Welcome to the Empirical Cycling Podcast. I'm your host, Kolie Moore. Today we are joined by seven for now, at least. We're going to have a couple more jumping on and off the call as we go. Empirical Cycling coaches, so thanks everybody for listening. We're going to ask if you subscribe to the podcast if you are new here and you like listening to it. And if you're a returning listener, thank you so much for coming back. We'd love to have you. And if you want to support the podcast, you can always let people know that the podcast is doing good things for you and sharing it and also donating at empiricalcycling.com slash donate because We are completely ad-free content. And if you want to become one of our clients, if you have a particular affinity for anybody you hear on our podcast today, you can please reach out and ask for them by name. We will see what we can do. And if you want to ask any questions for our future podcasts, go follow me on Instagram, at Empirical Cycling, and look for the purple background, that's for the podcast, and the orange background is for the weekend AMAs that I do over the weekend for pretty much almost every weekend except fail, except for that one weekend last October, which we won't talk about. All right, so... Today, I really, really wanted to discuss some things that we've kind of been talking about as kind of behind the scenes in terms of our coaching stuff. But I really wanted to talk about underrated training habits today, which is, I think, maybe a nice way to say, what are you potentially doing wrong in your training? So if you are not doing these habits, maybe that's one way to think about it. Or if you are doing these habits, do you feel like there are other ways to improve upon them? then we would probably benefit from that. So one of our coaches said before we started on this, you know, we're thinking about the 99% today, not the 1%, not the marginal optimization. And so that means that we're going to think about things that are in our control and not so much the things that are not in our control. Things like volume, most people are very limited on volume, families, jobs, things like that. And if you want to quit your job and ride full-time, I mean, okay, sure, but most people are, almost everybody's not going to do that. So we're not going to talk about that so much, but let's talk about what's in our control. And let's talk about not quite like optimizing, like over-optimizing, which I think is pretty popular these days, but let's talk about optimal optimizing. you know, the moderation in moderation, the kind of stuff. So where do we want to start? You want to start with, let's start with goals and expectations. So I want to hear somebody talk about realistic goal setting. So let's think about realistic goal setting. It's because it's January, right? So a lot of people are thinking about what do I want to do for 2025? I want to Win a race, I want to get my sprint up, I want to improve my FTP, I want to improve my endurance. I think one thing that can be a goal is that if you finish a certain place in a race, say you come 20th place in a race, trying to crack a top 10 the next year, or improve on your placing or time in an event can be something that is measurable. Can you expand on that a little bit for me? Yeah, I guess to put it another way, don't expect to go from getting dropped in a race to winning it straight away. Just building on where you've been, just trying to find something that is realistic to improve on, that is within the realms of possibility, then yeah, I think that's something that you can aim for and you're probably not setting yourself up for too much disappointment. I like where that's going. Actually, I have a thought on this, and I want to hear what everybody thinks. I've always thought about performance modeling in this way. What happens if we've run this race 100 times? Where is your variance in performance? If you are typically in the top 10, that's actually not a bad way to think about it. If you're thinking about a local crit, if you are typically in the top 5 to 10, then getting on the podium or winning is like not totally out of the cards. But like, you know, if you are typically kind of middle back of the pack for most of your races, like, you know, getting in, getting a win is potentially less likely. If you run the race a hundred times, how often is that really going to happen? And so, and so I actually come up from it from a different perspective where I think that just because somebody won something does not actually mean that everything is perfect now. Doesn't necessarily mean that what we've been doing is totally on the right track. thoughts there? Or is it just me trying to cast doubt on everything I do? I think one of the things that stands out from that sort of goal setting is the scenario that James is describing is one where you're not turning up to a race for your very first time and expecting immediate success. It's about iterating off of past successes. It's about iterating off of something you've already done before. And as a result, there is not necessarily the expectation that you can do better, but there is an understanding of what happened last time and how could I actually actively improve on how that went. It's my first time going to Paris-Roubaix and I'm going to end up on the podium. It's starting from a place of... I was 20th in this race, and I think I could maybe crack top 10 if I did X, Y, and Z a bit better. And within that, the X, Y, and Z are probably the actual goals you want to set, and the race is the outcome of it. That's actually a great thought. So a process goal. Yeah. So why doesn't somebody share with me a process goal that they've set with a client for the coming year? If nobody jumps on this one, Erica, yeah, go ahead. This was not a client of mine, but a teammate of mine when she went to Europe for the first year or two. She set a process goal in races like... she made it she kind of gamified it for herself and every time that she got to the front of the field she'd give herself a point and then she would get like reshuffled through the deck and end up you know somewhere towards the back somewhere in Europe and then would and would try again being able to efficiently move through the peloton to get closer to the front or near the front in Europe super challenging and so to stay positive and motivated on that process goal she gave herself like yeah small target goals or incentives along the way When, I think it was EF before they were EF, it would have been just when they were Cannondale, this was around the Sagan era, they were doing team time trials together as a team of like five or six, where the goal was explicitly to cover a route in a specific amount of time, but it was the team that produced the least power wins. and it was just like that was one of their goals for the training was kind of like what your client was thinking in terms of managing themselves in a pack. This was them specifically thinking, yeah, in the context of a team time trial, but how do you save energy as much as possible in a race scenario, which is just as important if you want to actually translate that into an improved result just from the potential freshness you get from it. Katie, I saw you had a thought. Yeah, so when I was in Belgium this past summer, I set process goals for myself over the month. So one of the things was to really improve the positioning during the commissary. So the way we... did that was our DS would take a video of us every lap coming through the feed zone to see where we were in the field and then for the next race you could kind of have a better sense or idea of where you were because you would refer back to those videos and then at the next race you could kind of figure out okay so like where do I need to be on lap like one two three and as it gets like further into the race um checking in with yourself and also looking for the other girls on the team can really help because you're seeing them move up. And so then you're thinking, can I get on that wheel to move up? Instead of thinking, how can I podium this race, which might not be so realistic? All right. So, all right, race process goals. Give me training process goals because it's January and that's pretty much what people are doing unless they live in California or Australia. You know, the nice places to live right now. Not in LA. Sorry for everybody out there, by the way. Hope everybody's... staying safe, as if anybody was like about to jump in the fire. I know everybody's trying to stay safe, so keep doing that. What if one of your clients came up to you and said, I have a 250-watt FTP and I want a 400-watt FTP in 12 months. I have 12 hours to train. What kind of process goal would you help them set? Because it's not, hardly anybody ever comes to us and says this, but it's not. It's happened occasionally. So, Megan? Well, I'd say first, we need to figure out how we can find a genie with three wishes. One of them being, you know, 200 plus FTP gains. But, yeah, no, most of the time I just tell them what we usually see with, like, you know, two blocks. Like, you know, you might only see maybe 10, 30 watts. Max, that would be, like, amazing, but, like, 10-15 is usually reasonable, and that usually makes people pretty sad, but, you know, I think it's better than nothing, and kind of once they wrap their mind around that, then you can just kind of start getting down to the work, but I think it kind of ties in with, like, what we were just talking about, like, when you think about getting better next year, um, you know, working on your positioning and, like, knowing when to be where at what point in the race is, like, the biggest thing, like, 10 extra watts of FTP versus just nailing your positioning. You know, if you go into the final corner for the sprint, second wheel, third wheel, maybe even for first wheel, like, so much better than back of the pack, even if your FTP is 400 watts. So I feel like, you know, if you, I always try to shift it towards that, like, you know, like, okay, let's look at your last year, like, how is your positioning? And if it's, you know, not that great, like, you know, I think that's a better focus than FTP. Obviously both will help, but I think, like, you know if they're upset that they can only get 10 watts of FTP like making that other factor known that positioning is also kind of you know a magic thing yeah um we were joking about in our private coaching discord like a week or two ago about the ability to absolutely send it into the final corner with 100% reliability and I think all of us said we'd happily sacrifice some FTP to be able to do that That's the art of racing part that can really make up for fitness, which, yeah, we as coaches who are thinking on the physiology side can't hold your hands and turn the handlebars for you, but it's helpful when people have things like cameras on their bikes, especially if you're in the US where it's allowed to be able to watch your footage. like skim through it, find a few things that we can pick out and just say, oh, you should have gone right, you went left, here's why this probably would have helped you. But things like that are quite valuable from the coaching side of things to be able to just give pointers from time to time. Yeah. So has anybody here given their clients homework, either with visualization or like watching first-person GoPro footage of races in the off-season? Because I certainly have occasionally. It seems to help. I know personally it helped me a lot when I was racing, like, I don't know, God, what was that, like, almost 10 years ago? And it kind of shifted my ability to, like, navigate a pack, like, just playing it over and over in my head again, and also making little rules for myself. So who's giving people homework for that kind of stuff? You know what I mean? Go ahead. Yeah, so... I coach a few people racing gravel and the thing with gravel is that gravel in say Lithuania, gravel in Finland, gravel in Canada looks very, very different. So one of the guys I coach did a recon ride and then sent me some GoPro footage, some footage from his race as well and really helped to know what the race actually looks like, like how much time he should dedicate on. off-road riding, bike handling, that kind of stuff. Because with off-road, well, basically everything off-road, there's so much variation out there that you can't really assume that gravel looks the same everywhere because it doesn't. So what's the big difference in gravel? Because I know what it looks like here in the U.S. And that's like a, well, Megan, why don't you describe gravel in the U.S.? You've raced quite a bit of it. Yeah, I mean, it could be anywhere from, like, sand to pavement. You know, there's literally everything in between. If you're in the Midwest, a lot of it can be really chunky. Like, here in Iowa, the gravel, I just call them rocks. And your, like, equipment matters. But not only that, like, you know, equipment only does so much. Like, being able to handle your bike when it's literally not. Nope, gripping the ground. So you're literally just kind of sliding and being comfortable with fishtails when you take a corner too hot, maybe even do a little cyclocross, like put your foot out. So just in case you do a little skid, but yeah, it's like really variable. And I think it's great to like practice all that because then you get on the road and it's like, oh my gosh, like the ground beneath me doesn't actually move. Like it just feels so much better. All right. So good to meet us. What's, um, So how does that compare or contrast with what you've seen? So a good example is when I went to race gravel in Finland once, I went with my, you know, Lithuanian gravel tires, which is like medium tread, 46 mil, and then in Finland, it's like everyone's racing with 32 slicks, basically. I was like, oh, wow, okay. That was really unexpected. And then, yeah, you realize, you know, yeah, you can't make assumptions. All right. So let's also think about long-term versus short-term programming, because I think that this is something that a lot of people, especially if you are self-coached, what I find is a lot of people will overdo the intensity. and then they fall off. And I think what happens a lot of the time is this weird treadmill where you ramp up the training and the intensity really quick and you see a lot of very fast fitness improvements and then you fall off. You either get injured or you get sick or your motivation to train just tanks. So how would you help somebody set long and short-term goals? Because I think The fundamental principle that we are all, whether we consciously do this or not, it's consistency. Without consistency, just getting on the bike, what fitness are you going to have if you train really consistently for two weeks and then you're off for two weeks? I mean, two weeks is plenty of time to detrain. So what are everybody's thoughts there? 

