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: Well, they did it! The beautiful minds behind TriDot triathlon training have released RunDot, data-optimized training for folks who just want to run. Will there be a RunDot podcast where we just talk about running? Maybe so, maybe not, only time will tell. In the meantime, we’ll talk all about RunDot on the TriDot podcast today. Here to tell us all about it is TriDot founder and CEO, Jeff Booher. Jeff is the chief architect behind TriDot’s nSight optimization technology that powers TriDot training. He is a multiple Ironman finisher, who has coached dozens of professional triathletes and national champions, as well as hundreds of age-groupers to podiums and PRs since he began coaching triathlon back in the year 2003. Jeff, on a scale of zero to ten, how excited are you for the launch of RunDot?

Jeff Booher: I’m super excited, Andrew. I’d have to say it’s an eleven today.

Andrew: It’s eleven! Wonderful. Cannot be captured by the scale. Also joining us is TriDot’s Vice President of Marketing, Matt Bach. Matt is an accomplished athlete, with an Ironman Maryland victory, and a 72nd overall finish in Kona on his résumé. He worked on Wall Street as a trader and portfolio manager for nine years, earned his MBA from Temple University, worked at marketing at UCAN for 2½ years, before coming on board to lead TriDot’s marketing efforts. Matt, welcome back to the show!

Matt Bach: Thanks Andrew! I’m excited to be back on today to talk about the discipline that began it all for me, running. That’s where it all started.

Andrew: Mm, yeah! Well, I’m Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, we’ll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set topic, and then we’ll wind things down on our cooldown with Vanessa interviewing a TriDot coach giving us a triathlon coaching tip. Lots of good stuff, let’s get to it!

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

Andrew: Whether it’s triathlon or a run-only event, every time you do a race you are assigned a bib number. Usually it’s out of our control, and usually it’s an unmemorable three or four digits. But the more you race, the better the odds that you will eventually get a race number that stands out and is meaningful for you. Jeff, Matt, for our warmup question today, what was a time where you especially liked your race bib number? Jeff Booher?

Jeff: I’m sorry, this is going to be a disappointment. I have not had a memorable one. Like you said in the setup, usually it’s unmemorable. I’d love to say, after the welcome, that it was number 11 that I had, but I’ve just never had one that’s a memorable number.

Andrew: And you’re a four-time Ironman finisher I believe?

Jeff: Yes, and I’ve done 60-plus races.

Andrew: Can you remember even one of your bib numbers? Just one?

Jeff: No, I cannot.

Andrew: Jeff, it sounds like it’s been too long since you’ve raced, and we need to get you back on the race course one of these days maybe.

Jeff: It could be.

Matt: The only numbers he cares about are the finishing time and the improvement, he doesn’t care about those meaningless numbers on his bib, right?

Jeff: That’s true.

Andrew: Matt Bach, do you have an answer to this one, or did I ask the two wrong guys this question?

Matt: I do have an answer to this one. I was number 22 at a half marathon in Rutgers in New Jersey. Beforehand I had no love for the number, because to me it was meaningless. But afterwards it was pretty cool, because I was number 22, I placed second overall, and I had a two-minute PR, so there were a lot of twos.

Andrew: Yeah, sure, hard to go wrong with that. My answer here, and honestly the inspiration for this question – I did a race last year for the first time. The PTO Tour organization came through Dallas, Texas, and did the U.S. Open. It was right down the road from where I live, so I signed up to go race. My number for the U.S. Open, held in July, was 1776. I honestly didn’t even realize the meaning there, but one of my buddies was with me at packet pickup and he was like, “Aw, dude, you got 1776, nice!” It took me a second, embarrassingly, a little longer than it should, to realize why that was a meaningful number for the PTO Tour U.S. Open.

Jeff: You might need to elaborate on that with all of our international listeners.

Andrew: Our friends in the U.K. will already know this story, but for everybody else around the world, the year 1776 is the year the United States won its independence from the United Kingdom, a few centuries ago. So the theme at the U.S. Open, everything was flags, red, white, and blue logos, and I was 1776, the Independence number for America.

We’re going to throw this question out to our audience. I’m curious, are you like me and Matt and you have an answer here? Or are you like Jeff, and you just honestly can’t think of something memorable? Either way, we want to hear about it. Make sure you’re a part of the I AM TriDot Facebook group, where I will ask this question. The Monday this episode goes out, I’ll pose that question to the group. Have you ever had a race bib number that was somehow extra-meaningful for you?

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

Andrew: Before we get too deep into the show today, I want to give a shout out to our good friends at UCAN. Here at TriDot we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. In the crowded field of nutrition companies, what separates UCAN from the pack is the science behind LIVSTEADY, the key ingredient in UCAN products. While most energy powders are filled with sugar or stimulants that cause a spike and crash, UCAN energy powders, powered by LIVSTEADY, deliver a steady release of complex carbs to give you stable blood sugar and provide long-lasting energy. I personally fuel many of my workouts with the orange-flavored Edge gel, but between their energy mix, energy bars, almond butter, and more, there is definitely a LIVSTEADY product that you will love. So head to their website, ucan.co and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. Once again, that’s ucan.co, promo code TRIDOT.

The endurance community is composed of athletes who enjoy a wide array of physical activity. Triathletes obviously are attracted to the challenge and the variety of swim, bike, and run. But some folks just want to swim, some just want to bike. Some want to hike or climb, kayak, row, or ski. Some folks just want to go for a run, and for them, there is now RunDot. Now Jeff, Matt, often triathletes at least dabble in run-only events, sometimes with a goal, sometimes for just race-distance practice, and sometimes just to get some racing in when it’s too cold for a triathlon. For the two of you, what is your personal experience with run-only racing? Jeff Booher?

