Today Coach Connor and I are joined by Coach Steve Neal of The Cycling Gym, which now resides exclusively in the virtual world: The Cycling Gym.
Let’s get into the questions.
Our first question comes from Dan S., as a follow-up to episode 113 on recovery period lengths: “What do you make of the FTP test protocols that call for a 5-minute maximal effort followed by a 5-minute recovery followed by a 20-minute FTP measurement effort? Is the 20 minutes representative of what an athlete could do for a 60-minute FTP test and, thus, what their FTP training power zones should be?”
A second question from Dan S. on body fat and hypothermia: “First, are athletes with lower body fat composition more susceptible to hypothermia? Second, is there a notable difference in chilling effect when either wetness or wind are added?”
James K. wants to know how to structure a rest week: “How should I structure the rest week to get the most from it? Should I have multiple days completely off? Any opener intervals?”
Our next question comes from Ellis P. of Rugby, England. He, like many this year, has had to pivot after his target event was cancelled. He wants to know how to adjust his training: “Can you ‘build’ forever?” he asks. “I need both a very good aerobic and anaerobic system to be at the sharp end of the field. Initially my events were far enough apart that I could peak for U23 Nationals, take a break and then base/build/peak for the National Hill Climb Championships. With my original goal not taking place, can I base/build/base/build until September when I will start racing Hill Climb TTs in prep, or should I still take a break and reset? I don’t and won’t need a mental break, it’s only a physical break I’m concerned with. Given I haven’t ‘peaked’ yet this year do I need to take time off? Essentially, what I’m asking is do you need to change your training regularly/can your body get tired of one type of training even if you’re progressing that type of training (e.g. longer intervals)?”
Israeli coach Dror H. asks about rest between VO2max efforts: “During your recent episode on rest periods between intervals with Sebastian Weber (FT113), you raised a point about the impact of recovery time between intervals on lactate removal and performance in the next intervals. Specifically, you mentioned Dr. Seiler’s article which showed no difference between 2 minutes and 4 minutes rest period. According to Dr. Weber, the reason why there was no difference is that in both cases the ATP-Phosphocreatine system recovered to the same level and the lactate levels were pretty much the same. So, from a physiological perspective 2 minutes and 4 minutes rest are almost the same. Now comes the question: In the case of 8-minute VO2max efforts, should we recover much longer to be able to generate similar power each time?”
Finally, Devin K. wants to know: “What is happening when you ‘blow up’ on a ride?”
References
- BISHOP, D. (1997). Reliability of a 1-h endurance performance test in trained female cyclists. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 29(4), 554–559. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1097/00005768-199704000-00019
- Borszcz, F., Tramontin, A., Bossi, A., Carminatti, L., & Costa, V. (2018). Functional Threshold Power in Cyclists: Validity of the Concept and Physiological Responses. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(10), 737–742. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0044-101546
- Inglis, E. C., Iannetta, D., Passfield, L., & Murias, J. M. (2020). Maximal Lactate Steady State Versus the 20-Minute Functional Threshold Power Test in Well-Trained Individuals: “Watts” the Big Deal? International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 15(4), 541–547. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2019-0214
- Morgan, P. T., Black, M. I., Bailey, S. J., Jones, A. M., & Vanhatalo, A. (2018). Road cycle TT performance: Relationship to the power-duration model and association with FTP. Journal of Sports Sciences, 37(8), 902–910. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2018.1535772
- Passfield, L., Hopker, JG., Jobson, S., Friel, D., & Zabala, M. (2016). Knowledge is power: Issues of measuring training and performance in cycling. Journal of Sports Sciences, 35(14), 1–9. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2016.1215504
- Sanders, D., Abt, G., Hesselink, M. K. C., Myers, T., & Akubat, I. (2017). Methods of Monitoring Training Load and Their Relationships to Changes in Fitness and Performance in Competitive Road Cyclists. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 12(5), 668–675. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2016-0454
Episode Transcript
Chris Case 00:09
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fast Talk your source for the science of cycling performance. This episode of fast Talk is brought to you by whoop. Now, Trevor, I know you’ve convinced some athletes that you still coach, that whoop is a valuable tool. So maybe give us a little overview of how you use whoop for the art of coaching.
Trevor Connor 00:32
It’s just like use it the other metrics. I want to see how hard they’re trading. I want to see the work they’re doing. But I have learned with my athletes, that’s an incomplete picture. And I have sub athletes that have real good stamina and can push through things until they cook themselves. I have other athletes that can’t handle it very well. Getting that whoop data from them every week is remarkably valuable. You know, I asked them to Send me the summary of the week. And I want to see, whoop, there’s this week view, where it shows you your strain every day that shows your recovery level every day. And I have seen ever like said every athlete is different. Some athletes can tolerate it better than others. And you get to know them. But I certainly have sub athletes where if that strain is always higher than the recovery, they’re getting in trouble. We need to start heading we need to find a period of time to recover. For a lot of my athletes, I want points in the week where recovery is higher than the the strain and vice versa. But it is actually a very valuable metric that I can’t see anywhere else. And it gives me a complete picture of the week that I can’t get just from the trading software.
Chris Case 01:51
Today, a q&a episode. We’ve got coach Connor in Boulder. I’m actually sitting in Connecticut and our guest coach today. Steve, Neal and Steve, you’re up in Toronto. Is that correct?
Steve Neal 02:05
Little North up almost in cottage country in a little town called Allison.
Trevor Connor 02:10
Great. Well, you’re up an Allison
Steve Neal 02:12
do that. I moved here about 10 months ago was like 400 undergrad kilometers of gravel riding
Trevor Connor 02:19
five minutes. Nice. I used to ride there all the time. I somewhat grew up in Mansfield. Yes. Okay. None of our listeners know what we’re talking about. But right around the corner?
Steve Neal 02:31
You betcha.
Chris Case 02:32
So Steve is the CO owner of the cycling gym up in Toronto. And you may have heard us mention that name before Steve’s been on the program before as you know, the cycling gym has closed its doors as a facility but they’ve actually moved entirely online. So now there is a virtual coaching business that Steve and his partner Andrew Randall run. you subscribe to a forum. You get access to your own thread. You have have access to some amount of testing. If you have a power meter, many of the members have their own lactate analyzer. You send those results over to Steve or Andrew. They’ll do video reviews of that data. they’ll explain any changes you’ll want to make in the direction of your training, and so forth. There’s a library of workouts on there that you can access. The idea is to help people self coach, if that’s what they have to do in a safe, progressive way right now, especially, but moving forward, they’re going to be continuing to build out this forum in this platform. Steve, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your coaching background? I You are the CO owner of the cycling gym, is that correct? How did you get your start in coaching?
