Jerome Guionnet (00:00)

also to be efficient, what I really like is a brick.

So which means scheduling two sessions, one after the other. So many, we often say brick run, but it could be brick anything. Because you're already dressed up, you're already sweaty.

So you have an optimization this way.

Paul Warloski (00:42)

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. We are excited today to welcome triathlete Jerome Guionnet to the podcast. Jerome, welcome. It's good to have you here.

Jerome Guionnet (00:57)

Hey, thank you Paul, it's really nice to be here.

Paul Warloski (00:59)

Bring us back to the beginning. Tell us about that pivotal moment you've talked about where your daughter said she could swim, bike, and run. And how did that spark your own journey into triathlon? Tell us the backstory.

Jerome Guionnet (01:12)

Yeah, that's funny. But yeah, this is really how it happened. So I don't have any athletic background. Growing in France, we are not really intense about sport at school. We are more focusing on studies and not really sports. So we are not really competing at a small age. Few of us are, but I was not one of them.

So I've been exercising in my life, but never really competing. But so for me, it was still important to exercise, but nothing major. So when my daughter grew up, wanted her to be also being healthy. So she was exercising. So she was initially swimming mainly, and then she went to high school and then she had PT classes and then, you know, they have PT.

class only for two years here. After that, she was not doing anything. So as parent, we're in the back say, okay, what do you do now? You need to do some sport to stay sane. You know, it's important to exercise. And we ask, say, I need to think about it. So a few weeks later, we ask again, I need to think more about it. And then finally, after some time she came say, okay, I thought about it. I know you want an answer. So I know how to swim. I know how to bike. I know how to run. I want to do triathlon.

I was like, wow, Triathlon, but Triathlon is on, you know, it's like, it's really only for the elite people. It's not at all for, but yeah, that's a good idea. Let me check it out first. So then I started to do some search about the different Triathlon club around on Swans and so forth. And then I found SVTC,

I joined. And this is how the story started. She did one triathlon as a relay.

with me after that. We trained a little bit together, but I don't think I was the best coach. And she kind of gave up, but she's still exercising, but she's not training. So that's how we started.

Paul Warloski (03:26)

That's amazing. So bring us up to speed. What events have you done and what have you done this year? You had kind of a big year.

Jerome Guionnet (03:35)

Yeah, I started it was 2017 and this year, so 2025 was a of a slow year. I just did three triathlons, so two half Ironman on one full. I usually do five or six a year, but this year I did only three because I was focusing on the Ironman World Championship.

So I qualified for Nice Ironman World Championship last year when I did the full Ironman IMCA, IM California. I finished second in my age group. And thanks to that, I was invited to give my credit card to Ironman to pay for World Championship.

It's a really nice event. I like the World Championship because there is a special ambiance. I've been lucky to do multiple of them, 70.3 and full. yes, it got me hooked with that. really like going to them and the ambiance and so on. And then because it was in Nice and I'm French and you can't hear it from my accent, I had to do this one. And the other reason I had to do this one is because my first Ironman

World Championship 70.3 in 2019 was also in Nice. So I kind of knew the course. I knew it was beautiful. So I wanted to do it. So this year I did Wildflower in May, which is a 70.3. I finished first in my age group,

it's a really cool place to go. It's like in the middle of nowhere, you just camp and it's kind of a triathlon festival. So it's a really nice, I of course sign up for next year also. Because yeah,

And then I decided to focus only on World Championship, which was in September 12, I think. yeah, because there some climbing, 7,000 8,000 feet of climbing. And I'm lucky to live in the Bay Area where we have some hills here. I train a lot in the Bay Area, climbing hills, I'm doing my training. So training is not only about climbing hill, but it was an important part of it. ⁓

I kind of did everything almost right except on the race day where I use my, I was in France for two weeks. I mounted my bike quickly when I arrived because I was at the family reunion and kind of, and after that I adjusted, but for some reason the saddle was not at the,

Paul Warloski (06:01)

Thank

Jerome Guionnet (06:15)

right height when I started the course. think it's because I did the training. When I did the course preview, I practiced descent because climbing you don't really need to practice. You do that in your training and you know you are not going fast, but you know you can make a difference in the descent. So I decided to just focus on recognizing descent. But recognizing descent, there was a lot of bump on the road and I think my saddle move a little bit at this time.

Paul Warloski (06:17)

⁓

Paul Laursen (06:19)

You

Jerome Guionnet (06:43)

I didn't realize it because you're full of adrenaline and you're the normal self when you are in this kind of thing. And then what I did is you got the sticker, I put the sticker on the saddle. And so when I was on my race, said something is weird. said, no, the saddle didn't move because the sticker is not scratched, except that.

sticker was kind of hiding the height of the saddle. So if there was one centimeter difference, you listen to it there, one centimeter, does it make a big difference? It does, because it's not the same muscle group that I engage. So not only it kind of ⁓ make it harder on the bike, but also on the run. When I get out of my bike, I could barely walk. But I went to the run. Anyway. ⁓

Marjaana (07:18)

It's a lot.