I think taking a look at your calendar for the year, if you are, like if you do participate in bike races, looking at like where you want to be fit, what is most important to you, and then like what is that A priority race maybe there to working back and then seeing what training you need leading up to that, I think that helps to really structure like Okay, here's my prep period. This is how many weeks until this bigger event. And then maybe I take a bit of a break then and rebuild. And then when you look at this before you're in it, you think, okay, if I'm doing 20 hours with as much intensity as I possibly ever could do, and I'm like, you know, I don't know, like many weeks away from your A event could be too much. And you might like lose motivation or just... Peak too early or something like that. So I think maybe just taking a look at your calendar, laying it out in front of you and thinking about like how much time you need. And that's if you're self-coaching. I think sometimes that helps us to be more consistent and a little bit more realistic with how big our weeks could be or should be, I guess, with what we have going on and also what we've done in the past. If last year it was hard to maintain a 14-hour week of training, you know, like... you need to be realistic with this year. What would be the factors in your life that are changing, allowing you to do maybe more or less training at your kind of top end of availability? James, I see you're unmuted. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I would say most people are pretty keen to train and most people are fairly motivated. So I think something Erica said there was just planning your rest. I think it's easy for people to ride the bikes and go hard occasionally. So I think just pre-planning when you're going to have rest weeks or longer mid-season breaks, things like that can be invaluable to kind of long-term sustainability in training. Do you find that people don't want to take a mid-season break a lot of the time because they just want to keep training because they're afraid of losing everything that they've built up? I see a lot of everybody's nodding their heads. Somebody please dig into that one. And when it's summer, no one wants to not ride the bikes. Oh yeah, when it's that perfect 70 degree day out, sorry, 25 degree day out for you, Euron. Well, I found that when we give that week off mid-season, I've seen very few people regret it. Like I've, I've, uh... had really good success with it. And I actually tell people who come to me who've been burned out over seasons, like, hey, I have this idea that I implement with most people, which is we're going to take a week break in May and June. And they're actually kind of relieved when I tell them that. They're like, oh, thank God, I used to do like eight to nine months straight. And I was like, look, I really think it's beneficial seven days off. Honestly, you come back feeling so much better mentally. and even physically, I think it's so worth it. Yeah, I'd say physically, especially, I'd say it's probably 50-50 where half of people... feel way stronger on the bike when they get that first ride in. And I'd say 50% of the people are like, they feel fresh, but they're like, I could use a couple training rides for sure. And so knowing which one you are, and if you've never taken those seven days off, you're going to have no idea. So I recommend everybody try it and give yourself a couple weeks of retraining a little bit just to kind of make sure that you can get your legs back under you because it's scary to do that first ride and be like, oh, my wads are down. I'm not faster, why would I ever do that again? And a lot of the time, especially if you are racing multiple seasons, you know, like I've got a client who's between Australia and Europe a lot, and I've coached several people who are between Australia and Europe, and so it's like race season in Australia, then it's race season in Europe, then it's race season in Australia, and it's race season in Europe. And it's a difficult one to manage, but anybody who's ever done a road and cross season, will know exactly what that's like. Actually, Erica, you've raced both, you know, double road cross seasons, you know, you did that for years and years and years. So, and I know we've talked about this on a previous podcast, but if anybody missed it, tell me about mid-season breaks. Yeah, I feel like we touch on this quite a lot because it's so important. You know, if you're going to race two seasons, cycle cross and whatever your road event is, mountain biker. or your summer event is Mountain Biker Road. I really think it's super important. You're going to need a break sometime after both of those seasons. So like twice a year or maybe even an additional kind of shorter a few days of just kind of relaxing and stepping away. I think we've all seen it here that you take a little bit of a break and you actually come back at feeling better and the longevity of your... racing will be there. Like, if you are always racing and never take a break, I think it's going to be hard to see progression. And I think you may find yourself a little bit burnt out on the whole racing scene in general, especially with the amount of driving in the U.S. And flying and just traveling in general. Yeah, it's a ton. So one of the things that I think I kind of was alluding to with the treadmill analogy, by the way, was lower adherence to the program in the long term. Because if you, and I've consulted with many people who are like this, where they come out guns blazing for that first March or April race, and then by the time they hit June or July, they're just kind of checked out of race season already. And I think especially if somebody wants to extend that, that's a really, really good example of kind of You know, just the more compact, higher intensity schedule of both training and racing leads to over, you know, over the course of a year, it probably at least about the same amount of hard rides in terms of like, you might do that in six months, but it would probably be better if you spread it out to like, you know, eight or nine months or something like that. So thinking about habits among goals and expectations. I think another thing that gets a lot of people that's kind of tangential to this is the all or nothing mentality. Like I either have to do 15 to 20 hours and it's got to be absolutely picture perfect. And if I have one pedal stroke, that's not exactly optimized. I didn't do this. I did three by 20, but I missed the last 30 seconds because I had to stop for something of my last interval. And now my season's ruined. What do I do? And I know a lot of people, well, not a lot, but enough that they are notable in my mind that that's going to knock them off their program. They're going to be less motivated for the next ride over, you know, you miss a ride because you've got family obligations or work obligations or you get sick or something like that. Losing that motivation, you know, it'll hurt your consistency in the long run. Who's got an all-or-nothing client? Katie, you're nodding a lot. Why don't you go ahead? Oh, I have them. One thing that I do with people who are all-or-nothing is to try and meet them where they're at. And so sometimes they'll be saying one thing about their goals, but what they're actually doing on the bike does not match that at all. What you have to do, I think, is sort of meet them where they're realistically at. And so if you see they're never doing the five, six-hour rides, and they're just not riding at all, what I've kind of done is, okay, let's give them like one to two hours or two to three hours on the weekends. And what I've seen is these people have started to... to Ride. They've started to do these rides. And I think it's something, because I'm the same way, it's something about looking at it and feeling like it's truly achievable. Like if I see five, six hours, I'm on vacation with my family up north, I just don't even bother because I see it and I'm like, I can't even, it just feels bad to only do like one hour of it. I feel like I'm accomplishing none of the goal. And so I think having things be like really within reach or maybe even a little bit easier. really helps people in terms of being like, I'm going to do all or nothing on this. And so people who are really busy during the weeks, I'll be like, just get on the bike for like 30, 45 minutes. And that has helped their consistency a lot. So setting a goal that you know is accomplishable. And actually, I think that this is something that we as coaches do without doing it consciously. which is we will try to figure out what's the minimum dose that this person can take right now that's at least going to maintain where they're at. Even in the face of high stress and illness, a lot of parents of young children are like this where they're sick constantly and potentially work stress is up and down. And so when the work stress ramps up and the kids are home from school and you've got to spend extra time parenting, a lot of the time it's like, oh no, I don't have much to do. It's like, you're going to be fine. Get on the bike four or five times this week and I don't care if it's like five, six hours total. Like whatever you do here, even if it's just moderate intensity riding is going to maintain your fitness. It may not maintain your top end, but you know what? It's going to maintain your general aerobic fitness and that top end comes back real, real quick when we start pushing on that again. So setting those expectations can help, but I've definitely had a couple clients over the years where if I see that they're doing two or three hours when I've set five or six and the next week I set like three hours instead of six, what's wrong? Don't you think I can do this? Well, your recent history says that you cannot and I don't want you to keep feeling like a failure because a lot of people do. But then suddenly when you adjust the program, it's a judgment. And that's hard to balance too because sometimes it's like just look at your eyes, like look at your own history. This is what you can do. And so I'd rather you start at what you can do and we can kind of nudge back up to what we both think you are capable of. But let's start with something accomplishable. 