Steve Neal 03:48
A long time ago, I guess like 30 plus years ago, I was kind of trying my best to race elite mountain biking here in Ontario and I kind of got into the top six or seven people and A few people that were beating me I became friends with and and I found out a couple of them. One in particular was riding back and forth to work an hour a day to you know, that was the training that he was doing for racing. And I was like, wow, you can do so much better than that if this is how fast you are. So I had a friend who was a cross country skier who actually was at the Olympics in 50 K and five time national champions so I was sort of surrounded by just watching him trained to become that level of a cross country skier. And I had this friend who I thought could be way way better than me. So I started coaching my friend with Joe frills book and a lot of the stuff that I saw my skier friend do, and that was my first athlete. Wow.
Chris Case 04:48
And you what you you got a little bit more experienced and sophisticated along the way, I assume. Yeah.
Steve Neal 04:55
So the the neat part of it, that relationship is I actually messed totally messed up. I gotta make The top five in the country and then kind of burnt them out. So I heard about this. A guy named Eric Feldman at NBC who is coaching Jeff kaboosh. And writer has stood on a number of other fast riders at the time. But everyone said he was like crazy. So I was like, Okay, I’m gonna call him. So I called him up and flew out to canmore. And we sat there and met and I’ll never forget seeing riders training on a napkin. He helped me get. Paul was like Paul couldn’t get out of bed, overtrained. And in less than four weeks, he helped me put him into the top five in national championships. And he eventually actually started beating Jeff kaboosh that’s kind of how I got into this sort of science aspect of doing a lot of testing. You know, I bought a lactate analyzer and I bought a really high end metabolic cart A long time ago. And so whenever someone said, Hey, this training should improve your vo to max I’d be like, okay, and but I test it. And so I take A bunch of athletes through different protocols, but I would actually test them every few weeks, lactate metabolic cart, all this stuff. And I’d be like, Yeah, no, that actually doesn’t work. It’s things are getting worse. And, and I just sort of try to find out with real data from that person, what was making the person better. So I was using real world science equipment. But just, you know, in my basement,
Trevor Connor 06:26
which I’ve actually got to say, this is a good segue into what I would say is the theme of this q&a session, which is, all these questions get more at what is our experience as coaches more so than the science because I think you bring up an important point, we can talk the science all day, but the science is one part of the picture. I think experience is is just as important a part of the picture. And if you just have one without the other, you can get yourself off track. So it’s about important to have bits of both. And I do know you I know that will you you have a ton of experience and rely on that experience you have done your time learning the science as well.
Steve Neal 07:11
I wouldn’t even know I’ve done 10s of thousands of lactate tests, right? I don’t even know how many tests I’ve done to be honest. It’s a lot. And it’s over 10 years or eight years of an athlete, not six weeks. So it’s been it’s been it’s really interesting. I still find it super interesting. I love to test new things. And I’m always shocked, but I see. So it’s kind of neat.
Chris Case 07:31
Well, great. Let’s let’s dive into some questions then and see how each of you is able to bring your various experiences to the table to answer our listeners questions today. Our first question comes from Dan Swenson, and he’s been darting back and forth between his home in Illinois and a place he has in evergreen Colorado. He’s been listening to our podcast says it makes it much easier. And he’s also come on With a lot of great questions during those drives, so let’s ask one of them now. And this is a follow up to Episode 113. On recovery period lengths between intervals. We did that not long ago with Sebastian Webber. Dan writes, I completely agree with your assessment of the impossibility of five times, and five times however many intervals you do at all out intensity, quote, unquote all out intensity. That type of effort is exceptionally taxing on the glycolytic energy systems, if done correctly, and as you observed in the podcast, it takes a long time to clear all that lactate, which leads me to my question. What do you make of the FTP test protocols that call for a five minute complete total maximal effort followed by a five minute recovery, followed by a 20 minute FTP measurement effort is the 20 minutes roughly representative of what an athlete could do for a, quote unquote 60 minute FTP test and and thus what their FTP training power zones should be. My personal experience is that I can do a much greater 60 minute TT effort than I can under the above protocol. Which leads me to question the FTP training power recommendations under any of the protocols. Your thoughts guys here. And, Trevor, I think that, as you and I have discussed previously on the show, someone like Neil Henderson has a FTP quote unquote FTP test where he’s doing these five minute and 20 minute intervals in a certain order to tax different systems and indicate different things. Let’s jump into this.
Trevor Connor 09:53
I was going to start with that saying that the protocol he’s describing is the one designed by Neil Henderson I think he calls it the his four. I don’t remember his exact name for it, but they they have it on the sufferfest website, I
Steve Neal 10:09
think it’s called 40 p Thank you.
Trevor Connor 10:11
I’m horrible at remembering things like that. But the basic protocol You have to do it all within an hour. So you start with a series of five second Sprint’s to try to get your best five second power. Really, it’s the last one that counts, but usually you do a couple just to get the legs going. Then you take a short rest, then you do a five minute all out time trial. Then you take I’m trying remember his exact length, when I give it to my athletes, I tell him to take about a 12 minute rest 10 to 12 minute rest. Then you do a 20 minute all out time trial. Then you take another kind of 10 to 15 minute rest and then you do a one minute all out effort. It’s a whole lot of fun in an hour.
Steve Neal 11:02
I don’t do really much FTP testing, if any, I used to 10 or 15 years ago. I so I, I really find a big variation in this test sometimes upwards of 30% different people. So instead of taking point nine, five, you might have to take like, point seven, five or point seven off. Though I do some inside testing as well, and I think this whole clearing lactate thing is pretty interesting because some people one of the parts of an inside test is a three minute maximal effort. And you throughout the test, you do these variable intensities, and you can’t start the next test until the lactate gets below 2.5. So you have this starting spot of below 2.5 millimoles lactate and you know, I’d say that really strong masters and a riders can, you know combust lactate below 2.5, from eight or nine millimoles in five, eight minutes, sometimes nine. But there’s some people that are 30 minutes 35 minutes like they can they end some people cannot get back below 2.5. So I think even in the four dp, you would have some people that would that the results would be pretty challenging for those people who can’t clear combust whichever terminology we want to use these days, the lactate before that next test when you’re doing everything under an hour, I think that might be hard for some especially kind of beginners, strong beginners.
