That Triathlon Show

Joel Filliol has coached four athletes to seven triathlon World Championship titles: Mario Mola, Vincent Luis, Katie Zaferes and, this year, Vasco Vilaça. On his third appearance on the show we cover how the squad's training has (and has not) changed over a decade of titles, the training week and progressive sessions behind them, how much intensity is actually enough, and how the same principles apply to age-group triathletes on 10 to 15 hours a week.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• What has and has not changed in the squad's coaching between Mario Mola's first world title in Cozumel in 2016 and Vasco Vilaça's in 2026, from social media to carbon shoes and what they do to run training load.
• The minimal effective dose: whether it applies to intensity or to volume, and how a squad built on doing less can still describe the training as hard.
• The base training week Vasco described on the show in 2023 (six swims, six bikes and six runs), how close it still is, and why the hard sessions are spread across the week rather than blocked.
• How a progressive run session like 16x400 m is prescribed and paced from block to block, and the part of it that has to be held most strictly.
• Mega sessions and confidence: what an outstanding training session does and does not tell you about race day, with Kona as the example.
• How the elite principles scale down to an age grouper with 10 to 15 hours a week, how easy easy training should be, and how to build a sustainable week from scratch.
• The swim rules from Joel's Top 20 Rules for Faster Triathlon Swimming that matter most for age-group triathletes, the readiness and recovery scores he would rather athletes trusted less, and the questions to ask in a season review.
• Vasco's road to the LA Olympics 2028, the Supertri race he turned down this year, and whether a sprint finish against Matt Hauser can be trained, with a lesson from Simon Whitfield's build to Beijing 2008.

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• Follow Joel Filliol on his Substack, website, Instagram, YouTube, and listen to his Real Coaching Podcast.
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Join the That Triathlon Show group ride on ROUVY on Monday 2 November at 5pm GMT (12pm ET, 9am PT). Download the ROUVY companion app to chat during the ride.
• Related episodes:
  • World Champions keep things simple: training masterclass with Joel Filliol | EP#172
  • Joel Filliol | EP#409
  • Vasco Vilaça | EP#401
  • Developing the future stars of triathlon with coach Joachim Willén | EP#266
  • Training talk with Paulo Sousa | EP#360
  • Marius Bakken: The Norwegian Method Is Built Around Your Muscles, Not Your Heart
• Resources and tools mentioned:
  • Build the Engine First - Joel Filliol, Real Coaching, 2026
  • Zone 1 is where the magic happens - Joel Filliol, Real Coaching, 2026
  • Progression: A powerful training heuristic - Joel Filliol, Real Coaching, 2026
  • Don't be a January Champion - Joel Filliol, Real Coaching, 2026
  • Top 20 Rules for Faster Triathlon Swimming - Joel Filliol, Real Coaching, 2026
  • Chop Wood, Carry Water - Paulo Sousa

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How do WorldTour cyclists train across a season, how do you profile a rider and decide what to work on, and what should amateur cyclists and triathletes know about cadence, easy riding and durability?

Björn Kafka coaches for the Uno-X Mobility WorldTour team and has also coached athletes to world and Olympic titles and medals in mountain biking, track cycling, and even snowboarding. He is also a co-developer of the A Faster You platform, formerly Aerotune.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• Profiling a rider from the power curve: which durations to read, and why a rider can be too efficient in December.
• The off-season plan for the typical age-group triathlete with a low VLaMax and a threshold already close to VO2max, and where cadence and fuelling come into it.
• What a look at 22 masters athletes with unusually high 4 to 5 minute power showed about how much they eat, and the cost of chasing race weight.
• Self-profiling for self-coached triathletes: three test durations, which bike to test on, and why a weak number is not automatically the one to train.
• Inside a WorldTour year: off-season volume, how volume changes before key races, weekly training patterns, and key sessions for GC riders and Classics riders.
• Cadence as a training tool, from fibre recruitment to what it changes for a triathlete who mostly rides steady.
• How easy the easy rides should be, from a GC rider to a punchy rider to an amateur on ten hours a week, and how to fit more volume around work and family.
• Durability: why there is still no good score for it, how to train it, and whether it deserves to be called a fourth performance factor alongside VO2max, utilisation and economy.

