Triathlon Mindset: Top 10 Triathlon Mistakes

In this episode of the Multisport Mindset Podcast, hosts Aubrey Hayes and Joshua Gordon discuss the common mistakes endurance athletes make when preparing for races, particularly the transition from shorter distances to Ironman events. They emphasize the importance of respecting the distance, having a structured training plan, maintaining consistency in workouts, and practicing nutrition during training. The conversation also highlights the significance of strength and mobility, the pitfalls of tapering, and the necessity of outdoor riding. Additionally, they address the influence of social media on training perceptions and the importance of listening to one's body over obsessing over metrics.

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Intro Music: Tonight At Eight by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Outro Music: Climb by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Endurance Sports Mistakes
• 1:22 Respecting the Distance
• 5:26 The Importance of Having a Training Plan
• 9:27 Consistency in Workouts
• 13:19 Nutrition: The Overlooked Discipline
• 20:28 Strength and Mobility: Essential Components
• 25:16 Riding Outside: The Real-World Experience
• 28:26 Mastering Bike Skills for Triathletes
• 30:23 The Importance of Tapering Correctly
• 34:41 Understanding Race Dynamics and Practice Races
• 35:38 Listening to Your Body Over Metrics
• 39:53 Navigating Social Media Influences in Training
• 42:09 Debunking Common Misconceptions in Endurance Training

Transcript

Aubrey Hayes (00:00)

welcome to the Multisport Mindset Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of endurance sports, training strategies, and the mindset that fuels peak performance. I am Aubrey Hayes, USAT Level 1 coach, age group athlete, and co-founder of Precise Multisport.

Joshua (00:13)

And I am Joshua Gordon, coach and age group athlete, as well as co-founder of Precise Multisport.

Aubrey Hayes (00:19)

Alright, buckle up everybody. Today we're getting a little rough. We're getting brutally honest. If you're prepping for a half Ironman, these mistakes will sink your race day faster than a flat tire at mile two. So let's dive in. No sugar coating. So let's just, let's just jump right into this. So you and I talked a lot about mistakes people make or mistakes we have made jumping into the 70.3 in Ironman distance and kind of give a little

Background to it. So a lot of people go from like a sprint and that wasn't too bad I would argue that most people could do a sprint With little to no training. I think most people can as long as they can swim In a pool most you can find a pool and ride a bike here and there and do a 5k That's pretty and then you get into Olympic a little harder but that jump from Olympic to 70.3 and 70.3 to Ironman is big and People probably go into training to into those with the same mindset as they did before so

I want to jump into the biggest mistakes, so we'll start with you what your number one biggest mistake is.

Joshua (01:19)

For sure. mean, I'm mostly focused personally and coaching wise, like on the longer distance stuff. That's what really motivates me. And I think the number one thing that I see is people not respecting the distance. Like 70.3 miles or 146, you know, 140.6. It's not just like, ⁓ I'm going to show up for like a morning workout, right? It's like a full commitment.

You have to basically commit your entire life to doing it well. Sure, you can like half, you know, ask your way through it, but it's dangerous not just for yourself, but you know, for everybody else around you if you are underprepared. You know, especially people who don't prepare for the swim and they freak out in the water. You know, there's so many, I can go on and on. I think some of the other mistakes I'll talk about some of the issues with this, but yeah, like coaching people.

What separates people I've seen progress over years is consistent working out, know, respecting that they have to put in the work to get the results. And it's one thing to just, you know, show up one time and complete the Ironman, which I think it's a bucket list for a lot of people. But that's not gonna make you... I mean, it will make you happy that you finished, right? But I don't think you're gonna be getting everything out of the entire experience because it's not just about the day.

Aubrey Hayes (02:26)

Yeah, for sure.

Joshua (02:37)

Right? It's about the process of preparing. And so by like respecting the distance, you know, you're really going to have to change your whole mindset and do specific preparation. And then the day will actually be even better. Like you'll have a better experience. You'll realize, wow, like the work I did got me through this, right? In a better way. You'll see other people struggling. You'll feel better about the whole event, in my opinion.

Aubrey Hayes (03:02)

Yeah, so like what kind of what you're saying is kind of suffer through the training, go through that process. Your mentality is changing, your body is changing, your outlook is changing. And then on race day, you're enjoying what you've done. You've enjoyed the journey. And now you're like, you're just showing off the fitness you gained at that point. Like the race is the finale. And so many people, I 100 % agree is that so many people get into that 70.3.

and ⁓ full distance 140.6 and just think well I'll just kind of do one or two more workouts a week from what I was doing and I'll be fine or I just want to finish so I don't need to do the hard hard stuff because I just want to finish and I would think that's definitely not respecting that distance whatsoever when you do that.

Joshua (03:40)

Mm-hmm.

For sure.

Yes, but then specifically for like 70.3, like I've seen people that, oh, they'll test it, right? They'll do like a test and be like, oh, I can swim a mile. I can bike 56 miles. I can run a half marathon, which is a good litmus test for fitness for sure. But I've not seen those people, they believe that because they can do that, that they're not, that they're prepared.

Aubrey Hayes (04:05)

Sure.

Joshua (04:11)

You know, and that's true, you're probably more prepared than a lot of people, right? Which is a low bar in my opinion. But, like, you know.