Trevor Connor 12:40
The idea behind this is to some degree exactly that more it’s looking at that anaerobic capacity. The reason he wants to shorter recovery between the five minute and the 20 minute effort is there’s a lot of athletes who can draw on anaerobic energy pathways, even That 20 minute test, and then you get a an overestimation of their threshold power. So you do that five minute test where you’re going to blow out a lot of your anaerobic capacity. And the idea is not to give you enough time to fully replenish it so that when you’re doing the 20 minute effort, it’s more of a true aerobic effort. That’s, that’s the theory behind the test.
Steve Neal 13:23
I still think there’s gonna be a lot of variation. Yep, I agree. I think that in this day and age, there’s two or three different software’s that will probably give within five to six watts of a person’s FTP that might even be more truthful than a person doing a because both of those I mean, the five minute doesn’t necessarily have to have this perfect pacing, but experience of the rider will definitely come into play. Anytime you do any kind of like critical power. Testing like, I want a five minute hard, six minutes, often a 20 minute hard. The, the pacing or the way those tests are performed based on the individual could have quite vary quite a bit of variation.
Trevor Connor 14:12
I have had a few athletes that I’ve given this test to. And it’s exactly that what you’re talking about was experience where they do the five minute effort, they take a 12 minute break, then they do the 20 minute effort and the first five minutes of that 20 minute effort. They actually averaged a higher wattage than they did in the five minute test. And then they blow up completely.
Steve Neal 14:37
So yeah, so there’s that.
Chris Case 14:41
So there, what you’re saying is, if somebody is going to do this protocol for an FTP test, there is a learning curve to doing it in such a way that you get data that’s a bit more representative. of what is possible or quote unquote, right for that person? Is that what
Steve Neal 15:05
what I’m hearing? Yeah, one of the things I find always with, when you do this kind of Time Trial testing, you meet someone, it’s like, okay, we’re going to do, let’s say, you’re going to do this five minute 20 minute test, and they do them. First thing I do is take a look at the two average powers and sort of the profile of their test. Like I take the average of both of them. And I give them the test the very next day so that theoretically, they don’t even recover, they’re probably tired, whatever, and I give them the testing, but I restrict the first half of the test to their average, and then I tell them to go all out after that. So I’m like, okay, two and a half minutes at yesterday’s average, then go as hard as you can for two and a half minutes. Then I say the same thing, take the average of the 20. Go at this average for 10 minutes, and then go as hard as you can for 10 minutes and it’s like, oh, you’re seven and a half percent better. This is amazing coaching. But it’s not. That’s one thing I’ve always done with with this kind of time travel Testing to try to speed up the process of learning is to help them understand how to start.
Trevor Connor 16:05
I have noticed whenever an athlete does this test, and they go into it with a target wattage in mind, they fail. As a matter of fact, they don’t even get through the test because they always have an idea of what number they want to hit for the 20 minute test. And they just mentally shut themselves down because it gets hard. I’ve had multiple times where athletes have done that contact me said sorry, I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t get through the 20 minute test What’s wrong? And I’ve literally said, wait two days. Do it again. This time. Don’t look at anything go by feel. And you’d be amazed how many times they then hit that target wattage.
Steve Neal 16:48
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Putting your Gizmo in your pocket is a wonderful tool. Yeah.
Chris Case 16:54
Trevor, I know you have actually done this test. perform this test. A lot. in your in your life and your career. I guess I want to back up a second and say of the protocols out there for finding one’s FTP is the one he’s described your go to and what are those benefits of having an easy so to speak he hit relatively speaking easy protocol to go out and and understand a little bit about where you’re at in terms of your fitness.
Trevor Connor 17:30
I’ve tried a bunch with the coaches I’ve worked with, they’ve had me tried different types of protocols, I kind of like this one, it does give you a lot of useful information. None of them are perfect. The most important thing is all of them require a fair amount of interpretation. I have looked at enough of them from enough athletes that I can for example, look at that 20 minute test and say okay, that’s not their true FTP or look at and say that’s, that’s very Close, you have to look at heart rate, you have to look at a whole bunch of factors to do that interpretation. If you don’t have that ability and just simply take that average wattage, no, sometimes Yes, that’s going to be accurate. Other times No, it’s not. So there is a bit of an art to be able to look at that test and interpret it. I think there’s several tests where it’s the same thing if you know how to interpret it, you can generally get pretty good numbers. I do like this one simply because it I think it does what Neal was trying to design it to do, which is look at a few different aspects of your your strengths and weaknesses.
18:39
Very good. Any anything else to add?
Steve Neal 18:41
If I was to just throw it, what kind of my opinion I would really like a simple test for me would be a pretty traditional three minute step test to failure. And then I would take whatever that peak one minute wattage is, and let’s just call it ma p for argument and then I would take somewhere between 70 to 72% of that, and I would see how long they can do it. And I find that in an M AP test they, they only have to really focus on suffering for a short period of time. And I find that time trial testing sometimes is a bit daunting for some and a lot of people don’t have a lot of like practice at it. So they get nervous about the effort says I find an M AP test and then somewhere most people are going to be 70 to 74% for their FDP have an M AP test, what is m AP like maximum power the peak one minute test in a three minute step test, some people use 60 seconds steps But see, you know, you might start at 100 watts go up 25 watts a minute to failure. And whatever the peak one minute is, would be considered maximal aerobic power. So very, you know, let’s call it a proxy for vo to power and then I find that you know of the hundred issues People at our gym in looking at everything it was between 69 and 73% was what they could hold for an hour. So we almost didn’t, we would do an MA p test and then we would do workouts and find it. You know, if you can’t do 45 minutes at 70% of your ma p, then your FTP is a little lower than that. These can’t be 45 Kids 60. Right. So I don’t know there seem to be a lot less suffering in that protocol. I like I said, I don’t have a lot of experience using this type of protocol. I understand it. I just find that sort of Max effort time trials seem to get to people especially if you want to try to test on a whatever every few months kind of regular basis.