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• Follow Björn on Instagram, and A Faster You on their website and Instagram
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Related episodes:
  • Training, testing, metabolism and physiology with Björn Kafka | EP#286
  • Is VO2max more important than lactate threshold? | Research roundup
• Studies discussed:
  • Linear increase in aerobic power induced by a strenuous program of endurance exercise - Hickson et al. 1977
  • A transcription-translation activation feedback circuit as a function of protein degradation, with the quality of protein mass adaptation related to the average functional load - Mader 1988
  • Aktive Belastungsadaptation und Regulation der Proteinsynthese auf zellulärer Ebene - Mader 1990 (in German)
  • New horizons for the methodology and physiology of training periodization - Issurin 2010
  • Self-rated mental stress and exercise training response in healthy subjects - Ruuska et al. 2012
  • Understanding optimal cadence dynamics: a systematic analysis of the power-velocity relationship in track cyclists with increasing exercise intensity - Dunst et al. 2024
  • The Role of Cadence and Torque in Fatigue-Related Power Output Decline in Cycling's Grand Monuments - Javaloyes et al. 2025
  • 35 Years of Joyner's Endurance Performance Model: Assessing the Contribution of Physiological Determinants of Performance Proxies in 888 Individuals from Recreational to World Class - Mougin et al. 2026
  • Limited reproducibility of individual physiological adaptations to repeated endurance exercise training - Odden et al. 2026

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Marius Bakken is a physician, a former professional runner and two-time Olympian with a 13:06 personal best for 5000 m, and the person who developed the training approach that later became known as the Norwegian method, since used by Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Andreas Almgren and many others. We cover why he sees the muscles rather than the heart and lungs as the real limiter, how double threshold works, how to find and control your threshold with or without a lactate meter, and how much of it carries over to triathlon.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• What muscle tone actually is, why it rather than the heart and lungs sits at the centre of how the method builds a training week, and how to palpate your own quads or use a simple morning stair test to track it.
• The weekly template behind the method, why double threshold is treated as one long session with a break in the middle, and why the sequencing of short and long reps matters.
• Finding your threshold with a lactate step test and a follow-up field test, or with no lactate meter at all, and how far below it the training should actually sit.
• Controlling intensity within a 6 x 6 minute session with and without lactate, the RPE that matches the zone, how you should feel when you finish, and the most common way people get it wrong.
• Why total running volume matters for muscle tone as well as running economy, when to split easy runs into doubles, and where strides do and do not earn a place.
• The Saturday X-session, what an Olympic champion hurdler's threshold sessions suggest about triggering the anaerobic system too early, and how a marathon block changes the week.
• How much of this carries over to cycling and triathlon, how the Norwegian triathletes organise their hard days, and what Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Andreas Almgren have added to the method, building upon Marius's work.
• Flat periodisation, fitting the method into a spring marathon build, the final four days before a championship race, and adjustments for beginners, older and female athletes.

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• Follow Marius Bakken on his website.
• Marius's book, The Norwegian Method Applied.
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Related episodes:
  • How Norway became a triathlon powerhouse with head coach Arild Tveiten | EP#154
  • Arild Tveiten – coach of Kristian Blummenfelt, Gustav Iden and Casper Stornes on triathlon training the Norwegian way | EP#223
  • Olympic gold medal training and preparation with Arild Tveiten | EP#304
  • Applied triathlon science with Olav Aleksander Bu (Norwegian Triathlon Olympic team) | EP#264
  • Olav Aleksander Bu | EP#369
  • Ironman World Champion Solveig Løvseth on her race day strategy in Kona, her training block at altitude, heat training and more!
  • Solveig Løvseth – Olympian and the fastest Ironman debut in history | EP#466
  • Training talk with Eirik Myhr Nossum, national team coach of Norway’s cross-country skiing team | EP#245
  • Vasco Vilaça | EP#401
  • Strength and Speed Training Methods of Norwegian Endurance Coaches | Research Roundup
• Resources and tools mentioned:
  • VDOT calculator

