Happy Athletes Go Faster: Lessons Learned from Pro Triathlete and Coach Drew Shellenberger

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Metta Performance Podcast. I'm on today and as usual, I have a chaperone today. It's Michael. Thanks for chaperoning today, Mr. S... Well, we've gone over the ground rules. Just keep it clean and straight. I know. I haven't done any solo yet because that's the ground rules. I'm not allowed to fly solo. We try to keep it. Someone keeps me in line with G and PG as we go. So that's why I have you four. I'm stoked to have Drew here today. So how are you, Mr. Shellenberger? Doing wonderful. Happy to be on the Metta Podcast.

[00:00:30] And yeah, ready to impart some knowledge. Whoa, whoa. I didn't know we were going to allow. We're going to get smarter. I'm not as far ready for that. I'm stoked. So before you give your bio, I was lucky enough to meet Drew. Drew and I, Drew actually has been a guest, Mike Bunting at Rudy. We worked at Nationals in the booth together, which was kind of interesting, which meant I got to hang and learn some about Drew. Although I did highlight as we were on here before we started recording, I hadn't seen Drew's whole face.

[00:00:58] He's had sunglasses on the whole time while we were there. So today's the first time I've seen Drew's whole face. And so that's, you know, that's cool. We'll get that. That's new. Give us your bio. Like, give us your bio, kind of where you are now and how you got there. Yeah. So currently I'm 24 years old. I've been a pro triathlete for going on, what is that, eight years now. So got my pro card really early on. And I did the whole actual pro triathlete life where you've got nothing else other than triathlon going on.

[00:01:26] And so got to live that life for four or five years while I was on Project Podium out of Arizona. So I was living in Arizona, getting to train and travel and go to go to all the places you really have heard about. So been to been to Europe, been to South America, been to a bunch of different places and really got to live that life. And it definitely is hard on a lot of people. And I mean, myself included, there were times where I was not very, not very stoked to be traveling and racing.

[00:01:55] But yeah, ended up making that work. And then in 2024, I left short course and went to long course. So now I'm doing 70.3s. And the pace of racing is definitely a different sort of vibe than the short course racing is. So a whole lot of more laid back travel and being a little bit more low key at races. So that's definitely more my style. So I'm glad that that's sort of a good transition.

[00:02:22] But yeah, really, I grew up swimming and running in high school in Indiana. So I grew up in Indiana. And yeah, that was really sort of my playground. Central Indiana was awesome to me. And yeah, they really had all the competition that I really needed and could handle at that point, actually. So yeah, I'm now also starting to coach a little bit. So dipping the toes in the water of being the other side of the coach-athlete relationship.

[00:02:51] And it's definitely a whole different struggle being on the other side of the training peaks while you're the one with the plan and trying to get the athlete to buy in. I totally understand now what all the coaches were telling me in high school and through project that, hey, there's things that the coach needs from you and you actually need to give it to them. And in short course and I guess mid or long course, still traveling with the bike box sucks, doesn't it?

[00:03:20] Yes. Yeah. Still traveling with the bike box sucks. My least favorite part of international racing was that stupid bike box. Well, the good news is though, now a lot of airlines will give you 70 pounds. So you can just shove everything in the bike box. You don't have to worry about it. And then you've got your backpack and carry on and you can hit the road. It's not really a problem. But I mean, before you get any like status or anything like that, obviously when you travel as much as we do, we've got some status on airlines.

[00:03:50] But yeah, when you don't have status, that 50 pound weight limit, you really got to be on it. I know there's nothing goes in there. Well, before we dive in with kind of that stuff, I always like to do a quick speed run to make sure you're a human. And especially at 24, now I'm feeling old. I guess you're same age as my youngest. So I can't, you know, could, could be worse. Are you tea or coffee?

[00:04:15] If neither is an option, I would choose neither, but I think I would rather choose tea than coffee. Okay. Then neither. Okay. Yeah. I, neither of my parents drink, drink coffee and tea really isn't sort of my, my jam. So I'm not really, I'm just a water guy. Plain water as much as I can get down. All right. Clear or mirrored goggles? Mirrored for sure. Hands down. You've got a weekend away, Drew. Are you going to go to a posh resort?

[00:04:44] Are you going to go camp in the middle of the woods? You know, if you'd asked me a couple of years ago, I probably would have said posh resort, but now I think I would say go camping. I, uh, I actually just got done building out a little thing in the back of my truck so I can camp whenever I want. And all I have to do is throw a, throw a mattress down and I can sleep and be completely out of the elements without having to set up a tent or anything like that. So yeah, I think now I would say I'm a full on camper. Game changer getting off the ground, isn't it? One way. Yes. Or a little trailer game changer.

