How AI Coaching Helped an Everyday Engineer Win Ironman Ottawa. (ft. Luke Evans)

but four weeks ago I was training in Hamilton and during the long training ride I got hit by a car about four weeks ago.

All right. I am here with Luke Evans. Luke, welcome to the podcast.

Where'd your love for sport even begin?

Okay, well, my love for sport, I guess it really started, I played hockey for about 15, 16 years growing up. I learned to skate when I was, geez, three or four years old, just like any other Canadian player, played hockey when I was five, six, all the way up through the same organization, all the way up until the end of high school.

But then through middle school and high school, I joined the swim team. And so I was just joining, I swam for my middle school, swam for my high school, and more as a way to stay fit and healthy for hockey. ⁓ Through there, I wasn't a good enough swimmer, never swam competitively outside of school, and I still wanted to do something in university. So my swim coach in high school,

then contacted the university I was going to, Carleton. And I joined the water polo team there because I wasn't necessarily good enough to join the swim team or compete at swimming.

I kept playing hockey. So I was playing hockey but four or five times a week in different pickup leagues, different men's leagues and that's when COVID hit. So as soon as COVID hit, everything shuts down. So I needed an outlet, needed to do something.

had never never ran as an athlete before never really biked I did do one cycling lawn cycling ride when I was about 15 or 16, I think

I knew of Ironman. I knew it was a ridiculous distance. And in the back of my head, it's something I don't think I ever told anyone, but I really wanted to do an Ironman at some point in my life, but never thought of. found the opportunity to really train for it, because you really have to do training for it. ⁓ And so when COVID hit, I was lifting weights with my brother. I thought this would be the perfect time to learn how to run, because I had to learn how to run. did not know

I knew if you ran quickly and just started doing coach to 5k, you'll probably injure yourself. So my parents gave me this learn to run book. Pretty much the 10 week program

And so I think after learning how to run, the goal that summer was to do an Olympic distance, to do a 10k.

You

So I just scheduled my own Olympic distance race. did it. think the swim was roughly about 150 meter 1.5 K the bike end up being 42 K on a very hilly course And the run ended up being I 10 and a half km again did it by myself did about two hours and 30 minutes and On a road bike because I didn't know you know, I to tri bike at the time So that was pretty pretty happy with that and at that time that's when I registered I realized hey I really want to do the Ironman thing

Pretty good.

That's awesome. Keep going,

⁓

Again, you've really put the background

place. if I'm honest, it's nothing that special. And I think it's something that everyone can relate to. You really started from, with the exception of the swimming,

and you gotta swim.

knew how to swim. And that's a challenging one for the everyday athlete when they're starting. They don't always get that gift.

Yeah.

so keep on going. So what happened in Wisconsin? This is

you said.

So

Wisconsin, I mean was training for Wisconsin. I was using a different app at the time for AI because I didn't have a coach and I was just learning how to train. And at that time I didn't have a power meter. I just bought my first tri bike I think that summer with the help of my brother on Facebook marketplace. And my goal I think based on some of the times was I think I could do it in about 12 hours if everything went well.

Some things is, you know, with Ironman racing never does go well, never does go perfectly. Um, but I think I did it in 10 hours and 50

minutes in Wisconsin and then ended up coming, yeah,

Pretty for your first one.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

just kept going. bought a new set of carbon wheels that time to see if I could go a little bit faster. I realized the carbon wheels didn't fit the bike. ⁓ It was too narrow in the fork. So I bought a new bike and sold the old one.

And the bike I bought for Lake Placid is this bike I'm still riding today.

⁓ and Lake Placid then I went 9.50 in Lake Placid

and was good enough that that got me my first Kona slot. So there was two slots for that age group. The person who won the race was actually Matthew Marquardt. So was nowhere near his level at the time, but then someone else came second and I came third and I knew I had the slot sitting in third place because Matthew had already claimed his slot earlier than you I think in Arizona.

just about the heat in Kona

Yeah, I remember now. Yeah.

So how did Kona go before you? first

Okay.

right? It's

OK. You just want to get through your first one. Yeah.

It's okay. is a tough race.