I think for Ironman, you need out like for right for an Ironman like for biking specifically, I always tell people that I talked to kind of higher performance people that we discuss these things and it's like, I don't feel ready for like an Ironman until I've done at least like five century rides, know, in TT position on my bike. You know, even though I'm riding my bike 10 to 15 hours a week, right? Like it's like there's some specific

prerequisites, I mean in my opinion, and I think others kind of agree with this. So like, yeah, respect the distance, do the right work at the right time, and then yeah, like people aren't doing that. So, ⁓ I mean on that, like ⁓ what do you think? Like what's the top thing that you think people mess up?

Aubrey Hayes (05:00)

For me, I've seen this a lot and I think not just because we coach but just having a plan is a number one mistake. You see a lot of people just jump into it and it kind of leads into not respecting that distance. They're like, well, I'll just do a couple of bikes and runs every week and they have no specific plan, no specificity into their plan, right, and what they're doing. And so as they train, it's just like week to week, well, this is what I think I should do.

And you know, I'm not saying you have to go out and get a coach. Not everybody can afford that, but there's a lot of free plans out there. At least download one, follow it, do a little research on your own, but just jumping into it and going, well, I'll just go swim in the pool with no structure. You're not going to really gain much. I'm just going to jump on the bike and ride 50 miles a day. Yeah, like you're getting time in the saddle, but you're not getting the most out of yourself. And I think that goes to that mentality.

Joshua (05:49)

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (05:53)

I get it, I get the, I just want to finish, but that mentality only goes so far. I get that you just want to finish, but finishing healthy, finishing feeling good, and finishing ⁓ enjoying the process, like that's what matters. And so, I had a friend who did a full Ironman, his first Ironman, no plan, just

Joshua (05:56)

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (06:16)

He would like just show up to the pool twice a week. He said he just swim 4,000 meters straight. I know, but just get in. like that's that's a test of like mental fortitude for sure. Because that's got to be miserable. But he had zero plans, zero fueling plan, which we'll get into later. And he went out there and he suffered and didn't touch his bike for months, years, I think, after that. And I just gave up on the sport. And so

Joshua (06:39)

Hmm. Yeah, it's common. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (06:43)

Have a plan. What do you think about that mistake? Like people not having a plan.

Joshua (06:47)

Yeah, I think you know there's some people that don't do well with too much structure But like if you have a certain amount of time like having a plan You're gonna do a lot better. You're gonna feel better. You're gonna perform better. You're gonna be happier Right. I mean, yeah, there's some

People maybe don't like to be put in a box. I've totally been there where you're just like, I can't follow this plan. But I still have a general like macro cycle plan for like my year, my week, you know? And like, yeah, there's some level where I think there's too much specifics on the plan and people get turned off, you know? But like having no plan whatsoever and just be like, yeah, I swam once in last two weeks and I biked four times. Like it's, it will build fitness, but like it's just not gonna be the

Aubrey Hayes (07:09)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (07:32)

best use of your time given most people are time constrained. Right? So I think it's yeah, like if you have if you have to do one thing, just get a plan and follow the plan as best you can 80 % of it and you're going to be a lot happier come the day.

Aubrey Hayes (07:45)

I think with that too is like as you lead up to a race, because I know the first couple of races I did, I'm like, did I do enough? Like, I don't know. And if you're following a plan, you can look back on that plan. Like we've talked about a thousand times before is like, if you knocked out 80 % of that plan, you're going to be fine. Right. And so there's no question behind it. Like, am I ready? Yeah, you're ready. You followed the plan, you stuck to it and you're at race day healthy. You're going to be all right. But when you have no plan and you're just winging it,

That's always going to be the back of your head like am I tested do I know what I'm doing like look at all these people here They look like they know what they're doing like yeah, so for sure man alright, so with that ⁓ What's your second mistake? I think these are kind of blended into each other and just for clarity out there. We did these total Opposite of each other we didn't talk to each other about our mistakes. We kind of put these together in our own ⁓ on our own and

Joshua (08:17)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (08:39)

We're both seeing them today right now, so.

Joshua (08:42)

For sure yeah, so it's almost exactly the same as what you said, but mine is basically skipping too many workouts Like you know it's skipping too many swim workouts I'm not saying I'm a saint because I I Try to not swim too much because I don't find it's like worth my time with how far off they go Like I still have minimum hit a certain amount of swims with certain types of swims right so like I've coached a lot of people

Aubrey Hayes (09:01)

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (09:07)

And you know, some people are like type a you put it in there They're gonna do it no matter what even if it's like two o'clock in the morning and they're traveling Some people are just like ⁓ i'll skip this and then i'll do it then they end up swimming like once in a month Right. And so I think this sport is there's two kinds of people that I know in the sport There's somebody who gets a plan like we're talking about and they just like follow the plan and they prepare and that's it

But if you want true fitness, fitness that will take you far, take you to the podium or the top, you know, whatever, qualifying for things, it takes years to build up that fitness consistently, right? And so you need to be like layering your fitness on day after day, week after week, month after month. And sure, you can have rest periods, vacations, holidays, but like just skipping sessions constantly, two days on, two days off, three days off.

Like it just, you're never gonna progress. Like you're just constantly, you just be prepared for the event and then you take, right? And so these people are kind of in this cycle of, it's like they get to the event, they never truly improve like season to season, year to year, because they just kind of prepare and that's it. And to me, like what's basically the symptom of this is just skipping tons of sessions and like you never can just get consistency and you'll never get to that next level.

And so that's, yeah, a huge mistake. It's super common among most people, in my opinion.