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

With the Ironman World Championship in Kona this Saturday, this Research Roundup is a heat and humidity special for triathletes and other endurance athletes, built around four big topics instead of four single studies. How much heat and humidity each slow you down when you separate the two, what the largest reviews say about heat acclimation and whether sauna and hot baths work as well as active methods, how fast heat adaptations arrive and how fast they fade, and which in-race cooling strategies work, while also being practically feasible.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• Separating heat from humidity: a study that held the vapour pressure of the air constant from 18°C to 27°C and 36°C, then doubled it at 36°C, and why dew point is the number you want to check before a hot race.
• A meta-analysis of 135 studies and 1,531 participants: how short, medium and long heat acclimation protocols compare, and which of four approaches (constant work, isothermal, self-regulated and passive) comes out ahead.
• Sauna and hot baths after training: what a stricter meta-analysis of 10 controlled studies found, why the control groups matter so much, and the case for active heat training when time is short.
• How many heat sessions, how long and how hot: a review of 211 papers, the free online predictor that comes with it, and whether the sessions need to be on consecutive days.
• Five weeks of home-trainer heat sessions in 20 elite cyclists: when haemoglobin mass starts to move, how quickly the gains decay, and how to plan around these dynamics before racing.
• Four days of 90-minute heat sessions: what changed after such a short protocol, why time-to-exhaustion results look so much bigger than time trials, and whether feeling adapted without being adapted could backfire in an all-day race like an Ironman.
• Ice caps, a cooling neck collar, the Omius headband and water dousing in running studies: which ones improved performance, what they did to core temperature, and why Mikael ends up defending a gadget.

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• Follow Daniel Rowland on his website, Substack and Instagram
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Related episodes:
  • How to Race the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona: A Complete Guide | Tomasz Kowalski
  • Heat adaptation and triathlon performance with Stephen Cheung | EP#138
  • Bent Rønnestad, PhD | EP#386
  • Alistair Brownlee, Two-Time Olympic Champion | Everyone Was Surprised by How Slow I Trained
  • Swimskins, Power Duration Curves and Best Bike Sessions for Runner Turned Cyclist | Q&A
  • The “Best Practices” We Stand By That the Research Does Not Support
  • 10 Triathlon Race Day Tips That Actually Make a Difference
  • Strength and Speed Training Methods of Norwegian Endurance Coaches | Research Roundup
  • The 10% Rule Applies to Your Long Run, Not Your Week | Research Roundup
  • New Research on Torque Training, Ketones, Carb Loading and Pacing | Daniel Rowland
• Studies discussed:
  • Delineating the impacts of air temperature and humidity for endurance exercise - Jenkins et al. 2023
  • Effects of Heat Adaptation on Physiology, Perception, and Exercise Performance in the Heat: An Updated Meta-Analysis - Tyler et al. 2024 (ResearchGate link here)
  • The effect of post-exercise heat exposure (passive heat acclimation) on endurance exercise performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis - Solomon and Laye 2025
  • Influence of Exercise Heat Acclimation Protocol Characteristics on Adaptation Kinetics: A Quantitative Review With Bayesian Meta-Regressions - McDonald et al. 2025
  • Time-course for onset and decay of physiological adaptations in endurance trained athletes undertaking prolonged heat acclimation training - Cubel et al. 2024
  • Heat Training Efficiently Increases and Maintains Hemoglobin Mass and Temperate Endurance Performance in Elite Cyclists - Rønnestad et al. 2022
  • Effectiveness of short-term isothermic-heat acclimation (4 days) on physical performance in moderately trained males - Shaw et al. 2022
  • Effects of a Head-Cooling Cap on 5-Km Running Performance in the Heat - Spannagl et al. 2023
  • Cooling the Neck Region During Exercise in the Heat - Tyler and Sunderland 2011
  • Assessment of the Omius™ cooling headband effectiveness during a 70-min submaximal running effort followed by a 5-km time-trial in hot/humid conditions - Desroches et al. 2024
  • The Effect of Water Dousing on Heat Strain and Performance During Endurance Running in the Heat - Anderson et al. 2024
• Tools mentioned:
  • Exercise heat acclimation predictor (University of Canberra)

