• Tread+ to start shipping in next two weeks.
• Lanebreak for Tread+ could be here as early as this week.
• Motley Fool writes about how Peloton really makes its money.
• Peloton sells Ohio facility.
• People are starting to get their Guinness World Record certificates.
• Peloton hosting ‘Move For You’ event at Mall of America.
• Precor releases next generation of cardio consoles.
• Jenn Sherman is back!
• Peloton Originals drops Susie Chan documentary.
• Robin Arzon celebrates 10-years with Peloton.
• Jenn – When grief impacts your motivation.
• The latest artist series features P!nk.
• Jill Ilana interviewed Bradley Rose on her podcast.
• TCO Top 5.
• This Week At Peloton.
• New apparel collections from Nux, Lulu, and a winter sale.
• Birthdays – Kendall Toole (1/28)

All this plus our interview with Andrew Sellars!

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Jenn Sherman Returns! Plus Our Interview With Andrew Sellars

I guess we should start with our book club announcement. I know we talk about the book club a lot because we’re hoping you’ll join us, but we have a big announcement about the book club.

I am incredibly excited. The next book that we are reading is Turning Inward by Ross Rayburn. The big news is that Ross Rayburn will be joining us on February 13th on Zoom at 7:00 PM Central, 8:00 PM Eastern. I’m freaking excited. He’s the nicest person.

He is super nice. If you would like to partake, go on over to Patreon.com/TheClipOut. You have to be a Patreon member but you can do it at the free level. You don’t have to give us money, although we’ll take it. You can do this for free. We’ll push out the links and all that to Patreon. We’re asking that you RSVP for this one. If you have a question, you can submit it.

Not just RSVP but also register. The only place you can register is by going to the Patreon page. It’s Patreon.com/TheClipOut. Click “Join Community.” As soon as you see things about the book club, you’re in the right place and then you have to register if you would like to join because we have a very hard stop. Zoom is like a hundred people, so we need to make sure we don’t go over that number.

Head over there. Hopefully, we will see you on February 13th. That’ll be fun and hopefully, you’ll be able to join us. Before the show gets away from us, let’s do our first Bingo call-out.

For our first call-out, it is Cody Rigsby. If you take a class with Cody this week, mark it on your little Bingo squares.

For a lot of people, that’s like a free square.

There are a lot of people who take classes with Cody. Some people never take classes with Cody. All these instructors are that way because there are so many of them. We’re very fortunate.

There you go. We will have a second one later in the episode. Who is our guest for this episode?

Our guest is Andrew Sellars. A few months ago, we had him on to talk about VO2 Master and how things were going with my running. This time, we have Andrew Sellars back and he goes through my numbers This was recorded in October. I know it’s been a while. I feel like people will find it interesting for a few reasons. One, we get super into the data and we look at how my numbers have been coming out. We also started talking about Stride and the program that I’m using through Stride. I have an update, but we’ll listen to his interview first. It’s not really an interview. It’s more of a discussion. After that discussion, I’ll give you an update on how things are going as well.

We’ll do that in the back end. Other than that, what prayer tell do you have in store for people?

We have big news on the Tread+. We also have some updates. The earnings call is coming up, so we have some discussion about that. We also discuss lots of things that Peloton has been up to, not to mention the instructors being in the news. We also have a visit from Dr. Jenn and we talk about when grief is impacting your motivation. We have an artist series update, past guest update, and a bunch of content stuff as well.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, iHeart, TuneIn, and YouTube. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. It is super helpful and we very much appreciate it. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. It’s a great way to stay up to date on things throughout the week so you don’t have to wait for the weekly episodes.

If you would like to support the show, we would love to have you. You can do that over at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. It’s only $5 a month and you get tons of stuff along with it. It’s not just a donation. We give you things in return. You get ad-free episodes. If we get the episodes early, you get them early. If we get them late, you’ll get them a little bit earlier than everyone else who’s getting them late. We’ve been pretty good lately. We just had some hiccups at the top of the year. We’ve been back on a roll. Of course, you get bonus episodes. It’s extra stuff that we didn’t have time to fit in the episode because we’re trying to keep these tighter.

This is a busy week for that.

There’s another 20 to 30 minutes of content over there. If that’s your jam, we would love to have you. Also, don’t forget, you can watch all these episodes over at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Finally, you can get all the links and whatnot sent to you if you sign up for our newsletter at TheClipOut.com. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall

‐‐‐

We finally have some insight as to when the Tread+ will begin shipping.

I don’t know if anybody who tunes in has been checking out the OPP, but there have been pretty much every five minutes since January 2nd, “Does anyone know when the Tread+ is going to start shipping?” We got an answer.

That is irritating if you’re on the OPP, but so is being on the OPP at this point, like you know what you’re in for. I don’t know about that for you. I will also say that’s maybe a good sign that many people have bought one and TikTok where it’s at.

That is true. They needed that to happen because don’t forget, they had 10,000 of them sitting in a warehouse somewhere. We got an answer. Emails started going out that Tread+ will start shipping in two weeks. That is early 2024. They are saying that all of the pre-orders that are in right now will be delivered by the end of April. I know there are a lot of people who are upset about how long this is taking, but I want to remind everyone that when Tread+ first came out, I had to wait an entire year after I pre-ordered, so you all settle down.