Aubrey Hayes (10:26)

sure yeah that takes me there's a marathon coach that he kind of works with like all the BP and athletes and stuff like that like Nick Bear Jeff Cunningham he says like he'd rather have consistently good over occasionally great right so like it's kind of like that cycle like yeah I'm really good at training for these three months and then I just become a couch potato or forget about it all and then come back the next year and hope I get a PR and that's not how that works ⁓ I had an athlete

Joshua (10:49)

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (10:55)

Today he just texted me, he's in his... Sorry, Farrell, if I get this wrong, name's Farrell, and he's in his 50s, and he had his best 10K time today. Over the past, he's been with me for three years now, and he's gotten an Ironman PR, 70.3 PR, he's got a Marathon PR, a 10K, but it's taken two, three years to start stacking those up, and year-round training, always training, and that is, that's consistently good, man.

Joshua (11:15)

Right. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (11:21)

what it takes and you do the same thing like you're not just preaching it like you live it I would say.

Joshua (11:25)

Yeah, it

can be a grind, but if you're committed to the sport, you know. If you know, you know what it takes, you know? So, yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (11:35)

Yeah. I would say

for people that aren't like, they're not in it like you are, but like they want to continually improve year to year. Like you don't, it's not like you have to race every race all the time, but like do your Ironman or your AA event for the year. And then once you get off that, give yourself a little break and then get back into like general fitness, maintenance, doing some running, biking, and that's going to carry over, but don't just stop.

and become like a seasonal athlete. That doesn't work.

Joshua (12:05)

For So for me, yeah, a lot of mine are like that, but what about you? What's your next mistake that you're seeing a lot of your athletes making?

Aubrey Hayes (12:15)

Not practicing nutrition. Never practicing nutrition. you know, obviously we have a nutrition sponsor with precision fuel and hydration, but ⁓ you know, whatever works with you, whatever works with your gut or your taste buds, because you can get like, what do call it? Like, ⁓ yeah, fatigue and all of that, just with

Joshua (12:36)

palette fatigue.

Aubrey Hayes (12:41)

taking in nutrition, but practicing nutrition through your longer rides and not just like, I'm going out on an easy run, I'm practicing nutrition. No, like Ironman Pace rides, you should be taking in nutrition. Ironman Pace runs taking nutrition because at that level, your body, it's a little more difficult for your body to process that. so thinking of it this way, blood is traveling to your extremities to provide oxygen. So therefore there's not as much blood in your gut to process food.

A way to do that is to eat nutrition through training. That way you and your body are going, okay, I know how to take in nutrition now. I know that we need to send some blood to the gut, carry nutrition, things like that nature. So when you don't do that and you get to race day and then we're getting GI stress, then we don't know how to properly fuel. Like am I taking in gels or sodium or water every 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30, what is it?

And the only way to find that out is in training. And you can only pitch it so much. Like, hey, you need to do this. You need to buy it. I can't do it for you. But when athletes are like, hey, yeah, I'm going to order my nutrition, and they're two weeks out from the race, it makes me cringe every time. Because I just know there's a good chance that race day is going to be quite miserable for them. So do you have some input on that? ⁓

Joshua (13:42)

Yeah.

Of course, I mean, yeah, people don't practice in a lot of different facets of triathlon. That's what nutrition they say is the fourth discipline or something. And yeah, we all think we all spend a lot of time, energy, money on swim, bike and run. Right. And then not a lot. I mean, there's focus on nutrition, but most people, it's kind of an afterthought, I would say.

Aubrey Hayes (14:11)

Yeah.

Joshua (14:25)

Like when you do the shorter stuff and you come up to the longer stuff, like you haven't really needed to focus on nutrition, right? And so it's, I mean, there's people out there, like there's some people on YouTube I've seen like this guy, he's like a one-oh-something half marathoner and he came from college running shorter and he's like saying, I never really practiced using gels and he's like a super fast marathoner, you know, like trying to OTQ and he's like, I am trying Morton for the first time and I'm just like, wow, like.

Aubrey Hayes (14:30)

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

Joshua (14:52)

I mean, it's good that he's like talking about that stuff, but I mean it is really under It's becoming a lot more on the surface now people know about it more, but it's still kind of under Understood underutilized I guess until people realize crap I have to Miss meals like when you're out there doing Iron Man like you're gonna miss multiple meals for a of people they can miss three meals breakfast lunch and dinner

Aubrey Hayes (15:13)

Yeah.

Joshua (15:16)

And it's just

Aubrey Hayes (15:16)

Yeah.

Joshua (15:17)

like, can't just be like, I'm just gonna do this whole thing without anything. So I definitely agree. I think my third mistake that I wrote down, it's actually exactly the same as your, yours. The only caveat that I would say is you mentioned this, but I think like, and I'm guilty of this a hundred percent. And so maybe that's the reason I'm projecting this out there right now is not fueling workouts properly, like even easy ones, you know, because like,

I met with a sports nutritionist or dietitian or whatever and like I was like, okay, I don't need to do like anything if I'm doing like a 90, like, you know, a 60 minute zone one ride recovery. But like really, I think they were right. And it's like, you should have some bare minimum nutrition just for practicing for the race that you take like no matter what. So it's like, I try now to take like 30 grams of carbs, no matter what per hour, even if it's just like the easiest thing ever.

because I mean that's like 100 calories like that's not gonna mess with anything except for help you right it's gonna help recovery and so like there's a limit like I don't think you should be taking like 120 grams of carbs an hour when you're riding like 150 watts you know for an hour but like there's some amount that you should consistently be doing just to like build the habit and build the the chemistry like you were saying like the blood the enzymes all those kind of things that we could talk about but um people

Aubrey Hayes (16:17)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (16:40)

skip their workouts, they think they're gonna lose weight, which doesn't really work because you just get super hungry later, trust me. I know, if, can go out do a five hour ride tomorrow without anything, okay? And then I'll come home and eat like everything in the house, you know? Like, there's a balance, your body's not stupid. So, like, there's no reason really to just, like, not fuel the workouts at least a little bit, and then if it's a hard workout, like an Ironman or faster.