I think another note on the consistency, which you had reminded me when you were speaking, was clients that travel, that have a lot of work obligations and are traveling. I think just staying positive, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. If you can do some amount. of getting on a spin bike provided you don't get injured by the fit or something like that or maybe doing a little bit of weights at a hotel gym that are appropriate. It's just so important and it may feel like, oh, I'm missing everything, you know, but I think just staying with the kids to see a little bit is going to be beneficial when you do get back home and you're able to ride. Yeah, actually, one of the things that I think is a habit that I've seen in really successful people who travel a lot. and who are put in suboptimal training conditions frequently is that they actually enjoy the challenge. You know, they go to some tiny hotel and, you know, there's like, oh, there's a gym that's, I don't know, it's like 50 miles away. That's the closest gym for me. And I've got this, I've got this here, I've got this here, I've got this here. What can I possibly do to get a workout? How do I maintain, you know, how do I just feel like I'm doing something? and like I remember when Kyle was out in the desert with balloons there were some very large just steel beams that had handles on them I don't know what they're for but it was like a giant steel suitcase that's an I-beam or something and he was like these things are like 60 pounds and so he was like he was like working out with that stuff and I was like I think that's fantastic and also you know he started like jogging a little bit and that kind of stuff and so so just Figuring out how to do something can actually be really, really fun and really rewarding. And I think in a lot of ways that letting that kind of mentality be fun is great. Because actually one of the things that I've got here for later, but we'll talk about it now, what about fun? Where does fun come in all this? Sorry. Not, yeah, I'm not cancelling fun, but just to add on your previous point. Can't wait to hear this. You know, like, optimal training for you, for someone looks different for everyone, and if you've got a job or a lifestyle, yeah, that's different to your friends, then you shouldn't expect your training to look like your friends or a World Tour pro you follow on Strava. You know, it's about getting, being objective and getting the best out of your abilities with the environment you're in. Yeah. All right. Yeah, Fabiano, sorry. Okay. One of my recent experiences with one of my clients was an interesting one because he was having trouble to complete his workouts on a daily basis, waking up at like, let's say 5 a.m. So we jumped on a quick call and we discussed how we could optimize that to have both worlds. First, being fun because he was being really tired at work and also optimize the training stimulus. So at the end, what we agreed was to have fewer sessions per week, but when going on the bike early in the day... Trying to get longer sessions and then trying to optimize the aerobic stimulus and if the session has the intervals, maybe also the adaptations that you get from higher intensity workouts. So that's also something that you can always discuss if you are self-coached or with your coach to try to improve consistency if the required hours or training. I have a hard time to match your availability, be it with work, traveling, and family. Yeah. Yeah. Personal priorities balance. That's a big one, isn't it? And I actually think that a lot of the time when I'm talking to somebody about how to best balance it, I actually tell them, write down your priorities in order. One, two, three. Where does everything fall? If cycling is number one, okay, well, you better get ready for your divorce papers, I guess. But if a lot of people, it's like family, work, cycling. Training is like third in the list. And sometimes it's even fourth. And when you are aware of those priorities, I think that helps a lot. And this is, I mean, this is what I do in terms of periodization, is like for each block, a lot of times I'll put it in training peaks, sometimes I forget, sorry folks, but I'll put it in training peaks or in my head, okay, we're going to focus on this for this block, and it's going to have the priorities, like priority one, two, three, or kind of two co-equal priorities. And so we'll kind of bounce back and forth between the two when we can. And so that kind of thing, I think helps a lot because if you have to skip a training session for your family and you're like, man, I feel bad about this. And then you realize, oh, my number one goal is my family. And you're like, you know what? This is worth it. I don't care about the training session. I'm doing what I most want to do. So how does everybody help their clients set that kind of stuff up? The way I do it is that when scheduling rest weeks, I always communicate that one of the goals of the rest week is to have time for life, other hobbies, errands, everything. So I very explicitly tell people that it's totally fine if you ride like three, four times, the rides are way shorter because that's a really good time to catch up with everything you need. Same with off-season break. good chance, you know, to do everything you wanted to do during the season, but didn't have time. Well, I was just gonna say, um, I feel like setting your goals, like, out, up front is kind of, you know, the best thing, because, like, you know, I coached somebody who really wanted to do well in his cyclocross season, and, like, he wanted to do the hard group ride every single week, and I get that that's, you know, something fun, it keeps you motivated, especially when it's cold, and... you know gets you outside not on the trainer but at the same point it's like you have to ask yourself like is doing that more important than my fitness gains because you know I wasn't really seeing a whole lot of progress with this particular person while doing this group ride every week because he was so tired and eventually he had to just like stop doing it because he couldn't even do like simple sweet spot threshold work um but like it's something you have to like ask yourself like you know Is the training almost even worth it if you really what you care about is like those fast group rides or you know do you want to see how good you can get and just put those aside you know maybe do them like once or twice a month but like just kind of being realistic with how much fun riding you can do with you know strict training I feel like is something you need to like work out with your coach and not Just do it after you have a discussion about it and then, you know, reap the consequences of it later when, you know, you're not coming into your season feeling as good as you should have. Yeah, I actually think that's a really good point, actually, because when, I think feeling disappointment, like, that should be something that you recognize as, as Patrick and Billy would say, like, you are, you have a value direction that you are not moving it. Right? So, like, if you want to have fun with these group rides and you're like, oh, my fitness isn't getting that good. I don't, I'm not seeing many improvements. I'm actually, my threshold work is actually going backwards. There's so much fatigue. Like, that is a sign that something's off. And, you know, you've, you know, you may just need to have one of those come to Jesus moments. Sorry, James. Sorry, I was just going to say, with students. You should definitely be in touch with your coach and sometimes, yeah, you have to plan training around your assignments and your work and sometimes on Training Peaks I'll just write the workout is just study today or, yeah, just prep for that upcoming exam or something because it's going to have, even if you don't like it and you think you care more about riding your bike than studying, it's going to have an impact. later down the line on how your training goes. So yeah, it's important to kind of take the perspective that the rest of your life is massively tied to your training and your cycling. So you have to accept that and work with it rather than kind of just try and fight against it sometimes. Yeah. So actually, that reminds me of the virtuous cycles because we kind of talked about the vicious cycles, like the treadmill of, If you were trying to overdo everything, then you fall off the program and your consistency tanks. And so over the long term, you end up getting in about the same amount of training. Except for half of it, you're miserable, instead of half of it, you're happy. And so how do we set up a virtuous cycle for somebody? This is a really good habit to get into. I would say start with something that's accomplishable. After you've set your priorities, How do I set up my cycling goals? How do I set up my cycling training? How do I set up my week? How do I hit my group rides that I really like to go to? And I think if you start to rack up wins, and not even like race wins, I mean wins in a week, like if you are having a hard time getting on the bike while you're studying, for the student example, you know, get in, like set yourself a week where it's just, you just make sure that you ride 10 hours that week. and you hit like the group coffee ride. And the next week, okay, that was great. Now I want to add a little more. And then you, instead of starting somewhere that you cannot accomplish everything and you fall off the wagon, start somewhere where you can set everything up to win, win, win, win, win, make all the green checkboxes in TrainingPeaks. And then after you see a week of that, you're like, great, I can do this. Maybe I'll set up a little bit more challenge and you can keep going until you kind of find the right balance and then you take it back half a notch and that should be optimal. But you also need to be able to recognize when you need to shift that schedule again because if obviously schedules change, life changes and you can't, you know, do exactly the same thing forever. Otherwise, I don't know, you could just copy paste one year after the other if it worked for you, I suppose. Everyone that has to go through a performance review at work is about to have shivers go down their spine. But ultimately, we're kind of talking around SMART goals of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. There we go. Everyone's just had a panic attack at home. Essentially, any goals you're going to make for yourself have to... have a parameter within what all those letters just described. It basically allows you to achieve it. The A is probably the most important one when it comes to actual setting. Everybody forgot what the A is already. Achievable. Okay. Because ultimately, we made the joke at the start about starting from a 200-watt FTP and trying to get to a 400. And that's not an achievable goal. It's also probably not a very measurable goal in terms of how are you actually going to be able to measure the progress that you would have to make to do that in the time that you're going to make it. Whenever it comes to setting some of these goals, that's kind of how you have to think about... writing them down, and like actually write them down, you know, like write out here's specifically what I want to do, this is how I'm going to assess my progress as I go, this is how like the likelihood of it actually is, you know, making sure that you're keeping that grounded nature of what you're trying to do, and like I think the relevance components may be the least important, I think it should probably be more like what matters to you most because it could be that say you do like to race but all your races come down to bunch sprints and you're the kind of person that's predisposed to not be a sprinter. Training your sprint would be a highly relevant thing to do in these circumstances but the reality is that it's probably not going to be a very valuable thing for you to actually do in the long run. Thinking through what your goals are actually going to be and what matters to you is unfortunately a very good way of actually working out what to do. That's true. But also on a company-wide note, if I ever start setting us acronyms, please fire me into the sun. Thank you, everybody. I see lots of smiles and nods. All right. We have a quorum on that. Sorry, what's that, Fabiano? Yeah, another point I'd like to add to this discussion is communication. These days we train with data. It's great. Power, heart rate, all these data channels that we are collecting on a daily basis. But as I like to say, data without context is most of the time useless. And for some reason, many... Cyclists and Clients, they don't take the time after they complete a workout and I think that's also related to goals to think about it, how the session went, how that's affecting my goals and communicate that with their coach or even within their own system or their process over time and keep updating that over time because then with good communication we Coaches, for example, we don't have crystal balls, so we don't have to guess what's going on on how to make the optimizations that are needed for a better training plan, a training plan that's more realistic based on your availability and also help you fine-tune. We have years of experience coaching athletes and that's how we can help you get the goals right and make it work over long-term and short-term. 

