1.Is actually an interesting concept also going on with the, I think,…

This is actually an interesting concept also going on with the, I think, with the Giro, that amazing stage. Was it as stage 18 of Giro d'Italia where Chris Froome rode away solo, the final 60 kilometers? Yeah, yeah. That was crazy, right? Yeah. So, Skye was setting a really good tempo the whole day. So you have to remember, so if they're all using key tones as well, they're using a different energy source as well. So basically some riders might have just been above that energy source and then they immediately start digging into the glycogen. So by the time they get to the crucial stage of the race and there's a tax, they can't accelerate because they can't have already depleted that the glycogen stores. The big question is this, how do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health or happiness on our long-chevages? That is the question on this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh, and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Welcome back to another Roadman podcast, you beautiful roadman. What is the crack with everybody? I hope you had a great week. It just seems like this week has flown around. I know restrictions are getting eased here on movements. So we're all getting back to doing a bit of regular training here in Ireland. I hope wherever you're listening to podcasts, life is getting back to a little bit of normal for you. And I hope you're not one of those people that used to phrase the new normal because that's just fucking annoying. Today's podcast guest is someone I'm really excited about. That's a bit of a cliche when I say I'm really excited about it, but I genuinely am super, super excited about this week's podcast guest. He is a guy who I fanatically consume his YouTube channel. His name is Willys Mitt, anyone who's in the YouTube cycling space, and as a fan of that, will no doubt watch Willys' videos on a weekly basis. Willie is a world horror writer with B.H. Borgas, ex-catucia writer, and he's a guy who's just, he's a fascinating insight into this sport. He's really clued in on training principles, philosophies, dietary principles, philosophies. And I know having chatted to a lot of the world horror guys, some guys are hands on with their training, some guys are hands off, always makes a much more interesting conversation when somebody's fully invested in what they're doing, what they're doing, and not just looking at their China peaks and going out and lashing into the prescription that the coach has given them. Willie gives some fascinating insight into the use of key tones in the sport. And also right at the beginning of the podcast, something that I think is very, it's very apt for the time we're in at the moment. We talk about race. We talk about Willie obviously grew up in South African and still a passionate South African. And it's something he's obviously had to grow up dealing with and encountering and obviously in the wake of George Floyd's death It's something that's gone from peripheral consciousness for a lot of us at least here in Ireland to mainstream consciousness I actually spoke about this on my Instagram the other day and I think you know I've typically one of the things I really learned from law was stay within your wheelhouse and And I've tried to apply that principle in A1 coaching, but this is something that's just too important to stay in your wheelhouse. Because when everyone stays in their wheelhouse, when you talk about race, what happens is it's a debate that's marginalized, it's a debate that's only held by extreme groups on the peripheral of society when it needs to be a mainstream debate. That's what I've tried to do today, even though this is a cycling podcast, me and Willy crack this one off and we chat a little bit about race, problems of discrimination within the peloton. I think you're really going to enjoy this chat before I jump into it. I want to remind you of two things. The first one is Patreon. Please, please, please go check out our Patreon. Patreon is the reason I'm able to reach out to Willy Patreon is the reason that I can get Tyler Hamilton, Steve, Chris, Chris, and more of these amazing guests. Don't put it off any longer. Please jump on over to our Patreon account on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltz. I'm going to leave the link in the description. That's your way to just buy me a point of beer and say, you know what, you're facilitating this conversation week in week out. I'm learning a lot. I've been entertaining the lot. This is my way to to just buy it a beer and say thanks to you. It's a tiny amount of money. Some of it might be a trivial amount of money, but for me, it's two things. It's one, it's validation that we're going the right way with this podcast. And secondly, it's the cash that I need to keep this as a sustainable use of my time going forward. That I can say, you know what? It is something that's grown. It's something that we're going the right direction and we're moving towards break even with. So I really, really appreciate all the support I've had on Patreon to date and I would ask you to go and check out that link on Patreon. And secondly, it's our merch shop. I know more you guys bought merch last week and that is amazing. It's another way you can support the podcast and also represent that romance brand. Loads of cool shit in there. We've hoodies, we've tee shorts, jersey shorts, chilies, jackets, it's all in there. Go and check that out with the merch shop. I'm going to put the link in the description down below as well. Okay. I'm not going to push this off any longer. jump on into this one, Willy Smith. So welcome to the Roadman podcast, Willy Smith. Anthony, thanks for having me on and I'm glad to be here. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this one, Willy. I think we talked a little bit before the podcast started and I think we're going to jump around and talk about some crazy topics and I hope people find it interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, let's see where the topics take us. I think really just with the crazy world we're living in today as good a place as I need to start and I know We'll get into your background in a little bit but most people Listen to this we'll know who you are either from your cycle next blights or your youtube channel The crazy race riots for seeing in the u.s.