Aubrey Hayes (16:53)

Yeah.

Joshua (17:07)

definitely fuel the higher end, you know, that that's something that you need to train and as you were talking about so big, big thing and there's a lot of misconceptions out there from like social media like, I don't need carbs or I should train fasted and you know, there's science to back those things up but like I think the number one, these are all just like one thing I think is really common today just in general in life, not just triathlon and stuff is like everyone's looking for the secret sauce.

Aubrey Hayes (17:22)

Yeah.

Mm. Yeah.

Joshua (17:35)

the hack, you know? And it's like, man,

yeah, you could experiment with facet training or whatever. You know what works? Fueling. Like if you just fuel, you're going to get 80 % of the benefits rather than these like hacks, which are going to be like marginal gains at the minimum. Like fueling properly is the big, it's not even a marginal gain. It's like a massive gain. Right? And so people are totally like looking for the secret sauce.

Aubrey Hayes (17:44)

You'll link, yeah.

Yeah, 100%.

Joshua (18:01)

when the secret sauce is basically just drinking the Kool-Aid literally. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (18:05)

Yeah 100

% man. Yeah, I ⁓ We did a ruck march out here recently and it was like a marathon Ruck march and a couple guys prior to they were like, hey, you know Asking because what I just did the marathon and they were asking about nutrition because I mentioned it quite a bit And got them on taking nutrition as they practice

Joshua (18:16)

Mm.

Aubrey Hayes (18:27)

And they went out there and it helped them big time. Like being able to actually take in nutrition and hydrate. They said they never felt like they were going to bonk during that, whereas prior to they have. So I mean, it works. Just ask anybody that's that's done it. They're going to tell you, yeah, it works. Just do it. Yeah. But yeah, I would say so for mistake number three for me. And I've talked about this a lot here, strength and mobility.

Joshua (18:45)

Yeah, it does work.

Aubrey Hayes (18:55)

⁓ during training so lot of people get crunched on time and then the first thing that goes out the door is strength and mobility. So I'm not saying you have to go to the... I'm not saying you have to go to the gym every day but there are some at-home things you can do working on like adductors, abductors, working on some single leg stuff. Like you can even like one of the strength building exercise you can do for

Joshua (19:03)

Guilty.

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (19:18)

for running is literally standing on one leg and balancing for a minute, standing, and you're gonna build strength, you're gonna build stability in that leg. And there's a bunch of workouts out there for mobility, strength, and stuff that you could do at home 10, 15 minutes, man, just like twice a week, something. Now, I would rather people get in the gym and do a little bit of strength training, get a little more power in their legs and their core, stuff like that. But yeah, strength and mobility is big for me.

And I try to push it and sometimes I could tell when an athlete is just not going to. It's always the workout that's red on the schedule and I'm like, ⁓ man, like they started strong, like going and then that's the first thing they cut, boom. And so, yeah.

Joshua (19:51)

Yeah.

Yeah, I hear you on that. Like, I mean, I'm totally guilty of that. And the only time I do strength and mobility, it's bad. It's like if I need to go to PT and something breaks, you know? And so if I could convince myself and the rest of 2025 to do one thing on our list, I think that might be the thing. Because like, yeah, like I have a whole home gym. I have like a squat rack because we live kind of far away from the gym and barbells, dumbbells. I mean, I could

Aubrey Hayes (20:02)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joshua (20:27)

bands, you know, like I could do it and I could but it's like I think what's wrong with me like because I like riding my bike more than I like lifting weights I used to lift a lot of weights and but the strength training fine like it kind of messes with my legs you know blah blah blah like I can make excuses for that fine but for the mobility part of it there's no excuse like I have zero excuse like why I can't work on mobility

Aubrey Hayes (20:29)

You could 100 % do it.

What's wrong with you? ⁓

Yeah.

Joshua (20:54)

Like my lower back, like this quad issues, sometimes I get, you know, quad cramping, whatever it is, right? Like there's zero excuses to not do that because it doesn't really affect your strength, right? It's not gonna cause me to get DOMS or anything like that. And you'd probably argue that strength training doesn't either, but if you're riding your bike seven days a week, it does affect you. Just telling you as someone who does that, okay?

Aubrey Hayes (21:12)

Yeah, no,

it does. And so it depends on like, think a lot of people think, well, I have to lift lighter and more reps. Well, no, you're already doing endurance training. Right? Well, we don't need endurance muscle building. What we need to build is strength and power. So we're to do three to five reps. And with three to five reps, say you're doing like, let's say back squat. If you're doing a nice little warm up set and then you do four to five rounds of

Joshua (21:25)

Mmm.

