Ivy and Nate join Coach Jonathan for multiple questions on nutrition that will give you actionable tips for big improvements, as well as discussions on multi-day event pacing, race anxiety, and new possible podcast host events and challenges!

TOPICS COVERED IN THIS EPISODE

  • 0:00 Welcome!
  • 0:09 Intro
  • 5:40 Dropper posts and other innovations in bike racing
  • 21:30 How to manage pre-race anxiety
  • 48:05 How to pace yourself during multi-day rides and stage races
  • 01:12:25 Nate’s Intermission
  • 01:29:01 What challenges/races should the podcast hosts do next?
  • 01:43:20 Practical nutrition tips that deliver big improvements

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Absence of circadian phase resetting in response to bright light behind the knees

Extraocular circadian phototransduction in humans

Nate’s Crash

Tran-Sylvania Mountain bike Epic Stage race in PA: Course Map

Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Successful Athletes Podcast

Science of Getting Faster Podcast

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00:10] Jonathan Lee: Welcome to the podcast dedicated to making you a faster cyclist. The ask a cycling coach podcast presented by TrainerRoad and coach Jonathan Lee. And we have with us Cannondale and trainer roads, Amber Pierce, good morning and hand up. Plus the black bibs racing’s Ivy Audrain and our CEO Hey, what’s up? And our CEO, Nate Pearson, your hair looks fantastic today.

[00:00:30] Nate Pearson: No, it doesn’t. It looks crunchy. Cause I just got the shower and I rushed. That was very, uh, very close. You like the

[00:00:36] Jonathan Lee: crunch? Yeah, I mean, I think it looks good. Yeah. If you want to see nature, you can join us on YouTube. It’s an 8:00 AM on Thursdays and for the live stream. Thanks everybody for joining us a live stream and for joining right now, thumbs up, share this podcast with your friends.

[00:00:50] Jonathan Lee: Uh, let’s get into a handful of things. First, a correction about last week, I mentioned the oft mentioned study about shining an led on the back of a person’s knee, uh, when they were sleeping and showing that that disrupted sleep in a certain level. Um, then we also, we had somebody on the forum point out that like, Hey, that study had been refuted.

[00:01:09] Jonathan Lee: Uh, different researchers had tried to replicate the findings and they couldn’t replicate them. Uh, so, uh, we’d want to clarify that. So basically. Uh, the S there was a study for a pretty significant one that was causing that one to be misunderstood. Uh

[00:01:23] Nate Pearson: there’s uh, we’re shining a light on your leg. We’re shining the light on your leg.

[00:01:29] Jonathan Lee: It’s not far off from that. So they had a TV on, and the TV had volume on it. They had that to try to stop them from going to sleep while they were doing this thing and they left it on while they were sleeping. So then as a result, like, of course you’re not going to sleep well, if you have TV talking, uh, going on while you’re trying to sleep, pretty like large oversight, you think?

[00:01:48] Nate Pearson: Right? Uh, yeah, based on some people scientists I’ve talked to, and my sister who’s PhD researcher, like PhDs, there’s like, they’re either like geniuses or you’re like, what are you thinking? Like, all of us would be like, why would we leave a TV on during the sleep study? Uh, it goes, it goes either way. Amber, did you get that experience too?

[00:02:07] Nate Pearson: If there’s not many people in the middle, they kind of go either way. Unfortunately, most people are on the one side of the genius, but no, Amber is not going to name the people that you thought were bad.

[00:02:20] Amber Pierce: I’m going to stick with the fifth on that one

[00:02:23] Nate Pearson: and to, and other things like scientists can disagree and move forward and be like, oh, I didn’t think of that.

[00:02:28] Nate Pearson: But there’s some things that are just silly.

[00:02:30] Jonathan Lee: Uh, yeah. Yeah. This is another example of the thing where a lot of the time we just take science, uh, the accuracy of science for granted where we just, well it’s published or it’s a paper and I can read it in the abstract. Therefore it’s true. And boy, going back to, when we talked about all the, all the research that’s out there on the polarized studies and everything else, you know, it’s really, you have to go deeper than just an abstract.

[00:02:52] Jonathan Lee: You really have to look into everything that goes into it. That’s what, um, trainer

[00:02:56] Ivy Audrain: roads, critical media literacy courses,

[00:02:59] Jonathan Lee: masterclass. I like it

[00:03:03] Nate Pearson: top. You’re absolutely right. Lots of money has been made about like there’s two ways. Sometimes people misrepresent studies, uh, either knowingly or unknowingly and other times, uh, like you said, that they can just be refuted later.

[00:03:17] Nate Pearson: So it’s, and other times it’s just the science, like. Someone goes, oh, what if we test this with it? And they remove a variable or add a variable or something like that. And they learn something else. So it’s really, it’s hard. It’s, it’s, that’s why it’s ever changing. Right. We might think one thing at a moment.

[00:03:31] Nate Pearson: And then later on we think something else because we have new evidence.

[00:03:34] Jonathan Lee: And how often do the science, oh, sorry, go ahead Amber.

[00:03:38] Amber Pierce: Oh, just saying it’s iterative. So, you know, it’s, it’s, we do the best we can with the information we have at the time. And that’s just how science works, which is exciting. Cause there’s a lot to learn.

[00:03:47] Amber Pierce: Um, but it also requires that you really think through critically about what you’re

[00:03:50] Jonathan Lee: reading and whether intentional or innocent. How many times do we average people, uh, look at a study and then think that, okay. They proved this one point, therefore, and we make a logic leap. And then right in doing that, I bet if we are talking to the researcher about it, they’d be like, no, don’t do that.

[00:04:08] Jonathan Lee: Don’t take a logic. I just proved this very thing. I didn’t improve anything else. It just, we just looked at this very thing, you know,

[00:04:14] Nate Pearson: I think we actually did in the science of getting faster is specifically asked, what does this not say? Because that is a, what might you think of this? And then what does it actually not say of that?

[00:04:22] Nate Pearson: Because yeah, what you just said, it happens all the time and it’s so easy to do the transitive property in science, but like a equals B equals C there for equal C. And sometimes you can, but a lot of like scientists like prove that B that equals C right. And that situation, they don’t assume that it does because there’s other stuff that happens.

[00:04:42] Nate Pearson: It’s not math. There’s a lots of things that happen in between there. Sometimes it is math, but if it’s a, if it’s like exercise physiology or psychology or something like that, uh, nutrition, we don’t know like anything with the body. It’s crazy how much we don’t know still about the body, which is insane, insane for how advanced we are for going to the moon and stuff.

[00:05:04] Nate Pearson: We don’t know

[00:05:05] Jonathan Lee: that. So complexes are amazing. TM, Amber Pearson we’re at, and then we’re working on more signs of getting faster.

[00:05:15] Nate Pearson: I feel like Amber is like hyping her body up. Like, so she lives longer. She’s always like, you’re amazing. I love you. I think I’ll stay around. She’s not so bad.

[00:05:26] Jonathan Lee: I’m not going to get the whole life.

[00:05:28] Jonathan Lee: Yeah, exactly. Her best friend positive. Self-talk we’re going to have more science to getting faster episodes coming as well or working on that as we speak. Uh, so stay tuned. We’ll be working on that. Now, Nate, this section’s for you from Brian. He says not so much a question. Just want to give Nate and opening to say quote, I told you so about the use of dropper posts in road, racing, follow following, uh, my team and Horrocks and I have no I’ve butchered that name.

[00:05:56] Jonathan Lee: It’s Slovenian. And believe it or not, I’m not from Slovenia. I have no clue how to pronounce the names. Um, it’d probably be worse if I tried really hard, but he’s mentioning his scary to send them along San Ramo. We didn’t talk about this until now, because I wanted to wait until they. Nate the floor is yours.

[00:06:12] Nate Pearson: Here’s what happened? When was this like 20 15, 20 16,

[00:06:16] Jonathan Lee: 20 15? I think it might’ve been 16. We think it’s 15. I

[00:06:21] Nate Pearson: was like, we need dropper posts on, on road bikes because descending just what you said and cornering, you can go, it feels so much better when you drop. And I had, I’d put dropper bikes on like a cross bike and do it outside.

[00:06:31] Nate Pearson: And that felt amazing. Uh, so many people told me how wrong I was and how that weight difference was going to be like the issue. And I think this is, there is something in cycling with us, men do it where if we feel like it’s like anything with macho ego, like you should just descend, like, take the fear out of it.

[00:06:50] Nate Pearson: You should be able to descend better when, uh, but you’ve seen this, right? Like everyone with men doing this in all aspects of life. Um, we don’t look at the most logical thing because we think that it might hurt our masculinity by having a dropper post. Uh, you don’t need, it happened in mountain bikes.

[00:07:04] Nate Pearson: Right? I don’t need, it was like, uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but for a long time it was a badge of courage or badge of honor. I have you tell me to, uh, it’s going to be dropped for pros and cross for a lot more.

[00:07:22] Nate Pearson: honor. Yeah, go ahead. It would be sick

[00:07:24] Ivy Audrain: to have grubbers in cyclocross and I’ll probably get dragged for that too. But damn, there are definitely some features that are like so steep and weird and like slow speed that your saddles, like on your stomach, because you’re trying to like. Get your way back and it’s weird and hell yet a dropper would be sick and cyclocross.

[00:07:41] Nate Pearson: I use it. And so, you know what happens across it’s the steepest Hills you ever do? Sometimes even steeper than like maybe like downhill mountain bike. And it’s short, there’s usually a turn at the bottom. Right? Cause they like to like mess with you and if you could slip

[00:07:55] Jonathan Lee: and then it’s off Canberra and it’s

[00:07:56] Nate Pearson: like, I know, but my point is with John, with mountain biking for so many years, it was a badge of honor.

[00:08:01] Nate Pearson: People would be like, I don’t need a dropper. Right? Like I don’t need it. It’s not needed for me because I am a good buy Candler. I have skill. Therefore I don’t need it. When now you see the best in the world. Right. They are using it because it actually there’s physics behind it. They actually go faster.

[00:08:16] Nate Pearson: Same thing with arrow stuff like, uh, arrow bars. There’s so many things over the years that a wider tires, people like, I don’t need wider tires. It’s going to be, you know, it’s bigger. It’s very annoying in general, but

[00:08:35] Jonathan Lee: yeah, I know. Yeah.

[00:08:37] Nate Pearson: Yeah. Just carbs to people. Like I don’t need to eat. I’m so proud of myself for not eating on this ride and doing this sort of stuff. Because it seems like I’m so tough. I don’t need to eat, but anyways, that’s a big thing. I’m sure it happens in other aspects of my life where I am not aware of it.

[00:08:52] Nate Pearson: Uh, all three of you probably were like, you do it all the time. You just don’t know. But

[00:08:56] Jonathan Lee: we all do to some degree though, we all do in

[00:08:59] Nate Pearson: different aspects. Yeah. Everybody has an ego. Right. And you can never get rid of it. And, uh, let’s do some crazy drugs or just something for a little bit. Just kidding.

[00:09:09] Nate Pearson: But yeah. So it just to try to be aware, but anyways, yes. Dropper bikes and road bikes. I hope they start specking road bikes now with dropper posts so that they’re, they’re built in real easily and everyone can use them and have an

[00:09:19] Jonathan Lee: amazing time. Yeah. And I’m sure. And everyone’s like, well, what are you going to do with like arrow?

[00:09:23] Jonathan Lee: See posts, they’ll figure out a way, or they’ll have a shim in place that lets you put a dropper post in there. That’s what a lot of mountain bike companies are doing now. So it’s like they can make the tube shape, whatever it is. And they just have a shim that allows you to run a dropper post in there. I think that’s how the horse, which is a bike was set up.

[00:09:39] Jonathan Lee: So I want to share something on this. So last night I did a short track race, got destroyed by our local juniors. Again, they’re so fast. Um, but in that course we had a pretty big drop. There was an, a line and a beeline and there was a big drop and I didn’t have a dropper on because I haven’t put my dropper back on and I like to run my tail light.

[00:09:59] Jonathan Lee: Cause I ride my road bike on the. I like to run my taillight really high. So it’s more visible. I don’t like strapping it on the stanchion of my dropper post. Right. So, um, and I run the Vario radar thing up there. So I’ve just been running the high post. I can switch it out because last time the course is really like, non-technical this time, it wasn’t the drop, but it was the slow turns like you’re talking about with cyclocross and with Ivy, I think I bled a lot of time there.

[00:10:22] Jonathan Lee: I had just had time that I could’ve made up if I would’ve had a dropper, because it just allows you to lower your center of gravity and decouple more from the bike. And, and a lot of people are talking about how like droppers are for only one specific scenario, but their benefits are wide ranging and they may benefit one person very differently than they benefit another person because their bodies are so different.

[00:10:42] Jonathan Lee: Like some athletes, like, I think of like a Caleb Ewan who has short legs. And as a result, when he’s sprinting, I bet that he could even sprint better if he dropped his saddle first. And nobody’s talking about that, but I guarantee you, he could have a way better sprint if he dropped his saddle. Um, that it’s, it’s kind of an interesting thing.

[00:11:00] Jonathan Lee: Like it just opens up a whole wave of different things. And the other thing I want to say about this specific descent is that everyone was like, oh, his dissent was like extra, or he won the race because of the draw. He is an incredible descender. He’s shown that before. I think without a dropper post, he would have won.

[00:11:18] Jonathan Lee: But the thing is the dropper allowed him to have a little bit more comfort. And everyone talks about like the two sketchy moments that he had. He might not have saved those if he didn’t have the dropper. For sure. Um, but I don’t think the dropper was getting him into trouble. I don’t think it even necessarily like enabled like a, a higher speed.

[00:11:36] Jonathan Lee: Like a lot of the time that we talked about it with cycling, your goal is just to lower your RPE. It isn’t necessarily to like raise your power, but if you can lower your RPE at the same power, that’s a win. And with descending, if you can lower your RPE or rate of perceived danger, whatever, it might be a rate of perceived fear when you’re going downhill, that’s a huge win because it’s going to make you more adaptable and able to react to things.

[00:11:58] Jonathan Lee: So he probably would have won if that guy had an extra high post, he’s just so good at descending,

[00:12:03] Nate Pearson: but maybe, but the dropper post does make it so you can take like more pressure into the terms because the turns cause the force going down is like, it’s a little different than when you’re high up. The other thing that UCI, you can’t super talk anymore.

[00:12:15] Nate Pearson: And having that lower, be able to tuck is an error advantage when you’re descending and you’ve seen someone probably you’re descending and one person just like drops down a little more and they start pulling away from you. Yeah. When you’re descending solo and you have a dropper post and you can take a little bit more of aerodynamic drag from there.

[00:12:31] Nate Pearson: You’re gaining seconds all the time over people, people who can’t get that low because they don’t have a dropper

[00:12:37] Jonathan Lee: and doing it safely. Because when you lay down on the top tube, you have no way to control your bike. But if your pelvis is still on a saddle, it’s just lower, you can still control it,

[00:12:45] Nate Pearson: actually going down straight.

[00:12:46] Nate Pearson: It feels even safer. Cause you can like lock it in. And you’re like part of the bike rather than really high. Uh, you know, Mike drop, I have this much seat post,

[00:12:53] Jonathan Lee: especially for you being so tall or Amber, like compared to the rest of the racers you were with, like, you probably rarely got a draft, like your handlebars got a draft and that’s it.