2.At the moment I know races obviously in race relations is something…

At the moment I know races obviously in race relations is something you've probably dealt with your whole life coming up in Africa, do you have any particular take on what's going on? I mean that's a particularly sensitive topic for most people but I don't think it has to be at the end of the day growing up in South Africa. We will have between each other and from, I think it's a big culture thing how the youth are brought up because it has to, you know, you are not as a person, you are not born with hate. So we aren't born hating another people. It's teach to us through the communities that we live in. Said also has a lot to do with how we are brought up in a bit of our education but yeah, like I said, if we go back a couple of years there has been a bit of discrimination And it's completely, obviously we know that we have been divided by the government through race, which is obviously not correct, but to make to live on the assumption that one person is bad because his dad was bad or his mom was bad. We cannot live with that perception if you get what I'm saying. So yeah, obviously we can support causes, but unfortunately there's a lot of people that is, especially with like you mentioned now with the thing in America, with Black Lives Matter's Copane, which obviously happened after the killing of, what was his name? George Floyd. George Floyd, yeah, George Floyd. So obviously there's also a lot of criminals doing a lot of rioting, but there's also a lot of people doing marching for a good cause of it, then it's, you know, so a lot of people are taking advantage of that, which don't really care about the cause, and that's also sad, and it makes just even much more complicated. You know what I was thinking about, because I was even, like, as you were coming on, I was like, okay, what we talk about, and I was kind of running through on my head topics. And I know when I went through, like, we're speaking of area of my background was lost, I came through law school and one of the things you learn very early in law school is to like stay within your area of specialty. So if you're not like an expert on tax, like and you want to run a trial, you should just get an expert on tax. If you're not an expert on procedure, you just get a procedural expert. And when I started the cycling coaching company, I tried to do the exact same. I knew I was not an expert on nutrition. So I went and I found who's the nutritionist working with BMC. Let's see, can I go hire him and he comes into A1 and then he teaches nutrition to the A1 clients in the same with strength and conditioning. When I was thinking about race, I was like, you know what, is this for me to talk about? Because it's not my battle. But I think when I don't talk about it and you don't talk about it because it's not a specific area, it means the conversation is just dominated by people with extreme views on it. I think we do need to talk about as people who haven't got a vested interest in it to move the conversation forward? Yeah, I think a lot of, if I could put it this way, a lot of role models are actually people of influence or really scared to talk about it because the way social media reacts to it. So I think Lawrence Armstrong just posted recently something about it should be a concern that we are standing up for that any life matters. And if you just go read through the comment section there, obviously Lawrence was just making a standing up and trying to make a statement. We know this is completely not his doping past and who he is, does not mean he does not have the right to give an opinion. And if you read through those comment sections you'll see that you have some really bad stuff to say. So I think it's not that a lot of us don't want to say anything regardless of race. It's more that many people are scared what the feedback would be after having said something. Totally. And last year, didn't we have the South African rider? I'll probably butcher his name because that's what I do with South African names. Nick Dalimini? Nick Dalimini. That's great. Right. Close enough. He had his arm broken by the park ranger. Yeah. Like, do we saw that on the... Like if that's a UI train and as a voice male, as opposed to a black male, does that happen? Yeah, this is... Yeah. I mean, that's... It's another thing to do when you put people who are in a position of in power. and they often misuse that. And luckily for Nickelaminia, it was called on video because quite honestly, just here say we don't have taken it anyway. And the thing I want to refer to with what happened to Nickelaminia is that these type of incidents happens by the hundreds per day all over South Africa. And we fortunate enough that this was called on video, but it's a problem everywhere in South Africa that all people all races face daily. It's quite difficult, yeah. Do you see, talking about, because I was reflecting on what I can do, and even this podcast, because it's called the Roadman podcast, but quite honestly, we could call it the like middle-aged white dude podcast, because it's all we ever get is like white pro cyclists, as guests on the podcast. I'm like, fuck, I need to really do something about this. I need to reach out to minorities. I need to reach out to, but do you think there's discrimination within cycling? Or is there other reasons we're not seeing more African-American descendants making it to the world? Yeah, this is a really interesting topic. And I don't know if anyone takes this personally, but I've got really good trends of all race. And I can, with a lot of confidence, say I'm completely not racist. I have some really good friends of all types of race. So I just want to make that clear. But when you look at obviously cycling is extremely expensive sport and because black people were more disadvantaged, it's much more difficult for their children to get into the sport because we know it's extremely expensive sport.