Aubrey Hayes (21:40)

three heavy back squats, obviously building up learning form and stuff, but three back squats. Your legs are going to be less sore because you're not doing that long endurance efforts on your legs and you're going to be able to turn around in a day or two and get back to what you're doing. So I get it because like I say that in the other day I did a workout that had like five sets of 10 back squats and I ran just now, you know,

5.5-6 miles in my legs were like screaming the entire time. So I get it, there's a time and place. I'm not specifically training for a race, so to me it doesn't matter, but yeah, there are ways to build power without affecting you. Now is it going to affect you at some point? Yes. But that's how you put it into your plan. Like I'm not going to do a heavy leg day Friday before I do my long ride on Saturday. That's dumb. Alright, yeah, so.

Joshua (22:09)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Aubrey Hayes (22:32)

There's ways

to do it. ⁓ I have faith. I think you're gonna make it happen this year. ⁓ You have like a gym that everybody would want and you're not doing anything with it.

Joshua (22:37)

I

Because I used to be super into lifting, like I used to be to deadlift like 500 pounds before I switched to triathlon. So when I got my new house, I was like, I'm just going to build this awesome gym. It has a lot of cardio stuff in it, but I got the whole rack. I have two different squat racks over my life. I mean, yeah, I have it all. I just need to like flip the switch, you know, to get back out there. But ⁓ yeah, maybe this will be the year that I'll hit you up for some practical advice on how to do this without.

Aubrey Hayes (22:44)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua (23:09)

compromising my other training.

Aubrey Hayes (23:12)

Yeah, for sure

man. Alright, so, alright, that's our top three. Now, number four for you. What's your number four mistake for for athletes?

Joshua (23:20)

for, yeah, I mean this one, ⁓ I'm probably in my own camp here of people not gonna agree with this, but I think there's two kinds of people, I mean there's people that are gonna agree with this or not, but like, I mean I think in the end of the day everyone will agree with this. Like, not riding your bike outside either at all, or in a very limited amount, ⁓ to not riding it outside like at all, basically, like maybe a few times only.

Like I see this comment, and to me I know this mistake because I did this. Like the first Ironman I did, I did all my training on Zwift in the first century that I had done. You I did some when I was like a lot younger on a road bike. But the first century I'd ever done on my TT bike was in the Ironman. And like someone I remember vividly. This is my first Ironman. I was not weak on the bike. I think I did like a six hour split. Nothing like I am now.

And this woman, she came back behind me, she's like, dude, you're weaving all over the road, it's dangerous. And I was like, I never ride outside. And like, that stuck with me, because like, I think the same thing now when I'm like doing these multiple lap courses, like, it is dangerous. I mean, one, it's dangerous for the person riding the bike, but two, it's dangerous for everybody else. And then you're not gonna have a good time because you're gonna have low back pain. You're not gonna be, you're gonna be like, what's this wind?

Aubrey Hayes (24:26)

yeah, man.

Joshua (24:37)

I didn't have any wind or hills, you know, have hills in Zwift, I guess. And then it's like, oh, chip seal, I have bumps, you know? Like, I mean, there's just, we have, I can give you a list of 20 things that you experience in the first five minutes of riding outside that are gonna make you a better cyclist, right? And people just, know, you have people like, the problem is like social media, it's like, oh, Lionel Sanders, Lucy Charles Barkley, they never ride outside. Well, dude.

Aubrey Hayes (24:39)

wind, rain, hills, yeah all of it.

Joshua (25:03)

If your zone 2 is like 28 miles an hour, I wouldn't want to ride outside either. Because like you have to, where are you going to go? Right? But for the average mere mortal, right? Like your zone 2 is probably like 17 miles an hour. So like you're going to be able to have a lot more safety than like a Lionel or a Lucy, right? So yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (25:07)

Yeah, where are you riding? Yeah.

Yeah,

100%. Yeah, I would say and I know we've had some athletes before, all their outside rides are in group rides too. And those are good. Don't everybody get mad at once, but it's not the best. You need to get out and ride your TT bike on your own because you could be pushing 150 watts doing 22 mile an hour and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna crush this Ironman. Like no, dude.

Joshua (25:34)

Hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (25:51)

150 watts on your TT bike, I mean, depending on your, ⁓ how much you weigh and everything, but you're not gonna be going at that speed. You're not gonna get protected from the wind. You're not following people that are calling out, like get out there, grind, do a little bit of suffering on your own outside. And the other thing, you don't get a flat tire on the trainer either. we've, you know,

Joshua (25:51)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

for sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (26:18)

Contrary to popular belief we see pros that don't know how to change their flat tires either right now ⁓ But but you got to get out and learn like because it's Based on Ironman rules you have to provide for yourself like especially age group athletes Nobody's driving around for with a tire to give to every age group athlete so Get out there and practice in those elements

Joshua (26:25)

Yeah, that's very true. Yeah.

for sure.

No.

for sure and like I said the number one thing is for yourself but like you have to think about other people as well right like it's not safe if you don't know how to ride your bike or your I mean it's kind of a pet peeve of mine at this point where I see I mean I like indoor training because you can push really hard and all those things you get the good fitness right but I look at other people that are really strong on the bike like ⁓ like Sam Long

Aubrey Hayes (26:46)

Mm, yeah.

