Great questions from the listeners. We get pretty deep into HR training and testing, along with intensity control and duration. We look at prescription load model, reading HR. Are you getting fitter or just tired? Swimming less for easy swim races?? How much racing is too much or too little? How to keep your head in the game. Typical amount of training hours per distance. How to train year round and stay engaged.

Topics:

• Our Wisconsin Camp
• Great Ironman Training Weekends
• Asterisk by a gold medal?
• Preferred HR testing model
• 180-Age
• 30 Minute test - threshold
• McMilan calculator
• Building Cake and Z2 Training
• When going long is inappropriate
• Intensity control vs. duration
• Training prescription load model
• Practicing getting slower or better?
• Inching up the HR
• Are you fitter or Tired?
• Intensity control and recovery
• Strategies for specific races
• Swim less?
• Swim recovery
• How many races is too much?
• Racing too much or too little?
• How to mix in a sprint or olympic
• Race then run afterwards?
• Keeping your head in the game
• Typical training hours per week for a spring, olympic, half, full
• Training year round and engaged
• Communication with coaches

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

Topics:

• C26 Camp in Madison
• Lake Placid, Ohio, Oregon
• Ironman Branding problem?
• 20-30 Hour Weeks
• Extreme results
• The need to be expensive
• Appreciating free time
• Adaptive training
• Using race day as a metric for success
• The process as the success
• Excited to train - invigorated
• Sacrificing a whole season for one day
• When something just ain’t right
• More or less training
• Long rides of 6 hours vs. 4 hours
• We usually love what we’re good at

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

Many of us can look at the metrics, but how deep is our understanding? Today, we look at the decorations of triathlon in your training platform. Are you just becoming addicted to new numbers for the sake of it? Are the numbers confusing you more than letting you be your best? Do you really understand how you feel during a given workout? Should you push harder or take the pedal off the gas? Is your FTP right today? Data is helpful but it should have a beautiful connection with the way you feel.

Topics:

• What’s your interpretation of “hard?”
• Slammed racing weekend
• Ebbs and flows of personalities
• Race week is like the Bride and Groom on wedding week
• New to the sport?
• Threshold doesn’t mean your max
• What does it feel like?
• Race blind without a watch
• Listen to your body
• RPE
• Heal thyself
• Angry emails . . . wait . . . same with TP comments
• Use your eyes
• Don’t judge a day by the weather or a workout in the first 30 minutes
• “I’m not on pace right now”
• Tour de France by feel?
• Race day is an empty basket
• The best super computer is you
• Building the effort skin
• I “had it”
• TP Metrics as decorations
• Addicted to overtraining

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

How do you think about training? Are you going for race times or truly working on things that will make you better? Today, we look at different mindsets and how to not get trapped in training paces and performances. We look at the full forest of a race and how you can have a more objective view of your training, your progress, and future racing success. Long swim sets, noodle arms, tire pressure, arm fatigue resistance, inputs for the best days. So many athletes are naive or in denial. Get a clear picture of what’s making you better and how to judge your performances with the big picture in mind.

Topics:

• Big race week
• “What do you think about doing this?”
• Recon on a course
• Designing the attack
• Not riding the course before?
• More hesitant on training rides
• Training slower
• Tire pressure
• Arm fitness and fatigue resistance
• Can’t old aero
• The Bodh’s overall experience
• Experimenting
• Road conditions
• Total body preparation
• Long swim sets and noodle arms
• When to ride aero and when not to
• Starting with or against the wind
• Training to learn
• False positives in training
• F*k up your training on purpose
• What is truly a pass or fail?
• Inputs: which ones are important
• Changing your inputs
• If you’ve done it, you can do it again
• Naive or in denial?
• Solid and appropriate training is the best solution

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

Yesterday, the two greatest riders in the world charged toward the finish line in Stage 11 of the Tour de France with completely different styles. Today, we look at both approaches and use it as an analogy for how you can go about your training and racing. There’s no one right answer for this sport, and we can all get better by taking little pieces here and there. You don’t have to be someone you’re not, but we can all benefit from understanding who that is and what our weaknesses are. Are you racing strategically with science and data or are you racing by effort for the goosebumps?

***Stay tuned at the end for an interview with our C26 Coach Chuck Knuth. Bio below. 

Topics:

• Episode 800 party?
• Tour de France talk
• The leaders
• You gotta be you
• Taking someone’s strategy and making it your own
• Being in the gray
• Making f*ck ups more purposeful
• Happy, content, objective
• Trying to be someone you’re not
• You are the placebo - Aaron Rogers
• People have different flow states
• “Mostly” do what you love
• Effort and goosebumps
• Learn to dislike things a little less
• Mentality and taste buds change
• When we don’t know shit

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

** C26 Coach Chuck Knuth's Bio 

Growing up, Coach Chuck had an intense fear of water that prevented him from swimming in deep water. At 15, he flipped an old 10-speed bike and knocked out a few of his teeth. Clearly, he was destined to become a triathlete.

Despite that oh-so-promising start, he is today an athlete, a fan, and a mentor who is obsessed with this sport. His tally (which is probably already outdated) includes 13 full Ironmans, nine 70.3s, countless olympic- and sprint-distance races, and no fewer than 20 half and full marathons. To top it all off, in 2024, he is lucky enough to race in the Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

As a coach, every athlete comes with a new puzzle. You and Coach Chuck will work together to create the approach that works best for you and gets you to your goal. Not every workout can be a home run, but at the same time, not all bad ones are strikeouts. He’ll be your loudest cheerleader and the person who pushes you to challenge yourself, but he’s also the first to be realistic about the process.

When he’s not training or racing, you’ll find him traveling with his wife, Amanda; relaxing at home with their dog; rebuilding and tinkering on cars; or working toward his next big goal: getting his pilot’s license.

Today we look how to get effective volume and why recovery should be an instrumental part of everything you do. We look at why it’s important to be aware of how and when you workout. We look at falling in love with the weather, good and bad. We talk about why summer can be the best time for base training. We look at making swim, bike and run EASIER. We talk about the Tour de France gravel stage and the importance of the day off. Spacing out your sessions and making sure you have enough fuel for your workouts.

Topics: 

• Digging a hole to go nowhere
• Spacing volume
• The weather is what it is
• Year round structure and support
• The goal: always be fitter and faster
• Best time of year for base training?
• Using time and duration as EXPERIENCE
• How to embrace weather extremes
• The body is usually trying to warm up or cool down
• Using workouts to learn
• Spacing out sessions
• Sometimes sleeping better is the best training
• Triathletes as masochists
• It’s not fun to beat yourself down
• Food and Fuel and ability to do more
• Gravel stage of the Tour de France
• Hammered in training . . . hammered in life
• Too much intensity
• Building your ability to recover
• Paying attention to when and how you workout
• Take time to peel back the layers
• Avg. power and normalized
• Training can be energizing and/or draining
• You need breaks

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

Topics:

• Do you know in your heart it’s the right thing?
• Challenging our listeners
• Being proud of yourself
• Keep showing up
• Make one clear goal
• The joy of the work
• The perils of comparison
• Podium from the chin down
• Back of the pack from the chin up
• Not many “ups”
• Can you reflect on the good things?
• Only commenting on the bad days
• Easy needs to be easy, hard needs to be hard
• Never satisfied
• Be grateful
• The freedom to be free
• That workout sucked (race microcosm)
• Mark Allen training
• It’s easy to get lost in the process
• Chasing the race
• Racing free
• It’s about listening, not ignoring
• Turn the page (don’t think about it)
• Don’t take everything so seriously

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com