3.That's one reason. So it's It's difficult to say that black people or…

So that's one reason. So it's It's difficult to say that black people or people of color cannot excel in the specific sport. That's the first point I need to make. But also then secondly, they are extremely, extremely good runners, which unfortunately white people are completely not as good at. Let's be honest. We've seen them excel in that because basically you just need to pay a fair pair of shoes and run and you can show your talents to the world. But to say that it's a bit of discrimination in cycling, I think to be honest not, if you're a good athlete you'll get in, but unfortunately it's extremely difficult to say people with not a lot of money or opportunities don't get into cycling that easy. So it's almost kind of seen as a rich sport, which we could then say is a little bit of discrimination. But whose fault is that thing? Because I don't know if you get what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah, it's I know over in the UK, our neighbouring country here, they have like a good phone called the Dave Rayner Fund, which kind of tries to address that. It's given grants to kids who have talent, but maybe don't have the cash. But like i just want to see the borgos lead out trying dropping you saying bolt off of 200 meters to go like i just seen i would love to see that i would be amazing yeah we need to make that happen. Okay change change gears a bit and i want to talk about kind of the struggle to make world or because i've seen quotes about you and just the desire you had to make world or and you just had this huge dream that you want to make world or. And it seemed like you were not going to take over an answer. You were going to go through walls to get there. Yeah, so it's been a rollercoaster. I must say, when in my younger years, I was a little bit stupid and uneducated in also study law, like, you know, I didn't finish my degree because obviously I pursued pro-career and cycling. So the big reason I also did go study is because my grandparents told me, well, you have to do something with your life and will support you financially if you go to the University and obviously study. So I did that but most of the time I was missing classes riding my bike most of the time because of the you know an embassy city is difficult getting to your classes with the traffic so it's like if it's divided throughout the day it's impossible to make all of them and train. Yeah, so yeah, I got a often doing really one now local African continental championships, it's like European championship for Africa, but obviously not on the same level. What is the difference like? No, it's pretty big. Yeah, it's pretty huge, because I mean, I won African continental championships. Obviously, I made the correct move. And I finished it off with a really good sprint because I say a lot of energy, I was definitely not the fastest. And it was our Bill Sprint which suited me perfectly. But in Europe, that most likely would, I would have been able to make the front split, but I would have been able to win it definitely not. You know? So yeah, the level is completely different, to be honest. Like locally even Ister, I know here in Ireland, we have like category four, category three, category two, category one, then I suppose the category one guys could maybe the best that I could go away to Belgium and race car messes and things like that. Do you have the same sort of infrastructure? No, we don't have that. I just think race organizers currently are more than happy when they have any professional riders just competing at their bench. And then the bunch would probably be a maximum of 100 riders, to be honest. That's how it is in South Africa. But yeah, so what I want to refer to is also like the endurance aspect of it. So we have a lot of good riders which is incredibly, I mean, Kland Tengrax, we call he's a friend of mine in South Africa. And he was third at Commonwealth Championships in Australia. He was third. He's amateur riding sitting without a contract. And he was third day, I mean... It's crazy, like I talked to Steve Cummings on the podcast about three weeks ago. And Steve Cummings was talking about how he was hoping to do an extra season. And he went to tour of Britain, like hoping to get some results in tour of Britain, to get him a contract for the next season. But then he crashed into our Britain and never got his contract. And I'm just thinking, listening to this going, Steve Cummings, like he's one tour of France stages, Vuelta stages. How is he struggling for a contract? Just goes to show you how competitive it is to get contracts. Yeah, I know the... I mean, if you're in the water, you have to start looking for a contract already in March, April, because if you understand the politics of it, you'll know that actually by June, July, kind of the whole team is already full, because the general director already has a couple of of riders he likes, which is automatically. Normally the general director also takes one guy or two from his country. They also have to take a couple of new pros for their development, which they also gamble because they take a guy that they possibly see could be a big staff, for example, UAE that took the junior Spanish national champion they signed in five years. So they obviously have him on the minimum salary and they're hoping that strike lucky. That's just how these teams work. So at the end of the end, also the leaders have take all their friends with him. So if you're just a guy and that will go with his brother or you know, you have a lot of stuff like that. You know, Zakarin with Pavel Kuketchoff, they all have their friends that go with him. I think Quintana took a couple of friends with him when he went to Arkarasamzig. So by the time, I mean by June, July, those teams are really full. So it's not that you're a bad rider, it's just that, and this brand for example, one German rider is in their team, for example Canyon.

4.There's not absolutely nothing wrong with that, and the rider is that…

There's not absolutely nothing wrong with that, and the rider is that they want in the team is also worthy of riding in the world. So there's so many obligations that these teams and sponsors have to see through that at the end of the day, when you obviously look start looking for contract perhaps in August, that team is unfortunately food. And how are you sitting for a contract for next season? No, so far it's looking good. Unless I do something stupid, it's looking good. So how how good is your YouTube channel being? Is that like a is that something they take into consideration? Because it's something that for me looking at it as a fan, or you know, maybe even a step back from me, where I talk, think about like my girlfriend watching as a fan, she knows the big Reuters. Obviously you're Saigon's, you're world champions, but she probably doesn't even know Mads Patterson actually. But then she knows who you are because she watches you on YouTube. And it almost seems from a public perception point of view that your channel or the other people like Ted King, who I know stepped out of the sport now and he's racing gravel. But these guys are big channels. It's elevating them to a status different to where they would be maybe. Yeah, well, first of all, you have to be there. There's a really fine line before the be between taking your YouTube channel seriously and creating good content as opposed to not creating good content and just speaking a lot because you're really popular writer. So I try and create better content because I'm not as popular or famous or whatever. So I have to put in or I try and put in a little bit more if it into the YouTube channel, but also it requires, I think you obviously do some podcasts and stuff. You can just imagine how much time a simple edit can take. Well, actually I do, I'm gonna pick your brain on as well because I have a YouTube channel as well. I don't know, I think I'm a bit behind you on subscribers, I'm at around 8,000 subscribers. I started out this year and I was actually doing a video every day and I lasted until April like 28 or something. So I had like, I don't know, like 90 videos something in a row? Oh wow wow. And then I fucking cracked and I'm going back to two a week now but I've had some things come up in the last couple of weeks and I've like completely like backed off so I'm gonna get back on track next week my two a week but I can totally feel your pain on how time consumer they are. Have you also gotten the feeling that when you were making all of these videos you wake up in the morning and then you kind of feel stressed out because you you have the responsibility of making content that day. And you don't know why you stressed out because you don't have anything to stress about. You know what I mean? So it's like you have to be careful because they can burn you out really quickly because it's a lot of work. But and it's so time consuming. Like I know like for this podcast, for instance, it's we're gonna chat for, you know, 45 minutes an hour. It's gonna take me maybe max like 30 minutes to edit it. So I'll shop out at the start a small bit where we were just talking shit. I'm sure we'll talk five minutes of shit at the end. I'll chop that out, bang in my intro. And then that's kind of it for the podcast. The YouTube channel's taking me like four hours to edit the YouTube video. I was like, oh, this is fucking like 1 a.m. and I'm still not bad. Yeah, you know, it's actually funny as like, obviously the writers that you work with really trust you in a way. So whenever they're speaking Spanish, my Spanish is not that great yet. So, also have to go through content, which I've got no idea sometimes what they're talking about, and it might be really personal. And imagine me putting something like that out on social media, or for example, someone's using their asthma inhaler. And it's caught on video. Obviously, they have a prescription for it, and it's completely legal for them to use it. But imagine stuff like that. We've seen what happens when stuff like that get out on social media. Or I record a brand which is not part of the sponsor. So you've got a lot of stuff to double-tripple-check, which you do not want to put on, because I mean, that's for the year. If the sponsor then complains, you can forget about making any more content. And are you editing your own stuff as well? Yeah, I edit. Sometimes my wife, I'll sing with shots, which obviously they can see I just can't get, but I edit my own work. Yeah, always, always. Is it something you see yourself doing after your tour? Yeah, you know, currently I've got a big passion for it and it's a hobby because if you don't have a passion for it, I think you know this, you won't continue with it. It's just too much work. Yes, 100%. And to be honest, it's irritating looking at yourself the whole time. Trust me, it gets boring. And I think the funny thing is like the disconnect between the perception, like people see the like private YouTube channel and some of the videos of like, I've got like a hundred thousand views on so many videos. So people are looking at and going like, oh, you must be making so much money on ad revenue. I make less than like $100 a month on YouTube ad revenue. It's absolutely terrible. Yeah, I think, and that's also why stuff like clickbait doesn't work. Because for example, you might see a video that has two million views. And people went into the video, they immediately saw it's clickbait. So the audience retention on the video duration is not that long. They immediately just get out of the video and someone has 2 million views would probably not even make a sense on that video because it's a bunch of shit there. Now it's an absolute nightmare trying to keep YouTube channel going full time. So because once we could the podcast and then I'm trying to get back to two a week now on YouTube because like seven a week on YouTube and the podcast is just impossible.

