Welcome to the Empirical Cycling Podcast. I'm your host, Kolie Moore. Today, we are joined again by Rory Porteus, our Empirical Cycling Coach. And I want to thank everybody for listening because you're joining us too. And thank you for listening. And if you are new here, please subscribe to the podcast if you like what you're hearing especially. And if you want to support the show because you're coming back and you're a returning listener, thanks so much for coming back. And you can always do the like, rate, subscribe thing. Oh, I already said subscribe, whatever. Five stars wherever you listen to podcasts is great. A glowing review always helps. Thank you so much for all of those and especially sharing the podcast. if you are so inclined to share it. That's probably the best way to support us. But we are also ad-free, so if you want to kick us a couple bucks to keep the lights on over here for hosting fees and whatnot, empiricalcycling.com slash donate. And if you are looking for a coach or just looking to consult with somebody because you're happy coaching yourself, shoot me an email, empiricalcycling at gmail.com, or we've got a contact page up on the website. and yeah, it's, we're kind of like late spring-ish and a lot of goals are resetting so if you're thinking about later in the season, cyclocross especially or even further than that towards next year, yeah, shoot me an email if you were thinking about getting in touch with us for something. Weekend AMAs up on the Instagram and sometimes I'll ask questions for the podcast, I may do that for this episode, we will find out. So anyway, give me a follow over there. if you would like to participate in any of that. So today, this podcast idea is actually Rory's idea because Rory has decided to use the podcast for therapy time and I am all about it. So Rory, why don't you tell the good people how your spring has gone and where you're at right now? Yeah, so as I've alluded to elsewhere, I don't really race anymore. I'm more about... good vibes and riding in cool places as much as I can. And despite saying that, the only place I ever seem to go is Majorca. So the Majorca 312 is, as the name might suggest, 312 kilometre event, although I only do the 225 kilometre version. I've done the last two years and last year... I suffered like a dog for 100 kilometers and this year I absolutely flew for pretty much the entire day and like when you hit that high in any sort of ride be it you know just something you want to go do your goal race whatever it is it can be really hard to come back from that and realize now what which is kind of what's happened to me over the past few weeks in addition to getting some sort of maybe COVID, which, boy, that sucked. You told me it was COVID. You say it was COVID. Well, I'm so filled with doubt. I can tell you all my fitness went down, so it did all the things COVID does. But yeah, my struggle at the moment is what do I redirect into? How do I go from... absolutely the peak of what I've done on a bike because I sent some power PBs while I was out there as well but I'm looking into the rest of this year and I've got no plans other than signing up to do the 312 again next year but that's 12 months away and I'd quite like to do something in the next three. So, right. So this is a question of resetting goals and motivating. Actually, that's kind of the subtext here is motivation. And I figure we could tackle it by setting goals because I think for a lot of competitive cyclists, having something to work towards is one of the motivating things. Of course, I know there's a lot of people out there who really like to, you know, Become more fit for the sake of being fit because you like seeing the numbers go up or it's good for your health or whatever. All this is good stuff. And I certainly appreciate that. Back when I was doing my most serious training, that was part of my reason for doing it. I was also extremely competitive. I mean, not like competitive when I got on a bike. I wasn't winning many races. But as a competitive person, I really enjoy that aspect of a lot of things. you know just showing up to do the thing and doing it hopefully a little better than last time was always motivating for me but right what happens when you kind of hit that high and you kind of achieve your goal and it goes better than you think what now you know it's like maybe this is a really terrible analogy but it's like whenever you know in all the Batman movies when somebody says you know what are you gonna do after you get the guy whoever killed his parents I forget I forget the whole lore, but whatever it is. It's like, what does a superhero do when they actually get the bad guy that has caused their motivation to, like, I don't know, take judo classes or whatever they're doing? So, Rory, if this were your client, I'm sure you've done this many times with your clients, where would you start? It's really hard to answer that question and also just completely detach it from knowing that I'm just answering it for myself. Well, I think answering it for somebody else is like answering it for yourself. I mean, because how often do our coaches ask each other these questions? Like, here's where I'm at. Like, what should I do? I think like the, so if I was doing this for someone else and not me, One of the first things I'd want to find out from somebody is basically like in that short term is there anything you can think of that is maybe on the horizon of what you would like to be able to do even if it's not something you'd be able to like action as a guarantee like is there an event is there a trip is there us you know going as low as is there a Stravacom you want to hit Like what little things can you think of that are maybe either attainable because they're like really low bar to have to go and try and achieve it or a really high bar in terms of maybe it's going to take you a lot of money to go to Italy or whatever it is you want to do. Trying to dial down on like where the options are for someone. in terms of where do they want to take their bike and that can be as simple as, you know, as I said, a 20-second Strava segment or it could be a 130-kilometer ride in the Alps and like obviously deciding whether or not you're going to go ahead and do any particular item there is something that as a coach I can inform on in terms of like action plan, what we're going to do to be able to achieve that thing, but I maybe can't actually give them, I can't tell them, yes, we're doing that, unless it's coming from a place of doubt from that person, in which case I'd hope I'd be able to give them the validation that they can do it. Yeah, I feel at this point that I'm just ADHD-ing on, but I guess... because I can't escape the fact that I'm thinking about myself. But yeah, it's about finding those, finding the thing, like what's going to kickstart that motivation. I know that for me right now that the illness was a real disappointment afterwards and I happen to know that everybody that did the 312 seemed to catch the same thing. But the thing I've been leaning on for like the past couple of weeks since I've been able to ride my bike again is just, okay, I'm going to try and get to do some group rides and like, have an experience of going fast with friends again. Because I know that in the long term for me that's the thing that's going to keep me on it and it's also going to bring my fitness back up from where it was. But that still doesn't solve my problem of what am I doing for the rest of the year. Yeah, like why are you going on those rides? Yeah. And like, actually... I think that this gets to sometimes a more fundamental question of just what gets people on the bike. Because I think that we know and we coach some people who wouldn't know what to do with themselves without a bike. Because I think that times like this are an opportunity to potentially even catch up on things that are not the bicycle, to catch up on things with friends and family. Maybe you've got a book you've been trying to read. It's time to do that. Or maybe it's like, I don't have a training goal right now. I just need to get on the bike just to do some exercise. And so it's one of those moments where you can approach it in a lot of different ways. But I think one of the scariest parts for a lot of people about times like this is what does it say about you? What does it say about why you are doing what you are doing? Yeah, and I think, again, speaking for myself, I have a lot of things that I enjoy doing, but none of them help my overall sense of well-being and just general mental health like riding my bike does. And that, I don't need to do much of it in order to get that benefit, which I'm quite grateful for. Obviously, I'd like to ride my bike as much as James does. But I've recognised that's not possible. But it's, I guess the difference between pre-event and post-event, and I imagine this is the same for a lot of our clients, is it's very easy for me to get on the bike and convince myself to go and do, you know, three, four hours. because I knew that it's working up towards something whereas now I'm having to battle the sort of two angles of imminent depression because I can't convince myself quite that I have to go and do a really long ride because I've got nothing to actually prepare for and it's very easy to give myself the excuse not to do it because on the whole the sort of mental health aspect is lagging a bit due to everything else I'd like to maybe be able to do. And I don't mean that in the sense that there's stuff I'd like to do off the bike. I'm still thinking in my head, like, you don't know this, I've not seen a cloud in Scotland for three weeks. It's that good. Getting out in the bike is actually extremely easy right now, but... If this same time period where it's the lull post-event, if it had just been pouring with rain, I think I'd probably be in a pretty bad state right now. So I'm benefiting a lot from global warming. Yeah, the universe is really trying to help you out here. It's doing you with something. Thanks, fossil fools. But yeah, it's trying to find that balance between As you said, like all the other things you could maybe be doing in your life, but also what are the things that's going to just sort of keep you on track mentally, even if it's not necessarily going to keep you on track in terms of like bike fitness. Because like, as I've said, like my fitness dropped quite a bit just as a result of being ill for three weeks. And that's not motivating because when you get on the bike, you know, you can't even write out the fitness that you had for the event. And actually it's... Do you think it's easier sometimes to have a not-so-good day at your main event because that motivates you to do better next time? It's like if you had the day that you always dreamed