So the swim was fine. mean, for me, mostly the swim was fine.

it, getting out of the water, I had an okay bike, same time as Lake Placid on a slightly flatter course, but harder. And then the run, in fact, just felt like kind of hobbled home.

So think I ran just below a four hour marathon. Still proud, proud to do it. Proud to do that Kona race.

Yep.

⁓

So then got my second Kona slot. Actually, no, I didn't. I'm in Arizona on the bike about 80 kilometers in, I crashed at Nate Station. So I think there was a bit of chaos at Nate Station as everyone knows. I swore to avoid someone or a bottle and went over the handlebars, crashed my bike, scraped up all my elbows, my knees, was on the ground for about nine minutes, ⁓ just getting it all patched up. And then I went on to finish the race.

It's probably one the most painful rides I've ever done.

Got on the run and again the run, it was pretty much all I could manage. I think I was just under a four hour marathon. Came in with the exact time. But it felt like I was just kind of hobbling my way around the course. What did I end up with? I it was like a 9.28 or something. Still pretty fast, but it was also a flat and fast course. So a while out of stationary. So I didn't get my Kona slot for that one.

Mm-hmm.

Amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so Kona Kona went Pretty well except for the very end Had a record swim I was in a front pack with most of the people who I wanted to I got towed around the whole swim. I got towed to a 52 minute swim in Kona Which is fantastic and it didn't take much out of me at all because I was in a wedge kind of three rows back Which is beautiful

Really good.

Nice.

jumped on the bike, I think I was third in my age group, second or third, in a pack of about 10, on the bike, and put out okay power for me. ⁓ But I think what happened was I put out my planned power for a normal Ironman race, and I didn't take into account the heat. And so my heart rate was about 167 to 170 for most of the Ironman bike, which is about five to 10 beats higher than it should be. And because of that, I had no energy. I also...

Mm-hmm.

what Christian Blumenfeld, what everyone's seen of Christian Blumenfeld did that race, I did the exact same thing. had about coming down up to Harvey and coming back down from Harvey, everything came out. I couldn't get any food in. So it resulted in a pretty good bike split. I think it was about a four hours and 45 minute bike split in Kona. But coming off the bike, it means I had nothing in my stomach. I had no energy, nothing. And so I ran the first 10K solid, but coming up, Palani,

Yep.

I just lost it and I had to walk up Pilani and I walked for the next about 15 to 18K. I think I walked to kilometer 27 from Palani.

Just because I couldn't do anything.

Yeah.

that was my slowest marathon in about a 4:30 because you walked, walked about 15 to 18k. So that's one of reasons I really want to go back to Kona. I got it.

I've had two okay races in Kona, but I can do that race better. So, I'm going to go back to Kona.

Yes, you can. Yeah, you can. Especially,

and we especially know that now after probably the next race that you're going to get to, right? The most recent one.

Yeah, so exactly. So now I registered for Ironman Ottawa in right actually right before we left for Texas is when the registration opened. got an email saying that they moved Ironman Canada to Ottawa and immediately as they do that I knew I had to do that race and I registered immediately. I didn't care what the slots were, what the world championships were. It was in Ottawa. I spent four years of my life there and in fact they have an Ironman and what felt like my second home.

I just knew I had to do it. So I registered immediately Yeah, and then just this is my this is my a race for the whole year I wasn't even registered for another Ironman There wasn't the plan this was this was the a race of the whole year I didn't know what I gonna do after this. So I've trained trained for most of the winter Yeah, and it went it went mostly according to plan. There was a couple issues that we had

But yeah, it went well and I guess we can get into that race if that's what you wanna do now.

Yeah,

I do. Yeah, you went, you went tape to tape 8:40. So you're the, you're the overall winner ⁓ in the, in the race. must've felt amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool to hear. Never...

Yes and no. It feels amazing now. ⁓ It didn't feel like it amazing sometimes during the race. It just feels really cool to win one of these. I knew I could win. It felt like, in a non-pro event, it felt like I could win one these at one point. I didn't think it would come this week or during this race. ⁓ But going into the race, I've always been...