5.What people don't realize, if you look at the big YouTubers, they…

Yeah, and yeah, what people don't realize, if you look at the big YouTubers, they actually make, well, now the really big ones, obviously, like Beauty Pie and all those guys, Casey Nastat, they make a lot of money, obviously with the Ed revenue, but they make more the most out of sponsors, like for example, mentioning, like GCN, for example, means sending Essels or a bike brand or those companies pay a lot of money for that. I want to talk to you a little bit about nutrition because it's something that our clients and listeners are anytime I put up a poll about like I have ex-guests coming on. If it's a world or a writer, everybody wants to know about like nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. So I want to dive into it a little bit. I know I've heard you on your YouTube channel and it's something you've a lot of knowledge about. Do you have any specific fueling strategies on a training day? So if I think actually a better place to start, have you had your base metabolic rate test? Do you know how many calories you should be consuming at rest each day? So yeah, obviously it gets more complicated when I'm at altitude now. example now I'm at 2000 meters above sea level and I've got a expertsan teach less oxygen which my body is working hard so it's actually much easier losing weight at altitude but it took around about 2200 calories which I can consume without training a day which I will maintain my weight but also obviously we know this and what people don't understand is by eating the same amount of calories, just a different meal, you can still be losing weight because it's not just the calories that the amount of calories that you consume, but it's also what your body does with it. So knowing your body better is also important. So for example, I know if I eat bread, I don't lose weight. Why? Because for some reason it slows down my metabolism. My body doesn't process or I J.S. gluten as well. So that's one of the big things that you know that you get to sort out and also sugar. I don't respond well to a lot of sugar. Obviously when I'm training you can because you have to learn your body how to use carbohydrates which is obviously another big topic to go into. But yeah sugar really makes me fat. So by cutting sugar and bread, I lose white. So we fast. And when you say you don't respond well to bread, is this something anecdotally you've learned through the years? Or have you gone off and got like a test for me, like 23 and me or some company like this? Do do do do. It's our intermission. It's our weekly little reprieve. It's our weekly time to go and stick the kettle on. It's our weekly time to shut the brain off for one second. and to just think about how this podcast is brought to you. This podcast, it's brought to you by the generosity of your peers. If you're not currently a Patreon member, you can thank your peers today to subscribe to our Patreon account for bringing you the content on your behalf. If you can afford, I would encourage you to jump on over to patreon.com It's slash Anthony underscore watch link is in the bio patreon helps me fund this podcast. It helps me keep bringing this podcast to you Week in week out not the cheapest game in the world One of the cool things about this podcast chat to willy smith here chat to amazing guests every week if you haven't Listened a bike episodes. It's just litter with the biggest names and so it's a mitch docker last week It's a great episode back to the personal favorite episode is Tyler Hamilton. But every week I'm going to pick the brain of the best lion seed cycling and that's phenomenal. It does two things for me. It keeps challenging me as a coach, it makes me grow as a coach and grow as an athlete, but it's also sports science papers that I'm reading. On some occasions it's a validate and on some occasions it's contradictory, but on all occasions I'm growing and becoming a better coach for an athlete. So I wanted to put together I was never good at learning the abstract so I wanted to put together a way to teach you the stuff that I'm learning as a coach so I wanted to give back all this information on condense and every week and having long conversations after a podcast with some of these guys and I'm trying principles philosophies, dietary principles I wanted to package that all together and my way of giving that to you guys it's called the eight-week challenge so normally like my coaching fees normally for one-on-one coaching. It's two-on-one 24-year-of-a-one-one coaching. But for the eight-week challenge, I don't want cash to be a barrier for people coming into the eight-week challenge. So for podcast listeners, 149 is the price for eight weeks of coaching. I'm personally going to build those plans for you and I'm going to give you all the lessons and learnings of golf from working with these amazing, amazing, amazing world-soring riders. So I'm going to pop a link in the bio for that. It's called a week challenge, I'm gonna keep it open for a limited number of time because obviously I can only coach so many riders but it's definitely definitely worth checking out if you have a target whether it's a sporty or a racing. Let's get back to the chat for weeks. So actually you can do kind of a gluten so you can be gluten intolerance or gluten sensitive. So when you gluten sensitive there isn't really a taste for that to be honest from my personal knowledge. So I don't know if there's some new methods out there, but you can't taste for gluten intolerance, but that's more going to celiac disease and so on. But I've noticed over the years, my, okay, so it's pretty easy, but weird. When you go to the bathrooms in the morning, you know how your stomach works normally. And when I, for example, eat a lot of gluten, specifically bread, my stomach perhaps doesn't work as regularly in the morning and much slower. Yeah, so that was the first sign and it was like clockwork and then also I would get some acne on my back.