of, it's like you caught the bad guy, what next? Yeah, but I think I may be immune to that in this case because I enjoyed the event last year, but I also swore to myself I was never going to fucking do it again because it was that unpleasant by the end. and this year I never felt that. This year I finished it and I was like, oh fuck, I'm definitely setting up to do that again because there's just something about sunshine and closed roads and mountains that's just so appealing. That's so not Scotland. That's also so not Scotland. I guess like that sort of my muddled approach to like talking into this microphone right now is kind of demonstrating the problem I'm facing of you know feeling a little bit lost in terms of maybe what I want to do or how I want to treat the time I've now got because like the other part of this is obviously it could be an incredibly liberating feeling of I could just go do anything I want on a bike and just have fun you know like as you said in the previous podcast with James like he spent two weeks before his favorite race vibing which I heartily approve of but I guess it's different doing that before your goal versus after your goal. And he's also in a unique position where, you know, the kind of riding that he wants to do to Vibes is great for his fitness because I think there's a lot of people out there who just want to go smash Strava segments and hit up group rides like, I mean, okay, but, you know, if you're going to US Road Pro next week, like... You know, if you do too much of that right now, like, you're not going to have the legs that you probably need. So, you know, there's a plus and a minus to the vibes kind of riding. But, I mean, generally speaking, there is a lot to be said about taking the pressure off yourself, though. And I remember a couple years ago, I was talking to somebody who... She's a super fit older lady and she can run, she can ride, she can swim, she can lift really heavy. And she was like, God, what do I do? She was like, what am I doing? What am I? As in, am I a power lifter? Am I a runner? Am I a cyclist? I was like, you know, you could just be a person having fun. And she was like, oh, that sounds awesome. I'm just going to do that. That sounds like a nice problem to have. Well, you know. It's like, you know, you are this close to doing the exact same thing. I mean, you kind of do it already. Like, for you, having fun is getting out and smashing on the bike with your friends. And it's great for your health. It's great for your fitness. It's great for your, you know, physical and mental health both. And so all you really need to do is just get out and do that. But like, I, there's a lot of times when, I've worked with clients like this too, where if you, Don't get on the bike and do the thing for a little while. It becomes harder and harder and harder to get on the bike and do the thing again. Yeah, that's me. I think I've said this on the podcast before, but if I don't ride my bike one day, there's a very high chance I'm not going to ride it for the next week. And I'd say I'm a lot better about that since I started riding my bike more, which I think is perhaps something, there's something in that in terms of how it helps my mental health. But yeah, like that feeling of getting kicked out of your routine, which obviously as an ADHD person is very important to me. Yes, I appreciate that as an ADHD person myself. Yeah, it's difficult to emerge out of a lot of these patterns that you've maybe been in. I guess that's also why like people really struggle with doing something like an end of season break where all of a sudden we're telling people, you know. Cut down what you've been doing for the last six months to a third of what you were doing before. Just go out and have fun. Yeah. And now what do I do with myself? I don't, you know, and this is kind of what I mentioned earlier about, you know, a crisis of identity. It's like, without the bicycle, who am I? And I think that, you know, even, because for a lot of people, like, the bicycle is how you identify. Like, I'm a cyclist. This is what I do. But at the same time, it's like the thing that you do aside from your job, because for most of us, it's not a job. Like nobody's getting paid, or almost nobody who's listening to this is getting paid to ride a bike. And I appreciate all the people who are getting paid to ride a bike and still listen to this. You are most welcome. But everybody else, I mean, I'm sure even the people getting paid for this can relate to a large degree. But, you know, sometimes the motivation is, well, I have to to support my family, and that can kick your ass out the door also. Yeah, imagine you had to turn up and do Milan-San Remo 2013 where everyone just had icicles falling off your face. You wouldn't have motivation after it. If nobody has watched that, by the way, oh God, what a... They wouldn't do that again nowadays. They'd cancel a race if it was like that. It was that bad. Yeah, but I mean, what a finale. Anyway, I don't want to spoil it for anybody if you haven't seen it. So go watch it if you haven't. Good trainer watching, especially if it's... Nah, I won't even... It's probably worse trainer watching if it's like snowing out for you. It's not very escapist. No, no. So, you know what's funny about this is like I... Well, it's not really funny, funny, but... I've had a similar issue myself with motivating myself to get on the bike, mostly because I got hit by a car in 2020, and I've just been dealing with the issues of it ever since, and there's hardly a pedal stroke now that doesn't hurt. I've been in somewhat low-level chronic pain pretty much since then, and getting on the bike, knowing that it's going to hurt and it's going to take me a little while to loosen up, and even after I do, it's still going to hurt. you know, it's not, not, not that motivating. Um, and so it's like, what do I do now that kind of, you know, you know, training and like, you know, sprint training and all that stuff is, is like kind of taking a backseat to just like managing my injuries. Um, you know, I've had to find things to motivate myself to have fun too. Like I started lifting with my body a couple months ago and it's like, did you know that if you use your arms, they get tired? I didn't, you know, I had seen this with legs, for sure. You mean on like a hand cycle? But I had never used a hand cycle. Very slight tangent, very slight tangent. I want to give a shout out, I'm sure they don't listen, but the guy at the start of the 312, who I saw on the first climb cycling with one leg, might be one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. I've seen a couple of those guys, and... and the ladies, and they're definitely very, very impressive. So, you know, I've had to find reasons to get on the bike and just kind of suffer through it sometimes because like, you know, my injury also means that I don't walk that well. Everybody's probably seen me walking. I walk with a little bit of a limp. I'm kind of a slightly bit of a peg leg is what I've been told I look like. Like I've got a stilt on one leg and yeah, that's true. So, you know, riding is still like the way that I, I like to exercise, but it's like, I realized at some point I had to do it for my health, like physical and mental, more physical, because lifting weights is great for my mental health. But like, it's, I had to do that same reset of what do I do now? Now that I kind of see this goal I had in sprinting kind of fading away. And, you know, it's hard to reset, but like once you find something, It's nice, but like, I think a lot of people probably are listening to this are probably not going to just put the bike down because, you know, I wouldn't have put the bike down like that if I had the choice for sure. So I found that because I was already lifting weights for sprinting. And so I was like, you know, I can just expand the scope of this and, you know, do this a lot more frequently. And it's been a lot of fun to like learn new techniques. I'm still learning how to bench press. I still am awful at it. I still can kind of only feel my lats a little bit. I think I'm using them. I don't really know. It's been really fun to just kind of explore that area of training in general. But I expect that people listening to this are probably not just going to put the bike down and be like, well, I'm going to lift weights now. I mean, if you can, go ahead if you want to. But I don't think just because you're missing a goal means that you've got to shift your sport entirely. and I've already joked with Rory that he should start lifting more weights and he still describes it as hateful. I'm going to do it again in winter. I'm not doing it while the sun's out. All right, that's fine. So anyway, where are we going from here? I think the kind of point that I was trying to get at is what seems fun? Something that seems Like, there's new areas to explore. Like, I think actually, this is one of the things that I've suggested a lot of roadies do is try to get off-road a little bit. You know, get on your cross bike, get on your gravel bike, put some knobbies on your gravel bike and, you know, ride on the grass, like do some cyclocross. I mean, there's a lot more to the world of bikes than just like, competing in road cycling. I think most people listening to this know that, but like if you've never tried to like learn how to corner off-road or like do cyclocross mounts and dismounts or like you've never ridden on the track, these are things that are great fun to go do after you've kind of hit a major goal. And I see a bicycle behind Rory, but I don't know if it's got, it does not have knobby tires, but if you had knobby tires, like and I were coaching you, I would be telling you like, go grab some friends, get on your cyclocross bikes and go smash each other on some hot laps. Rory is getting up and I think he's, oh, there's a mountain bike. So get on your mountain bike, you know, just grab a friend or even by yourself, grab your lady and go off road and go have fun because I think that So there's something to changing disciplines that can be super motivating, especially if it's something that's kind of newer to you or something that you really like doing. I mean, you know what I mean? Because I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people who kind of get past a goal and they go, I want to get back in the gym or, you know, oh, it's time for me to start losing weight again. My next goal is pretty far away or I just want to ride easy for now. I want to do some long rides. I want to go bikepacking. You know, there's a lot of options out there. running through the list. What seems fun to you? Does getting on your mountain bike seem fun to you, Rory? So it's a gravel bike. I really enjoy it, but I struggle with the 10 kilometers an