Paul Warloski (07:20)

Hmm.

Jerome Guionnet (07:35)

It's a lesson. It's not a lesson I would like to have to add during a World Championship but that's what it is. You know, it's only, I just do that for fun. So it's not a deal. I swallow it now.

Marjaana (07:39)

Mm-hmm.

But I believe you still finished top 20 something, didn't you? Anyway, yeah.

Jerome Guionnet (07:55)

Yeah, I finished 13 over 138, so top 10.

Top 10 percent. I was targeting top 10. I say if everything is going nice, I could be close to podium, but not really at the end. But it's okay. Lesson learned. We tried to do that a lot of time. It will not be in Nice unfortunately, because I think this course...

is even better for me than Kona is. I think Kona is not too bad. So far, I can manage the heat. it's not so bad. when I did Kona in 2022, Square-Mount bike were OK. But the run, because I had a plantar fasciitis, was bad as expected. I think I trained 50 miles or something like that. So it was brutal. ⁓

Marjaana (08:27)

Mm.

Paul Warloski (08:47)

Cool.

Marjaana (08:51)

Yeah.

Jerome Guionnet (08:53)

Yeah, but no, nice experience. It was fun. yeah, because I say, okay, I didn't do my best time on 70.3 word is in this next year. I say, let's try to qualify for Nice this again for next year. And so I did like winter last weekend and I managed to get a slot. So I will be able to.

Marjaana (09:17)

Nice!

Paul Warloski (09:17)

Alright.

Marjaana (09:18)

Congrats! And Nice is amazing! It's such a beautiful place and the course is fantastic. So congrats! You get to go back for the third time.

Jerome Guionnet (09:25)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, really,

Yeah, this will be my sixth World Championship, 70.3 Yeah, yeah. And in Nice this will be third time, yeah. This will be my second 70.3 and after a full, so yeah.

Paul Warloski (09:32)

Wow.

Marjaana (09:33)

But in these, well, champs in these, yeah.

Paul Laursen (09:33)

Wow. ⁓

hey, Jerome, just take us back. Cause you know, you started in this podcast talking about, know, the story about your daughter and how you got into triathlon and you joined the club and somehow you've gone from there, you know, really never doing the sport to being a regular, you know, world champion qualifier and a top, you know, top 10 % finisher. So how does, how does one do that?

What's your process been?

Jerome Guionnet (10:10)

Yeah, that's an interesting story. Yeah, think there's multiple things. First of all, think you have the body that you have, but I think my body and triathlon kind of align pretty well. This is one thing.

So when I started in 2017, I did my first podium on the Olympics this year. And so why I did my first podium is because, your podium because of course you need to train well and so on and so forth. But it depends also who is showing up at the race. And the race type pick this year,

I realized later is like a lot of competitive people were not going to this race because they didn't like the course. But for me, because it was my first year anyway, wanted to, I didn't know about it. I just did it. And because a lot of the ex pro or very strong people who are in my group did not show up, I managed to do my first podium. So it's, you get kind of really excited because of that. and of course I was finishing in the top 10 in my group, also on the other race. So it was kind of,

Nice. So because of that, it motivates me to kind of learn how to train. What I was saying is before doing triathlon, I was exercising. And when I started to do triathlon, I realized what it was to train. So there is a difference between exercising and training. Exercising, you know, you do your sport because you want to do healthy and so you want to be healthy. But you don't really focus on the special goal. When you do when you train,

You do not necessarily spend more hours, but the hours you are spending, you are spending them with a goal, with a structure, and this is what training is about. And when you train versus exercise, then you have a better outcome. So this is what I learned with my club. I learned how to train. Because I joined the new to the sport. New to the sport, we had coaches. And when you have coaches, they kind of teach you how to train. And then you realize when you train versus exercise,

you are making progress because you start, of course, not with the same thing. So, and then you, you see your progress. And for me, I'm kind of, I see progress and I was always looking at, okay, how I can do more. So then I started to read about it, started to listen to podcasts, joined the, so the first year in the club, was into new to the sport. So you're after.

There was a team where I formed the advance. So I was with kind of another coach, learned some other stuff. And then starting to podium a little bit more. I think I did three Olympics and did three podium, one, two, three. This one, and then I did, on 2017, I did my first 70.3 and I finished, I realized in the top 10 also, I was 13 over 140 in Santa Cruz.

Then the year after I did Santa Cruz, was eight over 80, so still 10%. And I did the Wild flower 70.3, but I had the mechanical, so it was not as good. But then I really started to really train. And then in 2019, I qualified at Oceanside for Nice. And I was lucky because I was fourth in my age group, but the first two already qualified, got the slot, so it rolled down. And there was two slots in my age group.

The third one was a friend from the club and said, you are French. There is only one slot for this age group. I said, no, no, take it. And then, fortunately, that was the world down happen because some age group didn't take it. We had two and it was my first opportunity. really nice. All of that kind of our strong motivations to continue training and continue improving. And then, so.