[00:13:04] Jonathan Lee: Right? So

[00:13:07] Nate Pearson: I mean,

[00:13:08] Ivy Audrain: oh this is more like offered specific, but don’t, y’all use it sometimes when you’re climbing too. Like when it’s super technical and like super steep, you need to just drop it and just like a couple inches. And it helps so much,

[00:13:17] Jonathan Lee: I bet in the cobbles and stuff, Amber, like I bet that could, even if it’s like really rough, that might even be helpful even though they’re not big bass, but because it’s tractions the limiter, right.

[00:13:28] Jonathan Lee: You’re trying to pedal really hard, but then if you get sloppy with your technique or anything, you lose traction and then you’re really done. And that’s what those slightly lower seat can really help with. What happens

[00:13:38] Nate Pearson: in cyclocross is, uh, a teeny, teeny drop. Cause you float right through like sand. You want to float through there.

[00:13:44] Nate Pearson: I have you correct me if I’m wrong, but uh, same thing with cobbles you a little bit of float and you can have, it’s like extra suspension inside of it. Um, the other thing is that when I look at it and you, you might think this is not a thing for me, but look at the difference in drop between your, your saddle and your handlebars, uh, that can give you kind of an idea of how like you’re weighted on the bike.

[00:14:04] Nate Pearson: And some people I see them they’re exactly the same. And like, I get like 180 millimeters of drop and I’m still higher, but in the pro field, they usually ride a smaller frames and uh, at least the men’s pro and they have like way they have a huge drop inside of there. So the ability to get really close to like, mm, I don’t know what the word is for it, but a bike center of gravity, I guess, uh, to do to lower.

[00:14:27] Nate Pearson: That would be amazing.

[00:14:29] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. What are your thoughts, Amber, as a athlete who’s raised in the pro Peloton and done all this stuff.

[00:14:35] Amber Pierce: Oh yeah. I think there’s a lot of uses for this. It’s going to be really exciting to see, um, how it can change things because as you said, people are extraordinarily skilled without it, but then when you add another tool to the toolbox for somebody who’s already skilled at using all of those tools, it’s kind of exciting to see what can

[00:14:52] Jonathan Lee: happen.

[00:14:54] Jonathan Lee: Yeah.

[00:14:56] Nate Pearson: More. I just love this. So there are so many people y’all are like very amazing road, like descenders and all that for road. Like honestly, like some of the best nation, right? Like in us, if not, world-class like Amber, you’re obviously world-class on that. So many more people are like me where it starts going 35, 40, 45 miles per hour.

[00:15:20] Nate Pearson: And you’re like, this is really scary. And this can be a part of cycling that I used to dread, dread, dread, where we have big Hills in here. I love the climb and I’m like, oh gosh, I have a 45 minute to sit in our 45 minute, 20 minute descent. That’s gonna go really fast. Having a dropper post. I’m telling you everyone on a road bike makes you like makes me from being uncomfortable and not liking it to wow.

[00:15:43] Nate Pearson: I feel so safe and secure. It feels like you’re going slower. And, uh, having access to this on road bikes can make cycling so much more fun. And even if you say, I’m not gonna use it in a race. Uh, for some weight issue, use an everyday of training. Like when you say, oh, am I going to descend as well? But I don’t know.

[00:15:59] Nate Pearson: You can maybe to create, you don’t need a dropper post. If this Sprint’s not to John’s point, but for everything else, if you’re a writing, that’d be awesome. The other thing, John, I’m going to grind my gears a little bit. Uh, disc brakes, I’ve been saying disc brakes for years about we should have this breaks on road bikes.

[00:16:16] Nate Pearson: There was a post on slow Twitch where I said, we need disc brakes on TT bikes because TT bikes, descend and stuff. People flame me. It’s still there from like 2013 about that’s never going to happen. All this sort of stuff. It’s not Aero. Why would you?

[00:16:30] Ivy Audrain: I have any of those people use like 2013 generation of like TT breaks.

[00:16:35] Ivy Audrain: They’re just like, oh,

[00:16:37] Amber Pierce: terrifying.

[00:16:38] Jonathan Lee: I just make noise. So you don’t slow down. We just make

[00:16:41] Nate Pearson: noise. That’s one of the top posters on slow Twitch was like, why would you ever need to, like, why would I need to break in a TT? That is like not, I know exactly, uh, there’s some triathlons where you do one

[00:16:53] Jonathan Lee: way you need it.

[00:16:53] Jonathan Lee: You kind of need it, right? Yeah. You kind of need it. You really need

[00:16:57] Nate Pearson: it. But now we’re like no one would buy a bike without, well, some people would, but in general, buying a bike, that’s not, this break seems not like the right choice now. And I think dropper posts are going to be the same way in the future as bikes get lighter too.

[00:17:11] Nate Pearson: And like, it’s, it’s going to be a thing for everybody. And then cross is going to be next. I surprised some people do it across actually, but cross should have been, uh, before, before road and then graveled. Descending on society, depending on a gravel fire road, like with the dropper. Like if you feel so much better, cause that’s slippery, it’s the same issue with road, except it’s slippery when you’re going on the, on the corners, you want to have a low center of gravity.

[00:17:38] Nate Pearson: I

[00:17:38] Jonathan Lee: have kind of like a theory with this where it’s like, if the bike is more limiting through like geometry in particular, then I want a dropper. So then I can alter that geometry to whatever I need and I can get out of the bad position it puts me on. So like, it’s a good idea, even though this sounds silly, I kind of rather have a dropper if I had to pick and choose, and I could only have one bike with a dropper post and I had an Enduro bike and then I also had a cyclocross bike.

[00:18:04] Jonathan Lee: It would actually be a toss up as weird as that sounds to me because even though I’m probably riding really gnarly terrain on the Enduro bike, that huge suspension and the really slack geometry and everything else probably gives me a big level of wiggle room. And the cyclocross bike just gives me zero wiggle room.

[00:18:19] Jonathan Lee: Right. It’s just me and the terrain and I might be able to go faster. So it’s like, think about it. If your bike is limiting you more, why not enable it right.

[00:18:28] Nate Pearson: Um, I want to say one more way. You’re the optimal claim position is never the optimal descending position ever. It’s it’s not the same and there’s sometimes you’re not limited where you’re going on 2% down grade or something, but other times.

[00:18:43] Amber Pierce: Yeah. I mean, all of this comes back to all, regardless of what level you’re at, there’s an opportunity to learn and become more skilled on the bike. And when you think about what facilitates learning, it’s, you can’t just do the things that you already know because that’s inside your comfort zone, but the further outside of your comfort zone, you kind of get on the Seesaw where on one side you have control.

[00:19:04] Amber Pierce: And on the other side, you have fear. So as control goes up, fear comes down and you want to find the right balance of that because just getting just far enough beyond your comfort zone, to where you are learning, but you have enough control to keep that fear low enough so that your brain is not going into survival mode and can learn things.

[00:19:24] Amber Pierce: So if you can, if you have access to tools like these, it can be really, really helpful because it can create more space beyond your comfort zone in which you can be learning and honing new skills without having that freakout fight or flight reaction from your brain. And it’s just about, it’s just about that Seesaw of control and fear and finding the right balance there so that you can stay in the learning zone.

[00:19:47] Amber Pierce: Um, it’s not like you don’t have to have this brakes or have to have a dropper post to find that happy medium, but these are tools that can help expand it a little bit.

[00:19:55] Nate Pearson: I would be happy Ember for the rest of my life, not to be in that learning zone ever again, and just being a comfort high control. I mean, it’s just, it is fun to be super high control too.

[00:20:05] Nate Pearson: I know what your point is, but to everyone else, if, uh, you don’t have. ’cause I’ve thought this before mountain biking. I don’t always have to be in that uncomfortable zone of where I’m learning. Sometimes you can just be in like, well,

[00:20:17] Amber Pierce: honestly, I’d be uncomfortable. Absolutely not. Yeah. Or even

[00:20:20] Jonathan Lee: in the learning

[00:20:20] Nate Pearson: zone at all.

[00:20:22] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. You can just have fun sitting below the learning zone. It’s still a blast. What

[00:20:25] Amber Pierce: you do best. Yeah, exactly.

[00:20:28] Nate Pearson: That’s that, uh, Lee McCormick, where there’s the, uh, what he says, like a seven and eight and arousal zone, that’s where you want to be. And I kind of chased that for a long time, but man, sometimes writing and just being in the twos and threes and you’re like, well, this is fun and there’s no

[00:20:41] Amber Pierce: pilot.

[00:20:42] Nate Pearson: It’s great. Yeah. That’s what

[00:20:43] Jonathan Lee: I’m thinking. Yeah. What’s a level two for you is not going to be a level two for somebody else. And it’s super important to recognize that, you know, if it’s ready to space. Yeah. Good stuff. Um, Nate, we have a bunch of topics that I want that we’ve covered recently that I want to talk to you about.

[00:20:59] Jonathan Lee: We also have some listener questions and then I also want to talk about host challenges. Cause it’s been a while since we done one, I mean the last one was Cape epic. Uh, that one shifted for a number of different reasons, but it was amazing, uh, Nate year. Sorry.

[00:21:12] Nate Pearson: Yeah. Oh, I, I was gonna make a joke, but let’s go look at a concussion joke.

[00:21:16] Nate Pearson: Like what is Cape epic, but uh, okay.

[00:21:19] Jonathan Lee: Got it. Okay. But how you guys vote? Do we want to go into the listener questions right now? Or do we want to talk about the list that host challenges I’ve listened to questions. Love it. David says second time questioner. You previously gave me a brilliant answer on my question about HRV.

[00:21:36] Jonathan Lee: Good to hear David. Um, I’m glad that you liked that one. I mentioned during that question that I’ve been away from cycling and racing for four years, the bike came out of hibernation around June, 2021. And for the remainder of the year, I just rode with no structured training as such and refound. My love for the sport.

[00:21:51] Jonathan Lee: Good on you, David. Uh, for, for finding the passion with it around Christmas time, I stepped back into structured training and joined trainer road. And since then, my FTP has jumped up 88. Watson is back within 20 Watts of what I had when I was racing way to go. You said previously when 88

[00:22:08] Nate Pearson: home on

[00:22:08] Jonathan Lee: goodness.

[00:22:09] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Back to the future level Watts. It’s good stuff. It says previously when cricket and road racing, I would suffer with terrible pre-race anxiety to the point where I would quite often be ill and vomit in the hours before the race and the feelings of disappointment. If the race didn’t go as planned would make, would keep me awake at night, time away from the sport allowed me to contemplate these feelings and even spent time talking to professional counselors, as it seemed the same anxiety had seeped into other aspects of my life.

[00:22:34] Jonathan Lee: Four years later, I’m in a much better place with work family and the expectations I put upon myself when I began writing again, I told myself this is just for fun, but as I’ve seen my FCP begin to rise again, caught up with old friends on the local group rides. I can feel the competitive bug coming back.

[00:22:49] Jonathan Lee: So my question is how have you dealt with pre-race. And do you have any tips to deal with them and stay calm on race days? Finally, I love the podcast and he says my apologies, but Spotify wouldn’t. Let me give you a six star review. So five stars left to do everyone go to Spotify right now, rate us five stars.

[00:23:07] Jonathan Lee: And then you can also share the podcast directly from that to Instagram stories, to your messages. It’s super handy. It’s the best way to share the podcast. So go check it out on Spotify. You can even see helpful chapters on there as well. Chapters are coming now to iTunes and other things as well. So good stuff, Nate, I want to leave with you on this one because we have documentation the cat too.

[00:23:27] Jonathan Lee: And in a view, going from cat five to cat two, doing crits road races, tons of different stuff. And you ordinarily in one year. Yeah, well done. And everybody, and you shared often how it was scary for you and that you were feeling this. So, in fact, actually, while we, while you start talking about this, Maxine will bring up a video that we have, you can go to our YouTube channel, but Maxine, go ahead and bring up the video of, uh, of, of one of the races that Nate did, where he was surrounded or really close to a crash.

[00:23:54] Jonathan Lee: And it wasn’t the only time right Nate, this

[00:23:56] Nate Pearson: one upsets me because on this right here, this is the final lap, uh, as this is going. And I was, I had, I had actually, oh my God. Oh no. So what happened in there? I didn’t actually crash. Uh, the people behind me crashed and I went, ah, Straight forward and I had to stop pretty much, but, uh, that’s, that’s it Mexican, we can, um, exit from this, but oh,

[00:24:22] Jonathan Lee: that out on YouTube or youtube.com/trainer road

[00:24:25] Nate Pearson: on that race, that was San Rafael referee L yeah.

[00:24:28] Nate Pearson: Centerfield. That is a great race to have a dropper post on because there’s this really steep fast, like, I dunno, am I exaggerating to say 40 miles per hour turn? Uh,

[00:24:39] Jonathan Lee: that’s where that top pros go through there at that speed for sure. And

[00:24:42] Nate Pearson: Nate, uh, so sorry. Yeah. And this goes to the anxiety part of it though, because I raise my whole, if you watch the videos, my entire race strategy has to do with anxiety, uh, to reduce it and to, for safety.

[00:24:56] Nate Pearson: And there are, let me, let me talk about anxiety for a second anxiety. According to my therapist is there’s two sides of it. There is a, you don’t have enough information or you have too much information. So generally, uh, what I’m hearing here with David’s question is that he doesn’t have enough information.

[00:25:13] Nate Pearson: He is wondering how he’s going to perform and that like the end of the race. And I don’t know if there’s any, um, injury, like, am I going to be hurt in this race? But that’s my anxiety. If you listen to this podcast before, that’s the one that I have for placement, it’s not really a big anxiety thing. Uh, but I’ll, I’ll go through both of them.

[00:25:33] Nate Pearson: So in races, before I do a lot of, uh, um, Rifles like 20 twos in high school, uh, Amber and our high school, we had, we had a gun range in our basement, which is like crazy. And it’s the only sport really. I did it for three years as a high school sport. Uh, S the only sport where you don’t move and you just have to relax.

[00:25:54] Nate Pearson: And so much of this sport was before, uh, before we’d go and shoot. Um, the range was small, so we could only do it in groups and you’d sit in a dark room and all you would do is visualize the bullseye over and over and over again. So what you do is you want to visualize what the proper outcome is, because so much time when we get stuck in the anxiety, like ruminating thoughts, we think of the bad thing, the crash over and over and over again.

[00:26:19] Nate Pearson: And that’s where our brain gets stuck on. And there’s a whole bunch of science and, uh, around visualization, helping people in life, uh, and seeing what you can achieve. So what I would do is I would visualize the corner, the sprint, like what I’m going to do inside of the race. And that has really helped.

[00:26:37] Nate Pearson: Um, the other one is I know that I have mitigating factors for the, for the, uh, crashed stuff in how I’m going to race. I know I’m, I’m I check it out ahead of time. This is reduces this increases information. This is a sketchy point. So at the end of the race, I’m going to sack, right? I’m going to be at the back of the race.

[00:26:54] Nate Pearson: I know I’m, I’m, I’m strong enough to be able to fight that I can bridge a small gap on a flat course on big dissents, like Santa Fe, I, uh, if you watch that race, I would like kind of do a small attack on the backside of the hill. So that could be the first one down the hill. Then I have anyone in front of me most of the time that also there were gaps, it was a smart way to race because other people hit their brakes.

[00:27:15] Nate Pearson: There’d be a bunch of gaps and people have to sprint back. So I would do these things to that would I know. So let me say it this way. I get anxiety on a really fast 40 mile per hour turn with lots of people around me. So I would either be the first person or I’d be far enough back where if there was something I could move out of the way that lowered my anxiety, I knew I could do it ahead of time.