They were like, “It will be out by the Fall,” and on December 20th, you got yours.

It was as close to the Winter Solstice as you can get.

It was delivered by two Wiccans. That’s how close to the Winter Solstice that was.

It’s funny though. I get that people want their machine and I know they’re excited. I understand that, but you all chill. On the other hand, I can understand that they had them sitting in the warehouse. What is the problem? My theory is they are trying to coordinate the rear guards being installed with the existing ones and any feature changes that could be happening all at the same

If you ordered one and you’ve been waiting, your wait is almost over.

Congrats.

Also, there is some Lanebreak-Tread+ news.

This is speculation. Let me be very clear, but about a week ago, there was a video that popped up on Peloton Studios Instagram. It was Matt Wilpers and he was talking about all the technology that was dropping across Peloton in January. That video was taken down approximately 30 minutes after it was released. Before it got taken down, I saw that they said that Lanebreak for Tread+ was everywhere, and it’s not, which is why the video got taken down. Back to my point about the Tread+ getting ready to ship, it’s pretty safe to say that we are close. By the end of January, I suspect that we are all going to have Lanebreak for Tread+ and I’m very excited about that.

Let me ask you this and play devil’s advocate. What if it got pulled because it’s not going to be ready in time for January and it’s going to be mid-February?

Anything is possible and that could go along with the Tread+ starting to ship within two weeks. If they already created the content, I guess that somebody put it up on the wrong day. They had it scheduled

It was supposed to go out on the fourth Wednesday and they hit the third Wednesday in their little calendar view. Not that I’ve ever done that.

We all have. Anybody who does anything with a calendar has put it on the wrong day. I’m not promising anybody anything but I feel strongly that it’s going to happen by the end of January.

Moving right along, Motley Fool had an article that I think was on Yahoo.

It was everywhere.

It’s talking like this is groundbreaking.  I guess for a lot of people it is. They’re like, “How Peloton makes its money.” It’s not from the equipment. It’s not from the thing that they sell you once and then you never buy from them again.

If you look at the financials over the last several years, that has shifted. It used to be that the equipment side of things was a lot bigger than everything else, but that has shifted for obvious reasons. Once you have the piece of equipment, you need another piece of equipment.

They were hitting critical mass and constantly bringing in new people to buy equipment. Where they’re making their money is off the membership fees.

Barry has been saying that since day one. He was like, “We need to be in all the places. I don’t care what machine they do it on. I want them to be on Peloton.”

This is the business model for everyone. It’s like if you buy a toaster, they’re like, “Would you like to pay for the monthly ‘Set your toast by what it looks like’ on the app?”

I don’t know why anybody would do that on a piece of toast.

I don’t know. Don’t try it.

They will.

If they can get you to give them $895 a month for the ability to do it, then they’ll do it. Everything is like that. Do you remember when we were kids and you could buy and own the software?

You had to install it on your computer.

Now you can buy software anywhere.

I was perusing things and I happened to see that every posting out there about job stuff these days is like, “Software as a Service.” Everything is that these days.

Even movies. We have a shitload of movies on video that we own, like 1,200 or 1,300 movies on video. I buy them when they go on sale. They’re like $5, but if you read the terms and conditions, you don’t own those movies when you buy them. They could theoretically take them away at any time. If they did, there would start an uproar. I don’t think that that will happen or I wouldn’t be buying so many of them, but you don’t technically own those. You can’t download them in those instances.

This is very timely, especially because the earnings call is next week. We’re going to get into some of the things that I talked about. This week, I did a little video for TikTok and I put on there all the things that we expect to hear about in the earnings call, like talking about the Lululemon partnership, the POP facility, and all of those things. They all drive toward this right. This is the revenue side of things, but if you’re going to have six billion people on the platform, you have to be on the app. You’re not going to sell that many pieces of equipment. That’s not realistic, so you have to go where the people are.

I know you would make more from the memberships if you have equipment but in a lot of ways, you probably rather get the app because they don’t have to worry about the equipment breaking or you being upset because it got shipped. There’s zero overhead and adding one more person to the app platform. That is all profit. That’s the goal.

That is.

Speaking of the POP facility, it was sold last week. Right after we got done recording, you came across this story.

This is a big deal. This is monumental. Some moments pass quietly and it doesn’t affect any of us, so you don’t think about it, but this is a big deal. Peloton bought this piece of equipment when the pandemic boom for Peloton was at its height. They bought it for $6.2 million because it was just land. They then started creating the manufacturing facility in the Summer of 2021. In February 2022, John Foley stepped down.

The wheel started to come off.

About 3,800 people were let go. Everything changed by February. It’s that quick. That’s how it went, then they couldn’t get rid of this fast enough. They said at that time that they were not going to use it. They started putting it up for sale. It has taken till 2024 to sell this.

It’s not like selling a house. He sold his house in the Hamptons pretty quickly. There’s a limited number of people or companies that are going to need a facility of this nature. You have a lot fewer opportunities to sell. Any one of us could buy a house in the Hamptons. That’s easy peasy, but a whole manufacturing facility, what would I manufacture?

it ended up selling for $33 million and it was sold to First Solar, which from everything I’ve read is the largest solar panel manufacturer in the United States. First Solar bought it and it’s done. This means though, in time for the next earnings call, that we should see or at least understand how it’s going to affect the next quarter. We’ll get to hear some very preliminary ideas of how it’s going to affect the financials. I’m excited about that. Hopefully, the stock market likes it too.

