Does Triathlon *Actually* Start On The Bike? | GTN Coach's Corner

Hello and welcome to another episode of GTN Coaches Corner where we answer your questions. Leave your questions below this video or any of our videos. Use the hashtag GTN Coaches Corner and we could be answering your question. First one, Alonso de la Pava says, hashtag GTN Coaches Corner. Hi, guys. I've been watching you guys for a couple of years now. Thanks for a lot of fun and interesting content that has kept me motivated through my long indoor sessions. I'll be doing my first Ironman full distance in seven weeks in our very hot and humid place, Cozumel, Mexico. Oh, yes. I've raced there. Very hot and humid. Great place for race, though. I've done some prior races in the heat and always suffer at the end. My running pace drops dramatically in the final five to 10 kilometers of the half marathon in a 70.3 distance. What do you recommend regarding carb and or fat consumption during the races, especially the running part, to keep the best possible energy levels? Do heat or humidity affect the ratio in which the body burns one to the other, carbs or fat? Any other tips or suggestions regarding running in pretty hot and humid conditions? Finally, would you suggest getting rid of the trousers and getting more fresh clothing for the running part? I'll answer your final question first. No, stay in your trouser. It might seem tempting to get some fresh running clothes and T2, but within about a mile, they won't be fresh anyway and you'll just have wasted that time changing. Just stick to your trouser and keep dumping water on it. As far as your question about nutrition goes, firstly, no fat. Don't eat fat in an Ironman distance race. It's just not going to get absorbed. The problem with heat and humidity is that because your body is doing so much effort in trying to dissipate that heat, it's pushing a lot of blood to your extremities, to your skin, so that you can dissipate that heat to the environment. You don't have much blood left for the rest of the functions, particularly there's less blood going to your GR tract, which means absorption of those nutrients and nutrition is going to be significantly diminished. There's also the fact that you're going to be consuming a lot more liquid because you're so thirsty, because you're sweating so much. It's that much more dilute and it takes that much more time to absorb that energy. You need to keep the energy that you're taking in as simple as possible. That means no fat, minimal protein of any protein, pretty much only carbs. As far as your tricks to keep your energy going for the last 5 to 10 kilometers of a 70.3 or a half marathon, the best thing in heat is to not overheat. Don't push your limits right to your limits early on in the race. Save it for the last 5 to 10 kilometers. If you're moving well at the last 5 to 10 kilometers, you will lose less time than if you move really well for the first 5 to 10 kilometers and then are moving really badly for those last 5 to 10 kilometers, if that makes sense. You want to keep your nutrition going and keep it steady throughout the day so that you've got as much energy as possible, but be mindful that your body can only absorb so much. Liquid calories are gels and of course, liquid drink mixes that have got carbs in them so that you can absorb it the whole time. Keep those energy levels up and then don't overheat. Keep your pacing. Your pacing is the key for heat. You have to be able to stay under that red line where you overheat because once you do, it doesn't matter what you eat or drink, you're just going to run out of energy. It's going to feel like you're running out of energy. You're actually overheating. Your body will limit you, slow you right down and not let you push on anymore because you've overheated. Make sure you stay under that threshold and then just keep the fluid and electrolytes coming in. Next question. Motiv52 says, Hi, hashtag GTN Coaches Corner. Thanks to this show, I've been inspired to do my first try and I've chosen Olympic distance and I have a question. For the swim, I can quite comfortably swim pool in the pool for 1,500 in under 26 minutes. My theory is that in a wetsuit, I also may not have to kick with the added buoyancy which could conserve some extra energy for the bike, which I'm a bit rubbish at. I'm sure you're okay. Is there any sense to this or am I better to push a bit more in the swim instead of being conservative as it's the stronger of my three disciplines? Would love to hear your feedback. My advice to this strong swimmer, not so strong on the bike, do you burn all your matches in the swim and swim as hard as you can to make up as much time as possible or do you save that energy for the bike and the run? I'd say save your energy for the bike and the run is always going to be the best bet. If you can swim the swim and get out in 26 minutes or so very comfortably and easy and having used up almost no energy, do that. That is definitely the best option. Don't kick too hard. Use that wetsuit. Make sure you're saving as much energy as possible. If you swim as hard as you possibly can, you may swim one to two minutes faster, but that energy that you burned on the bike and the run, you will easily lose one to two minutes. You'll probably lose more like 10 minutes on the back end of that run having swum really hard. Rather, conserve that energy for later on in the race. Swim easy. Keep yourself nice and controlled. Take advantage of the fact that you're comfortable in the water and can swim at a pace that other people are really working hard at at a very low heart rate and saving energy for later on in the day. A triathlon is about using your energy wisely throughout the whole day and it's about swim and bike and run. If you can save energy in swim, definitely do that. You won't lose very much time and you will definitely save that energy for later on in the race. Okay, Charles Sparky, who is actually a super fan, thanks for joining. If you want to join, you can be a member down below this video. There's a little join button there and you'll get a little super fan badge next to your name and we're more likely to pick your question for next coach's corner because they pop to the top of our channel. Charles Sparky asks, I've signed up for a 17.3 Luxembourg in July 2025 and I've bought an Argon 18 Road X with tri upgrades for the event. The bike came with tubeless ready wheels and tires with butyl inner tubes that will need changing before the event as they're currently being used on a turbo trainer. As a relative novice, do you recommend I commit fully to tubeless for race day or is TPU set more advisable? Okay, good question. TPU or tubeless? I would suggest that if you've got time between now and July 2025 for your Luxembourg event, you probably should investigate making the switch to tubeless. Tubeless is a very good solution for triathletes. It's a lot more puncture resistant, those little small pieces of wire and those kind of things, you just never