Joshua (27:05)

Magnus Ditlev, Christian Blumenfeld, they do some trainer work, but dude, those guys, they're outside riding constantly. You can see on Strava and stuff, right? Or their Instagram. it's like, I mean, you look at Cam Wurf, you think Cam Wurf, who just set the bike course record in Texas yesterday, dude is not sitting around on Zwift riding, you know? Dude loves to ride his bike, you know? And I look up to those guys, I kind of model my training, not after them exactly, but you have to be able to ride fast outside.

Aubrey Hayes (27:15)

Yeah.

Joshua (27:35)

Like you have to know how to push it and that's going to go into my last thing I'll talk about but like the numbers from indoor training like train to road all that stuff it's awesome but like at the end of the day speed and being able to ride in aggressive position for a long period of time that's all done outside right so being outside on your bike is a huge mistake that people ignore they think they can just train for an Ironman inside you could but it's just not going to be as good in the end so

Aubrey Hayes (27:59)

Yeah,

definitely not. ⁓

Joshua (28:03)

So about about I think what about you what's your next one?

Aubrey Hayes (28:07)

So

number four mistake for me is overdoing your taper. And what I mean by that is not like that you start a taper too soon. Yeah, that's an issue too. But you'll see people do like those like hero rides. They're like they'll do big rides or big runs like a week out from like, I'm going to do a huge ride. Yeah. And it's at that point, you've you've already gained the fitness that you have and all you're doing is hurting yourself.

Joshua (28:25)

Yeah. Like their longest ride, right? Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (28:35)

So going out

Joshua (28:35)

For sure.

Aubrey Hayes (28:36)

and doing like a century riding a 45 minute brick off the weekend before, like you're not proving anything to anyone ⁓ and you're only hurting yourself. would argue that two, two and a half weeks out is when you should probably start like three weeks out doing like your big final brick and long run and then slowly tapering down. And with a taper, that means more of we're gonna

Joshua (28:39)

This is...

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (29:00)

reduce You're gonna reduce your distance on on all your runs right and all your bikes everything But we might increase intensity a little bit just to keep the stimulus going and we'll do that over a two-week period into the race But at no point am I gonna am I gonna go out and do something crazy or two weeks a week out? It's just not gonna take anything

Joshua (29:20)

Mm-hmm.

I... for the average person, I completely agree. Like, the average person's not capable of doing what you said not to do and being okay. Like, I wrote a blog on our website on tapering, and there's a lot of, ⁓

Aubrey Hayes (29:26)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (29:37)

You know, there's variability and people help people respond, but the general consensus is exactly what you said. Like you should taper a few weeks before and all that good stuff. Right. And I think it goes back to like the no plan thing. Like a lot of these people, I'm thinking of a few people that I know they're like preparing for a race and they're. Freak out training or panic training. They call it right. They're like.

Aubrey Hayes (29:57)

Mm. Yep.

Joshua (29:58)

I need to prove to myself that I can ride 60 miles the week before and it's like, okay, you proved it. Now you're gonna ride slower next weekend, right? And so I completely agree for the vast majority of people. Panic training in the tapers is a common problem. yeah, be on a plan like you suggested is gonna prevent a lot of that kind of freaking out. And you know.

Aubrey Hayes (30:08)

Yep, that's it.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (30:27)

Yeah, and then it goes back to the last point I made about riding outside. They're like, I need to practice riding outside. And they do it like one time the weekend before. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (30:35)

Yeah, a little too late.

I mean, it's good getting outside like I'm not gonna be mad at you for it, it's not the time to go do a hero workout, right? And that's like that, like, becoming like occasionally great, like, yeah, and I feel good because I went out and crushed it this weekend. But you should be really focusing on doing that the weekend of the race instead.

Joshua (30:44)

for sure.

Yeah.

For sure.

Aubrey Hayes (31:00)

And so yeah, yeah, I even, I didn't even take into consideration what you said where like people like cramming it in. I've seen that so many times like, man, this block I've been bad, you know, this next couple weeks, I really need to crush it. I'm like, I mean, that's good, I guess, but it's not gonna help you like, what you have is what you have. Yeah.

Joshua (31:07)

Yeah.

Yeah, they should have had that thought like six weeks ago or something, you know?

And so I think, yeah, the taper crazies or whatever, right? It's not, you should like in your mind act like the race is like the weekend before your race if you're going to do that, right? If you're going to be freaking out.

Aubrey Hayes (31:27)

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

No,

Joshua (31:38)

So I think it

goes into one of my other points maybe that I don't know what's on this list, racing these two and up races, I have a whole blog on that too on the website. Like there's something good about doing these like practice races, even if it's like a different type of race, like, it's a Olympic for an Ironman or it's a 5k for marathon training, right? Like there's so many benefits beyond just the stimulus of the session itself to like get you out of your comfort zone to not freak out in the taper.

Aubrey Hayes (31:46)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's like a little bit of confidence building on top of learning like your transitions and like we talked about what nutrition works for you. I would I would argue it's like everything that we've talked about our mistakes like taking those those races prior to like, actually getting outside and riding your bike in a race and, you know, and not making nutrition stops dangerous for everybody. So yeah.

Joshua (32:10)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah,

Aubrey Hayes (32:33)

⁓ So, alright, so mistake number five for you.

Joshua (32:33)

for sure. For sure. So, I mean, this one is, I think it's because I maybe have been through this myself and it was like, I think a few weeks ago we had this podcast where we talked about data analysis paralysis, right? And, you know, I think with all the data that's available now, this goes back to that whole conversation we had before, but people...

