Today Pete and I have the awesome pleasure of speaking with 15x Ironman distance champion, member of the Australian Ironman Hall of Fame Belinda Granger from her stunning backyard overlooking the 20m pool. We get such amazing insights from BG who has done 50 Iron distance racing and been around the triathlon traps for 20 odd years! We look at all aspects from injuries, to training, discipline, nutrition and so much more.

What we cover:

• Lessons from one of the most longterm successful female IM athletes in the sport
• Belinda's WHY!
• Natural talent is useless
• Why 'loving it' helps
• Strategies and tips to pull you through those tough races
• BGs two biggest regrets - massive honesty here
• The skill of set and forget
• When and where you learn the most
• Why you need to self assess
• Settling
• Nutrition, balance and not depriving yourself
• Looking at all aspects of the sport
• The ABS!
• The tell tale signs you need to listen too
• Balance
• The Training regiment... major lessons
• You HAVE to give back
• 3 huge performance knowledge bombs dropped around 28mins in
• Keys of being professional - if you're a pro or budding pro you need to listen to this
• Favourite sessions
• What the future holds for Belinda

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/belinda_granger

This weeks FFB is all about getting AERO with Mark Cote whom is the head of aero R&D for Specialized. Last week Pete and I got the opportunity to head down to the Gold Cost for Specialized’s 2015 product launch here in Australia and were lucky enough to sit down and chew the fat with Mark and we thought .. we’re all here - can we do a podcast and Mark took it in his stride which we’re super grateful for. Listen and listen again about whats important, how you can get both free and paid aero benefits.

“the difference between athletes that pay attention to this and those that don’t is Kona spots”

What we cover:

• Aero .. what’s really important and quick free aero gains (1:40).
• 80” over 40km  - imagine over an Ironman that’s 6 minutes and doing this doesn’t cost you anything.
• What a ‘shaved’ tennis ball has to do with shaved legs.
• The Specialized wind tunnel allows them to geek out
• Even a little matters
• Clean it up .. it's important.
• How AND why fit matters?
• The preconceived notions of being low are hindering you.
• The common trend in fit (not what you think).
• Get faster and reduce fatigue.
• Being in the aero bars versus being on the hoods (7:35). You’ll be stunned how much that is worth per 40km.
• All about Wheels (8:38)
• Style ‘watts’ versus real ‘watts’
• The catch 22 on the deeper wheel (9:38)
• What wheel sizes are showing the most benefits.
• Where wheels actually come into their own.
• Tyres (11:10)
• Tubular v clincher
• Tyre technology
• Helmets and choices (13:00)
• Why it’s more important to have a ‘quiver’ of helmets than it is wheels!
• Helmets, there's aero and then there's the details - heat (15:20)
• One of the new frontiers and biggest benefits you get (18:40)
• Actually moving forward this will be one of the most (20:59) important, technical devices you can run in your setup.
• Rider first engineered.
• How much further improvements are there in aero?
• The true benefits for Specialized with their win (deliberate) tunnel.
• The athletes that focus on this stuff versus those that don't.
• Shiv TT v SHIV TRI.

Got Question? Either hit us up in the comments section below or reach out to Mark or the Specialized team on social media

Show Links:

The Body Hair Test

ROVAL wheels

Froome looking a stems  (yes you must look at this page)

The S-WORKS Evade Tri 

Specialized Links

Website

http://www.iamspecialized.com/

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/specializedbicycles
https://www.facebook.com/SpecializedAU (Australia)

Twitter

https://twitter.com/iamspecialized
https://twitter.com/specialized_au

Mark Cote https://twitter.com/MITAeroBike

Instagram
Australia
Global

YouTube

Today I get to speak with TriSpecific athlete John Rutherford after his recent first time Ironman  a couple of weeks back at Ironman Switzerland. John had great IM debut going 9:34.

As I say in the intro. Nobody comes from nowhere ... and what I mean there is that we all have backgrounds and most athletes that have quick success in this sport have a solid background and John is no different here. John has ran 100 mile ultras and he definitely wasn't successful in those first outings, especially as the typical carb dependant athlete and we go into all that but his background goes further back and we look into the lessons that cross over from flying a F-18 to performance in other areas of life. And don't miss what John did with a 40 Million dollar aircraft at 14:55 into the podcast. 

What We Cover: 

• John's first Ironman going 9:34 and the lessons. (there is ALWAYS lessons)
• Logistics and there importance
• Expectations and what you need to be with them
• No unforced errors
• John's background and his time as part of the US National Cycling team
• Those carry over lessons from cycling, ultra running and flying an F18
• Listen in a 14:55 to hear what John did with a 40 Million dollar aircraft
• Learning to be calm under pressure and where it is critical on race day
• We go deep into fuelling and how little John takes in through training and racing
• John's part in the UCON Fat Adaptation/Perofrmance Study
• How never to hit the wall or bonk again
• Time to benefits of fat adaptation at 35'
• The starting point to fat adaptation and process of teaching around 36' in
• The 3 BIG benefits of being fat adapted
• Sodium - the true needs
• Johns race day fuelling strategy
• The 3 things John's most important performance tips

Links:

Ben Greenfields Part 1 & Part 2 of his part in Voleks study and rewriting the Fat Burning text book. 