[00:05:14] Game changer. Favorite race you've done? My favorite race I've done was probably Xterra Worlds in 2021. Got to go to Maui and it was not because I raced well, but because it was just like such a cool experience being there. Like I, I mean, growing up, I had watched all the, the like NBC reruns that are an hour long of both Kona and, and Xterra Worlds. So the whole, like just being in that place is just kind of a cool thing and

[00:05:43] sort of seeing it come full circle. And any pre-race ritual you have? I have quite a few. So night before is usually pizza. Any kind of pizza will go. Pizza night before. Then in the morning, I'm a peanut butter and jelly guy. So I'll do two peanut butter and jellies about three hours before the race. And that's the last time I eat solid food before the race. And then if my parents are along, we usually have a little prayer time about half an hour before the,

[00:06:11] before the start. So right before I go in for swim warmup, we huddle together, say a little prayer. And that's sort of like something that we've always done. Like even when my dad was racing, we would always sort of do our little family. We call it a family powwow. So we, we get together and like get in a little huddle and do a little prayer. So that's kind of, those are kind of the main three. So we need the, uh, between you bunting and I, the PB and J fan club, we need to be sponsored by and cross. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

[00:06:41] So Michael, I'll let you at the first question. Cause you had, like, as we talked about the app, getting the opportunity to talk to Drew, you had a topic I didn't think about. So yeah, I was, I was digging into your background, Drew. And then I realized there's a lot of similarities with my daughter who is at your age as well and getting started at an early start. And moving into the pro ranks and so forth. And so I thought we'd dig into that and that'll help us

[00:07:05] kind of build your whole story or at least your story up to now. So you mentioned your parents and I recognize that both of them are very accomplished athletes themselves. And so coming up in that, that environment, there's some, often some pressure either implied or, or explicit. So I'm curious, do you feel having that legacy? Do you, uh, do you see it as a pressure or inspiration or a little bit

[00:07:34] about? Well, it was always an inspiration when I was, when I was younger going out with my dad and go like going to go ride, it was always a, all right, can I beat him today? Like, and he would always give, he like, he would tell me, all right, I'm giving it my A game today. Like, I'm going to need it in order for you to not like ride away from me kind of thing. And that, that was up until I was like 12 or 13. And then I started riding faster than him and running, running faster a little later than that. But I knew for sure I could always take him in the pool.

[00:08:04] That was, that was not a, not a, not a problem. So, but he, he also wasn't really an endurance athlete until after college. And so just like, he was, he played the big three sports, baseball, basketball, football. And so he was definitely not endurance oriented until very much later into his life. So, I mean, with that being said, he was still very successful age group athlete. I mean, he qualified for Kona a couple of times and pretty much is qualified for worlds at all the distances

[00:08:33] for the last five, seven, eight years or something like that. So like, he's, he's a very successful athlete in his own right, but I would actually argue that my mom is the most successful of us all. I mean, she held the national record in the, in race walking. So she was a like national caliber race walker and got to go to junior pen and games and the whole nine yards. And so like,

[00:08:57] in terms of actual real athletic talent, I would say she's definitely the best out of all of us thus far, but yeah, she, she sort of had other priorities after high school. So, but then I always joked that I got the athletic genes and my sister got the academic genes. So a lot of the times it was all just kind of like, my parents were very good at separating my sister and I, it wasn't

[00:09:24] sibling rivalry all the time. I mean, obviously there was the little, okay, this is what Schellenbergers do. We get good grades. We, we like put our, put effort forward. We do our best and whatnot, but what you excelled at didn't really matter as long as you were trying something. And so that was a very good thing that both my parents were sort of set in and that they instilled it in both my sister and I from a very young age that, Hey, we don't really care what the outcome is. I mean, don't get me

[00:09:54] wrong. We all love winning like hands down. We all love winning, but even if you don't win, like the fact that you went out, you gave it your best shot and you're still doing better than 95% of other people. You can't really complain with that. So. So how is their, their experience and even watching your parents compete, how has that shaped your approach to training, consistency to long-term thinking? Well, I actually didn't really realize it at the time, but when my dad was really like

[00:10:23] given it as all triathlon, he was doing a whole lot of stuff that I had no idea what he was doing. And he, it really all came down to setting a plan and executing it. It doesn't really matter what the plan is. If you don't execute it, it doesn't really matter. Now, once you get really good at executing the plan, then you can go into the minutia of the planning beforehand, but you've got to learn to execute. And that was something that my parents instilled or really mostly my dad, because he was

[00:10:52] sort of the athletic mind later in like once we came along, but yeah, it was even all of my other coaches were all like, you just got to execute. Like that's one thing after the next, you've just got to keep going and keep executing whatever that may be, whether it's in the classroom or on the athletic field, or heck now that I've got a job, go execute exactly what you're supposed to be doing at your job. Like that's, that's a huge part of being a human and being a successful human is actually being

[00:11:21] able to do what you say you you're going to do. And so that that's not really a, an athletic principle, but just a principle all around, like the best thing you can do is just say what you do, say what you're going to do and actually go do it. So yeah. Yeah. And you got a super early start. I think you started at like age four or something ridiculous like that. Yeah. And what do you think that early

[00:11:46] experience has given you that most athletes don't have? And then how is that early exposure shaped your approach to training now, 20 years later? Well, I think that for like, up until I was like 14 or 15 years old, I really didn't take track on all that seriously. It just was kind of like the thing you do in the summer. So I think that a lot of times nowadays, people are getting so wrapped

[00:12:12] up in I am this, or I am that you, you give yourself one thing and it's a very narrow scope. So try everything. Like I have a feeling that at some point my children will be in soccer and basketball, playing flag football, they'll try everything. And so like, I mean, I, I forget who, who told it to me, but at one point when I was younger, it was sort of instilled upon me that everybody's world-class at something. You just need to find what that is. And so doing as much as you