What I did with the club was nice, but I realized I kind of need to possibly go see something different. So I started to join Purple Patch with Matt Dixon. I joined the squad, not Mr. Matt Dixon directly, I wanted to kind of still learn with the squad. So it was nice. So this was a program where

They look at your results and things. What I learned here when I joined Purple Patch is that I didn't need to train that hard. I think now I know what I was doing. A lot of the training I was doing before was always in Zone 3. This is really more split with

Paul Warloski (14:57)

Hmm.

Jerome Guionnet (15:00)

kind of your 80 % in zone two on your 20 % kind of into a more intensive, you know, the 80-20 rules, is, do not apply it exactly as 80-20, but understand the philosophy of it. So I started to understand that. But then it's, you need to be really motivated for that because Z2 training feels boring.

Marjaana (15:15)

Mm.

Paul Warloski (15:29)

Ha!

Jerome Guionnet (15:30)

Because, yeah, you need to, you you start, yeah, you're really at a low, low power and so on and so forth. But if you really, really do it for multiple hours, you realize it starts to be hard. But then you need to be kind of motivated to do that. So which means you cannot train anyway, anymore with your friends. Because if you train with friends, you can barely do

Z2. Nobody has the same Z2 and when you train with friends, there's always one point where you will always push and not really follow the plan. So then you start to become a lone wolf and kind of train and do that. And also what I realized is when you train with friends, it's nice, but what you do, you do a lot of regroup also. So you kind of train by interval. Now, for me, when you do a real Z2,

Paul Warloski (16:23)

Hmm.

Jerome Guionnet (16:28)

I feel it's better if you do not stop. You have as much as your nutrition, possibly you have one stop, but you really try to do it continuously, manage your nutrition accordingly. Then I think you really get the benefit. Because COVID happened, anyway, in 2020, there was no more any friends to train with, so you train by yourself. I don't know if it was a good timing.

Paul Warloski (16:53)

Yes.

Jerome Guionnet (16:57)

in some way for that. We were still training a little bit together, but with distancing and so on and so forth, like different. And so then in 2021, when we went back to racing, the good thing is that there was not many races, lot of the races had been cancelled. So it was way easier to get slot in 2021. I went to Honu, which is 70.3, Hawaii.

And over there you can qualify for Hawaii is a fool for Kona, but usually if you're first in your age group. But this year in my age group, it was a top five and I finished third. So then I had a spot for Kona. think, well, great. And then they also said, you qualify also for 70.3 world if you want. I say, all right, why not? Let's take it. ⁓

Marjaana (17:55)

Or did they

give you discount?

Paul Warloski (17:58)

Hahaha

Jerome Guionnet (17:59)

And then, yeah, I went to sign up and I said, oh, Kona, think at this time was 1,100 or something like that. said, whoa. And then they say, do you want it or not? I yeah, yeah, yeah. I want it. But that was kind of surprised by its price.

Paul Laursen (18:14)

you

Jerome Guionnet (18:18)

But yeah, so 2021, got qualified for Kona, qualified for St. George, 70.3.

And then when I trained in 2023, sent me an invitation for World 2021 in St. George, because they were not having enough people. So they started to send invitation to our. And I say, this is like a lifetime opportunity. Let's do it.

So in 2022, I did the three world championship, the full world championship in St. George. I was having my plantar fasciitis, but it was not so bad in St. George. So I kind of managed it. And I really loved the course. St. George is beautiful. So I was happy to do it. Then I did Kona. And then I came back for St. George on 70.3 So I did St. George in 2021, 70.3 on St. George.

2022 for 70.3 and the full. So this was like a big year. It's really, yeah, I would have preferred to not be injured. And I think to really see the time I could make, but it is what it is. It was such an experience.

Then in 2023, I did Morro Bay. And so Morro Bay was the first time they were doing it into, this was the first time they did this race. And so people were wondering and so on and so So they was.

Not everybody sign up, is you always have to, if you want to really qualify, you need to be able to pick your race. And sometimes you're lucky. You don't know you pick a race and some did not. Then this is also how you get there. So then I qualify for Latte, but then here, anybody who did the race could have had a slot because we stayed because I had the slot and my wife was with me and some people from the club were there. And...

They had slots for women for twice. And they asked, is there any woman who finished the race here who wants a slot? And there were not enough women around, And my wife did this race at this time. And I said, hey, you finished it. You were invited. I'm going anyway, so just take it. And it was really fun. And she took it, and then we went there together.

Paul Warloski (20:25)

Hmm.

So Jerome, you know, you're you're managing all these Ironmans and 70.3s with training with with a full-time job. I mean, how are you managing that? I mean, how do you walk us through a typical week? How do you find time to train 15-20 hours with a full-time job?

Jerome Guionnet (21:03)

Yeah, so the 20 hours is only when I train for a full, it's only for a few weeks A little bit more than that. But yes, I think it's gradually, so what I said before, I was always exercising.

then I kind of transform exercise to training, which also means that I become more regular, I did more, but it was not like I was coming from a couch potato to just training. Kind of was exercising in the middle and I was always interested in having a jog here, a bike or swim or run here and there.

but then with training, then I a plan and then I look at my calendar from work perspective, from family perspective, and see how it would fit into it. for me, ⁓ way I'm working with, I am in California, I'm working with Europe, mainly with US, but also with Europe and India.