Okay.

as I've been going getting better at these in the top kind of 15 to top 30 of the of lead award if I don't crash. So I knew I'd this win with this race I'd probably be in the top 10 I think but didn't think I would win it necessarily I knew it might have been possible but I didn't think I'd actually do it. ⁓ Going into the swim I guess when they started the swim I planned because it's a rolling start I planned to place myself about

four to five rows back from the start on purpose. Cause I want to see a lot of the faster swimmers and people who think they're faster, just going to try and push themselves to the start. And I don't want to spend any energy on the swim if I can't, don't have to. So I sit back from the start, I'm going to jump in the water, put my head up. Once we do take about 15 strokes and see who's moving and I'm going go get their feet. That's my goal. So I see who's swimming, who's swimming fast. And I'm going to all do a hard 200 if I need to.

to go find their feet. Especially going into this, I knew the swim was going to be hard because the course, you're going out and then you're going into the current. So my plan for the swim was basically to do an all out two and a half K and then coast home. Right? You're going into the swim, you're going into the current. I want to put a gap into anyone if I can going into the current, if they can stay with me or maybe pull me through the current. And then we'll all just coast home together on the same gap.

And especially the day of, the morning of, saw where there was a wind, it was very wavy too, and the wave was also the same direction as the current. You're swimming in that loop into a current, into waves. And so using that plan, saw everyone was swimming. I saw a couple of people who I thought might be faster, started a couple of rows behind them, started behind them, tried to find their feet. And as I was swimming up to them, I swam a couple...

strokes at their pace and it just wasn't the pace that I wanted to swim at. I wanted to go faster than what they were. ⁓ And so I just said, okay, okay, I'm just going to swim on my own. And so I passed them and by the first turn boy, had a couple body lengths on, I guess the lead, the lead pack that was behind me and then just didn't turn around. I just kept swimming my pace, kept swimming my pace that I wanted to swim at. It was a little, you felt like you were getting battered, but honestly I felt fairly comfortable.

I was used to anyway, you're a current fighting the waves and I didn't see them until the second turn around you turn both to do with a full u-turn and by the time I did finish the full the full u-turn I looked back and they were still kind of cutting across the box So I thought I had at least a minute minute a bit on them ⁓ and in that case I knew with a lot of the a lot of the bike power that I've been racing in

Nice.

I guess in Ontario right now that I'm one of the stronger bikers in Ontario too. So at that point, halfway through the swim, as we're coming home on the swim, I knew it was going to come down to the run and see if anyone could come on the run. So I got on the bike. The time was 40, sorry, 54 minutes, think. 54 and change, 54 and a half. Yeah. I think now I'm on the bike.

It's finished. what was the time? What was the swim finish?

Yep. Yep. Sounds about right. Yeah. And then now, so now you're on the bike.

Quick transition, jump on the bike. Bike computer wasn't really working. I had no speed and no power. So I restarted my bike computer while was climbing the first hill and finally got it going after about a kilometer and a half in. Three or four Ks later, my main nutrition bottle, the way I was doing my nutrition that day was I had four bottles on my bike, one in the front and a bottle in the front filled completely with carbs. And the carbs I'm using is pretty much straight maple syrup.

And that's it. And then on the back of the bike, again, just more water and some electrolytes. So I can lose some of the electrolyte bottles or drink as much as I feel like I want and just grab more water, electrolytes from the course. And as long as I don't lose or make sure I drink out of that maple syrup bottle, I'll be good to go. But about five K into the bike, that maple syrup bottle drops off the bike.

out.

So anyway, turn around, grab that bottle. I can't lose that bottle.

So go on the bike, you're holding your power. ⁓ And the first lap was just beautiful.

I was a little worried more in the second lap,

And I was starting to feel a little tired. ⁓ Clearly I pushed it a couple of watts too high in the first lap.

⁓ and my watts were dropping a little bit lower than what my gold watts were to be on the second lap.

and so I made sure to get a bunch of carbs in and I think we'll talk about this later but I might have taken too much at this point and I took a bunch of maple syrup made sure I was fueled as much as I could and then by the time I got to about kilometer I think 120 130 I started to feel a lot better then and it's not like the watts came up anymore

But it started to feel easier and more comfortable to put them out and so I was about back at where where I wanted to stay at for the rest of the ride. Had another problem where I had another bottle drop off the back of the bike.

