’t have an expectation that’s accurate, then you can’t measure the assessment of that result.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeff: So this is a ripple effect. So it give us both an absolute value and then the relative value and we use that relative value in a whole number of things when we’re determining where the training emphasis should be, how much improvement is there, how much do we expect to realize and how well the athlete is doing over time.

Andrew: Got it. So as we do these time trials throughout the year and assess kind of where we’re at, you know, things like the weather and altitude and time of day, you know, they can impact how well we can put forth our best effort. How does TriDot factor these into our results?

Jeff: We have an environment normalization technology that we’ve been working on for many years; probably eight or nine years now since we implemented that. But we noticed that there was one training myth that was long slow distance. A lot of people had this perception that running more long course, marathon training, they just said marathon training, I’m faster when I do marathon training. So they saw this correlation with their fastest times of the year were during the winter months when they trained for marathon. Therefore, long slow runs makes me faster. You know, then I get slower during triathlon season when I shorten that stuff down. Maybe you’re doing Olympics or halves. So they made that correlation in that long, slow distance. That’s one of the reasons– there’s a lot of reasons– but that became prevalent. But it was more of a correlation between the weather. In the winter, the winter is cooler so your run times are better.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeff: And you may back off some of the other things so you’re spending more time running, less training intensity, you know, is spent on the bike and the other. So we have environment normalization technology that takes into account temperature, elevation and humidity. So for athletes that are even changing the time of day of their workout. You know, they get up in the morning it might be 50 degrees. If they do the same workout that afternoon, it might be 75 degrees. The humidity will change. So we actually prescribe training differently based on that. You’ll see your TriDot workout change. The intensities will change based on the time of day. If it’s 3 in the afternoon and it’s 80 degrees outside, but you do it inside, it’ll change. So it knows what that environment is. It gets that from the data so in a prescriptive manner we use environment normalization, but also in a diagnostic, in assessments. As that data comes back in we parse it and make those adjustments so that we’re making sure that we’re taking that into account on an environmental equivalent basis.

Andrew: So environment normalization really helps standardize your assessment results. If you do your assessment in July versus your assessment in December, the environment normalization will show you kind of how those are relative to each other.

Jeff: Correct. So that’s environment normalized before it gets to your assigned swim, bike, or run dot.

Andrew: So once we’ve done those assessments and it’s been normalized, how do those assessments then impact our future training sessions?

John: So the implications really filter through everything because the assessments are going to update those TriDot scores. Those TriDot scores factor into almost everything within TriDot; all of the calculations and all the things that go into determining training phases, training plan, long sessions, individual sessions. All that can really come back to data that is derived through these ongoing assessments. So they really touch everything within an athlete’s training. Going back to emphasizing how important it is to have good, current, accurate data for these. So for example, one of the things that we can see a change is in the bike to run factor. So this is a feature that allocates training resources–

Andrew: The B to R.

John: The B to R. How do we address bike and run? How do we know where we want to focus training resources for the overall biggest gains? And a TriDot score is one of the main factors in that. So as assessments drive TriDot scores, that’s going to have an implication to bike to run factor. As I mentioned the individual sets– So oftentimes if we have a distance based set, that’s actually based on the amount of time that the athlete is going to spend to achieve that distance. So as they get faster or stronger, they’re going to cover a given distance in less time. So that’s going to be an implication in which sets are prescribed to the athlete so that they can–

Jeff: Distance is derived from duration. So you have to know the duration first. So your body knows not how much ground you’re covering, but intensity and how long you’re holding that intensity. So the distance is derived from duration.

Andrew: So usually in your training sessions that’s why you always see intervals prescribed in minutes usually, right?

Jeff: That’s correct.

Andrew: It’s hold this effort at this many minutes and how ever much ground you cover is really irrelevant.

Jeff: And that’s why you see if you have a difference in your run dot. For example, one athlete might have six minutes for the efforts or a 1400. One might have a 1600. One might have a 1200 because it’s how far should you cover at that intensity…

Andrew: At that pace.

Jeff: …at that pace for that duration. So there’s sweet spots physiologically for at that intensity we want you to hold– you have to hold at least four minutes, but not more than six. Not much more than six. You know, there’s that sweet spot of how many intervals you’re going to get.