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tomasz (Tomek) Kowalski is a triathlon coach with a great track record of athletes racing Kona, among them age-group world champions and podium finishers. With the IRONMAN World Championship coming up again in Kona we cover everything age-group triathletes need to know to have a successful race there, including when to fly out, training and tapering on the island, heat preparation at home, equipment choices, and pacing, fuelling and hydration on race day.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• The single most common reason a Kona race goes wrong for age-groupers, and roughly how much of the damage it accounts for.
• When to fly out: the time-zone rule of thumb, the trade-off between arriving early and arriving fresh, and whether you need to fully adapt to Hawaiian time at all.
• Training on the island: how much lower your watts and paces can be at the same RPE, how long the last long ride and run should be, and whether to keep touching threshold in the final three weeks.
• Swimming in the last ten days: open water or pool, how to structure an open water session with no buoys to swim between, and how to use the Hoʻala training swim.
• Heat preparation before you travel: a hot water immersion protocol with durations and water temperature, and why using a CORE temperature sensor or sweat testing gets less weight than you might expect.
• Kit for the heat: aero or road helmet, visor or no visor, three headwear options for the run, and whether to change from trisuit to running kit in T2.
• Pacing the swim, bike and run: how many watts to expect to give up compared with a cooler Ironman, and how the impact of the rollers changes depending on how strong a cyclist you are.
• Fuelling and hydration in the heat: the body mass loss on the bike that puts your run at risk, and how easily caffeine intake creeps too high.

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• That Triathlon Show Community on ROUVY
• That Triatlon Show Group Ride on ROUVY -  5 October, 18:00 CET (12pm ET, 9am PT), 25 km / 15.5 miles on the Kona bike course. Social ride, easy, everybody is welcome regardless of speed! 
• Follow Tomek on Instagram and his coaching business Trinergy on his website
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Related episodes:
  • Tomasz Kowalski | EP#428
  • Swimskins, Power Duration Curves and Best Bike Sessions for Runner Turned Cyclist | Q&A
• Studies mentioned:
  • Effects of Heat Adaptation on Physiology, Perception, and Exercise Performance in the Heat: An Updated Meta-Analysis - Tyler et al. 2024
  • Reliability and Validity of the CORE Sensor to Assess Core Body Temperature during Cycling Exercise - Verdel et al. 2021
• Resources and tools mentioned:
  • Fuel & Hydration Planner - Precision Fuel & Hydration

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mikael Eriksson and Jack Hutchens answer listener questions, starting with a long look at how to fit a marathon into a triathlon year: when to do it, how much running it takes, what happens to the swim and the bike, and how far the long run really should be. Then questions on racing a 70.3 inside a base phase, coming back from overtraining syndrome, and whether you have to dig a hole to get supercompensation.
We do listener Q&As monthly, the last Thursday every month.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• Where a marathon fits in a triathlon year, autumn against spring, and the one situation where the less obvious option is the right call.
• Setting run mileage when you are also swimming and biking. Why the starting point is your own running history rather than a plan chosen by goal time, and what is wrong with how most marathon plans are built.
• A pro triathlete with a 60-minute record of 400 W at 78 kg asks why a 2:30 marathon still feels far away. What VO2max and fractional utilisation leave as the only possible explanation, and what can and cannot be changed about it.
• Long run distance against total volume, and the main point of disagreement between Mikael and Jack for this episode. Plus how far the longest long run should go, banded by goal time from a first marathon through to sub-2:30.
• Quads as the limiter in the marathon, from a listener with a 1:17 half and a 3:01 Ironman marathon. Conditioning, cadence, shoe drop and fuelling, and which of those actually matters.
• Racing a 70.3 in the middle of a base phase. The question to answer before you decide, and where Mikael and Jack come down differently on treating a race as a training day.
• Returning to training after overtraining syndrome. What to monitor on the way back, why HRV gets less weight here than you might expect, and the case study of a world-class skier who came back from underperformance to the top.
• Whether supercompensation requires digging a hole. Thirty-three trained triathletes, a three-week overload block into a four-week taper, and what separated the group that gained the most from the group that spent the study getting sick.