[00:27:38] Nate Pearson: It was great. Um, for how you perform in a race, this is a whole nother issue of like your identity with how you perform, uh, like how you feel good about yourself. Self-worth and things like that. Uh, th this, this is, this is, uh, something we probably can’t do here. This, you should talk to somebody about this, but the, uh, how I look at it, especially with video.

[00:28:03] Nate Pearson: So John and I, uh, we race we’ve got cameras. Some of these views or videos have a hundred thousand views on it. Right. And people say mean things to me. So like every move we do, we could be people saying you’re not XYZ because of it. Um, which I’m okay with. I look at it as a learning opportunity. So like every race that I do, even if you did bad, especially with the cameras you get to have, I’m really lucky at good Amber and Pete and John to be able to critique my race, but you get to learn and improve inside of that.

[00:28:33] Nate Pearson: And I get a lot of joy of improving. And even when I did something that is, I did a silly mistake, you’ve seen the videos, I try to then prevent that mistake the next time. And that’s then a goal for the next race is like, oh, I didn’t, uh, I can think of one where, uh, I followed, uh, someone’s like, come with me, I’ll take you to the front.

[00:28:52] Nate Pearson: And I did that rather than just like, do what I normally would do and read the race and actually make smart decisions in the middle. I did it wrong. Now I have a chance to do it right. And the chance to do it right. Is the exciting part that I can execute this other part of my race because I have no control over winning or not ever.

[00:29:09] Nate Pearson: Like I do have control over exactly. Uh, the more things though that I can control that I do. Right. And I do the training, uh, that is the, that is more likely to win. And the other thing, when you start up, I was nervous every, every single time, um, When I get nervous, I talk a lot, maybe nervous on the podcast a lot, but I would just talk to everyone around me and then that helps.

[00:29:33] Nate Pearson: So that would definitely lower my anxiety to be able to do that. Um, that’s probably the experience that I have to share on that. And

[00:29:42] Jonathan Lee: everybody deals with this differently, right? Like, um, in different ways, Ivy, how about you? You mentioned you just raced a land park criterion recently, which is cool to have you racing one of our crits, uh, super cool me right now.

[00:29:54] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. I am mentioned, you mentioned that you were really nervous before that. I mean, it had been a long, when was the last time you had raced a crit? Uh,

[00:30:02] Ivy Audrain: like years, um, by the way, Nate, I totally won San Rafael in 2015.

[00:30:11] Ivy Audrain: Uh, no, I have a second wheel

[00:30:12] Nate Pearson: into and we’ll see even better. Right. Because you can then sit on them and then sprint around

[00:30:17] Jonathan Lee: Kelly and you’re a bike handler like Ivy, right? Like she just parked before that

[00:30:23] Amber Pierce: race do though.

[00:30:26] Ivy Audrain: Yeah. I hadn’t raised bird in a long time when I decided to do land park a couple of weeks ago and so nervous.

[00:30:33] Ivy Audrain: And I won’t tell David to not be nervous, um, because I tried that for years and years and it’s like, I’m if. You’re a competitor and it’s okay to get nervous. And so instead of me trying to just make myself not nervous, um, I mean that nerve comes from wanting to perform and do well. And so instead I’d tried to recategorize it from fearful nerves of all of the unknowns and race to excited nerves.

[00:31:03] Ivy Audrain: It’s a pay to be excited and have nerves and like feel anxious before race, if you’re making it something that helps you perform. Um, because for me, just trying to like shut down and not feel any of that hindered my performance. Um, so anyways, it comes from me from unknowns of not knowing the course, um, especially with off-road stuff like XC, doing big marathon event where I haven’t been able to preview the whole course.

[00:31:32] Ivy Audrain: Um, not knowing what’s out there, just wrecks me, um, not knowing what my competition is like if I’m going to get written off the wheel or something. And so I tried to just, uh, kind of recategorize it into being excited and nervous by, um, I like to have some affirmations, like I can perform well under pressure than what I need to, to perform well in this event.

[00:31:56] Ivy Audrain: And then if it gets really bad and I feel like I’m sick, I just do some sensory calming stuff. Um, like taking a break from getting ready from the race and folding some laundry. I put it, I put an ice pack on my face and stuff like that really helps with the physical, like visceral reaction to being nervous.

[00:32:11] Ivy Audrain: Vomiting and getting sick. Um, so I don’t, I don’t think it works to just tell yourself to not be nervous because if you’re nervous and want to do well and putting pressure on yourself, it’s almost impossible to just decide that that’s not part of you anymore. I

[00:32:26] Jonathan Lee: can’t imagine how many, oh, sorry, Nate, please.

[00:32:29] Nate Pearson: Would that be crazy? But you just tell her emotions, don’t do this feel this feel like, just be happy. I’ll be

[00:32:36] Jonathan Lee: happy. Well,

[00:32:37] Ivy Audrain: that’s something that I totally experienced when people see me, cause I’m normally pretty jovial and like my talk and I just, I get wrecked sometimes and some people love him so much and my support circle are totally not helpful.

[00:32:50] Ivy Audrain: They’re just like, oh, don’t be nervous. You one leg, a hundred credits who cares? I’m like, thanks. I really helps me like, okay, I’m not nervous anymore.

[00:32:58] Jonathan Lee: I, yeah. Oh, I forgot all of that. I’m sorry. Thanks for reminding me, Amber. You have to have done. I don’t know. I mean, if you combine swimming and cycling thousands and thousands of races, uh, do you still get nervous and what’s it like for you?

[00:33:14] Jonathan Lee: Yeah,

[00:33:14] Amber Pierce: definitely. And I think it comes back to exactly what Nate and Ivy were describing. It’s because you care. I mean, it’s kind of, it’d be kind of a bummer to line up at the start of a race and feel exactly the same about the races you do for a training ride. I mean, that’s not the point of racing, right.

[00:33:28] Amber Pierce: So I love that. Flipping it from the negative nerves of fear, to the positive nerves of excitement. Um, I love racing, so I get excited for it. And over the years I’ve figured out what works for me. And everybody is different in terms of what it is that, um, that they need before a race. Like some people get super hyped up and they really need to calm down.

[00:33:52] Amber Pierce: And some people have a really hard time getting hyped up and just depends on what it is that you’re struggling with. But I think, um, to Nate’s point about anxiety being around too much or too little information, that’s like overthinking and uncertainty, right? So if you’re somebody who struggles with uncertainty, take as much uncertainty out of it, as you can, like Ivy was mentioning, doing course, recon can really help talking to other people.

[00:34:16] Amber Pierce: Who’ve done the race before, uh, making a plan. Even if you know that you might have to throw it out the window. It’s so calming sometimes to have a plan. If you’re somebody. The struggles with uncertainty. And that can just look like, get on Google earth, check out the course. See if you can identify places that you think might be selection points in the race, decide ahead of time, what you want to do.

[00:34:35] Amber Pierce: That’s within your control, right? Controlling the controllables. Um, and then have that plan in mind. Having a pre-race routine can be really, really helpful because that takes a lot of the uncertainty out. You’d know exactly what you’re going to do. And in what order, when you get to the race and you can incorporate elements in a pre-race routine that help you either get more hyped up or calm down that can look like music that can look like a stretching routine that could look like, like Nate mentioned, walking around and talking to other people and just, you know, having a social aspect of it could be really reassuring and relaxing.

[00:35:06] Amber Pierce: Um, but figuring out, you know, what are the specific things that you can identify for yourself that are holding you back? And then how can you address those and pre-race routine for yourself and experiment with it, you know? And, and it comes back to if, if your goal is to learn from the race, um, you really can’t, you really can’t lose out because you’re going to learn something no matter what.

[00:35:25] Amber Pierce: And the key is to make sure that whatever it is that you learned you apply in the future. Uh, Ivy mentioned affirmations. One of my favorite ones from when I first started racing, where I was, you know, getting into bigger and bigger races and feeling like there’s a lot of expected expected of me and not really ever feeling like I was sure that I could deliver on those expectations.

[00:35:44] Amber Pierce: That what was really helpful for me was just to say, I’m going to get out and learn how to raise my bike better. And I would say that over and over to myself in my head, because it was, it was true. I could believe in that I could ground myself in that and I would, and it was a goal that I could set and, um, it was very grounding, but figuring out what are those key phrases or affirmations that might be helpful for you too?

[00:36:04] Amber Pierce: So, um, I would really recommend a pre-race routine and that can start, you know, two weeks out from the race in terms of the course recon and doing research,

[00:36:15] Nate Pearson: uh, two things, I think the top two things to say built on stuff. You both said, Amber, that you talked about like Google earth and re re we, of course, recon I am so much more neurotic than that.

[00:36:27] Nate Pearson: So what I would do is I would go through, I would go through, um, YouTube, find every single recording of those races and usually this full race videos. I would then watch those on the trainer for like weeks leading up. And let me tell you about visualization being like just watching those YouTube videos.

[00:36:45] Nate Pearson: One feeling like you’re in the pack on the actual course makes me feel like so much better. And I could see, Hey, on this corner there, on this side, they dropped back on this corner of the outside and they move up and that you get so much information. It’s like you’re riding many times. And then I would look at the finishes and I would see where attacks were made that were winning finishes and some races.

[00:37:05] Nate Pearson: They’re all kind of the same. Uh, and other ones I could see, Hey, everyone’s, there’s always a right way of this, but it always got brought back. Like I’ve in the five races I’ve seen and sometimes it’s hard to get five. Sometimes you only get two. But you can learn stuff about how the race unfolds inside of that.

[00:37:21] Nate Pearson: And the next level, if there’s a big dissent or a turn that I’m scared or scared of, I would stalk them on Strava. Find that race and look at the max speed for that corner and be like, oh, that’s only a 29 mile per hour corner rather than like a 45 minute power corner. And if it’s 45, I know that I’m not going to want to be in that group.

[00:37:40] Nate Pearson: I want to either be on the front or off the back, because that’s going to make, that’s going to give me nerves inside of the group, but I’m not going to like it a little bit. I also have looked then at the top competitors and racing against what their VO two max like I’ll look at like past workouts, look at the Watts profile and try to figure out, uh, uh, so in Strava I can look at their Watts if they’re public and then, uh, I can see what they’re good at or, or is this person someone I’m going to have to worry about inside of this kind of move?

[00:38:12] Nate Pearson: And normally it’s always like, oh yeah, they’re really, really strong. Darn it. And what you can’t do anything about it besides train. Um, but you do want to watch them in the race, uh, that, Hey, this person is really strong. So if they go at this point, that normally goes, I better go with them. Cause they’re gonna, they’re gonna see.

[00:38:29] Amber Pierce: I love it. I have this, I have this image of Nate prepping for a race as like seventies, detective show. And he’s in his office pulling out the files, the filing drawers and pulling out all the folders on the nurse to competition. Oh, I imagine, um, Charlie day from, it’s always sunny with the

[00:38:45] Ivy Audrain: red string.

[00:38:49] Nate Pearson: Oh, you guys all think of that is detective crazy psychotic person and Tony stark, John, I picture like a dark, my stock must in the mail with like six, six monitors, moving stuff around with lots of spreadsheets,

[00:39:05] Jonathan Lee: you know, at 1.1 point I should have, I should’ve brought this up at the beginning because this doesn’t just apply to racing.

[00:39:10] Jonathan Lee: Right. Um, avoid, like I’ve had sections of trail or even sections of road where I’ve just like, I always have a headwind here. And, uh, and, and I just really hate that or just something about it. Like the road surface just sucks and, and it’s funny, but, but those things do cause anxiety. And then there’s big events that you have that are not like a race, but it’s just like, you are going to go do a big route.

[00:39:34] Jonathan Lee: So this is applies to all of us in different aspects. I’m sure I don’t have anything to add. In fact, this has just been helpful for me to listen to, and kind of reflect on what I do for nerves. I’ve spent my whole life racing. So I’ve think I’ve done some unhealthy normalization of certain things. And then at the same time, I think I’ve also done a good job of seeing some things.

[00:39:55] Jonathan Lee: Egos involved a lot in a lot of it. And I don’t want to externalize that because I don’t want to be perceived strangely. So, but one more thing to everyone goes through it

[00:40:03] Nate Pearson: differently. Uh, Amber and Ivy said, sorry, I have not been on the podcast for a while and I keep interrupting everyone. I’m sorry. Uh, I could get the timing.

[00:40:11] Nate Pearson: Right. But what the, uh, okay. So you said about anxiety and turning into excitement. There’s actual research behind that about, so the feelings that you have in your anxiety for me usually is in my chest and it can feel sometimes I have like a low level in public, but inside of a race, it can be really tough.

[00:40:31] Nate Pearson: Right? And some people feel in their stomach and then they throw up, uh, you can truly make yourself feel better. You stand up, put your arms out and you say, I’m excited. I’m excited because the excitement feels the same way. If you’re super excited, you have that same feeling in your chest. And like, uh, so that, but your head processes it differently.

[00:40:52] Nate Pearson: It’s not negative. It’s a positive, like, I’m so excited for what I’m going to get Christmas morning. Oh my gosh. I don’t know what I’m going to get. Um, I’m going to get as a kid, um, it could be worry or it could be a true excitement. So inside of these things, if you say, if you repurpose and say, I’m excited, I’m excited, I’m excited.

[00:41:08] Nate Pearson: That’s amazing. I don’t only do that in racing, um, business. Meeting new people, like anything where I become aware of my emotions. And I think who I am. I having anxiety about this? I think maybe I’m just excited about this. This could be really great. Uh, and you start thinking that way and then like your shoulders drop and they feel a little bit lighter and you stand a little bit taller and then that then makes you more confident too, at the same time, just the body language.

[00:41:32] Nate Pearson: There’s a whole, there’s a whole TEDx about the, or Ted talk about this. Some people say it’s not true. I don’t care. I’ll placebo myself all the way, all the way. I think it’s true. So then therefore it is, uh, if just standing up straighter before race and not being hunched over, having your shoulders back, having your chin up, like, it just makes you feel better.

[00:41:52] Nate Pearson: I just did it right now. I just feel better in general than if you’re like hunched over and you’re small and you’re looking around all the people that might beat you and you look at the legs. You’re like, oh my goodness, they’re so big. Um, the opposite happens too. They see you. And they’re like, the person’s pretty confident.

[00:42:06] Nate Pearson: Why aren’t they a, how much should I be nervous? Do I, do I not know something that they know? Like, why are they so calm here? Um, even though inside of us, we’re all little ducks, like with their legs, flopping really hard, um, showing the confidence does make you actually feel more.

[00:42:21] Amber Pierce: Yeah, the sensations of fear and excitement are so similar.

[00:42:24] Amber Pierce: And there is one key difference though, when it’s coming from fear, you tend not to breathe as much. So if you check in with your breath, that can be a really helpful thing to help you start flipping it around. Like you said, the body posture is definitely important too, but the breath, the breath part, um, just make, you know, check in like, am I breathing?

[00:42:41] Amber Pierce: Okay, just breathe. And then those sensations, absolutely. There’s so much overlap between fear and anxiety. It’s it makes it really easy. It makes it easier to get your body to interpret it differently.

[00:42:53] Nate Pearson: I have a product recommendation that I just remembered this thing I got to John, I’m going to have to tell you what it is later or Maxine to do it, but this things, yeah, I’m going to say it.

[00:43:04] Nate Pearson: So this sounds like BS. I tried it and it, it was amazing. So when I was like depressed and breakup stuff, I had a whole bunch of anxiety and I was trying meditation and breathing. And that would help. Um, what you have, like a, the, what is it called? The Vega Vega nerve, or is it Vegas nerve, the vagus nerve inside your body.