John: So it is on the run, but predominantly on the swim. So, again we’re looking for periods of time at particular intensity levels, but we don’t have a good metric for time on the swim so everything is distance based. So two athletes may both need four minutes at a particular pace and it may take one athlete 200 yards to do the four minutes and it may take another athlete 300 yards. Then another implication is your long sessions. So your TriDot scores factor into your predicted splits. Your predicted splits determine how long your long sessions are. So if we know you’re going to be spending X hours on the bike on race day, that’s going to be reflected in your training. So as your assessments improve, that’s going to be indicative of a faster split. Means less time out on the race course which in turn means…

Andrew: So less time in your long session.

John: …less time in training. Yeah. So these assessments filter deep.

Andrew: I’ve got to tell you, I’m so motivated to improve my bike split for my upcoming Ironman.

John: Absolutely.

Andrew: Not so that my end time will be faster, but so that my butt bones will not have to sit on my saddle as long. I’m like, get me off the bike as fast as possible.

John: Yeah, race day is one thing…

Andrew: Help me out TriDot.

John: …but, yeah. We don’t want to do any more training than we have to. Definitely not on those long sessions.

Andrew: So one thing I frequently see from athletes when you talk about the assessments is that sometimes you’re approaching that week where you’re supposed to get them done. You see it coming up on your training calendar and with life events, work events, maybe even a minor injury, sometimes we reach that week and it’s just not an ideal time for me to crank out those assessments. Should I postpone them a week or so or is it just best to let it pass and wait until the next month?

Jeff: You don’t want to wait. You know, if you’re not– It depends on how much impact your training schedule has. If you’re like missing an entire week and you only have enough time to do one session, well do that session. Do that one. If you’re pretty much, you just miss that one session, but you’re doing most of the others, then just find the next comparable session; the next session that’s about an hour with a lot of intensity in it, a lot of quality in it and then just replace it. Do the assessment in place of that other session. Then it’s giving you approximately the same training value. You know, if it’s 3 x 12 at threshold, just do your 20 minute threshold test.

Andrew: Okay.

Jeff: So it’s kind of an either or. If you’re missing a ton of training don’t wait until the next week and if you can get one session in, just do the session. If you can’t, do what you need to do to get those sessions in during that week.

Andrew: So John, depending on their weekly training schedules, sometimes athletes talk about how their schedule might give them a hard session the day before an assessment. Will this hard session detract from the results the following day?

John: They shouldn’t and oftentimes the question is I have assessments back to back. So for the athlete that’s been consistently training, these assessments are not particularly different in training stress and training load from the training they’ve been doing in previous weeks. So for example, the swim is 600 yards, 600 meters.

Andrew: To me it’s the easiest swim session in my month.

John: Yeah. So you’re obviously– every swim session is at least 600. You include the warmup and all that, call it 1000. There’s really not any swim sessions shorter than 1000.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: And even to do 600 yards or 600 meters of high intensity in the swim, not a large implication to that. You can recover from that quite quickly. But even as we move onto the bike and run, say you’re doing the 20 minute power test, you have a very high likelihood of really every week having multiple sessions that have at least 20 minutes of high intensity included in them.

Andrew: You’re just used to a few minutes in zone 2 in between.

John: Yeah, it may be 2 by 10, it may be 3 by 8, whatever the case may be, but it’s at least 20 minutes oftentimes.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: So it’s not significantly different and then the same thing on the run doing that 5K. Chances are, you’ve got give or take three miles, five kilometers, of quality work in those sessions as well. They’re not so long, they’re not so arduous that it’s going to take multiple days to recover from those. And if there is any lingering fatigue, it’s going to be minimal. It’s not really going to impact the results and certainly not to a degree that would lessen the accuracy of those.

Jeff: You do have less training that week anyway.