Jeff: Well, I grew up playing all the ball sports and such, but I also ran track. I loved running track, did the decathlon a little bit. In the military, we did a lot of running there, and I entered several races. Even when I was a kid I did a 5K with my dad, and I remember that time, it was 25:25. I’m not sure how old I was, kind of young.

Matt: I told you he’d remember the times, not the bib number.

Jeff: I’ve only done one standalone marathon, and that was kind of funny. In the mid-90’s, I had an uncle on New Year’s Day, we were up together as a family. He said, “I’m gonna do the Cowtown 10K.” It was I think the third week in February, and I said, “I’m gonna do the marathon.” I had not been running at all. I ran 13 times, the 13th was the marathon. It hurt a little bit, but I got it done. Before that, everything other than a 5K was extreme distance. But it was fun.

Andrew: Yeah, that was before Jeff Booher created the nSight Training Optimization Engine of TriDot.

Jeff: Quite a bit. Yeah, don’t do it like that.

Andrew: My relationship with running – I played soccer and tennis in high school and college. After college I was just trying to stay in shape, so I would just get off work and go for a run. Personally, doing races and events never really appealed to me. Why am I going to pay 40 or 50 bucks to go do a 5K at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning when I’m not a morning person? I can go run a 5K for free at whatever time I want to wake up on my own accord. So I just never did much. But there was a guy in our church whose company was sponsoring a 5K, so he was like, “Hey, use this code, you can enter it for free.” I was like, “Okay, well, it’s free, so let me go try this 5K.” That was the first time I did an organized, actual race event. It was in Arlington, Texas, right down the road from us. I went down there – I think I was third overall male, with like a 23-something-minute time – and it kind of gave me a glimpse of, “Wow, this is kind of neat to get on a course with other people and do this thing.” That was my one-and-only run race for a long time. Now I’ve done a handful of half-marathons, but for me it’s mostly been triathlon. Matt, I know you have quite a bit of running in your background. You’ve teased that a little bit in the intro. Your run pedigree certainly eclipses Jeff’s and mine. Tell us about your relationship with running over the years.

Matt: First I’ll say it’s all relative. When you say my run pedigree eclipses you guys, that’s relative to you guys. But of course when I mention any times here, there’s probably going to be some 14-minute 5K guy out there thinking that I’m some chump. Which is true, it’s all relative.

Andrew: What a chump! Lame!

Matt: Yeah, but running is where it all started for me, back in middle school. I only joined the cross-country team and the track team because my friend peer-pressured me into doing so. I hated every minute of it. My mile time clocked in at a blistering nine minutes, where the only blistering that was happening was on the bottom of my feet. Blistering was certainly not referring to my pace. I was not particularly talented like your Meb Keflezighi or something, who I think in fifth grade ran like 5:10 or something crazy. I was definitely not that guy. But I kept doing it, because again, I was easily peer-pressured. Freshman year I tried slacking off as much as possible, but I still saw some improvement, and it got me wondering, “Hey, what if I actually tried?” I had a great coach named Rob Murray, who is still coaching at Danbury High School in Connecticut, just turning out All State and All American athletes like crazy. So I got down to 5:20 by the end of my freshman year, and made varsity by my junior year. I ran 15:53 for the 5K. By high school standards I was pretty good, but not great. I was All Conference, All State, but nothing more than that. I graduated, and I walked on the team at Penn State. I wasn’t recruited, I made the team by basically peaking for the time trial, which was part of the qualification process to make the team. But I hated it, I really didn’t like it at all, the team, the training. I got burned out, and I stopped running for about 2½ years. When I came back to it, I raced 5K’s, trying to break my old high school PR. I raced at Princeton a couple times, where I got annihilated by the legitimate college runners, many of whom lapped me once or even twice. I only ever ran 16:05, and that’s when I was getting lapped once or twice, that’s how fast those guys are. But it got me in shape to prepare for my first marathon, which I ran in Baltimore 2008. I ran 2:54, and then I got started in triathlons in 2010. Once I started doing triathlon, I was really using the pure running events throughout my triathlon career to improve my run in triathlon. One of the things I noticed was that in running terms, I was kind of a chump compared to a lot of the other runners out there. But in the triathlon world, I noticed my run was actually really good, I was one of the fastest runners in the entire field. That was really encouraging to me, knowing if I could make my swim and bike faster, then I could potentially be pretty darn good at triathlon. I ran the New York City Marathon in 2011, the Philly Marathon in 2014 where I ran my PR of 2:42, and a whole slew of other 5Ks, Turkey Trots, half marathons, and all those sorts of races along the way. A lot of it, like I said, was just prepping for doing better in triathlons.

Andrew: Yeah, I have never wanted to do a marathon. In a lot of ways, I still don’t have the desire to do a marathon. My only marathon in my entire life was the marathon that took place in my one Ironman, and I think that’s the case for some triathletes, that’s the only way they’re ever going to run that long. It was during the training for that, leading up to Ironman Waco, that I was starting to run 2 hours, 2½ hours at a time, and I was like, “I wonder what my marathon time would be all on its own?” So I’m sure eventually I’ll break down and do a standalone marathon. I haven’t don’t it yet. But it’s interesting to hear the background on running for you guys as we dive into talking more about running and RunDot today. Jeff, as we get into the origin story for RunDot, the origin story for TriDot we captured on Episode .01 of the TriDot podcast. It’s still out there, still being listened to. It is our eighth most-listened-to episode of all time, even with all of the interesting episodes we have out now. Jeff, where in this journey as a company did you have the idea for RunDot? Hit us with the origin story for this new app that’s launching.