[00:43:25] Nate Pearson: And you can get like excited and you feel not calm. And there are these headphones that you put on that do an electrical signal into your ear. You listen to music and it does that. Uh, and this could all be placebo. So I’m sorry if you buy it and doesn’t work. But literally within 15 seconds, I was like, like my shoulders dropped for the first time in like a month.

[00:43:47] Nate Pearson: And I felt relaxed and I would use it all the time. I haven’t used it for a race that I should, but the, it does something we’re supposed to stimulate your vagus nerve and kind of get you to relax. Um, if someone in the chat says what it is, I’ll Google it to confirm maybe no, uh, I’ll Google it when someone else is talking, but it’s, it’s, it’s pretty expensive.

[00:44:06] Nate Pearson: I think like around $150 to 200, but personally I had a, I had some great experience with it. Um, Ivana, perhaps, that’s it, nuvana

[00:44:15] Jonathan Lee: it. N U N E U V a N a not sponsored just what Nate found helpful for him. And

[00:44:21] Nate Pearson: the app is horrible and the, you have to repair it every time and the music quality is not high, but I would listen to Maggie Rogers and do that thing and just be like, I’m happy.

[00:44:32] Nate Pearson: This is awesome. And then do deep breathing like Amber said, and it flipped my mood to relaxation really quickly.

[00:44:39] Amber Pierce: Belly breathing can really help with stimulating the vagus nerve too. So if you should check in with your breasts, um, if you don’t have some extra hardware to help you out, if, if you’re just, and you just need a, something on the spot, you know, check in with your breath and if you’re breathing up high up in your rib cage, see if you can drop that breath down into your belly.

[00:44:57] Amber Pierce: And a lot of us carry a lot of tension in our abilities because, well, you know, nobody, we get a lot of, uh, Social media input on how our waste should appear. And so there’s a lot of second and going on and I definitely sometimes I’ll check and be like, oh yeah, I just need to relax those belly muscles a little bit, breathe into my belly.

[00:45:16] Amber Pierce: And it can, I just, I started doing it while Nate was talking and I was like, oh yeah, that feels good. You

[00:45:22] Ivy Audrain: all count, you do it when you run through the breathing

[00:45:26] Amber Pierce: in and out. Yeah. Yeah. That helps too

[00:45:28] Nate Pearson: box breathing all of that. So this is, should talk about box breathing, box breathing. They teach these two Navy seals that are, uh, like they are just in the military in general.

[00:45:38] Nate Pearson: If you get captured, you do box breathing to help relax you. Uh, and what it is is you, you there’s different forms of it. I’m going to do the, you can look up and you go on YouTube. There’s guided ones for it, but you breathe in for four seconds. You hold for four seconds, you breathe out completely for four seconds and you hold for four seconds.

[00:45:56] Nate Pearson: So you kind of make this box and some people do longer on the exhale. Uh, there’s different patterns of it. You do that five, 10 times. You do again, it’s Vegas nerve, uh, the columns that, and if they teach it to the military for being. Uh, captured in stuff that sounds like a work for a bike race too, because it’s a very, although same, we might be fearing for our safety, right.

[00:46:23] Nate Pearson: And your body, even though it is logically a less superior situation that being captured in a military context, sometimes your body doesn’t know the difference. Right? You can even think of, um, somebody does says something to you and you get that same reaction as if that were happening, especially depending on what has happened in your life before.

[00:46:42] Nate Pearson: Uh, so don’t, uh, Ivy said too, don’t be hard on yourself for having these emotions because they’re there just don’t ignore them. Right? Feel them breathe through them. Another way is when you have that anxiety and you breathe, you want to feel your emotions, which is kind of confusing. But what you do is you say, okay, where is it feeling?

[00:47:03] Nate Pearson: Do I feel it? And I’m going to do the breathing that Amber said and try to send like energy to it and then see if it moves. And you actually focus on it rather than trying to push it down. And that can also help relieve it inside of there. What Amber said, I’m like, you should buy this high tech thing and Amaras like, or you could just breathe.

[00:47:20] Nate Pearson: That is like the ying and yang of Amber. And I like over this whole podcast thing, which is awesome

[00:47:29] Jonathan Lee: at great tips, everything from visualization to going through and repurposing or reframing your perception of, of the situation and what you’re feeling. Actually the mechanical things are trying to call the Vegas nerve lots of stuff.

[00:47:44] Jonathan Lee: Great, great tips. Y’all appreciate it. Hopefully, uh, in this case you can find yourself David’s still in that happy place with your bike and not finding it being at odds with, you know, mental health. Uh, yeah.

[00:47:55] Amber Pierce: You can be competitive. It can be competitive and happy. Yes. They’re not mutually exclusive

[00:48:02] Nate Pearson: just when all the time.

[00:48:03] Nate Pearson: Okay. So

[00:48:06] Jonathan Lee: there’s the chest again, right there. Um, okay. Trevor says, uh, hatred road crew. I’ve been listening and watching your podcasts since 2020, and finally decided it was time to try plan builder this year. I’m training for the Transylvania mountain bike, epic stage race in Pennsylvania. This may, and I’m using Moab rocks as a tune-up race next weekend.

[00:48:23] Jonathan Lee: So this that’s this weekend. You’re probably in Moab, Utah, Trevor. Good luck. Good luck with that one. That’s going to be awesome. And you’re taking on a monster of a race I’ve heard in Transylvania epic. So, uh, pretty sweet. He says the goal is to learn as much as I can about multi-day stage race, nutrition, recovery, and how my body will react, but also go hard and just see how I’ve, how fit I’ve gotten the past four months.

[00:48:45] Jonathan Lee: I’m excited to hear Trevor you, please check in and let us know too how it goes after using trainer road and all that stuff to have plenty of athletes use it or use train rode for Transylvania and had a great. Check out our successful athletes podcast for a couple examples. Actually it says, my question is about pacing stage one in Moab, it starts with a 13.5 mile 3,200 foot climb.

[00:49:07] Jonathan Lee: Then descends the tech technical terrain for nine miles. I plan on riding the climb by RPE, but do have a power meter to glance at being that it’s a long climb with a technical descent. Should I ride this in an endurance zone or more tempo or threshold? I’m guessing it will take about an hour and a half to get to the top and 40 minutes to descend.

[00:49:26] Jonathan Lee: If it helps, I’d rather go too hard and suffer, then leave too much in the tank. I’ve heard you talk about pacing strategies based on percentage of effort, but that seems low for two to two hour and 30 minutes stage. So any help specifically for mountain bike stage races in general would be much appreciated.

[00:49:41] Jonathan Lee: And it goes on to share that he is 190 pounds, 300 watt FTP, intermediate mountain biker, but experienced endurance athlete. Uh, and he’s following the mid volume MTB marathon plan. He’s in the build phase right now. So, um, thanks for the entertaining or thanks for entertaining me every week during my rides, love the content and all of our guests from Trevor.

[00:50:00] Jonathan Lee: Uh, so first of all, um, Ivy, you’ve done tons of stage races, and I want to talk to you about pacing stage races because in this case, Trevor is saying he’d rather go to hard than to easy, uh, on the first stage. It’s that kind of makes me nervous. Does that make, does that like ring any alarm bells for you having gone through a lot of stage races?

[00:50:23] Ivy Audrain: Yeah. And I’m thinking specifically of some of the north American road stage races, um, like UCI Joe Martin, um, north star. I don’t know if that one’s still around. Um, but they often put, uh, some of the most messed up stages at the end of the race and those opening ones are maybe long but super chill. And if you’re looking at the people that you’re racing with, they’re writing it kind of conservatively knowing what’s coming.

[00:50:51] Ivy Audrain: Um, so Trevor also wonders if they should write it at threshold for an hour and a half. If I tried to ride threshold for 90 minutes and then do a nine mile descent, I’d wreck myself, like specifically for that question. Um, I know they w I know Trevor wants to go hard and, you know, maybe try to see how that first stage shakes out, but.

[00:51:21] Ivy Audrain: Holy cow, not trying to go into that descent, super tired, um, and looking at the whole scope of the stage race, and trying to get as much information Nate, Charlie day, red strings about the whole entire stage race and what those following stages will look like will help you feel more prepared and know how to pace it and know how much you should be saving or, um, you know, in thinking about your own abilities and knowing where you can do the best.

[00:51:47] Ivy Audrain: Maybe those later stages are going to be really, really bad for you. And maybe that first stage is your chance to get a result and you should put all your eggs in that basket, but really that comes down to knowing yourself really well. Um, trying to pre-read that course, if you can start Trevor, you’re already there.

[00:52:02] Ivy Audrain: It’s probably too late. I hope you got to pre-write all of it. Uh, and, um, yeah, really knowing where your chance will be based upon, uh, what that course looks like and just take some, some Nate math before the

[00:52:14] Jonathan Lee: race. Amber, how about you stage racing? It was literally your job. What would you say in this case?

[00:52:22] Jonathan Lee: Because even though it’s mountain biking to road racing, there’s like. Pacing to a certain degree when you’re talking about day after day.

[00:52:31] Amber Pierce: Yeah. Um, well, I want to just emphasize what Ivy said real quick, because I think that that’s really the key here is identifying what your goals are. So over a stage race, you could be going for a single stage when you could just be opportunistic and going for any stage when, where there’s an opportunity for one, you might be going for the overall general classification.

[00:52:50] Amber Pierce: And depending on what your goal is, it’s going to change your strategy. So, like I said, if you’re somebody who’s going for the overall GC, you’re going to look at the stages and decide, you know, what are the days that are going to give you the most opportunity to gain the most time on your competitors?

[00:53:03] Amber Pierce: And you’re probably going to be conservative on the other days so that you can really hit those days with focus and as much energy as possible. On the other hand, uh, if you’re somebody like me, I was racing in support of somebody on the road, which I know doesn’t apply in mountain bike, but I was also somebody who was opportunistic and looking for a stage one.

[00:53:20] Amber Pierce: So toward the ends of stage races, what was kind of nice is if the GC gets pretty solidified and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be much change, um, I would often get free reign to go for a stage win. And by that point, all the GC leaders who are usually the strongest people in the race are mostly concerned with GC, less concerned about stage wins.

[00:53:38] Amber Pierce: And so as somebody who is lower on the GC, I had a nice long leash to go for a stage win. Um, so th there’s just different tactical considerations here too, beyond looking at what percentage of FTP should I be doing? The other thing to keep in mind is this is a race. So it isn’t just about going by your power numbers.

[00:53:58] Amber Pierce: It’s also about going by your competitors. What are your competitors doing? And then taking that into consideration context of what your particular goals are. Um, so race the race, you know, and take it one day at a time. Um, I think it’s important to remember that on day one, everything you do is going to affect day two day three, day four.

[00:54:18] Amber Pierce: So eat really, really, really, really well. You’re eating, not just for that day, but you’re eating for the next day. And for the last day you want to hydrate really, really, really well. Um, do not want to get behind on that stuff. So just stay on top of it and keep that, you know, top of mind at all times, especially early in the race when it’s easy to get complacent, because you’re not feeling it yet.

[00:54:38] Amber Pierce: Um, and kind of, I don’t know, one of the things I used to do is just I’d pretend that that that day was the only day, you know, keeping in mind that I need to eat really well to prepare for the upcoming stages. And also keeping in mind what the tactical implications were for, uh, stages down the road. But it was just sort of like today, my focus is on what I need to do for this stage.

[00:54:58] Amber Pierce: And then once that stage was over the second you cross the finish line, you’re prepping for the next one, but you don’t need to do that until the race is over. So just focus one day at a time, um, and, and easier said than done, but as much as you can, I think it really.

[00:55:12] Jonathan Lee: I, uh, Nate, get ready to box, breathe a bit on this because the stage that he’s doing, his porcupine rim, uh, where you have had, sorry, box breathing, Nate box with, um, we’re just dragging

[00:55:28] Ivy Audrain: it.

[00:55:28] Ivy Audrain: Nate. We love you so much. It’s all out.

[00:55:32] Amber Pierce: Just throwing up all these memories of crashes for now.

[00:55:38] Jonathan Lee: Join us for you to face Nate, mate. Um, uh, so, uh, what, here’s what I want to bring in though. So because the advice from Ivy and Amber’s fantastic and, and we have a temptation when we’re riding mountain bikes to think it’s totally different than other forms of racing. And it’s really not. Um, in that regard, when you’re talking about pacing time after time, uh, you’ll be able to recover better than you think, particularly if you’ve been following, uh, a training plan with consistency, that’s really going to help you when you show up at a stage race, because you’re like, Hey, I train Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, or I train Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or I’ve stacked days.

[00:56:16] Jonathan Lee: That’s one thing I would recommend if you’re leading into a stage race. Uh, and if you typically train every other day on weeks where you’re not at the end of a loading cycle, so like maybe the first week after a rest week or the second week after rest week, instead of doing one day, Wednesday, Friday, for example, try Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, try to like stack them together just to see how you feel when you do three days in a row.

[00:56:38] Jonathan Lee: Because a lot of it is just familiarizing yourself. You’re going to. On day two, day three, and you’re gonna be like, oh, I am so tired, but you’ll get on the bike and you’ll be able to do more than you think you could if you just laid in bed right now, because judging by that our legs always feel really tired and we aren’t ready to go.

[00:56:55] Jonathan Lee: So do that. Can I talk about this course in particular? And I know that this is kind of just really specific advice for this athlete, not for everybody else, but I will try to bring out some specific takeaways. I had to do the score. I know part of this course. Yeah. Forgot bits and pieces. Yeah. Um, so this course I have actually had to ride like a race because, so this course you climb from the town of Moab and you climb partway up porcupine rim, but you go like on a fire road to get there.

[00:57:26] Jonathan Lee: And then what you do is you ride down and then once it gets really scary, Nate, the trail gets really bad. Um, that’s when they stop. And I think it’s because of some sort of like forest service regulation or something where they can’t have a race because of the training goes in really,

[00:57:39] Nate Pearson: really steep part on like lower porcupine.

[00:57:43] Nate Pearson: Like you go down this flat rock and it is steep during that. I think

[00:57:46] Jonathan Lee: they do. Yeah. I think they do that. They don’t do the part where it gets really narrow single track. And it’s like goat trailing along the edge of a huge cliff into the river. I don’t think they raced at that point. They stopped. So like, yeah.

[00:57:58] Jonathan Lee: Um, yeah, uh, sorry, named, bringing back memories, but the thing is this race, you climb up and it’s either paved or a very broad fire road and you climb quite a lot. However, that climb is gained in rollers. It rolls quite a lot. This is a huge opportunity for you. If you’re looking at around an hour and a half climb time on this, I don’t know if that would be accurate for you or not that I’m just going off what you said in this case, Trevor.

[00:58:23] Jonathan Lee: But if you’re going for an hour and a half, if you could hold 0.9 for that, holy cow, you will have done a fantastic job. I don’t know if you’d be able to hold 0.9 because you referenced the blog post or our discussion. Last time we have a fantastic blog post called how to build a pacing plan for long events on the train road blog, where we break down for different durations, what our rough IIF target should be or intensity factor target.

[00:58:45] Jonathan Lee: And I don’t think you’d be able to hold 0.9 for that hour and a half climb. That would be really hard. And then the other thing that makes it even harder is the rollers. So if you can keep power over the top and down on a roller, you will gain so much time on everybody because they will push hard and too hard on the climb.

[00:59:05] Jonathan Lee: They’ll feel exhausted and they’ll ease up on the descent and you’ll be able to just gain bike length after bike length. If you can rest a little bit lower on that climb, don’t go, don’t go whole hog on the climb, but then keep that gas on over the top and over the, and down the backside of it, it’ll be amazing.

