Simon Ward, Be Battle Ready triathlon podcast - The podcast for strength, resilience, and longevity

Over the past few months I've had six remarkable guests on this podcast. On the surface their stories couldn't be more different, but the same themes kept coming up again and again across all of them.

Six of them. Jamie Bedwell, a professional triathlete who had his career ended by a rare arterial condition and turned down surgery to protect something more important. Christine Clubbs, a GB age-grouper who has spent two and a half years tracking the human side of training with nothing more than a notebook and a pen. Justin Robbins, a long-time triathlete who discovered he was fit but not healthy, and made a really interesting change in his approach. Sue Reynolds, a two-time age-group world champion who pushed herself to the edge of overtraining syndrome chasing an extraordinary question. Jane Hansom, Ironman world champion, who walked away from the sport she'd dominated and built something completely new. And Nick Parkes, a masters open water swimmer who suffered a cardiac arrest mid-race with absolutely no warning and survived to tell the story.

This episode is about what all six of them have in common.

 

7 KEY LESSONS

1. Identity is not your sport. When the sport can't give you what it once did, you need something else to stand on.
2. The body sends signals we routinely ignore. Fit people are particularly bad at this — partly because fitness masks the moment of reckoning.
3. Consistency and discipline are the foundation. Not talent. Not volume. Consistent effort over long periods.
4. Self-knowledge is a performance tool. Honest self-assessment beats data every time.
5. Letting go of a goal is not the same as giving up. Every guest who did this ended up in a better place.
6. Get checked. Fitness does not make you invincible. Nick Parkes is the proof.
7. Community makes individual sports possible. Every journey in this episode was made possible by other people.

THE ONE QUESTION
What are you actually doing this for?

KILLER QUOTE
"When the sport couldn't give them what it once did, they had something else to stand on. That's the thing that made the difference."

 

LINKS & RESOURCES
Jamie Bedwell: When the sport you love can no longer love you back -
Christine Clubbs: What your Garmin can’t tell you
Justin Robbins: Fit but not healthy. The wake up call that changed everything
Sue Reynolds: What would happen if an AG triathlete trained like an Olympian?
Jane Hansom: From 20 year break to Ironman World Champion
Nick Parkes: The day my heart stopped mid-race

Book recommendation -  Simon Sinek: Start with Why How great leaders inspire everyone to take action.

 

If the answer to that question is that you want to keep performing well, stay healthy and be genuinely durable into your 50s, 60s and beyond, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is built around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

 

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A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

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Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

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Originally recorded May 2024. This episode is from the Be Battle Ready archive and is well worth a second listen.

Dan John is one of the most respected strength coaches in the world. A former All-American discus thrower, a prolific author with close to 20 books to his name, and someone who has been coaching athletes across multiple sports for over four decades. He has a rare gift. The ability to take genuinely complex ideas and distil them into something so simple you wonder why you ever made it complicated in the first place.

This conversation covers the difference between health, longevity, fitness and performance, and why most athletes confuse them. We get into why the basics consistently applied over years are the only secret that actually exists, what strength and mobility work should look like for endurance athletes over 50, what equipment you actually need, and a phrase that came up in the conversation that I think every person over 40 should sit with. The physical pension.

5 KEY POINTS

1. Health, longevity, fitness and performance are four different things. Most athletes chase fitness and performance while neglecting health and longevity. Get the order wrong and the whole house eventually falls down.
2. Fitness is simply the ability to do a task. Nothing more. Stop comparing yourself to people doing different tasks. The best couch carrier in the world isn't automatically fitter than the best Ironman athlete. They're just fit for different things.
3. The only secret is consistency over time. Five days a week, 52 weeks a year. One to five workouts will be brilliant, one in five will be embarrassing, and three out of five will be ordinary. Multiply that by 10 years and the ordinary ones quietly do all the work.
4. Strength work becomes non-negotiable after 50. The 35 to 55 window is when you build the strength reserves that stay with you for the rest of your life. Future you will be very glad you did.
5. The physical pension is real. Regular deposits into your physical health now, while you can, build the pot you'll draw on in your 60s, 70s and beyond. Every consistent week compounds.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Mobility before strength. If you're limited in range of movement, getting stronger within that limited range won't give you much return. Fix the mobility first, then build strength through the full range.
2. Focus on movements, not muscles. Squats, hinges, pushes, pulls and loaded carries work the biggest number of muscles in one hit and build the kind of functional strength that transfers to sport and life.
3. Ask yourself: will future me be happy with this decision? If you're 45 and making training, nutrition and lifestyle choices, run them through that filter first.