Jeff: It’s funny, I didn’t have the name RunDot, I didn’t have a timeline on the app, but it was very, very early on. Probably I knew that there would be something. I didn’t know what it would be called, but I knew there would be a RunDot at the same time I knew there would be a TriDot. In my initial research, going all the way to 2004, 2005, as I started it at about 2008 or 2009, I realized that in tackling the triathlon training problem, with these different disciplines, that we really had to make the technology so granular that we were going to be able to optimize health, fitness, and performance. So if we ingested data, we could optimize based on that, so I knew it was a matter of time. It's kind of like the Amazon analogy: Amazon started out selling books and DVDs. They didn’t say, “When do we sell treadmills, and then when do we sell tires?” They optimized the supply chain, so now anything can go through. That’s what we started doing. We filed our first patent in 2011, so all the way back then we knew. It didn’t make financial sense to invest so much into just a single sport niche of triathlon. But if we approached it in the way, played the long game where we invest in the advanced analytics, the machine learning, all the things that need to take place to optimize triathlon training, then we could do that. We could optimize the improvement in health, fitness, and performance, regardless of the sport, if we had the right data.

Matt: That’s one of the things that I’ve admired about you, Jeff, even before starting working here, is just the fact that you’re patient. You’ve never broken into a market earlier than you felt it was the right time. Like you said, you’re in it for the long game, you are patient. It’s like, “Okay, we’re not going to break into international markets until we’re ready to do so. We’re not going to break into the running market until we’re ready to do so.” You’ve really taken the time and made TriDot, the optimization and technology behind it, so robust and powerful and effective that now it’s just a very natural progression for us to move into pure running.

Andrew: My journey with TriDot started in 2019, Matt’s journey with TriDot started in 2021. So we’re still relatively young in our relationship with TriDot, purely as a company, compared to you. As the founder, you’ve been there since Day One. You are 18 years into your journey, your relationship with this thing that is TriDot. What emotions go through you? How excited are you? Can you even quantify it for us, just seeing our company put out a new app in a totally different space?

Jeff: It’s really exciting. Predictive Fitness is the name of the company that builds the brands. So while these different initiatives are on a road map – we’re doing some stuff with the Department of Defense, the Army, and these other areas – each one of them is really cool. But running specifically is massive, because it touches so many people. There are so many people who run. It’s so approachable. You don’t need much more than shoes to do it, but it is one of the most injury-prone activities. So many people love it, but with the beatings. There’s just so many positives of being able to apply the technology here, and have something specifically for runners. It does feel surreal, and my wife Jennifer is oftentimes the one that points that out to me. I kind of have my head down, and the progress is so incremental you don’t see it. But she’ll say, “Look, remember when you said this? That was just three years ago!” The team as well, we have a massive team of fifteen-something engineers now working on this. What they can contribute is unbelievable. My secret to success I guess is hiring people more talented and smarter than I am. It’s pretty cool.

Andrew: Matt and I are certainly a part of those talented people you’ve hired along the way, isn’t that right?

Jeff: Absolutely! We have a great team, you guys are standout stellar, for sure. But back to your original question you posed, I look at it also a little differently. You mentioned this new app, it’s not really a new app. It’s based on 18 years of data, and the IP, and the things that we’ve been doing painstakingly, going through the process of perfecting and maturing the technology. So I feel like it’s not a new app in some ways. It's a new app and a brand new market that we’re going after, and introducing ourselves to a new market, but in one sense it’s not. It’s something that’s proven and time-tested, in generating those results for triathletes, and a ton of triathletes that just run for long periods of time, where they’re just runners.

Matt: Jeff, you did it the hard way. Instead of starting with running, which is one discipline, you started with TriDot. You’re a triathlete, and that’s quite the undertaking to start with that one.

Jeff: Actually, strategically, that was a very conscious decision. Not just that I started there, and that was the sport that I was participating in, but there’s things that you can only quantify by comparison. It’s almost like triangulation. When you have people improving their fitness in three different disciplines, you can isolate and look at what’s different between those two. How much pounding, how much cardiovascular, that cost-benefit analysis, because you have some people on bikes, some people swim, and some people run. So it's a much better product because of those other disciplines that we’re able to bring to the running market.

Andrew: So RunDot is new, but it’s also kind of not new. RunDot is not right now starting from ground zero like TriDot did 18 years ago. RunDot is picking up on the same momentum, the same data set, that TriDot has already been using for 18 years. Jeff, as we talk about the running community, I think a lot of runners just want to go out the door and go for a run. That was certainly me before I went to the dark side and became a triathlete. It seems like casual runners are not as likely to think about their training as much as the average triathlete. So who is RunDot for? Is this best utilized by competitive runners who do measure their training? Or is it from beginner to pro, just like TriDot is?