If you applied for your world record certificate for the Turkey Burn, they are shipping out. We have a picture here of someone holding it.

This is Trish. Remember, we sat with her in London. I also used this picture without Trish’s consent. We’re hoping Trish is okay with that. She posted it in another group. I thought it would be all right. The Guinness World Records has arrived.

it’s a nice little little thing in the picture.

She was in both classes so she got two. I will also say that a lot of people When she was posting about this, a lot of people didn’t realize that like we had posted the link. You can order it. The link is on our website. It’s super easy to find if this is something you are interested in. It’s exciting, you know to be part of something like that.

Peloton-Lululemon’s Move For You collaboration now has an official event.

You might remember that a few weeks ago, we talked about something that might be occurring at the Minneapolis location of Mall of America on January 28th. It turns out we were right. On January 28th, some of the Lululemon instructors will be at the Mall of America Lululemon location. Keep in mind that this is the experiential store. It’s the ginormous one.

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There are going to be classes taking place that are live with these instructors at that store. Can you be part of it? You missed your chance. This went up and it was gone so fast. The other interesting thing that the helper bees and I thought about this is that we were just buzzed with the information. You have to be a Lululemon studio member to be able to get this. You couldn’t just be Peloton. You have to be one of the studio people.

Good for them.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. That’s our instructors.

It’s in a Lululemon store. If you paid money to do this Mirror thing, which we all know was stupid, there should be some small upside. “Here you go,” they pulled you into the Peloton ecoverse, and to thank you for having a membership to this stupid piece of equipment, you get to meet these instructors. You get the first crack at that. I feel okay about that.

There you go. An interesting turn of events that was odd is that Lululemon instructors taught at the Peloton studios. The odd part about that is it was not hyped up at all. When I say it wasn’t hyped up at all, I mean Peloton said nothing about it. There were no posts. Peloton sent out emails to members. You had to be a Lululemon studio member to be part of these classes. That was it. This was not posted on Peloton socials. This was posted on Lululemon socials.

Were they teaching classes for leftover Mirror subscribers, but doing it from the Peloton studios with the Peloton instructors, but with Lululemon instructors?

It’s both. They were all there. It’s a party.

That’s very odd.

What does that mean? Is there more coming? I do not know that there is. The last of the Mirror live classes were aired this week. I do know that. The instructor that was there, I don’t know his name because I don’t take their classes, but I know that in the Lululemon Mirror studio world, he’s a big deal.

He’s their Cody.

People were very excited about it, and the instructors from Lululemon seemed very excited about it too. I thought it was weird that Peloton said nothing. What does this say about their partnership when we go to their location and it’s everywhere? They come to our location and it’s wickets. I don’t know how to read that or I know how to read that. I just don’t know what was intended by that.

There’s a lot to unpack. I don’t know what to make of it. Going to the Peloton studio and getting a Lululemon instructor would be like seeing Van Halen with Gary Cherone.

I don’t know who that is.

He’s the third lead singer of Van Halen.

That’s why I don’t know. No one cares. That’s your point. I’m with you on that.

He was the lead singer of Extreme who they brought in after Sammy Hagar. I remember when they played in St. Louis. They were Van Halen in St. Louis. They were selling lawn tickets for $5 because nobody cared.

That’s saying a lot. I know that people who are tuning in don’t get the significance of that in Saint Louis, but Van Halen and Louis, I don’t know why.

Van Halen is big everywhere.

Of course, they are, but in Saint Louis, it’s super big. I don’t understand.

To put it in perspective, when Sammy Hagar plays in St. Louis, he will sell 20,000 tickets every single time. Anywhere else in America, he’s good for 2,000 to 4,000. Here, he will sell 20,000 tickets every single time. Anyway, that’s very odd.

I think so. One last item about Lululemon and Peloton. There was the Move For You challenge that’s occurring, and for people who completed the challenge, Peloton is sending out gifts. I don’t know if that’s to everybody but I do know that some people are getting gifts for completing the challenge.

It seems unlikely that everyone would get a gift.

I guess it depends on how many people do it. I get what you’re saying and I agree with you. I don’t want everybody to think they’re getting a gift because I don’t know.

I’m thinking you’re not getting a gift.

I know I’m not because I didn’t do it.

If you did it, I doubt it’s for everybody. It seems expensive. Also, an interesting thing in the world of Precor, they have introduced the next generation of cardio consoles.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about how all these treadmills outside of Peloton are suddenly able to communicate with the Peloton app. Peloton did not communicate anything after we asked. They were like, “We have no comment on that.”

“What are you talking about?”

They didn’t say that. They just said they had nothing to say about it and they were very polite. No matter how you expand it, it’s no comment. Regardless, the interesting thing is this new console allows you to use whatever is on your phone. it doesn’t matter if it’s Peloton, Mirror, FightCamp, or whatever. You can mirror whatever is on your phone. That’s the whole point of it.

That makes perfect sense because Precor is primarily going to be in public-facing areas like hotels, public gyms, and YMCAs so they need to be able to do whatever you have on your phone instead of trying to force you into another ecosystem.