So it means that I will not work all day. So at some point during the day, can take some break. So the way I manage it is usually I do my swimming in the morning because it's on my way to work.

most of my training during the week is in the evening. So after work, come home and I train. All my week training is on the turbo for my ride.

I do not go out because if I go on the trainer, it's more efficient. It's easier if you go home, you jump on the trainer. Boom, you have your session, you do it. And sometime during this training session, ⁓ I listen to videos which can be work-related or not. I kind of sometimes also combine the two. I know it's not ideal, but that's what you do as an age group.

So sometimes you are not completely into it, but at the end it's not so bad. You don't do that all the time. I do lunch break. Also some of my lunch break, I go to the gym. I do that because at work we have a good gym, so it's good. I go to the gym there. This is kind of how I do it. And also to be efficient, what I really like is a brick.

So which means scheduling two sessions, one after the other. So many, we often say brick run, but it could be brick anything. Because you're already dressed up, you're already sweaty. it's, least often what I do as a brick is a swim and a run. Because it's just like, and you don't need to do a long run after you bike. But if you do a 20 minutes, 30 minutes, it's really only 20, 30 minutes. This is if you have to do a run of 30 minutes, you need to dress up.

You need to warm up, you need to stretch. it's kind of one hour. This is when you do a brick A 30-minute run will be almost only 30 minutes because, you still need to stretch. You still need to, yeah, you warm up, you do it on the bike because you start slow. So you have an optimization this way. So this is kind of some of the trick to optimize your time. And of course, weekend, I do long run on long bike. ⁓

Yeah, my daughter now is 24, so she's not anymore at home. She doesn't need me. My wife is also in triathlon, so which means she understands what training is. She's doing her own training. We do some training together. Mainly we start some other thing and after we do our own thing. So it's of course also much easier from this perspective. Yeah, and then the... I am in software. So we had the work for home

which really help also because then you can have a flexible agenda and do your training here and there. Now I'm more going to the office, but still manage that this way.

So I think if you look, everybody kind of have some of this time in the day if they look at it. And now if I don't do it, yeah, like last week,

I was supposed to rest and I did rest, but I had to go training because I didn't feel good if I was, and it was not training, easy. went to the pool, enjoyed, had some good time, went on my bike to do just like an easy kind of leg spinning and so on and so forth. This weekend I was with friends biking and yesterday did an easy run.

Paul Warloski (25:28)

you

Jerome Guionnet (25:50)

But yeah, it's really nice to go out and do it. it's like, yeah, I think this is kind of a more lifestyle after some time. yeah, it's critical. The good thing also,

Paul Warloski (25:59)

Yeah.

Marjaana (26:00)

Ahem.

Jerome Guionnet (26:07)

With that in my lifetime, it means that I do not spend too much time working because I enjoy what I'm doing at work and I could easily get hooked on do too much. So it's good also to force you to have a break and kind of diversification. And because of that also, when you are training on doing stuff, you realize that you look at some of the work things you're doing in a different way and you can solve them.

Paul Warloski (26:20)

Hmm

Jerome Guionnet (26:37)

because you are training versus just sitting in front of your computer and try to solve them. So I really think ⁓ it's really beneficial to do, yeah, to mix different things. So my passion is to add learn, but I think it's important to do different things during the day so you have different perspective and see things differently.

Paul Laursen (27:01)

Hey, Jerome, that's awesome. You're an investor in Athletica and you were an early adopter of it. I can see that you were using the platform, at least joining us in November of 22. And you may have heard, but we've got a new user interface and a new AI coach conversational that's different than chat GPT It's kind of like

Marjaana (27:02)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (27:29)

It's kind of like chat GPT that reads your data. So I'm on your profile right now and I asked our AI coach as if I were you. I said, hey coach, can you describe what type of athlete I am and what are my strengths and what can I work on? Do you want to hear what it said?

Paul Warloski (27:50)

Hahaha

Jerome Guionnet (27:50)

yes, please.

Paul Laursen (27:51)

Okay,

so Jerome, based on your training profile, here's a breakdown of what type of athlete you are. You're an experienced, highly dedicated age group triathlete focused on the Olympic distance. Well, I'm not sure it's got you right there, but that's what it says. The training, maybe that's because you're doing that right now. Are you signed up for an Olympic distance next on your profile? There you go, well that's why. So your training volume shows you are consistent.

Jerome Guionnet (28:14)

yes.

Paul Laursen (28:19)

and able to handle a relatively high workload for your age. That's pretty good, that's pretty, and I was actually looking at your performance potential as well, and it definitely shows that you've got your fitness level up there. Just coming down now, but it was up at 102, which is pretty substantial, so in terms of a fitness value. Strengths, aerobic endurance, weekly hours, and spread of sessions suggest a very strong aerobic base and excellent workout consistency.