Jeff: It’s definitely from beginner to pro, it’s for everybody. But we have done a lot of thinking, and Matt can articulate more. We worked with the University of Oklahoma for a whole semester, going through the standalone sport cyclists and runners. I’d say there is a mentality shift here over time as more and more data becomes available, and people are more exposed to all the devices and monitors. Not just the competitive people, but people who have an Apple watch, or anything. There is a shift in the awareness of data, and what kind of role it can play in every area of our life. So I would say it’s for anyone who enjoys running, and who wants to stay injury-free. Even if you’re not training, competing, going for PRs, if you want to keep doing the activity, you need to stay injury free. I think most people do want to get faster, they want to improve, either for competition or conversation, like you can keep up with a group and not be so tired you can’t even speak, where everyone else is talking and you’re gasping for air. I had one of our engineers a while back, he said, “I’ll never enter a cycling race ever, but I just don’t want to get dropped every weekend. How about you just give me a training plan so I don’t get dropped. I want to stay with the group and be able to participate, not be injured.” So whatever the goal is of the runner, to stay healthy or to run faster, it makes it easy. You get to wake up and do something that makes it fun, and you can see the process. I think there’s an engagement and a sticky factor when you're seeing progress. When you see your growth, that makes you stay with it longer and makes it more fun. Fast is fun, but faster is funner.

Matt: True. And one thing to comment, in the running space there are quite a few runners, a good portion of the population that are more casual about it, that are not necessarily as competitive. They are in it more for lifestyle, health reasons, wellness, maybe it’s stress relief, all these different reasons. One of the beautiful things about RunDot and the improvements that the development team have made over the years is that it’s so easy to use, it’s intuitive, and it’s motivational. There’s all these elements like the TrainX score and XP that get you motivated, “Do it”. So even if it’s just you’re doing it for health and you’re not necessarily doing it for performance reasons, if it’s motivating you to get out the door, then it’s just going to be that much better for you. Also though, there’s just a void in the running space that RunDot fills. Quality training needs to be tailored specifically to you, and constantly update as you progress – and falter, because there’s always some bumps in the road, injury, illness, life events getting in the way. To this point runners had limited options, and options really that aren’t that great, they all have their flaws. You can train yourself – it’s free, but you may lack the expertise, you’re not really taking into account all the data that’s available to us, there’s no accountability. Free training templates – cookie-cutter, it’s not really tailored to you. You can pay for some sort of custom plan – it might be relatively inexpensive, but it doesn’t change as you progress or falter. You can pay a coach to write and monitor a plan – you pay a lot more for that, and the research shows that it’s still not as good as what our AI optimization engine can do, nowhere near it. There’s no possible way for a human to synthesize and analyze all of that data, and prescribe training that is as effective as RunDot is now. It’s like the GPS navigation analogy that you may have heard us use before. No matter how good you are with a Rand McNally, you’re not going to beat Google Maps or Wayz, that effortlessly analyzes and optimizes based on the plethora of available data that we have now. RunDot provides high-quality training that’s tailored specifically to you, at price points that fit any budget. That’s what makes it powerful for both your casual runner and your competitive runner and everybody in between.

Andrew: I think it’s possible that this could be or should be the last episode ever of the TriDot podcast. Because 190 episodes in, we’ve finally got a Rand McNally reference from one of our guests. I think we’ve done it all, that’s it. There’s nothing more to say at the point you're referencing Rand McNally on the TriDot podcast episode. Just kidding, we’re never going to stop.

Matt: Do those even exist anymore?

Andrew: I don’t know, I just use Google Maps. Jeff, whenever you’re on the show in particular, I love learning whatever you can tell us about the engine under the hood of our training. For folks using RunDot to prep for run events, how does the optimization work compared to what we’ve already heard on the podcast previously about TriDot?

Jeff: Good question. It is the same engine. It’s not two separate apps. It’s two separate front ends maybe, but the back end, the IP, the data, all of that’s the same. So comparatively you’re not going to see a whole lot of differences. I’d say even for the runners, there might be a lot of runners listening for the first time. So some of those things that the TriDot athletes would compare to, for their interest and awareness, one is the app itself is more than just an “adaptive” or “personalized” dynamic. I almost cringe when I hear someone describe it that way, “Oh, it’s adaptive and personalized.” That’s language that you’ll find elsewhere when it’s just an automated template. It’s a template that some coach decided and determined, “Here’s what the training is. Now if you run one mile this week, let’s do two miles next week, then three miles.” It’s an incremental up or down based on what you do or don’t do. But ours is not a predetermined, automated template. The technology in there is proprietary, it’s things that no one else is doing. The RunDot scale is one to a hundred, the standardized framework for measuring improvement. The environment normalization takes into account the effect of temperature, humidity, elevation, and terrain normalization. The age and gender equalization, “How much should a 63-year-old female compare to a 31-year-old male, at this different performance level, for this different distance?” All of that’s built into the technology, it’s still there. The genetics, looking at your genes and pulling out your injury predisposition, recovery rate, trainability, all those things. Then the quantification of normalized training stress, that’s looking at training stress type by period, by dose, by mesocycle, microcycle. All of those things don’t exist anywhere else, and all those things are necessary for the machine learning and AI, the analytics to be able to do this. Everything, without any one of those much less all of them, there’s too much noise in the raw data to do that. So we’ve been doing that. The 18 years is what it’s taken to develop these things. The genetics was 4½ years in development before we did it, so many things take so long. But it’s acquiring not just the raw data, but the contextualized, normalized data, and then having people train and get the actual results, and then analyzing the results of something when you have a target: here’s what could have happened, here’s what did happen, and understanding why. That granular optimization is not just a template, it’s not trial and error, it’s not simplistic. It's the same. On the front end, the big difference that RunDot athletes will see is there’s not swims and bikes, and it’s less volume. That’s the biggest thing for sure. The run-only athlete, depending on their preference, they have a little bit more time. They can take up a little bit more training volume, a little bit more intensity. But not a lot, because it’s the same. Swimming is very different than running.