Trevor Connor 20:42
The last thing I want to bring up so we just recorded an episode with with Tim from training peaks and preparing for that. I read a couple studies that covered f FTP and the short version or the summary of them is FTP is just not a good correlate for threshold power. You know, for some people, yes, it’s spot on. But you don’t know if you’re one of those people. For a lot of people, their one hour power can be very different from their true physiological threshold. So these studies basically said, if you’re trying to figure out what your true physiological threshold is, FTP isn’t a good test. What they did say FTP is valuable for is it does seem to correlate well with improvements in fitness, meaning if your FTP goes up, you’re probably fitter. And I’m gonna extrapolate that to a lot of these tests, including the this Neil Henderson’s test. Well, you can make arguments about whether that 20 minute power is a decent estimate of your threshold, and how much interpretation is required to get at that number. I do think a lot of these tests can be very valuable to
Chris Case 21:56
track changes in your fitness over the course of the season. Let’s move on to our next question also from from Dan Swenson here. This is a follow up to Episode 111, which was talking about the myths of training in the heat and cold with Dr. Steven Chung, another Canadian, I might add. So Dan asks, a couple years ago, I had an early spring road race when it rained and was 45 degrees most of the event, it was really interesting to see that my power remain the same throughout most of the race, but my heart rate steadily declined during the event. When a lead group did a final surge on the last leg, I couldn’t respond and rode in the final miles with hypothermia deeply set in. So two questions. First, are athletes with lower body fat composition more susceptible to hypothermia? And second, is there a notable difference in chilling effect when either wetness or wind are added? Trevor I know Know you like to pick on people that don’t dress properly? What’s going on here with Dan Swenson and his declining heart rate?
Trevor Connor 23:09
Well, first of all, I’ve got a deal little segue here. Before we started recording, we were talking about my frustration that whenever we get Canadians on the show, we never make fun of Americans every day back, and Steve did the most Canadian insult I’ve ever heard, which was, we were talking about Chris and he goes, Well, Chris, I like you. You’re You’re almost nice enough to be Canadian.
23:36
Only a Canadian would insult somebody by calling them a nice person. Here we go. I told
Steve Neal 23:41
y’all. I’m gonna try to improve. Maybe I need a coach. I don’t know. You.
Chris Case 23:49
Hey, an American coach to teach you how to be more insulting that that might work out.
Trevor Connor 23:55
So heart rate. Yes, if you remember that episode. Dr. Chung, we talked about the fact that when you are in heat, your body tries to get blood to the surface, so right underneath your skin so that it can release heat. That’s a good thing in the heat. And what happens is all your blood vessels underneath the skin vasodilate so they open up, which increases the volume that your your blood has to cover. So your heart has to beat faster, has to be it harder to to keep that blood flowing. in cold weather. That’s not what you want. You don’t want the blood getting to the surface and really releasing that heat, you want to retain that heat. So it’s gonna vassal constrict all those blood vessels. And the way to think of this, think of it like a river network, if you block off a whole bunch of channels in a river, there’s now less places for the water to go so the water is naturally going to start flowing faster, which means your heart doesn’t have to work as hard To keep that blood flowing, so in cold weather because of all that vassal constriction, your heart rates going to drop. If you
Steve Neal 25:07
look at sports in the cold like cross country skiers and and swimmers, they they generally do have a layer of fat or they’re a bit dirty almost or how fit they are, which really helps combat in you know, being in the cold all the time. So you’ve got a really, you know, really lean cyclist and and especially if they’re small, then they’re going to run into these problems like that, that Trevor’s discussing.
Trevor Connor 25:34
Well, fat is a natural insulator. So if you have a layer of fat around your body, you’re going to release less heat, so it’s going to help keep you warm.
Chris Case 25:44
Yeah, it really sort of follows logic. The simple answer to his question, are athletes with lower body fat composition more susceptible to hypothermia? Yes, because they’re they don’t have that layer of insulation to hold the heat in the The second one, is there a difference in chilling effect when either wetness or wind are added? Well, absolutely, there is the Windchill effect. We’ve all heard of that. And that adds to how we perceive temperatures and temperature drops in in cold weather and wet weather. And the wetness adds to the evaporative cooling effect. So you you even feel colder in those conditions. That’s one side
Trevor Connor 26:27
of it. But there’s actually another effect from being wet. And this is one of those terms that I constantly forget. I literally looked it up an hour ago and I’ve already forgotten it. But all fluids so fluids and and, and gases. There is a measure for them of how much heat they can retain air. So oxygen, its value is pretty low, which means that you can heat up and cooled down air pretty quickly. It doesn’t take a lot. Water, this is this is what They call water a heat sink, its value is really, really high, which means it has to absorb a lot of heat to raise the temperature of water even just a little bit. This is the reason why you can walk around when it’s 50 degrees outside or when the air is 50 degrees, and you’re a little cool, but you can be comfortable. If you hop into 50 degree water, you’re going to get cold really quickly because that water is going to start sucking the heat out of you like there’s no tomorrow. So it’s the same thing if you are in cold weather and you’re getting rained on all that water is just gonna start sucking the heat out of your body and you can go hypothermic really quick.
27:45
And that term is specific heat. And so basically wear better clothing, right? That’s what it comes down to.
Trevor Connor 27:54
You know where I stand on this? Yeah, it kills me when I sit there and 40 degrees. Whether there’s somebody in either legs completely exposed or just wearing new warmers it’s a good way to get really cold.
Steve Neal 28:09
Yeah, my big Yeah, my big thing. you’ve answered all the questions, but my big thing is to really what’s avoiding this is one of the simple things is dressing more than properly because you can take stuff off and stuffing in your pocket. I think the real key is to, you know, almost wait a little longer than you think to start taking off those layers. And I sometimes think people when they’re racing, they just, they just don’t think they racing so they don’t wear a lot of clothes that Randall always talks about when he was 15. And he thought he was going to try to be Johan museo and go on a road race with Justin shirts him shorts on and he didn’t even make it to the finish line. He’s like, shivering in the gutter. So he never did that. Again. He just overdressed and started races like he looked like he was going for a training ride and it really helped him You know when it was when it was cold and wet?
Chris Case 29:02
This is your business partner Andrew Randall.
Steve Neal 29:05
Yeah, Andrew Randall. Sorry. I was I felt like I was just talking to Tara there for a second. But yeah. Andrew Randall, my business partner who’s got way more experience on a bicycle than I do tells us cold story a lot. So it was clearly memorable as a Yeah,
Trevor Connor 29:18
yeah. Yep. No, I’ve heard from a bunch of top athletes. I’m I think Andrew said this to me as well. The expression I have never had to pull out of a race for being overdressed. I pulled out of races many times for being underdressed.
Chris Case 29:35
Well, we all know where we stand on clothing, cold weather wet weather. Let’s move on to the question about how to structure a rest week. This question comes from James Kenny. He recently moved to Boulder from San Francisco. He’s a big fan of our previous discussions on recovery and rest. And James writes this time How should I structure The rest week to get the most from it. Should I have multiple days completely off any opener intervals? What does that week ideally look like? Steve, we’ll start with you.