John: Right. So it’s almost like a mini taper week where there’s less intensity, less duration oftentimes especially if you’re in a long courses phase. You’re going to see the volume drop on that week and then like I said the intensity will be down as well. So there are opportunities for some recovery. Again, kind of looks like a mini taper that’s going to set you up for success in these. So an athlete should be able to highly execute these even if they were back to back. Then the implication of spacing them out further would be the opportunity cost of how does that impact other training. So we’re doing three assessments in seven days so that’s plenty of time; plenty of spacing, but if we did more– if we had to spread those over 10 to 14 days there’s further implications to that and would really impact training from there. So three hard days within a seven day week is completely feasible and can still produce good results.

Andrew: I’ve got to say for myself there was one 5K assessment that I was entering that Sunday when I was supposed to do it and I was tired. We had a lot going on that weekend. I had my workouts and it was in the summer so it’s hot outside and so that plays in your mind like, “I’ve got to do good at this 5K while it’s warm outside.” and I Facebook messaged my coach, Ryan Tibball, and I was like “hey man,” like “I’ve got this 5K.” Like “I really don’t think it’s going to go well.” And he was like, “you might surprise yourself.” Like “don’t go into it with a negative attitude because you’re probably going to surprise yourself. You’re probably going to do better than you think” and I’m like, “Bro. I’m not going to do better than I think.” I PR’d my 5K in 80 degrees, 8 o’clock at night, Texas summer heat on a day where I was tired and felt like I was not going to have a good 5K. I PR’d, not even environment normalization PR. Like straight up PR’d my 5K on a day where I didn’t expect to. So I think there is some grounds to just like Ryan, my coach, told me, like, you might surprise yourself.

John: Absolutely. Yeah.

Andrew: You might shock yourself with what your body is capable of on the day. So many athletes they do their assessment and they see their numbers changing from month to month. They see the slight improvement as those TriDot numbers go up and they’re wondering to themself, did I do good? How am I doing compared to other people? Am I improving quickly? Am I improving at a normal rate? Am I barely improving? So tell me this Jeff, what numerical improvement should athletes expect to see from month to month?

Jeff: Well, it’s hard to say obviously because it– I think that’s an answer you might have expected to hear. It depends…

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeff: …from athlete to athlete. So age plays a factor. Genetics plays a factor. How consistently they’ve been training. We try to use or we do use the TrainX score. That’s the biggest deal to be consistent. So you want to hit those 70 or above weekly TrainX; 60 is average. So just the better that you can do, the more consistently you can do the right training right, the better you’re going to do. So it gets really hard. There’s two reasons that we don’t publish that or make that accessible: 1) it really varies quite a bit between the athletes. We know what and why, but it can be discouraging just from something you can’t control like genetics or life gets in the way. So just focus– we try to just focus on what you can do. Focus on what your schedule allows, your priority, what your God given ability is and do the best with that. So you just want to see consistent progress over time and just focus on every day what you can control today. Forget about what happened yesterday. Celebrate the successes for sure, but then just drive on.

John: So there’s going to be a lot too depending on where the athlete is starting from. A athlete that has a low fitness level they’re going to have meteoric rise. They’re going to see big gains every assessment for the first several assessments. The athlete that comes in with already having a high level of fitness those gains are going to be much more incremental. There’s not as much low hanging fruit. So that rate is going to be different as well. And it also depends on what phase the athlete is in where as if an athlete is in a development phase where they’re able to focus on building functional threshold, building power and speed, they’re going to have a higher likelihood of seeing bigger gains than the athlete that’s in say an Ironman race prep phase where the focus is stamina.

Jeff: Yeah they’re not building their functional threshold. They’re not as significantly– because you can only really focus on one effectively at a time. So they may see a plateau or a slow down in their improvement on the FTP for example during that build up, race prep…

Andrew: Just because the focus of their season at that time is just a little bit different.

Jeff: …is building stamina. Yeah. So they’re building the capacity to hold a percent of that FTP for a longer and longer period of time and so they’re seeing the gain there. So if they’re focused on FTP is not going up or if they’re focused only on my stamina or only how long is my long run, it depends on what the purpose and what the goal is during that mesocycle and then it can be different from phase to phase. So you may be going after– The optimization may have you improving differently in the different disciplines. You may be building stamina in one and FTP in the other depending on what your needs are and the needs of that race day are.

Andrew: John it reminds me a little bit of, if you remember the TV show The Biggest Loser from five, six, seven years ago. That was a huge TV show for a little while.