KILLER QUOTE
"It's hard to sell a secret when there's no secret. You do the basics right, you recover well, and you repeat the next day. That's it."

 

CONNECT with Dan
Dan John is a strength coach, author and educator based in the United States. He has coached athletes from high school level through to Olympic standard across multiple sports. To find out more about Dan John, please visit these channels:

Website - Dan John University

Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter “Wandering Weights” 

Easy Strength with Dan John & Pavel Tsatsouline

Check out Dan John’s other books HERE

Dan is a prolific writer. Check out his articles and blogs 

 

Dan John talks about the physical pension — putting regular deposits into your physical health now so future you has something to draw on. That's exactly the philosophy behind SWAT Inner Circle. Structured training plans from Sprint to Ironman, strength and mobility built in, recovery centred, and designed for the age you are now, not the age you were.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

 

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A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

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You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

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Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Last week Beth and I made the case for building your training plan around recovery rather than volume. Not everyone was convinced and that's exactly what we were hoping for.

This week we’re back to work through the most common challenges and questions that came in. From why the pros train 30 hours a week to whether recovery-centred training is just an excuse to be lazy, this episode tackles the pushback head on and gives honest, practical answers to the questions every serious endurance athlete will recognise.

 

If you haven't listened to last week's episode yet, it's worth doing that first. The link is in the show notes.

5 KEY POINTS

1. Volume works up to the point you can recover from it. The pros train 30 hours a week because their entire life is structured around absorbing it. Match your volume to your recovery capacity, not theirs.
2. You still need long sessions for long races. The question is how many and how often, given what you can actually recover from. Fewer long sessions done well beats grinding through all of them on accumulated fatigue.
3. Following a plan blindly isn't discipline. It's blind optimism. Making a daily judgment call, acting on the honest answer and overcoming your ego to do it - that takes more discipline, not less.
4. A good plan is a starting point, not a rigid prescription. Good coaching builds in flexibility to adapt when life happens - because no coach can predict a sick child or a difficult week at work.
5. Panic training in the final weeks rarely works. Athletes who cram volume onto a foundation they haven't built usually end up injured or ill. Consistency is always a better bet than a hero block.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Check your actual training data before planning your next block. Look at what you genuinely averaged over the last three months. That number, without ego, is probably closer to your real training capacity than anything on a plan.
2. If your goal isn't achievable this year, it might just be set a year too early. Stay healthy, stay consistent, and build on it next season.
3. A happy, healthy finish line is always a win. Arriving fresh and consistent will beat arriving exhausted from a plan you couldn't absorb every single time.

 

KILLER QUOTE
"How much training can you actually recover from, and how much can you consistently complete? If you can answer that honestly, without any part of your ego being involved, you'll probably get to the right answer."

 

LINKS & RESOURCES
Mentioned in the episode:

Previous episode — Train Less, Recover More

Sue Reynolds episode — What Would Happen If an Age-Group Triathlete Trained Like an Olympian?:

WHOOP Project PR Study

Tim Gabbett research — The training—injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder?

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/5/273

 

Want a training structure built around what you can actually recover from rather than a generic plan? That is exactly what SWAT is designed for.

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

 

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

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Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Most athletes ask the wrong question. Instead of "how much training do I need to do?" the question that will actually change your performance is "how much training can I recover from?"

In this episode Simon is joined by Beth for a conversation that challenges one of the most deeply held assumptions in endurance sport — that more training equals better performance. They dig into why recovery should underpin every training plan, what the evidence actually says about training volume versus training smarter, and the practical steps any athlete can take this week to shift their approach.

