106 - Data and Accountability - Triathlon 2.0 with Jim Vance

Welcome	This is the New Year's Eve special and we have and we are closing out the year with a return guest, elite triathlon coach Jim Vance to talk about his book Triathlon 2.0.  We'll get into the interview setup in just a few. Welcome to Episode #106 of the Mile High Endurance podcast.  Mile High Endurance is your weekly connection to coaches, experts and pro athletes to help you reach your endurance and triathlon goals.  I'm your host Rich Soares and I'm glad you are joining us for another week of endurance interviews and discussion.  Bill is with family this week and Khem is in Nepal and on excursion to Everest base camp and can't wait to hear about her adventures. Hope you enjoyed the new intro music.  That was "Trip Like I Do" by Crystal Method
Health IQ	Our show today is sponsored by Health IQ.  Triathletes like you can get special rate life insurance with Health IQ because of your healthy lifestyle.  Health IQ has exclusive rates for those who qualify - you get additional savings by submitting actual data from race results. We've partnered with Health IQ because we believe in their service and competitive rates.  They are sure to impress you with their customer service and rates.  They'll answer all your questions and help you get the rates you deserve.  We've received our quotes which were 20-30% than other insurers.  Make a new years resolution to save some money and see if you qualify by getting your free quote today at healthiq.com/milehigh or mention the promo code Mile High when you talk to a Health IQ agent.  It'll take less than a minute to put in your contact information and then Health IQ will guide you through the process in a way the respects your time and goals.
Last week's guest	Thanks to last week's guest, ultra and adventure racer Travis Macy who is the author of The Ultra Mindset: an endurance champion's 8 core principles for success in business, sports and life.  If you haven't heard the interview yet, go back and check it out on episode #105.
Discussion Teasers	After the interview I'll have some thoughts on the interview with Jim Vance, his book Triathlon 2.0, considerations for the self-coached athlete, and an offer to those who want to take their training to the next level or feel like they could use the partnership of a coach this season. I also have some reflections on some of the show highlights this year and some of the interviews that were particularly memorable and informational. Last, I have a funny Christmas triathlon gift story and a ask to see if any of you have good triathlon or gear Christmas stories that you would share. That's it for the teasers, let's go to the interview.
Interview Setup	Jim Vance is an elite endurance sports coach, author, and sport technology and training consultant based in San Diego, California. He is the personal coach 2016 US Olympic triathlete Ben Kanute, guiding him to 2017 performances of victory at Escape from Alcatraz and Island House Triathlon, as well as a 2nd place finish at the 70.3 World Championships. Triathlon 2.0 is an extremely useful book if you are a self-coached athlete.  It will help give you concrete information on how to use data to do baseline testing, guidelines for determining goal training stress, and concepts for how to create a periodized training plan. After the interview, we'll go through a couple pages of the book to give you a practical example of how to determine goal CTL for each the bike and run using an hypothetical athlete and race distance.  As Jim emphasizes in the book, these will just be examples and do not apply to all athletes or all race situations. Let's get into the interview now.
Interview	Jim Vance
Health IQ Ad	And we are back.  Thanks again to Health IQ for sponsoring today's interview.  The Health IQ advantage is their unique mortality model that enables lower rates for health conscious people.  Just like having a good driving record saves you money on auto insurance, Health IQ uses science & data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health conscious people including runners, cyclists, strength trainers, vegans, and more. With other life insurance companies, you might be penalized for family history, BMI, and other attributes but don’t get rewarded for your health conscious lifestyle.  You put in the time to train consistently, have the discipline to get out there in the cold, in the dark, you eat well, and you get the rewards of greater energy, and you feel good about yourself.  Let's face it, you spend money on race registrations, gym memberships and gear.  See if you can reward yourself further and recoup some of those investments. See how much you can save. To see if you qualify, get your free quote today at healthiq.com/milehigh or mention the promo code Mile High when you talk to a Health IQ agent.