I agree with that. It’s interesting that it’s quietly done.

Do you think this signals any change for screens for Peloton equipment? Is there a Bike++ in our future?

I don’t know. Maybe this is what I want. Long before we see a Bike ++, we’re going to see the Tread++.

You’ll see a better Tread+ than the current Tread+. What would you do to make it better?

We talked about this already. It’s been a couple of months since they first started selling them, but keep in mind that the Tread+ that is being sold right now is stock from 2018. I think you’re going to get an updated tablet. You’re going to get potentially a different motor. Although I’ve been told there’s a difference between AC and DC. Even though it’s a different horsepower, it’s better in the Tread+. Primarily, I see potentially the tablet being updated on the Tread+. I don’t know what other things they will add to that but I think that the tablet on the Tread+ needs to be a Tread++. I think when they get done selling these 10,000, that’s what they’re going to do. That could be two years from now. I don’t mean that’s going to be soon, but I do think it’s coming.

Do you think you’ll be able to purchase a new tablet and swap them out?

No, never anybody ever does that. That’s like saying, “Apple, why don’t you give me a chord I can use on every single one of my devices?”

You were able to buy a new tablet for the bike at one point.

Only because that was a specific upgrade. My tablet had to be replaced because it wasn’t working. That is not the same because it’s a different shape and it fits onto the treadmill differently. I don’t know if it will be or not because it doesn’t even exist. This is all in my head. Companies don’t do that. They don’t make it easy for you. If you’ve had the Tread+ since 2018, I put a lot of miles on that thing,

I get that, but if you’ve had it since 2024, that’s a different story.

I don’t know. That’s why I’m not expecting this is going to be three months from now. I think it’s going to be down the road.

Nothing lasts forever. Coming up after this, we’re going to hit instructors in the news. We’re going to talk about Jenn Sherman’s return, and when and where you can find her, so stick around.

‐‐‐

Jenn Sherman is back.

She made her return on Tuesday the 23rd at 10:00 AM with the 20-minute ‘80s ride. Lots and lots of people were there because it had been eight full weeks since she had been live in a class.

That’s a bit of time. I’m glad that she has returned and you don’t have to constantly get peppered with, “Where is Jenn Sherman?”

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People freak out when they don’t see an instructor. I’ll tell you more about it in the bonus episode.

She’s going to get saucy. That’s for $5.

People jump to conclusions that are ridiculous without any basis in reality.

That’s always the case. If you don’t give people an explanation, even a vague one, they will construct their own narrative.

It’s usually the worst-case scenario because we are human and that is what we do.

It’s always going to go like they fired her or she was abducted. It’s always going to be something crazy.

Peloton is silencing her.

I’m glad that she is back.

Me too. Welcome back, JSSs.

Tunde posted an interesting picture that may or may not be indicative of something.

If you are watching on YouTube, you’re going to want to zoom into this. This is a photo shoot with Tunde. Nothing that exciting.

She gets her picture taken all the time.

Nikki spotted this, not me. The interesting thing to us is that she’s clearly wearing a Peloton bra, so this is for Peloton. What class do you know has a barbell?

I’m probably not the right person to ask that.

That was rhetorical. Also, what class do you know that has a bench in it? The only thing that I can think of that exists like that are Peloton gym classes, but they don’t film those. It’s just a series of moves. That’s the whole point.

You can work at your own speed.

Does that mean we’re going to see Peloton gym classes that are filmed like traditional classes? Does that mean we’re going to see more weight classes that are more traditional weight classes?

More than just dumbbells for your arms.

Does it mean this has something to do with Mirror Studio, and it has nothing to do with Peloton, except for the fact that she’s wearing a Peloton bra? If this was for Lululemon, there would be a Lululemon emblem. Also, Tunde is not a Lululemon instructor.

At least not yet.

That’s also true. I can’t believe that they would get ahead of that.

If that’s the case, they’re all getting ahead of whatever this could be.

Could it be that we’re reading way too much into this like I just accused some people of Jenn Sherman? It’s possible.

You’re not apoplectic. You’re just like, “Oh, intriguing.”

It’s a question.

Here’s my next question. If this were for Peloton, does that mean Peloton is going to start selling barbells and weights?

They already sell weights. You mean plates.

There we go. I have a Tonal. I don’t know what this is called.

I don’t know. We shall see. There’s nothing branded Peloton there, which is another interesting thing.

Is that bench already out in the wild? I know nothing about these things.

It’s just an inclined bench. It’s hard to tell if that exists. They look similar.

Let me feed into your QAnon-level conspiracy theory here.

Come with me.

It has orange knobs.

I did notice that. One of the tipsters immediately said that their BowFlex gym bench also has red knobs. It could mean anything.

BowFlex might have it. Do you think there is a shot in hell that they would photograph Tunde on BowFlex equipment? Even if it’s not equipment or even if it’s equipment they don’t sell, I have to say no.

Not and post it on social media. I’m thinking no. The feet on that thing look very Peloton-esque.

It’s a very different-looking style bench, but I know nothing about benches except the one that came with our Tonal, which is nothing like this, but it also looks like the other weight benches I’ve seen in my life. I didn’t look at the weight bench from the tunnel and go, “That’s an interesting rethink.” That’s a bench and they put the Total name on it, which is fine, but this looks unique.

it’s an incline-decline bench. You can use it in a lot of different ways, but there are a lot of incline-decline benches out there.