We talk about that repeatedly on the Athletes Compass podcast about the importance of training consistency. And it's nice that the AI coaches picked that up in your data as well. Now I'm not sure, you allowed, it says your FTP is way up there. Can I say what it is? It says it has you at 270 watts, is that correct?

Jerome Guionnet (29:08)

Yeah, yeah,

I think it's more or less correct,

Paul Laursen (29:18)

Whoa! Approximately 3.9 watts per kilo. My goodness. And are you allowed to say your age?

Paul Warloski (29:19)

Wow.

Jerome Guionnet (29:28)

I am competing in the 60-65.

Marjaana (29:33)

Woo!

Paul Laursen (29:34)

Unbelievable.

No wonder you're winning those age group categories. That is crazy high. Wow. Discipline and training. You make full use of long weekend blocks which show strong commitment and the ability to manage longer key sessions and build resilience and fitness. Recovery and self-management. It says, sustain multi-sport training with your volume shows you manage recovery well.

Marjaana (29:37)

You

Paul Laursen (29:58)

and probably avoid injury more than many peers. You were mentioning your injury and whatnot before, but you've obviously improved that in the recent past.

Jerome Guionnet (30:10)

Yeah, yeah. So I think so the FTP number, I don't know an exact methodology to find a CP, but looking at a different AI platform, looking at Garmin, looking at some tests, I'm doing it between 240 to 280 kind of stuff. But also thanks to the podcast you have, Paul, I was listening to one you had with a coach in biking.

And what I remember from this, and I'm practicing it, I think I more potential because of this, is working on single leg training. So it's something I did with my coach. will speak here. I was with Athletica. And for Nice I went to a coach. But I will go back to Athletica. I can speak more about that. But also trying to be really light on your handlebar.

and really engage your core and making sure you really have your core and your glute and all of that engage and really participating in biking. It's like, it really makes a difference. I was really thinking about that when I was doing La Quinta. I was trying to be lighter on my triber also. ⁓ yeah, that makes a difference.

Paul Laursen (31:25)

Your arms, yeah.

Jerome Guionnet (31:31)

I really want to push that move next year to see where it can go.

Paul Laursen (31:35)

Yeah,

that's awesome, drone. You know, I rarely speak about that. I don't know if you caught that, Paul, but like it was a chat I had with Professor Jim Martin from University of Utah. And, he's a legendary cycling scientist, more in the biomechanics, but he also crosses over to physiology. it was this thing he just put in there right at the end. And he basically said, like, do you want to know any secrets out there, Paul? I said, of course, yeah, tell us any secrets.

Paul Warloski (31:45)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (32:03)

And it was that one, and Jerome picked up on it. And it's basically, you can just imagine that you're doing an FTP test and you're pushing up a hill. how you, for some reason, if you all of a sudden force yourself to loosen the connection with your handlebars and you just make floppy elbows was the coaching cue.

Paul Warloski (32:27)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (32:28)

floppy elbows, it all of a sudden launches your FTP up or the power that you can produce by about 10 watts or so. I tried it as well and I couldn't believe it. So drones bring it up too and it's like, and yeah, and so something happens in the nervous system that just basically allows you to, just kind of like push a little bit more power. It just lessens things up and the efferent, I guess, drive that you can push down into the pedals.

just goes up the AHAIR. So I'm sure MJ's managing this one, is blocking this one away in the vault too, so you may be using some of the velocity sessions. did you experience that as well, Jerome?

Jerome Guionnet (33:11)

Yeah, yeah, I definitely experience it both on the road bike and on the tri bike. And what I feel is amazing is that you put more power, but it's not most training. Like you kind of put more power with what you feel is the same effort, which is like, yeah, exactly. It's free power. And so it's like, yeah.

Paul Laursen (33:29)

free power. ⁓

Yeah, it's totally bizarre. Totally bizarre. Yeah. So there you

go. So there's your athlete compass secret of the day brought to you by Athletica.

Jerome Guionnet (33:37)

We can.

Paul Warloski (33:41)

You

Jerome Guionnet (33:45)

Yeah, no, and I mentioned another thing, which is single leg training. And what I when I'm listening to that, I always like to understand the rationale and so on. So that's what I really like. Also explain on why single leg training is important is because when you work on a single leg, then all your blood on everything is going to this single leg. So you kind of power boost this leg.

Paul Laursen (33:50)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Warloski (33:52)

Yes.

Jerome Guionnet (34:10)

And not only you need to you're working on having a good pedaling on making sure it's all circle and you're putting the power everywhere. But at the same time, you are bringing like 200 % new treatment and everything to your legs so that it can also benefit from from that. I really like I really like it because we all have a leg that is stronger than the other. I don't think we need to necessarily look at the complete balance.

But I think you need to work both on your strength and your weakness. So even your strong leg, you need to do that. On your weak leg, you need to do it also. But I kind of like the explanation. I was wondering if it also applied to swimming. And I tried to do also some drill with single arm swim. And I don't know if it does. But for sure, by doing that, I kind of knew one arm was not as good as the other. But by doing that, you're focusing more on your arm. And then in my head, I think, yeah.

You will improve this arm and also all your flow is kind of going into this arm. So it's good to do some time tricks like that to motivate you to do these kind of things.