That totally reminds me of a client that I had kept posting a weight training session for Sunday night and it was just like it goes against like the achievable of the letters. It was just a really hard time for them to get it done after big weekends and prepping for Monday and work. So like Fabiano said, it's like just communicate with me like, hey, I was able to do this a few times with the mental energy to get it done. was really challenging or took a lot. So just communicating, yeah, because we can adjust schedules to make things consistent and possible. Yeah, sorry, Megan, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, like Fabiano said, like the consistent feedback is always really helpful because I've had... A handful of clients where, you know, a month or two of bad training goes by, and like, you try to probe them on what's going on, and they kind of don't really have any answers, and then at the end of that month or two, they're just like, oh, well, I was dieting, I had work stress, I couldn't sleep, I, you know, I, my dog died, yada yada, the list goes on, and you're just like, you know, this would have been nice to know, like, you know, as it happened. Or like even sometimes I think it's hard for folks to remember, you know, those bad days. Like it's easy to be like, oh, well, I thought I ate well and I thought I slept well and I thought like, well, if you would just write it down on the day that it happened, we can look back at training and be like, well, look here, like you said, you're retired this day, you're retired this day. Tired this day, and it's just a more... A pattern emerges. Yeah, a pattern emerges, but if you're not consistently giving that feedback, it's kind of hard for us to look at the data alone. We need, like Fabiano said, the context with it. Yeah, and actually, keeping track of that stuff is really valuable, but also... Somebody's, occasionally, somebody's subjective tracking is not so good. Like, I was, I just posted up in my stories, like, what, yesterday, I think, last night? Brad Schoenfeld, who's one of the world's top muscle researchers, he was, he reposted a study that was like, people tend to miss, underestimate how much they've eaten by about 50% or something like that. which is a lot of the time how you get people who are like, I'm only eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing weight. So this calories in, calories out thing doesn't work. And it's like, well, it was actually 2400 and I don't think you realize how much peanut butter you actually ate, which is the boat I'm usually in. So, you know, having, especially when we get really good feedback loops, like with exactly what you're talking about, like If somebody's saying, I'm not sleeping very well, I'm like, well, why don't we start tracking your sleep? Why don't we start getting some hard data? Even if the sleep tracker's off by an hour, if it says four, then I know it's not eight. You know, if it says seven, okay, seven might be great for you. And then maybe something else is going on. So sometimes we need hard data on that kind of stuff. But without the feedback loop, if it's like two months later when we try to figure this stuff out, then there's nothing to analyze. It was just like, well, that sucked and I'm here for you now, but let's try to do it better in the future. I circle back to something Megan brought up a moment ago about specifically thinking of things like group rides. I think it's absolutely fine if people want to make group rides and some are a very important part of their cycling identity because obviously... That's probably going to make up a very large portion of the socialising that some of our clients might enjoy doing week to week. The balance there is that from the coaching perspective, that puts more weight on what is it that you're doing in the off-season when those group rides are in all likelihood not happening, which is on the surface of everything in a vacuum is fine. but you have to contend with the difficulty of things like motivation at that point because it's very easy to get someone to ride out to their group ride for an hour, do the group ride for the hour and then spend an hour riding home and then you've got a nice solid three hours in the summer where getting volume is almost easy because they want to go do it but getting that equivalent three hours in the winter That can be a challenge for some people. It certainly is for me, as Fabiano knows. So when it comes to the goal setting, if you're self-coaching in that sort of scenario, it's just be kind to yourself in terms of what you expect you're going to be able to accomplish in the off-season when your group rides are not happening. Because when you potentially are making the plans for that off-season at the tail end of summer, your motivation's Potentially at an all-time peak. You've never been better aside from the impending winter. But as soon as you actually get into it, a lot of the drivers of where that motivation come from are going to have seeded away. And so don't... Don't... Put the expectation on yourself that you are going to achieve 100% consistency in everything you do because just as much of being consistent in your training in the off-season is about recognising when you're not going to be able to be consistent. It's not feasible for you to say, I'm going to go from my 15 hours a week to my 10 hours a week and have that. Automatically feel like it's going to be a manageable thing to do because it could be that say your pattern of riding is I get out for five hours on a Saturday in the summer every single weekend and that's where a large chunk of your volume is just coming from that ride and you might not be able to do that which means that your expectations on the distribution of how everything you're doing goes all over the place. recognition that there's something that will work for you, but don't try and force yourself into what you think you need to do in order to achieve specific goals. Yeah, that's the training version of your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Yeah. I actually think that this falls onto something that may be uniquely American. I don't know. We've got a lot of people from not America here. So tell me how different it is in Europe and South America. But it seems to me that the I'm just going to work harder mentality still pervades quite a lot. And a lot of the time that's counterproductive. And so deciding that I'm just going to, you know, doing, we joke about this on the podcast all the time, but if doing two or three sets of intervals a week is good, then doing four to six is even better. I mean, I've got like three clients who occasionally will do like four interval sets a week and that's not a regular occurrence. That's like you are super fresh, you are super motivated, like let's go, let's get this while the motivation's there, while we know you're fresh and can recover and then we're going to taper it back as the fatigue mounts but your fitness gets better and so we can kind of maintain that balance. So, how much does that persist outside of the U.S.'s unique, I'm just going to outwork everybody. I'm very guilty of that, because I might be exaggerating, but only a little bit, but sometimes it feels like your self-worth is attached to the volume you're doing, especially since, you know, it's very easy, like, on Australia to compare. like how much everyone else is riding, how much you are riding, especially with things like club leaderboards. Yeah, it's definitely counterproductive sometimes. So get off Strava is the lesson. Yeah, because, you know, it's so tempting to compare like your own volume to others, others you're racing against. So yeah, definitely. Well, why don't we... Why don't we consider the fact that you also do ultra races? Like, that's where you're coming from. And so, you know, that's the most ultra racer thing ever. Like, oh, this guy's doing way more hours than I am. But I mean, also, like, I know roadies do that, too. Like, nobody look at James Estrava, please. I would say that's pretty much a universal concept. I think most people see, like, a linear relationship where The more you do, the better you become. And it makes total sense from maybe an engineering perspective. But considering the human being and the adaptations that happen, it doesn't work that way. So every time you complete a workout, you disturb your physiology, your homeostasis. That's how they call it in the medical terms. But the next step... is, I learned that recently, is allostasis, which is a change in physiology, which is, and it's a healthy change. It can be pathological too, but usually it's a healthy change. But that takes time. And if you don't, and each person seems to have a different timing for those adaptations to happen, and that's when you've got to figure out for your client, yourself, if... How long does it take? I like to call them like key sessions. How long does it take to recover from those key sessions? And many people forget that on top of that, you got to add work stress, family stress, bad nights of sleep, because all of those, they change the time that you need to recover from these sessions. And then over the long time on the long term, you got to learn yourself how to optimize that because then you will be on the spot to make consistent training over time and consistent progress over time, or at least reach your potential based on the current situation, the number of hours you have, your genetics, your work, your family, and everything else together, nutrition, but that's not easy to do, and you need to think about it all the time because that's unique for each cyclist or each athlete, and it's hard to generalize. 

Did you happen to follow some of the studies that I had put up in the Discord recently? Because allostasis was one of the key words in there from, what was the one after the gas principle? But yeah, so yeah, that does, yeah, I was like, I swear to God, I just, I thought I wrote like an email, our monthly email to our clients like about something similar to that this month. And it came from my reading of all that literature on periodization, which is basically, in a manner of speaking, stress management is probably the easiest, most universal way to think about periodization. But I actually really like something you said about, crap, now I forget exactly what it was. Was it like, it's algorithmic, you said? Now I said a linear relationship between the training and the adaptations, which is, in my opinion, it's more like non-linear than linear. And that's like a wave system where you gotta respect when you're gonna be in the valley, recovering, and when you're picking, pushing the envelope, going hard, it takes time to go through the deep and recover. And each person has a different rate for that, in my experience. Oh, yeah, I totally agree. And that's one of the things that I think I've been seeing lately with the optimization trend in training. Like GC said, people are thinking about the 1% while they should be thinking about the 99%. And so this is part of the 99% is thinking that you are not a computer. that you are not something where there are very predictable inputs and outputs. There are, I mean, you know, if you want to think about like variants in a population, you know, everybody's a little bit different with their genes. Like as soon as you start adding diet, sleep, you know, job, family, like as soon as you start adding in all those other factors that influence our training, like, I mean, the distribution gets even wider and wider and wider. And even if you're just looking at N equals one, it's not, it's, well. Most of the time, it's not going to be the same year to year or even month to month, sometimes even week to week or day to day. And being able to manage that, recognize those things helps a lot in terms of not thinking that you are an algorithm. It's not like I'm going to put in a threshold workout and next year or next week, I'm going to be able to do more. I distinctly remember one of the first times I ever encountered the actual consequences of job stress was in 2015. So it was 2016 or 17, I think. And I had a client where we'd been working for two years together. And year one was pretty good. I'm boarding on very good. And I had a lot of fun with him. And the next year, I was giving him pretty much the same stuff that I'd given him the year before, but we weren't seeing any progress. Nothing was getting better. Nothing was changing. Power outputs were staying the same. All metrics were static and not improving like they were the previous year. And I was like, dude, give me a call. And so we spent a little time talking and I'm trying to, I'm going over the usual stuff, nutrition, sleep. And then I was like, what's your job stress like? Because I knew he had finished one job and he had moved on to a startup where he was one of the chief scientists. And he said, and last year, my take-home stress was anywhere from a two to like a four. I was like, okay, that's great. I said, what about this year? He goes, on average, like an eight and I'd say two or three times a week to 10 and I was like, oh, well, dude, no wonder that nothing's happening because your body's not recovering and having everything optimized in recovery like in terms of like sleep, nutrition, stress, illness, injury, it's permissive