It would give Peloton more things to sell. Like Joe Rogan, we’re just asking questions and forming crazy conspiracy theories.

It’s fun. Let’s vote on them. That would be good.

Susie Chan has a documentary about her that came out from Peloton Originals.

Let’s focus on Susie for a second. She’s so amazing.

I don’t think other women are amazing

Sure, but I watched this and there is quite a bit of focus on the Peloton community. I see quite a bit, probably 3 to 5 minutes out of a 30-minute documentary. It’s a good focus on how much the Peloton community has supported Susie. Also, it shows her entire journey. It’s super cool. To Tom’s point, my favorite part about this is Peloton Originals, which I did post another article. I don’t know if you have another article in here about that.

As a matter of fact, I do not.

I’ll wing it then. The interesting thing is when Peloton said that this documentary was dropping, it had a splash screen that said Peloton Originals, which is very movie production studio sounding.

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This is a long-form thing for Peloton, 30 to 35 minutes.

When you think back about Becs doing her Olympic trials for the Great Britain Olympic team, they had a documentary about her. It was very different because it ended up being four parts, each about 7 to 8 minutes and there they were released in little chunks over four different weeks. it ended up being about the same length of time, but the presentation was very different. It did not say Peloton Originals on it. That was different now. I did reach out to powers that be at Peloton and I got a chuckle in response. They said, “This was done by our content team.” That was it.

Maybe they put it on there as a little joke like, “We’re studio now.”

I don’t know. They had credits on this thing though. It said, “Produce by.” It said, “Featuring.” It had all the instructors’ names on it. Maybe Becs but I never paid attention to that because I’m usually watching things while I’m doing something else. It’s possible that I miss that. The other interesting thing about this was it dropped on all of the equipment today. On the entertainment section, make of this what you will, there is now a Peloton Originals section.

All of the documentaries that Peloton has made including Ally with Usher, Becs Gentry, and Susie Chan are all out there. You can workout just like you would if you were watching Amazon TV, YouTube TV, or whatever. Several of you wrote to me that you don’t have it yet. I think they’re still rolling entertainment out. If it’s still in beta and you don’t have it, you don’t have it. For those of us who do, it’s there and you can go see it. You would get it just like you would with any of the other entertainment options.

The fact that they created its own channel or their gearing up to, it makes me think that you’re going to see a lot more of these.

It also coincides with my say about TikTok Fitness because they’re going to have all of these things that they’re showing over on TikTok Fitness. There’s going to be specific classes. There’s going to be behind-the-scenes content. I think we can expect to see that on Peloton Originals as well. I forgot to say that if you take that class with Susie and the Badwater documentary, you get a Badwater 135 badge. It’s almost like you ran 135 miles with Susie. It’s pretty much the same thing. Just joking.

Robin Arzon is celebrating ten years with Peloton.

Doesn’t she look different?

I don’t remember what she looked like before.

This is before. This is ten years ago.

I don’t remember what she looks like now.

She looks different. It’s been ten years. She aged. She looks great in both. That’s not a negative thing. I find it interesting that I’ve been on this platform this long. People are changing how they look over time. Congrats to Robin for a full decade.

I look identical. I’ve always been short and bold. I was born that way.

That’s why we celebrate you.

‐‐‐

Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. She was also a five-year national team member in rhythmic gymnastics and a sports psychologist for USA Gymnastics. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

We have another question for you. It’s going to resonate. It makes me tear up thinking about it. This is from Jenny Davis. She lost her mother in September after nearly two years of being her primary caretaker. She is exhausted and grieving. She knows what she needs to do to be and feel healthy, but she’s struggling with finding the motivation. That makes sense.

Jenny, I feel you, girl.

Are you submitting questions to yourself?

Jenny, I also lost my mom in June as many of you know, and I get this. Every time I’ve gotten on the tread, the cycle, the rower, or even on the mat, I consider it to be an accomplishment. It has taken so much more energy. Every workout takes so much more energy than it did before after losing someone that you love and that’s okay. First of all, one of the things that I do is think about how I want to feel at the end of this instead of how it feels to start this. My assumption since my mother passed away is that starting it is going to feel shitty but in the end, I’m going to feel glad that I did it.

Working out is important for your mood, getting some serotonin, and getting a sense of accomplishment. Those things are important right now and I also get how much a struggle it is. I want to encourage you to do a few things. One is if you’re not already in therapy or involved in a grief and loss support group, I want to encourage you to do that because having someone to talk to and a place to bring this to and someone to help you go like, “That’s normal. That’s understandable,” is important. Surround yourself with people who knew your mother.

For me, I’ve had a lot of time. I reached out to a girlfriend of mine from high school who spent a lot of time with my mom.  I had her over for dinner. We sat and talked about my mom. It’s just people who knew my mom. Any memories that anyone can share with me that either I forgot about or I didn’t know about, for me, it’s like a gift from my mom. I can’t have conversations with her now that she’s not here, but being able to hear conversations she had with other people is like I’m with her. That’s valuable and meaningful to me. I’m sure it is to Jenny. Also, understand the stages of grief and loss. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross talked about denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You don’t get to graduate from one and check it off,

Just because they list them in order doesn’t mean they take place in order.