6.Not at a whole lot, very little

Not at a whole lot, very little. And I wouldn't even get a runny nose. And that was just some of the symptoms. And then I said, OK, experiment. I'll stop eating bread. Wow, the white goes down. I'll stop eating sugar because I'm very sugar sensitive. So when I stop that, proof white goes down. And also I'm another person that puts on a lot of water retention when I eat sugar, as opposed to another friend of mine, if you get what I'm saying. And that's really specific to the individual. So it can become complicated. So if we take a, say today you're out on a hypothetically a four-hour endurance ride, like zone one, zone two, and it's a 2000 calorie ride, will you try to replace 2000 calories and then your 2000 200 calories? Or do you think the garment gives a different read and your body is more efficient because you're a pro now. Okay, yeah, so obviously the one thing that most of the, I think, recreational cyclists as well will notice is that once you get out of both season and you do your first two hour ride, you're like one hour in and you're already hungry and you get home and you eat a lot because your body hasn't adapted yet. Yes, it's obvious. If I go to a four-hour ride from just out of all season as opposed to when I'm really fit preparing for Vorta Espana, I won't need to eat the same amount. Why that is, I actually don't, I personally don't know, but you're all much more economical. So that's why I would presume I don't need as much. So I definitely don't eat as much in that period of the season just before Gran Turr as I would for the same ride and the same amount of calories burned in the start of the season. And so further I would say winter training if you're if you're losing 500 calories are you trying to replace 500 calories on the ride are you just eating to hunger and you're not paying attention to the data? So yeah once again when I come out of this season I don't pay attention to the daughter because the biggest thing is just to get going to get my body going and not, you know, I'm not after a month of adoption, they're not still paying attention to that. But obviously you won't, you don't, you really pay close attention to what you eat. But if I replace about, I always look to replace actually more than I've been in the ride because you have a higher metabolic rate. So you still, we obviously burn, because of your higher metabolic rate, you burn much more calories even after the ride, after you stop. So I try and consume more than I've been in the ride. So I know traditional cycling talk was, I know when I was coming up and especially over in France, there was so much emphasis placed on the glycogen reabsorption window, 30 minutes after trying and they were like, you've got to get your recovery drink, you've got to get your recovery drink. And I know there's some new studies now that conflict that some people are saying, well, if you go without food during that time, you can get a boost of human growth hormone instead of, but so it's a trade off. Do you want to replace the glycogen or do you want the human growth hormone hit? Do you have a particular stance on that? Yes. So what I'd like to refer to this is like is a faster bride and you can see a foster bride has endurance ride and people wondering, okay, what the fuck's going on? Yeah. So basically, before I get to that, and what you say about the extra growth hormone, if you catch off the new nap, you're already getting that extra boost of extra growth hormone and when you're doing double sessions, you'll also have the extra boost of growth hormone. In the day, obviously, it stimulates mitochondria and the cells with energy production. So it's obviously stimulating that much more and better. And you become obviously in various ways, you become a much better cyclist. So it's a really long topic to go into as well. Yeah, yeah. That's it. Yes, yeah. But then obviously the thing which I've worked with a coach from UAE, John, Wakefield is South African and those have the doctor, the age of rooms work. And what they really like is foster rights. So basically, and then I'll come back to if you should take the recovery during or meal within 30 minutes after the ride. I'll come back to that right now. So when you do a foster right, people have to remember it's not just waking up the morning not eating anything and going on a foster right. you need to be glycogen depleted to gain maximum benefits out of that. So basically the previous day you'll do a three-hour ride. Directly after the ride, you'll stop eating, well directly after the ride you'll stop eating any carbs. So it will just basically be a high fat, high protein diet that you follow from after your ride. And that, so you'll do your your three hour ride, you'll not eat any carbs, you'll wake up the morning, you'll have a black coffee and you'll do your three four hour foster ride. And immediately after that, then you can start eating carbs normally. Why? Because we already got the stimulus that we wanted and the adoption what we want to learn the body, obviously to use a bit of fat. But the benefits that they also noticed is that a three hour foster ride has the same endurance benefits as a five-hour endurance ride. That's interesting. Yeah, so you have that. It's really interesting study and it's been well documented. Okay, but now to get back is if I'm at the end of a three-day block and I know the next day is a rest day, yes, then I can maybe afford not to take that recovery doing within 30 minutes and I would then want to get the boost of growth of mine but that's also relative to your adrenal gland which can actually prevent that process of happening when you really stress out or when you have a lot of oxidative stress that's taking place in the body. I've read some study on that. Why does that? I'm not completely sure why. I just know that can happen.