for your rate of recovery. Like there's a certain maximal rate that we cannot really accelerate no matter how many carbs we eat or how many ice baths we take, arguably, et cetera, et cetera. So at some point, I told them like, look, you've got to decide if You want to keep training. I'll keep working with you. But until the stress goes away, I don't know if there's anything I can do. There might be another coach out there who can help you better than me because I didn't have that much experience at the time. But I was like, I don't know if the training is going to really take for the knowledge I have and the tools I have. And he was like, I think I better just kind of go ride to Vibes for a bit and I'll come back later. and he did not start training again as far as I know. He's just been kind of riding to Vibes ever since because his job and his family are his priorities and cycling kind of fell off the hierarchy entirely for him. I mean he still rides, he's still healthy, he still does group rides but like as far as I know but you know that was a change in his priorities and that's the first time I ever really encountered how bad like a really high work stress can be in terms of performance. So if you want to talk about periodization and managing stress, I mean, there's some stress that is difficult to manage. So anybody, actually, before we move on to listener questions, who else here has dealt with a client? Facing very, very high levels of stress and how did you handle it? Because that was my first instance. I was very, very green in the coaching world at that point. Megan? Well, I'm working with someone who's kind of gone through that situation and kind of still is. But yeah, like FTP drops, we've done all the things that, you know, got them to like improvement and then you know work stress happens and then everything kind of goes downhill and at that point it's just kind of shifting to like you know I want to make sure that this isn't stressing you out more than needs to be like I want to make sure that like you can maintain as much fitness as you can but just know like this is where we're at right now so it's just kind of like reshifting the focus um to like You know, reshifting those expectations because, you know, we're not going to boost your FTP when your work stress level is a 9 out of 10 every single day and, you know, you're throwing anything else on top of that, whether it's a diet or, like, family issues or whatever, you know, like, it's just not realistic. And I wanted to make a comment before you yapped on for, like, 10 minutes. So let's see if I can remember this. Sorry, I was just, I raised my hand like three times. I was totally not looking at the screen. I know. Okay, so, I mean, this is kind of like a little bit with my personal experience because, I mean, we think that I'm dealing with long COVID. Obviously, I haven't been able to do really any hard workouts. But, you know, when I was thinking about all those times where I went out and I was like, Okay, I'm going to try five minutes of FTP, even though I could have easily earlier in the year done two by 20 minutes, I was attempting five, and I would push myself so hard, like it felt like VO2, like my body just like wouldn't allow me to do it. And I think like a lot of times people think like, oh, to get faster, I just need to work harder and harder and harder. And like at some point, like, you know, you're already working as hard as you can, like, you know, like you can't, like you're, If your FTP is 250, doing 20 minutes at 250 isn't going to feel that hard. And if it's 270, it's probably going to feel as hard as it did at 250 when it's at 270. Like, it's not like stuff gets easier or exponentially harder. I feel like it's all kind of relatively the same. But like, you know, add in stress and, you know, it's not that you should just be pushing yourself harder. You just need to dial everything back. in order to not overdo it. If you're sleeping three hours every night, it doesn't mean that you need to just get up and power through and do that workout anyways. At some point, shit is really going to hit the fan if you keep trying to press on all fronts, if that makes any sense. Yeah, it definitely does. Yeah, Fabiano. Yeah, on a similar track, I'm working with a client that he... He does a lot of international flights, long flights, a lot of jet lag. And when we were discussing what to do in those cases, our conclusion or agreement was let's focus on not getting sick because there is a lot of other stresses already going on, different diet, different stresses from bad sleep. So when you get there, if it's a short trip, maybe two, four days, let's just write for fun. And again, try to avoid being sick. Maybe add a little bit more protein to the diet, a lot more hydration. Make sure the immune system is in check. And then when you get back, we go back to the harder workouts. So yeah, you got to think about that all the time. Otherwise, if you have a sick client, then maybe one, two weeks without proper training, which is way worse than just going easy for a few days. Let's see, who's our first listener question going to be? Oh, let's see. Is it okay to lose a few kilos in the early season, or should it only happen during off-season? Depends how hard you're working. Yeah, and how much do you have to lose? So, in my experience, it's best, well, here's the other thing. In the off-season, when you're still fatigued from your season, Getting right into a diet is probably not a good idea because you just went from stress to stress. So giving yourself that chill time is great. But like, especially if you live somewhere where the race seasons are long, like if you are in like, you know, like Central America or if you are in, you know, some parts of us, well, not Australia, but like if you are in, you know, like Southern Europe. is probably a good example. Or if you're in like, you know, Southern U.S. where the racing can start in like January. And your race season ends in October, let's say. Like early October. So you've got kind of October, November, December, and you've got three months. So you spend a month to chill. Now you've got two months to loosen weight, and that's eight weeks. Let's call it maybe nine or ten. And you think that you want to spend a little longer? But you are also starting to race in like January or February. And your kind of harder riding is going to start in like mid-December. So now that really only gives you like six weeks potentially to have a diet. So that's difficult. It's a short timeline because if you start the really intense riding while you're in a deficit, especially a substantial deficit like losing, you know, like a 500k cal deficit per day, like losing about a pound or a half kilo a week. that's a tough one to do any kind of hard training on so I would recommend that if you don't have much to lose it's probably okay but if you are looking in the long term like thinking about you know I want to lose you know 10 or 20 pounds over the course of the next however long you might have to actually dial back your race expectations and start your season later potentially also losing weight in-season. You take a month and a half break mid-season, take a week off, then lose another two kilos, and then you can start getting back into training. James? Yeah, I think it depends as well on how much fitness have you got to gain before your event. If you feel like you've got plenty of watts to play with for your upcoming races and actually... Shifting a kilo to might be more of an advantage than trying to gain some more power, then that could be worthwhile. And likewise, when you start racing, if a lot of people typically build up through the start of race season and try and train through some races to some extent and build fitness into some goal races, but likewise, you could still race and lose weight. But I would just say don't try and do both. Don't try and gain loads of fitness and lose weight. Pick one of those. Yeah. And also, this is something that we should recognize, individual variation, because I think a lot of top pros will see lose weight in season, like heading into a race, or even there was one article on Chris Froome losing weight during a race. during the Vuelta or something like that. He was losing a kilo in the first two weeks for this particular queen stage or something like that. And that's not the average. That is a genetic freak doing genetic freak things. And so that's something that we should not all try to emulate because for the average person, that is absolutely completely untenable. Even if you see pros doing things like that, it doesn't mean it's optimal. Like, yeah, it's easy to assume that, like, professional cyclists are getting the best out of themselves, but actually, that, yeah, I don't think that's true all the time. Next question is, is a half-hour ride even worth getting on the bike for? Everybody's nodding. Somebody expand. Or otherwise, I'm just going to keep yapping for the rest of this episode. Absolutely worth it. Especially if it's, like, spinning out the legs, just really easy. Maybe you flew somewhere and you're just trying to... Spin Out the Legs. I think it's really valuable. And I know some people, too, who just feel so much better than taking the day fully off. So I think, yeah, I think 30 minutes is totally worth it. Also, I'd say there could be, like, really solid psychological gains from a 30-minute workout, even if physically it might not be the most impactful. If 30 minutes does bits for your head, then that's great. I would say it depends. Because some people, for example, it's very related to the case that I shared earlier where one of my clients, to do that 30-minute ride, he would have to wake up at 5 a.m. So in his case, it was more like a stress than a real actual active recovery. And then I have another case where, for example, half an hour, seems to work not as good as an hour and a half recover ride for one of my athletes to release and make the legs lighter. So I would say each case is going to be unique and of course most of the time it's going to be useful but sometimes it can be not ideal and better avoid it and skip it. I generally agree and also I'd like to consider this from like a general health perspective too. six days of 30 minutes on the bike as opposed to zero exercise at all is, you know, you're going to be meeting your general standard guideline for minimum levels of aerobic activity. And I would actually suggest even that going out for a walk at a fairly moderate pace would probably benefit you just about as well. So if that's less stressful to do, especially because you can be a lot more flexible with 30 minutes later in the day as opposed to having to get your bike, having to kit up and that whole stuff, just doing some aerobic activity can be way more helpful. And there's even the concept of exercise snacks where doing just a couple minutes of activity throughout the day is... very, very impactful in terms of health outcomes according to the literature that I've seen. So some activity is way better than none. And especially I know the question asker here has a very, very stressful job. I would say that it's probably better to start thinking in terms of general activity as opposed to, oh God, I just worked a 12-hour day. Now I've got to get home and get on the bike and spin for 30 minutes. Maybe I'll work up to endurance pace by the end of this. It would probably be better to consider yourself as somebody who needs to think about general activity first, and then when work stress dies down, then you can start pushing more on the bike. But it would put you in a better spot doing whatever you're able to do rather than kind of having hit or miss habits on the bike. Just to say one thing in favor of the 30 minutes thing, if you're the kind of person who, Their, your consistency benefits from just keeping it going, then climb on the bike and try and get 30 minutes, because that's what helps me. If I skip a ride, it makes it difficult to jump on it the next day, especially in winter. So, yeah, ultimately it is and it depends on you more than anything else, I think. Yeah, I've got a client who's exactly the same. and because I used to schedule him off days but now instead I put it I put down like 15 to 30 minutes just get on the bike and I call it a momentum day just to keep the momentum keep the habit of getting on the bike in place. Have you ever prescribed intervals after a given kilojoule burn if so for what purpose? Back in the day I did. This was early in the fatigue resistance days, I would say in the mid-teens, where we knew that performance at the end of a race was important, and we hadn't really considered all dimensions of it yet. And so the typical way to look at it was, how many kilodjoules have you burned? And this was going way back to early aughts, when power meters were just starting to be a thing, was, how many kilodjoules did you burn first, and then what's your power output? So, of course, The most logical thing to do with a training ride is, okay, if you typically do 2,500 kilojoules or 3,000 before the end of a race, go out and burn 3,000 kilojoules and then give me some efforts. And I definitely did assign like that. Anybody else here has done that previously? I've only done that as a test. That was a test. Anybody else? 