It can go in any order and you can vacillate between anger and sadness in a minute or two, a day, or a week. Understanding what these stages are is important. Give yourself the room for self-care. Plan it in your day because it’s going to take more energy. I’m taking a lot more baths. I got a candle that has my mom’s name on it and some stuff about her. I burn it when I have to take my bath and my mom loves baths. I also like more incense than I did before and I try to do things that help me be calm and help center myself and be in touch with my grief.

Also, talk to other family members. Talking to my daughters, Eric, and my dad has been helpful with all of this. I hope, Jenny, that you have some support whether you’re in a relationship or you have siblings or other relatives who knew and loved your mom. It’s a loss and in a situation like yours, you grieve the loss of your healthy mom and you also grieve the loss of your sick mom. You had this time period for two years when you were taking care of her and you were her caregiver and that was a different dynamic. We grew up with a parent taking care of us. At a certain point, that flips if they have an extended illness and we become their caregiver. That’s a whole different relationship that you grieve.

What a great point.

I was thinking the same thing. When my mom died, I wasn’t her caregiver by any stretch of the imagination. She was in and out of comas and stuff for three months. In those three months, it was just me and my sister. We were constantly vigilant going back and forth to the hospital or hospitals and then nursing homes and then back to hospitals. There’s also this feeling of guilt sometimes because I did not want it to end the way it did, but there was also a sense of relief when it was over.

She wasn’t suffering anymore. You don’t have to watch her in this terrible state. Some families don’t talk about death, illness, and others. I happen to come from a family where we talked about that a lot. My mom doesn’t want to be hooked up to these machines. My mom’s preference is to help her pass or to not see her struggle unnecessarily. It’s so upsetting even more so. Not only you’re watching someone you love suffer, but you also know that this is not what they want. Also, there are certain things you can’t change.

My mom kept almost getting better. They were trying to get her to the point where they could do an organ transplant and then they would get her to a certain benchmark and she’d get almost there and then fall back. It kept doing that. Thank you for answering that. I know that’s a topic that’s very recent for you and that can be difficult.

I’ve only done one post since my mom passed away in June and that was about grief and loss. Jenny, check out my Instagram @DrJennMann. Hopefully, that will help you a little bit.

Thank you so much. Coming up after this, we’re going to tell you who the latest artist series is spotlighting and give you a past guest update. Stick around.

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The latest artist series spotlights Pink.

I’m so excited about this.

Are you a fan?

A little bit, but here’s the cool part, Tom. Susie Chan is teaching a Pink class.

I’m surprised there’s no Crystal shrapnel everywhere.

The squee was so loud that all the helper bees heard it. I am so excited about this. I am not the only one. She is a big deal, but this particular article has been shared so much more than any of the other past articles. The Artist Series typically gets like and people make their little comments, “Who? Who is this?”

“Who’s Pink?”

I didn’t see that one. People are so stoked. This has been shared everywhere. People are tagging their friends. They are so excited and there are a crap ton of classes, fourteen classes. That’s fourteen chances to have an amazing class with Pink. I am so down for this.

You can raise your class.

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You might recall a guess we had a while back, Jill Alana. She’s a little person. She had a lot of interesting tidbits about how she can use Peloton because the bike is not equipped for someone of her size. She has a podcast.

She was able to have Bradley Rose on her podcast. The name of her podcast is Always Looking Up. She sat down and talked to Bradley Rose. They talked about what it means to be part of the disabled. She ended up taking the disabilities class with Bradley as well. She was very excited about that.

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She should be.

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Crystal, don’t forget that we need to do another Bingo call-out in this episode.

Noted.

I’m here to help you.

Thank you, Tom. This is bingo call-out number two for the episode, Nico Sarani. As a reminder, if you don’t typically take classes with German instructors, you will or might need to make sure you change your filters to include German instructors.

Now that Bingo is out of the way, let’s take a look at the TCO Top Five, where we reach out to you, the audience, and make you do work so we don’t have to. The first class that people are recommending this week is your favorite Peloton row bootcamp.

Our first class is a Peloton row bootcamp. This is from November 13th and it is a full-body 45-minute with Katie Wang. Sonia Norman is bringing the second-ever row bootcamp to the TCO Top Five. She loved the five-segment format. She says that her legs were still sore from the lower body floor segment and she loves Katie’s personality and positive energy. Katie is great.

We then have our favorite Peloton ride. This was from December 17th, a 30-minute ‘80s pop ride with Ally Love. Greta Kinner had this as her pick for the week. “The playlist was packed with hits from the ladies who rocked the ‘80s. The music and energy in the class pushed you to the top of the hills with confidence. Her emotional shout-out was moving and inspiring. What a way to start a Monday.” That’s awesome.

We had our favorite Peloton arms and lightweights. This is from January 10th, 2024, a 10-minute arms and lightweights with Kirsten Ferguson. Holly Brim said, “Honestly, this one after a run might have only been 10 minutes and light weights, but she didn’t waste a second of it and made sure those weights made you work.”

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone recommend an arms class that wasn’t Tunde.