Becoming a Bonk proof athlete - FAT chance

Vespa

Keto Force (Disclaimer: I have not tested this yet, but from John's testing it seems to work well. However.. as per previous blog.. get the other aspects down first. No short cuts!)

In todays Friday Fat Black Pete and talk about the real reasons of how and why injuries happen. We speak about the 7 major areas (there are more) why injuries happen. 

What We Cover:

• The biggest killer of our performance.
• And the reason why we get this performance killer.
• Injuries don't come from nowhere .. i.e. they don't just pop out of nowhere!
• The Domino effect.
• The red flags you CHOOSE not to listen too and how to stop that happening.
• Responsibility.
• The injury cycle.
• The 7 major reason you are or you get injured.
• 90+ percent of injuries are AVOIDABLE!
• Why electrolytes are CRITICALLY important.
• What to do the FIRST thing when you wake up in the morning.
• Compounding Interest - why you feel like crap at the start of your long run.
• What muscles LOVE.
• What you should do on those long haul travels we need to do to get to races. Long drives/long flights and why you NEED to do this.
• The thought process you NEED to rid yourself of. 

Links

The BEST Self Massage Tools in the world

Get this awesome History of Triathlon in Australia coffee table book // http://www.multisportdreaming.com/

If you're at Challenge Gold Coast drop by the Multisport Dreaming Booth

Original Strength Podcast

Today Pete and I wanted to take a step back and look at the foundations. The true fundamental ingredients or as we call them 'Pillars' to reaching your potential in this sport of triathlon.

In todays age and right now there seems to be a push to hacking this and hacking that. Don't get us wrong - there are indeed some useful 'hacks' to improve performance but like anything - if the fundamentals aren't in place those hacks aren't going to be as potent as they could be.

As James Clear recently put on a great post (linked below) "The thing is, when you look at how the top performers in the world operate and examine what is really going on in their minds and bodies, you often see the complete opposite of a hack. You see repetitions and consistency."

Those last two points ... repetitions and consistency are the WAY! Period.

What We Cover:

• The 3 pillars to triathlon success and the order they NEED to be focused on
• Why one particular part of one of the pillars needs to be incorporated as part of your training session and not the way it's typically done (or worse, not done)
• Simple thoughts on nutrition "Food is INFORMATION for your body" 
• Fascia and why it's important to look after .. if you don't want to get injured.
• A simple real hydration formula that WILL get the needed minerals to your soft tissue ... but you need to do a little something else to fix your irrigation
• Learning to LISTEN to what's important (covers each pillar)
• The biggest performance killer
• Simplifying training
• What repetition really teaches you
• Data tracking and importance of being in-tune
• How to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your training
• and a whole lot more

Links

• http://jamesclear.com/selective-attention
• 4 Lessons everyday athletes can learn from the pros (great article written by my friend and TS athlete Andrew Read)
• Get our Pillars to Success Guide for free here

On this weeks Friday Fat Black , Pete and I have the pleasure of having my much better half Charlotte Paul on show.

In this episode we wanted to cover what every single one of us goes through in life - not just our sporting endeavours but also LIFE.

FAILURE

We are all going to fail at some time and that is OK. In fact, it's more then ok ... it's absolutely crucial to becoming successful. Instead of trying to avoid mistakes at all costs, aim to seek opportunities that will lead you to facing your limits (and they're usually ones that ARE self imposed) so that you can learn quickly.

I bet you if you ever look back upon times in your life which led to major growth or successful moments that they were preceded by mistakes, and seemingly unsurmountable obstacles.

As you'll hear about in this episode Charlotte had many failures on her journey to winning her first Ironman in a handy time of 9:00:55 and more after that which led to further successes. I've had my fair share and I guarantee there will be more.

Pete talks about his 'failure' at Ironman Cairns recently.

The key .. the absolute key is learning the lessons. To do so you have to be open to receiving them.

Sit back and relax and learn how failing fast and failing often can be your ticket to the greatest successes you've ever had.

In todays Friday Fat Black Pete and I discuss stress and it's impacts on your body, especially when it comes to adrenal fatigue (something that I've been dealing with as a post issue of celiac diagnosis last year and something I'm writing about that will inevitably help you because for me it was the 'perfect storm'). What we forget or don't acknowledge is that stress is a stress is a stress and what I mean here is that the more stress we pile on from our lifestyles means the less training stress we can tolerate.

We also go into using HRV (heart rate variability) as a way to track our stress responses in real time. The kicker here is that you might not even feel stressed but your sympathetic nervous (fight-or-flight) system is actually on overdrive and using the tracking apps and devices we link to below can help you become aware of this and create ways to minimise the SNS activity which when chronic will lead to break down and potentially adrenal fatigue.