Andrew: Your body can only handle so much running, whether you’re swimming and biking or not.

Jeff: Right. So the volume isn’t that much different for how it’s structured. There’s a little bit of a difference in how it’s optimized through the microcycle/mesocycle, but not a lot more than the obvious compare/contrast that you might think of.

Andrew: Very helpful. So when runners download the app, they create an account, they log on, they fire up their first training session, what are they going to see on the RunDot app itself? What will the calendar look like being run-only, and not having those sweet swims and bike sessions we’re used to seeing?

Jeff: I think I kind of answered it a little bit in the last one. They’re not going to see those swims and bikes. They’re going to see runs. Maybe one or two more, it depends on their volume preference, their goals, race distance, time, all that kind of stuff. They will see the XP, the TrainX scores, the levels, all that fun stuff. A lot of similarities in that way, so I don’t think they’re going to be shocked in any way. For a RunDot athlete, I think it’s going to be about what they envisioned.

Matt: To add to that, they’ll see a plan that is perfectly suited to them. There’s very specific questions that they’re asked when they’re creating an account, along with training data when you connect your device. That helps us gather the information needed to tailor the training specifically to you, and meet you where you’re at. Whether you’re a 40-minute 5K runner, or a sub-20, or anything in between. The mileage and intensity you see is going to be challenging, but manageable, and it’s the perfect balance of training load and recovery so that you can improve, just like it is with TriDot.

Andrew: With TriDot, if you tell TriDot you are an Ironman athlete, versus just doing sprints and Olympics – if I throw Ironman Coeur D’Alene in the summer on my schedule, versus just throwing a local Olympic distance on the schedule for the summer – it’s going to do very different things for my training. I’m assuming the same thing here, whether you’re the guy or gal who does six marathons a year, or if you’re just doing a couple 5Ks, you’re going to see differences in your training based on what events you’re preparing for, correct?

Jeff: Absolutely. You can set your preferences for your weekly schedule, your volume, all that. If you want, you can have it fixed to a certain amount, and you can move the days and all that. Most athletes will let the system optimize it for the best combination. They’ll say, “My long run has to be here from a scheduling perspective,” then the system will optimize where the next Quality 2 session will go, then Quality 3, then 4, then 5. It optimizes all of those things. It’s going to be largely determined by your race distance, your body composition, and by how much training you can handle in your preferences.

Andrew: Of the swimming, biking, and running – you guys already alluded to this earlier – it’s the running that is the hardest on the body. Longtime listeners to the show will know that TriDot helps athletes keep the amount of running they have on the calendar in check to help you stay injury-free. How will this work with RunDot? Will there be any kind of cross-training, or lessened workload to help manage stress on the body, perhaps compared to running plans that have athletes just running miles and miles every day?

Jeff: Well it’s not going to have you running every day, for sure. There’s no difference there in that sense. There’s still only so much that you can do running-wise. But it’ll make sure that you can do that in a healthy way. It’s still going to optimize. It’s looking at where the diminishing returns are, based on your goals and your performance level. It’s looking at the risk tolerance to make sure that the running that you do, the time that you invest – every time you go out and run there is injury risk. The harder you go, the longer you go, there’s injury risk – it’s making sure that risk is safely inside the area where the athlete’s going to continue to progress. Continued progression is about consistency, continuing to run, and every time you have an injury you have to come out, that’s the biggest setback there. So it’s optimizing all of those different training variables, the frequency, intensity, durations, and everything.

Matt: Not really too much more to add there, just that your plan is going to progress as you progress, and within the constraints that you put on it. So if you say, “I want to run three days a week and that’s it,” RunDot will get you improving quickly, given the fact that you’re telling it that you want to run just three days a week. But if you don’t have that constraint put on the optimization engine, it’s going to progress you as your progress. You’ll move up in terms of the number of days and miles and time running and intensity and all of that, the training load, to four or five times a week or more, once you’re ready for it.

Andrew: Seasoned TriDot athletes will know that you can absolutely train for a run-only event using TriDot. In fact, many athletes report that their 5K, 10K, half- and full-marathon PRs came training with TriDot as opposed to not training with TriDot. For me personally, I ran a half-marathon shortly before joining TriDot. My goal was to go sub-1:40, and I clocked an agonizingly close 1:40:41. I literally, on the final stretch, could see the pacer with the 1:40 sign down the road in front of me, and I was not going to catch him for the life of me. Fast forward to a few years of TriDot training under my belt, I paced our good friend John Mayfield to a half-Ironman PR. Now John wanted to go under 1:40, and I paced him to a 1:38, and I was just chilling. According to RaceX, I was capable of going in the 1:29’s that day, had I been racing it myself, and not held back by my buddy John Mayfield. So more of a TriDot question here than a RunDot question, but what makes triathlon training so effective for improving run race splits?