Host Discussion Topics	Practical example from Triathlon 2.0 As Jim and I discussed, there is no substitute for using hard data to assess and measure performance.  This is not to say that there is not a time and place for training or racing by feel.  I'll give you a couple of examples.  I like to do some rides and runs where I never look at a bike computer or look at my watch.  If I'm thinking about the data on my device, that part of my concentration that is on the device is not on the effort or form of the training itself. In this case performance might be limited by not being able to fully concentrate on the training. Here's another example, there are times with the information on the screen might limit your performance because you curtail effort because the data is telling you are going harder or faster than your rate of perceived exertion.  Let's say your 5 minute peak power is 300 watts from previous training sessions.  You are doing a 5 minute Vo2 max effort on the bike and you look down and your average 20 second power has been 310 for the first minute of your interval.  You may not believe you are capable of carrying that effort for the remaining 4 minutes and end up backing off.  If you were training by feel and just going off RPE, you actually may have been on a breakthrough performance and could have achieved a new PR 5 minute peak power.  My daughter's high school cross country coach won't let the athletes race with watches because it can limit their competitive nature.  The concern that they may be in the heat of battle keeping pace with a team mate or a lead group, and they see that their pace is 10 seconds faster than they've trained to and they back off and let that team mate or group go. So there is a time and place for going by feel.  Here's where you want some actual data - let's say you are doing your functional threshold testing for bFTP or rFTP.  You may do the effort without looking at a watch or power meter if you have a coach or lab tech doing your test, but you damn sure want to have data to record what the power or pace is, correct? Here's another, when you work with a coach or go to prepare you periodized training plan, you need to assess your current training load and your goal training load based on your "A" race goal and "goal" for that race (meaning distance and planned result).  Just using hours of training or mileage is not a measure of actual stress because they don't account for intensity.  Plus, as we learned in the interview with Jim, preriodization is changing the type of training you are doing as you progress from phase to phase through your plan.  You start in the base phase doing general training and get more specific the closer you get to your goal.  Similarly, your intensity increases when you get into your build and peak phases altering the training load for a given duration or distance.  Having an objective measure of the starting CTL and goal CTL are critical to your plan.  You can assess your baseline CTL by using TrainingPeaks as long as you are recording all of your bike and run workouts and are using power and/or heart rate.  As Jim mentioned, you want to track these seperately. You should work with a qualified coach to help you determine what your target CTL is for your race goal and to know whether your ramp rate from the baseline to the goal given the number of weeks to your "A" race is appropriate. If you want to learn more about this process or want help planning for next season, reach out to me at [e-mail]   Speaking of your 2018 season, if you are listening to this episode on the day of release then you are listening to this on New Year's Eve.  A lot of races have price increases at midnight tonight.  If you haven't done it yet, fulfill a resolution a day early and save few bucks by checking out your race registration sites today and register today.  Then go out and celebrate that you’ve already ticked the box on one of your resolutions! 2017 Show Highlights: When I reflected on all of the interviews of 2017, I scanned through the inventory on the Content page on the MHE website.  Some of the interviews that really stood out for me: The late Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion was such an amazing contributor to our sport and the sport of swimming.  Terry revolutionized swim learning and swimming techniques to help people swim faster with less effort. Coach David Warden who was the host of Tri-Talk and a science-based coaching.  He was one of the inspirations for MHE and he consulted me as I researched starting the show.  He was a contributing author to Triathlon Science and is one of the smartest coaches in the business. We have had legendary professional athletes like Amanda Stevens, Joanna Zeiger, Mary Beth Ellis, Rachel Joyce, Andrew Talansky, TJ Tollakson, Bek Keat, Siri Lindley, Ben Hoffman and Matt Chrabot We have had our friends at USAT including Rocky Harris, Tim Yount, Jessica Welk, Meg Duncan and Barry Siff Finally we have had some of the best coaches in the business including some of the legendary athletes plus Melissa Mantak, Ken Axford, Sara McLarty, Will Murray, and of course Jim Vance. Of course there's also the Kona coverage and all of the special interviews we did on that trip including Bob Babbitt, Mike Reilly, Tim Hola, Chrissy Wellington, Andy Potts and Tim O'Donnell. Among the highlights of 2017 is of course the partnership with 303Triathlon and the entire team.  Of course that includes Bill Plock and Khem Suthiwan.  It also includes Dana Willet, Jen Findlay, Todd Plymale-Mallory and Kim Welk.  I'd like to thank them for supporting MHE and welcoming me as a part of the 303 team. Thanks to all of the people who have supported MHE.
Upcoming MHE Interviews	MHE upcoming interviews: We are also going to have Joanna Zeiger back to talk about "train the pain away" We also have coach Tricia Davis who recently authored the article on "neuro muscular training" in the latest edition of USAT Triathlon Magazine.
303 Triathlon	Our show is also supported by 303 Triathlon and 303 Cycling are your resource for news and events on triathlon and cycling in Colorado.  303Radio is your news podcast.
Affiliate Programs	Please support our affiliate brands that support the show and help you get faster! The Halo Sport from Halo Neuroscience will help you learn the technique and form to get faster.  20 minutes of neural priming with the Halo Headset gives you an hour of neural plasticity to work and lock in the muscle movement that leads to strength, power and endurance.  Use code MHE150 to save $150. Total Immersion -Use code MHETI10 to get 10% off items in your cart Rudy Project has the helmets, glasses and gear to help you ride safe and look great.  Use code MHE30 to get 30% off your full price items. TrainingPeaks Premium is the full featured version of the app.  Unlock the full featured app for 30 days using the code MHE30 All of these discounts can be found at milehighendurance on the Sponsors page.
Closing	If you are enjoying the show, please let us know by going on iTunes or your podcast player and giving us a review.  Be sure you are subscribed in iTunes so you get the show automatically downloaded on Saturday evening and recommend Mile High Endurance to a friend.  Thanks again for listening to MHE.  Happy new year!  Talk to you again in 2018!  Stay tuned, stay informed, and enjoy the endurance journey!