Okay, so I guess it's just us two. I don't do that anymore, though. And one of the reasons is because the context makes a big difference. So I found that a lot of people could go ride endurance pace for 3,000 kilojoules and then smash out an amazing effort. And what they could not do is race for 3,000 kilojoules and smash out an amazing effort. And so instead, I started thinking in the context more of like accumulated hard work, like doing intervals. And then it's like, at that point, why not just do more intervals, like later in the ride? So there are a lot of ways to skin that cat. But yeah, we've definitely done that. I have, and me and Barry has. Oh, here we go. Nutrition question. So none of us are nutritionists, but we have some tangential experience with this. What's the best way to top off liver glycogen for early morning rides when eating early is difficult? Was it Tim Podligar that said mix the rice and put fructose on it? I mean, that's one way to do it. Fructose, plain fructose is unpalatable to me personally. Just drinking calories like fruit juices and smoothies are really easy. Yeah. Fabiano, why don't you... Talk about the insulin bulk you can get. Like if you, let's say you wake up like an hour before you start riding and you have a giant bowl of oatmeal and then you get on the bike an hour later, what's happening there? Yes, that's probably, I would say the best way to tackle that challenge because it is a challenge for many riders to early exercise and have plenty of glycogen and it's hard to change the... Natural History because during the night in a fasting state, you're going to be using a lot of the liver glycogen to maintain glucose. So when you wake up, you mostly have the muscle glycogen. And depending on the time that you eat before the ride, you've got to be careful. They recommend either 30 minutes before or just before the ride. And that's actually an area where... CGMs are actually helping athletes fine-tune that because, again, each person is different and also it depends on what you are eating before the ride. So because the theoretical behind it, the theory behind this is if you eat carbs, you're going to release insulin to internalize all of that glucose and fructose after you transform that into glucose into the cells. But the problem is if on top of that you Start doing the exercise, the time might be bad and then the glucose will drop because the exercise itself will mobilize transporters on the muscle fibers that are independent of the insulin. And then you start to, besides the insulin, also you start to internalize glucose on the muscle fibers and then you can have a really bad low level of glucose that will make you punk. Again, the best, I would say the best guideline here, if you have a chance to use a CGM, is to test different approaches with different timings and also different glucose, like liquid, solid, and see which one will work better for you. Yeah, and the typical recommendation I see for folks is, yeah, eat something kind of small and light before you get on the bike within like 30 minutes, especially because a lot of people I think probably get up like within 30 minutes of getting on the bike. and then kind of start eating on the bike as if you were regularly eating because kind of like you were saying, so the blood glucose will be upkept by liver glycogen and so when liver glycogen stores are low, eating is the way to help support that and if at some point, you know, you may get some gut issues so that's again why you've got to kind of figure out what's the right thing for you and what amounts. So, yeah. Oh, how do I get Corey's FTP? If your parents are also Corey's parents, that would give you a better shot than otherwise, I think. So if you are one of Corey's siblings, I would say that would probably give you the best chance. If you are not one of Corey's siblings, I think you will probably have to ask him really, really nicely if he has any wasps to spare. And we know that he... probably does, but I think the Blazers are going to probably put a stop to that. Okay, here's an interesting cross-training question. What would you recommend to do in a day as body movement next to your training on the bike? Actually, Fabiano, you are probably the most consistent person, consistent coach that we have in encouraging your clients and scheduling your clients to do like Other Types of Movement. So how do you approach that? Well, the way I like to tackle this is these days most of the human activities or work are seated. And cycling is also a seated activity. So that naturally creates an imbalance between the anterior and the posterior muscle chains. So probably the number one recommendation. with my clients is strength training, of course. And when considering strength training, the goal in my experience, especially with amateur athletes, should be regain that balance. When I used to work with bike fits, it was very clear that the clients that had a better control, for example, of the hip, when they jump on the bike, it's impressible how Stable they are on the bike, how it's like a machine. And I think that should be the goal besides bone health for cyclists to do strength training is to gain that control over the hip movement, the core, and also have that balance between the anterior and the posterior. But this is not trivial. Ideally, if you have a chance, I recommend working with a sports. Physical Therapist or maybe a personal trainer who really understands because when doing strength training, for example, it's really easy to do the wrong movements and actually instead of helping you, it's actually hurting you more. And so that's probably the number one activity. And also in my experience with, especially in areas where the winter is really tough, like United States, Northern Europe, is do Other course training that keeps the cycling training fun because it can be really tough during winter to just do indoor riding for three months and don't do anything else. And then by the time the winter is over, you are also, you know, burnout. So anything that you like, be it walk your dog, cross-country skiing, anything that you really enjoy and feasible in your area. Erica, I see you are bursting with thoughts over there, so why don't you please chime in? I'm bursting with thoughts. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know. I think in our chat, I'm always like, oh, running, everyone should be running. Because I've gotten really into running, so everyone should. Yeah, it's just tough. It's tough in really cold places. And I think this goes back to one of the questions was losing weight. And it's like, man, what a tough time of year to try to be losing weight. just moving around a little bit less because it's just so cold and our training durations might be a little bit shorter for just inside. So it is nice to do some movements that are off the bike and maybe that is running if that's appropriate for you and it works well with your coach fitting that in to your priorities and your goals. But yeah, I think a little bit of different movement styles can be just really good for motivation and consistency. Yeah, I would actually also suggest two particular things people should probably do, which is use your upper body like a little bit, once in a while, maybe like some kind of pushing and pulling motions, some kind of overhead like Katie has suggested in our chat, swimming. Swimming is probably a good idea, especially if your shoulders are okay to take that kind of thing. Also, I would recommend any kind of twisting motions. because most of the stuff we do is in one plane only and rotation actually tends to be one of the things that gets tougher as we get older. So I would highly recommend some kind of rotating exercises like Russian twists are a really fun exercise and any kind of stuff like that. Like, you know, you grab a medicine ball or even just don't even to start with and I would recommend something like that. But yeah. I think also, especially for bone health, running is a really good one because we can actually generate a lot more forces through running than we can through lifting even fairly heavy for most people. And one other thing that I just thought of when you were talking about those modalities, like rock climbing, if you have access to indoor bouldering or like a wall, it's really nice. There's a lot of overhead movements. It's incorporating your whole body. It's a little bit of coordination. Yeah, I think in range of motion, it seems to be pretty cool. And if there's a little gym there too, you could pair that with whatever strength session that you have going. It's kind of a nice addition if that's available to you and you like that. Yeah, totally agree. Just one word of caution here, especially if the torsion movements, be really careful if the torso is flexed and you try to rotate, especially if you are... Carrying 50 pounds and above or about 23 kilograms. So that's a perfect scenario to have a back injury. I've got a back injury from sleeping on a bed that was uncomfortable. One thing I also enjoy doing is doing some yoga. I started doing that a little bit after rides and it feels really good. And it's another way you can move, like do some twisting that doesn't involve like a lot of weight. And a lot of times too, if you're following a video, they will give you like multiple ways to do something. So I always do like the easier way because I'm just not that flexible, especially after riding a bicycle. But it really feels good like opening up the hip flexors and stuff after riding in a position that can like shorten the hip muscles. It just feels really good to do like 10, 15 minutes of yoga. Yeah, like my PT always told me that tired muscles are tight muscles. and so getting to stretch those out actually releases a lot of that neural tension that kind of keeps our muscles super tight. So yeah, definitely good recommendations. Next question is, okay, I'm just going to read this because I've not heard of this newest fad. Norwegian 4x4, latest fitness guru fad after Z2 and HIT or legitimate training approach. Okay, who's heard of this 4x4? Because I have not. Everybody's shaking their heads. As in nobody's heard of it, or this is a crock of shit. Okay, moving on. The first article I looked up, in the first sentence it says the words Joe Rogan and Dr. Andrew Huberman. Moving on. Actually, this makes me think of something that maybe we should have started with, which is Every time a new fad hits the world tour and it starts to seem to have some type of benefit for some riders, my first question is, what is it potentially replacing that maybe was suboptimal? Or what stimulus is it now providing that wasn't being provided earlier? and so there's a lot of questions about how the arms race in the world tour training world goes that I don't necessarily think that us mere mortals should really be paying attention to because like you know for them there's millions and millions of dollars on the line and I think it makes some sense to go try things because if you've got like a super responder to one particular type of training that 99% of people don't respond to Okay, that's awesome. That works for that person. But I don't think that we should all be trying to figure that out. I mean, just in our regular coaching practice anyway, we're going to be thinking about what works best for this person and equals one all the time, no matter what. And I think even potentially add a lot of the world to our teams, like there's like a group training program that everybody has to do. Like Katie, you and I have talked about a couple teams that we know have. one program for basically all their riders. And as soon as something changes in a program like that, you might get some really good responders to it. And you actually may abandon some people who are responding really well to your other program. Who knows? So I think that there's a lot of stuff in that context that really bears further investigation. And that I'm actually very happy that we only get trickles of that kind of stuff in the regular training world. 