hour I lose on it. Well, you're not supposed to go fast off-road. And also, I could only see one wheel, and it's dark. Can I tell if it was a gravel bike? Sorry. I also accidentally showed you my road bike, the gravel bike's right next to me. Oh my fucking God, dude. No, I really enjoy it, but it was such a winter thing for me that as soon as the clocks changed, I think I've ridden it like three or four times, it's a really good way to get a recovery ride in, or like a late, you know, I'm not going to be able to turn up and do anything. after work type of ride. And I still, I'll go out on it once every couple of weeks. I haven't done anything big on it. I would be lying if I said that part of the problem is that it doesn't have a power meter and so I don't see numbers going up at the end of the ride. That's very much a part of my problem and I accept that as an issue with myself. But I do really enjoy it. I guess the, The trouble I have is if I start doing that, what am I doing it for? I guess part of my issue, and I'm sure not to make the entire podcast about me, but the part of the issue I'm sure a lot of our clients get after their A race of the season is what am I doing everything else for? There might be other things in there that you want to go and do, but it's that sort of... that very specific form of deflation you get when you feel you've hit the biggest goal of the year. And my mistake is that my biggest goal is in April and not like November. I mean, I don't think that's a mistake. That's just when the event is. I think after that it would be too hot to have the event probably. It would be miserable. Yeah. I mean, and with your fair Scottish genes, I think that would probably not go so well for you. So I think it's well-timed. But one of the things I would suggest for you is like find a similar event in the fall to train for. And so now you've got every six months, you've got something to do. And so that could be really motivating in itself too. And then it's like, you know, you can have your winter kind of like strength training sessions You can also do them late spring, early summer, and then, oh, I've got this thing coming up, I better get back on the bike. So I think having that external goal, having something to aim at, is underrated as a motivational tool. And I think a lot of people just have it because it seems like the thing you do. Whereas I think if you decide to start grabbing at those things consciously, it can be hugely helpful. towards helping you find a reason to get on your bike if that's the kind of motivation that you actually need. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess then the part of it is like identifying specifically what I'd want to do or what someone would want to do. That can be difficult. Look, partly, you know, it's that Netflix or, you know, Prime problem of there's 3,000 TV shows, which one am I going to watch? Unfortunately, there's not that many bike races or bike events. There's also not that many good shows. Yeah, there's definitely not. I highly recommend Andor to anyone that hasn't watched it yet, even if you don't like Star Wars. But, yeah, like... The idea of trying to find an event in six months apart from the other one that I do is a good way of trying to structure the time that I have in a year and giving myself that sort of equidistant period between them because it means you can still go through the need to recover either from whatever horrible illness you catch at the event or just the general need to recover. But I guess the limitation there is, is there going to be an event you want to do six months away? I'd quite like to go do the Maratona in Italy. The problem is that's at the start of July. I'm fairly sure that the Alps in July are roasting hot nowadays. So, yeah, a frail Scottish body might struggle. I wonder if there's a big bike race that goes through the Alps in July that would be indicative of the temperatures that you might face. I can't think of it. Nah, there's probably nothing. No. Well, I mean, at the very least, I think, even for folks without a goal, You know, Rory, you don't seem like you're that internally motivated to just go out and do it just to see your fitness improve. I kind of have been for like the past year. Like as I've alluded to in previous podcasts, I've really picked up my volume in the past two years. Like going from being a like 250 hours a year type rider to a 600 type a year. Hours a Year rider. I said to you after I did the 312 that high volume is a cheat code. Fully stand by that. It's incredible. It gives you legs for days. The natural side effect of that has been I'm doing all-time personal bests from anything longer than three minutes. and that has been very motivating. As I said, really like line grow up. I do understand when I ride my gravel bike, line will eventually go up. It's just that I don't see it for that ride. Well, I mean, that's one of the issues with riding off-road a lot of the time is like you don't see power PBs a lot of the time unless you are pedaling steady and it's, you know, pretty much unless you're on gravel, you're not doing that much steady pedaling. Like if you're doing cyclocross or mountain bikes, Unless you are doing like Leadville or the Traka or something like that, you're not on the gas that much. And so, you know, like short track, you know, and especially if you're looking at even like normalized power will change based on the course that you're riding. Yeah, Cypher Cross files are really weird. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like the, I've seen normalized powers for basically the same average power. I've seen normalized powers anywhere from like the same as the average to, you know, like 50-plus watts normalized higher than the average. And a lot of it's just that you're not on the gas for longer than 30 seconds. And when you are, if there's like a big, long, like minute, minute-a-half climb in the middle of something, that'll usually ping a higher normalized power. Like if you've ever done a crit that's like a 30-second to 40-second hill and then coast, you will find normalized powers that are way higher than you can normally achieve. Especially if you've got kind of a sprinty... set of legs like me. And I remember before I knew anything, I did a race, I think, oh God, what was it, the Lemister Crit? Something like that. And I saw like, my threshold at the time was probably 280, and I think I saw like 330 watts normalized, and I was like, is this my new threshold? I did it for an hour. The answer was no. Yeah, I had a client recently, he went for a climb. that is mostly tarmac until like the last 30k or something is all gravel. So it's really weird, the power file where just all of a sudden power disappears. And then also the gravel gets so deep that at certain points his cadence disappears because he's walking. Yep. Anyway. Yeah, well. Here's one of the other things that I found is in the general literature on like fitness and health is one of the biggest predictors in general of somebody's exercise habits is what their peers are doing. So like, for instance, I remember I've been self-employed pretty much since like, I don't know, 2005 or six or something like that. So I don't really understand this personally, but a lot of my friends who went into regular jobs, corporate world kind of stuff. So my high school friend, he was, one of his first jobs out of college was working at some video game company and everybody at that company was going to the gym before work. And so he got roped into it too. And for the first time, pretty much since like, I don't know, his like sophomore year of college, he was in really, really, really good shape. And as soon as he left that job, right back to before. And he hasn't had coworkers who have been into a fitness routine like that at all. And so he's not the healthiest person he's ever been, let's put it that way, at this point, many, many years on. So one of the motivational... tools that I think a lot of people can rely on is being accountable to either, well, I mean, this is one of the things that we see all the time is like, I want to be accountable to somebody, I need to be accountable to a coach. We are most certainly happy to do that, you know, because to us, it kind of looks the same, whether somebody's accountable to us or not. But at the same time, like, I think having friends who are like knocking down your door, like, dude, we haven't seen you at the group ride in two, three weeks. Come on back. That kind of stuff is amazing. Having a regular ride that, if you organize the ride, you can't not show up. I'm going to do a weekly recovery ride on Mondays to the coffee shop or the ice cream place. Make yourself accountable to yourself. That'll motivate your ass. Yeah, I'm fortunate that if I wanted to go do any sort of group riding, which I do, Glasgow's such a good little hub for it. You can do something just about every single night. It's the UK joke of it doesn't matter where you live, there'll be a time trial that night. Nobody in the US knows what that's like. No. Set up your own pirate TT league. I recommend it. But yeah, I'm not lacking for options of what to do in terms of any given week, but it's the feeling of like, and I recognise that part of this is probably also the residual fitness loss from the illness, is feeling... You know how if you go out to do a ride and your motivation isn't quite there and it's one of those days where you get on a bike and the motivation never actually comes to your legs, just you can feel it in your legs? Yeah, that's where I'm at. I think that might also be a mismatch of expectation because the last time you were on the bike, your legs were on fire and now it's like, hey buddies, where'd you go? Yeah. And I think that there's something to that. One of the reasons that I hardly ever pick up my guitar anymore is that I feel like if I'm going to do that, I don't want to – I'll noodle once a year, but that's about where I stop. Because if I'm going to pick it up more than that, I'm going to really start to practice, and it's really going to eat up a lot of time that I need to spend doing other things. Yeah. Because I know myself – It's the problem with hobbies. Yeah. Especially when you love the hobby. You know, it's hard to like not do it. You know, it's like there's a lot of people whose hobby is riding a bike and they love riding hard on a bike and it's hard to hold back from that. And I think especially when you've got goals coming up and you've got to put your habits for the smashing on the bike that you love, like you've got to put that on hold. It's hard. And I certainly appreciate that because, you know, if I didn't plan out my lifting. I would just be like maxing out single leg squats every single day and just going out and just smashing