have to worry about them anymore. You can run them at slightly lower pressure so you're a bit more comfortable out there for that long bike ride. I think that tubeless is probably the answer. However, I'm going to caveat that. If you're a beginner and you're not very technically proficient with your bike and your tools and your garage is not full of all the tools you need, then maybe tubeless is not for you. Tubeless takes a bit of learning and a bit of getting to know. There may be some issues initially where you don't quite get a perfect seal and you need to go back and reinstall them, those kind of things, and you don't want to be messing around with that when you're a beginner and you're not confident in your bike. In which case, TPU tubes are the best solution for you. They're very light. Your overall weight will probably not be more than tubeless at all. It'll be about the same. Stick with the TPU tubes. You know how they work. You're very comfortable with them. It's just a standard tube, but it's obviously not a TPU. Then tubeless may not be the solution for you just yet, but I would investigate it in future. You've got a bike that's ready for tubeless, you may as well take advantage of that. I'd say tubeless is the answer long-term. Next question. Samus Hocking, hello from LA, California. I had a C-section surgery two months ago and I'm getting very frustrated with my recovery process. This may be more of a question for Heather, but I'll go ahead and try. I'm still not able to speed walk yet, let alone jog or swim. I miss my swimming so much. I was initially thinking of jogging first before getting back into swimming, but I'm wondering if swimming first would be better because of the no impact in the water. Any advice or related tips? Thank you and keep up the great videos. I would suggest on this that swimming or no impact is probably your best bet to get into the water first. You can start with just some kicking and some easy swimming and build it up slowly before you try and get to speed walking or jogging which is going to be impact and is probably going to put your body under a bit more strain as you recover and come back. Essentially, you're coming back from square one. If you've been out for a good few months, you need to be very careful because not only will your muscles have weakened and your aerobic system detrained, your ligaments, your tendons, and even your bones may have taken some detraining and they're going to need to take time to build back up. Keep it as little weight-bearing as possible for as long as possible as you build up and gradually bring in the weight-bearing exercise, the walking, then the speed walking, and building up to the jogging. While you're doing that, you can keep fit with swimming. Being a triathlon channel, I think you probably know what else I'm going to suggest, a stationary bike or even just a bike. Cycling is medium weight-bearing. It does do a little bit of weight-bearing. You are going to get some impact but nothing like running and you can do a lot more of it. You also are in a very stable position, more stable even than swimming so that you can really not provide any strain to those aspects of your body that maybe took strain with a C-section, those kind of things. You can keep your core very stable while you train, while you do some aerobic exercise. Get those lungs and heart moving and getting fit again before you bring any impact or any strain to your C-section and you're over that surgery, completely over that surgery. Then you'll also be a triathlete because you'll be swimming and jogging and cycling and you can do a triathlon when you are fully recovered. One more question, Alonso de la Pava, again, he got two questions in one week. Well done. Hi, I have another question for you guys. I've been training for almost eight months non-stop before my first full Ironman. I'm currently noticing that my average heart rate on the bike is higher than it used to be. For instance, I have this training which I have to hold some kind of zone three power for 90 minutes. I did it 15 days ago and my average heart rate for 90 minutes was 144 beats per minute. Today, it was 146 beats per minute for the same conditions. Also, my five-second heart rate grew from 150 to 155 beats per minute. Is this an indicator of overtraining? Is it good to have a higher heart rate for the same training? Should I be worried since I'm a month away from my race? No, you shouldn't be worried. Firstly, those margin of errors there, 144 to 146 for your average and 150 to 155 for your five-second max, are well within the realms of just different days. Yes, your conditions might have been the same, your bike might have been the same, the route might have even been the same, but all the factors inside your body were not the same. Your fatigue might have been different, your what you ate might have been different. Just taking some caffeine will see that much difference in your heart rate. Those are not heart rate changes that you need to be concerned about at all. They're definitely within the margin of error of basically doing the same session. However, to further your question and answer the bigger question there, should a higher heart rate for the same efforts indicate overtraining? The answer is no. In fact, most likely, you'll find that you can't get your heart rate as high when you're overtraining. When you're trying to push zone three or even zone four and you've done some overtraining, you just won't be able to get your heart rate up. You'll find that your heart rate lags and that you just can't get that top end at all. Your max for five seconds would not be higher, it would be lower if you were starting to get overtrained and you needed to be worrying about that and resting more. Don't worry too much about that heart rate changes. As far as your heart rate going up for harder work as you get more fit, that's actually also normal. Your heart rate will probably go lower for aerobic work, low-intensity stuff, because your heart rate doesn't need to work as hard and your heart will always do the absolute minimum. As you fitter, it won't need to do as much work. Because your muscles are stronger and you've potentially even got more muscles as they get fitter, you can push that much harder, which means your body can work harder for 90 minutes than it used to be able to. Your heart rate for a zone three or a zone four workout would actually be higher. You'll be able to hold or sustain a higher heart rate than you used to be able to hold when you were less fit, when you were not as fit, when you were less trained. Being able to hold a higher heart rate for those higher-intensity sessions is actually a sign of your fitness improving, not a sign of overtraining or your fitness decreasing. I hope that answers your question. Remember, if you have your own questions down below this video, use the hashtag GTN Coaches Corner, any of our videos, and we could be answering it next week. Thanks for watching. See you again next week.