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• That Triathlon Show Community on ROUVY
• That Triatlon Show Group Ride on ROUVY -  5 October, 18:00 CET (12pm ET, 9am PT), 25 km / 15.5 miles on the Kona bike course. Social ride, easy, everybody is welcome regardless of speed! 
• Ask us questions via our contact form, and on our Instagram
• Follow Jack on his coach page and Instagram
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Related episodes:
  • Rune Kjøsen Talsnes, PhD | EP#427
  • Modern marathon training principles and preparation with running coach John Davis
• Studies discussed:
  • Functional overreaching: the key to peak performance during the taper? - Aubry et al. 2014
  • Functional overreaching in endurance athletes: a necessity or cause for concern? - Bellinger 2020
  • The return from underperformance to sustainable world-class level: a case study of a male cross-country skier - Talsnes et al. 2023
  • Warning signs, monitoring tools, and actions taken by world-class endurance coaches in cases of underperformance - Talsnes et al. 2024
  • Sex differences in self-reported causes, symptoms, and recovery strategies associated with underperformance in endurance athletes - Agudo-Ortega et al. 2024

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

David Tilbury-Davis has coached world class triathletes since 1995, among them Lionel Sanders, Ashleigh Gentle, Skye Moench, Cody Beals and Matt Hanson. In this episode we cover everything that decides whether an athlete reaches their potential except the training itself: professionalism, how you design your life around the sport, the decisions you make week to week, psychology and mindset, and the coach-athlete relationship.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• The single change outside training with the biggest upside, and the second one David adds straight after it, which most athletes with a job will find far harder than the first.
• Professionalism defined as everything that performatively matters and is not swim, bike, run or gym, and the checklist David runs through when he wants to know how professional an athlete really is.
• The difference between a support structure that is supportive and one that is merely tolerant, the conversation to have before committing to a season, and why David wants to interview the 5am-club influencer's partner.
• Guardrails: the training window one of David's pro athletes drew around her day and refused to move, what he tells younger pros about procrastination, and the checks he runs before anyone turns pro.
• Why self-doubt and imposter syndrome run high in almost every athlete he has coached in 30 years, what separates the ones who use it as fuel from the ones it consumes, and where he draws the line between confidence and arrogance.
• Executing a session versus staying present and engaged in it, the athlete riding four hours in ERG-mode watching Top Gun, and the cue David uses for how wrecked a training week should leave you.
• Attention as a resource you spend: structured swim sets on the watch, the athlete apologising for a warm-up five watts off, and the one split David actually wants reported back to him mid-session.
• The 80 / 15 / 5 split David puts on coaching, what falls into the 5 per cent, and the pizza-slice session he invented for one athlete and then wrote to Professor Stephen Seiler about.

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• Follow David Tilbury-Davis on his website and Instagram. Also check out his training camp.
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Related episodes:
  • David Tilbury-Davis | EP#416
  • The evolution of coaching principles and practices with David Tilbury-Davis | EP#283
  • Perspectives on coaching with David Tilbury-Davis | EP#227
  • Perspectives on training with David Tilbury-Davis | EP#226
  • Triathlon race planning with David Tilbury-Davis | EP#150
  • Kolie Moore – Overrated and Underrated Factors for Cycling Performance | EP#703
  • The Hour record and aerodynamics with Dan Bigham | EP#368
  • Dan Bigham – aerodynamic testing, equipment, and making your bike fast | EP#229
  • Polarised training with Stephen Seiler, PhD | EP#177
• Studies discussed:
  • Adaptations to aerobic interval training: interactive effects of exercise intensity and total work duration - Seiler et al. 2013
  • Superior performance improvements in elite cyclists following short-interval vs effort-matched long-interval training - Rønnestad et al. 2020

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In today's Research Roundup we bring you four recent studies. How world-class Norwegian endurance coaches programme strength and speed, the factors determining how a runner's physiology holds up over two and a half hours of running, a defence of the critical power model written by the people who built it, and a polarised versus high-intensity trial in cyclists with a result neither of us expected.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