like five second sprints. How many walks I get now? Like that's really what would motivate me the most right now and I physically would have a hard time doing that and so I have to hold myself back. Yeah, I do recognize there's an element here of and this would be something I would definitely be telling clients is accepting that you've gone over the crest in terms of good feelings, good sensations, good vibes, whatever it ends up being. Accepting that you're in that ditch for a bit is going to help you settle at the bottom and climb back out a lot quicker. I don't like how easy that is for any given person. It's obviously going to be very different depending on where their motivations are at. what they've got going on outside of just their bike at any given moment in time. You know, what's work like? I can tell you right now, work, bad. But, yeah, there's definitely an acceptance element once you've done something, whether it went well or whether it went poorly. There's a name for, there's a word I'm looking for, but it's essentially like coming to terms with how something went and where that leaves you on the other side of it is an important part of the process. Reconciling? Yeah, reconciling, you know, where you're at. That's an important part of being able to like pick yourself back up and get going again to, you know. whatever that ends up being. It could be that you never do an event again because the thing you accept on the other side of that is, oh, I accomplished the thing. Like if, you know, a podcast you did of James the other day was really, really good and based on like what James accomplished in terms of like winning his favorite race, you almost wouldn't blame him if he just decided to retire on the spot. Eddie Hall did that. He won World's Strongest Man the next day he was done. Yeah. But I think he had other motivations, like he's got a family and everything, and also like strongman training is apparently really hard. Who knew that walking around at like 440 pounds is difficult? But you know what's funny, Rory, is I think you were basically talking about the last stage of grief. Yeah, a little bit. denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Yeah. You said, like, you know, accept that you're in the ditch and it'll be that much easier to climb out of it and you'll reconcile, yada, yada. And I'm like, oh, this sounds familiar. Yeah, I'm definitely firmly in the depression stage. The anger was when I got ill. The bargaining was me trying to talk to a GP to get them to give me an asthma refill, which they did not give me. Yeah, I need to get through acceptance. Okay, there we go. I've solved my problems. I know exactly where I'm at now. Well, that'll be $100 for the session. Oh, you're cheap. I mean, I'm not a therapist, so of course my rights are going to reflect that. I think, actually, one of the other things I heard about this kind of thing is... Accepting that you're not going to be motivated every day. I think that's one of the things that you and I have, because we've talked a lot about consistency being the foundation of all manner of fitness and improvements and everything. I think that the underlying premise below that is actually accepting that you're not going to be motivated every day and showing up anyway. Yep. Because that again, coming back to what we were talking about a moment ago, that was a problem I had for years was the motivation was there and never being able to actually get on top of it. I'd say part of the solution to where I'm at now is riding the bike more has helped in terms of like the carryover good vibes last a bit longer than they used to, but also where I'm at in life as a whole is probably Much improved in terms of like home life's great, work balance is actually really good for what it is, even though it sucks a bit right now. My access to being able to go out and ride a bike is a lot better. You know, it's a huge difference in terms of like the mental load when you go from living like quite inside a city to basically two minutes from the outskirts of it. Like all these little things that affect. your ability to get out and, you know, things that lower that activation energy requirement to get you to go and do the thing. Okay, well, if you're not, well, okay, if people remember the Wastock episodes on that, on how enzymes work, we're always talking about catalysis. So the normal way to say it would be you're lowering the barriers. Yeah. Lower the barrier so low that you're going to trip on it. Like, set out your clothes. You know, if you're going to ride in the morning, set your alarm up. Set your alarm to go to bed. Turn the temperature in the house down an hour before you go to bed. Get nice and cold. That helps a lot. Don't look at any screens. Do yourself a solid. Do your morning self a solid and get plenty of sleep. Set everything out. Get your food ready. Even if it's just putting a gel on the countertop, or like a piece of bread, just put it out, just be ready. It's very funny that you say this. Is this what you do, or what you know you should and fail to do? I should and fail, but more importantly, my partner did the event with me. on the morning when our alarms went off at half past three in the morning. We talked about this afterwards, but both of us were very much of the mindset that if one of us turned the alarm off and went back to sleep, neither of us were going to go do it. Yeah, the irony being that it's probably only easy enough for me to get out of bed and do that event because that's actually one of the few occasions where I did lay everything out. The pockets of my skin suit were already packed. And you saw how easy it was. Yeah. You know what this means is that you've got to ride with her every day now. I would like to. That would be ideal as soon as I win the lottery. That would get you out a lot. I mean, that's like being accountable to somebody else, you know, because I've had moments like that where I'm like, you know, a alarm goes off at 3.34 and I'm like, oh, I got to get up and do this thing. It's like, well. I want to go back to bed, but everybody's counting on me, so I've got to go do this stupid thing that I don't want to do because they need it, and so it's not that stupid, so all right, I'm going to go do it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Having accountability is just, oh, God, it keeps you doing so much stuff you need to do. It's horrible. Yeah, and as coaches, we're really good at giving other people accountability. I guess that's kind of what this podcast is turning into is like what are the things that help you go out and ride your bike like when we talk about consistency you know what does that actually end up meaning in terms of the things that are allowing you to be consistent. It's not just the case of I get up and I go and ride my bike every single day, be that for the 10 minutes of recovery or the five hours of my long endurance ride. It's how have I structured my home life such that I have a supportive partner who can allow me to do that? How are you able to balance your life if you have kids, for instance? What are you doing to make it so that consistency is something that you're actually able to achieve? Because obviously we talk about consistency a lot as being something incredibly important, but helping someone be able to achieve that sort of consistency, the easiest version of it is you and I put something into someone's calendar and hopefully they go and just do all of it. I'd say there's like a 98% success rate with that too. Yeah, like, for the most part, when people are motivated enough to come and get coached, it really helps them, like, just stick on it. Like, it was the thing when I got coached by Fabiano, is that when I emailed you to ask about coaching, I think I told you I know more or less what I should be doing, I just can't convince myself to do it. I'm gonna go find that email. Yeah, please do. But the, yeah, like, The clients that maybe struggle the most are the ones where there is sufficient disruption in some other part of their lives that their ability to be consistent is not going to return until we're able to solve that and that can be as simple as helping them be a lot better about fueling themselves. That's probably actually a very easy example of where we as coaches are able to help someone with it but if someone was started a brand new job or leaves a relationship or moves to a different state or a different country. These are all problems where as coaches we can only have a small impact in terms of solving the problem itself. Our actual utility there is taking the pressure off, not requiring consistency from people. It's a lot of the... Other Side of That is something that we're just not going to be able to solve on our own. Yeah, it's interesting that, you know, consistency is something that we probably take quite a bit for granted when you and I put things in people's calendars and we only really appreciate the challenges of it when it's something that's just completely out of our hands. Yeah, so your memory of your first email is inaccurate. Oh, right. Do you want me to read it? Go ahead. You can cut this out. Hi, I'm interested in signing up for some coaching. I'm trying to get back to some sort of race-ready fitness after a few years of general decline due to mental health, the pandemic, and the Scottish climate. I definitely consider myself an amateur, but I've done well in crits in the past and have medaled in a National Triple T Championship. By accident. Hey, you earned it. I've spent the past year or so slowly watching teammates surpass me and I feel I need someone to give me direction and hold my feet to the fire. Looking forward to getting back from you. The holding the feet to the fire bit is the bit where I need someone to just tell me to do it. Yeah, you're a little more poetic in prose when you're actually writing than when you're actually talking. And it's not like you're not poetic when you talk, too. But I cannot tell you the number of inquiries that I've gotten. what the, this is, yeah, 10 years now for Empirical Cycling I've been doing this and a lot of the time it's like, I need accountability, I need motivation because I think a lot of people, you know, without accountability, motivation, like, I mean, that kind of stuff, people, and I, this is me right now, I ride as little as I have motivation for and I would probably do less aerobic exercise, except I know that it doesn't feel as good when you don't do as much. I've done the zero riding for six months thing, and at the end of that six months, it's probably the least healthy I've ever felt in my entire life, by a long shot. And if it felt better to not exercise, I would do that. But it feels better to exercise, so that's what I do. And I think that there's that balance