Steve Neal 30:12
I think for the rest of week, if you’re talking about someone who doesn’t have, like a big background and cycling are, say, a big base, I think more, more rest will be very good for them. A lot of people tend to test in rest weeks, so try not to get too off track. But so I think if you don’t have a big background, then I think a short, a short recipe of four to five days is probably good to actually just really rest and do short rides of like a 40 minutes or sometimes even 230 or 40 minute rides in a day but sped up by three or four hours. I find that that really helps keep the coordination going so that when the athlete starts riding again, they don’t feel flat. If you have more bass and more writing in you, then I think that The I can generally use, you know, always give a day off. And then I usually give a double day of a couple of 40 minute rides, but then the rest of the week is just easy endurance, usually at about 50% of the duration of their longest ride is kind of what I do. And then I usually if I’m going to do testing it always, it’s always in the first training week back so I would do some openers, maybe in the fifth or sixth or seventh day of have a rest week and generally speaking, there would be one coordination day like some kind of a cadence pyramid, working on some cadence drills, but low power and then maybe some short sprint work before we might get into what ever we might be testing. After that, that block of training. But one
Chris Case 31:44
question I have to follow up there is, I think a lot of people have probably heard the term opener, but it probably means different things to different people. So what do you mean when you say some openers in there?
Steve Neal 31:58
I usually use like eight Second sprints which are really really short. So I would say do an eight second sprint every 10 minutes during a in the longer athlete’s Recovery Week, eight second sprint every 10 minutes during a two hour ride the day before that would probably be a cadence pyramid. So a cadence pyramid I usually use like 100 RPM to start in 130 RPM at the top and 100 RPM again at the bottom of the pyramid. Generally speaking about about one minute at each and really trying to get the feet to do that by generating the lowest possible power with the smoothest pedal stroke at those cadences and yeah that I really short sprint that is more about it’s almost like a strength workouts and I find that it helps people not feel flat when they get back on the bike to go do some work.
Chris Case 32:46
I’m curious, also to hear the the philosophy behind today’s on those for you. You’re talking about 40 minutes twice in a single De what’s the logic there?
Steve Neal 33:02
I learned that from years ago, long time ago when people were actually getting. So he used to use that a lot when people were sick. So if someone got sick, while they were sick, he would really shorten their training, but he might actually have them ride for 20 minutes, four times a day. And so I, you know, I, if I had athletes get sick, then I would, you know, I was implementing the same thing. That’s sort of what I learned from my mentor and people seem to sell is weird. You always used to say that sickness was just, it was just a different kind of stress on the body. And so if you respected the sickness properly, you could actually commit to being sick fitter, but most people don’t want to rest enough anyways, blah, blah. So doing these multiple mini sessions a day, the athletes came out of this sickness with really good coordination. So they just didn’t feel like they stopped riding their bike. They just and they didn’t have a long enough session to really cause any fatigue. So I started to do A similar thing in a rest week, as and it just seems to work really well to make the athletes feel like they, they aren’t flat when they get back to training, even though they had a really good rest. So I don’t, I’m not going to pretend I don’t have any studies. This is just all like, even from my own personal experience. But, you know, if you keep things between 20 to 40 minutes, they seem to be not very stressful even when, if a person is unwell. And so if you’re healthy and just resting, they’re almost like, a bit of a pain because it takes longer to put your shorts on. Right. But it’s it seems to work. And so I’ve kind of kept at it even when they’re not sick. I use an arrest week.
Trevor Connor 34:39
So we cover that a while ago in an episode we did about what to do when you’re sick. And Chris, if you remember there was a bell shaped curve to how the immune system responds, where if you go short and easy, you actually help your immune system and so we are talking about that In the context of being sick and helping your body fight a bug, but on Recovery Week, your immune system is taken care of all that repair work. So you again want to help the immune system. Once you start getting longer and harder, you come over the other side of that bell shaped curve, and you’re actually blunting your immune system, you’re you’re hurting its processes. So from a scientific standpoint, that would back what Steve was saying of do. You can do multiple but keep your eyes short, keep them easy, because that’s going to promote the immune system that’s going to help it with the repair process.
Steve Neal 35:35
So out of interesting the bell curve, what was it? I did that was the duration different because I was always told 40 minutes was kind of this place to not start challenging the immune system. Is that what it found?
Trevor Connor 35:48
You know, it’s been a while since I looked at that I’m sure I could go find that graph. I’m sure there’s some individual variants. It’s going to be different with a very experienced athlete versus a somebody who’s who’s brand new to cycling. But I do remember it basically saying under an hour and easy you’re promoting the immune system anything over that either you’re starting to develop the immune system
Chris Case 36:09
in Trevor, what do you think? What How do you structure rest weeks given somebody’s ability level?
Trevor Connor 36:16
Well, I mostly just stayed quiet there because I thought Steve was given fantastic advice and really don’t have that much to add to it. I agree with what he’s saying. Keep the ride short, keep them easy. I think those openers exactly the way you describe them. They don’t add a ton of training stress, but they just help the body. The only thing I am going to add my experience with recovery weeks, is when you try to map a Recovery Week out. That is when your body goes, You fool. Let me show you otherwise, your body likes to prove you wrong. Those are the weeks where you just have to really listen to your legs. Listen to your body and let it direct where you’re going to go. I have had athletes absolutely rip themselves apart in a camp. And three, four days later, they’re completely fine. I’ve had the same athlete, go and do a less difficult camp and eight days later, they’re still feeling it. There. There isn’t a golden rule to it, except the fact that you just have to listen to yourself and give your body the recovery that it tells you it needs.