Jeff: A huge TV show.

Andrew: Yeah. Aww, puns. So someone would come on that show; a guy would come on that show weighing 350 pounds.

John: And drop 20 pounds in the first week.

Andrew: He’d drop 20 pounds a week for like three or four weeks and then all of a sudden as he would get fitter and fitter, you know, those pounds would be ten pounds a week and eight pounds a week.

John: Right. Yeah.

Andrew: Then four pounds a week and it wasn’t that–

Jeff: Diminishing returns.

Andrew: Yeah. It wasn’t that he wasn’t putting in the work that he was putting in in the beginning it’s just that okay, now you have less weight to lose. So if you’re new to the sport of triathlon even if you’re fit, you know, you’re new to the sport you’re going to see those bigger gains right away than somebody who is maybe a little bit higher up on the scale.

John: And oftentimes folks will come from years of triathlon experience, but now they’re experiencing TriDot’s optimized training and all of a sudden just training right, as Jeff mentioned, doing the right training right has those same implications.

Jeff: We’ve had numerous– not numerous, beyond numerous, whatever bigger number, just–

John: Dozens and dozens and dozens.

Jeff: Numerous athletes that have been doing triathlons for 15 - 20 years and it was just the common– it’s most noticeable for people in their 60s and they’re saying, “I’m in my 60s. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I’m faster than I was when I was in my 40s.”

Andrew: Wow.

Jeff: That was just a common thing because it’s that age. They know their discipline. There’s enough time where when they’re in their 40’s they still remember their PR’s. All that kind of stuff. They’re 60, they’re still competitive. They’re still trying–

Andrew: They’re PR’ing in their 60s.

Jeff: They are, yeah over what they did in their 40s and that’s just really cool to see.

Andrew: That’s incredible. John, tell me just as a coach, when your athletes consistently put in the work, they do their day to day training, they keep up with their assessments, what difference does that make in the results on race day?

John: So it’s one of those things where it’s not necessarily a causation, but definitely a correlation and the athletes that train consistently, as Jeff said, consistently do the right training right– and part of that is completing and updating these assessments, that shows on race day. In fact, I would say there’s also a very high correlation in the high performance athletes. If you went in and looked at their assessment history, they are very consistent in completing these whereas you could– I think with a pretty high certainty I could look at just the dates of assessments and tell you whether that athlete is an elite, high performing athlete or maybe a mid to lower pack. There seems to be a strong correlation. Now that doesn’t mean that’s always the case, but for those that are doing these assessments on a regular basis, there just seems to be a very strong correlation of those that make the gains and end up–

Andrew: Because that person is probably also doing their day to day work.

John: They’re doing the right training right as well…

Andrew: Yeah.

John: …and this is just kind of a byproduct of that. So again, it’s not necessarily causation, but I think there is a correlation there between it.

Andrew: So for an athlete, Jeff, who maybe knows his or her assessment hasn’t changed that much from the last assessment– maybe they missed training sessions, maybe life got in the way just a little bit and they just kind of can feel internally, okay my fitness is at a relative place to where it was last month. Is it still valuable to complete that assessment or can they just keep moving forward with the zones they have?

Jeff: Well, there’s other values. I’m going to address that in a couple ways. One, to answer your question, there is training value in that. When we prescribe the training, we’re expecting a certain amount of time at threshold. So every time from the week prior you’ve done your workout then there’s a half-life, you adapt and then that fades as you detrain as you don’t perform at a certain level. So there’s a training value. You want to keep that performance level up. You want to have those minutes in those zones, at that level, and we’re counting on that and your training in the future is going to be based on that. So that’s one to keep conscious about that. There’s also other benefits of it; pacing skills, being able to develop that perception of your pace. Sometimes if you don’t push yourself to that level your perception slips. It’s a perceived effort drift, kind of gets easier and easier. So but where I’d challenge or kind of change that scenario a little bit is a lot of people say “Oh, my assessment hadn’t changed that much.” That’s just a lie. That’s just an excuse. They just don’t want to do that effort so they tell themselves and that comes from– You know, some athletes aggressively look forward to that. It’s like taking a test if you’re a smart kid. This is where you show off. You know, that’s your thing. Some athletes have that experience and attitude toward it which is great, but others don’t and they have a lot of–

Andrew: A lot of people enjoy the challenge of assessment week.