that a lot of people will subconsciously find between, I need to do this much exercise in order to not feel like a fat slob and to have some semblance of mental health. And that's great. And I think a lot of people end up there. Yeah, that was basically 2020 for me. Ironically, the year where... We had the best weather and nothing but time to ride bikes. And no cars on the road. And no cars on the road is the year I've ridden the least. I think it was less than 200 hours. Well, it's not like it was a stressful time for anybody, right? I was unemployed. Nothing changed in my life. Well, I think this is also coming back to One of the things that we do with our coaching is, which is, we always want feedback from our clients. I think, I think, because we started this with, what would you ask somebody? And, because it's not like we can find the perfect thing to motivate somebody. I mean, because this is part of individualizing training plans, right? It's like, what motivates you? For some people, it's like, I want to get out on group rides with my friends. and I'll do some structured training, but I don't want to do a ton right now. And like, that's cool. We can definitely work that in. Or if somebody's like, I really want to buckle down and work hard. It's like, okay, well, you're tired from your event, but let's give it a week or two and like, you can work hard then and that can be motivating for people. All right, cool. I'll take my risk seriously. So that way I hit the ground running. But, you know, what motivates me is not going to motivate somebody else. Like, a lot of my clients are like, can I get into the gym again? Or, I want to take my cyclocross bike out. Or, I want to sign up for this ultra. Or, I want to go do this, you know, take your pick. Like, this new thing. Or, for most people, it's like, I've got this goal in June. Or, I've got this goal in August. So, let's get ready for that. And, you know, just keep... keep rolling forward. But when somebody's kind of lost at sea, you've got to kind of find the direction to steer the ship. And it's like, what direction do you want to steer the ship in? And especially if somebody's like, my big goal is health, or I just want to get more fit, you can keep that as your kind of North Star, to overextend the sea metaphor. There's a lot of ways to get there, especially if it's just for health or fitness. There's a million things that you can do. Having agency in these decisions that get made about where you go forward for motivation, for fitness, or for whatever, there's not a lot of wrong answers as long as you feel like it's the right answer for you. Yeah, that's a really good way of describing it. Probably more succinct than I would have managed. Well, that's why you and I are a good pair. We're both verbose, but sometimes I am succinct. Do you have any other thoughts? Because I asked listeners for some questions, and we have a couple. That was a good question. Cool. All right. So, let's see. Being too motivated to bake the cake and never eat it. as in too motivated to do structured training but not motivated enough to race or a group ride. I think I said this on the podcast once before but I at one point, I think it was me, I forget it was me or it was somebody else but had the idea to just like hunker down for like a year just train and in fact I've talked to a lot of people who have this idea of I just want to train for a year or two and get super, super strong. And I usually tell them don't do that. Because if you want to do well at racing, doing the racing itself, there's a lot of skill to the racing. And if you want to get good at that, I mean, I cannot tell you the number of people I know who've got all worldly manner of watts. and don't get very good results because they're just eating wind the entire time or they don't know how to read the race or they don't know how to prep for the race or anything like that. So if that's your goal, start doing the goal. You don't have to show up with like 500 watt threshold. Well, not that probably. That would be nice. I'll do it. I bet there's like 10 people in history who have had that and they're also probably all two meters tall or more. And on drugs. And on drugs. Regardless, I think you've got to go do the thing. And you've got to find out why you are hesitant to do the thing. And if it were me, before I started racing, I was hesitant to start racing because I wanted to do well. And lo and behold, like a lot of other people, I did not do well. But I had to accept that I would probably suck at it in order to go do the thing. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, it's a common question from people that are new to the sport is how much training do I need to do or what should my threshold be before I enter my first race and you're right that the skill-based component of racing is it's just such a much bigger unquantifiable part like I think I said this in a previous pod that's practically my fucking catchphrase at this point but There was a discussion in the coaching discord where, I can't remember who it was, it might have been Megan, said they'd sacrifice 20 watts of FTP just to be able to nail the final corner every time. Because that's going to just get you through it. That's going to get you your result if you can do that reliably. It's one of the things where... You can see someone who's gaining in fitness and that's really new to racing and they turn up to races like, yeah, I felt like I did really well, improved my placing, my watts were a lot less on average than they have been in the past. I was like, yeah, you're probably just racing a lot better. Yeah, you're sitting in more, you're not misusing your energy, yeah. So yeah, I can kind of appreciate, maybe not the specific analogy of... having more fun baking the cake than eating it because that's never going to happen. I totally get that notion of being really into the training side of things and just completely psyching yourself out when it comes to the actual thing you think you're training for. I think a lot of people really need to dial back. expectations on themselves, for one, in terms of, not just in terms of like, oh, the result they're going to try and get at a race, but that every event they need to enter has to be A-level fitness for them, whatever that is, because nothing's going to, you know... As you said five minutes ago, you've got to give yourself the reason to get out of bed, you've got to line everything up such that you're going to be able to go and do it, and psyching yourself out before you do it is going to be one of the biggest barriers, and I know that, I've probably, of all the paid races that I entered back when I was racing, I think I turned up to half of them, because I psyched myself out in the morning, and that's a difficult thing to overcome, and it can be... multi-factorial in terms of what ends up causing you to do that. But trying to relieve that pressure off yourself as much as possible, again, kind of like what James was talking about in that last podcast, understanding whether you're someone that can get crushed by pressure that you put yourself under or feel liberated when you have that pressure is very, very important. I think I've still listened to the podcast before, but I remember the first time I lined up to bat and kill back when it was a regular race before it went away and then came back again. On the start line, my heart rate was like in the 170s. I was so jacked up and ready, but also nervous. I was excited, but also nervous, and I was too excited slash nervous by a long shot. I pretty much blew myself up on the start line. I was out the back and about. I don't know, 15, 20K. And that's the point where I was like, oh, okay, this is how competitive I am, is I put too much pressure on myself because I don't know how it's going to go, and I know I'm going to suck, but I'm secretly hoping it'll go okay. And the more you hype yourself up about that, especially for somebody like me, the worse it gets. Yeah, I think there's also like... You can find yourself going down so many different paths depending on how that first event goes. If that first event goes much better than it maybe should in terms of your level of experience, that could be a huge plus in terms of encouraging you to keep going or it could be hugely deflating when you turn up next time and you just don't have the luck or the legs that you had that first time and vice versa if you have a really bad first experience. I can imagine for a lot of people... turn up to their first crit, get dropped three laps in, and that just never makes them want to participate in the sport again. On the other hand, it can only get better. Yeah. Worst day of your life so far. I mean... Shit, yeah. What was my first race? It was Wells. That's right. I think I told this story in the podcast before, too. Yeah, sorry if I'm repeating myself for some of you folks, but I remember that first race, I thought I was going to catch a lar on my way off the front, and so they rang a preem bell, and I get on the front, and I'm going, hell, and I don't know it, but behind me is like a 12-year-old kid. who comes around me at the last second to win the preem. And I see him, and I'm like, what? They're behind me? I didn't drop them all? Like, newbie hubris, like, you know, error number one in all bike racing right there. And I stood up to sprint, and I had nothing, and I was like, oh, I am so bad at this. But it was fun. It was so much fun, I came back. and I also met one of my very first cycling friends there who was also the manager of a big Conti team. So yeah, that was fun. Okay, oh, next question. How do you set realistic goals without your ego getting in the way? Rory, how would you do this? That's a really good question. I know. It's a hard question. So I can probably give an example and that's basically like What we started this podcast on is last year I did the 312 and again only did the 225km version because the extra bit at the end is a bit shit but I did that in like 9.5 hours which I was really impressed why biggest ride I've ever done this year my only goal was to beat that and ideally be under 9 hours I was 9 hours and 5 minutes which sadly is because got held up by an ambulance for the guy that unfortunately passed away during the event, which, you know, I can take that in my own mind myself as thinking, okay, I definitely accomplished everything I thought I would hopefully be able to do within that event. I didn't go into it thinking, okay, sub eight hours, that's the goal. because I knew that's something that felt entirely unachievable. I think the benefit I've got in my situation is that much like a time trial, I was only racing against myself in reality. There were 7,999 other people on that road, but I didn't care about any of them in terms of where my personal goal setting was. I think that becomes difficult when... you're coming up to like your A race event like if someone was going to let me just open my calendar at random if someone is going to Baker City stage race in four weeks and that's their big event that they're preparing for they've trained all year their opening races go really well and then they just decide for themselves I'm aiming for like top three like that's my goal based on everything that's gone so far and that could be something that's entirely achievable but it's also something where you could start leading yourself down that rabbit hole of unrealistic expectations because when you go to these big events as soon as you start involving other people in terms of your own personal goal setting you're going to start complicating that Arithmetic in terms of how realistic those expectations actually are. And that can be a good thing, I think, for some people. There's some people who probably thrive off of having the ego to be able to say, I'm top three in this race and I'm going to show it. I'm not that person. I know that for a fact. But yeah, I think that... In terms of actually answering the question, I think it's really difficult to be able to make that sort of prediction in terms of a results-based outcome. But I think the thing, and I've definitely spoken about this in the podcast before, Drink, is setting the goal for yourself in terms of like performance of your legs, not necessarily the performance in terms of like total time on a stage or, you know, possessions. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and actually, this is something that we've talked about in the podcast a little bit before, but actually, I really want to have Billy back on because Billy is working with some of our clients now, and he's given some phenomenal advice to them. And one of the things that he's said, and this will sound more familiar in a second, but he says, like, race to your values. Like, what do you value? And so the question is, like, what, you know, in a real, more realistic kind of like, what are we talking about, manner of speaking, what this kind of means, at least to me, is what processes are in place that you have to hit? Like, what goalposts do you have to hit in order to actually have a good race? And bike racing is one of the sports where like good or bad luck is very, very tangible. And you never know what is going to happen with somebody else on that day. And there's often 50 to 100 somebody else's. And so you've got like a lot of compounded luck there. And so what do you have to do? What can you do? What's under your control that will get you to say this was a good race? And things like Did I sleep well? Did I know my warm-up? Did I know my nutrition? Was I ahead at the split that I needed to be ahead at? Or if something doesn't go well, like you puncture out or you are behind a split because somebody in 10th wheel went down and top nine people went away and you're just stuck with the best of the rest and like, okay, well, I was... 10th wheel out of 100 people. It's not bad, right? I was where I was supposed to be. It's just shit luck. So I think realistic goal setting is like understanding what's under your control and what's not. Yeah, like being able to reconcile what the actual outcome is compared to what your actual input into that outcome was. I think the example of a crash is a really good one in terms of, you know, could be something that's completely unrelated to you and it just has an impact on you. And the wrong thing to do would be to blame yourself, obviously, and to get down. You can get down, I think, about an opportunity missed. I don't think people should tear into themselves on what it meant for their specific outcome. I could have joined the winning move and I didn't. I hear that one a lot. And it's one of those things where... You only know it's the winning move in hindsight. But on the other hand, that's maybe 50% of the times I've heard people missing the winning move is like, you didn't know it was the winning move at the time. It looked promising, but it's bike racing. Who knows? On the other hand, I have also frequently heard, I didn't think I could last in that move. and you know what? If you know that's the move and you're not sure, roll the dice. What's the worst that happens? You make the winning break and you get dropped? Okay, that's a better story than, well, I saw the winning break and I didn't think I could make it. Odds are not bad that you're going to make it. Go try. Why wouldn't you? And that kind of decision-making in the moment where somebody doesn't back themselves is, that's another thing where I think in terms of realistic goal setting. When you get to those moments, your goal should be maybe it's going to be roll the dice. Maybe that's a value that you can raise to. It's like, I'm going to take more chances in racing as long as they look like smart chances. It's not like I'm going to attack at 3K and I've got a crappy two to five minute power and so this move is probably not going to stick. They're probably going to pull me back. Don't do that. But if it looks reasonable, Give it a shot. What do you got to lose? There's another bike race coming around the corner anyway. Yeah, I feel like a very common discussion in our coaching discord has been someone talking before a race saying, oh yeah, breakaway never goes on that course. Then a breakaway goes on that course. Yeah, you can't take anything for granted like that. Yeah, but also I think kind of like you said, you cannot beat yourself up about that kind of stuff too much. And this is one of those things where understanding what is in your control and what's not. And if you still want a good result, I mean, that's fine. We all want a good result. That's totally understandable. But it's not like you are being judged a bad person or a bad bike racer if you don't get the result that you feel like best you deserve or that you want. It's not a judgment against you. It's like, just what happened, and some days are going to be better, some days are not going to be good. So, you know, as long as you realize, I did everything I could, I did it right, I made the choices in the race I wanted to make, you had a good race, and I don't care if you ended up last. Alright, next question is, oh, how do you cope with not meeting goals? I think kind of like... Kind of what I just said, but Rory, do you have anything to add to that? Poorly. Speaking for himself, once again, we're back to the Rory therapy session. I don't have an answer to that. We kind of covered it, I suppose. It's a good question. It is a good question. I think one of my own coaches, shout out to Nat Ward, we were on the phone, I think I've told this on the podcast before, drink, where he said, he said, bike racing is not a sport about winning. It's a sport about managing disappointment. And he takes a pause and then he goes, and that's why the French like it. And I have never forgotten that ever since. It's been like 10 years. All right. Next question is, How do you deal with family life, getting in the way of your events? Well, congratulations on having a family. That's a big accomplishment in itself. And having them stick around long enough is fantastic for bike racers. They don't always. So, you know, I, man, neither of us are parents, but what would you definitely coach parents? Yeah, same. It needs to be something you're doing in tandem with your partner, be it whether you have kids or not. There needs to be agreement on where's the load getting picked up in other places, you know. How much volume you want to do in that situation is going to be highly variable in terms of like, you know, just general. Life Dynamics in terms of whatever they are with you and that other person or people. With kids, it definitely becomes a lot more complicated. The number one thing that comes up with people with kids is every three weeks they tell me they're ill again. Yeah. The things that seem to work is if you are capable of, if you have to go into work, if you can commute by bike, that helps a lot. I've got a few people who have like, an hour-long commute, and that's two hours a day. Some of them will be able to extend it by an hour or two on the way home. They could get a good four hours in a day just by making that part of them getting into work. For other people, real reliance on turbo keeps you at home, especially if you have a newborn. That's going to be incredibly important, but also recognising that that might just be completely incompatible depending on what's going on in the house. But yeah, it's got to be a conversation. I'm very fortunate that I'm with someone who, I told them at the very beginning, the bike's a very important thing to me, and they have supported me throughout it and entirely, and have also been convinced to ride bikes themselves, which helps a lot. Sorry, we had a podcast episode like a month ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Fabiana and Giancarlo hopped on the podcast because they're both parents and I mostly just asked them questions and we also had a couple of our clients write in and actually one of them said exactly what you said is like, make it a family thing. They do a lot of family activity, a lot of family rides, family hikes and things like that. Yeah, she has some great advice, and I kind of represented her opinion in the matter. And otherwise, GC and Fabiano had tons of great thoughts, including dealing with parental guilt, which I honestly had never even considered until they mentioned it. And then I was like, oh yeah, I could totally see how you would feel bad going out in training. But at the same time, it's like, if everything's in balance, I... and things are still fine. I can still see it being, you know, feeling guilty about going out for a ride. Yeah, can I just say that, for one, I think that's the best podcast that you've done. Well, the numbers don't say so, but thank you. But if anyone's listening and they're interested in coaching, like, I think that's the best podcast about how to coach that we've done because it is entirely a podcast about how to balance. you know all the different stresses in someone's lives some of the biggest stresses in someone's lives and I think yeah like everyone should go and listen to that it's a really good discussion but yeah like ultimately it's going to be about finding balance it's going to be about finding opportunities that's probably in all likelihood going to require you to be able to get up at 5am provided you're able to do that in a sustainable manner I'm mainly thinking for people with young kids or kids that have a routine that you need to help them with. As soon as kids turn into teenagers, you're probably alright. Yeah, they don't want anything to do with