I was just listening to the radio, and heard something interesting that feels applicable to pretty much any sport. Anton du Bec, of all people, the ballroom dancer guy from Strictly… “When you perform, that mustn’t be your best or hardest effort. The hardest effort must be the one you’ve done in training, the one you know you’ve done before”. I thought that was a great insight- it’s something I used to coach in kayaking, and it seems to me it works for most endurance sports too. So- what’re the quotes you carry around with you?

Interesting invite for us to partner with Scurry events at the Loch Ore off road tri. We have been advocating for more off road races for many years and last year we helped design the bike course at the Restless Gravel tri. That one is a real beast but we are thinking Loch Ore is a more accessible style of race. Does off road tri floats peoples boats?

What’s yous opinions of Ironman (the brand)? I’m not a fan : money centric. It also pains me that ironman is the denote for longer distance tris and I need to explain that Outlaw, challenge etc are Ironman distance but less corporate and therefore more acceptable (to me). But any newbies have a need to do an IM. ( and get the tat!)

For once I was at a stupid event and it wasn't my idea. Morgan invited his old da to do this 24 hour MTB race as a pair. I could easily have stuck to my guns after completing it as a quad, a pair and solo but scars can heal, only to be re-opened. If you don't know the race its held in Contin Forest just west of Inverness and as its 24hours of lapping a 12.4km track there are 17 hours of darkness. For such an undertaking you have to have sound support ( 1st time round we did wing it) and @Zoe Newsam and @Mark Brown stepped up and actually made the weekend for us. Can't say enough thank yous. We travelled up the day before ( morgan made a detour to the Lecht for a ski day as prep?!). Mark and I loaded the camper van and found ourselves a base camp spot. Chilled out fed and watered and we set off in the morning. We had a plan to take laps about and then switch to doubles at 10pm to allow some naps. Chatting with the Specialised guys we changed plan and decided to do doubles as soon as it got dark. Morgan set us off piped up to a Le mans start running to the bike and 10am we were off. Big smiles at the end of lap one and off I went - more big smiles. We both had smooth laps in optimal conditions - mainly hard packed snow cover so a smidge over 2 hours and we were set. Then the temperature rose. Conditions changed so under the snow were ice ruts so as the snow turned to slush it was almost impossible to hold the front wheel straight so the times lengthened but we were still grand. Mark had already replaced Morgans brakes andmy tyres were pronounced unsuitable so they were replaced too. Handy having an excellent mechanic in the crew. 6 laps done and dusted sitting in around 14th place. Lights on and Morgan set off on the first double. After his first lap, his main headlight was running out of charge. This is the main lesson of the day. We hired the biggest baddest Exposure lights and plan was - one of those each, a head mounted light and a back up on the bars. When we picked up the lights they said 7 hours on full beam... so we didn't mount the back ups. We gave Morgan a small headtorch as safety and off he went. All good , 8 laps done and its about 6pm so dinner time. The great thing about this style of event is that fuelling is real food - so bolognaise , burgers, home made chicken soup, tea , coffee, home baking and erm Red Bull.

Most triathletes find the swim to be the hardest discpline to make and manage improvement in. It is super common for people to be one paced and to simply bash away doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Technique improvement is king but also how you approach a session with regard to pacing, recovery and effort has an effect on performance. When we bike or run we have no issue in following a set containing intervals but all too often we see people who swim the same pace in every swim. The data maybe isn't as granular and using averages is somewhat flawed but lets take a look at HR ( as the measure of effort). Wrist based measures can be and are flawed but they are consistently flawed in the pool. Lets illustrate it simply ( yes we could spend days compiling a study but years of observation tell us what we will find) 2 swimmers Beginner with Max HR of 190 and Threshold of 157 Recovery swim - Pace 1:59 mins per 100m, HR avg 139, peak 160 Proper swim speed - Pace 2mins per 100m, HR avg 135, peak 155 The sessions should produce faster pace and higher HR on the Speed set but they don't. Expeienced swimmer with Max HR of 190 and Threshold of 165 Recovery swim - Pace 1:48 per 100m, HR avg 127, peak 148 Ultimo speed swim - Pace 1:29 per 100m, Hr avg 135, peak 155 This athlete shows more like what we would expect - working harder and speed is up and HR is up. Key thing is the skill level allows the effort to vary without killing form. We now have the obvious fact that HR will always be lower when swimming vs running or biking. Why is that? There are 3 reasons 1. The water is a coolant so the heart doesn't need to pump blood as hard to cool us down 2. Buoyancy - the water is supporting our bodyweight so we aren't using as many muscle groups as actively 3. Horizontal position - the pressure required to pump fluids is less when not pumping against gravity so again less CV strain. We still have the capacity in the CV system so why can't so many people use it fully? So its in theory easier to swim from a CV perspective but the limiters are many - technique is one but pacing,effort and swim specific fitness are the others. If you swim one paced then you will be one paced forever. We have to vary the stimuli.