Jeff: Yeah and a lot of others have anxiety and “I don’t want to fail. I want to improve and what if I haven’t improved then all this is for nothing.” So don’t entertain that self talk. That’s bad self talk. So there’s mental skills that go along with that and I would encourage athletes that do that to visualize doing success. There’s a lot of visual training, mental skills, that are very important to if it’s a negative thought about it, don’t let it stay in your head. Push it out. If it’s not helping you, push it out, put something else in it’s place. Get some things that are ready to replace it. You know, I’m going to do this. I’m going to do great. I’m going to be consistent. You know, at different times of your training phase like John was talking about earlier, as you’re winding up your stamina for a half or a full Ironman your run dot is not going to go up. You want to keep it there because you’re building something else. You’re putting all of your energy into holding a percent of that for a longer period of time, but you don’t want that threshold to drop by not doing assessments and not doing the work…

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeff: …because now you’re going to be doing that percentage of a lower number. So that long tempo, your functional threshold, you want to keep it up and then you want to develop that toughness, that grit that he was also talking about earlier. Then I think we said in the military, you’ve heard it I’m sure. “Embrace the suck.” And so it’s realizing–

Andrew: Awww, my father says that all the time.

Jeff: So, it’s going to suck you’ve just got to embrace it. Associate that the pain and that pushing it hard with the results. You know, triathlon is not for sissies. If you want to do a sissy sport, go do golf or something else. I’m looking at John right now. He’s a great golfer.

Andrew: John’s a big time golfer.

Jeff: But he’s not a sissy. Anyway. So–

Andrew: He’s only a sissy when he golfs.

Jeff: Right. So just, you know, whatever saying is meaningful to you, “Embrace the suck.” “Suck it up buttercup.” I tell our junior team that, you know, with a smile and laughing. It’s just a push and realize it’s supposed to be that way. This is triathlon. You could have picked any sport you want. This is a triathlon. That’s why you cross the finish line at these races and it’s significant. That’s why people go “Wow! You did that? Oh my gosh.” Because it’s pushing yourself and that’s the inherent nature of the sport. So treat that like it’s a mini race; like it’s a mini competition. Get your head, your self talk, right positive, constructive and go into it and just see what you can do.

Andrew: So John, assessment days are no doubt tough sessions. You know, we’ve got to embrace the suck a little bit on them to grit our teeth and get through it. So maybe to close us out today, Jeff just gave us a great word on why to do that and how to do that. But what advice do maybe you have to encourage athletes to do their best on those assessment days?

John: It really mirrors what he said. It’s use them as motivation. It’s look forward to it and approach it like a race. Oftentimes–

Andrew: You versus you.

John: Yeah, exactly, or you versus you from a month ago.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: You versus old you and see who is better, who is stronger. Oftentimes we'll go long periods between races and your next race may be six, nine months away. So what keeps you motivated? Oftentimes it’s hard to really focus and work towards that race that is so far out there that you can’t see it. Well, these assessments are a great opportunity for very immediate goals, immediate ambitions.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: And even Jeff mentioned sometimes athletes get nervous headed into assessment week. That’s actually something I hear fairly common from athletes is “Oh, I was nervous.” Well great because you’re going to be nervous on race day. You’re going to be nervous in those days leading into the race.

Andrew: Just letting you practice handling all those emotions.

John: Exactly. So just like we want to dial in intensity and pacing for race day, it’s important to learn how do you deal with those “pre-race nerves”? Well, you’re going to deal with the pre-race nerves the same way you deal with the pre-assessment nerves. So it’s building confidence. It’s knowing what you’re capable of and proving that to yourself over and over and so let them be motivational. Let them be fun. Enjoy those gains and chances are, you may be the only one there at the finish line. There’s not going to be Mike Riley or the big crowd cheering you home, but still celebrate those wins and let it be fun. It’s not anything to dread, but something to celebrate your gains that you’ve made over the last several weeks.

Andrew: So you could take a boombox out to the track, throw on the Rocky theme song…

John: Absolutely.