you anyway. Yeah, fortunately your kids are sick of your shit by that point. They're onto you. But yeah, it's team effort, as GC and Fabiano said. Yeah. Well, one of the things for a bunch of the people I coach, the number one thing that all of them ask for, and if they don't ask, I usually proffer this, it's take a weekend day fully off. Have a family weekend day. Especially if your spouse is on a regular work schedule and you both got weekends off, fantastic. Like, Saturday rolls around. you know, take the kids out for a walk or whatever, whatever the, whatever families do. I don't have one. I don't know. Uh, I don't remember what my family did when I was growing up. Um, but yeah, have family time and that usually helps a lot when it comes time to like during the week. Okay. I've got a, I've, I've got a ride. Um, but you know, and, and also like, Being flexible, I think, in your training and being adaptable to either your stressors or your training is an underrated coping tool with all of this kind of stuff. Especially, and it doesn't matter if the stress is kids or work or partner or getting sick, global pandemic, take your pick. Global Financial Crisis. I mean, what, this is the fourth one I've been through in my lifetime. So, you know, it's, you kind of get used to developing these coping tools. And actually, this is one of the things, so I actually asked Katie before we started recording, I was like, what would you suggest? And she said, have a flexible training plan where, you know, if you've got, like, give somebody two hard workouts for the week, but they can go on any day. And if they don't get done, who cares? I don't. Just get on the bike. And if you can't get on the bike or you don't want to, don't. Just try to do it the next day. Be flexible. Yeah, it's very common for me when I put one of the interval days into someone's calendar to also put a note in that says, you can just shift this to tomorrow if it helps. Yeah, a lot of my clients already know that. And they're like, ah, I'm just going to push this tomorrow. Like, okay, cool. 99 times out of 100, that's cool. Like, every once in a while, I'm like, You've got this other hard workout that's going to be the day after that, so maybe prioritize this one instead. It'll be that, but for the most part, everybody kind of knows to be flexible already, especially the people with stressful jobs, family, all that kind of stuff. And I have literally never given anybody shit for moving any stuff around or skipping a workout or anything like that because dealing with the stress is way more important. and, you know, having a good family life is way more important than whatever you're going to do on the bike. Being healthy to be around for your family, like that's, am I boring you worry? It's half past nine. Oh, sorry. It's half past four over here. All right, we are, all right, last one because we're losing our poor Scott over here. What are your guiding principles and metrics for creating a realistic goal? So actually, Rory, why don't you tell me why for, what was it, 312? You decided that eight hours was not a realistic goal. Like, what were the metrics? What did you realize, like, maybe this is not realistic? I recognize that my fitness was a lot better. I was fairly confident the watts would be a lot higher, and they did end up being quite a bit higher than the previous year. The limitations on the ability to go an hour and a half faster were, one, my weight is probably a little higher than it was. So there wasn't any hidden gains to be found in terms of watts per kilo. Yeah, so like a basic watts per kilo. Yeah. But also, like, what's your endurance? How much have you been riding? Because I get this question a lot. It's like, what FTP do I need to have X finishing time at Unbound or Leadville or take your favorite ultra race? And I usually tell them, I don't know. It might be this. But one of the coolest things about ultra is that people without massive FTPs can go really, really well. The FTP does not equal the endurance. There's a lot of people out there who can smash whatever crazy watts for 20 minutes, but you ask them to do it at the end of six hours, and they got nothing. Now you go to eight or nine hours, I don't think they've ever even exercised that long, even intermittently, let alone continuously. Yeah, the first time I did the 312 was my longest ride by, I think, about double. Oh my god. Did your feet hurt after that, or what? Yeah, actually, yeah. I need new insults. That's how much the pressure and the pedals are. This year's was my longest ride since the one I did last year by about three hours, I think. But also, there's maybe a wee lesson. learn there and like you know you brought up Unbound and in terms of like sensible goal setting being able to go and ride your bike for as long as the event is going to be can really be a help and a long lead up to an event like that but it doesn't have to be something that's set in stone like my I don't think I rode a regular road ride longer than five hours in the year since the previous time I did it and I probably only did that twice. So, so your training history. Yeah. So your fitness, your training history. And I, cause I think that that's one of the things is like with metrics, like it's occasionally like, like road dance is coming up next week in the U.S. And, you know, I'm looking at like last year's, what did people do on average on, on the big climb in watts per kilo? Like, and can you, and can somebody do that the watts per kilo once, let alone repeatedly? Like that's something that you look at and you go, okay, I've got very hard metrics here. It's, you know, very basic gap analysis. Like what is the gap between what this person can do and what the race demands? But the regular, the other principles of good practical goal setting To me at least, come down to what motivates somebody. Figure out what's the end goal and then what are your stepping stones along the way. It's kind of like what we were talking about with race strategy. It's like if you can be ahead of the splits and avoid getting a puncture and nail your nutrition and mark the right move, maybe. That's a checklist that will get you a good result, probably. but you never know and so that kind of practical thinking of like what are the steps along the way okay you've got a 300 watt FTP and you want 350 what are the practical steps along the way and you know is it even practical for you to do those things and so if it's maybe practical or you know you've been training a long time and maybe you can get there might take everything that we've got to get you there okay sure but otherwise like if there's other things going on like you're kind of newer and you know your training's been not been that optimized your sleep or your nutrition and we start to dial those things in like okay now 350 looks like a more reasonable goal and so it's it's kind of very person dependent but like you know if you've got a if you've been training for forever You know, like I trained for a long time and my FTP was like breaking 300 watts sometimes. If I had wanted a 400 watt FTP, that's not a realistic goal based on my training history and my response to exercise. Like I am not a good aerobic responder. I'm a good sprint responder. I'm a really good sprint responder, but that's not typical either. So yeah, Rory, thoughts? Yeah. What was the question originally? It was on how do you set realistic goals? Realistic goals. What are the principles behind setting a realistic goal? That reflection on your own capabilities is obviously going to be something that really groundens what goals you think you can accomplish. I had a client doing an event the weekend we're recording this. where there were a couple of time segments and he said he was going to send a specific wattage value and I told him dial back your expectations a little bit in terms of those watts because I don't think he'd be able to achieve them. I told him do it the other way around. So often when you're doing like short really hard efforts in training We want people to fly and die, go really hard and then just hold on to the suffering as much as you can. And I told him, why don't you reverse that? Why don't you start something you know you can sustain and then just pick it up as you go? And the end result is that when I looked at his file when it came in before we recorded, he nailed it. He hit a bunch of all-time PBs because he just reconfigured how he was going to accomplish those time sections. from being, he went away from I'm going to try and accomplish the highest watts I can by starting at the highest watts I'd hoped to hold and instead did I'm going to start at watts I know I'm going to get me to the finish line and I'm going to be able to improve the effort as I go up through the timed section and that was a way to like give someone the same goal of like having a really good performance hopefully setting some wattage PBs but Be able to do that in a way that was sustainable because he managed to do it twice in a row. And so like thinking when it comes to your goals, how you can make them achievable, how you can think about how to tackle the goal can often be just as useful as like what the goal actually is. It could be... Say you, we've used the example of like the breakaway getting up the road and who knows whether or not that's going to be the breakaway but the only way to get into the winning breakaway is to actually be in the breakaway to begin with so maybe your goal when you go into a race is not I want to get into like a break that gets away it's going to become I want to start some breakaways and see what happens because maybe, you know, the second one you get into, maybe you don't get into the first thing, you just, like, chill, relax, hope that it comes back, work with teammates to help bring it back, and then you hopefully set up the next one. That's a way to have the same accomplishment. Yeah, going with the first counter is a lot, usually a lot better of a gamble than going with the very first move. Yeah. But, I mean, that's, yeah, like, that's... I think time trials exemplify this exactly. Kind of like you're talking about with the segments in that race. How many times have both of us been asked, what power should I do for my time trial? I can give you a place to start, but if I give you a number and you're on a really good day and things are going well like we hope, my number should underserve you quite a bit. And if you hit that number and you feel like you have more in the tank, I fucked my job up. And so I usually tell people, start here and adjust up or down based on how your legs are, especially for longer efforts, like 30, 40-minute TTs or even down to like 20. Something around 15, you kind of got to go, okay, maybe I'll start here, but a lot of turns in