[00:59:23] Jonathan Lee: And that’s how you pacing at like a point. 2.85. We’ll actually be way faster if you can hold that power consistently over the course. So that’s just a big tip for this course, but also for everybody in general, like ride with really good triathletes when they’re doing a T w a workout and they’re going to hold some power and especially because they’re on a TT bike, but they will blow your doors off when it comes to downhills and, and rolling over the top of climbs because they are so disciplined and keeping that power consistent, it really is a fast way to ride.

[00:59:55] Nate Pearson: Yeah. So I agree with John the even more so is on the mountain bike. You’re not going to be, the aerodynamics are not going to be an issue unless there’s like a headwind and that’s going to affect the climb or the descent. So it triathletes, they will, they’ll put up a little bit, teeny bit more power on the climb, but then they’ll really have, um, more power on the descent than road racers, like all the time, because they’re, they’re not in a group and they’re just solo, but mountain biking, if you can get that pretty even split, that would be amazing.

[01:00:21] Nate Pearson: There’s going to be a lot of shifting involved, so be careful or be ready to shift. And then shifting, we’ve talked about so many times as you get to the top, uh, it’s so easy. It’s good to kind of look at your power meter to go off on the power. You don’t even realize it, right? You like you look down and you’re like, oh, I’m 30 Watts less right now, but you do that over and over again.

[01:00:41] Nate Pearson: You’re going to get into seconds. And I was going to say Trevor, um, 0.8, two, I F so close to you, John. And then, but would you also have to do is, I don’t know where you’re coming from. Moabs what’s elevation. That’s pretty hot thousand feet, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So if you are coming from sea level, you’re going to have to Google that conversion chart and do the math and have a lower power target.

[01:01:02] Nate Pearson: And you might want to have your normalized power be this, because it’s going to be really hard to get your average power there. And if you’re trying to chase average power, because you’re going to have some zero watt things and that really lowers it down out of NP there, go for that point too. It’s a stage race.

[01:01:15] Nate Pearson: And, uh, what you are going to experience is stage one, the very beginning, uh, th the, I disagree with Amber. Well, it’s different points of view, myself being 1 9300, many times. I don’t race the race. It’s my own race by myself. It’s like a TT, right? Because there’ll be people around me who are way stronger.

[01:01:35] Nate Pearson: And if I try to go with them, I will not make it. But to Amherst point day 3, 4, 5, there are people who are like, these people are really close to me, then you have a race on, but that very first starting stage. And I think we all know this, but people will. Ham, you know, I don’t know what the word is.

[01:01:53] Nate Pearson: Handout new word of handout. So at one person on this podcast really bad,

[01:02:05] Nate Pearson: I’m going to have, I’m going to have in my background that red like string thing all around. Um, but yeah, they will go so hard and especially to Amber’s 0.1, an hour 30, this first time, you’re not going to be hungry. You’re not going to be thirsty through our rollers. People are going to be blown by you.

[01:02:24] Nate Pearson: You’re this is what you’re going for is you’re going to have that kind of temple. You’re going to be in that V2 area, no V3 at all. So Bentall, Latori threshold three. I said it right. Not at all. It’s not going to happen. You’re going to be in the, to where you can, but not the, yes, this is, this is y’all missed me on the podcast.

[01:02:48] Nate Pearson: So anyways, you want to be there. That’s the RPE part of it. And you can catch yourself, especially at elevation, uh, if you’re not used to it and you’re going up, if you start a four, you might be up to 7,000 feet. That is crazy. Uh, that will be a huge difference. And as you’re climbing up the, okay, with your power dropping, like this is just going to happen.

[01:03:07] Nate Pearson: And it doesn’t mean poor pacing. There’s just less oxygen. And you’re trying to maintain that RPE because you have, how many days is this? By the way,

[01:03:14] Jonathan Lee: I think it’s four days. I could be wrong four days and gets for four

[01:03:16] Nate Pearson: days. Definitely. The pacing on the first day will impact days 2, 3, 4, for sure. Uh, but I liked the, uh, to combine with Amherst.

[01:03:25] Nate Pearson: I, so eating and drinking for that first 90 minutes is going to have huge dividends later on your race. Everyone else is going to be stressed out. They’re going to be, you know, hands on the bars. If, if it’s going to be packed, having a, um, a, like a light, a hydration pack is amazing in order to drink and then keep up on your nutrition.

[01:03:44] Nate Pearson: And when I, I think it’s the use way one, I think it adds a pound over. Yeah. So it’s very light. And what I did is I took two bottles that I would normally carry, weighed those with liquid and the, uh, and the actual bottle. And then I took the same amount of liquid, put it in my pack and it was one pound difference.

[01:04:04] Nate Pearson: And the benefit that you get of not having to reach down there and always being able to drink, especially if it’s packed is a huge, and that one pound you’re going to make up so much time. Cause the eating and drinking what Amber said is amazing. And that was other days, um,

[01:04:18] Jonathan Lee: porcupine rim. Like you’re not going to get time to drink going down.

[01:04:22] Nate Pearson: Yeah. Right. And it darn dangerous. Oh yeah. Those who don’t know. Uh, I have 27 stitches in my face from Iraq on that, uh, course. And that was to that the course isn’t actually that technical. It was, I was following someone in on a descent. We will, he went the wrong way and then he just stopped. Uh, and that’s then I will, and I went and I hit a road rock.

[01:04:46] Nate Pearson: That’s been there for a million years and hit me right in the face and waiting for me. But in general, what I would say to on that is give people a little bit space. Cause tricky things can come up on that. And so don’t be, especially if you’re your intermediate mountain biking, 1 9300 pounds, like give some people some space and, but look ahead too and see what lines they take.

[01:05:05] Nate Pearson: And if you like it, uh, cause it, what will happen is you go over these, there are these big rock slab sections and it’s, I don’t know where the line is. There’s no like, uh, there’s no tire marks for the line. It’s

[01:05:18] Jonathan Lee: really the trail, right? It’s like you could fit multiple Jeep side-by-side in some cases going down this trail.

[01:05:24] Jonathan Lee: So it’s kind of like choose your own adventure. Uh it’s uh, this is the downhill part. So it’s, you know, recon, if you’re able to is very important in my opinion, on that trail,

[01:05:34] Nate Pearson: it, that trail is so long too, that even with recon, I don’t know if I would be able to remember it, Keegan might be able to, but this is where if you give people room and you see somebody and they, and they have their, let me say this, these sections, there’s probably 10 different lines that you could take.

[01:05:51] Nate Pearson: Right? There’s multiple ones. Someone has a good one or you’re good at picking the lines, do that. I would, if John was ahead of me, that’d be great to follow him. I’m not fast enough. But if someone gets in trouble, don’t be really close. Cause they could do a line with a big drop and they could stop it or something like that.

[01:06:06] Nate Pearson: Uh, yeah. So point a two. That’s what I do. And look at the elevation side note. I thought of a cool marketing. Okay. Okay. Ready? Let’s do it. Yeah. Amber is for you. Well, first, um, I’m glad I said, sorry, I’m going back to the, um, to the Nirvana thing. There’s another product called Apollo that I got that like taps your leg.

[01:06:29] Nate Pearson: It’s like taps your like your wrist. I got no benefit from it. Um, but I just know somebody, I think mentioned it or I, I remembered it. Um, so that’s another one. This is what happened. Yeah, no, this is the idea. Yes. Okay. So what if, so we all have race anxiety, right? Uh, before race, and we know that calming and like box breathing could help and having somebody guide you through it would be awesome.

[01:06:52] Nate Pearson: Who here has the most calming voice that is like soothing. And we all have confidence in her is that we have Amber walk us through like a 10 box breathing. I’m serious, a YouTube video for your race.

[01:07:07] Jonathan Lee: I was

[01:07:08] Amber Pierce: you’re like, who has the calming voice? I was like, oh yeah, Chad would be amazing at this.

[01:07:15] Amber Pierce: I totally

[01:07:15] Ivy Audrain: thought I was like, we got to have Amber or Chad or Nate or someone do like a medic guided breathing meditation video. Then I was like, no, that’s, that would be embarrassing.

[01:07:26] Nate Pearson: Somebody we should do both Chad and Amber. And just like, it would be, it takes like a two minute video and I’d like to put an Instagram Tik, TOK and YouTube.

[01:07:34] Nate Pearson: We just bring it up straight to the point we rock you through it. You do it 15 minutes before. Really helps calm you. Uh, I can see everything some affirmations.

[01:07:43] Amber Pierce: You definitely need to perform well,

[01:07:46] Nate Pearson: exactly. Like your trust, your body. That’s on there. I would love,

[01:07:53] Jonathan Lee: yeah, I wouldn’t go ham

[01:07:57] Nate Pearson: my video to do my video once April 1st, tomorrow my affirmations, we should

[01:08:06] Jonathan Lee: have an alternative Nate version for sure. Yeah.

[01:08:11] Nate Pearson: I just like math. Like you’re going to be able to do it with all this stuff, but I mean seriously before bed and stuff like that. That’s your power and elevation

[01:08:25] Amber Pierce: reading the conversion charts.

[01:08:30] Nate Pearson: Oh God, I kind of want to make that happen too, but I don’t know. Put it in the chat. What did you actually listen to this? I think it would be amazing for all races, even workout. Somebody mentioned here having workout anxiety. That’s totally a real thing. We have workout anxiety, so it’s not just in races and this is the no one’s going to see it, but can I perform to this?

[01:08:49] Nate Pearson: Am I good enough for this adapt to training? Uh, helps with that a lot, but it would just be great to do that and darn it

[01:08:59] Jonathan Lee: ready to just put a poll into the live chat for this chat. You can, you can go. I know what

Amber

[01:09:05] Nate Pearson: is going to say.

[01:09:06] Amber Pierce: Here’s here’s your pre ramped up. Push the use FTP detection button,

[01:09:14] Jonathan Lee: every girl, I like anxiety gone.

[01:09:17] Nate Pearson: Can I, can I talk about some product stuff that she brought it up because the product is

[01:09:21] Jonathan Lee: yeah, actually, cause we can, uh, can I just say one more thing on the, on this, this course? Um, so first of all, it’s a three-day race, not a four day race. I apologize. Um, also, uh, really good folks that run that race, uh, the same ones that do single track six, which is pretty cool.

[01:09:34] Jonathan Lee: Um, but, uh, the last thing I want to say is that this day that you have on this course, so, so there’s a lot of technical trail where it’s, you’ll be stuck behind people and it’s kind of single tracky throughout this race, but they always endeavor to give you like fire roads and different spots to be able to pass and everything else.

[01:09:51] Jonathan Lee: So just don’t, don’t stress too much about like, I really need to get in a really strong first day and I need to, don’t worry about that. Like Nate said, people are going to go out way too hard on day one, stay within yourself and ride stage one. As if you’re going to have a strong stage three, Trevor, you’re still going to go really hard.

[01:10:09] Jonathan Lee: I know that you’re going to do that. I know that you’re not going to go easy because of the stage three. So just keep this in mind, be like, I want to have a strong stage three when you’re riding stage one. Um, keep your power on pedal as much as you can on that climb on the downhill, do not worry about pedaling.

[01:10:26] Jonathan Lee: Just find those safe and smooth lines and then it’ll work. Uh, good luck. It’s exciting stuff. I have.

[01:10:32] Nate Pearson: I w I’m more just, I can’t stop. Go. Let’s go to what Amber said to again, is that, uh, there’s two different ways, especially when you’re mid pack. Cause I am mid pack, especially on these types of races and sometimes back quarter.

[01:10:46] Nate Pearson: Uh, if you, so Amber said, I go a little bit easier, so I could do stage winds later, right? Where I would not have that happen, but you go a little bit easier. You get your competition. You get to smoke them later, right? The whole rest of the race, you get to pass these people, you get, you get put in a corral that is, that is better.

[01:11:04] Nate Pearson: And not like smoke them, smoke them. Like you’re not really going slow. Um, but the ability to not drop in fitness makes your confidence for that race. Like the other days. I mean, I’m a, I don’t know if you guys know this, but I’m pretty competitive. And on like those other days, just not being the person who gets dropped in all the climbs, because you fueled improperly, you went too hard, having the opposite.

[01:11:28] Nate Pearson: It’s pretty fun, uh, to do that. So, and then you get a air quote, stage winning is the people that you raced against? No, our Sears did this to me in opposite. I beat them on the first day. The other days he beat me from a MSRP, no nine MSRP and her feet kind of surfy,

[01:11:44] Jonathan Lee: no. And Sparky. I’m sure they’re listening.

[01:11:46] Jonathan Lee: And I bet they’re racing Moab rocks and they could win their divisions, their training road users and just awesome people. Yeah. Okay.

[01:11:53] Nate Pearson: The other thing I did not know we could do polls and chat. I know I could do a poll at any time power.

[01:11:59] Jonathan Lee: Your anatomy

[01:12:01] Nate Pearson: is amazing. So right now it is 81% of the people said they would use a pre-race calming video or audio file.

[01:12:08] Nate Pearson: So that’s 32 volts only. Uh, but still that is if you’re

[01:12:13] Jonathan Lee: watching there’s many more of you watching vote. Yeah. Um, then again, maybe they’re watching, maybe they’re just listening and they’re doing like emails or spreadsheets at their desk or something. So, um, I can understand hard workout right now. True story Nate, you said you wanted to let’s let’s do, I’m going to call this, uh, Nate’s intermission because I have a number of things that I want to ask you, but you said that you also want to talk on some product stuff.

[01:12:38] Jonathan Lee: Go ahead.

[01:12:39] Nate Pearson: Yeah. Um, so my, my thought right now is to be way more open on product roadmap, and then just trust people that it’s the things, these things take time and we’ll get feedback from you. And, and, uh, these aren’t things that years down the line they’re like months change two things change too. Yep.

[01:12:56] Nate Pearson: So this is the stuff we’re actively working on. So running the, the we’re going to have the workouts come in, be saved to workouts or to the plan workout have like the, the ride details page that we have Babbitt for running, and then have PRS that is, we’ve done probably like 70% of that. And the team of it’s a big team working on it.

[01:13:16] Nate Pearson: Have 10 engineers still going forward on that. No resource has changed from that. They’re still going forward. And team is doing the AI FTP detection, which is dope. Um, we have just a little bit more visioning to get that to the production, but that’s really close. And that is where instead of taking a ramp test, you push a button and it tells your FTP and we’ve had so many amazing.

[01:13:38] Nate Pearson: I know, uh, We we’ve actually had the ML team has done other releases to get that even more like precise inside of it. But look at the forum. We’ve had a lot of people, a great success for it so much so that in the future, it’s going to be the default option. That’s how confident we are in it. That it is better than taking the ramp test.

[01:13:58] Nate Pearson: And especially if you under test or over test, because this is like, uh, bill, uh, trainer on everybody, it’ll get you to like an actual better result than if you took it yourself. Uh, yeah,

[01:14:11] Jonathan Lee: John. Yeah. I want to clarify one thing, Nate, and I’m sorry, track CAC from short track last night. I know people don’t like all the throat clearing.

[01:14:18] Jonathan Lee: Thanks Amber, for making me feel like not the only one who got this. Got it. That’s your back. Thanks Nate. Yeah. Um, if you’re listening to this, you probably cough too, so don’t hate us. Um, okay. Uh, but Nate, you said it’s the default option and I want to just be clear that Nate’s a default option or it will be, but it is not the only option.

[01:14:36] Jonathan Lee: You’ll still have the option to take the test. This is just going to be the default option. Yeah.