[00:12:40] possibly can early on, like in terms of breadth of what you're attempting, that's sort of the way that I try to approach a bunch of things. If, especially if I'm trying to get into something new, try, try as many, try the broadest spectrum as possible of that thing that you can find so that then you can actually see what you like and see if you're good at it. Yeah. And also I think that a lot of times nowadays people get super invested super early. I didn't have my first carbon road bike

[00:13:10] until I was 16. Like, I mean, and I paid for it. My parents didn't pay for it. So it was like, it was sort of that rite of passage of, well, we got you this far. It's, it's all on you now kind of thing. And so I had to do the research, figure out what I wanted and put like go mow lawns. And obviously the things you do at 16 year old years old to get money, but like it all sort of stemmed from me figuring out what I wanted and going to doing it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean,

[00:13:39] you're touching on one of the things I think that is going wrong with you sports now is that special, hyper specialization. Absolutely. And, and you look at the, but yet you look at the people like Roger Federer who took up tennis much later in life. I mean, he did, played soccer, he ran, he did all these other things to start to really develop. I think it's the huge irony is the, I think it's the irony actually, when you look at most of the top athletes, they were multiple sports.

[00:14:07] And I think the single threadedness, I mean, triathlon a little bit takes care of itself, but when you're so threaded, you become more injury prone, you know, all the secondary stuff. And so playing all the different sports builds this durability thing. And I also think to your point, Drew, you know, we, we kind of as parental units, that's what we did. We basically were like, play everything. And then we're going to almost make you play everything, but also you need to be honest with us. And if you go to a couple of weeks and you're like, this is awful, like,

[00:14:38] go find another thing. Like, you know, we're going to keep you busy and active. I think when you're multi-threaded, you also find that thing later and you're like, I am super passionate about this. It's not the only thing I know I chose to do this. And you know, sessions, you know, there's, I call them passion sessions or dedication sessions, right? And so the passion sessions are always easy. It's the dedication sessions where you're like, I actually chose this. This is what I want to do. I got to get this work. And I think it comes from

[00:15:06] when you've done a lot of stuff. And I also think it just, the grass isn't always greener. You're like, every sport's got hard sessions. Yeah. Oh yeah. I gotta, I gotta put the work in. There's no sport with no hard work, you know, to success. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and the funny thing you, you bring up, like giving stuff up to sort of find your passion. And I mean, is like a eight, 10, 12 year old, I thought golf was going to be my thing. Completely opposite spectrum of triathlon.

[00:15:34] No, no endurance necessary, really. I mean, nowadays you're kind of getting into the muscular strength and stuff, but no real endurance necessary. It's all technical ability and repeatability. Whereas triathlon is none of those things. There is zero of that. It's all flying by the seat of your pants and figuring out as you go along. But like, it is kind of that, that specialization. You're not creating athletes. You're creating single sport, like focus. And I think that being a

[00:16:04] well-rounded athlete definitely has helped me be more of a durable and just sort of overall strong athlete, like being able to do the work week in and week out and sort of find your way kind of situation. So as you found your way, like pivot a little, how would you define you were racing, you know, short course Olympic, whatever. And now you've kind of gone to 70.3s, your halves.

[00:16:30] How are you defining high performance now and achieving that and still smiling, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's all at least now in 70.3 racing, the results kind of don't matter. I mean, they do matter, obviously. But when I roll up to a start line, the end result isn't really what I'm going for. It's really the process and being able to look back at the race and be like, okay,

[00:17:00] did I actually race to the finish line? Did I execute my plan? And was there any like glaring problems? Obviously, the glaring problems, you know, when you cross the finish line, you know, when there's a glaring problem, like, I mean, and then sort of racing to the finish line. I mean, that's such a weird sort of like goal to have. Most people are like, well, yeah, I'm trying to PR.

[00:17:25] Like that's a totally different goal than just racing to the finish line. Because I mean, I, a lot of times I'll get into the, into the thick of the run somewhere between six and 10 miles and the wheels just sort of fall off. And so the last three, the three to five miles are just kind of like a death march into the finish. And so like really trying to get to the point where I'm like, going hard up to the finish line, not just like getting to the finish line is sort of a huge thing.

[00:17:52] Because I mean, after short course racing, my longest race was an hour 45 minutes for an Olympic. Like, I mean, that's all I knew. Meanwhile, now I'm on the bike for two hours and 10 minutes, let alone then the swim and run on opposite sides of it. Like, it's, it's just, it's completely different game of duration. And the transition definitely has not been easy. That's for sure. I mean, there's definitely been some things that I've pulled over from a short course,

[00:18:18] namely transitions and like swim positioning, getting into the right position in the swim, because that's, those things are crucial in short course racing. If you can't do those, you might as well not even race kind of thing. And so it definitely makes my time transitioning between short course and long course easier, but the, yeah, sort of having the right goals and being real with yourself of, okay, the end goal isn't really all that matters. Sometimes, sometimes we

[00:18:47] get wrapped up as athletes, obviously, I mean, all athletes do, we get wrapped up in, in the, the end across the finish line kind of thing. Whereas there's a whole four hours plus before then there's things that you can take from and goals and little milestones that you can create for yourself to make it just more fun, more competition within yourself kind of thing.