Jeff: There are several things, and the obvious is it’s the bike and the swim. There’s benefits of the overlapping training. You don’t have the pounding on the body. You’re still getting the largest portion of that threshold improvement, the mechanics, the form, the speed, that power, but on the bike you’re also getting the cardiovascular benefit of the bike, in a non-load-bearing way, so you’re not having the pounding. You’re able to get that cardiovascular fitness without most of the negatives. Swimming is incredibly valuable for cardio, but it’s also great for promoting circulation and recovery. It’s working your upper body for one, but it also has you in a horizontal position, so you’re getting a lot better circulation, you’re not upright. That has huge value in the recovery on the run. So having those both in there are amazing. I coached a junior team for twelve years, and we had so many kids on the team that also ran cross-country, setting records, and they were the best on their cross-country team. Most of them, their coaches in the cross-country team would say, “Keep practicing with the tri team. Do that. I just want you to come to races.” Because they were winning and scoring points for their team, and they were injury-free. They weren’t getting injured, because they were running only three or four days a week. An easy quick run after a bike here and there, but the bulk of their training, the most beneficial portions they were doing with us. They were getting the beneficial components of the bike, and the recovery and aerobic improvement from the swim as well.

Matt: My recommendation is pretty constantly, regularly, and I say it a lot, is that if you’re capable of swimming and biking, then I recommend doing so as cross-training for your pure running events, let’s say it’s a marathon or a half-marathon. Because that swimming and biking gives you that aerobic training without the pounding that running provides. Also, when you’re in swim and bike shape, if anything were to go wrong with your running and you can’t run anymore, you’re not starting from ground zero with the swim and bike. You can just do more swimming and biking to keep yourself aerobically in shape, and not just have to drop your training load down to almost nothing because you can’t run anymore. So if you want to cross-train, use TriDot to prepare you for your pure running events. It prepares you so well, and we’ve seen countless anecdotes of people preparing for pure running events using that cross-training approach in TriDot. My favorite model is to have low training volume for swim and bike, so that you’re doing one or two per week, then you have the run volume at either standard or high in preparation for something like a marathon.

Andrew: Really interesting, a lot of triathletes training with TriDot have reported they throw triathlons on the schedule, and they’ve got their normal schedule. But if they add a marathon to their schedule, they’re surprised when TriDot adds a swim to their week. Then they’re like, “Why do I all of a sudden have three swims a week instead of two? I told TriDot I’m doing a run race.” The answer, as we’ve said on the podcast before, is exactly what you’re talking about, Jeff. That swim, that time off your feet, building that cardiovascular engine, is so valuable in the pool that TriDot said, “Oh, you’re doing a run race? Here’s another swim!” It’s always been so fascinating to me to see that, and sure enough, those people usually come back saying, “Wow, I PR’ed my marathon, thank you TriDot!” So I’m really curious, how will the TriDot athlete interact with RunDot? Will they not need it? Will they just stay on TriDot year-round? Or will there be some benefit to hopping between the two throughout your season?

Jeff: For the triathletes, definitely stick with TriDot. I wouldn’t say that RunDot is better for run training than TriDot is, it’s just different. If you’re only a runner, then use RunDot. If you do those other disciplines, if you swim and bike or want to do those things, use TriDot. There’s pros and cons of both. You’re going to maybe have more time for run-only, but you’re also going to have more pounding. And like you said, there are benefits from the cycling and the swimming for consistency. If you do have an injury, you can back off a little and still stay in shape. If all you do is run, you can’t. Time off is time off. There’s those negatives that aren’t really visible or apparent to most athletes. So definitely stick with TriDot if you do swimming and biking. But for the runners who that’s what they love, they want to do just that, then go for RunDot.

Matt: That’s where RunDot comes in. There are so many runners out there that either don’t know how to swim, or don’t have access to a pool to swim laps. Maybe they don’t own a bike, or maybe they don’t own a power meter or trainer, or any of those other tools that you might use on the bike to make your training really effective. So if they don’t, or they don’t have the logistics in place so that they can do the swim and bike, or just pure preference, just because you want to run more, that captures a very large number of people. Those are those pure runners that just want to strap on the running shoes and run out their front door, because that is just so easy to do.

Andrew: Yeah, I have plenty of friends, peers, and literal family members who are just never going to do a swim. They’re never going to hop in the pool or the open water, they have zero interest in swimming as a fitness or racing activity. I’ve literally been told – by plenty of people that know what I do for a living, that know what TriDot is as a company – they’ll say, “When you guys launch your running app, let me know and I’ll be the first in line to download it and hop on.” Or be the first in line to coach with it, for my friends who are qualified in that way. They’re very interested in that. It’s interesting, for every friend I have that does triathlon, I probably have a dozen friends that just run. I trust many in our triathlete-dominant audience here have a similar ratio in their athlete friend circle. So what should our TriDot folks say to their runner friends when they encourage them to check out RunDot?

Jeff: Two things. One is, RunDot isn’t new. It’s the same proven technology, it’s the same engine based on 18 years of research and development, the patents-pending technology, the contextualized data from more than 100,000 athletes. All those things are there. So I’d get them to jump on, but realize that every single person that uses TriDot or RunDot helps the algorithms get better. TriDot, and RunDot, gets better the more athletes that use it. So this is a huge opportunity to provide value to that running community. But also for those runners coming on, there are so many more things that we’re going to be able to do and fine tune. That’s going to benefit the triathletes, the runners, the cyclists, everybody. I’m super excited, so bring them on!

Matt: Two things to add to that. One, you have better results in less time with fewer injuries, just like with TriDot. That same tagline applies here. It’s fun, motivating, and easy to use. So tell them to go to RunDot.com and start a trial. Boom.

Andrew: With TriDot, athletes can have a coach, or they can choose not to have a coach and just execute the training all on their own. Will RunDot work the same way? Will there be RunDot coaches just like there are TriDot coaches?