[01:14:41] Nate Pearson: This part on that is a little bit farther out, but the idea is that for plan builder, uh, basically the ramp test will no longer be in the plans by default. You can have an option to put them on there, but what we’ll do is you’ll just work through your progressions and then we’ll tell you when your FTP should be higher, this is just like a coach would do.

[01:14:59] Nate Pearson: Uh, so it doesn’t have to be at a set interval and some people. So in the background we’ll constantly be checking. And when we think that you should have a higher FTP will tell you. This is what I want, right. That you don’t have test anxiety. You don’t, you’re not looking forward to it. There’s no judgment day.

[01:15:16] Nate Pearson: All you gotta do is focus on that next workout to, uh, can I, you know, am I getting better on that? The second thing is the, uh, we call it workout levels, V2, but basically it is the scoring outside rides. And what are those points? Like how much threshold, how much aerobic, uh, and to be able to those outside rides, you do an hour climb and then a four hour endurance ride.

[01:15:39] Nate Pearson: You should get points for both. The state of that is

[01:15:42] Jonathan Lee: so cool, like totally unprecedented and super neat.

[01:15:46] Nate Pearson: We are tuning it and validating it. So there is, uh, it’s, it’s all built on the, the scoring of it. But we have to do now is go back through our history and say, if you score this, can you then do the workouts afterwards and make sure that we like, uh, we think it’s good, but we have to validate it, right?

[01:16:03] Nate Pearson: There’s two different sections to that. And we want to validate over a lot of data. The other part that we need to do with this is the red light green light project, which is like things

[01:16:14] Jonathan Lee: together. I’m not sure if you’re talked about this or we have,

[01:16:18] Nate Pearson: uh, these two things together, the detection, the, the outside scoring and red light green light we’re like Greenlight is intro week changing.

[01:16:27] Nate Pearson: Like if you had a, uh, based on your recent history, let’s say you did a hard ride on. Monday we’ll Tuesdays VO, two max. It might not supposed to be to VO two max. Right now we kind of tell the athlete, uh, to if they could do an achievable workout, they could take a rest day and skip it. And we kind of put the on that decision point on the athlete through guidance, we’re going to then make that decision for you and adaptive training could tell you, this is a rest day.

[01:16:54] Nate Pearson: This is the day to watch ambers box reading video, just hanging out, or, um, this is maybe a little bit easier day. And we do that with workout levels, be to the outside ones, because you will actually progress a little bit faster inside of those levels. And we don’t want to release that without this other part, because we don’t want to, uh, we don’t want you to score at a quicker rate than, than you should.

[01:17:16] Nate Pearson: So we’re gonna make sure that we don’t give you too much extra work, which could happen in this case, if, depending on the amount of outside rides you’re doing. So these things together, uh, Amber stuff is pretty close to the first one and then work out levels, uh, in working those V2, like I said, has to be validated, but basically that’s what we’re working on.

[01:17:36] Nate Pearson: Uh, and then the auto detection is pushed out a little bit farther after those two things, because we want the outs, the workout levels V2, the outscoring outside rides in the, uh, red light green light, which is the intra, uh, week programming out before the auto detect, until we get the auto detect out, you can just push the button.

[01:17:55] Nate Pearson: Like Amber said, that’s going to be in the product hopefully. Um, relatively soon, it’s an early access now. So if you go on the website and click on. What does it count information or your profile? There’s little sectional emphasis, early access. You can turn it on and to do that, then if you have a ramp test scheduled in the app, there’ll be a button there on your career, uh, for that day to detect your FTP.

[01:18:17] Nate Pearson: We also have a 14 day, uh, window on this, where we want you to, uh, what was happening is people were looking at every single day and the way the machine learning works is like, it’s got a little bit of like a wiggle in and as it goes up and it might say, you might do a workout. And then the next day it does like one watt lower.

[01:18:37] Nate Pearson: And the next day it’s one lot higher. And what people were doing is they were trying to reverse engineer saying like, oh, I did this workout. This then made me less fit, which is not true because one, your FTP doesn’t change that fast. And the, the way that the ML works, uh, is it has to, you know, it looks over time and stuff.

[01:18:54] Nate Pearson: So by having 14 days as a gate, we can truly see if there was enough change in there that you should actually could change your FTP. But honestly, people don’t change your FTP every 14 days, like work through the progressions. Uh, that’s not recommended, uh, it might feel good to do it, but you don’t need to do it.

[01:19:12] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Not at all. Uh, cool. Nate, I have some questions for you, uh, topics that we’ve recently covered, and I want to hear your thoughts on, first of all, Cape epic, just having. What’s that? Yeah. What’s that he says Sophia. She did. So I know. And she raised it like a pro, like, and I know she’s a pro, but what I mean by that is that she raced it like a veteran Cape epic racer that like done it many times.

[01:19:37] Jonathan Lee: Like they pick their stages, they didn’t have the strongest prologue, but they pick their stages and they like place their efforts. So strategically then they defended really well. Like it was, um, after watching like Cape epic in the past and everything else, I, this, this looked more in control and well-managed like that, that lead, then I can think of another win that I’ve seen.

[01:19:59] Jonathan Lee: Like it was really just so impressive. Super cool. Commanding. Yeah.

[01:20:05] Nate Pearson: Yeah. It was. I told y’all. I told you, so she’s super fast, right? She’s super. I mean, if, uh, sometimes on the podcast we say that people are super fast and you don’t know, she one Cape epic. Okay. Like that is super fast. And, uh, yeah. Total confidence in her.

[01:20:24] Nate Pearson: She’s so gritty too. Like to see her do Cape epic last year. And for those who don’t know, she pushed me through the prologue and then I crashed halfway through stage one. She was my partner last year, and then she wrote solo. Uh, but like it is, she went so deep and like her, what she’s really good at is it seemed like her spirits never went down.

[01:20:44] Nate Pearson: It could be rainy cold. Like, you know, she lost me as a partner, but she was always a positive mind. And that combined with the tech in the skill, like positive mindset like that, that is gritty, right? Uh, some people grit through and they’re like angry the whole time, but next level is to have that. Like, I don’t, I’m not shooting quarters all through my body the whole time.

[01:21:06] Nate Pearson: I’m relaxed and trying hard, which is, I know you, John, you saw her the rest of the race. Uh, what was her spirits like

[01:21:13] Jonathan Lee: last year? Just, you know, uh, yeah. She’s she’s even keeled. She never gets too high. Never gets too low. You know what I mean? Like she just she’s she’s well-managed it’s uh, she’s she’s just super impressive.

[01:21:28] Jonathan Lee: Yeah, I feel the same way. I feel the same way. Yeah. She did a great job. Keegan and Maxine were another team. Um, Keegan had like, uh, I think they both were like really gung ho going into it. And then I think, I know he can basically add to heatstroke, like after the prologue, he was laying down in bed that night with like, just after the race, like pure goosebumps, freezing cold shivering.

[01:21:56] Jonathan Lee: And it was like over a hundred degrees, like really hot. Uh, of course he wouldn’t mentioned that that’s me mentioning this. Um, and then, but he just like carried on and then I think Maxime training for XCO. He like once they got to like day two beyond that, it really started to break him down, but they had an absolute blast.

[01:22:14] Jonathan Lee: They got a podium on the last stage two, uh, kudos to them. Uh, it’d be awesome to see like if Maxine focused on marathon, which I don’t know Maxine’s goals, you know, if he’s still going to do XCO XEM whatever. But I bet if he focused on marathon, they could be toward the front. Um, because say they were around top 10.

[01:22:32] Jonathan Lee: Uh, they were top five overall for awhile and then top 10. So, but congrats to everybody that did it. Uh, anybody listened to this that did it, anybody that finishes Quebec. Is incredible like that, that is, and that’s coming even from, from Kegan’s mouth as well, a guy that typically nothing is hard for, right?

[01:22:51] Jonathan Lee: Like nothing’s hard for him. Yeah. He was like, I don’t know how people do this. He’s like they were out there for eight hours today. Like, I don’t know how they do it. Like the people that it’s just, it’s such a cool race and kudos to that event. Such good coverage. Super cool.

[01:23:06] Nate Pearson: I have a couple more things to say about AfPP based on the chat, please.

[01:23:10] Nate Pearson: One someone said, are you all interested in feedback on how AMTP compared to an FTP test later that day? I, how close was it? Should we submit that info? So one, yes, we do know that info, but we actually look at is what you do in training afterwards. Cause that is the most important part is what you do in training afterwards.

[01:23:28] Nate Pearson: Um, uh, and again, AI, FTP detection is amazing when it’s paired with adaptive training. So what we set you at, and the next workout you do is very specific to the workout level we put you at and you might say, oh, but at, I did this FTP. So I should be able to do this like level 8, 9, 10 threshold workout.

[01:23:51] Nate Pearson: We’re not trying to start you in there at your new FTP. So I’ve seen some people say that is, oh, I can’t do a level nine workout this FTP, like, yeah, we’re not prescribing a level nine at this FTP. We could downgrade your FTP. Uh, and tell you what you would do to level nine or 10. Cause that’s like math that we have in the backend, but we don’t specifically tell you to do that.

[01:24:09] Nate Pearson: So if you hear people say that, um, don’t worry about it. It’s the combination of the two, the other one that I love hearing, and we’ve seen this inside is when someone goes, it’s absolutely wrong. It’s not that high. You’re no way possible. Ivy’s like, yes, you’ve seen this like a few days later. They’re like, okay.

[01:24:27] Nate Pearson: So it was right. Like, I didn’t know, I could go this hard and it really wasn’t that hard. It felt just right. And there RPE was, was right. So again, we look at what you can do afterwards, but also your RPE response. So there is a, uh, a level of RP that we want you add. We don’t want the threshold to be at easy.

[01:24:43] Nate Pearson: Uh, that’s like a one out of five. We don’t want the sweet spot to be like an all out effort either. So that’s also helped us give data to tune the information. So the best thing that you can do is train afterwards and answer the RP questions. And, uh, that then in mass gives us all the data that we need.

[01:25:02] Nate Pearson: Um, cause there’s sometimes one-offs to where you could be sick. Right? And you, you do a re you, it tells you something, you can’t do the next workout. This is not working, but if we look at a mass, there are some outliers, which we don’t know, it could be anxiety, you know, so many things could be an issue, but looking at the data in math that puts that’s what helps us tune it up and do it.

[01:25:27] Nate Pearson: So,

[01:25:27] Jonathan Lee: yeah, AIF. So he’s detection levels, the progression levels work hand in hand to give you the best training. It’s good stuff, Nate. Uh warm-ups we talked about warmups quite a lot, and this is something that we have known for quite some time. However, we haven’t shared it, but we figured we might as well spill the beans.

[01:25:45] Jonathan Lee: Uh, I don’t think that it would make people too upset. Uh, Maxine, I think that you, so you have, uh, Maxine’s just gonna run through a handful of the photos. While we talk about this, we talked about warmups and we talked about all the different ways you can warm up. And we talked about the fact that train road has different warmups, that you can use, how you can use a workout for that.

[01:26:03] Jonathan Lee: You can even create a custom workout to do it. And the cool part is that train road can be like a measured thing, but you have some pictures that we wanted to share with everybody, and you can see different athletes, uh, notable ones right now that have used it. And you have images of it.

[01:26:18] Nate Pearson: Yeah. So what, what, what happens here?

[01:26:20] Nate Pearson: So we don’t sponsor any pro athletes, right? Uh, well, we actually did Keegan for awhile and Sonia Looney for awhile, but none of this top level, but when you can see what we get is, um, world, some world champs people at before world champs at the highest level of the sport using trainer road, Uh, in there, like around their tent and stuff, and people like take pictures of them using it, and then they all send it to us on Instagram.

[01:26:47] Nate Pearson: And some of these people are sponsored by competitors, which just for us feels, uh, that’s the, that’s the best, right? When you’re sponsored by one we’ll sponsor, but your world championships DTD, they like, they put the black tape over the logos and they’re like, Nope, we’re using another brand. Uh, so John, you want to say the people like this is just some of them, the ones we can remember to find pictures.

[01:27:08] Nate Pearson: Yeah.

[01:27:08] Jonathan Lee: But we know there are more out there. Um, but Matthew Vanderpoel, he’s warming up at multiple different world championship races that you can see that, uh, yeah, I wonder. Right. Um, uh, I think this might be a bold claim, but in 10 years we’ll call him the best cyclist ever. Uh, that’s my, that’s my anticipation there.

[01:27:28] Jonathan Lee: So it, Matthew Vanderpoel Sam gaze also using it, uh, Sonic cons using it before, uh, world champs as well. And Ronco I I’ve ruined your name. I apologize so much because when I hear German say it’s like, I don’t, I don’t know. So anyways, uh, but, uh, these are all athletes that are using trainer road to warm up before their events.

[01:27:49] Jonathan Lee: There are more that use it. And it’s funny because like you said, Nate, we don’t sponsor pro athletes. Thanks Maxine for sharing the images. Um, we don’t sponsor pro athletes. We know pro athletes use training. But we also are very, uh, we have like a no snooping policy. Like it’s not like Nate and Amber and Ivy.

[01:28:07] Jonathan Lee: And I look around and spend all day looking at people’s data. That would not be, uh, that would not be unethical. Yeah, exactly. It would be unethical. So we don’t do that. Um, and we also don’t want to,

[01:28:19] Nate Pearson: John I’m interrupt you, but especially then what if we snooped and then set it that’s even more unethical about it.

[01:28:25] Nate Pearson: But when these people post, like they’re in public and people post on Instagram, sometimes even their team posted on Instagram. Uh, we should just start saying it when it happens.

[01:28:34] Jonathan Lee: So in short, if you’re using trainer road, you’re in great company, the company, world champions, um, and it’s pretty darn cool. Uh, there’s a whole, there’s a reason why they use it.

[01:28:43] Jonathan Lee: It’s darn good. It’s pretty

[01:28:45] Nate Pearson: exciting. So I feel like some people might get a call and say you can’t more after this. Yeah. But two, it does anyways.

[01:28:54] Jonathan Lee: You see cloaks put over like a device, like a laptop or an iPad in front of a person when they’re warming up. You’ll know why. So, um, okay. The other thing I want to talk about is the future host challenges.

[01:29:06] Jonathan Lee: So different events that we could do, we’ve done a 40 K T T challenge, Nate, man, that one didn’t go well for you. Gosh, darn. Well, a lot of them haven’t gone. Well, Cape epic. Didn’t go well, single track six. Didn’t go well, um, We’ve had a lot of them. Um, but single track six didn’t go well for anybody. Let’s be clear on that one.

[01:29:26] Jonathan Lee: So, but we’ve done a lot of different ones,

[01:29:28] Nate Pearson: but those who don’t know, day one, I broke my frame somehow on single track six, it was a small break, but it was also very scary for me. So I was happy that abrupt.

[01:29:37] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Yeah. So we have a lot of events that we want to do with this crew. Nate, you’re going to be on the podcast more regularly.

[01:29:42] Jonathan Lee: Now we might even get Chad back weekly, which is exciting. Um,

[01:29:47] Nate Pearson: uh, Chad and I back weekly next week, I do I’m traveling for something, so I might not be on, but after that, as much as possible, Chad and I on as much as possible, it’s

[01:29:57] Jonathan Lee: fantastic. Um,

[01:29:58] Ivy Audrain: and people can stop bothering

[01:30:00] Jonathan Lee: me about it.

[01:30:03] Nate Pearson: We should just allow to drink some days.

[01:30:07] Jonathan Lee: Those are days and we’ll have bad internet. I don’t know what happened, somehow. It all cut out. Um, but, uh, okay. So I want to run through some lists on some events that we could do. So, uh, there’s, pay dirt that one’s coming up real soon, but I think registration is already full, but I’m going to do that one.