Andrew: …and just pound out a 5K with your bad self.

John: Absolutely. Yep.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Andrew: Alright, you just heard a good little bit there of myself talking with Jeff Booher and John Mayfield about assessment workouts and hot dog! These are some intense workouts. There’s always a lot of chatter on the Facebook groups about the assessment workouts. Ryan as we heard Jeff and John talk about this, what were some of the moments and tidbits they shared that stood out to you?

Ryan: You know, when you have John Mayfield and Jeff Booher on, it’s like your ear is just stuck right there and there is so much to take in from both those experts as well. You know, and I think really to summarize some of the stuff there was yes, the most important thing thinking about as a new athlete onto the platform is that it’s important to update. Get those updates done. Do those assessments appropriately and having those intensities updated allows you to train properly. It allows you to train within your– where your current level of fitness is. You know, that is a high level way of talking about it, but yes. There is so much more and again what John and Jeff both discussed was there’s some training adaptations to be gained from that.

Andrew: Yeah.

Ryan: You know, you’re going into some zones that really you don’t go into very often. You know, going into that zone 5, going zone 6 really to crush the end of that assessment.

Andrew: Yeah.

Ryan: And yeah, that’s an adaptation that has to be done and I think if I remember correctly is John said. He said, hey listen, he’s going to pick an athlete who has done that versus an athlete who has not been in those training zones and pick that one to win who has really gone out and has spent some time in developing that training adaptation. So there’s a lot to be gained from this and also, you know, talking about executing. Execution is an integral part of doing an assessment just like executing a race and it’s an opportunity to practice that with really very little consequence in my opinion. Meaning, hey you’re not going to not finish that race, but again you get an opportunity in a short period of time through assessments to practice a style of execution such as negative splitting which has again been proven time and time again to be enormously beneficial.

Andrew: It takes practice. It takes so much practice to get good at that.

Ryan: It does take practice. Absolutely. It does take a lot of practice and you know, I tell you once you start getting it down it becomes, it’s just ingrained in you and you know exactly how to do that race; you know, do the race and do the assessments for that matter. Again, that execution is having a plan and it’s like you know, you wouldn’t get in your car and say, “Hey, listen. I’m in Texas. I’m going to drive to Canada today, but you know what, I’m not going to pull out a map or a GPS.” And you’re like, “Wow, wait. Let me pull out the plan and let me get that going.” So having that plan will be, again, be applicable when it comes down to race day as well. Consistency of doing these things was also a big, big thing talked about is doing these every four to five weeks as they are on your plan. Again, for all the above reasons that I just mentioned and that were mentioned in the actual podcast too. Again, just getting that consistent and opportunities and I view, 100% view, the assessments as opportunities not as a “Oh my gosh what am I doing today? This is going to be hard.” Well, of course it will be. Yes, but it’s an opportunity so change the mindset in doing that and it’s so helpful. Again, mindset is everything. Attitude is everything. That’s applicable again into your day to day, into your race day. Then lastly I can’t emphasize the importance of accuracy of doing those properly and doing those assessments properly you treat those as if you are racing.

Andrew: Yeah.

Ryan: You give that full on effort.

Andrew: Don’t hold back.

Ryan: No. Not at all. You know, again get the important data that’s associated with these assessments. You know, for the swim you need that time in that 400 and that 200. In the bike you need that average power or time depending upon which assessment you’re doing. So if you’re doing it on a trainer, that 20 minute assessment FTP whether you’re using a platform like Zwift or Fulgaz or something like that. But if you don’t have a smart training, you’re doing it outside, it’s important that you do that 15 mile time trial and you do it on an out and back kind of course. A course that you do consistently. That is I think another very important factor to doing your assessments is consistency of where you do it, when you do it. You know, TriDot takes into account the environment so you don’t have to worry about that. Go out and knock it out in the middle of the Texas heat summer, it still– You might surprise yourself. You might bump that dot even though the time might be slightly off. Then running for that matter too is also you need that time of that 5K only. We don’t want your warmup, we don’t want your cooldown. We want the time of the 5K and then also your average heart rate for that as well. Let me encourage those, get that heart rate strap. It’s the most accurate piece of equipment as far as measuring your heart rate. Having that heart rate strap so you get those great values, accurate values. I’ve heard this from John. He said, “Garbage in, garbage out.” So we want to avoid that. I think those are some pretty important things, big take aways on what to do when it comes to assessments, how to do them and how important they are into your training, your day to day, into the TriDot platform. It’s what drives, helps drive, your day to day. It helps drive your RaceX, your race predictabilities and having those to be accurate. So yeah.