7.If you are going through an easy training week, yes, okay you can do…

So if you are going through an easy training week, yes, okay you can do that. Then that's when I would recommend it. Personally, I'm not saying it's correct your coach might agree or your nutritionist might agree. But that's what I've learned from the best in the world. So I, once again, I make, I just want to make a carbon-on nutritionist. But when you don't have a high load of oxidative stress, you can afford to do to skip a meal or not take that recovery drink within 30 minutes. That's the time when you can do it. But when you're doing big loads, it's all about nutrition. You have to eat quite a lot. People really underestimate how much we eat. And I see in a video of yours, it was actually the one you were talking about, oxidative stress, and you actually had an interest and take on supplements that you periodize your your supplementation, which I think is a brilliant concept, because it's not something I've heard a lot of people talking about. Do you want to tell us a little bit about how you periodize them? Yeah, so basically, how do we adapt to the training that we get in, oxidative stress? So when we're taking supplementation to prevent the oxidative stress, which we actually try and get is we prevent the adaption that's taking place. So once again, when I'm really far away from competition, I'm not stressed out. I don't have a lot of nerves. I'm not at altitude really. I kind of try and get away from supplementation completely and just let the body run on its natural resources and follow a good healthy diet. So is the idea? Sorry to cross you just because I know some of the listeners will probably have lost us on oxidative stress. So is the idea here that you want to bring on and welcome this oxidative stress? Because the oxidative stress allows that adaptation it allows us to get to the next level of fitness during a random walk. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is. So that's why when I get closer to competition, then all of a sudden I load it with all of these stuff and there's a massive benefit that comes out of it because it's getting all these natural resources, but resources that it hasn't been used to and because now, yeah, okay, and okay, but when we get to stuff like iron at altitude, It's not a benefit. The iron that you take is basically just to prevent your verifiritan levels from dropping. So that's not stuff like Alcarne-18, which stimulates a little bit of while loss in the mitochondria, and some endurance benefits to our genein, which helps with also regeneration and better blood flow in your veins and stuff like that. How close to, say, the Vuelta España was your target, how close to the Vuelta España, would you begin to start taking aminos, vitamin C, these types of supplements? A minimum period of about two to three months. But not as much and it would be very specific to start off with on only certain days, but then as I get closer to what I was finding I'll be using it much more. And then obviously my immune system is much more compromised, so I'll need obviously more. But also one thing I want to make clear is people should just get the thing that vitamin C is going to prevent them from getting sick at something It's it's not gonna happen. If you don't sleep while it's vitamin C is not gonna save you Really important So what's all you taking around that time Elkharta team Yeah, so a good Spanish so yeah some iron normally 1.5 milligrams of iron if I'm not at altitude and then my doctors have recommended that I take normally double the dose but also really the pain of your blood values of what your normal iron levels are around but normally at altitude of around 2000 meters we all take my normal double the normal dose of iron I'll take some our genein about 500 milligrams of that before bedtime and it's important when you take the iron that you need to take it with vitamin C for better absorption and to get even greater benefits you have to be faster when you take it. So yeah. Do you take ketones? No I don't have the money for that. I think yeah the true ketones are extremely expensive and and there's a big adoption phase that goes with it. So once you don't follow a specific diet, or you are traveling a couple of days and you need to bounce off shit, it kind of interferes with that whole process, taking place. And also that people, yeah, you have to realize when you're taking ketones, it's really when you appear, it's actually it can benefit a pure climber much more then a PS printer because of the energy system it uses. I've played around with it and it's really, really difficult to stay in the ketosis, like the little finger, Pricker, and you see your check for blood sugar levels. And you just need to be so strict, like you're saying, if you have a day where you go over to your parents for lunch or you're just, you're fucked. You need to be just locked down to the best time to do it. At home, all your meals, like time to prepare, time to get the shop. But I think definitely for the amateur Reuters that are talking about trying to play around with ketones, I just think it's not a viable solution. No, no, on amateur level, definitely not. If you're doing criteria, it's not brought up to 90 grams of carbohydrates, how well 120 with the latest studies. But have Have you also found that or have you also read that we're not great, I've heard a lot of rumors, but I've also heard a lot of doctors tell me that obviously you don't have to be in a state of ketosis for it exactly to work. It's obviously better, but I've seen some benefits of the, and this is a real key term, it's not the cheap, synthetic ones, where it still has some benefits of your, yeah, it's still has some benefits. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. It's not like, I think people like to think of it like it's a hard border that if you're either in ketosis or you're not, but in reality, it just depends on exactly what you're doing.