this course, I don't know if I'm going to be able to hold it. Like, you know, then it's, you know, you kind of got to just go out there and just do what you got to do. But at some point, yeah, like that feedback loop between you and your legs becomes more and more important. I can give you a place to start, but you've got to adjust as you go. And I think a lot of realistic goal setting starts with what's realistic and then I'll see if I can nudge up my expectation. Like one of my clients was like, all right, I want to do this many hours this month, this many hours this month, and I'll keep building the hours. And at some point it was like, it became obvious. That it's more stress to do this number of training hours than the training hours were getting him benefit. And I cannot tell you the number of times that I've had clients where that's the case. The stress to do the training is more stressful than the benefit of the training. And so you've got to kind of nudge up on that limit. I guess this is all a long way of saying that start with something, start with a bar so you could trip over it, and then raise it from there and see what you can do. Because you're going to run into the limit at some point, and then you've got to figure out what's sustainable versus what's optimal, which are usually very different things. Yeah, that's a good way of describing it. Yeah, thinking about your time trial example, actually, I agree in terms of you don't want to have to give someone a specific value of what's because the hope is that they overachieve it. I usually tell people, I usually try and find the course, try and find the weather for the day or the time that they're going to set off. I tell them, here's where to spend your energy. and that if you know if it's a simple out and back time trial that's the easiest version of that because it's going to be a headwind in one direction it's going to be a tailwind in the other in all likelihood so it just becomes telling them I want you to start a little bit harder than you'd think would be sustainable and then float back with whatever you've got or it's float out slightly undercutting it and then dig yourself a hole you won't you'll never get out of on the way back That's the easiest way to describe that to someone. A lot of travel races are like that too, especially ones with climbs later on in the day. Or just the battle in the first two hours. Yeah, and kind of figuring out what group should I settle into. And I mean, if you want a really good example of setting a goal that's a little too lofty, it's like... If you assume for a TT or something like that, like, all right, I'm going to set my goal of doing my 20-minute power for like 40 minutes. Because if I'm on a great day, I should be able to do that. Well, what in your training history suggests that that has happened before? It can happen sometimes, but that's going to be the rare exception rather than the rule. And we all know how that goes. And I think that's just an illustration of, Any number of things like, I'm going to lose this much weight in this much time, or I'm going to gain this many watts in this much time, I'm going to ride this many hours when I realistically don't have that many hours, and I'm going to cut so far into my sleep that I am hurting my recovery by sleeping five hours a night so I can get up at four instead of five. I was talking to a friend today. out on a ride. And he said that his plan for the next six months was to lose 10 to 15 kilos. And I told him, like, that's fair as, like, an outcome that you'd like. Does he have, like, 50 kilos to lose? Yeah, probably. That's reasonable. I wasn't concerned with him telling me the amount he wanted to lose, but it was the notion of, for six months, I'm going to lose 10 to 15 kilos. And I told him, So for something like weight loss, don't think about it in terms of the outcomes because I think in most cases people are only going to make themselves depressed at best by doing it either because the experience is horrible or they don't hit the numbers they want. Or you're going to rebound hard because you've got a diet too hard to hit your number. Yeah. So to try and avoid that problem specifically, I told him your goal should actually just be to make whatever dietary interventions you think are sustainable for six weeks. Then relax for a couple of weeks after that and then try again for the next six weeks and just, you know, take a more of a stepladder approach to however you want to diet because that's going to be a way to accomplish the actual goal. The spirit of the goal he set himself is to lose a fair chunk of weight but the actual goal he should be setting himself is like, what's the process goal? How do you actually accomplish it? And so I told him just fixate on a time period and then it doesn't matter how much weight you lose in that time period that's the time period you play with and hopefully like you lose a kilo or two and then you can sustainably just keep doing that in a way that is hopefully going to be healthy for you but don't make the outcome much like we say don't make the outcome I'm going to get a 400 watt FTP Or I'm going to podium this race. Yeah, like don't do something that is really hard, quite frankly. Unless you're tied up a gacha, in which case. Anything's easy. In which case, oh, I'm going to podium this race. Just podium? Come on, reach a little higher. Yeah. Yeah, like basically just set yourself a goal that you know that you'll be able to achieve. Gold doesn't have a specific outcome tied to it, you will have a much higher chance of succeeding. Because maybe it's the case that he manages five weeks of his diet before he maybe decides, okay, I've maybe done a, the wheels are starting to fall off a bit. That's good for two reasons. One, he managed five weeks and he probably did lose weight if the wheels are starting to fall off. But two is he knows what he can and cannot cope with for next time and he can either choose to Bring the calorie deficit a wee bit up and not try and lose as hard and fast as he maybe is on a day-to-day basis. Or if he feels he could do it again, stick to the same calorie deficit, but maybe you only do it for four weeks because then you know it's going to be something that's maybe a wee bit more sustainable. Find these ways of tweaking whatever it is you want to accomplish in such a way that you will give yourself the maximum opportunity to do it. what Kolie said half an hour ago. Like, give yourself every opportunity to succeed, take away the opportunities to put yourself in whatever you would personally define as failure. And on that note, I'd say try and never define anything as failure. Yeah, actually, I was just thinking that. Like, we're kind of heading towards that as a final note. It's like, don't be so hard on yourself. Yeah. I mean, cycling especially is a very difficult sport. It's not a sport about winning, as we have discussed. And you want to give yourself the opportunity to make little wins here and there. Like, there was a... Oh, God, I think there was like a Calvin and Hobbes strip from forever ago in like the 90s where it was like... you know Calvin's like this is my lofty goal and he goes to Hobbs like what's your goal? Hobbs is like to have a sandwich and like the last panelist Hobbs eating a sandwich and he's happy and Calvin's miserable and he's like okay cool but you know a small small small goal big happy um big goal if you don't accomplish it you know it's gonna be hard so um because I think for a lot of folks like just nailing the process and having a sustainable process is a win in itself, especially when you're dealing with all the stuff that people normally have to deal with. I feel like cycling is definitely hard enough. And so, you know, give yourself some leeway and be nice to yourself, especially if you know you're like getting tired or your motivation is starting to wane, be nice to yourself. I tell people all the time, tired legs are like tired puppies, they need snacks and naps. So... Yeah, like, recognize also that in a sport like cycling in particular, the economics of cycling have maybe eroded this a little bit, but the event you want to do is going to come around again. Like, the worst case scenario is you have another year to wait. It's like, again... harping back to that previous podcast with James, like he DNFs the race a few years ago and thinks that he's done and his team coach rightfully tells him to buck up, he's going to be fine and the end result is that he chips away at it for years and years and years, has a really good race where he gets ganged up on by three members of the same team and then he has a race where he goes and actually does the job and that's like the smart goal setting there for him is just to turn up and have the best legs he possibly can in any given day and one day he pulls it off like it's a massive success and it's not a success because he went into it aiming to win it's a success because of everything that isn't that Yeah, I agree Alright, so I think we've really milked the 10 minutes part of the 10 minute tips people have asked me why is this called 10 minute tips? It used to be because the first couple 10 minute tips episode if you scroll far enough back are actually 10 minutes long and then it kind of morphed into a different format because it was mostly like I wanted to get more content out and I also feel like it was like we could do stuff that's not as nerdy, deep dive type stuff that only appeals to a certain segment. This is much more approachable, relatable content, and we spend about 10 minutes preparing for it. That's why it's called 10 Minute Tips now. Less than that this time. Less than that this time, because Rory wanted a therapy session, and I should ask Rory, so what are you going to do for yourself before we wrap this up? Oh, funnily enough, so usually when we record these, I'm either fiddling with a tire lever and also browsing the internet at the same time. Yeah, we heard your ex. Yeah. and the advertisement for Scottish Gravel Championships in August came up, so maybe I'll go do that. Sold! Alright, well, if anybody's going to the Scottish Gravel Championships, you're going to see Rory there and if you would like Rory to coach you or anybody else, please reach out to me, empiricalcycling at gmail.com to start a coaching inquiry or if you want to coach yourself and you want to consult with us, feel free to shoot me a message to the same place. Also, if you would like to rate the podcast highly, we would always appreciate that. Sharing the podcast is probably the best thing you can do. And yeah, ask your questions up on Instagram at Empirical Cycling, as you probably knew already. So anyway, I think that's about it. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we'll see you all next time.