Okay, sorry I went meta on that one. But yeah, on the high zone 2 training, I was talking with some pros today actually, and they said that they think there's going to be more guys than ever burning out this season, partly because of that. Actually, that's a good question. Why? Because I saw the article on that from, what was it, Velo News or something, or just Velo? Yeah. And it was more about like the mental burnout. It didn't seem like they were talking about physical burnout. It was just like, it's boring. And you've got to do it alone because everybody's at a slightly different pace. Yeah, I think it's the mental burnout of like having to, they're just saying, you know, you have to be so focused on every kind of minute. that you're doing that high zone two training because you can't just do that suspiciously easy pace. You really have to focus in on like the watts and I've tried this too, like one or two rides where I ride like a higher endurance pace and I felt that too and like by the end of the ride I just feel really mentally cooked because I think you're like just so focused on trying to keep that pace and like you were saying like you can't go out and do it with other people on the team or like your old training friends like apparently you have to go out and do it by yourself because everyone has their own like exact pace and then I think that's hard because if you're not like we said like prior about having fun on the bike if you're never riding with anyone else like that can I think after like years of doing that be extreme can bring extreme burnout yeah that's interesting um 

The physical burnout is real though, I'll just say that. If you go for like a, if you go chin yourself for a long endurance ride at the top of your zone too, there's no way you're going to recover as well as if you rode considerably easier and then you'll be able to be able to do some quality intervals a lot sooner which will have a much more substantial impact on your fitness. Yeah, I think that's where they would do shorter rides than typical. I mean, like, James, you and I, we know that this is how Marinus kind of approaches things, where if somebody's got shorter ride time, he'll be like, all right, try to burn the same kilojoules in the same amount of time, or in, sorry, in less time. So we'll increase the power a little bit up to LT1. But like, James, somebody like you, like your LT1, when you're in shape, is like, what, that's like 350 watts. Like, you know, you're not going to be out there. doing four hours at 350 watts. Like, you're going to get home, like, hungry, tired, and, like, not ready to train for a couple days, probably. Yeah, that would be, that would, yeah, I'm not keen on that idea. Okay, good, me too. It's going to take more out of me than most races, really. I mean, most interval workouts, sorry. Well, maybe that's why we see less threshold training sometimes from some of these pros because of the fatigue demand. If you're riding higher zone two, you may not be able to recover. And so maybe that's why they replace it with the tempo low cadence torque training. I don't know. I'm just thinking like if they're not recovering, maybe they're like shying away from doing the longer threshold training. I also think that there's a thing here where If you are a rider at that level, in a lot of ways, you are like an asset, like you're like a soldier. And you have to show up at the front lines, that being a bike race. Boy, what a terrible analogy. But still, that's something that you've got to do. And if you've got to show up last minute, if you're tired from your last two weeks of training, that's going to be suboptimal too. And so I think in a lot of ways, a lot of folks would probably Especially if you're overestimating threshold, and I'm fairly certain there's a couple world tour teams that would still have methods to overestimate somebody's threshold. And so going out and doing like, you know, 2x20 at your overestimated threshold is going to burn out a world tour rider the same as it would an amateur. And so I think in a lot of ways that something like this gives them a more practical kind of lower intensity target that will save a lot of fatigue from somebody. And because Katie, you and I actually know some folks who have been on like World Tour and World Tour Devo teams where they're training, they're never going max. It's all just kind of sub max, like, you know, like a 20 minute FTP interval here and there, a couple short efforts and they're never really doing too much because they're racing all the time. So you'd rather save your energy for that. So I think that those different kinds of constraints and demands. factor in a lot into somebody's decision-making on a World Tour team. For sure. So it wouldn't be as applicable necessarily to our athletes if they are able to pick their own racing schedule. So I think something to bear in mind is that it's really nice to be able to pick your own training schedule. That's one benefit of being an amateur rider. Next question is, what do you do when feeling unmotivated to ride? In case you are, you've got your high zone two ride coming up and you're like, man, I don't want to do this again. What do you do? I think it's always good to check in if you don't have motivation. I think endurance athletes are like super motivated people who always are trying to do a little too much. So if you're not motivated, it should be a big, maybe not a big flag, like a big concern, but it should be a note in your mind. Like, okay. What is the issue here? Am I really tired? Am I getting bad sleep? Is really bad weather? Like there's probably something to look into a little bit. Like maybe you've been pushing it a little too hard. Just to double check everything, look back through your training peaks, talk to your coach. Yeah. And actually that reminds me of the last email that we mentioned earlier where Periodization is stress management. And that's the stress that we can manage on the bike. And so if somebody's got a lot of extra stressors happening off the bike, that's something else that really needs to be managed. So it would definitely be worth checking in with your coach and just saying like, hey, I'm low on motivation. Clearly something's up, whether it's the training schedule or the combination, most likely a combination of the training schedule and what's happening off the bike. So between those things, the brain, Fabiano, you say this all the time, like the brain is going to take all those signals and integrate it. And as I saw in one paper, it's usually referred to as a master gland, which sounds dirtier than it is. So yeah, so trusting your master gland to weigh those signals. And if it comes up short on motivation, that's... sign that you need to pay attention to. And that's another good habit people can get into is watching that motivation. And actually, one person who's great at tracking their motivation and training peaks, but only when it's bad, is James right here. He won't put it in when it's good. He won't put in low soreness. He won't put in low stress, high motivation. It'll only be when those things are bad. So when I look at it at WKO5 later, I'm like, oh, that's funny. He's never highly motivated. Well also I just want to add the perspective of like I think I've seen this more and it gives me comfort that a lot of endurance athletes say there's plenty of days they don't feel motivated and like obviously it's good to check in with your coach but I kind of am in that camp where like I don't feel like my natural motivation is necessarily really high but there's like a good quote that motivation follows action so I always try to give myself like 20 minutes on the bike and I think 98% of the time I end up feeling like so much better once I've done those 20 or 30 minutes and then it's a big signal to me if I still feel like really awful after like 30 or 60 minutes and there's no motivation that's more of a signal for me so I found some of my athletes to be the same way where it's like you just don't feel motivated to start and that's okay. Like for many years I beat myself up about that and I was like why am I not just intrinsically motivated and then I read a few things from other endurance athletes that kind of said that same thing and so when I realized that you sometimes have to go get going first to then generate that motivation it actually gave me a lot of comfort and there's very few rides where I've gotten to you know maybe 30 or 45 minutes where I'm like, ooh, I'm still feeling really unmotivated. And to me, that's more of a red flag. Yeah, that's where I think the PMC is also really helpful. I always tell my clients that as the CTL climbs, there will be more and more accumulated fatigue over time, chronic fatigue. And that's just like Katie said, that's very... expected that at the beginning of the rides, especially again as the CTL goes up, that you should wait at least for 30 minutes for a good warm-up, make sure all the aerobic pathways are fully activated to judge if you are recovered or not in terms of fatigue. Okay, cool. All excellent thoughts. Would you prioritize volume over intensity? As long as we're talking about someone who can ride their bike for more than two hours a week. If you're extremely limited on time and you're trying to get fit, you're going to have to do something hard. But if you've got the option to do, if someone said, can I do an extra day of intensity or should I do an extra five hours, I'll take the five hours. Not that you ever actually have to think like that. I would also... weigh this against your motivation because I actually know not a ton but a couple professional cyclists or like semi-pro level here in the US where they just don't want to be on the bike that long. Actually famously, Chloe Diger is not a big fan of long rides. Katie, you are laughing your ass off right now. I don't think she likes riding her bike but that's also a quote straight from her. Yeah, well, so somebody like that, I would be like, all right, well, we're going to probably prioritize intensity a little more over volume, just so that way you can, I don't know what she likes to do in her spare time, listen to Michael Jackson, I guess. So, yeah, sure. Yeah, so it's kind of like, I think a lot of ways you got to meet somebody where they are. But in terms of like absolute physiologic improvements in the long term, I think that especially in the road racing world. volume, because there's absolutely no substitute for the effect that volume can have on fatigue resistance. Unless you are an absolute genetic freak, which is great for you, but that's not the average. So I'd say for most people, I would definitely prioritize the volume, with noted exceptions. Yeah, I'd say to some extent it depends. The question is vague, but if there's a point where volume... More volume, there are diminishing returns there. And with adding a small amount of intensity can bring you quite a lot of returns. So yeah, I don't know if it's as simple as that. You do need both in different moderations. Yeah. Megan has added to the chat, as long as you eat enough. Yes, I agree. But sometimes you still got to take some rest. Do some intervals. All right, we've got Rory getting out of here. I think James is going to get off the call soon. So thanks, folks, for coming in. If you guys got to go to bed, I know it's late over there in Europe land. If you're going to meet us, thanks for staying up with us. Really appreciate it. Oh, here's a, get right into it. Higher or low zone two, what's better to train in? All right, higher or low zone two, just for those of us who are still standing. I think we kind of just covered this, but like the higher the volume, the lower, the lower you want to go. James, why don't you tell the folks about the average for your endurance rides while you're still here? Yeah, on maybe like a 400 watt threshold, riding at 200 watts is great. That's plenty. So I guess that's like a 50% intensity factor if you're just basing it off your FTP. But certainly I don't go over 60% too often. Yeah, but you also do 6-8 hour rides on the regular. So if you were to do 2-5 hours average on a 15-ish hour week, would you still ride the same pace if I gave you an extra interval session? I'd like to think I had the discipline to say yes, but... Yeah, it might creep up a bit, but yeah, for all intents and purposes, the same pace would still be great. All right, and also, let's put into this additional context, where's your LT1 typically? Yeah, like low to mid 300s, so it's quite a bit below that. All right, we only have a couple questions left. How do you improve your climbing? And I would say there's actually a really interesting question and I want to kick this to Megan for your experience in climbing because most of the time my stock answer is it's a physics question. How much are you? And that determines how much gravity wants to pull you back to Earth and how many watts do you have? But there's an additional real factor to this. that doesn't affect everybody. I think a lot of people kind of are better climbers than they are on flat ground, but there are some of us who are the opposite, and I'm one of them, but Megan's also another one. So why don't you tell me your thoughts on this and your experience? Yeah, and I've noticed this with, like, some of my athletes as well, like, they'll be like, oh, I did, like, the first two intervals up this climb, and it was great, and then my third interval is in the flat, and I lost, like, you know, 10 watts, 15 watts, and then last interval again up a hill, and it's just fine, and it was something that I noticed, like, racing, because, you know, I live in Iowa, so it's pancake flat everywhere, like, the longest hill is maybe two minutes, if you even count that as a hill. and yeah like I would get to a race like Redlands and just it felt like muscularly different for me like it would just like blow up my quads and like I just like couldn't put out the same power like I'd be limited to like sweet spot rather than like FTP and like I kind of had to practice like climbing on the trainer like that was the best that I could do so like getting on a trainer like You know, those Wahoo Kickers with the climb, those are really