Aubrey Hayes (32:49)

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (32:59)

Ignore how they feel right so obsessing over the numbers and not listening to their body and their mind Right. So like you have a power target and I'm sure we've all been through this like ⁓ I'm not hitting my power target on the race day for whatever reason maybe I'm under but ⁓ I've been over before too and I've been holding it, you know like dang I can actually hold this power and I'm focused more in that case on my feeling right like kids does this feel sustainable because now I feel like I'm in tune

Aubrey Hayes (33:03)

Yeah.

Joshua (33:26)

with my body more my mind I know it's something I can sustain and a lot of people they just are such a slave to their numbers they're like my heart rate is one beat a minute over zone two like I'm gonna go anabolic or whatever right anaerobic sorry not anabolic and I'm gonna my race is gonna be over right and so like I think there's a time and another one is we talked about like the TSS thing

Aubrey Hayes (33:41)

Yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Joshua (33:53)

everyone

just like my TSS has my CTL has to only go up no matter what and ⁓ Like I think there's just too much obsession these days with the numbers And at the end of the day what's gonna happen in the arman or whatever 70.3 It all comes down to feeling right being in tune with your body in like the numbers there to guide you and make it so you're operating within some conditions right, but you need to know how the effort feels and

Aubrey Hayes (33:57)

Yeah.

Joshua (34:20)

listen to yourself, right? And all those kind of things. And so I think that's the number, that's one of the big things. Maybe not the number one thing, but like people obsessing over metrics these days, it's everywhere, all over the internet, like online, whatever, right? Like everyone is so obsessed with all their numbers. I cannot tell you how many times we're like, my morning report says I'm gonna be bad today. That drives me off the wall, because I'm just like, dude, who cares what your stupid.

Aubrey Hayes (34:41)

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Joshua (34:46)

Metrics aid just listen to what your body is telling you you're an evolved being of like hundreds of thousands of years To get this far better than any computer, you know, so like yeah

Aubrey Hayes (34:56)

Yeah.

Yeah, we touched on that a little bit, like understanding like the false positives that your devices have, like they jostle around, they could be sitting wrong, you could have in your sleep, like you cut off blood flow to your hands, like anything can mess with those metrics. But the one thing that doesn't change ⁓ is knowing your body and how you feel on the day of.

Joshua (35:06)

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (35:21)

And that's huge. like an example of that is like getting when we raced in Galveston that year, getting out there with the wind to my back and I'm like my goal wattage was like 230 watts and I'm realizing I'm doing like 30 mile an hour at 170 and I'm like, I'm just going to stay here. This feels comfortable for now because I know I'm going to have to push on the back end. So you talk about race dynamics that lead into it as well.

And then on the way back, I was able to hold more of like 220 because I didn't feel like as I was hitting 230, was like, man, I might not be able to run off of 230 and like just checking in and knowing where you're at. So there's there's a lot that goes to that. That is super important. And obsessing over metrics and how you ⁓ instead of how you feel, I think that has a lot to do with my mistake number five, which is listening to the social media hype. Right. And we already kind of touched on it.

Joshua (35:59)

for sure.

god.

Yeah. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (36:15)

Man, hero workouts are all like, if you want to look up

hero workouts, just get on Instagram, type in like Ironman training and everybody's going to post their best workouts and ⁓ I'm doing zone two, you know, 300 watts at 130 BPM. Like, shut up. Like you're stupid. Like nobody wants to listen to that crap. ⁓ I think people want to see more of like, here's the realistic aspect of training. Most of it's not.

Joshua (36:23)

Mm.

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (36:43)

that most of us not this sexy. It's consistent, I show up every day, I fight demons, I do that. You're gonna see some good stuff on social media, but for the most part...

Joshua (36:46)

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (36:58)

⁓ I don't know. It's all smoke. Most of it's all smoke. And I know you don't like social media, so give me your aspect of social media.

Joshua (37:03)

Yeah.

No.

Yeah, I mean, there's some people that can back it up, okay? And they're funny. Those people, I like people that can be like humorous, you know? But like, showboating and gloating kind of stuff isn't good. The unrealistic expectations. Or like, you know, the people that are like, ⁓ you know, I'm gonna go do like... I mean, the people that are working the hardest, they're not out there

Aubrey Hayes (37:13)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (37:35)

posting on social media like you look at someone like Caleb he's like dudes running like 20 miles like three days a week at four o'clock in the morning he's not like all over Instagram being like look how great I am no he's like just shutting up and doing the work you know and so like the people that are posting about how great they are makes me wonder like how they have so much time and energy to be like gloating about their like you know their workouts like I know people that work really hard

Aubrey Hayes (37:46)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Joshua (38:01)

And yeah, they're not influencers or whatever. So, I mean, it just depends. Some people love that. They need that motivation kick, that dopamine. But yeah, a lot of the social media stuff pisses me off. Like all that stuff like on the Garmin, like I was talking about. It's not exactly social media, but it kind of is. It's like, oh, MOF training, heart rate training. Like there's benefits to all of these, but people take it way too far than they make it like their life. It's like, oh, I'm a low heart rate influencer.

and they like only preach low heart rate training and you can never train hard. You know what I'm saying? Like.

Aubrey Hayes (38:30)

What's the best low heart

rate influencer? I'm gonna start I want to start using that. ⁓ yeah, I just I guess I'd ever put it like, so stupid. Yeah, I get it. They're like, like hell bent on heart rate and heart rate only and then they tell everybody about heart rate and how to find their zone two and zone two this and zone two that yeah, it's excessive man. Yeah.