We have the favorite Peloton Artist Series. This comes from January 18th, Leanne Hainsby’s 30-minute Earth, Wind, and Fire ride. It was stirring quite the buzz. Marilyn Marsad said that Leanne’s Earth, Wind, and Fire Ride from January 18th was so fun, and she knew all the songs to sing along to. We have our favorite unstackable. This was a run from September of ‘23. This was a 60-minute pop run with Jeffrey McEachern. This one came from Theresa Miller. She said that her class hits both, so top class and an unstackable. The class and the playlist were awesome. It did not feel like 60 minutes. She would not stack it. She still getting used to running for 60 minutes, understood. She will bookmark it to take it again. That’s awesome.

Lots of new stuff to talk about in This Week at Peloton.

There were a bunch of new things. We have new low-impact cardio classes dropping. Those are going to be taught by Callie Gullickson and then that’s joining what Rebecca Kennedy has been doing. That’s the first time Callie is having these classes. Also for the first time, we are seeing strength benchmark classes. Each of these classes will have a benchmark segment that you can keep returning to so you can see how you’ve progressed over time. Robin Arzon will be teaching a live 20-minute full-body strength class. A 20-minute body weight class, taught by Andy Spear will drop at the same time.

We have new Chelsea set classes Focus Flows. There are going to be two of these dropping. They’re going to build on the signature poses and they will be available on demand on Friday, January 26th. We also have new German classes. Peloton is continuing to expand the German collection. There are going to be German dubbed Pilates and Shadow Boxing. That’s going to be dropping on-demand on the 26th, and more content is on the deck for the following day. We’re going to be getting a 30-minute tread bootcamp, taught by Marcel Mauer. That’s going to be dropping on Saturday the 27th. Lots of fun stuff

We also had some new apparel stuff come out.

There were a lot of things number one. There is a winter sale going on selected items only, but you get an extra 50% off of those sale items. Also, there was a brand new capsule collection that dropped from Nux. We have not seen a Nux capsule collection. We haven’t seen a collection from Nux in years.

What’s Nux?

It is an apparel brand. I have a light purple set from probably 2019 or maybe 2020. it’s been a long time since we’ve seen it. There was another Lululemon drop that happened as well. I didn’t see anything in the women’s side that I had to have, but the men’s colors like if you’re watching right now, Andy Spears is wearing this pretty cranberry color. I wish they had that color for women because I want that shirt in women’s sizes. I know I could buy it, but they never fit the same, so don’t at me.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I had more money for Vudu movies.

I’ve got plenty right now. Don’t worry. I’ll be back.

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Finally, we have one birthday. It’s on January 28th and it is from Kendall Toole’s mother I guess. Technically, it is who it’s from. Since we don’t have a way to say hi to Kendall Toole’s mother, we say happy birthday to Kendall Toolel instead.

Happy birthday.

Coming up after this, we’re going to have our interview of the week. Crystal is going to talk to Andrew Sellars about VO2 Masters and her journey there, so stick around. You don’t have to listen to me.

—

Normally, we have Tom doing the introductions, but he is working today. It is going to be me and Dr. Andrew Sellars, who was on a few weeks ago. We talked about VO2 Master and my long-term plan to use VO2 Master to run the New York City Marathon in 2025. I’m excited to have Dr. Sellars back to talk about what’s happened since then. Andrew, thank you so much for joining.

Thank you very much for inviting me back. It’s great to be back. It’s an exciting week in the marathon. I don’t know if you watched the Chicago Marathon.

Can you imagine being able to run that fast that long?

Even being able to run that fast for 200 meters would be incredible for most people. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the track with a big open rubber track running at Kipchoge’s world-record pace.

No, I didn’t see it.

There’s a great online video on YouTube of a whole bunch of people off the street trying to run that speed on a moving truck. Nobody lasts more than about ten seconds. It’s incredible how fast they move to be able to run those times. For those who don’t know, he wrote the Chicago Marathon record. I saw two different posts, and I double-checked to see whether he wrote the world record, but he’s right down around 201 for a marathon, which is faster than 20K an hour, which in the US would be faster than 13 miles an hour.

It’s incredible to think that a human being can move that fast and that long. My brain cannot wrap my head around it.

The other exciting thing for me is it’s Ironman Week. The world championships for the men happened for the first time in France in 2024 because they split the men’s and women’s races. Two of the athletes that we support did well. One of the athletes that I worked with won world championships for the first time. That’s Sam Laidlow from France. We were over there doing the same testing that you’re doing. He was second in Kona. He won in Nice, which is awesome.

The women’s race is happening in Kona, and it’s the first time they’ve had a designated weekend for women’s racing. It’s only women racing. There are 3,000 women and about 60 pro women, with a few athletes that we support. One of my old friends, who I grew up doing triathlons with from Victoria, is the first 50-year-old pro-woman to qualify for Kona, and she’s racing Kona for the first time.

Watch out for Melanie McQuaid, who’s close to my age. She’s a little younger than me, but she is racing in Kona for the first time. In the front of that field, the top eight women will close. It’ll be the most exciting race to watch in years because the women won’t be distracted by the age group of men they’re racing with themselves. It’s an exciting sport.

I will be watching that. I had no idea they even separated them out.

It’ll be midmorning your time because you’re 4 or 5 hours after Hawaii time.

I’m two hours after California.

You’re four hours after Hawaii. They’ll be midmorning by the time they start. They start at 7:00 AM. It’ll be 11:00 your time.

I will be watching. My numbers will not be that impressive.