[00:19:12] I'm in the plus part, Michael, the four plus I expand the plus to be a little longer than Drew in the plus. I like Drew and I both raised in the four plus category. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Matt, eyes are the plus. If you're four 59 59, you're still in the four plus. No, no, no. Like I'm just, you know, somewhere, you know, you could be six hours and be four plus. And you're still four plus. Yeah, yeah, no. So I'm glad Drew, we're in the same category, Drew and I now in the four plus category.

[00:19:42] Absolutely. Don't say sub something that won't go well. So how have you, like, how did you set your initial goals? And then how have you kind of changed those, you know, as you've kind of gone? Cause when you're moving to your point, you're moving, that's a big difference. Right. And the strategy is different. Right. Cause obviously the bike, the draft and catching the train thing has changed. Like how did you set your goals and how have you changed those and kept your kind of mental wellbeing in check?

[00:20:10] Well, it's going to sound weird when I say it, but I failed multiple times, very much failed. Like, uh, I mean, my first ever 70.3 was not fun. I wouldn't say it was fun. I got off the bike or really, I didn't even get off the bike before I sort of died, but like I was through the first half of the bike, I was totally fine. I was like, Oh, this is nice. Okay. And then towards like about an hour, 45 minutes into the bike. So about half an hour left of the bike, I was just like, wheels kind

[00:20:39] of came off and it started to get hot and I just wasn't, wasn't prepared for it. And I was like, well, I got it. I got to change something. So the, it turned from sort of the short course race or short course training with a little bit of like durability built in where then I'm now completely the opposite. Like, I mean, I couldn't tell you the last time I did VO2 work. Couldn't tell you the last time I did really anything over threshold in, I mean, cause it's the highest level.

[00:21:07] There's not really any point to it because you're rarely ever in it. So your time is much better spent hitting that like sub threshold, the threshold kind of situation where somewhere between 92 and a hundred percent of threshold. And I mean, I spend a lot of time in that, in that little Goldilocks zone now. And I think that that's definitely helped me. I mean, I, I rode 158 at Gulf coast and then ran 119 off of it. And so it's like, okay, like it's there. It's,

[00:21:37] it is there. There is little glimmers of hope and it's, it's good when you get those little glimmers of hope, even like now I haven't raced since Gulf coast. So it's been what, what is that four and a half months, I think since I've raced. And so it's like, okay, like I, I, I've got something to look forward to, but it's still a few weeks away. And so, I mean, in this little down part, you've got to

[00:22:02] find some way to motivate yourself and it's trying to get back to the feeling of those glimmers of hope kind of thing that it is, it is possible and you are trending in the right direction. Yeah. I love that you mentioned that your immediate response was I failed multiple times because I mean, in any, you know, I was a road racer. I've done a couple of Ironman, but there's lots of opportunities for failure and how we deal with that is determines our success. And so I'd love for you to talk through, how did you deal with that? You know, you're coming off

[00:22:32] being kind of at the top of short course moving up and all of a sudden you're faced with this failure. How did you process through that and work through that? Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I think the, when it comes to sort of processing through thoughts and emotions, facts are my biggest sort of supporter. You've got to look at the facts because you're, the mind is very powerful and it can twist your feelings into a whole bunch of different emotions

[00:23:02] and you can really get caught up in anxious. And I mean, there, there's a reason why there's a ton of anxiety nowadays between like around performance and sport and all this stuff. And like, I think that the best thing to do is look at the facts. Okay. So for example, I was averaging 265 wattage on the bike. Okay. Where do I need to be? I need to be somewhere in that 300 to 310 range. Okay. How long do we think it's going to take for me to get there? Okay.

[00:23:30] Somewhere in the two to three year range, AKA now. And luckily I am there now. I like, if I'm lining up for a 70.3, my goal wattage is somewhere between 295 and 305. And that that's put me into a place where I'm riding low twos, obviously sometimes breaking two hours on the bike. And that's sort of then now that piece has sort of figured itself out. Okay. So checkmark that

[00:23:53] like sort of make the, make that two or three year long plan of, okay, realistically, if I'm being realistic, how long is this going to take and then be prepared for it to take just a little bit longer, AKA about another year, because obviously things don't go as planned. I mean, all of us know for sure that things don't go according to plan. You get injured, you get burnt out, you take some time

[00:24:17] off. Like the road is never straight narrow. It's always windy and full of stuff that you don't really want to happen, but that's just kind of how it goes. And you, you always have to sort of come back to the facts of, okay, I'm a good athlete. I can do this. Like other people have done it. So I can do it. I know it's possible. Now, how do we make it happen and formulate that plan is kind of

[00:24:45] how I've always thought about it is come back to the facts, take the feeling out of it, come back to the facts, look at numbers, look at data and go from there. It's interesting. I mean, what I take from that too, is a lot of people wants to end instant gratification or if I start, you've got, don't get a big head because you'll need new sunglasses, Drew, but you've got a, you've got

[00:25:06] a high performing athlete who looks at a window of two to three years to grab, grab the numbers needed and put the time in. And I think, you know, it just goes to show like you get a lot of people who are like, Oh, I'm going to start training now, or I did a, you know, event this year and I want to knock all the time off. And you're like, okay. Uh, but it takes time. Numbers don't lie. I think that's a second piece too. Like, what do your numbers tell you? Cause you know, we all want to go

[00:25:34] fast. Like I'd love to go 158, you know, at the turn. No, uh, you know, but, but I think, you know, being, having the numbers, like doing that mapping to say, actually, I want to go faster, but what does it take? Like the math says this. And then how do I build the plan to it? I think is good. And I, the only other thing I'll add is, you know, you said you failed. I would probably take a step back and say, you didn't do the same thing again. So you learn, you know, you learned

[00:26:01] what not to do. Like, you know, like, you know, I'll have those like sometimes, Oh, cause like, you know, shit just goes wrong. Yeah. But there's times you're like, okay, I didn't fail. I learned that actually, you know, I can't train like you learned, you know, my thing does not, that doesn't work. Like I have to be at the Goldilocks zone and spend poodles of time I need to there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, it's, yeah, there's,

[00:26:28] there's a whole bunch of different things that like you learn as you go. And the only way that you can really learn is by jumping feet first into it. And like triathlon racing, especially is that way. There's so many different things that you, you could never plan for going wrong. Do probably will go wrong at some point in the time that you're doing triathlon and you'll just have to figure it out when you get there and sort of being okay with there being some unknown unknowns

[00:26:57] is kind of a, a mindset shift that I've had to make because I mean, in short course, I knew pretty much exactly what I was doing there. There wasn't really a ton of thing, things that could catch me off guard. Like, I mean, I think in the five or six years that I was racing professionally short course, I probably raced close to a hundred times. And it's like, after a hundred races, you kind of know exactly what's going to happen. I mean, obviously there's different tactics and different race

[00:27:25] dynamics and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it's a swim, a bike and a run. There's only so many things that can go wrong in those things, but with the duration so short, you can plan for most of them. Whereas in a 70.3 or even a full, which I'm not even going to open the full can of worms, but the half in, in, in a half, especially like, I mean, four plus hours, like we've been talking about, that's a long time to be out there. There's a lot of stuff that can go wrong. And also a lot of

[00:27:55] things that you can battle back from. And I think the second part of being able to battle back from it is sort of a new kind of mental load that I've had to sort of take on where like, I mean, in a short course race, if you flat, you're done, like your race is over. It's, it's not a cop out, but it's like, okay, at this point I'm out of the race. There's not really a whole lot of reason for me to

[00:28:20] keep going, but I'm, I mean, obviously I'm going to try to, but I don't need to be going all out. Whereas, I mean, in a 70.3, you can flat give up five minutes and I've given up five minutes. I'm still in the race. Like the nowadays, the difference between like first intent, it's still 10, 15 minutes sometimes. And so like, I mean, you still got plenty of time

[00:28:44] and room to make up anything you lose. So it's just a completely different mindset switch of you have, you need to actually figure out what's going on and get over it to get back into the race. And you're still in the race kind of situation. The weather and nutrition, I think are the two that, you know, you know, when you're racing Olympic distance, even for us mere mortals, Drew, like we're not out there, you know, when you're

[00:29:10] talking two and a half hours or less, right. For most people, kind of off the table for the most part, the weather's the weather. And it really dictates your time to your point. Did I execute or not? And it's all dictate. Whereas in a half, and you know, you generally don't go through really many highs and lows. I'm jokingly at people, Olympic distance. You can talk about like jokingly, I'm in a low the whole time because the foot's down on the gas, right. The whole time, right. You know, you're moderating in a half. Am I in the yellow? So it's funny you say Goldilocks,

[00:29:40] you know, the yellow and the tachometer, right. Because I can't, I can't read the whole time. And I am going to have some lows and the weather makes more because I eat or drink more. Like it matters. Yeah. There's a lot more functionally going on. And it's interesting to hear the same things that, you know, age groupers go through that you're like, actually, I have these issues and I've got highs and lows and I've got stuff going on at the same time. Because a lot of people think like you guys

[00:30:05] just line it up, you know, wind up the machine and set it loose. Yeah. Off it goes. No. Yeah. There's definitely a whole lot more of, we are professionals are way more closely related to you call yourself near mortals, but I mean, any triathlete who's out there is a spectacular athlete. I don't care who you are. The fact that you're out there competing and actually completing a 70.3 or a

[00:30:33] full in that time span that they give you. I mean, it's still hard. Most people, I mean, 90, probably five or 6% of the population will never get to a point of fitness where they could do it. And it's like, just by completing, you're putting yourself miles ahead of any, what I would call mere mortal, AKA non-athlete or non-triathlete just by completing the race.