nice, but like if you don't have that, I was just like sticking a brick underneath my front wheel and like just kind of like trying to do a little bit of lower cadence. Like it's, I know we're not big fans of like the low cadence work, but like this is kind of one of those situations where if you can kind of like group it with your front wheel elevated and just kind of simulate that. aspect of it. I felt like that helped a lot. When I first started doing it, I was like, I can't even do 10 minutes of this. This sucks. And by the end, I was doing an hour tempo sweet spot. This is great. This honestly isn't too bad. And I felt like it got a lot better once I got outdoors. I had a good time on Onyx this last year, considering it was a straight uphill stage. But yeah, that... That's kind of one of the bigger things. You could lose some weight, you could gain some FTP, or you could actually, if it's a struggle for you power-wise, to just kind of work on that. Yeah, and actually, that is a very specific needs-based thing that I always tell people. They're like, should I do locate and straighten? I'm like, do you have any trouble with it? If you do, you may want to try to incorporate it, but I don't necessarily think that it needs to be like, you know. smashing out 30 RPM at whatever watts to make a certain torque. I think it's like, you know, start at, just like we did with you, start at tempo and like, and kind of build out the time and build up the power. And after a little while, it should feel pretty good. And I remember way back in the day, like I was, I was doing regular intervals up our steepest local hill, which had ramps up to like, you know, 15 to almost 20%. And I, I was so much stronger climbing after. doing a bunch of intervals like that. But those were just VO2s. I wasn't even doing any kind of specific training for locates. It just happened to be where I was training, and it worked really well. But yeah, now that I haven't done that in years, I'm like, if I start to go up 1% hill, my quads are like, why are you doing this to us? Where's our speed? We're sprinters. We need to go, go, go. So yeah, unless I'm at like 25, 30 miles an hour, I don't really feel comfortable pedaling. that well. Yeah, like for me, like even just like riding in a tailwind versus a headwind is like a night and day difference for like power output. Yeah, you're just like looking down, you're like, oh shit, like that's, I went over power, like I gotta dial it back. Yeah. Okay, before we get to our last question, Fabiano, I think you've got one more thought on kind of endurance training. Yes, I don't know if you ever noticed that or For example, when we are onboarding new clients, it's very common to go back and look at their best training. And when you look at the intensity, it's very common, at least my experience, to see all the IFs around 0.80, which is kind of like tempo. And then you wonder, well, if going harder was the solution, he wouldn't probably be hiring my coaching services. So again, my opinion, and this goes back to the endurance, is As cyclists and as athletes, you got to learn to work on the peaks and the valleys because that change in intensity over time is actually going to help you. So in my experience, especially with endurance riding, I tend to go on the more on the valley side, on the lower intensity because then when we got to the higher intensity workouts, they're fresher and ready to push the envelope and go harder. those adaptations. I always say that if you want to optimize endurance rides, try to go longer, not try to go with higher intensity, because then you are moving towards tempo and sweet spot, which is a different training adaptations. So in consultations, that's one of the things that I also look at is the intensity factors of all the rides. And the first thing I look for is where are the lowest ones. If I see a floor, where nothing goes below like 0.5 or 0.6, I get like alarm bells going off. Yeah, again, I mean, it's all rides at 0.75 as you're in the chat. Yes, completely agree. That's, or above even. So that's one of the signs that I always see where I'm like, you're riding way too hard. And it's one of those things that accumulates over time and, you know, like good recovery ride discipline. is an absolutely necessary on-bike habit that could make or break everything. So making sure that balance between the hard rides and the easy rides is always appropriate. And one of the folks I've consulted with a couple of times over the last couple of years, I don't think I ever will again because I think we got him into a good spot where he's able to handle it and that's the idea. But now he's an evangelist. like a literal evangelist. He's out there posting on forums being like, everybody do your endurance rides easier, recovery rides easier, the easier it gets, the harder your hard rides. And he's gained so much power over the last couple of years from just doing that. And he's not alone. I'm actually really, really grateful for everybody who writes in and says, thanks for putting out the podcast. I'm following the advice and I'm getting a lot stronger. And I certainly hope that's not selection bias. It may very well be, but just on basic physiologic principles, it probably is not because energy management and fatigue management, stress management is an absolute key component of any good training habits. So our last question. 

Do athletes break the Coggin chart? So I think this is referring to power output. And there's a follow-up question on racecraft overcoming power. So I think the chart that they're referring to is the Cat 1 World Tour Pro watts per kilo chart for each duration. And the answer is people don't usually break it. They actually, what's the opposite of break? They underperform. Like I've talked to people who have said to me literally, my X-minute power is world-class. How come I'm not winning world-class races? And things like that stick with you. That one stuck with me. and the reason that this happens is because there are a lot more aspects of performance than what can you do fresh and so like I've got like my when I'm in shape my sprint power breaks the world-class line it goes like way above it and the world and the sprinters who are actually world-class go way way way way way above it you know we're talking like 27 watts per kilo or something like that or more for the men and so And for the women, you know, we're talking like 23 to 25 or something, if my memory serves. So, yeah. And racecraft can get you to exceed that. And if you have good fatigue resistance, that can get you to exceed that. So, what's everybody's thoughts? Who's had a conversation with a client about something like this? I had a conversation with... Client about this because I think his watts per kilo puts him at like two level, but he has never, ever, ever done a race in his life. So for the past, I don't know, three, four, five months, I keep telling him, don't worry about intervals that much. Your fitness, your power will not hold you back for the next season or two or three. because I don't think he has done a group ride ever. So I was like, do them as soon as you can, as many as you can. Decide if you want to do road races then because, yeah, that's, you know, what will not hold you back. And I have a client on the completely other side of the spectrum where I think the chart puts him at like cat three level, but he has about 10 years of race experience. and we are working on CAT 1 I would create right now so that's totally other side of the same spectrum so there are definitely cases where yeah there are exceptions like that yeah for sure and you know in terms of other good habits you know like we talked about earlier is managing those expectations matters a lot and this is one of the things that I think that a good coach will do well, that I think we all do well, is helping set good expectations. And that will help all across the board in terms of program compliance, making sure that you do the rides because you think that you and your coach are on the same page in terms of what your outcomes are. And that's great. But also it's just... You know, you don't want to also show up to every single race thinking that, oh, I've got Cat 1 power and this is Cat 1 race, so I'm going to win this race. Guess what? Everybody else there has the same level of watts that you do. It becomes more homogenous as you go up. So I want to touch on this just because, you know, I have a few power metrics that were above the, or on, above the world-class level line. Above. Like my one-minute Quite spectacular. I don't know, I think I was like 130 pounds, 600 watts for one minute. And I think it's important to remember that like the race matters a lot. Like you can't have that kind of metric and then show up to a pure climbing race and expect to do well. Like, you know, your one minute's not relevant. And at the same point, like, you know, one minute's not quite a sprint and that metric is watts per kilo. And if you're on a flat. Flatter Course, maybe even just a slight uphill, like, you still might be outmatched by people who just have more raw power, and there's a lot of factors other than, like, just positioning that come into that, like, you know, do you need more watts, or do you need more watts per kilo for that particular finish? I think that, you know, like, Redlands, what is it, stage one was best for me, like, where it ends on basically a one-minute finish climb, and it's really, really steep. That is the dream for a rider like me, but I think for other people, showing up to races where their best metrics aren't in alignment with that particular race demands, it's just kind of like, okay, well, what can we gain from this? Let's just work on positioning because it's not really a race to win. Things can happen. You could get in a lucky break. That's another thing. If there was a breakaway, it doesn't really matter anymore if you're not in it. What your power metrics are. So just so many other things that can kind of play into like a race outcome than just, you know, your power metrics. Yeah. And I think I like that thing that you said, like if a race was just all about like watts per kilo, then like they would just hand out trophies and not actually race based on like power profiles. Like I think that's totally accurate here. I'm definitely not the first one to say that, but. Yeah. Yeah. Well, something you told me and I was like, damn, like that's, that just cuts deep. You gotta actually go out there and race your bike. That is high praise for you, Megan. Crazy. Very high praise. Um, all right. So that's the end of our questions. Anybody have any, uh, any other thoughts? Kind of, um, actually somebody wrap up. I'm terrible at wrap ups. kind of the big takeaways from what we've talked about today because we've covered a very, very, very large amount of ground. I think just don't get stuck in the nitty-gritty details. Find what you can implement sustainably and not overthink it. Don't think, oh, every day I have to wake up and have my Omega-3s or my bike performance is going to go down the shitter. You know, my endurance ride has to be at 372.6 watts, like, where I'm not getting any better, just like, you know, people make it more complex than I think it needs to be and just overthink it a little bit too much sometimes. Yeah, so, um, so don't over-optimize. Yeah, don't over-optimize. Optimizing is good, but You know, there's a lot of factors when it comes to optimizing. It's not just like, what cadence should I do my endurance ride at? Because as if that's going to make the bigger difference than like, if you can manage the time in your day better and get out for an extra half hour, three times a week, which would probably make a bigger difference. Yeah. So, Caminos, Fabiano, the last four of us standing, any wrapping up thoughts? Yeah, I would add on to over-optimizing aspect because I think one big issue with over-optimizing is that it leads to unrealistic expectations where sometimes people think, okay, now do all the things perfectly right for the next two months and I'll gain 30 words of FTP and if I don't, what's the point? That's really bad. attitude to have. And I think people often strongly underestimate the gains you can make just by being at like 80, 90% consistently for a few years. Yeah, actually, you know, that reminds me of something that Fernando Alonso said. He's an F1 driver. And he said that sometimes driving a car at 90% is faster than driving it at 100% because at 100%, Some cars, they're just not stable at the limit. And so managing that instability actually makes you slower than if you kind of drive well within the limits. And I think that that's probably a good metaphor for the way that a lot of people think about training. It's better to... Megan's shit-talking in the chat. Yeah, so it's better for everybody if you think about what's... So, Fabiano? Yeah, I think the... The PowerPoint discussion was a really interesting last question because I think it all went back to the point where we discussed about learning about yourself and learning what are your current limiters. And if you are working with a coach, telling him about that, that I would call self-awareness. Or her. Or for her, yeah. And understanding where... Then going back to the optimization, where you can optimize based on your reality, not on what the pros are doing, what your colleague, whatever. And with all that information, progress consistently over time, avoid injuries, avoid sickness, because keeping it fun, that's probably the biggest message for this kind of discussion. Yeah. All right. Great. So thank you, everybody. So thank you all for showing up to our giant roundtable chat. Thank you to our listeners for asking all the great questions. And thank you for everybody who's listening who didn't get to ask a question. Please follow me on Instagram at Empirical Cycling if you want to ask next time for our next podcast. And if you want to reach out for coaching inquiries, shoot me an email at empiricalcycling at gmail.com and we can do consultations as well. And if you want to donate to the show, empiricalcycling.com slash donate because we are ad-free. And with that, we will see you. See you all next time.