Paul Laursen (35:12)

Totally, yeah. Well, you're obviously leveraging

all the tricks and man, is it paying off for you. The other interesting thing that Jim notes with the single leg training is that you, and that's important to realize is that with that added blood flow, you need to have ideally a counterweight on the opposite pedal arm when you do that. And that's because, and that's to reduce the engagement required from the hip flexors to kind of pull the pedal around. if you, and then if you, but if you throw like a 10,

10 kilogram weight on the other side and just using like a skewer that will actually support a weight like you sort of see in the background there, it just flows around really easy and it feels like pedaling and you can remove effort on the upstroke kind of thing. You don't have to do that because the

the counterweight's kind of covering that on the other side and it flicks it around and then you push down. And then all of a sudden your absolute single leg can be pushing more power than it would be at two, using two legs. Like say for example, it's like sustained. And it's quite a bizarre feeling too, right? Because all of a sudden you're getting all this blood flow into, like Jerome says, into this one leg and it bulges up.

And because you have all of your circulation, all of your central volume that your heart's delivering available just to one leg and you don't have your other leg taking any of it. So it's pretty fascinating, pretty cool. And I'm so glad that you're leveraging that, Jerome. It's really cool.

Marjaana (36:51)

Can I ask something ⁓ different from biomechanics? I would love to hear your thoughts about what is the hardest part of managing consistent training and improving your performance that are already at a very high level? What keeps you going, especially during the dark fall? ⁓

Jerome Guionnet (36:52)

Yeah.

Marjaana (37:19)

nights when you have to jump on your bike and, or do you even have any like low motivation? Like when you have big goals, it's easy to get the work done, but maybe you can talk about the lulls in possible lulls in the motivation. What do you tell yourself?

Jerome Guionnet (37:41)

Yeah, of course it happens sometimes. All over when you are into big training weeks before your big event. like, you need like for for Nice, I kind of started almost in March, April kind of focusing on it. And it's a long period. So sometimes you're counting the week and you say, man,

I still have all of that to do on so on and so forth. But at the same time, if you see you are making progress, if you can handle the load, the other spot is really to start. Because when you start after you never regret, you always go for it and you always move forward.

So what I do is sometimes I say, okay, so this is the philosophy of the session for today. You kind of understand why, so you understand if it's a high interval training session or if it's a strength session or if it's a distance session, say. All right, so the plan that you need to do, for example, for interval like 9, 30 second interval.

Yeah, 932nd interval for time. Say, okay, so this is the prescription. You understand kind of, okay. Let's start by one, all right? Because this is what you need to understand. you know, it's okay if you do only one. It's better if you do all of them, but at least one. So then this is how I do. Usually I do all of them, but sometimes I really adjust my session because of time constraint.

because of this thing, I look at the philosophies. When I got it from Atletica, what I do is, as a software geek, it goes into a text editor for me and I know the format, so I change it. So I keep the spirit, but I change the length or change the repetition and stuff like that. So I adjust it based on my time constraint on some time motivation.

Sometimes I almost regret to say, I should not have adjusted because I feel really good. But it's like, okay, it's okay. You can have it that tomorrow. It's better to be this way or to the other. what I think is important is to really understand why you are doing the session. You don't need to do it exactly how it is. ⁓

So it's one way I do for motivating me. Then what I realized also, when I said this, for world championship, I took a coach. I stopped with Athletica after some time. I went with a coach and when I selected a coach, I wanted a local coach. So somebody who can watch me biking, who can watch me running, who can watch me swimming. Because I think this is really the value that you have from a coach is when your coach is local.

This is the value you get. I really like the Athletica philosophy. think why I joined the Athletica is because for me, the Athletica, everything we need to do for training. For each of the three sports, you have some strength sessions, you have some HIIT sessions, and you have some endurance sessions. I think this is the key for me into the sport is to do...

is to do that all the time. And then you have different intensity depending on where you are on so on and so forth. So I think I had the right training. But I probably not have was not having the best running form, not necessarily having the best biking form. This is where a coach can help. Because one thing I didn't mention when how did I how did I progress also is one thing I realized and this was with the club, so you know,

For your run, you should possibly do a gait analysis because possibly you need to really learn how to run. It was not kind of told like that to me, but then I really did the gait analysis. I did that because I was having some pain in the knee. But really, I even if you don't have knee pain or anything, I think it's very important to kind of evaluate how are you doing things. And so today with you do a gait analysis, it costs some money.

But then you really get an outcome from that. realize what are your strengths and weaknesses. Then you work on that. And then if you work on that by doing some more strength sessions and so on and so forth, then you will really learn how to run, how to bike. Swimming is more complicated. Swimming is most complicated because this is really the one where there's a lot of techniques. But everybody can learn how to run better.

everybody can learn how to bike better. Like biking, what I heard a long time is, no, biking, everybody knows how to bike. We were just speaking about that before. No, I think there are some tricks on how to really bike well and bike more efficient and so on and so forth. Running is like that. It's a little bit more complicated, but it's very important to do that. And swimming is another game because it's very...