[00:30:58] And so that, that is a huge feather in anybody's cap by being out there and completing the race. So when you talk about age group athletes and other athletes, you've started coaching. So yes. Yep. A little bit from high performance to you, you know, how do you try to figure out what is high performance and getting athletes to a high performance place while they're being happy? So how do you kind of walk that walk? And actually I'll double down and be like,

[00:31:26] you know, there's the interesting part, you're 24. So Michael and I can talk about coaching for 24 years or something. And so do you find that good or bad as you go through? But more importantly, how are you coaching athletes to determine their high performance, you know, piece and what do you find critical? Yeah. Well, so I'm basically imparting all the things that I've done wrong onto all my athletes and telling them, Hey, don't do any of this stuff. Save yourself the hassle, save yourself the

[00:31:54] time. Don't do any of this stuff. Um, and so even, even the, like you said, even being 24 and just really dipping my, dipping my toes into coaching. I mean, I've been around the triathlon block for a while. I've seen, seen a lot of things, done a lot of things. And I would like to think that I've done a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. And so being able to sort of impart that onto

[00:32:18] my athletes and sort of go into the race with a plan that I think I would be comfortable taking on for myself is a very good thing to sort of do and put myself in my athlete shoes and be like, okay, it's not crazy that I'm asking my athlete to go, go out to do a half Ironman. And I'm asking them to hold 84% of FTP. That's right in the Goldilocks zone somewhere between 80 and 88 is generally

[00:32:44] speaking where we like to see people. And so if I asked them to hold 84 and they hold 82, excellent. It, like they've still done what I've asked them to do kind of thing. And really being real with, okay, the plan is in percentages. It's not an absolute. So the percentage between Sean, you and I would be different, different in terms of total wattage, but the percentage would be the same

[00:33:09] of FTP. So what we can generally handle is still the same. You're going to ride your whole half Ironman at my FTP. So I don't feel bad at all, Drew. That's nice to help that out. Literally, I was like, sweet, bruh. That's super cool. But, but it, yeah, it's, it's sort of the, okay. Turning it around and being like, okay, if my coach were to give me this plan, would I be like, he's absolutely out of his mind? Or would I be like,

[00:33:37] yeah, yeah. This sounds like a good plan. I can get behind this. It seems, it seems like a little bit of a stretch, which all goals should be a bit of a stretch, but it seems within the realm of possibility. And so like that sort of having that a plan of everything going perfectly. It sounds, it's a sound plan and it sounds good. It sounds doable. That's sort of the a plan. And then the B and

[00:34:03] C plan is, all right, we get out of the water and we cramp. What do we do? How do we fix this? Do we pull back for the first hour of the bike and then sort of generally ramp it up as we go on or like, and that's really based on the athlete and how they've dealt with workouts when something like that happens. And so I find that a lot of the, a lot of my athletes will have made mistakes in

[00:34:28] training that then we can sort of crystal ball them into a race scenario and sort of figure out, okay, we have a plan or we have two plans, at least maybe three, depending on the athlete and how like deep they like to go with overthinking things, which I'm an overthinker. And so I love digging into that third one because that's when all hell breaks loose and everything is just going terrible. And the goal

[00:34:54] ends up being get to the finish line. Don't care how it happens. Just get to the finish line and we'll figure it out later. Like just sort of take things as they come and move on. And so there's, there's definitely a lot of putting myself in my athlete shoes and sort of understanding that I can't ask them to go all out every day, obviously. I mean, just from a physiological standpoint, we, we all know that that's not going to be fun. And so really trying to incorporate things that make the athlete

[00:35:24] tick as well. So I've got one athlete right now who loves drills in the pool because he didn't grow up swimming and he thinks that drills are really going to help him, which they are. They, they currently are helping and that's why he enjoys them so much. And so we, I literally dedicated a swim within the week of this is a drill swim. It's somewhere between 2000 and 3000 yards of drill, basically

[00:35:49] drill. We'll, we'll do a little warmup and a little cool down in it, but for the most part, it's mostly drill. And that's something that he looks forward to every week. And so giving the athlete something to look forward to and something that they, you know, they're going to enjoy. That's the best thing that I think I can do. And I mean, obviously there's going to be times where the athletes like, I really don't want to do this. And I have to be the one who's like, well, you kind of have to, like, this is, this is, this is one of those sessions. That's not really a negotiable, but

[00:36:18] a lot of the time I feel like I can do a pretty good job of getting something for them to look forward to in the week and sort of let them run free with whatever they want to do during it. Yeah. What were, you mentioned this and I love the way you phrased it, but what were kind of the biggest things you either learned or observed now that you're on the other side of training peaks? Yeah. Going from executor of plan to builder of plan. I think that it's definitely been weird

[00:36:48] being the one who's planning, like you just mentioned, the one who's doing the plan, you're not just executing. And it's kind of been fun sort of having the, all right, we want to be here by this point. How do we get there? What is, what work needs to be done to get there? And like, it was kind of cool. Cause I had, I think three or four months with one of my athletes before their like first 70.3 distance race. It wasn't an Ironman, but that's besides the point,

[00:37:16] but like, and they were super stoked about like the little intermediate checkpoints and building the block. And like they were, we would get on a call every week and they'd be like, all right, it's recovery week or whatever. And you're like, yeah, do whatever feels good kind of thing. It's not completely unstructured, but Hey, be really mindful of this or something like that.