8.Even if you think about a non-cycling example around the house, you…

Even if you think about a non-cycling example around the house, you know, if you go and sprint up the stairs, that's going to access one fuel system and we're going to burn some sugars for that. But if you're just walking around the house, we can largely tap into fast and key tones for fuel and that. So it's more of a fluid border than an absolute. It's like, in other way, when you started trying and parameters came out and everyone had a buddy who was like, oh, I'm at 251 watts, I'm outside my zone and you're like, got the fuck on like. Exactly. I think it's kind of like that. Yeah. There's actually an interesting concept also going on with the, I think, with the G-RO, that amazing stage. Was it stage 18 of G-RO, the Tallya, where Chris Froome rode away solo, the final 60 kilometers? Yeah, yeah. That was crazy, right? Yeah. So, Skye was setting a really good tempo the whole day. So you have to remember, so if they're all using key tones as well, they're using a different energy source as well. So basically some riders might have just been above that energy source and then they immediately start digging into the glycogen. So by the time they get to the crucial stage of the race and there's a tax, they can't accelerate because they kind of have already depleted their glycogen stores. So there's really that fine line when a high tempo is being set where you actually see the top riders like through make sell even more because that high tempo is still only using Majority fat and not yet digging into your is glycogen stores as much as you are Whereas for example if we're riding a really steady pace We have a lot of guys who can write 6.2. What's a kilogram because they're not yet tapping into the like engine stores also because it's really a slow temper that has been set. So that's also just to give you perspective why the top riders excel above most of the others even more when there's a high temper being set because like I mentioned, they don't tap into the glycogen stores as quickly as the normal riders like me do. Yeah, it's really, actually read a really interesting paper on that and they were talking about, it's because we're not taking in, Like if say you're going on this high tempo and you're born and true, you're glycogen, no matter how much food you're eating at the time, you can't get it through your stomach fast enough to replace the glycogen. So if Froome is able to power, you know, an extra 20 or 30% of his fuel demands of fats, it means he has, as he's eating, he's able to get his glycogen back to 100% because he's not depleting it to full amount. So when, you know, it does come time for separation at the end, he's got that little bit extra in the tank. It's a really interesting area. No, it's extremely, but also it's completely, it's extremely complicated and yeah, it's a big rabbit hole to go into on how to exactly get that right on the day and how to improve it. There's a lot of methods and theories going around and I wouldn't want to upset anyone. Yeah. And you know what, I think for most of the people that listen to the podcast, most of our audience aren't world-to-or-writers. They're not looking for the 1%. But what I find is a lot of time, they get distracted by the 1%, and they read about key tones, or they read about bike-harps owed, or loading before a time trial. And they're like, oh, I need to do that. And you're like, dude, fucking stay aero in your TT bike. Learn to do the basics before you, like does a 90% gain you can get from them training from losing like some weight versus losing all against. That's another thing I wanted to tell you while you mention it right now with telling them not to use bicom or bicom, so obviously for those that obviously it's listening and I know it prevents a lactate buffer basically prevents a lactate from holding up too much in your legs but obviously ultimately look like for example I'm if I'm not the best time trialist if I can put it that way but I don't like saying that term because you should always believe that you can be better than you are but I've not been in this situation where I've had a lot of time to prepare on the time provides I've always done a lot of healy stuff and I'm always in the break ways and I'd rather prefer on improving my strong points than you know then your weak points but to come back to that is for example I do a lot of tours most of the races I do tours because I do much better than them as opposed to one day races and the first day of a time troll even if I can do a top 30 ride in that time troll I won't take by Cobblissata because it obviously can promote a little bit of diarrhea or upset your stomach. And the last thing you would wanna do is upset your stomach unnecessarily just to move up prior positions in the palm troll. If you're looking between the position of 30 years and 25th. And we all know, if you don't know by now, the most important thing for performance is how well you're able to absorb nutrients in your stomach. because if you aren't absorbing your food really well and getting in all those glycogen fats, proteins and that, you won't have any energy to do well in the race with. So that's number one. Do you have any specific strategies around help and absorption? Do you like trying to soak foods or anything like that? Yeah, people are going to laugh because the first thing is obviously chewing enough. But one thing we all, even professional riders and recreational cyclists do is that when we are nervous, especially before race day, we tend not to chew our food as properly. We eat much quicker and we swallow. So that will make absorption really poor. And we obviously, what we also like to do is we eat our meals and then we go lion bed immediately. That should not do that. you'd rather just go for a walk. It's not going to add any fatigue, I promise you.

9.That's also a great way loss step, walking 15 minutes after your…

That's also a great way loss step, walking 15 minutes after your night meal. It will promote way loss. I can promise you that. And there's some great results in that. But obviously, you can do a bit of meditation as well, because when we stress that absorption is also not great. But in terms of medication, the only thing that can help your stomach is a bit of probiotics. But you know, when you would know this, it's like, when you go to a race, why is your stomach working so much? Because you excited. But, you know, so those nerves really can affect their own different theory. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned the walk after dinner, because there's such good research on that, like post-perendial walk. But another cool trick, I'm not sure if you've tried this one, I recently got like a mini trampoline for the house and if you do like 15 to like 45 seconds of like really intense exercise just before a carbohydrate heavy meal, it can, so you know when we're out on the bike and we're eating sugar, it doesn't spike our blood sugar because insulin response is neutralised but if you do a bunch of vigorous exercise for like 45 seconds just before a meal, it can trick your body into neutralizing that insulin response. So the carbohydrates that you have during that meal get born to immediately rather than getting stored as adipose tissue. Well, just have to tell my wife now that we need to get a trampoline immediately in the house. Or you can do some jumping jacks or you can go sprint up the driveway or you just need to get the heart rate like really high, but like for a short period of time. It's not like you're trying trying to go and do like a training session before, like you're just trying to get like 40 seconds of bigger. Yeah, I must say that's really interesting, yeah, especially with, so you say it prevents the insulin spike doing that. Yeah, it'll neutralize that insulin response under some other good stuff as well, like apple cider vinegar, a shot of apple cider vinegar, can I take the edge off the insulin response? Yeah, I actually carry a bottle of apple cider vinegar in my bag whenever I go on to it to prevent upper respiratory infections. It's a great antibacterial remedy as well and for your stomach because it kills off bad bacteria within your stomach. So, but yeah, I didn't know that. That's also interesting. Yeah, I didn't know the respiratory stuff. So that's interesting. Okay. Changing gears slightly away from nutrition. A training week, what's a training week look like for you? I know it's such a difficult question to answer because it's very much dependent on your phase when races are, but like now when we're still not sure when we're back racing, what are we looking like for you on the bike? Yeah, so a normal week back at racing would not be anything under 22 to 25 hours. It won't really be under that. So it's always a little bit more than that. And depending on how much races I've done prior to the event that I'm training for, I might just fall to be safe and to improve the quality of my intervals. I won't necessarily do intervals days following it on each other, really high intensity intervals. but I might just do them every second day, just to be a bit more safe. And then it will always, if I'm a bit further away from competition, those weeks would definitely have a bit of talk training, which is just grinding at a cadence of 50 RPMs, really be careful, yeah. Just make sure your knees can handle it before you try that. Stranding. Yeah, there are a lot of them. There's great benefits in them and a deception that takes place because of that. Because people also need to understand that a little bit of the quadrant analysis, I'm sure you know a lot about that. As you have the coaching business, that's improving your pedal stroke, preventing injury, building strength. You get that out of a really simple exercise. You know how easy those exercises are and there's so many great benefits that come from them. And are you quite, it seems to me like you're quite hands on and you like to understand why you're doing sessions and you like to understand the nutrition, whereas I know a lot of athletes just like to get their training peaks filled and they just go and do their shit and they're not really too concerned. Why do they want it? They just do it. I used to, to be honest, I used to be like that. I had no interest, but kind of as you go on through the years, it's kind of inevitable about learning about it, to be honest. And I I mean, as a professional cyclist, you're really fortunate to be involved with so many talented coaches and people that you learned from them without ever having even great their study, to be honest. It's funny how far we've come with coaching. I was talking to Tyler Hamilton on the podcast a few weeks ago. Oh, well. I'll send you a link to the episode. You should listen to it. it to it. But Tyler's talking about training principles they had, Dan, because they were so cold and edgy, Michaela Ferrari, coach and them, and like, parking the ethics about Ferrari, he was like a world-class physiologist as well. And now amateur cyclists are training, like, with the same, like, I'm coaching guys who are training six hours a week and are calf four, with the same techniques and the same sessions that Hamilton was used to get ready for like a challenge on winning the tour. It's crazy the evolution we've had. Yeah, I know. I mean, at the end of the day, I think you probably have preachers to your athletes over and over. But the wall is so modernized now that all the training techniques is available to everyone. So at the end of the day, it's just if you're willing to do that now. But there is no secret to be honest almost, but I still believe that the wrong coach could control you now and it will be difficult getting out of that. Yeah. Willie, I want to finish up with a question that's kind of, I don't want to say it's plaguing me, but I'm wondering is there more to it?