Andrew: Yeah. Lots of great stuff there Ryan and two things that I wanted to point out after listening to this episode. There was one thing that they said in that conversation that I want to point out again and that’s the fact that in all the purposes they outline for why we do assessment week and why you get these so regularly. They don’t just serve as your benchmarking. They’re not just an opportunity to hit hard, practice that race mindset, practice that grit factor, etcetera, etcetera. This week in your overall mesocycle actually serves as your rest week. In terms of a training intensity, a training stress, there is less training stress on assessment week than any other week in your calendar and yes you have those three workouts where you’re prompted to go real hard for a real short amount of time, but the rest of the week is a down week and a lot of zone 2 week because it’s keeping your body primed for those efforts, right, and it’s making sure that in your four to eight week training cycle you have a rest week. The other thing, Ryan, I wanted to update people on that is true, but wasn’t talked about on this episode is autodetection. You know, our training platform is the most sophisticated use of training data in the triathlon market. Like that is an objectionable fact, right? And we obviously know that and believe that working for TriDot. So I see athletes sometimes ask, “Why can’t TriDot autodetect changes in my FTP? Why do I have to test? There’s other apps out there that are autodetecting my FTP.” And that’s true. They are. But guess what? So are we. We still want you to test for all the reasons outlined. It is a great exercise in your workout regime even though the data being analyzed behind the scenes, your data being analyzed behind the scenes. We do autodetect when those workouts are going well, when you’re getting stronger, when it seems like you’re falling off, and there are micro adjustments being made. There’s still that benchmarking that needs to take place and it’s a verification for what the platform is seeing in your workout data that then further updates your workouts moving forward. So I did want to say that. It’s funny, Ryan, I’m not sure if you were there or not. We were talking with a software company, I won’t name names, but it’s one of the software companies that does tell their athletes “Hey we autodetected a change in your FTP.” And we were talking with them about that feature and they admitted, they were like, “Yeah, we only tell our athletes when they get stronger. We don’t tell them if we detect their FTP has gotten weaker because we found our users don’t like being told that, being told.” And it’s like, I totally get that, but– So conceivable they have athletes out there training that are training at intensities that are too much for them because they haven’t prompted, hey you’re not as strong as you used to be. Anyway, that’s a different story for a different day. Ryan, I just like picking coaches brains on how they have their athletes pace these workouts so that our listeners can kind of hear this and maybe try it for themselves. So what is the Ryan Tybball recipe?

Ryan: This dates back quite a ways now. It’s become the negative split approach, is going after those assessments starting off and taking a look at where your last assessment , where you landed on that last assessment and build from there. You know, build a progressive through whether it’s through the 5K it’s like alright, this first mile is going to be at this zone 4 and then that second mile is going to be upper end of zone 4 to low, maybe even low zone 5 and then that last mile is going to be most certainly low zone 5 and above as you continue through. Again, this is very high level.

Andrew: Sure.

Ryan: Not super detailed, but same thing is the approach to that 400. In the swim the 400 you have to be patient with that one as well. Now the 200, that can be slightly different approach. You definitely can start off a little hotter and really churn that water up. Even going into the bike–

Andrew: Start hot and turn everything on.

Ryan: Yeah exactly. You know, the bike, depending upon 15 mile or 20 minute test, you know, those are different approaches obviously.

Andrew: Sure.

Ryan: But still, when you really summarize it all from my style, yes the negative split approach. Not to mention fueling. You need to treat this fueling portion. You don’t just jump in the water, jump on the bike, go for the run without fueling properly and preparing yourself appropriately in the warm up set. You know, your warm up  and your fueling process because you just want to really maximize your opportunity here and throughout these assessments for sure.

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