Chris Case 37:30
All right, let’s move on to our next question. This one comes from Ellis Pillinger of rugby, England. And this has a little bit of a story to set things up. So I’ll dive into that now. His goal event this year had been the British u 23. Time Trial championships, which are now canceled due to Coronavirus COVID. He’s now changed his focus for the year to be the National Health hillclimb championships at the end of October now for those who don’t know this little niche of British cycling these these hill climbs you know what that means? You know that these things are excruciating Lee intense, very short we’re not talking about outdo as climbs or Tourmalet climbs. The climb used this year at the National Championships in October, for example is going to take between two and two and a half minutes for the fastest riders and Alice hopes to be among them. So Ellis’s question is obviously these are quite different events with different demands. I will need both a very good aerobic and anaerobic system to be at the sharp end of the field. Initially, the events were far enough apart that I could peak for you 23 nationals take a break and then base build peak for the hill climb championships. With my original goal not taking place, can I base build base until September when I will start racing hillclimb TTS in prep for the national championships or should I still take a break and reset? I don’t and won’t need a mental break. He says it’s only a physical break I’m concerned with. Given I haven’t peaked yet this year Do I need to take time off? Essentially what I’m asking, do you need to change your training regularly? Or can your body get tired of one type of training, even if you’re progressing that type of training? Trevor, I’m gonna start with you this time. What do you think here for LS? And obviously, this applies probably to quite a number of people out there who are pivoting and having to change what their goal is for the year and there’s they’re wondering, am I stagnating? If I do this for too long, what should I do here?
Trevor Connor 39:54
Well, man, I’m I’m really looking forward to hearing what Steve has to say here. I’m going to just start by saying there is we’re in uncharted territory. There is no science here. Yes, there are a lot of people who don’t train for events, they just ride their bikes, including a lot of listeners of the show. But something I’ve never seen before is where you have athletes that are targeted events and said, Okay, I’m going to get ready for the race season and in March and April and then that didn’t happen. So they went okay, now I’m going to get ready for me in June and that didn’t happen. And then start to think about July and August and now that doesn’t look like it’s happening either. So they’re, they’re kind of making it up as they go. So there’s I’ve never seen any study or science to address that. So I think
40:47
we’re going to get
Trevor Connor 40:48
much more of just here’s our opinions on this knowing that this is Steve, I don’t know about you, but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced this and The short version of my answer is I love doing base work, I think bases where you raise your level. But I do think with any type of training, you hit a point where you plateau. And you can get stale. And you look at the nature of base training, which is much more aerobic in nature. I think if you just do it constantly, you run that risk of turning yourself into that giant endurance animal who has no top end, you know, just kind of that tank who can chug away at a decent speed, but not go hard. And if you’re targeting Hill races that are two and a half minutes, you don’t want to take your body in the long term in that direction. So the short version of my answer is, yeah, even though you don’t have races right now, I think you need to change it up. I think you need to get some intensity in there. Then take a break and then hope that you got some races coming up in the fall and build towards those. That’s the What do you think?
Steve Neal 42:01
Yeah, I think I agree, I think, you know, I’m a big believer in the aerobic system and, and whatnot. So I kind of always relate to sports like rowing where the events four minutes long but they train six hours a day 30 35% skill work on the boat, and then the rest is training and then they might only sort of sharpen three weeks out. And so they’re going from 30 hours a week to sharpen for a four minute event. So I, I really think looking sometimes at other sports that have these durations and seeing what they do. track cycling has some of these events and but yeah, you can’t, you know, even as a big believer in endurance, I guess some of the things that I’ve done during this time are used swift races of certain durations, but some people I’ve used Strava segments, where it’s safe with other people and and then I’ve I’ve had people find me They’re one or two people in their bubble that they just ride with once every two weeks and, you know, kind of old school just like, go on your mountain bike, you’re gonna go on these trails for two hours, and you’re gonna, you’re gonna pretend race your buddy. So I’ve kind of tried to look for ways to inject some intensity that’s above what the person is comfortable doing. I’ve always found that finding the right race to prepare is better than most intervals. Yeah, those are three things that I’ve done, I generally find people can handle three to five weeks of this injection, and then you just have to get I almost look for an improvement with positive comments from the athlete, and then I pull them back out of that and go back to endurance and tempo.
Chris Case 43:40
And Trevor or, Steve, any sense here of how long is too long to stay in base mode? If you’re looking to be sharp for an event, September October time, or does it vary completely by the individual?
Steve Neal 43:58
Sure. There’s individually But most people can get pretty sharp in three to five weeks. One of the interesting things to ask or to suggest is when you’re working on, or at least when you’re working on the aerobic system. One of the things I always do is test the anaerobic system. So I want to see how much improvement I’m getting in the anaerobic side of things. Let’s call it one to six minutes without training there because I don’t think many people fully exhaust their aerobic training that’s contributing to this anaerobic world. And I know Sebastian’s kind of alluded to that a few times on the podcast is, I think people shortcut the aerobic side of things, they aren’t patient or they don’t wait long enough to get that fully developed. So if you whatever however you want to work on your base and your three minute time trials still improving. Well, that happens to be this person’s race duration. If it’s still improving, I’d be patient and wait. And then you know, in and then in that three to five week window start to sharpen.
Trevor Connor 45:09
And I think the question touched on something really important, which is the mental side. He said, I’m not physically getting tired, but mentally getting a little tired. And I think that’s important. And I’m personally experiencing that myself. I took the approach of Oh, races got pushed back. So I’m going to do more bass and just kept saying, I’m going to do more bass and do more bass and I noticed in May, for all intensive purposes, a was going into some sort of overtraining mode, which confused me because I’m like, I’m not training that hard. And I’m not racing. Why am I overtrained and realized I was getting mentally burnt out? I was just getting tired to do and more thresholds and more thresholds and more thresholds. So I took a little bit of a break and a couple weeks ago, so we’re in the beginning of July. Now, I started doing sprint intervals. And why did I do those? If you look at it from a physiological standpoint, no, it’s kind of a stupid thing to be doing right now. There’s no reason except they’re fun. I’m motivated to train again. So I kind of accepted the the only event I’m probably going to be doing this year is tour of Tobago, which is into September. And if I keep going doing bass until mid August, when I do my build towards Tobago, I’m going to be mentally cooked. So I’m having a little fun right now and doing some sprints. Then I’ll take a break, and then go into my proper build to Tobago, but hopefully in a much better mental place.
Chris Case 46:42
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Trevor Connor 47:32
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Chris Case 47:56
Alright, our next question comes from drawer Hi Daddy. A cycling coach in Israel. He writes, during your recent episode on rest periods between intervals with Sebastian Weber, you raised a point about the impact of recovery time between intervals on lactate removal and performance in the next intervals. Specifically, you mentioned Dr. Tyler’s article which showed no difference between two minutes and four minutes rest period. According to Dr. Weber, the reason why there was no difference is that in both cases, the ATP phosphocreatine system recovered to the same level and the lactate levels were pretty much the same. So from a physiological perspective, two minutes and four minutes rest are almost the same. Now comes my question. In the case of eight minute vo to max efforts, should we recover much longer to be able to generate similar power each time? Trevor, what do you think first of all, is there such a thing as an eight minute video to max effort?