And finally we jump into one of the biggest stressors we load onto ourselves and this is sleep debt.

Enjoy and as we said in the podcast ... let us know in the comments what you want us to discuss and we will randomly choose a winner to give some cool TriSpecific and Trigger Point swag.

What we cover:

• The NUMBER ONE saboteur of your performance
• The major difference in a pro endurance athlete and you the AG endurance athlete is the...
• Adrenal Fatigue
• Mind-body Connection
• Heart Rate Variability specifically LF/HF values
• Breathing and how it effects both your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
• Sleep debt
• and more

Links:

Stress and performance:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3108174

Stress and HRV:
http://www.sweetwaterhrv.com/documentation/stressandhrv.pdf

SweatBeat App:
http://www.sweetwaterhrv.com/SweetBeatLife/SweetBeatLife_Features.shtml

Heart Rate Strap to use with SweetBeatLife:

Wahoo Fitness Tickr or Tickr Run

Understanding HRV:
http://www.sweetwaterhrv.com

How to switch off and relax:
http://www.heartmathstore.com

Sleep and performnace:
http://jamesclear.com/better-sleep
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12683469

Getting better sleep:

http://superhumanencoder.com/entrainer-acoustics/
Sunrise clocks

In todays podcast Pete and I talk about the BIKE ... quite fitting because the TDF starts tomorrow and we all love riding our bikes.

We discuss how to effectively and efficiently train the bike by looking into the 5 important systems we must train to reach our potential on the bike and become strong so we can race fast in Iron distance races.

What We Cover:

• The 5 Systems and what they are
• Fatigue ... it's not all the same
• We go into each of the 5 systems and speak the why, and how we use and what we use.

Links:

http://www.trispecific.com/its-a-strength-game/

In todays Friday Fat Black Pete and chew the fat on developing mental fortitude and how attitude and how you train can help you develop the mental toughness needed to reach your potential.

What We Cover:

• Session examples
• 5 keys to Mental Strength
• Where mental strength is developed in training
• Where athletes let themselves down
• Focus
• What Pete learnt in Cairns Ironman - so bloody important to further successes
• Race and Training reflections - why they're super important

Episode Sponsor:

Challenge Gold Coast is set to become one of those must do bucket list races on the Australian calendar. It’s a spectacular course – nice creek swim, undulating and challenging bike course through Currumbin and Tallebudgera Valleys (with King of the Mountain ‘The Beast’ section timed separately) and run with stunning water views along Currumbin creek, Currumbin and Tugun beaches. Entries are selling fast and will likely close off in the next week or two. Don't miss out on this inaugural Challenge race.

Sign up here before it's too late: http://www.challenge-goldcoast.com.au/

Success Quote:

• "Courage doesn't mean you don't get afraid. Courage means you don't let fear stop you." -- Bethany Hamilton

Show Links:

• Six elements of mental toughness

This weeks FFB Pete and I get to chew the fat with super successful coach Sergio Borges who not only has 128 Kona qualifiers to his name but isn't afraid to think and coach outside the box which obviously resonates with Pete and I.

Sergio has dedicated the last 19 years to studying the ART and science of triathlon training. During this time, he has competed in hundreds of races of all distances including 21 Ironman races around the world (9:38 PR), over 60 half ironmans (4:12 PR), qualifying for the Hawaii Ironman World Championships seven times (so far). Sergio has also been nominated as "All American" by USA Triathlon, 9 times. After over 10 years of investment banking, he decided to apply his expertise to personal triathlon coaching. Sergio is a certified Level III USA Triathlon coach, Level II ITU Triathlon Coach, Level II USA cycling coach, coached the USA Elite, Junior Elite and U23 team at the World Duathlon in Switzerland in 2003 and the U23 Tri national team in 2004. Also has worked with USAT at the Collegiate National Camps, Recruitment Camps, lecturing at the Coaching Level I and II Clinics and writes for 3 sport magazines. Sergio was involved in the FIRST ever Paratriathlon Camp organized by CAF, is the founder of the JCC Triathlon Master Program and the Kids XTeam Triathlon Club.

In 2004 he developed his own method – Inverted Training Periodisation and have since perfect it making Ironman Champions, Top 3 in 70.3 Races and many AG podiums around the World. Sergio combines his vast experience coaching athletes of all ages and abilities with a fundamental belief in the need for an individualised and realistic training plan for each athlete achieve his or her goal -- from staying healthy to becoming a champion!

What We Cover:

• The periodisation model truly needed for triathletes and it's not to whats typically focused on
• Load Consistency
• Why fitness cannot and should not be rushed
• What you have to bring to the table
•  Why neuromuscular efficiency is key to long course success
• What really needs to be focused on first
• What NEEDS to come before you add volume
• The truth about swimming and its importance in half and full iron distance racing
• Basically we chew the fat on so much more to help you be your best

Links:

Inverted Periodisation
Sergio Borges X Training on Facebook
http://www.sdxtraining.com/new/
Endurance Movie with Haile Gebrselassie