Joshua (38:35)

Dude, there's a lot of those guys. You've never seen that? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (38:57)

let's jump into our humor section. And so this is our, as we're going to call it, the bonus. There you go. Yeah. Let's.

Joshua (38:59)

right

This will be like rapid fire. Yeah, rapid fire though.

Let's not dwell on these because Let's maybe take them one at a time. We'll switch off. Okay? All right, let me just say the first one and I can say this because I'm a zealot on this one. I say people these are things people think are mistakes But really when it comes to brass tacks, they are not mistakes in my opinion Riding your bike too much

Aubrey Hayes (39:07)

Yeah.

Alright. Alright.

Okay.

Joshua (39:29)

Okay, like I've never met anybody who like regretted riding their bike too much and they would not benefit in a triathlon like I want to see you riding your bike 20 hours a week and then you'll probably end up beating me. Okay, so just like people say you can ride your bike too much. I see on the trade road podcast all the time. No, I don't agree with that.

Aubrey Hayes (39:50)

I don't think a single coach is going to be like, my gosh, I can't believe you. You did more than was planned this week. Like no coach is going be upset about it. Yeah. All right. So number two, racing a lot. So some people warn you about over racing. And so over racing, ⁓ we kind of talked about already.

Joshua (39:57)

Yeah. Yeah. If you can sustain it, right?

Aubrey Hayes (40:13)

it sharpens your skill set, it sharpens your mindset, it sharpens your technique out on the road. So racing too much, like, oh that guy is just always racing, how does he even, yeah, that's dumb.

Joshua (40:23)

for sure, especially if they're just like shorter races, right? Show me someone who's consistently racing a lot of triathlons. They're gonna be really good at racing triathlons, right? And so I think people try to like spend all year preparing for an Ironman and like they should have done like a bunch of smaller races. They'd probably have a better race at the end of the year, right? So I completely, I mean, yeah. All right, this goes back to our social media discussion. ⁓

Aubrey Hayes (40:42)

For sure.

Joshua (40:49)

Low-carb influencers basically like people think you know, they should be not eating so many carbs But I say you should be eating as high carb as possible if you're serious about performing in endurance sports, right? So eat as many carbs as possible people say I don't want to eat too many carbs. It's bad for me No, if you're a focus on a performance eat more carbs

Aubrey Hayes (40:51)

Yeah.

Alright, heck yeah. And that leads into number four, which is gaining a little weight during the ⁓ big build. yeah, so eating too many carbs, gaining a little weight, ⁓ it's not really a thing. Now, we're not saying pack on 30 pounds here, guys, but a couple ⁓ pounds, means you're fueling well, you're putting on weight in hydration.

Joshua (41:18)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (41:35)

Glycogen and recovery right so you're putting it all in you're fueling the body well And then you're getting to race day strong and ready to race ⁓ Take the carbs in guys fuel yourself. You know

Joshua (41:44)

For sure.

Yeah,

totally. Like I'd rather be a little bit heavy but strong and not depleted. And like I have had so many stories of people, especially, I mean maybe not for running but for triathlon, like you need to be strong and full of energy for the whole long event, right? So yeah, I think people are way too focused on losing weight and they should be focused on just being strong as possible.

Aubrey Hayes (42:08)

Yeah,

yeah, none of us are climbing ⁓ any giant mountains in these races. So the weight is not as much of an Ironman athlete to are usually a bit a little bit stockier anyway. So all right, last one.

Joshua (42:12)

Yeah.

for Alright, the last

one. The most... People think that they have to have a balance. But if you want to succeed, it's okay to say no to going out and... Not all the time, but like, you know, it's fine to say, hey, I can't go out for drinks. Right? Like in your six weeks leading up to the race, I would think it's not a mistake to...

Aubrey Hayes (42:26)

Hahaha

Joshua (42:43)

cut out your social life quite a bit so you can focus on recovery and preparing yourself for this is going to be one of the hardest days of your life. I think ditching your social life during peak training is not a mistake.

Aubrey Hayes (42:56)

Yeah, and all of those people that are going to make fun of you. you can't come have a drink They're gonna be the first people when you finish the race and be like dang man, like that's awesome Like and they'll be there cheering you on you're not gonna lose friends. They're just being assholes in the moment So don't worry about it that they'll all be there or they won't and in that fact, you know, maybe you didn't need them so

Joshua (43:07)

Yeah.

for

For sure, I agree.

Aubrey Hayes (43:20)

All right, well, I hope you guys enjoyed today. It's a good conversation based on the mistakes that we see triathletes take as they move from shorter distances up to the 70.3 and full distance Ironmans. And yeah, you got any closing statements for the group there, Josh?

Joshua (43:36)

No, I think we covered a lot. I mean, there's a lot more things we can talk about in the next podcast based on some of the stuff we talked about, but we'll leave it here for today.

Aubrey Hayes (43:46)

Alright, under this podcast there's going to be a link that says text us here. You can click on it and it'll send a message directly to us. If you have questions, concerns, maybe you want to just ask for some advice, you can put it there. You can also submit questions to ⁓ precise multisport at gmail.com or at www.precisemultisport.com forward slash contact us. Make sure you hit the follow button and

If you're looking for a coach, we're always taking on athletes. So everybody have a good one and we'll see you next week.

Joshua (44:18)

See ya.