This one is for anyone who is consistently tired, consistently below where they expect to be, and wondering why the training isn't working.

5 KEY POINTS

1. Training breaks you down, recovery builds you back up. The fitness gain happens during recovery, not the session itself. Compromise recovery and you compromise the adaptation.
2. The WHOOP Project PR study showed runners on a dynamic recovery-based plan improved their 5k time by the same amount as those on a fixed plan, but trained up to 80 minutes less per week and reported 30% fewer injuries.
3. Consistency compounds. Ten hours a week for twelve weeks beats fifteen hours followed by injury and two weeks off. After 50 this matters even more, fitness drops faster and takes longer to rebuild.
4. Stress is stress. Training, work and life all draw from the same budget. Putting them in separate silos and ignoring the total load is a recipe for breakdown.
5. The most important data source is still the one between your ears. Devices confirm what your body is already telling you. Learn to listen first.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Set your sleep target before your training target. Around 95% of daily growth hormone is produced during deep sleep. Cutting sleep to fit in a session is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
2. Make easy days genuinely easy. If it felt like training, it wasn't recovery.
3. Train to your number, not the plan's number. Ask honestly how much your body can absorb today — and respond to that answer, not the spreadsheet.

 

KILLER QUOTE
"Recovery isn't something you do when you aren't able to train. Recovery is the element that makes the training worthwhile."

LINKS & RESOURCES
Mentioned in the episode:

WHOOP Project PR Study -  the recovery-based training study referenced throughout this episode.

Christine Clubbs episode - Be Battle Ready podcast - What your Garmin can’t tell you

Sue Reynolds episode - Be Battle Ready podcast - What happens if an age group athlete trains like an Olympian.

Want a training structure built around what you can actually absorb rather than a generic plan?

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

If this conversation has resonated and you want a training structure built around your whole life, not just your performance targets, that is exactly what SWAT is designed for.

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

 

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Three years ago Jamie Bedwell and his wife Abi were on this podcast as newly licensed professional triathletes with the world opening up before them. This week Jamie is back, riding solo, and the story has taken a turn nobody planned for.

Three years of gradual deterioration. Chronic back pain, loss of power in the left leg, pins and needles that left him feeling, in his own words, more like a pirate with a wooden leg than a semi-decent triathlete. Every race ended the same way. Every solution fell short. Until earlier this year, when he finally got a diagnosis: flow limitation of the iliac artery, FLIA, a condition where the main artery feeding blood to the leg kinks under the repeated stress of cycling and running.

There was a surgery. There was a one in five chance of it going wrong. There was a man in the waiting room who had been back eight times. And there was a surgeon who asked Jamie a simple question: why would you risk so much just to compete in triathlon?

Jamie didn't need the six weeks he was given to decide. He said no to the surgery, yes to swimming, and started figuring out what comes next. This is one of the most honest and quietly moving conversations I have had on this podcast.

5 KEY POINTS

1. FLIA affects competitive cyclists and triathletes specifically. Millions of pedalling repetitions thicken the iliac artery over time, restricting blood flow under race conditions. Day to day there is no pain at all.
2. The surgery carries a one in five failure rate. If it goes wrong, the athlete doesn't just lose their sport. They lose the ability to walk uphill or ride a bike with their kids.
3. Jamie said no to protect something bigger than his career. He wanted to remain in sport for the rest of his life. The surgery put that at risk. Once he understood that, the decision was straightforward.
4. Swimming has always been his weakest discipline. He won his first open water race on the River Arun and qualified for the national championships in Sheffield. He is just getting started.
5. Resilience isn't about pushing through. It is about knowing what you are actually fighting for and making decisions that protect it.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Know what you are protecting. Jamie turned down surgery not because he gave up on sport but because he refused to risk losing it permanently.
2. Discipline and love will take you further than a fixed goal. Jamie doesn't know where swimming will take him. He just knows those two things are enough.
3. Identity is bigger than the sport. Jamie is applying for ordination, building a community of Christian athletes with Abi, and becoming, in his own words, a more gentle and humble person.

 

KILLER QUOTE

"I'm so grateful there is such a thing called sport. Whether you're going to Park Run or competing at the highest level — sport gives every single person the opportunity to test themselves. And I'm grateful I still have that opportunity."

 

CONNECT with Jamie
Jamie Bedwell is a former professional triathlete and competitive open water swimmer. He and Abi run an email list sharing their journey in sport and faith. Join Jamie and Abi's email list:   FuelledbyFaith@outlook.com for regular updates on their progress

 

Instagram -  Fuelledbyfaithajb

Jamie and Abi are sponsored by Raceskin Wetsuits

Jamie's favourite book: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - A Powerful WWII Survival Story of Endurance in the Pacific War

If you haven’t listened to the previous Be Battle Ready podcast with James & Abi, you can find it here: Husband and wife racing duo

 

If this conversation has resonated and you want a training structure built around your whole life, not just your performance targets, that is exactly what SWAT is designed for.

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

 

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

The highs, the crash, and what overtraining syndrome taught one age-group world champion about ambition, recovery and knowing when to stop.

Sue Reynolds was a guest on this podcast three years ago. At that point she had lost over 150 pounds, taken up triathlon in her fifties, and become a world age-group aqua bike and mixed relay champion. Her first book, The Athlete Inside, told that story.

But Sue didn't stop there. She wanted to answer a question most age-group athletes never dare ask seriously: what would happen if an ordinary amateur trained with the same expectations, the same daily habits, and the same meticulous standards as an Olympic-level athlete?

That question took her to the World Triathlon Championships in Pontevedra in 2023, where she led the swim - alone, three minutes clear, asking an official which way to run because she had never been at the front before. It eventually took her somewhere she hadn't planned to go at all.

Her new book, Across The Line, covers all of it. This conversation is one of the most honest I have had on this podcast about ambition, identity, the invisible damage of overtraining, and what it actually means to know your limits.

5 KEY POINTS

1. Meticulous preparation is where races are won before the start gun. Studying the currents, dropping leaves in the water on race morning, switching pontoon position at the last minute. The details are where elite performance actually lives.
2. Overtraining syndrome is not just tiredness. Unlike overreaching, which resolves with rest, OTS means the body can no longer adapt no matter how much recovery you give it. Sue calls it what it really is: under-recovery syndrome.
3. ‘Edited honesty’ is one of the most dangerous habits in endurance sport. Sue never asked for recovery. She dropped hints, pointed at data, said she felt like a walrus. But she never said the words and that gap is where things went wrong.
4. An invisible injury is still an injury. OTS left Sue looking completely fine while being unable to function. Nobody could see it. Some days she could barely believe it herself.
5. Periodised commitment beats single-minded obsession. Research shows athletes with interests outside their sport sustain performance better over time. Sue learned this the hard way, at considerable cost.

 

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Ask for recovery before you need it. Don't drop hints. Don't hope your coach spots it in the data. Say the words out loud.
2. Saying yes when you should say no is not toughness. It is the thing that ends careers and breaks bodies.
3. Fitness gives you options. Sue's goal is simply to get fit by 2027 and see what becomes possible. Not a specific race. Not a podium. Just options.

 

KILLER QUOTE
"I could have said I need a rest at any point. Why didn't I say that? I took a deep dive into all the cultural messages about sucking it up. We put people who push through on a pedestal. And I had bought into all of it."

 

CONNECT with Sue
Sue Reynolds is a two-time age-group world champion, author and student of high performance. All author proceeds from Across The Line go to the USA Triathlon Foundation to support athletes with disabilities.

 

Website: suereynolds.net

Instagram:  https://instagram.com/sue.reynolds/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/suereynoldstriathlon/

Across The Line - Sue Reynolds - A case study of world-class performance that examines elite coaching, ambition, and the systems that make and break athletes.

The Athlete Inside - The inspiring true story of one woman's transformation from 335 pounds to world-class triathlete in just four years.

 

Sue also recommended the following book by Brad Stulberg: The Way of Excellence: A Guide to Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World 

Mentioned in the episode:

Podcast #1 with Sue Reynolds (Oct 2023) - From 150k to World Aquabike Champion in 4 years

 

If this conversation has made you think differently about your own cardiovascular health, or you're someone juggling a demanding career with serious training and want a structure that looks at your whole picture, not just your swim, bike and run numbers, that's exactly what SWAT is built around.

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

What standard GP testing misses, and why it matters more for athletes.

Several months ago I wrote a LinkedIn post about my own decision to start taking statins, after several years of resisting that path. Katherine Caris-Harris, a performance nutritionist and fellow triathlete, reached out afterwards. She felt there were gaps in the conversation, and she was right.

Katherine is a degree-qualified nutritionist who works with what she calls corporate athletes, driven, high-performing people who often push themselves too hard across every area of life. In this episode we dig into the limitations of standard GP cholesterol testing, why LDL alone is a poor predictor of cardiovascular risk, the role of insulin resistance and thyroid function in driving cholesterol up, what the actual numbers needed to treat for statins really look like, and why cholesterol itself is essential, not the villain it's often made out to be.

This isn't an anti-medication conversation. Katherine isn't here to tell you what to do. It's about giving you the fuller picture so you can make an informed decision for yourself, whatever that ends up being.

5 KEY POINTS

1. LDL alone is a poor predictor of risk. Standard GP testing estimates LDL using a crude calculation, and doesn't account for particle size or how easily those particles are damaged by inflammation.
2. Better markers exist, but aren't routinely offered. ApoB and Lipoprotein(a) give a far more accurate picture of cardiovascular risk than standard LDL testing, but most GPs don't test for them due to cost.
3. The number needed to treat varies hugely. For primary prevention in a low risk group, you may need to treat 100 to 200 people with statins to prevent one cardiovascular event. That context rarely makes it into the conversation.
4. Insulin resistance can quietly drive cholesterol up. Even lean, fit endurance athletes can develop elevated blood sugar and insulin resistance through excessive use of gels, energy drinks and fasted training.
5. Cholesterol is essential, not the enemy. It's required for hormone production, cell repair, brain health and vitamin D synthesis. The real driver of arterial damage is oxidative stress and inflammation.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Get tested properly before deciding. Standard GP panels are a useful starting point but rarely tell the full story, particularly for athletes.
2. Context matters more than a single number. Genetics, insulin resistance, thyroid function and inflammation all contribute to your real cardiovascular risk.
3. Make your decision from a position of knowledge, not fear. Whatever you choose to do, do it with the fuller picture in front of you.

 

KILLER QUOTE
"You wouldn't ignore your FTP test results. So why would you ignore what's actually happening under the hood with your cardiovascular health?"

CONNECT with Katherine
Katherine Caris-Harris is a performance and functional nutritionist working with driven, high-performing clients juggling demanding careers with serious training. She is also a long-time age-group triathlete.

🌐 Website: kchnutrition.co.uk
💼 LinkedIn: Katherine Caris-Harris

 

LINKS & RESOURCES
BMJ (British Medical Journal) podcast on Statins for Primary Prevention - How good is the Evidence?

Podcast with Cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra on ’The Shocking Truths about Cholesterol, Statins and Heart Disease

CoQ10  - why you should be taking it and which brand to choose

 

Katherine also recommended the following book: Integrative Sport & Exercise Nutrition - How to view the body holistically. “Need to enjoy science to read it!”

 

Join us in SWAT

If this conversation has made you think differently about your own cardiovascular health, or you're someone juggling a demanding career with serious training and want a structure that looks at your whole picture, not just your swim, bike and run numbers, that's exactly what SWAT is built around.

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

 

 

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Phil Burt has fitted Chris Froome, Bradley Wiggins, Chris Hoy and Geraint Thomas. He designs saddles for Physique, runs his own clinic in Manchester, and has spent two decades at the sharp end of bike fitting in elite sport. He also wrote a LinkedIn post recently that got a lot of people talking — and that's where this episode starts.

Phil's argument: FTP is overrated. Not useless, but overrated. From there we get into why 165mm cranks are worth serious consideration for a lot of riders, why a bag full of expensive saddles is almost never the answer to the problem people think it is, and why after five or six hours in the saddle your position matters far more than your power numbers. We finish by talking about MyVeloFit, the app Phil has developed with a Canadian tech team that lets you access his expertise from anywhere in the world, without leaving your house.

If you ride a bike for any serious amount of time, this one is worth your full attention.

 

5 KEY POINTS

1. FTP is the engine but the chassis matters too. The right position, crank length and body robustness matter far more than power numbers beyond the five-hour mark.
2. Asymmetry is normal and usually not a problem. British Cycling never worried about anything less than a 45/55 power split — trying to make people symmetrical often makes them worse.
3. Saddles are almost never the actual problem. Phil's first question is always about the position the saddle sits in, not the saddle itself.
4. Stance width is the next frontier. There is a 30cm difference in natural stance width across the human population, yet every bike uses the same pedal spacing.
5. Comfort is performance in long distance events. After five hours anything suboptimal in your setup becomes a battle you don't need.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Get the foundations right before chasing numbers. Bike fit, crank length and contact points are the platform everything else is built on.
2. You don't know what you don't know. Even if nothing feels wrong, a bike fit can confirm that — which is just as valuable as finding a problem.
3. Expert advice no longer requires geography or a big budget. MyVeloFit puts Phil's expertise within reach of anyone, anywhere in the world.

KILLER QUOTE
"After five hours there's a lot of fight going on already. Anything that's suboptimal in your setup, we just make more optimal. You don't want to be fighting anything you don't have to fight."

 

CONNECT with Phil
Phil Burt is one of the world's leading bike fitting experts, former head physiotherapist and bike fitter for British Cycling and Team Sky, and saddle designer for Physique. He runs his own clinic at the Manchester Institute of Performance in Manchester.

Website: philburtinnovation.com
LinkedIn: Phil Burt

 

LINKS & RESOURCES
Mentioned in the episode:

MyVeloFit —  Optimise your bike fit with Phil Burt and access Phil's expertise from anywhere in the world. CLICK HERE

Phil Burt Innovation Clinic — in-person bike fitting in Manchester with full biomechanical analysis, saddle pressure mapping and motion tracking.

 

Want help building durable training?

If what I talked about today resonates and you want a training structure built around your whole life, not just your swim, bike and run numbers, SWAT is where it happens.

Find out more and join SWAT here

 

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Download Simon’s Free ‘Battle Ready Lifestyle’ Infographic — https://simon-ward.kit.com/battlereadylifestyle

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Christine Clubbs started running at 40, accidentally fell into triathlon, and has since gone on to represent Great Britain as an age-grouper. She is also one of the most thoughtful self-experimenters I've had on the podcast.

For the last two and a half years Christine has been tracking a remarkable range of data, but not in the way you might expect. No Whoop, no Oura ring, no algorithm telling her how recovered she is. Just a notebook, a pen, and an honest monthly reflection system covering motivation, mood, sleep, stress, training load, nutrition and how she actually feels about her racing.

What makes this conversation genuinely interesting is that Christine's personal perception data often tells a completely different story to her Garmin and Training Peaks numbers. Learning to sit with that tension, and to trust her own read of what's going on, has made her a better, more consistent and more self-aware athlete. This one will make you think differently about the data you're collecting and the data you might be ignoring.

5 KEY POINTS

1. Perception and performance data often contradict each other. Both tell you something important and neither should be ignored.
2. Tracking the human side of training reveals patterns wearables miss. Motivation dips and mood shifts show up in a notebook long before they show up as a poor HRV score.
3. Simple beats sophisticated. High, medium or low. Good, okay or rubbish. Christine's deliberately unsophisticated system is exactly why she's stuck with it for two and a half years.
4. Reflect before you look at the results. Writing down your honest perception of a race before checking the data means the numbers don't overwrite your own experience of what happened.
5. Tracking evolves over time. What matters to record changes as habits form and patterns emerge. The goal isn't a permanent system, it's a living one.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Start before you're ready. Pick a few things that matter, buy a notebook you like, and begin. There's no right or wrong, only the system you'll actually maintain.
2. Don't let the data become the verdict. Your perception of how you performed and what you learned is where the real value sits.
3. Self-knowledge transfers beyond sport. Knowing when to push and when to back off is a skill that works everywhere.

KILLER QUOTE

"My perception and the stats are sometimes absolutely polar opposite to each other. That difference is exactly what I wanted to understand."

 

LINKS & RESOURCES Mentioned in the episode:

Christine had 2 favourite books which she recommended. One we have had before

The Chimp Paradox - Dr Steve Peters - The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness

The Brave Athlete: Calm the F**k Down And Rise To The Occasion - Lesley Patterson & Dr Simon Marshall - The Brave Athlete solves the 13 most common mental conundrums athletes face in their everyday training and in races.

 

Want help building durable training?

If what I talked about today resonates and you want a training structure built around your whole life, not just your swim, bike and run numbers, SWAT is where it happens.

Find out more and join SWAT here

 

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Download Simon’s Free ‘Battle Ready Lifestyle’ Infographic — https://simon-ward.kit.com/battlereadylifestyle

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!

If you're putting in 12, 14, sometimes 20 hours a week and your times are going backwards, this episode is for you.

This is a solo episode, and I want to talk about something I see constantly with athletes over 50, and it frustrates me because it's so avoidable. High volume training feels like commitment. It feels like the right thing to do. But for athletes in their late 40s, 50s and 60s, it's often the thing that's quietly breaking them down.

In this episode I explain what's actually happening physiologically when you stack training stress on top of work stress, poor sleep and a less forgiving hormonal environment. I talk about what smart training looks like for this stage of life, and why the athletes I've coached who go sub 10 or earn Kona slots are almost never the ones doing the most hours.

This isn't about doing less. It's about doing better.

5 KEY POINTS

1. The body doesn't distinguish between types of stress - training load, work pressure and poor sleep all land in the same bucket, and chronic overload triggers sustained cortisol elevation that works directly against recovery and adaptation.
2. The hormonal environment after 50 is fundamentally different - lower testosterone and growth hormone mean the margin for error is much smaller than it was in your 30s. You can no longer outwork a poor recovery strategy.
3. Sleep is where adaptation happens - around 95% of daily growth hormone is released during deep sleep. Cut sleep to squeeze in an extra session and you're adding fatigue, not fitness.
4. Consistency beats volume every time - 10 hours a week for 52 weeks is 520 hours. Sporadic 20-hour weeks followed by burnout or injury will never outperform steady, sustainable training across a full year.
5. Recovery weeks are not a weakness - planned recovery weeks are a strategic tool, not an optional extra. Without them, training stress accumulates without the adaptation following.

3 TAKEAWAYS

1. Make easy sessions genuinely easy and hard sessions genuinely hard - most athletes do everything at medium intensity, which delivers neither recovery nor adaptation.
2. Strength and mobility are non-negotiable - schedule them first and never cancel them for an extra swim or run session.
3. If your times are going backwards, it's not a motivation problem or a commitment problem. It's a strategy problem and strategy can be fixed.

KILLER QUOTE

"These athletes aren't lazy and they're definitely not lacking commitment. If anything, commitment is the problem, because they're committed to an approach that is quietly breaking them down."

LINKS & RESOURCES

Want help building durable training?

If what I talked about today resonates and you want a training structure built around your whole life, not just your swim, bike and run numbers, SWAT is where it happens.

Find out more and join SWAT here

 

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

 

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

 

Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Download Simon’s Free ‘Battle Ready Lifestyle’ Infographic — https://simon-ward.kit.com/battlereadylifestyle

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!