Matt: Yes, absolutely. We love our coaches, and RunDot and TriDot are not intended to replace the coaches. They’re intended to complement the coaches. The training is written by RunDot in a highly effective manner, so that the coaches can spend more time working with their athletes. All those things that the coach does better than the training technology does or ever could – the emotional and mental support, the accountability, the nutrition coaching, the gear selections, the race planning, the form analysis – all these things that the coach does, it frees them up so that they can actually do those things.

Jeff: Think of it like pilots and physicians and other occupations where data and technology comes in there. Would you imagine getting on a plane these days, and the pilot of that plane doesn’t use all kinds of sensors, satellite GPS, and autopilot? You’d freak out and probably get off the plane if they said they weren’t going to use it. But you want a pilot up there. Same thing with physicians, with MRIs and all the equipment. It’s not going to be acceptable in a few more months or years to not use those things. There’s this period of time where our sport is adapting, and there’s so much data coming in, that it’s more than a human being can consume. That’s good, because technology does what it does best. But that said, there’s things that it takes a person to do. A person can care, relationship and all of these things. Our technology allows coaches to focus on the athlete, and not just look into spreadsheets of their data, or the trial-and-error based on the limited data that they have time to look at.

Andrew: TriDot training is great. Really, it’s revolutionary. But Jeff, I know you, me, Matt, our whole team really, we all know athletes come for the training, and stay because of the community. The TriDot community is special. People are encouraging, they’re helpful, they look out for each other at the races. Much has been done to start and foster that community for our triathletes. Is there any kind of vision for a congruent RunDot community somewhere in the future as well?

Jeff: There absolutely is. That’s something that, for us, has always grown organically. That’s just how it got started. I love that about who we are. First of all that people come for the technology maybe, they achieve their goals, but you see them staying so long because of the relationships they build, and the healthy lifestyle and all that. We’ve seen so many of our TriDot athletes, Ambassadors, and coaches stepping up to give back, to bring other people into the sport, to show them how it’s achievable, how they can stay healthy. I had a TriDot athlete this past weekend at Pool School, and he just said, “I want to thank you so much for the difference this has made in my life.” He goes, “I don’t mean in my sport, or in my health, I mean my whole life is better.” He went on and on to say the impact it had in so many aspects of his life. That’s really what we’re all about, and that’s done through people, through relationship. We are intentional about that, but it’s not something we’ve forced. It’s come about just by the wonderful, great people that are in the TriDot community, and RunDot will be the same. I know we have so many that are runners. Like you said, for every one person that you know that’s doing triathlons, there’s a dozen that are runners. I think this just enhances our ability to build relationships with people doing running, cycling, and those other sports. To build that community, that camaraderie, that mutual encouragement, the vulnerability and openness, all the things we see. So it’s absolutely in our future, and that will grow organically as we do.

Matt: Yeah, organically is key there. We can do our part to plant the seeds and create a safe environment for the community to thrive, but we don’t force it. We allow it to organically grow. It is an amazing thing, and we try to reinforce the culture of supporting each other, answering each other’s questions, being helpful, it’s always a positive environment. I have no doubt that a vibrant runner community, or RunDot community, will form. We have created the RunDot Community Facebook group, you can join that. That’s a digital forum for you to virtually be doing all of those things, supporting, sharing stories, struggles, answering each other’s questions.

Andrew: I guess I personally need to start signing up for some run races, some 5Ks and marathons, so that if there is a RunDot podcast that launches – which we’ve talked about a little bit, maybe so, maybe not – but if that’s something that launches, I’ve got to beef up my running résumé so that I can be invited on as a guest to the RunDot podcast. That’s a new personal goal of mine, so we’ll see. As the app is launching, community and media channels and social media channels for RunDot, whatever makes sense for that brand, will continue to grow from that brand. It's honestly going to be really exciting to watch over time. Now with TriDot, there have been some really cool additions to the app itself over the years, the user experience keeps getting better and better. We keep adding more video material to show athletes how to do certain things, we added coaching and motivational materials from triathlon legend and ESPN’s Greatest Endurance Athlete of All Time, Mark Allen. And actually, in the next few weeks we are announcing some more exciting in-app additions that – I can’t even name names right now – but they’re really exciting. What is the vision for RunDot? What do you think could be possible with a run-only app?

Jeff: It’s a lot of the same stuff. Like you said, there’s a lot of things that we work on for a long time that we don’t share. I am thinking of several very specific things that are coming. The community is a big piece. The fun factor is a big piece. Things that we can do to make it more accessible for the whole life, the fitness beyond just running. The way we move, our functional movement and health, not getting dysfunctional movement. In these repetitive-motion sports like cycling, running, swimming, triathlon, if you put fitness on top of dysfunctional movement, you can dig yourself a hole and spend the whole rest of your life trying to get out of it. There’s a lot of things, from the whole-health, the wellness, the lifestyle community, all of those are definitely focal points moving forward.

Matt: For me, vision wise, it’s catering to both ends of the spectrum. In triathlon, everybody for the most part has a pretty high commitment level, because there’s three sports. But with running, the spectrum is so huge. You have people that are very much recreational, lifestyle, casual for health and wellbeing. Then you have people on the other end of the spectrum who are your sub-2:30 marathoners, and the ladies running sub-2:40, 2:30, crazy fast times. They’re really competitive and performance driven. So we created this app and environment in which both ends of that spectrum can thrive, because it can do that, and we want to see it come to fruition for everybody.