Paul Warloski (42:34)

Mm-hmm.

Jerome Guionnet (42:50)

technical, you will never be able to do to be a good swimmer if you didn't swim when you are young, but you can reach that and at least you can do you can definitely improve. So I think if I would redo my triathlon journey, I think I would have started with most one to one coaching earlier than later. And then when you will understand what it is after

Having a program and I think having a program like Athletica and having a virtual coach feedback is really nice. But you kind of need to understand the jargon. You need to understand training first and then after you can be on Athletica As you said, with Athletica you can use it if you self-train. But it's more, I think where it has a lot of value, also for the coaches.

There's so much data, so much things that a coach cannot see. So, Athletica can really help coach with that. So, I really see a lot of value with that. So, yeah, when I was in La Quinta, I was playing, I say, what about I ask something to my coach and ask something to AI and see what it is? It's interesting how you get, the coach got something, but the AI, because of the overall picture, gave me some complimentary things.

So yeah, it's really powerful. I really believe in it. So yeah, so I think I went off on the...

Paul Warloski (44:19)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (44:25)

No, no, it's been

great. It's been great, Jerome I just, yeah, I just, I completely echo your sentiments. You're speaking to three coaches on the call here. And I do believe that kind of like what you're alluding to is that, you know, the best recipe is going to be a coach that knows how to use the AI tools, right? Like where we went off and we checked out your profile, we asked the AI coach what type of athlete you were.

I mean, imagine if you could onboard an athlete where they backload two years of data and then you could do exactly what I just asked the AI coach, what kind of athlete are you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? And for that to be immediately analyzed within 30 seconds and it's just sitting right there and you know what type of athlete, like the background of the athlete, their strengths and weaknesses, I mean, that's wild. That would take us.

Think of how long it takes us to really get to know an athlete, right? Like that's a big head start we could do there. So pretty cool.

Jerome Guionnet (45:27)

Yeah, I agree with you. That's a head start, but really also the value of the coach, why I think the coach is more powerful is a coach understand human. They know how to speak to a human and when to speak to a human. An AI coach will not know that you have something. It will just tell you in your face, not necessarily why you want to hear it. And if you have really a good coach, a good coach will know you like you have a bad ways.

the coach will wait, let you swallow it and then work on it to kind of jump back to it. If you are the AI, it will not be as touchy.

Paul Warloski (46:08)

A

Paul Laursen (46:08)

forgiving.

Paul Warloski (46:10)

little less sensitive. So

Jerome, you're saying you said you were going back to Athletica. What's next for you? What are your goals in 2026? What do you want to accomplish?

Jerome Guionnet (46:21)

Yeah, so as I said, I have world championship 70.3. So this is definitely a goal I have there. But I also look at my strength and weakness. And one of my weaknesses is transition. I can really improve in transition. So I need to, at one point I was missing kind of five, six times per year. And so I was kind of a little bit more

strong in transition, I cannot have lost that. So I'm planning to do a lot more local race. And also I want to support the local racing structure. So do a lot more local races to support them, but also to train on my transition. yeah, I also like to do bike centuries.

Paul Warloski (47:06)

Mm.

Jerome Guionnet (47:13)

next year I'm planning to do one with my daughter. She's in Seattle now, on the Seattle to Portland. And then I realized it's sponsored by UW, University of Washington, which is, hey, you have no choices, you have to do it. But she's happy also to do it. So we have a goal of trying to do that next year. yeah, having some training, but of course, having some fun. What I really like with the Bike Century is like it's not a race.

You

discover lot of places. Sometimes they even close the road for you. So it's great. then you have this kind of nice camaraderie while you do that. And then some of these spaces. So yeah, and I really think I can still improve my running is not consistent. Sometimes I have some knee pain and stuff like that. So I know I need to work on my strength more.

Something I really tried, I really started to practice when I had my personal, my one-to-one coach. I really started to do strength training more consistently. Strength training is hard for everybody. So the way I was able to go at it was to do

Paul Warloski (48:17)

Good.

Jerome Guionnet (48:31)

10, 15 minutes every day. Because then it's easy. You put that, you do it every day. And then you do some of it because, as if you have a long session, if you are at the gym, it's easy. so, and then what, you know, when you need to introduce a new habit, it's hard. So you have to kind of facilitate. So you do it always at the same time. You put it in your schedule kind of always at the same time. And you put some hint.

Like for example, I had to do strength training. So I always had an elastic band close to my computer where I was going. And then I was saying, I need to do my strength training. So it was a reminder before it became an habit. You need to do some things like that to do it. So, and then I went to a stage where I did it systematically after dinner. So after dinner, I was doing my

stretching and some strength training, some basic stuff, some planking, some glute, and some of that. But it really helped if you do it every day. You realize, and then what is funny is that if you do it every day, you really get the benefits pretty quickly. Even for an old guy like me, you still see some benefits going. And so it's boring, but because you see the improvement, it's then after it's easy to

Paul Warloski (49:43)

Mm-hmm.