[00:37:42] And being sort of being able to sort of step out of the athlete and really try to be more of a mentor than anything else is definitely a situation that I'm not really used to, but it's really fun. And I'm, I'm enjoying sort of getting that cap on more often. And yeah, I think that I now have a, a newfound respect for coaches everywhere and especially coaches of younger athletes. You can't even imagine how my high school swimming cross country coaches did it because,

[00:38:12] Oh my goodness. I just know how much of a handful I was as a high schooler. And like, I know there's people who are both better than me and worse than me in terms of how much like time and energy they take from the coach. And it's, I can't even imagine dealing with a high school team full of me's in high school. So it's like, Oh my gosh, I have a newfound respect for coaches everywhere. It's interesting you say, cause you're an overthinker, right? Plan ABC. And so you probably

[00:38:38] overthink and really think through the plans too. I'm a big, like go ride with the social thing and I'll do whatever. I still find myself when the athletes like, I know you told me to go ride the social ride, you know, the group ride when I can ride the group ride and go into the group ride. I have this quick 30 second check in my brain and be like, crap, I just like, you know, I got to move myself around, but it's better them. Um, because you overthought the whole,

[00:39:04] like, you know, two week block to go decide to do a social ride. And you're like, which is great, right? I'm a huge believer. Like don't do that for all the good and bad knowledge. Just saying, have you found yourself kind of on the other side of the coaching plan to be like, when they freelance, even the way you want that you're like, I put this time in. Um, and now I have to edit. Well, the thing is a lot of times I found that when an athlete freelances,

[00:39:32] it's not when it was really a quality session they were supposed to be doing anyway. So if they want to go social ride and I gave them an hour and a half ride, cool, have at it. That doesn't really change the plan much. I mean, whether it was an hour or two hours or whatever, the time doesn't really matter. The fact that they really got out and got social is really more so the thing that the workout was designed for. And I think that coming back to, okay,

[00:39:58] what is the point of me giving you this workout and really building that relationship with the athlete and sort of getting them to understand what us as coaches are trying to tell them through training peaks is kind of a cool thing where like I have sort of the verbiage of if I say base ride, I want it in this zone. If I say easy ride, I don't really care how hard you go, but in training peaks,

[00:40:23] they look very similar. It's just a flat line. But I mean, the, the difference between that is sort of huge in that coach athlete relationship and getting to know how the athlete would respond to how you put things into training peaks is also kind of an interesting situation that I'm still trying to figure that out a little bit. Well, there's an important thing of giving athletes. I mean,

[00:40:49] they come to us for guidance, for the plan, for the coaching, but you still want to give them some agency, some control over the thing. And like, I have a workout that I just call, it's a bike workout. And I do have someone for running where I just call it athlete choice, ride how you feel. And then I'll just prescribe the amount of time I want them out there. But if they want to go and just rip

[00:41:16] it up at the Tuesday night worlds, have at it. If you're, if you're feeling, you know, feeling yesterday's interval session, make it a coffee shop ride, just go for this long. But it gives them that agency to be able to make the decisions on their own and have, feel more in control of what they're doing. And I think along the way they'd learn how their body's responding. They learn some of the

[00:41:40] science behind, I mean, it's, there's a bunch of science, but it's, it's inexact. And so, you know, swapping a workout isn't going to blow the training plan. It's just, you know, no, but I think that learning, you know, that, that mutual, you know, learning over each other to know that, like, if you decide to ride how you feel and you go to Tuesday night worlds, like they're blown every time they do it or do they recover? Well, like I find it especially kind of before, you know,

[00:42:09] longer blocks before the season, you know, before you really get into the tail end, like learning about them because they'll tell you like, Oh yeah, I recover. Great. I'm a 10 on my PE on how I recovered. I saw like, you know, was the trainer broke the next day or your power meter broke? Like I see, I see what's shaking. And I think that relationship builds over time to your point. Like it's an easy ride or it's a ride how you feel. And then you can start to either rein them in or they

[00:42:35] truly will ride how they feel. And so all of them are different. I think all of us come, all, all people come looking for a different level of, you know, to your point agency, Michael, some people are like, I don't even want to think. I want to look the day before at training peaks and just go execute. And then you'll look at my results and be done. And others want to think it through with you like they're, like they're part of it. Yeah. Agree. So kind of as we get near the end, Drew,

[00:43:02] if you could impart, you know, all these hundreds of races of wisdom on people, what are a couple like, you know, key things, you know, to people training and, you know, both for triathlon success could be the racing stuff or it could be like the mental state and how you keep going because it's been, I mean, honestly, I mean, I will say eight years. Yeah. Went from 16 of hardcore, you're at it thing. Yeah. Like, yeah. So give us, give us a couple of, you know, Drew's pointers to

[00:43:30] happiness and success. Well, I think that I'll sort of start with saying that sort of the baseline, everything I'm going to say starts with a happy athlete is a fast athlete. Don't really care how physiologically fit you are. If you're not happy, you're not going to race well, because as soon as the race gets hard, you're just going to shut down. And so you're not really going to embrace that, that extra level of suck towards the end of the race. So if you're not happy going into the race,

[00:43:59] it doesn't really matter what you've done before you. I would much rather you be under trained going into the race and happy than trained perfectly and unhappy. So sort of the first thing that I sort of have kept up with is just sort of being real with myself in, okay, what is the actual mental load of going and doing some session? Not a key session. Obviously there's key sessions. Those are

[00:44:23] non-negotiables. Those got to get done, but all the peripheral, like easy workouts or like the technical work on like when I was doing short course on the bike, we'd go and do like a technical session. It'd be like half an hour ride to a parking lot. You do 38 minutes of whatever, and then you'd ride back. So it was like an hour and a half, but you then actually have to get out the door and do it. And that mental strain of that is sometimes it's enough to push you over the