Andrew: So that’s the vision for the RunDot app, the things you guys hope to see progress with RunDot over time. We’re talking today about the excitement of a new run-specific training app called RunDot. But as a brand, Predictive Fitness – the brand that signs Matt’s and my paychecks as the stellar employees that we are – are there any other releases coming up that you can tease for us today? Or is RunDot enough excitement for now?

Jeff: I think RunDot’s going to have to be enough excitement for now.

Andrew: I tried, guys. I tried.

Matt: I don’t know, my brain’s been inundated with RunDot for weeks now. It’s been hard to even lift my head up to look at other things recently.

Andrew: Lots of good stuff. It’s a brand-new day for Predictive Fitness as a company. It’s a brand-new day for the runners out there that finally will have optimized training. If you’re out there and you know you’re never going to touch a pool, you’re never going to hop on a bike, there is now data-optimized training for you through RunDot. So Matt, for our runners checking out this episode, listening in to this conversation, how do they get started with RunDot?

Matt: Go to RunDot.com, and there you’ll be able to learn more, read more about it, and also start your free trial.

Andrew: Easy peasy.

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

Vanessa Ronksley: It’s Coach Cooldown Tip time, and I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! Today we are joined by Ken Presutti. By day, Ken transforms digital products as an Agile Product Coach at a large U.S. bank, and by night, he transforms athletes into triathlon champions. He has coached multiple Ironman World Championship qualifiers, he has taken Olympic age-groupers all the way to the podium, and has coached Junior World Elite triathletes. His coaching background also includes top high school runners in the state of Pennsylvania. He currently loves working with triathletes at all levels, and as a master Chi running instructor, he really specializes in helping athletes with their run form and staying injury free. Ken was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and lives there with his wife and 10-year-old son. Something that not many people know about Ken is that he recently scaled back on his endurance training, which is really hard for us triathletes to do, but he did it because he wanted to take up jujitsu with his son. So Ken, are you on your way to a black belt already?

Ken Presutti: I’d like to think that if you’re on that journey, even if you just took your first class, you’ve taken the first step toward your black belt. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I want to stay humble in that sport, but I’d like to keep that end goal in mind.

Vanessa: I hear you. I was really into kickboxing at one point in my life, and after my first class I was literally like, “I’m going to get my black belt!” Then after my husband and I had been trying to have kids for a really long time and it wasn’t working out, I took this kickboxing class, and then magically I ended up pregnant. So it was really awesome, but at the same time I was like, “No, what about the kickboxing?!” So I ended up training for kickboxing up until I was six months pregnant, got my yellow belt, did my test and everything. It was four hours long, and I had this massive belly, but it was so awesome and great. I love martial arts, it’s so great.

Ken: Very cool, do you think you’ll get back into it?

Vanessa: Oh someday, definitely. It’s such a great way to release everything and be calm in the mind.

Ken: It is, a hundred percent. And there is so much endurance involved with it that I feel like we’re sort of a step ahead with everything that we’re doing here in our triathlon training.

Vanessa: Yeah, and the mental training too, the mental aspects of both of those sports are very similar, if you want them to be.

Ken: One hundred percent.

Vanessa: All right, so let’s get to a tip that you have for us today.

Ken: Absolutely. So I think one of the best tips that I actually received once, and then started to apply it with my athletes, is when you’re training for long-course, oftentimes we have short workouts. So even though I’m training for Ironman, on Tuesdays I’ve got 45 minutes to an hour worth of threshold repeats on my bike. Or I have an easy run on Sunday, which is about an hour long. For a lot of those workouts I think that we say, “I’m going to do this fasting,” or “I don’t need to eat my Shot Bloks. Why would I need to eat Shot Bloks? This is only an hour-long workout.” But I’ve started to encourage my athletes to actually practice that nutrition even on those short workouts. Because if you’re not practicing them on the short workouts, you’re not going to want to do it on the long workouts. Sure, I might not eat four Shot Bloks, I might only eat two. But the idea is, I’m getting my body used to taking in this energy when I’m going to need it. Usually, if I’m going into a two-hour or three-hour workout, I’m going to need something small probably small, 20 minutes to a half-hour in. So if I get my body used to ingesting that on my short workouts, even though I don’t need it to sustain me in an hour from now, it helps my body get used to digesting it and using it. More importantly, I think it helps to get me in the mental space that eating is not terrible. Do it, you will benefit from it later on.

Vanessa: Right, okay. I am definitely guilty of not eating on my shorter workouts, and this is actually something I had on my list of questions for my coach, Ryan – “When should I be eating my nutrition, at what point in my workout?” Because I recently realized that I was waiting way too long, I was waiting over an hour. Then I was like, “Oh yeah, now I’m going to start my nutrition, because my pre-workout meal should be digested.” But by then it was too late.

Ken: Yeah, it’s too late, so if you can get yourself used to taking it, even if it’s just a little bit – maybe you take something 45-minutes in, and normally the idea would be, “I’m taking that 45 minutes in, and it’s going to start sustaining me an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes in.” You’re not going to be an hour and fifteen minutes into this workout, because it’s not that long. But you’re still prepping your body to remember, “This is what it’s going to feel like, this is when I need it,” and you’ll be good to go.

Vanessa: Is that the same with hydration as well? Like if you’re going on a 20-minute transition run, do you bring your hydration with you as well?

Ken: I recommend that you do, and I recommend that I do, and try to. Now am I always that good at doing it? Sometimes no, I’m just hopping off the bike and jumping out there. But it would definitely benefit you to be able to do that.

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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