Jerome Guionnet (49:56)

become an habit. So at least this is how I was able to go back into it. So this is something I'm continuing. I will just refocus on some of the things that are more specific to the weakness I think I have from a running perspective to make sure I activate this muscle because what I learned is that the body is lazy. If you have been doing something

If you have been running one way for some time, it makes you run with some of the muscle you have been running for forever. But it doesn't mean it is the right muscle. So this is why you need to do strength and activation. It's to wake up the lazy muscle, what's supposed to help you running. But because for some reason, when you run before, you never use them. are kind of, your brain kind of forgot about them. So you kind of need to do strength, activation.

to put the back in motion and then really help you during your running. And then if you have all of that, then your running is more comfortable because the right muscle are running, then all your articulation are well aligned. So if everything is aligned, then it's easier, there's less pain and so on and so forth. So I really believe that this is what is important to find is for every kind of...

little bit of pain you have, I feel there is always a muscle weakness associated with it. So you need to find it. I'm not the expert into it. So I will see a good PT who will help me find something. And then after you really need to do your exercise. And then if you do your exercise every day for, it can guarantee for six weeks to two months, or even before that, you will see the effect. So then

Paul Warloski (51:45)

Hmm.

Jerome Guionnet (51:47)

because then it's motivating and then you really want to do it and then you believe into it and then after you want to maintain it. So yeah, so this is some of my goal for next year is to still work also on this to make it better. And then I'm targeting, yeah, to be honest, the top 10 at Nice World Championship. I want again to try to do it. We'll see. But yeah.

Marjaana (52:08)

Yeah.

of the podium.

Paul Warloski (52:15)

Yeah, put him into the podium, man.

Jerome Guionnet (52:17)

podium would be you need to have a great day on some of the of your competitor need to have a bad day.

Marjaana (52:23)

Yeah.

Jerome Guionnet (52:24)

And yeah, I continue to learn. I'm really excited about continuously learning, listening to podcasts and other podcasts. I really like to do that during my commute or any other things. Learning from the AI coach, I think what I really like also with Athletica is the AI coach gives you feedback, but it also gives you learning opportunities.

So it's kind of fun. If you're curious, you can do your research and so on and so forth. And because I'm a gadget freak, I also have few gadgets I will try next year. So I am playing right now with Timeware. So this is a beta program kind of thing. It seems to be pretty amazing. So yeah, I've been doing some tests. I will probably do some tests this week.

Paul Warloski (53:05)

Now.

Jerome Guionnet (53:18)

or next week with them, so to have my base for training during off season. Because, yeah, my first test, what they did is on the bike, I need to do a lot more, still more zone two, but on the run it was, so they give a different analysis on bike and run, so which was kind of interesting. So I really go with that. Of course I will do some of the athletic tests, but all of these tests at the end give you the same kind of things, but.

I'm very interested about the time where on how on long, long bike, how my breathing is evolving to see if I am able to really sustain that or if I'm really going down. I'm losing the word for that, but what is my... Yeah.

Paul Laursen (54:09)

But you're strained,

right? We had Steven Seiler on the podcast and he was talking about his work with Timeware and really the impact that the respiratory system is kind of telling us about how fatigued we're ultimately getting as we go along there. And that's what it's telling us, we think. we're gonna be early adopters on that one as well. So really great to know, that you're using that.

that device and we might have to have some conversations in the near future about potentially integrating that if it manifests into something that appears to be useful, which it sounds like it will. So, that's amazing, gadget Yeah.

Jerome Guionnet (54:50)

Yeah, yeah.

And the last, and I sign up for another gadget also, which is Cori. I don't know if you have heard about Cori, but this is like continuous like the testing with a squared. it's, I am in a program next year, Q2, Q3. Yeah, it's good. I'm curious. And I like.

Paul Laursen (55:03)

Cool.

we are too.

Jerome Guionnet (55:17)

I like the science.

I'm just like, I don't have the expertise into that, but I like learning. I like looking at things and stuff and kind of optimizing. And as an engineer, I'm interested by this kind of thing. So this is why I'm looking at this different technologies.

Paul Laursen (55:40)

Very cool. Well, you're going to love Athletica in the new year, Jerome, where we've got a whole educational platform on there with our Athletica U cert one available, all the various different support factors in there. And also the AI coach that you can ask anything to that takes your data into consideration and has the complete backbone of the HIIT science book.

Paul Warloski (55:41)

and

Yeah.

Paul Laursen (56:04)

and course and all of the various different material that we've produced in the past that's at your fingertips in a large language model kind of format. We're pretty excited about that. So Jerome, it's just been an absolute slice having you on here and you're so full of insight and stories. And yeah, we're well past the time here. So I'll leave it over to Paul to close us up.

Paul Warloski (56:17)

Mm-hmm. Thank you.

Thank you, Jerome. Appreciate your time.

Jerome Guionnet (56:30)

Yeah, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity. It was fun.

Paul Warloski (56:34)

Thanks for listening today to the Athletes Compass podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science-based training platform, Athletica, and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum. For Jerome Guionnet Marjaana Rakai, and Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thank you so much for listening.