(ambient music)
- Right, we are delighted to be joined by
2016 Ironman 70.3 World Champion
and winner of 20 or 21 Ironman 70.3s,
Tim, tells me
So thanks for coming along.
- My pleasure.
- Now, Tim has stepped up from racing Ironman 70.3
a few years ago now with lots of success.
Ironman champion as well.
But what we would love to speak to Tim about is
what he found unexpected about that move
from short course racing through to Ironman.
- Yeah. I think first of all,
I never liked the term stepping up.
Because they're all very different, I think.
Whether you're racing Olympic distance, sprint,
or Ironman, or 70.3,
you just train differently for it.
They all hurt a lot.
It's a different sort of suffering.
But yeah, really came to talk about the differences
I found going from Ironman 70.3 to Ironman.
It was a pretty steep learning curve,
in terms of the pro racing.
- So in that specific moving up to Ironman,
what springs out as your most obvious tip number one?
- Well I think the most obvious thing for me was
bringing in my wife and my kids
and making them a part of it
because it's a massive commitment,
and I had to really communicate,
"Okay, this will be the serious build."
I'm going to do, eight weeks where I'm sure
to be in monk mode we call it, and--
- Is that a family term for it?
- Yeah. I'll be pretty exhausted,
maybe a bit short with my temper.
But then after it, we really plan a good holiday
as a family, or a break,
and almost give back to make sure
I make up for the time where it's been all about me.
So I think it's really important to sort of realize,
get everyone on board with the commitment.
Otherwise, it can just become a bit of a stress
for everyone.
But if everyone knows there's a start point, an end point,
and then the goal is ticked or not ticked,
but then you move on and do something fun as a family,
I feel like it's much better accepted
and you can then probably do one next year.
- So it's like a risk, reward.
- Exactly, I just think you can't just sign up for one
without bringing your family on board
and letting them know the process
because it can certainly wear everyone down after a while.
- Yeah, so there you go,
have the backing of the family behind you.
(upbeat music)
- Right, now we're on to tip number two.
So what is it, Tim?
- Well, I think when I first started training for Ironman,
I figured, well, I have to do more miles and more hours.
- I think we all felt that, yeah.
- Yeah, and so therefore I was like,
"Well, I'll just do less recovery and train more."
And that certainly didn't work.
You do have to do more training,
but rather make your key sessions bigger
and then keep your recovery the same if not bigger
than when you were doing 70.3 racing.
So typically, I have two to three easy days a week.
And an easy day might be just an easy ride and a swim.
- [Host] So there'll be some likely activity in that--
- At least two of those easy days out of three
will be some activity.
One day is normally completely off.
But then the bigger days are a lot bigger
than what I was doing for 70.3 training.
So I might do a 4 1/2, five hour ride
with a 1 1/2 hour run off
which is far more than I would ever do for 70.3 training.
But then the recovery still has to be very large
so you can absorb that training.
- And a quick question for me there is sleep.
Would you try and sleep more
or does that just happen by default all the time?
- Oh, I would love to.
I do have three children, so yeah.
There's a limit to what you'll get (laughs).
I mean that's the ideal situation, and of course,
but realistically, there's no point in training
if you can't absorb it.
And so you have to match the recovery to what you can,
sorry, match the training to what you can recover from.
- So literally, allow some space there for the body
to absorb all that training that you've done.
- Yeah, absolutely.
If you can't recover, it's a waste of training.
- [Host] Right, so we've got two tips under the way.
What's your third?
- Yeah, I think the big learning point for me
was just getting my nutrition and hydration right.
Everyone's very different,
specifically in how much they sweat
and how many electrolytes they're losing.
And I'm a big sweater, I lose a lot of salt when I sweat.
And so it was learning, first of all,
how much I can actually drink during sessions
which drastically changed how
I would recover after the session.
So getting that right was very different.
Because 70.3 racing, it's three, three hours 45,
four hours.
- [Host] For you (laughs).
- Yeah, and even most of the sessions,
it's two hour rides with lots of intensity.
And you can get by.
- [Host] So you can almost fudge it a little bit
with the shorter distances. - You can, even with racing.
You can sort of get it wrong and hang in there
and survive for four hours.
But certainly in Ironman racing you have to have
that nutrition dialed and hydration dialed.
And for me that only came about,
I mean you can read as much as you want,
but ultimately, it's individual and I think
it's trial and error to get that right.
And also the day-to-day nutrition with your training.
You're burning a ton of calories,
and while you don't want to feed up on junk food
and whatever else, if you don't eat enough healthy food
you'll find yourself
just suddenly, - Got nothing left to exert.
- you're suddenly in a shop just
shoving lollies and chips down your face, so
- [Host] Been there.
- I think you've almost got to plan for it
and realize that on your rest days,
you will end up just eating and grazing
most of the day and it's okay.
So yeah, the nutrition and hydration aspect of Ironman
training and racing was very different
to racing over four hours or shorter.
- There you go, you heard the man,
once you're moving up to Ironman, find a plan
to get through your hydration and your nutrition.
(upbeat music)
- Right then, so Tim's going to take us on to our final tip
for moving up to Ironman.
- Yeah, I think the final tip I would give is
if you're already fit for Olympic distance
or Ironman 70.3 events,
you don't need to do these six-month Ironman builds.
- [Host] You see a lot of people
getting caught up in that, don't you?
- Yeah, I mean there's only so much the body can take
and hormonally, it starts to wear you down
and the fatigue starts to catch up.
I think if you're already fit you can probably
do a six to eight week, very specific, Ironman prep.
And if you're not very fit, then you can do,
obviously do your base period to get
to a reasonable level of fitness,
but that doesn't have to be crazy, you know?
There's going to be a little bit of craziness
with an Ironman prep, you can't get away from that.
But I think you got to be careful
with how long that goes on for because everybody is human
and the body starts to wear out.
- And you don't want to be getting in to that goal race
that you've hopefully vetted all that help and time,
especially from the family that you're talking about,
and then be dreading the thing.
- 100%.
You don't want to be dreading it
and you don't want to be totally wrecked
by the time the event rolls around.
- Right, hopefully, you find those tips very useful
and you can take them on board for your prep
into your next Ironman.
So hopefully, you've enjoyed that video.
Find that thumb-up white button.
And also the globe onscreen wherever it is
to make sure you get all the other content
that we have got on the channel.
And if you want to see a video,
well, Tim's got one here for you.
- Yeah, if you want to see a video
on how to train for an Ironman,
ten hours a week of training, click here.