Trevor Connor 48:55
That was the first note I wrote. If you can do not only an eight minute vo to max effort but multiple eight minute vo to max efforts you have an ability to suffer that nobody else in the world has. And let’s just have a respect for Sebastian let’s quickly define what I think he is referring to when he says a vo to max effort. So this is the power. If you ended a vo to max test in a lab, this is the power that you would hit your vo to max at so it’s above your threshold power. There is individual variants but it’s usually pretty high. And quite so on the road testing they tend to say an all out five minute effort somewhat correlates with your your vo to max power. So to be able to do eight minutes at that power. Actually, by that definition, it’s not vo to max because vo to max powers what you can do for five minutes and even just doing five minute intervals if you did multiple five minute intervals. As hard as you can do five minutes, that’s just gonna be the worst workout of your life. I’ll let Steve kind of take it from here and talk about what he thinks is the appropriate recovery length. But the thing I’m going to say is, if you’re doing eight minute intervals, these are going to be much closer to your threshold power than your view to max power.
Steve Neal 50:18
For me, I don’t do any intervals longer than three minutes when I’m trying to work on this with people. So I don’t do like I don’t do a lot of traditional five by fives or things like that. I find that I have a lot more success in the 2030 42nd range and doing mini sets like three minutes or 3032 minutes or three minutes to 3032 minutes off and so on. or something of that nature where the athlete can work hard. I always ask I want respiration involved, and I want it to be noticeable. And I want heart rate to get to at least 90%. And I do I want to see the heart rate stay you know Kind of hydrate that off, which there’s you know, lots of famous people have looked at 3030s in the past. So it depends on the athlete whether I go to sort of 810 or 12 times say 3030, which is fairly traditional or or it’s more like broken up in many sets, but I don’t and therefore, we get into what’s the rest in between those mini sets? And I’m, I don’t really know if there’s much of a difference i’ve i’ve sometimes tell people to wait four minutes and then other times I tell them to wait until they feel ready and add two minutes. I’ve done weird things where I’ve had athletes you know, do intervals using things like a Moxie and they can’t see a timer and they can’t they can’t see any numbers. And I just, they almost go when the little device would tell me that they should go by feeling so I’m not much of a long interval guy. I’m sorry.
Trevor Connor 51:54
Well, look, I so I used to race on Team Rio Grande and when I was on the team Neil Henderson was the team coach, I was getting ready for a cascades and was really focused on that that last day the I forget the name of the loop, but it has just as brutal. every lap is brutal five minute effort, you hit this hill, that’s about a minute and a half, two minutes. But then you cross the top and you have another two, three minutes of this 2% grade where the field just shatters every time. So I went to Neil and said, I really want to work on that ability to put out that big five minute power. What’s your suggestion, and he just said, 3030 best, best way to train it. So I’ve heard that from a lot of coaches. And I agree that if you’re trying to train that power, unless you have some absolutely amazing ability to suffer, doing shorter intervals where you can actually hit that power again and again and again is the way to train that side of your your system.
Steve Neal 52:53
You know, we always talk to people about being consistent in their training and I think that shortening those intervals, like Let’s pretend five by five is the 100%. Best way, let’s bet if someone can get, you know, 97% of the way there by doing something that’s a lot less mentally taxing, and therefore they can do it for years, like, Where will they be four years from now? I’ve always found that one of my biggest things with people that I work with is really trying to keep them at this for a long time.
Trevor Connor 53:23
The last thing I just want to bring up to answer this question, so I think we’re all on the same page. If you’re doing eight minute intervals, you’re not doing vo to max work. I personally think of those as more work in your your threshold power. When we talk to Sebastian, we talked about the fact that the Robic energy pathway is a little sluggish, it takes time to get it ramped up. So my personal opinion is you actually want short recoveries, you don’t want to give it time to cool down that much. You want to recharge some of those short, anaerobic energies. And get some of your PCR recharged. But otherwise get right back to it. So when I give athletes eight minute intervals, which again, I give it to them at their threshold power, I give them too many recoveries.
Chris Case 54:12
All right, we’ve got time for one more question. This one comes from Devin Knickerbocker. You’ve probably heard his name before he writes us many great questions. Keep it up, Devin, we love your enthusiasm, your curiosity. Devon’s Question of the day. Have you ever covered the concept of, quote, blowing up? I think of this as being different than a good old school bunk, but it’s the kind of thing that happens when you, for example, try to stay with the lead group over a hill crack and can’t hold the power get dropped. And then afterwards, heart rate doesn’t come down and the power never really comes back. Also, I’ve had it happen from doing one too many intervals. It could just be hydration, but I think I’ve had it happen even when hi wasn’t a thing. What is blowing up?
Trevor Connor 55:04
Oh boy, this is a big one. Steve, you want to start?
Steve Neal 55:08
I was just about to say go Trevor,
Trevor Connor 55:12
are both trying to pass the buck here because this is such a big question.
Steve Neal 55:15
You mentioned the word homeostasis. And the past and I’ve seen it were in a race. I mean, you know, keep in my backgrounds, mountain biking. So, generally speaking, a fairly well paced race at the top, and I’ve seen it where an athlete is kind of coming from behind or they’re moving through the field. So 10th and then eight and then six, and then third, and then second. And then they get to the front and they’re still a lap and a half to go and they really change. So they’ve they’ve been riding faster than everyone to get where they are. And then they sort of they attack a little bit too hard into this new time trial place. And I’ve seen people blow up from from changing what was probably an optimal homeostasis. At that time, that change of pace is one thing that can can affect this tank. You go.
Trevor Connor 56:08
I love that you brought the word homeostasis because
Steve Neal 56:11
I stole it from you.
Trevor Connor 56:12
Because I have but by first note here was body’s always trying to maintain homeostasis. That’s why I tried to mention your name even though it was your word. I went first so I figured I could steal a word, though please do. I’m glad you did. I read a a really good review a long time ago and being scientific. They didn’t use the term blowing up. So they talked about reaching fatigue or failure. But that’s where I really got introduced to this whole concept of our bodies are trying to maintain homeostasis, and blowing up or fatiguing or failing is when you get too far out of homeostasis. Because when you get too far out of homeostasis, you are doing damage to your body and your body is basically gonna shut you down before you can do permanent damage. Now what causes that? There’s a lot of things that your body tries to maintain and homeostasis. This particular review, I think, identify 13 different ways. When you’re going really hard, you can take your body out of homeostasis and basically said, we don’t know which one of these causes you to fail. It could be that all of them cause you to fail. It could be that every time it’s a it’s a, it’s one of these but it’s a different one. But the main idea here is you have gone at a intensity or effort where you’ve taken your body too far out of homeostasis, and your body goes, nope, stop that. I’m shutting you down.