[01:30:23] Jonathan Lee: So if you’re doing that one, I’m looking forward to seeing you there. There’s also Tahoe trail 100. Ivy, you and I are talking about this. We want to do the co the co-ed duo, where we do a relay cause it’s two laps. So it’s yeah, it’s going to be 32 miles. Each lap. Nate has done the a hundred or the a hundred K I’ve done the a hundred K before we’ve talked about it on the podcast.

[01:30:46] Jonathan Lee: Um, but I think we should do the co-ed duo. Uh, what Y what bike would you ride for that by the way? Because you always red cross typically. Yeah.

[01:30:54] Amber Pierce: I think,

[01:30:55] Ivy Audrain: uh, learning about the course, um, I’m gonna ride my hardtail 29 or as a dropper. And they’re at like two point twos or 2.3 or something.

[01:31:07] Nate Pearson: Yeah. That was perfect for that course.

[01:31:08] Jonathan Lee: Yeah, for sure. Non-technical course. So Ivy and I are going to do that one. That’s coming up this year. That’s going to be fun,

[01:31:15] Nate Pearson: but there’s more drama on this, you know, who usually wins that the co-ed

[01:31:20] Jonathan Lee: Levi

[01:31:22] Nate Pearson: and his girlfriend or his partner? Yeah. Yeah. So that is a there’s

[01:31:28] Jonathan Lee: last year. Different story. Lots of fast team showed up, so, and Levi didn’t do it.

[01:31:33] Jonathan Lee: So there’ll be fun. I’m looking forward to it. I can do first lap or second lap. Hy-Vee

[01:31:39] Ivy Audrain: I’m going to do a second lab so I can like drink a hundred coffees and just chill out while you’re out there in the cold of the morning.

[01:31:47] Nate Pearson: I be, how aggressive are you in a mountain bike race? Um,

[01:31:54] Ivy Audrain: Not very good at man.

[01:31:55] Ivy Audrain: I’m going to try real hard. Uh,

[01:31:58] Jonathan Lee: you’re selling yourself short here. Like you got sharp elbows. You ride with your elbows out. You don’t take stuff. What’s your

[01:32:06] Nate Pearson: walk kg, IB. Oh, I’m over four now. Dope. Uh, yeah. So in, uh, in, I’m sure you’re much more aggressive than most people, but what I’m thinking of is relative to John, John’s pretty aggressive.

[01:32:22] Nate Pearson: Like John doesn’t take anything, but this also starts with a really long crop climb and I’m talking to strategy for two lap race. So in a two lap race, uh, especially with this one, there’s a long climb. And then there’s a single track set, single track section. And many times you can get stuck behind people who went really hard on the climb and then they’re gassed and you’re stuck behind them in single tracking and be hard to pass.

[01:32:42] Nate Pearson: Um, the nice part is because John is, is so fit. There’ll be less people. And John, you’re closer to five Watts right? At sea level.

[01:32:50] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Level I’d be

[01:32:52] Nate Pearson: over five. Okay. So having that is, there’ll be less people at the front of the race, therefore, less chance to get stuck behind people. But then on the second lap, you’re almost by yourself.

[01:33:03] Nate Pearson: Like, there’ll be, there’ll be people here or there and John will go so fast either. You’ll be able to, uh, have a lot of just clear road and just descend open without being stuck behind people. That’s another one too, is you could be like your, what kg would be someone in mind. You could be stuck behind me on a set.

[01:33:19] Nate Pearson: Your skills are obviously way higher than mine. Cool. Yep. I, yeah, exactly. So this strategy of having John go, go first with being a little higher walk Kedzie, but also John is extremely aggressive passing people on. He’s still John, when I say aggressive, he’s still safe on it, but John will like go through the bushes and stuff where I wouldn’t go through the bushes or not through bushes.

[01:33:40] Nate Pearson: You know what I mean, John, and just takes every advantage possible where I wait till like the single track ends. Uh, so you can become a little bit faster.

[01:33:49] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Oh, it’s going to be a fun one. I really want to do one where actually we S we are on the same team, Ivy and it’s me and Amber and you and Chad, how close would that race be?

[01:33:59] Jonathan Lee: I have no clue how to score that one.

[01:34:02] Nate Pearson: I actually, you and Amber probably. And that’s not cause Ivy that’s cause of Chad,

[01:34:08] Jonathan Lee: Chad’s not here. We can flame them all we want. Right? Yeah.

[01:34:15] Jonathan Lee: Okay. Other events, uh, if anybody’s interested in these, let me know. So, uh, rooted Vermont, I would like to do that one. That’s your home? That’s like your home race kind of, right?

[01:34:27] Amber Pierce: Yeah. I’ll be doing the women’s clinic in June as well as the event.

[01:34:31] Jonathan Lee: Sweet. And that’s hosted by the Kings, uh, friends of the podcast.

[01:34:35] Jonathan Lee: Great people. Um, awesome. Yes. Yes. Uh, Chad said he was interested in triple bypass, which is like a three big climb race in Colorado. Fondo sort of a thing. So we could do that one there’s peaks challenge. Nate, you talked about that one in Australia, but that one looks super hard. Um, that will be a long travel, but pretty cool.

[01:34:57] Jonathan Lee: We have a lot of listeners and a lot of athletes in Australia. Be cool to see them. So

[01:35:01] Nate Pearson: that’d be super fun. It’s like a three it’s like a nine, sorry, not three, nine hour day.

[01:35:06] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Big day, big day. Really big.

[01:35:09] Nate Pearson: John would be great to see you in the front group. I don’t think you’re not strong enough to win it.

[01:35:13] Nate Pearson: No offense. Oh, like there’s crazy, crazy. Like continental pros. They’re doing it, but that would be still fun to see you race that hard.

[01:35:21] Jonathan Lee: You know, since, um, since I’ve been doing tri training, sorry everybody, uh, cover your, your cyclists. But my body composition is shifting like really favorably. Um, it’s really changing a lot.

[01:35:32] Jonathan Lee: So I think that, and it’s strange, like my fitness on the bike, I’m doing less on the bike, but I am matching PRS with seasoned match and matching PRS from. Um, which is pretty cool, but I’m lighter than I was. So I’m actually getting chest and shoulders and stuff. It’s like weird. I wasn’t going to be

[01:35:49] Ivy Audrain: weird, but I was like, damn John, like, is he doing like push ups?

[01:35:52] Ivy Audrain: What’s the deal

[01:35:55] Jonathan Lee: swimming, man. It turns out when you’re fighting for your life hard

[01:36:02] Nate Pearson: muscles. Yeah. Don also has a history of a motorcross where he did have a really strong upper body. So it’s easier to, for him to get back to that. And his body just will, you know, more than if he was never

[01:36:12] Jonathan Lee: there. Yeah, exactly.

[01:36:14] Jonathan Lee: And it’s just like, I’m shedding, I’m shedding fat basically. Um, I can tell from, I’m not stepping on a scale because I’ve just in fact we’re we’re we like put our scale away at our house. Uh, it wasn’t a healthy thing, so, but I’m just from the pinch test from the comfort test, everything else, shedding body fat from it.

[01:36:31] Jonathan Lee: So, um, anyways, we have other ones, uh there’s um, there’s Unbound. Does anybody want to do on Unbound? No. For everybody listening to this, I don’t want to discourage you if you’re doing Unbound, but I personally know, Hey yeah, yeah, no, zero, zero desire on my end to do that one. I think it’s a super admirable thing to take on and a huge challenge and like, uh, yeah, massive respect, but it’s not personally interesting.

[01:36:57] Jonathan Lee: High cascades, 100. It’s like a mountain bike marathon race in Oregon in bend area. I can be a good one, Swiss, epic, please. I cannot wait to do that someday. That would be amazing. Um, same company as Cape epic. I hear the climbs are even steeper though. So I better be real light for that one. Uh, I do want to go back to single track six.

[01:37:17] Jonathan Lee: I’m registered for it this year, but we’ll have a baby that will be like three weeks old by the time that race is happening. So definitely not doing it. Um, so organizers, I need to contact you Mellon to see if I can defer. Um, we could do another 40 KTT and we could go to that New Mexico location. That’s supposed to be the fastest course.

[01:37:34] Jonathan Lee: Amber grimacing, not looking for dual 40 K

[01:37:39] Amber Pierce: no, no, that’s a, that’s not high on my list.

[01:37:42] Jonathan Lee: It’s super high on Chad. Chad, Chad really wants to do it. Nate, would you cause a lot of these things too, Nate, you’re focusing on the company right now. Also you aren’t eager to go out and do a dangerous mountain biking event or anything like that anymore.

[01:37:53] Jonathan Lee: Um, would you be interested in a 40 K TT?

[01:37:57] Nate Pearson: That’s the word is I have like some goals right now with Trina road that I want to, like everything I said, I’m really wanting to focus on getting those out, but yes, I would do a TT again, especially with some of what brand bike is, but there’s some brand bike out there I’m like, Ooh, that would actually fit me really well to make it more comfortable.

[01:38:14] Nate Pearson: But yes, I would definitely do a 40 K TT and have a pro mechanic tighten everything, check everything and go on my bike. Nope. It’s

[01:38:24] Jonathan Lee: like learning from the past. Yeah. Great idea

[01:38:28] Amber Pierce: for host host challenge.

[01:38:29] Jonathan Lee: What’s that,

[01:38:30] Amber Pierce: uh,

[01:38:31] Ivy Audrain: or something we could do at the company retreat relays, running

[01:38:35] Amber Pierce: relays. I was going to say beer miles,

[01:38:37] Jonathan Lee: but not

[01:38:38] Nate Pearson: everyone’s drinks dangerous.

[01:38:41] Jonathan Lee: I, yeah, it was me and Brandon and I drink bubbly water because everybody said it’s not the, it’s not the alcohol, it’s the carbonation. And that’d be worse than a beer while I did throw up quite a lot. I do not think that, uh, it is easier. I just don’t know how it would be. So yeah. Um, uh, yeah, I think everyone through all of it.

[01:39:03] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Yes, everyone did. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but that’s the only time I think I’ve beaten Brandon in that I will ever be Brandon into running things. So I’m gonna. And I will say that, um, that’s the only one that I would

[01:39:13] Ivy Audrain: enjoy training for, of all of these lists of things.

[01:39:17] Nate Pearson: I, I, um, I want to say the, the, um, Ivy just kind of let the beans out of the bag, but I’m going to say what we do for the company retreats, because it’s unique.

[01:39:26] Nate Pearson: And I think other people companies should do it. So we are a remote company. Many of us have never met before, right. Uh, especially during COVID. And what remote companies should do is they have everybody fly into their headquarters and they do dinners and like a rope course. And like some classes we’ve actually done that, where we do real courses and learning flaming and Reno.

[01:39:46] Nate Pearson: What we learned is like we have, you know, Europe, people, uh, south Africans, we have a lot of east coast people. Reno is not a hub city. So you have to fly in, um, when you fly in you, uh, there’s always another one, right? And it’s expensive to fly into Reno. And then the hotels in Reno are also not cheap. So if you look at the amount of money, you get a bunch of people to come in and Reno, and Reno’s good for outdoor stuff, but as like a TA, who’s nice too, but tells you more expensive.

[01:40:17] Nate Pearson: It is not the most fun. Um, location to bring people to. So instead what we do are called blind retreats. So we spend the same amount of money, but instead of everyone coming to Reno to meet what they do is they show up with their passport and they don’t know where they’re going. And then we have a series of adventures planned for these people, uh, to get people to, um, the whole idea is that after this you’re gonna feel closer to your coworkers and be able to have real radical candor conversations that maybe sit in, you know, I was working at fortune 500.

[01:40:48] Nate Pearson: You never get to sit in a, in a cubicle next to each other. So places we’ve gone before our, um, went to a part of ARDA awhile ago. And then we went to Lisbon. So Lisbon is a good example, very cheap flights to it. And then the hotels were cheap. The food was cheap. It was actually less expensive than flying people to Reno.

[01:41:07] Nate Pearson: Again, I don’t know why more companies don’t do this, especially if their headquarters are in San Francisco. Hotels could be like $400 a night. And Lisbon is like 60 bucks, uh, right there. You’re saving so much money. Uh, and it’s super fun. Like John you’re the only one here Amber was right before Amber started.

[01:41:23] Nate Pearson: And she, she had, she had a, uh, you had a, you were like teaching a clinic I think. And you couldn’t go. Yeah. But, but it’s, everyone loves them. Uh, we’re gonna do another one in the future. And uh, it’s again, I think it’s a, we think a little bit outside the box to have a better experience. Um, then. Then the standard, one of just let’s do rope courses and Reno let’s have a fun experience.

[01:41:46] Nate Pearson: So for instance, when we landed in Lisbon, we signed up and we did the amazing race. So we broke up into groups and everyone had a clue. And as the team, they had to go around, work as a team to figure out what that clue was, and then go from place to place, to place a blast. John and me, me, John, this other team, we were neck and neck and weren’t competitive printing

[01:42:06] Jonathan Lee: on another team.

[01:42:07] Jonathan Lee: I think I ran, I think I ran seven miles.

[01:42:10] Amber Pierce: Wait, wait, wait, wait, we have to run. I don’t

[01:42:13] Jonathan Lee: know. Hold on the rubber bird scooters. He could read the birds.

[01:42:17] Nate Pearson: Okay. Some people are smart and they’re like, they’ll take, I don’t think we take care of transportation yet. Lauren, a bike or something. One of those, like those cheap ones, a scooter, another team just went and had tacos like scooter, they drink sangria and like send us pictures of like, we’re not running and they just sit right there.

[01:42:35] Nate Pearson: But yeah. That’s what, so that is what I’ve to, to the company retreat.

[01:42:40] Jonathan Lee: Yep. Yeah. Um, if you have ideas for events that we should do, let us know. We also had an idea of doing a point to point thing where Nate is almost like the producer in top gear that finds ways to like throw wrenches in the spokes, so to speak and gives us challenges along the way, like go to the gas station and build.

[01:42:57] Jonathan Lee: Something that’s 120 grams, an hour of carbs, but fits this macro profile or like balanced your power to weight ratios and do this climb. It’d be fun if we have like a, that would be funny. Uh, that would be a fun one to do. But if you have ideas on events and things that you want to see, the podcast crew here do let us know, uh go-to or join us on YouTube and let us know, or go to trainer road.com/podcast and submit your questions.

[01:43:21] Jonathan Lee: And then that same spot. You can let us know what event you want us to do. Let’s get into some nutrition questions. Mac says I’ve been listening to the podcast for a while now. And one thing that I’ve heard multiple times is quote don’t diet on the bike trademark, Amber Pierce. Again, what do you guys mean with this?

[01:43:37] Jonathan Lee: Exactly. What is your view on someone trying to lose five to eight pounds of body fat? He says you’d need to be in a caloric deficit to lose that weight. So wouldn’t this be dieting? Are there any other methods, more advisable? Thanks in advance and love the podcast. Amber floor is yours.

[01:43:52] Amber Pierce: Um, so I want to clarify this don’t diet on the bike is just to say that, um, you need a fuel when you’re on the bike, you need a fuel your efforts.

[01:44:01] Amber Pierce: And I th I think it becomes a default option for a lot of people to avoid eating on the bike, because it’s a little bit easier. Your fridge is out of reach. Um, you’re out on the road and a lot of folks look to exercise as, you know, part of, uh, an approach to calorie control, right? So they’re looking at the exercise as the deficit.