• Strength and speed training across eight Olympic endurance sports (including triathlon, swimming, cycling and running), from 12 world-class Norwegian coaches whose athletes have won over 400 international medals. How many hours a year each sport does, and which sport sits at the bottom of the table.
• What those sessions look like: exercises, sets, reps and how close to failure the athletes are taken, which is a long way from what randomised trials prescribe. Plus the 10 hours a year of speed training every sport did, and what it looks like.
• How Daniel and Mikael each place strength and speed work in a real training week, where they differ from the Norwegian model, and why an age-group athlete in their forties is a different case from an Olympic athlete in their twenties.
• Physiological resilience (durability) during two and a half hours of continuous unfed running, with thresholds, running economy and VO2max retested at the end. Which variables fall most, which barely move, and how runners of different ability differ.
• Mikael sets the running economy decline against what a pair of carbon shoes buys you and asks which is bigger. Plus the two qualities that separated the runners who held up, one aerobic and one from the gym.
• Ten common criticisms of the critical power model, answered by the group that built it: whether CP is just FTP renamed, whether the model claims you can hold CP forever, whether a power law fits the curve better, and where the authors concede most.
• Critical power as a moving number rather than a fixed one, what that does to how you prescribe a threshold session, and the gap between the test durations the paper recommends and the ones Mikael actually uses.
• Polarised against high intensity with the hard sessions held identical, three a week for six weeks, one group adding four hours a week of easy riding. What the time trial showed, and why Mikael thinks the result is wrong (a strong statement!).

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

• Follow Daniel Rowland and Endurance Ideas and Implementation on his website, Substack and Instagram.
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
• The full podcast episode archives (including category filters) can be found here.
• Related episodes:
  • New Research on Torque Training, Ketones, Carb Loading and Pacing | Daniel Rowland | EP#698
  • The 10% Rule Applies to Your Long Run, Not Your Week | Research Roundup | EP#709
  • Is VO2max more important than lactate threshold? | Research roundup | EP#705
  • [Triathlon Science] Durability decoded – a 2025 perspective with Michele Zanini, PhD
• Studies discussed:
  • Strength and Speed Training Practices for Olympic Endurance Sports: Insights From World-Class Coaches - Haugen et al. 2026
  • Determinants of Physiological Resilience Among Recreational-To-Competitive Endurance Runners - Malinen et al. 2026
  • Ten Common Criticisms of the Critical Power Model Revisited - Black et al. 2026
  • The effectiveness of polarized versus high-intensity training in moderately trained cyclists: a randomized parallel-design study - Moran-MacDonald et al. 2026
  • Best-Practice Training Characteristics Within Olympic Endurance Sports as Described by Norwegian World-Class Coaches - Sandbakk et al. 2025
  • Strength Training Improves Running Economy Durability and Fatigued High-Intensity Performance in Well-Trained Male Runners: A Randomized Control Trial - Zanini et al. 2025
  • Effects of Exercise Training on Mitochondrial and Capillary Growth in Human Skeletal Muscle: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression - Mølmen et al. 2024

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Alistair Brownlee is the only triathlete to win two individual Olympic golds, winning at home in London in 2012 and in Rio in 2016. He retired at the end of 2024 after an 18-year career, in which he also won two World Titles, four European Titles and the Commonwealth Games. He also has two second-place finishes from Ironman 70.3 World Championships. This is a conversation about how he actually trained across two decades, in particular when he was at his most dominant and changed the sport: the volume, the intensity, what he would do differently, and lots more.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listener Q&A, covering nine different questions/topics from building bike power as a runner and a collegiate swimmer moving back into triathlon, through what actually makes us fatigue during a threshold effort, to swimskins, power duration curves and lots more.

We do listener Q&As monthly, the last Thursday every month.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:

SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:

SPONSORS:

• Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
  
• Rouvy is hands down the most complete indoor cycling platform for triathletes. Among their thousands of beautiful bike courses from all around the world, all filmed in stunning quality, they have over 75 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 race courses plus 20+ Challenge Family courses, so you can pre-ride your race from home. Real gradients, real visuals, and real feel! Head to rouvy.com and use the code TTS to get your first month free on top of a 7-day free trial.
  
• Effortless Swimming produce the best swim goggles for triathletes and open water swimmers. Their NanoClear anti-fog lenses give you clear, fog-free vision that lasts and doesn't wear off. Don't let foggy or leaky goggles ruin another swim. Go to shop.effortlessswimming.com and use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.