And so that happened about kilometer 120. I still had a full bottle at the front and I still had my full nutrition bottle. So that's enough to get you through 70 kilometers or so with the aid station. So I knew I didn't really worry. I didn't really care to be honest because if I grabbed a couple bottles at the aid station drank them

I used drag him at the aid station and then dished him before the aid stations plus with the bottle that was a full liter at the front of my bike I was actually going to be okay. So yeah, I was feeling okay coming off the bike. Had a quick transition, I'm gonna surprise you. I think four hours and 28 minutes in a bit. So it's funny, got on, I think it's.

What was your time once it was all done?

If I did everything properly and everything went well on the bike, I was putting out power at the beginning and I didn't have some bottle drops and issues, I probably could have gone 425, which is what best bike split set it was gonna be. So it was supposed to be pretty much right on track. Quick transition and got on the run. And the run, felt, I mean, my legs felt completely dead on the run, but they were moving.

Nice, nice, that's pretty good.

So I've done a lot of run training. That was one of the things where I was focusing on this whole year. I got a run coach and specifically a run coach who did track and field running and kind 10k running to get my speed up. Cause I have a pretty good engine. I don't have any speed. So my top end speed is fairly close to what my 10k and marathon pace. There's not a lot of difference between my 10k pace and my marathon pace. So I really needed to get my speed up and so, and do that under load.

And so what happened was I got running, my legs were really, really tired, but they just, they were moving. They were moving at a pace that felt comfortable. So I went through the first kind 10 to 12 K, my legs were completely dead on something that honestly, I wouldn't even do a walk around the house in, but they were moving at a pretty decent pace. and then the stomach started cramping.

Yes, you are.

I've had issues with GI a lot in the past and it's been a common thing where even if I went, there was a time period where even if I went for an easy 25-minute run, I couldn't go past 30 minutes without having to find a bathroom.

And I've learned to run and deal with it because I've learned to run with the cramps. ⁓ But it definitely slows you down. Like my pace, my goal pace was about 4:15. ⁓ Because of the tired legs, it kind of dropped to about 4:20. So not that big of a difference. But as soon as you had the cramps, it was about

4:30, 4:40. And at some points it was five minutes for a couple of it for a little bit. And as soon as I got back, went to the bathroom, got rid of everything, guess what? I'm back to 4:20 again. So that's definitely something I'm gonna have to deal with in the future and plan around.

Mm-hmm.

Luke big take us back to finding Athletica. And again, think about the everyday athlete as well. Like how are you able to

find Athletica and I've, you I've, know you've mentioned you've had a run coach, you've done swimming and stuff in the past, but I've gone through your profile. There's a lot of sessions that are completed. Like you've got a lot of green on all of your, all of your sessions. So you're, you are using the app.

Yeah, no, I use it religiously. only reason, so I started with another app beforehand, which wasn't necessarily as much detail or in depth. think it's a phenomenal beginner app. Athletica goes into much more detail and gives you much more insight than I think even a coach often can. So what I use Athletica for is a lot of load management.

and to know when I'm overworking myself or whether I could push a little more.

⁓ And so...

So how do you do that?

Talk more about how like give the audience some insight if you can.

It's more I use

I like it. It's incredibly simple to use. Once you set up your week, right? I know on Monday I have to have a recovery ride, right? Which is the same thing. Tuesday's a strength workout, right? For me, it's about a two hour and 20 minute workout with three, four or five times a longer effort at locating. So what Athletica does then is it'll make, it'll tell me and it

the duration of those intervals, right?

And you can see through the build that the duration of the intervals will be longer, right? Versus the beginnings. So at beginning you'll do three times eight minutes. At the end, I'll be doing five times 12, right? And you can see it build. Whereas I'm working on my, if I was working on my own, I'd never know when to do that, right? So again, going through, you have your VO2 max. I typically do that bike ride on Wednesdays, right? At the beginning, when you're just building your base,

Yes.

Yeah.