[00:44:51] edge and you'll be in the hole for a couple of days. And sometimes it's not. And so really getting to know your body and your mental state is huge because that's something that only the athlete can really make that decision in, in their day-to-day life. They are the only ones who can make the decision of whether it's worth it or not for them to go out and do it. And so a lot of times,

[00:45:14] like I hadn't had an athlete, a different athlete who was like absolutely hated going and doing anything technical on the bike. And I was like, you, you, if you want to race short course, you have to do this because short course racing lives and dies by their bike handling skills. If you can't handle a bike, you're done. Like, cause you're going to have to sprint out of every corner, which is going to take your own legs out. You're going to have to hold high power to be even in the group if you're not

[00:45:43] going to draft. So that physiologically will just shoot you kind of thing. And so being able to figure out what, okay, what is actually important and what is here for the fun and being able to maximize the fun while also not taking anything away from the important stuff. So that's sort of the first thing is really finding the balance of, okay, how do I keep this fun while also keeping in all of the hard stuff? Even though, even though sometimes we really like to shy away from the hard stuff,

[00:46:12] I will admit, I, there've been a couple of times where I'm like, yeah, that hard session's not happening. That's, that's just not, that's too much for me. And then sort of secondly is keeping up with recovery. There's, we now have tons of data and research that has gone into how do we actually recover as humans and what is the most optimum way of doing that, AKA getting protein and carbohydrates directly after workouts. I don't care what it is. A lot of people are like, it's got to

[00:46:42] be this, this, and this, and it's got to be healthy and just do it. I don't care what it is. Just get, hit those macros that you need and move on. Make it something that you'll enjoy and you'll look forward to. That's not really where I really want to optimize the health benefits. Cause at that point, your body's just like, I need carbs. I need protein to repair. I need it. I don't care how it comes. It'll, it'll work itself out. Your body's a very resilient thing, but then that also then

[00:47:09] segues into make sure you're eating enough. A lot of people that I've coached, I've had start like looking into how much, how many calories they're taking in, including the amount of calories they burn working out. And sometimes it'll be 1500, 2000 calorie deficit. And I'm like, dude, no wonder you feel like trash two days afterwards. You can put yourself in a 2000 calorie deficit. Your body's not, your body's going into survival mode. Like there's no way that you can be,

[00:47:39] even like sustaining yourself on these calories. So like, let's, let's train your gut to eat more. And at this point, again, at a certain level of calories each day, a calorie is a calorie. I don't care how it comes. You just have to get it in. Now that doesn't mean go eat garbage all the time, but on the, like, there's some days where I'm pushing 5,000, 5,500 calories. And after 3,000

[00:48:08] calories of high quality, healthy food, you can't really fit much more in your stomach. So I mean, on those days, I'm, I'm okay eating a bowl of ice cream or something like that, where it's going to give me the calories I need to get back into, into not such a big deficit. And I think that there's a whole sort of mindset of everything needs to be optimized all the time. And it's totally not that

[00:48:36] way. If you're doing the right thing, 80 to 85% of the time, you're doing excellent. You're doing more than most people are. And your body's going to thank you for that kind of thing. So don't be afraid to go like, treat yourself is a weird way of putting it, but go treat yourself every once in a while. When you have the, when you have the capacity to treat yourself, go treat yourself. And yeah, I think that sort of being able to sort of take that step back of, okay, I'm a human. I am a human.

[00:49:06] This is, this is not normal for the human body to be doing. And then sort of make your decisions from there is kind of a thing that I've been able to hold on to. Cause I mean, some of the things I was eating in high school. Oh my gosh. I would never even think about eating. You're not old yet, bro. You wait. Well, just wait. But no, I think that's great. I think that's a great, like the thing I'd

[00:49:30] highlight from those three drew is none of them were form or power or pace stuff. And so it's really that be, you know, be happy, take it in stride and, you know, and, and, and put, you know, put the work in and, and you can always dial stuff in, but you don't get the general stuff right. And then kind of focus. Cause I think, I do think one of the reasons you see people exit early is they try to get a hundred percent of the stuff right. A hundred percent of the time. Exactly. Like a failing and

[00:49:59] you're like, no, it's fine. Like a PB and J is fine after you don't have to like go find something fine with you. Like if you like, if, if you will shove a PB and J down your throat after a workout, cause that's what you're craving, by all means, shove it down the machine. Yeah. And then we'll, we'll figure out over time if you need to do something else, this has been great. So I tell we will, we will tag drew so people can follow him, you know, cheer him on wherever he's racing. You know, this has been great. Um, you can follow him, get more information, whatever it is with

[00:50:29] Drew. Um, I really appreciate you taking the time and, uh, of course you're doing most of the checkouts at the Rudy booth too. I was, no, you were doing great. I'm like, go drew. We'll take your money. I'm actually charging it to Rudy and you weren't, you weren't skimming, but we'll, that's for you and Michael figure out at Rudy, but I really appreciate you taking the time to come out with your schedule and good luck the rest of the season. Yeah, this was great. Of course.

[00:50:57] Yeah. I appreciate you guys having me and yeah, anytime, anytime you need another guest, I'm happy to be here. Awesome. All right. Thank you. See if Michael knows how to turn and hit stop.