10.Spend as much time as I can when I get to travel no restrictions

I spend as much time as I can when I get to travel no restrictions. I love going to your own. in a bunch of your videos. But did you live in Jirona for a while? Are we just hanging out there? No, we were just hanging out there. But there seems to be a migration north from Jirona into Andorra. Is it just tax reasons or is there more to it? I definitely, I really don't know because the people in a lot of cycles in Andorra are there in Jirona? just don't like and all right all because they kind of feel the pressure or it's really hilly so you'll see more climbers here like Julianna left the leaves, say, Goose, Robert Gessing, Ygarn Bernal, all of them mustang the Yates brothers, Jack Haig. So it's more, you won't really, you won't see a sprinter really, Livia, a lot of the Movistar guys also Livia because it's easy for them to come over, then it's definitely tax reasons, but it's also extremely easy getting your residency. So that's the main reason I ended up here is because I only had to pay the deposit. I showed them my contract and I got a residency. I'm not earning a bunch of money, so they're not doing me any favors because of my contract, you know? So maybe that's- Do you have to be a property owner to get residency or you just rent? No, no, no. So we almost have something like a passive residency where you only stay here to practice your occupation. But I'm not working in Andorra. So that's why it's so easy to get the residency here. What's it like for training partners? Is it super easy to get training partners or is it a little bit competitive and nobody wants to train with each other? Yeah, that's really quite funny because it's very unlikely that we would do intervals together. That almost never happens. We don't try together as often because someone always has, you know, as a professional writer, following your training program, it's just, it's not debatable, you just do it. Yeah. So if you've got a bunch of intervals, you're not gonna change it just to go right with your mate and talk. Maybe you'll first do the intervals and then join in for half an hour. But then that logistically even gets difficult because then you have to check your phone the whole time, wait to meet up. So yeah, it's funny, professional writers don't write in big groups as often as people would think. even if they live close, like in Ora here. Yeah, it's funny because I know when a bunch of friends are Conti riders and they've gone out to live in Jaroni and they end up just like ditching their training plan and it's like, you chat to them and go, like you're meant to have, you know, three hours with two 20 minute threshold efforts and they like done six hours sitting on the back of, you know, Rory Suttall and Swale and he's like, what, why? Why did you do this? Yeah. I think they just... So it's up a long time. Willy, it's been a cool chat. If anyone hasn't checked out your YouTube channel, I'll kind of link it up down below. Is there anywhere else? I know there's a bunch of lads and lasses now listening to this and gone. I fucking like the sound of Willy. He's a good man. Oh, shit. Where can I follow him and still? And well, yeah, I've got a tender profile. They more than welcome to start. Right? I'm joking. Oh, I'm going to kill me now. You should see our face now. And I'm just on normal platforms, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Thank you. What's your Twitter handle? Vellysmethi. Is that Krioka? Vellysmethi. Vellysmethi. Okay, cool. I'll link the ball up. It's been a pleasure. Thanks a lot, Anthony. I really appreciate it for taking the time, getting me on the channel. That's it. The cordon is down. is down on another week of the Row Man Podcast. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and this edition of the Row Man Podcast. I really learned a lot chapter with him. He's a nice guy. He's one of the nicest guys I've chatted there in the world. I hope to do some really in the future. We're even tossing around to the idea of maybe doing some sort of funny mock commentary on boy graces. Who knows? Watch this, mate. Willie is a good, good guy and loads of knowledge. Before you head on off, do it now, don't procrastinate, give me the support to help this podcast keep coming. It's patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltz, link is in the description down below. Head on over to the merch store, get yourself something nice, get yourself some of that sweet new pink and navy kit. It is mint and I am gonna chat to you all next week. I've already lined up next week's guest and it's phenomenal. Last thing, if you're a Dolly Hard fan of the podcast, if you're enjoying this stuff, do me a big favor. Hard single podcast, it's spreading awareness. Go on, screen capture the podcast and share it on your Instagram stories when you're listening to it and tag me in it. I'd love to know, use this in the podcast and I'd love to know what you guys think about it. Do it after keeping you with tagging on Instagram, it's a one-culture on Instagram. And, and I'm gonna chat to you all next week.