Totally.

sometimes it's as short as two times five 30 30s. At the end, I was doing four times 10 30 30s at the same once. So it, even leading into race week, I think it was three times eight or three times nine 30 30s, because that's what your body's then used to. ⁓ And then so then I more use the, alternates than the long ride. I ignored it a little bit on the long ride.

but took the workout part of it because sometimes the long ride would tell me to do two hours or three hours. Sometimes it would tell me to do five and a half hours. What I would do there is I only had about a four hour time period to do on every Saturday. So no matter what I told myself leading into this year, sometimes I skipped the long rides in previous years. I told myself this year I'm doing a long ride every single Saturday and it's going to be four hours. So every single Saturday, no matter what Athletica told me, I did four hours of work, but I did the work that Athletica told me. So if the work was...

Mmm.

Yes.

three times 20 minutes at whatever power or two times 40 minute race block or you had your over-unders typically with the 20 minute session that's what I would do in the main in the main workout block and you just kind of the warm up and the cool down to suit the time that I had but it still tells you the load and the main work that you need to do so that's the way that's the way I follow it

Perfect.

Nice.

The swimming, kind of ignored a lot of the swimming because I, the Athletica often want you to do three to four swims a week. I was struggling to do two swims a week and frankly that doesn't really matter to me.

That's amazing. You did what you did. We let off with the swimming story that you went tape to tape and you were gifted there. Yeah.

I would swim twice. I mean, when I swam, I swam with purpose, right? So my swims

each week were, each swim was three and a half K, often in long course. And often it was a kilometer and a half, sometimes two K with paddles. like it's strength, long endurance strength work swimming, very little speed in the swim, but a lot of technique and a lot of strength.

Yeah, nice.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, because don't forget you are an everyday athlete. are, you've got a full-time job. You're an engineer, right?

Yeah, I work

over 40 hours a week most weeks as a consulting engineer.

And yeah, and you were able to go

840 with doing that. That's incredible. What does your employer think?

Yeah, yeah.

They were pretty happy with it. There was a post on LinkedIn about it. I think there was a CTV article or interview that they posted on LinkedIn. I know a bunch of them were following on the Airman tracker. So they're pretty happy with it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that's

So.

Amazing.

So, Iron Man Arizona is the next goal then, is it?

That's the next step. That's the next step I made in Arizona to get a Kona slot. So that's what we'll have to work towards.

That's so cool. Yeah.

Fantastic. Well, if I can help you with your ⁓ nutrition strategy on that, I certainly will. So, ⁓ yeah, I just want to back up, you know, from some of the stats in the, ⁓ you know, the, like the stats are kind of supporting in your charts, exactly sort of what you're saying in terms of the load management, the two key charts that show that the first is your, I guess your performance potential, right? And that's in your charts in Athletica.

And it just shows how consistent that you were and that there's this steady rise of fitness, theoretical fitness, in terms that kind of goes up and then goes down a little bit because your freshness goes up towards the taper. So just perfect. And then the other one was your ⁓ recovery profile, which is in there as well. So your HRV. And this, again, really shows that you are very well managed. Shows you're a little bit stressed right now at the end, but that's kind of to be expected.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah,

but everything shows just like these, there's this big nice surge of ⁓ ultimately parasympathetic activity that is full recovery and adaptation energy ultimately.

Yeah, with the...

Yeah, the HRE is pretty funny because when you manage it or try and really the thing I try and manage is try and get, there's no way can ever get eight hours of sleep in a night. Sometimes on the weekends you can do it, but I just can't do it. I more try and make sure I'm in bed for eight hours a night. So I'm in bed, ⁓ just at least lying there, I listen to podcasts when I fall asleep. ⁓ Sometimes you can't get to sleep, but at least if you're in bed relaxing.

Yeah.

that does help with the recovery. And I've learned that's the biggest thing. One time, there a couple of times I was leading into races and I wasn't prioritizing sleep and I was only getting six hours a couple of years ago and it really affects your racing. So you got to make sure, I make sure that you get a lot of sleep. ⁓ Really when you're

Mm-hmm. Totally.

Yeah. And I can really

that,

Yeah, the interesting thing is, I don't know if you can see that on the recovery or the performance potential one, but four weeks ago I was training in Hamilton and during the long training ride I got hit by a car about four weeks ago. And a car hit me, kind of sideswiped me, then hit me dead on. I went over the handlebars of my bike, flipped over.

wow.

and got a bunch of road rash. Luckily there was nothing that came of it. I didn't break anything, didn't break my collarbone, had a bunch of problems with my elbow so I couldn't ride aero position for about three weeks. ⁓ But.

Is it right

around June 18th or thereabouts?

⁓ July 5th was when the accident was. So you'll see there's a missing probably two days, July 6th and July 7th is pretty much took easy and off. And then we were back on the bike then after that.

Okay.

⁓

I can yeah for sure so you were actually recovered just be just prior to that with a form going up and then it really goes up there

yeah, yeah like it and again, it's theoretical recover. Yeah, and it's really going that your form is really going up there after Because you're not exactly

Yeah.

Yeah, because it's theoretical recovery because I wasn't necessarily doing any exercise after that. took

that week is pretty much easy or easier before I came back and did a long ride indoors. I still couldn't ride outdoors for a week or two.

Yes,

wow, so that's even more remarkable.

Yeah, I mean, I

So isn't it amazing that you were still able to perform as you did?

Yeah, mean, considering what the injuries were, I'm not surprised that honestly nothing was really affected at the time. building in, that was my first worry, is I went to the hospital, did everything, checked out, I was worried just about some, I laid a lot of my elbows on my knee, and I was worried about the knee and the elbows, just some small cracks in the bone. Because of that, those were broken, there was no way I was gonna be able to race.

you know, I've been speaking to my wife about this and others in Athletica. to be honest, I'm just like, I'm blown away that you've generally used Athletica to guide you. You know, notwithstanding the other, ⁓ you know, bells and whistles that you put on your program. ⁓ But in general, you've used Athletica, an AI coach to guide you to a

an overall win in a non-pro event ⁓ in the world. To me, it's amazing. I can't believe it. It's kind of like an almost like a dream come true as well for me. So thank you for doing what you've done. Any comments on that? It's surreal to me. ⁓ What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, it's cool. I think what it's allowed me to do is just learn more about myself. So because I don't have a coach, my run coach is fantastic at doing running and learning about mainly running. But what Athletica is able to do is help me learn about my load and the load that I'm putting on my body. Right. So it really helped me understand because I didn't, I it has all these charts that

Frankly, I understand a bit of, but not all of them, right? But they're easy to understand and easy to follow. So, ⁓ I don't know a lot of science behind it, but I can see this graph and see where it's trending and see where it's gonna be. And if I stick to the plan, that's hopefully where I'll end up, right? And so I know I can tweak things here or there depending on how I'm feeling. It's not gonna impact the overall plan, but it'll impact my day to day a little bit. As long as I stick to what the overall general plan is. ⁓

It allows me to understand this is how I'm feeling and learn that if I do one workout one way

Athletica kind of takes that data and changes it and I guess tells me how it gives me immediate feedback. It tells me how I'm doing. Right. And then you can take that feedback and internalize it and know how, how it impacts you. Cause you often, you can feel something, but it's, it's tough to feel validated by whatever you're feeling without an external measure. Right. So often like when you're running,

Sometimes you're running and you feel like you're running fast. I get out the door often the time and I'm running and I feel like I'm going quickly but for me it's actually five minute pace which for me is not that quick, right? But I feel like I'm moving fast that's because my legs haven't warmed up yet. So it's perceptive. kind of, it provides data and actual analytics to what, to verify what your body's feeling and then it allows you become more in tune with your body because you know how your body is reacting.

was able to just like help you understand how things are working inside you and to verify what you're feeling.

So you say that it's giving you feedback and analytics. Can you be more specific? Where are you looking? Are you listening to the AI coach or what specifically?

A lot of it is the recovery and the performance potential that I look at most. what I track is I know if this is what's motivated me to be honest to keep me ⁓ consistent is that performance potential, right? Is that that's that graph because I know if I follow the workouts that are there, ⁓ it's going to keep going up and you feel stronger. The progression and triathlon is so slow that it doesn't give you

often immediate feedback. People want to do a couch to 5k and see that 5k time improved by training for 4 weeks And it doesn't happen. It happens over years and years and years. And so if you provide a data point that allows people to see that graph go up and to the right, it keeps them motivated. So part of the of the reasons why I kept stay motivated was that performance potential graph.

allows me to see that it's keep going up. The things that I'm doing when I'm supposed to be pushing up, it pushes it up. When I'm supposed to be keeping it flat, okay good, it's actually staying flat. And if I do all these things during this week to keep it flat, it's supposed to be flat. And during the taper, I want it to go down by this much. And Athletica will guide you to have it go down by this much so that you're becoming ready and have your form come up. Right? And that way I know that I'm staying on track

do a performance that my body's capable of.

Yeah. So really important question because like, so, ⁓ where, cause some people, like you've, said that Athletica is easy to understand, but not everyone agrees with that and they find it complex, right? And you said there's a lot of complexity and with some of the graphs and we're really trying hard to, simplify those sorts of things. But what would you say to the person that, ⁓ you know, they want a little bit of, they want a little taste of what, what you've been able to, to achieve. ⁓ but they're.

little bit green around the edges in terms of getting into the platform and trying to understand it. Where would you say they should start?

that's one of the things about Athletica that might be hard for the beginner athlete because to take full advantage of it, you need to have a heart rate monitor and some way to track data. Right. So, and ideally have a smartwatch and be able to run and ride with power helps for sure in Athletica, ⁓ not entirely necessary, but it really helps. So really to

Mm-hmm.

take full advantage of Athletica, you need to have a power meeting, need to have a pretty much a heart rate chest strap, because the watch ones are not that accurate, and you need to have a running watch. And because of that barrier to entry, someone who's just starting triathlon, ⁓ Athletica is not necessarily, I think, the best for very, very beginner person, right? And so, but as soon as someone starts, does their first sprint, getting into it, and then,

Yeah. Yeah.

looning gets the bug and wants to improve without something like having that data, it's very hard to motivate yourself. To be honest, I don't know how people did triathlon in the 80s, where there's no power meter, they're running just with a Timex and there's very little, there's no heart rate data really at all, you're just doing the feeling. Yeah, exactly. Right? There's no immediate feedback.

That was me, bro. That was me. was like the old, the recipe was just go hard

and go long. Go hard and go long. That's all you know. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you just push yourself into your bed and you stop. That's

training. Whereas now it's a lot more scientific. And I thought it allows you to have that specific, ⁓ prescribe specific intervals for what you need. That's what it does. And for someone who's starting, that's why I also think it's not necessarily necessary for someone who's specifically starting maybe in the first couple of months. Because look what I did for the first couple of months. To learn to run and to be able to use that like a properly, you have to be able to run.

Yes, you do.

And I couldn't run,

right? Your standard couch to 5K program, just go run and walk for one minute, five, one minute on, one minute off, or 20 minutes. And that's where you're starting. If you can't do that, ⁓ you have no business using Athletico right now. But once you can do that, that's when you should join and it'll take you to the next level.

Totally. And I will just highlight, we do have that. It's free for anyone that does just want to learn Couch to 5K. It's called the Athletica Kickstarter. 100 % free online ⁓ program, email program. And you do exactly what Luke recommends there. it just emails you ⁓ basically three times a week, ⁓ almost identical prescription to what Luke ⁓ says. And yeah. No, we do, because we recognize that as well. You got to...

That's awesome. I didn't even know you had that. I did not know. That was going be one of my things to tell you. If you don't

have that, that's how you get people in the door to Athetica because what I'm using it for is not obviously not that. It's hell of a lot more data. But yeah, you need people to get people in the door to go and learn how to just move their body.

Yeah, you gotta start there.

Absolutely. Hey, how much, if any, strength training did you do?

So for what most people call strength training, did zero. And including when Athletica has one to two strength sessions a week. About a year when I started with Athletica, I would follow those to the tour tee and do them. Now I don't do them at all. I use the time block to do them, but I'm dealing with a couple injuries that they're not, I wouldn't even call them injuries anymore, but it's more just managing them.

Yeah.

So I use those at a time to do physio exercises or stretching or other stuff. So I don't listen to the exercises even though I think the exercises are incredibly valuable because they helped me at beginning.

Awesome, amazing. Well, we're grateful for the support, Luke. We're going to be continuing to follow you on your journey and continuing to do our best to try to help you to keep you on the role that you're on. It's pretty exciting watching you. ⁓ Congratulations again, mate. ⁓ until the next time.

Perfect. Thank you very much, Paul.