[01:44:25] Amber Pierce: But it doesn’t need to be, and it’s a lot more effective if you don’t look at riding your bike as a way to create a deficit. So what you really want to do is, uh, riding the bike is training stress. That’s going to trigger specific physiologic adaptations. If you want to get fitter and healthier, you want to make sure that you’re optimizing your performance on the bike so that you can optimize the training stress, optimize the adaptations that you’re gonna get from that the best way to do that is to fuel your efforts when you’re on the bike.

[01:44:54] Amber Pierce: So this isn’t to say that no one should ever create a caloric deficit ever. That’s not what we’re saying. What we’re saying is if you are in a position and you need to create a chloric deficit, for some reason, the best way to do that is not by skipping food and fuel on the bike. You want to create that clerk, deficit deficit somewhere else in your day.

[01:45:16] Amber Pierce: You want to make sure that you’re fueling before, during, and after your training. That’s super important because you’re going to get more out of it and it’s going to help. It’s just going to help your whole effort be sustainable over the long-term. As far as views on someone, you try to lose five to eight pounds of body fat.

[01:45:34] Amber Pierce: That’s a really general question that we can’t answer because there’s so much context around that that’s really, really important. And I think we do get some pushback on this sometimes because we talk a lot about making sure you’re fueling your feeling adequately on the bike during the day. And that is very, very important.

[01:45:52] Amber Pierce: But again, because context comes into this, there are some folks that are in situations where they do need to create a clerk deficit. I think part of our approach and you know, other hosts, please comment on this as well is a little bit because the internet and the socials are very fond of reminding us that, uh, or not reminding us, but, but sending this message that losing weight is always a good idea.

[01:46:16] Amber Pierce: And that’s absolutely not true. It is a good idea for some people, but again, the context here is so heavily dependent and diet culture can really create this twisted view of thinking that no matter where you are, you are, if you’re lighter, it’s better. If you’re lighter, it’s healthier and that’s not true because where you are matters a lot to determine whether that’s a good idea for you, that’s going to be healthy for you.

[01:46:42] Amber Pierce: So I like to remind people that context is important and we like to remind people that that default mode isn’t necessarily true. So what we like to say is when we’re looking at that Watts per kilogram, Equation really focus on the Watts part of that. So if you’re fueling your training, eating before, during, and after your rides hydrating well, uh, making sure that you’re getting good nutrition the rest of the day, that is going to set you up to get the best possible adaptations and get the most out of those efforts.

[01:47:14] Amber Pierce: And all of those things are going to play into helping your body adapt in the ways that it needs to, to be able to perform the way that you want it to. And that’s really where we’re coming from with this.

[01:47:26] Jonathan Lee: do you have anything to add to this as well? Yeah,

[01:47:30] Ivy Audrain: I think I would just heard so many good points. I think the only thing that I would want to add is the implications of, um, what happens after you finished your workout when you’re dieting on the bike, which for me looked like, um, like crazy binge eating and it’s apart from like losing weight implications.

[01:47:51] Ivy Audrain: Um, it just meant that I wasn’t, I was failing my workouts and not getting the most out of my training and not maximizing my performance and then would get home and continue to not check all the boxes I needed to because I would just need one enormous meal. Like if you’re finishing your workout and it didn’t go well, and then you’re completely empty at the end of it, you’re doing something wrong.

[01:48:16] Nate Pearson: I have some stuff to say, please name one. So Anthony said this in the chat. Does anyone on the call today experienced drastic mood swings during the build phase? First four weeks of every build phase brings about moody bad moods. Thoughts. How do I get past this? One of the symptoms of being under fueled is you get mood swings, right?

[01:48:36] Nate Pearson: This is why people call hungry. So Anthony, this is something that you should be aware of in anyone dieting should be aware of this, uh, that you could be going a little bit too low, or you used to be, uh, um, conscious of what you’re, what you’re doing, what your emotions are, uh, Amherst point. Yes, there are so many people who they are already super light and being lighter actually makes them slower or unhealthy stuff like that.

[01:48:59] Nate Pearson: There also though in America, people might know in the world, there are people who are, uh, their, their body fat is at a level that is unhealthy and they might be a cyclist and they could get lower. And there’s, uh, multiple different ways to figure this out. But, uh, I’ll leave you to, if you think that you’re, if you think that you might be in the unhealthy area, you probably, I mean, not the unhealthy area, the two light area you probably are.

[01:49:27] Nate Pearson: Right. Um, and you talk to your doctor about it and all that sort of stuff. But in general, this is what worked for me. Cause I did, I lost seven pounds of body fat in like three months and gained four pounds of muscle. And what I did is I get fuel your workout. And my secret was go to bed slightly hungry, and this is hard to hit, not hungry enough.

[01:49:46] Nate Pearson: What’s going to keep me up, but just a teeny bit hungry. Then wake up, I’d eat my breakfast, do my workout, fuel that workout, and then do it again. And it’s usually through a little like some vegetables and stuff during dinner, during two, when you’re in this space to lose weight. Um, I really liked the idea of doing some weight training, uh, do some compound movements.

[01:50:04] Nate Pearson: This will help you, um, maintain muscle mass and that you want to you’ll keep the muscle mass and then, uh, uh, lose more fat. And there are some situations that are extreme where maybe you were like a bodybuilder or something, and you want to lose muscle mass too, because you’re like, you know, you’re 5, 8, 2 40 real little real low body fat.

[01:50:26] Nate Pearson: That’s probably not the average one. A third is having like eight to nine hours of sleep. There’s a crazy study showing that like people in a caloric deficit, if you’re cutting yourself short on sleep, that group lost mostly muscle with the same protein intake and the, the group that had, uh, um, enough sleep lost, mostly fat.

[01:50:47] Nate Pearson: And you can imagine going through all of this, like, uh, It is hard to lose weight, right? It’s not easy. And you go through this and you end up just losing muscle. Like darn it. That’s the worst thing your basal metabolic rate probably goes down. This is how yo-yo stuff happens. You lose the weight, you actually burn less calories.

[01:51:05] Nate Pearson: Right. And being on a caloric deficit for too long can actually burn less calories or can make it so that during the day, uh, your metabolism isn’t as high. And you get into this like bad spiral. Uh, I’ll talk about reverse dieting second. And then third is having enough adequate protein intake, right? You want enough adequate protein intake when you’re in a caloric deficit and when you’re on the bike field and manage all these things, um, it is the, the, the protein.

[01:51:31] Nate Pearson: You want to be able to hit that. And also your carbohydrates, especially before and during the workout and then, uh, manage your fat is that’s the one there you don’t want to. It’s really easy to overshoot it to go really high fats and a lot of things, uh, calories that you don’t know of, you also do want some fat and there is a minimum amount of fat you want, which is pretty easy.

[01:51:50] Nate Pearson: So unless you’re doing some extreme, uh, artificial diet, it’s usually pretty easy to get your fat, especially if you like salmon or something. Oh, avocado. During the day, um, reverse diet. This can happen. This is, this is a really cool thing, and this can happen if you are in that light phase. And you think that, uh, you, so if you’re very light and you’re not eating much, which you can do is actually increase your calories.

[01:52:15] Nate Pearson: Very small 5,100 per week and raise your metabolic rate and actually like be able to you don’t gain weight. You just burn more calories the day. You have more energy during that time and you can work yourself back up over time, just as other people. Like they, they damage it the other way you can improve it.

[01:52:32] Nate Pearson: And, uh, there’s, this is such a cool thing that I think people don’t talk enough about is actually eating more, not gaining weight because you’re using that energy throughout the day. And as a cyclist, more energy, that’s all we need, right. More and more energy. So the more food you can take in while you’re training the better.

[01:52:49] Nate Pearson: Um, so if you, if you found yourself as Amherst point is you’ve died at a bunch, you’re, you’re getting a kind of small, you feel like I’m not eating enough. And if I eat anything, I’m going to get bigger. There’s two parts of this too, is sometimes it is glycogen and water weight, you know, for every gram of glycogen that you hold, you gain two grams of water weight, and what can happen is people be in a low carb diet.

[01:53:09] Nate Pearson: They go, I know I eat some bread and I gained three pounds. It’s not because of a body fat increase. It’s because your body is depleted of glycogen, which we know you need recycling. And, uh, it comes in and, uh, you gain the water weight, and that’s really what your true weight is or what the rate you should be for racing.

[01:53:28] Nate Pearson: So just be aware of that too is, um, some of these small fluctuations are, um, it’s, it’s because of that, I like the idea of John where you don’t. Yeah. You don’t have the scale. Maybe every three months you check in through like, um, I like little. Little calipers on my stomach. That gives me a good a point.

[01:53:48] Nate Pearson: If I’m going up or down, I do the DEXA before that’s really accurate. Uh, but yeah, that’s the, that’s, that’s

[01:53:55] Amber Pierce: checking in on how you feel. I mean, if you’re feeling like you can nail your effort, you can nail your workouts. Look good. I mean, that’s some real big markers to be paying it and you look at something.

[01:54:14] Ivy Audrain: Oh, um, to Nate’s point, that’s why this is kind of a hard topic for me to contribute because I cannot, like, I accidentally dieted on the bike for years and there’s no circumstance under which, like I still, I still don’t think I eat enough. Like I like fight for my life to eat enough every day before workouts.

[01:54:35] Ivy Audrain: Like, this is, it’s hard for me to know how to advise some and I’m the kind of person that doesn’t have a scale and like something like calipers would. so like my measure, like I’ve how do I pay him spit? And like, when I, I don’t, I don’t want to lose weight. So this is it’s hard for me. Like we need to meet a fuel to perform well.

[01:54:57] Ivy Audrain: Um, so it’s hard for me to contribute constructively.

[01:55:00] Jonathan Lee: Yeah. Amber is a internet just cut out. I’m sure she’ll be rejoining. Hopefully soon. That’s a re that’s. The key takeaway here is that everybody does have to approach the weight loss thing independently and, uh, do it with his system of checks and balances.

[01:55:15] Jonathan Lee: If you are fortunate enough to have a person that you can involve in your life to that degree, it can be great to just get a sanity check by them. Uh, so then they can, because it’s really easy to get a distorted perspective on where you should be and where you are, and it can spiral out of control really quickly.

[01:55:31] Jonathan Lee: So the boy, I really liked wrapping it back to what Amber said. When we’re saying don’t diet on the bike, it’s about making sure that you don’t look at your training as a way to create a deficit. Instead, you look at your training as something to fuel, and that enables your body to do more incredible things.

[01:55:47] Jonathan Lee: And then outside of it. And honestly, if you we’ve talked about this before, and we’re not going to have time to get to Jeffrey’s question, which was about quality calories, but if you focus on filling your day with quality calories, It can be pretty hard even to hit like a caloric surplus because a giant bowl of vegetables really isn’t that much.

[01:56:08] Jonathan Lee: Right. Um, and, and it’s when you start bringing in more and I’ll say, uh, I won’t call them unhealthy foods, but instead I’ll call them foods that don’t give us the benefit that we need to have Oreos and all that other stuff. And you start bringing in the ones that have the easy gets the binge foods that we just jump in on.

[01:56:24] Jonathan Lee: When we are in a mood we’ve deprived ourselves. That’s when it’s really tough to be able to feel yourself adequately and feel yourself in a healthy way. So if you really shoot for health and, and, and try a broad variety of foods and try to keep them to whole foods instead of processed foods and everything else, if you do that boy, so much of it takes care of yourself.

[01:56:47] Jonathan Lee: And, you know, one thing that I’ve been telling myself over the past year now is that as long as I prioritize my health, and then I prioritize my training from a feeling perspective, my body composition will be what it needs to be like. It will become what it is, and that’s what it is. I don’t need to be something else.

[01:57:06] Jonathan Lee: It will just become what it needs to be as long as I’m prioritizing the right things, because we really do get the cart ahead of the horse because we look at appearance or we look at a number. We do something like that when we talk about weight. So my body composition will be what it needs to be. Uh, when I prioritize the right things,

[01:57:24] Nate Pearson: I want to say one thing about that.

[01:57:25] Nate Pearson: I, I personally like the word quality food. I, I. Like, cause it can lead to, uh, like disordered eating. What I like is the idea of saying on do your point is so on the bike, we’re doing tech food, right? It’s like, we want that glucose spike. We’re doing sugar, all that, all of that off the bike that’s actually, Cheetos is kind of higher fat too.

[01:57:48] Nate Pearson: And that might not be as good, a fuel on a shorter, more intense ride and other ones. I know it’s kind of a joke, but then afterwards, too, but in normal life, a good rule of thumb is the majority, not all the majority, cause it’s fine. Eat Oreos and stuff. Uh, just not as your main diet is, have your carbs wrapped in fiber so that if you, if you live by that, it is, it’s really hard to make wrong choices in fiber.

[01:58:16] Nate Pearson: There’s so much good stuff about fiber, uh, with your gut, um, your health, uh, cancer prevention, uh, society, society, safe society, um, how full you are. It’s a tidy. I can’t, I don’t know why I’m on the path, but so wrapped in fiber means a fruit that are carbs wrapped in fiber, like berries, lots of fiber, apples, even bananas are wrapped in fiber, um, vegetables.

[01:58:39] Nate Pearson: Those are all carbs with fiber around it. And it acts a little bit differently in your body in terms of, uh, um, long-term health outcomes. Uh, Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty much the most important part of this as lounge long-term health outcomes of the things that are wrapped in fiber are also nutritious for you, uh, oatmeal, right?

[01:58:57] Nate Pearson: That has, uh, fiber in and brown rice, um, all the whole grain, pasta, whole, whole, whole, uh, grain bread, um, all those sorts of things. So if you follow that rule of thumb for the majority of stuff, you’re pretty good. Uh, and then you can also, you can have dessert sometimes and do some Oreos and, uh, I definitely still a cookie.

[01:59:16] Nate Pearson: Do you do the parent tax ever? John, we were like, oh, parent taxi, some ice cream from their stuff and then regret it. Cause we’re lactose intolerant. Okay. Okay.

[01:59:23] Jonathan Lee: And inflation’s going up sometimes I take more. So it happens. Yeah. Yeah. Um, boy, we, because we can measure so much on the power and the output side, it can become really tempting to measure everything else to the nth degree.

[01:59:36] Jonathan Lee: And for some people that might be beneficial and sustainable. So I don’t want to vilify that that might be what you need and what works for you. Um, but it’s very different and very individual, um, great actionable tips on nutrition. Uh, thanks. Y’all for joining us, Amber. Sorry, you couldn’t finish it off with us.

[01:59:55] Jonathan Lee: If you’re listening to this podcast, biggest thing you can do to help us is share this podcast with other people and share trainer road with other people. If all of you listening to this, just make an effort to do that with one person this week. Oh, we’d be forever. And that Nate will continue to do his hair awesome like that for you every week, if you do that.

[02:00:10] Jonathan Lee: So,

[02:00:11] Nate Pearson: um, posting, so other specific ways are sharing your rides on. Or, uh, Facebook take a screenshot put up there, there’s a button inside the mobile app. Be able to do it. That is wonderful. I’m sinking Strava telling somebody that you’re racing with, that you got a faster sharing your story. We hear stories all the time that are shared and, uh, we share them, but it would be great if you shared them with your own little, little groups, because we don’t have a huge marketing budget.

[02:00:38] Nate Pearson: This is, this is most of it right

[02:00:40] Jonathan Lee: here. Yeah. Let’s make the world a faster place. So we do it. Right. So thanks everybody for joining us. Submit your questions@trainerroad.com slash podcast. And we’ll talk to you next week. Take care. Bye everyone.