Steve Neal 57:44
So should we talk about how to avoid blowing up?
57:51
Yeah, definitely.
Trevor Connor 57:54
Don’t go as hard get fitter.
Steve Neal 57:57
As I that I just think sometimes You know, trying, you know, trying to just be confident in the result that you’re meant to have on that day and knowing your body allows you to keep training and keeps your mind positive. Right? So to learn how to not do it is to really learn how to read your own body and understand what you’re capable of at that time. And, and yes, we want people to challenge themselves and stress themselves, but I think we also have a pretty good idea of what we’re ready for. And to try to stay within that and then through our training, improve our, our fitness, like you said to then go back and try again to stick with save that person or on that hill.
Trevor Connor 58:39
Yeah. To continue with that. I would say knowing your limit is critical. And the example I will give Steve, you’ll know this well. So there’s the bridle path loop in Toronto, on this loop, this race that they do in the mornings. There is this brute of about the pending on how strong you are a minute 10 to a minute 30 climb that is like 12% and it hurts like you wouldn’t believe. And I was trying to help out this athlete who kept blowing up in that climb. And I had a conversation with them out. I said, so it explained to me how you’re approaching this climb and it goes on. I’m trying to stay with the leaders. And so I go really hard at the bottom and I get halfway up and I can’t keep going and then they really dropped me. And so I asked him like, what’s the fastest time you’ve ever done? up that climb? He goes, Oh, about minute 14. And I go and how fast the leaders go up. About a minute, four minute five, some like so your fastest time that you’ve ever done is nine seconds slower than their time. So like, yeah, I go then you can’t stay with them. That’s beyond your limits. You’re going to blow up every time trying to stay with them. But don’t have to figure out how to stay with them like but you can’t. So why don’t you go your fastest time up the climb? And then try to finish as best as you can but it you physically you don’t have the fitness the level to stay with them and he just he wouldn’t. That just frustrated him. He’s like, why would I actually let people go? Even though he was blowing up and his time’s up the climb were like a minute 25 because of how badly he blew up and he just couldn’t accept the well, if you just go your own pace, even though you’re going to get dropped, you’re going to get to the top faster. He just really had a hard time with that concept.
Steve Neal 60:40
I never had a hard time with that concept. Really, really good at watching people right away. I gotten much better at helping people stay with other people than myself. But what the heck, you know,
Trevor Connor 60:51
there was one last part two this question I think we need to answer which is is blowing up different from a good old school.
Steve Neal 61:00
I’d say it’s different. Yeah. I mean, I think of, you know, when I hear people talk about bonking I, I really think it’s an energy. It’s it’s, you know, either they’ve, you know, they’ve been training for an hour, four days a week and they tried to go in a 200 mile gravel race. That’s just maybe a choice, but it’s usually if someone’s in, in an event that’s that they’re roughly trained for it. The old fashioned bunk is mostly nutritional. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 61:33
Would you agree with that? I think of a bunk purely as a drop in blood sugar or glycogen depletion.
Steve Neal 61:39
And so it’s either, you know, usually I don’t know what you find, but I’ve, I see mostly that people are, they’re just not eating close to enough, which is, way back in the beginning. We were talking about different kinds of testing, but that’s one of the reasons I like to get people tested so they can understand like, so the energy supply and Need, because when they see how much energy they use and how much is required, and then they can do some math and eat 33 or 35 or 40% more than they’re normally and all of a sudden, wow, I feel really good not only on my ride, but on the next drive in the next ride so that the nutritional pieces, something I think that really helps people get more out of their current fitness.
Chris Case 62:23
Well, Steve, it was a pleasure having you on the show today. Hope to get you back again.
Steve Neal 62:29
Well, thank you if like I always I always come back if you think this is useful and helpful for the listeners, and I appreciate you having me.
Chris Case 62:37
We’ll see what feedback we get from people and we’ll let you know if you were terrible or not.
Steve Neal 62:43
Thank you very much.
62:44
You’re very welcome.
Trevor Connor 62:47
See, very concerned, nice to us. Why are we nice to them. He was
Chris Case 62:53
such I’m such a jerk. I bet I’ve got a I’ve got a reputation. There are other things I’ve been called by guests. I won’t repeat them on the air. But a very nice person actually called me a very nice thing once right before we hit the record button. Okay, you are not nearly friendly enough to be Canadian. Sorry. I know I’m a disgruntled New England, are you? That’s a good point. curmudgeon curmudgeonly you might say, I learned. I learned that from my dad. He’s a true curmudgeon.
Trevor Connor 63:29
You know, like I’ve lived in New England. I enjoy New England but I have heard people talk about all parts of the country were like, I went to Montana the people who are really nice there I went to Texas to people really nice there. I’ve never heard somebody say I went to New England but people were really nice there.
Chris Case 63:46
Oh, you haven’t met the right New Englanders. My mom is is is really nice. My dad. I am joking there. Maybe they’ll listen to this and
63:58
scold me or something. My mom will listen to this and she’ll make me cookies.
Trevor Connor 64:05
I lived in Boston for three years. And by the end of that three years, I terrified other car drivers. I was the biggest, what was it? massholes what they call it? Yeah, you’re a muscle on the road. And I lived in Boston enough that I was really proud of that.
Chris Case 64:20
Yeah. Well, New Englanders in cities aren’t really New Englanders. They’re just city folk.
Trevor Connor 64:26
Fair enough. Yeah,
Chris Case 64:28
you have to have a stone wall in your yard. Or like a I don’t I don’t know. A flag with only 13 stars on your house to be a real New Englander.
Trevor Connor 64:42
A candle in every window.
64:43
Yes. Okay.
64:44
Well, Trevor, if I could show you the camp, the window I’m sitting in front of right now. I’d show you the candle sitting here.
Trevor Connor 64:52
All right, Steve. Thanks so much. That was great. We would know we would love to have you on again. Your answers were fantastic.
64:59
Thanks. A lot
Chris Case 65:02
Well that was another episode of Fast Talk. As always, we love your feedback. Email us at Fast Talk at Fast Talk Labs comm or record a voice memo on your phone and send it our way. Subscribe to Fast Talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcast and be sure to leave us a rating and a review. The thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening
