Fast Talk

When you watch the Olympics, do you think about the dedication, sacrifice, and risk that it takes to focus on such a big event, one that takes four years to prepare for? The pressure is immense. Is it worth it? When we invited Olympians Svein Tuft and Errine Zarsadias (you may remember her as Erinne Willock from her racing days) to join us on Fast Talk, we intended to discuss whether it was wise t...

With the help of Kendra Wenzel, co-founder and head coach at Wenzel Coaching, we field questions on how to manage training when you have a busy travel schedule, when to get intensity during the week before a race, incorporating big gear work into your LSD rides, and knowing when to push through or when to pull the plug on a workout. Travel and trainingThis first question comes from Steve Herman in...

For a long time, weight loss and weight management strategies have focused on counting calories. The question we ask in today’s episode is: Does that work? That is, if you count accurately, will it predict your weight loss or gain?    To answer these questions, we pit two theories against each other. On one side, there is the argument that you can’t break the laws of thermodynamics, and therefore...

Rob Pickels is the Advanced Development Project Manager at PEARL iZUMi, but more importantly, he can out-nerd Trevor as you'll hear in today's deep-dive into some new scientific research in sports physiology. Even though the findings of one of these studies may not appear to directly apply to your weekly training plan, understanding the questions that have been asked by scientists can hopefully gi...

sources, it’s time to ask the question: Should we modify how, where, and when we train based on our potential exposure to pollutants? Furthermore, are certain pollutants worse than others? Finally, can we, and if so, should we try to “adapt” to certain pollutants?    We’re joined by a leading expert in the field of environmental pollution and its effects on exercise performance and health, Dr. Mic...

We start today’s Q&A with a discussion on returning from injury. Why? Well, Renee Eastman, our guest coach on this episode, just suffered a nasty crash. She's also come back from many injuries and bone breaks: “I've broken just about every bone in my body, including back (L1-3 fusion), elbow (with reconstructive surgery), clavicle (2x), hand, foot, kneecap, and now ribs.” So, we start with some bi...

When Chris Froome first came to prominence on the WorldTour and started dominating grand tours, all the talk was about how he was constantly looking at his stem. Was he staring at his power meter to gauge his effort? Entire websites were devoted to catching Froome in the act of looking at his head unit while racing his bike. https://chrisfroomelookingatstems.tumblr.com/     While Froome now claims...

Endurance athletes crave intensity. It's the closest thing we have to instant gratification: chose an interval, grab the bike (or running shoes, etc.), and head out the door or into the Zwift session. An hour later, the work is done and the feeling of satisfaction washes over you. What’s problematic, however, is that there are few subjects in endurance sports that are more steeped in mystique or m...

Coach Trevor Connor and Chris Case, as well as Coach Ryan Kohler and Fast Talk producer Jana Martin, all chose an N1 Challenge in the fall of 2020. Now, part way through the training and preparation for their big events, they discuss what they've learned and the adjustments they've made to keep themselves on track. The premise of the N1 Challenge is that each of the four riders is an experiment of...

If you’ve ever been a runner, swimmer, or rower, you might be familiar with the concept of two-a-days—individual workouts separated by hours within a single day, most typically one in the morning and another in the afternoon.    In cycling, two-a-days have not had as much traction. However, that’s starting to change. The science is new, but many coaches, including our guest Neal Henderson, directo...

The race season is upon us! Hopefully, that’s true where you live... even if it isn’t, we hope this episode helps you understand how to train in the race season. Of course, any discussion about racing must be preceded by a discussion of the base season, which sets that foundation for success. So today we start with a bit of a review.  Once we set our focus on race physiology, we address which asse...

Melanie McQuaid, a three-time XTERRA world champion and owner of MelRad Coaching, joins us to discuss how to judge fatigue, the effects of overtraining, and the so-called "crossover effect" between running and cycling. Our first question comes from Matthew Eastwood. He writes: “After years of road racing, where I would struggle with prolonged periods of fatigue in between periods of good form, I n...

Quick, name two things that hit their peak in the 1980s. Yes, mullets were one. But think cycling and physiology. What about training principles? How much has changed since the days of Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond? Today, with the help of longtime coach Jeff Winkler, who, yes, once raced as a pro in the ‘80s with a mullet, we discuss what has and has not changed since the 1980s, focusing on the...

Janis Musins, owner of Train2Win Endurance Coaching in Latvia, joins us to discuss how to pace time trial efforts, how to optimize your TT position, interpreting INSCYD data, and the coach-athlete relationship. Our first question comes from Ernie Blankenship in Independence, Missouri. He writes: “I have a hard time pacing in time trials. Some people recommend that I have a steady pace throughout t...

Returning to the bike after an injury, whether a traumatic crash or a non-traumatic ailment—something like an overuse injury—can be a lengthy process. Not only is there a physical cost, the mental aspect of both dealing with the injury and the slow progress you might face can be challenging for endurance athletes. With the help of our director of sports medicine, Dr. Andy Pruitt, someone with a 40...

Whenever we speak with a guest of Fast Talk—coach, athlete, or scientist—we always ask them their favorite workout. In this episode, we share the favorite workouts of coach and athlete Jen Sharp, Ted King, Sage Rountree, Lindsay Golich, Kristin Armstrong, Daniel Matheny, and Sondre Skarli. Each guest discusses the specifics of their chosen workout, and in so doing reveals a sense of their philosop...

If you’ve been an endurance athlete for any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly performed some type of test to gauge your form, be it a 20-minute on-the-road test or a VO2max test in a physiology lab. There are many forms of testing, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. Today’s episode is all about comparing and contrasting the different test methods based on the three key aspects of any...

Have you ever been nervous before a big race? Of course you have. Ever talked yourself into thinking you might fail? Have you ever felt that unwanted negative thoughts and emotions influenced how you performed in a race? There’s a good chance that’s happened, since it will occasionally happen even to the best athletes in the world.  But it doesn’t have to. This episode is entirely about helping yo...

Longtime Fast Talk Labs contributor and coach, Grant Holicky, joins us for another Q&A episode of Fast Talk. With Grant's help, in this episode of Fast Talk we tackle questions on race tactics (including the infamous “shake and break”), if and how you can train grit in races, how to safely override the central governor and a greater discussion around the ethics of pushing past this fatigue thresho...

If you consider yourself an athlete—and presumably you do since you’re visiting this site and listening to this podcast—then your definition of what that means has likely evolved through the years. Think about your lifestyle, your mental health, your training routine—even your friends and community. To what extent are feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment connected to your definition? Think abo...

We often mention scientific research articles within our podcast episodes. That said, Coach Trevor Connor laments how little time he is able to spend reviewing the data, in the context of the greater discussion. Therein lies the basis for a new type of Fast Talk episode, which we have affectionately dubbed "Nerd Lab." In this episode, we take our time to review four recent studies from the scienti...

I’m not going to pretend to know much about time trials. I’ve done one. I also did an Hour Record on the track. That was fun, ahem.  On the other hand, our main guests today are arguably the greatest athlete-coach duo in the history of time trials. Kristin Armstrong won three Olympic gold medals and two world championship titles in her gilded career, and Jim Miller was her coach the entire time.  ...

We receive a lot of questions about very specific topics—fasted training, supplements and recovery products, breathing techniques, and so forth. (By the way, we love them, so please keep them coming.) In this episode, however, we step back and discuss what we feel is most important, and frankly what is going to give you the biggest return for your investment of time, sweat, and energy. If those sp...

They say age is just a number. That’s exactly it: Age is nothing more than digits, and certainly shouldn’t be seen as a barrier or a dirty word. We can age successfully, but it requires changes to how we train and perhaps to the types of races we target.   Of course, there are some physiological changes—you might call them declines—that come with age. Yet, there are also things that improve as ath...

Coach Lindsay Golich is a sports physiologist who has worked with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center for the past five years. She works closely with USA Cycling and USA Triathlon in areas of environmental physiology, including altitude, heat and humidity, as well as data analytics for performance modeling.    With Lindsay’s help, t...