Your numbers are impressive for what you are doing. You’re doing great. As a quick recap, this is the test results from your first test that you did. This is a one-minute step test. You started at an easy pace, which is a walking pace for you. You went up to as fast as you felt that you could do. This summarizes those results.

We went over this last time, but the maximum heart rate on that day was 167, which gave you a VO2 max of 31. You were using a treadmill to determine that power output of 230. The program determined a VT1 and a VT2. These are ventilatory thresholds. This is below this. You’re going quite easy. Your warmup early fat-burning phase between VT1 and VT2 is your endurance phase. Above VT2, you’re getting into vigorous and maximal efforts. We were using these to help guide your training. I was asking you to do all of your training under VT2 and see what happens. The training between VT1 and VT2 is what I was recommending.

I also asked you to repeat the test after a month. I suggested that instead of doing the one-minute step test you did a three-minute step test. I have that result here. We’re going to take a quick look at this to compare. Some of the numbers are the same. You reached this similar max heart rate. What this one was 167. On the three-minute step, you hit 166.

Interestingly enough, you used a lot more oxygen when you were going three minutes at a time. You maxed out at a higher wattage, but your VO2 didn’t climb as high. If you looked at VO2 max, you did way better. You’re now sitting in the 50th percentile. You’re sitting right at the mean for women your age. Whereas the first test you did, the program determines is a lower level than that. It calls it poor. I hate the wording, but it’s there.

You went from poor to fair. You’re cruising onto the good side. If you look at your VO2 max score, you’re like, “That’s fantastic.” If you look at it from my perspective, and this is why VO2 max I don’t think is a great determinant, is you didn’t run as fast because you were doing three-minute steps instead of one-minute steps. You got tired after three minutes at 200 watts. It was tiring. You couldn’t do the next step. When you only did one minute at 200 watts, you tried the next step, which was 230, and we’re able to do part of that 230.

The testing ends up making a difference to what the numbers show. You were using more oxygen to get an output that was not as high. That’s a backward slide. That’s not the trend we want to do. What we want you to do for the marathon is use less oxygen to run faster and have higher power outputs. Over time, what I want to see is you being able to sustain this high power output at lower oxygen outputs. That’ll mean to me that you’ll be able to sustain that for much longer. You’re going to need to sustain whatever power output you do for your marathon for 4 to even 5 hours.

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If we move this VO2 max even up into the excellent, but you can’t sustain it for long, it does you no good at all. The positive trend is that you’re able to tap into more oxygen use. The downward trend in this first month between the August test and the September test is you weren’t able to hit as high a wattage, which doesn’t matter for the marathon. Remember where you’re going to be running right now. If you had to run the marathon tomorrow, you’d be running 140 to 150 watts. It is the goal that we would set you for.

Ideally, a year from now, we’re going to be able to do this for 4 or 5 hours. It’s a three-minute effort for you. That’s where you end up failing after 3 or 4 minutes. The goal is to be able to do that for 3 or 4 hours. That’s what the focus is on. I don’t know if you had any questions about that quick review that you wanted to talk to everybody about, but the next question we were going to talk about is how to train now that you have this data. Do you have any questions before we move on from this?

I’m curious to see where the next test goes. I told you this when we were talking offline. I feel like my running has gotten easier with the same route that I take every day. I had vacations. I haven’t been able to test. It’s almost annoying because I want to test every day, and you’re not necessarily going to see that number go up. It messes with your head because I feel like I’m going slow. It is counterintuitive. I feel like if I ran faster more often, that would make the number go up. I hear you and I’m trusting the process, but I’m telling you, it’s driving me crazy.

For those who didn’t hear the advice from last time, I have given Crystal some basic recommendations, which are slow running and walking pace to keep her heart rate down because the long-term development of her cardiac system is going to benefit from lower heart rates. If she pushes these high heart rates, she’s not going to develop the structure of that heart in a way that’s going to benefit her for the marathon.

I insisted she back off the intensity. She could run longer and more comfortably with the goal of being able to add more time to her training and do a couple of long runs during the week, which requires her to slow down so she doesn’t burn herself out, and then she can run longer at lower intensities. I can understand that does drive some people crazy, especially if they’re coming out of a mindset where their training is  30 to 45 minutes and sometimes an hour. You’re trying to jam in as much intensity as you can because you only have an hour. You have to go hard. Otherwise, it doesn’t feel like a workout.

We’re making that switch to marathon thought and endurance sports, which are lower intensity for much longer training. If you try to do that same hammer intensity, you’ll kill yourself. You’ll last 4 or 5 weeks, and you’ll burn out. That’ll be the end of it. We need to keep the long-term, the New York marathon. That’s why I like the idea of New York because it’s more than a year away.

What we’re training for is the New York Marathon five years from now or Chicago ten years from now, where you’re still loving running and showing improvement. The fascinating thing about marathons is you can improve for the next ten years. The exciting thing is that you’re not going to be as good as you can possibly be next year. You’re going to be scratching the surface of what’s possible next year. Hopefully, we’ve made it so fun that you’re going to want to keep doing it, and it becomes a lifelong endeavor instead of just a one-year goal. My goal for you is to be happy after New York that you want to keep doing it.

I hope that happens. I would love that.

You sent me a question about whether Stride Sensors and the programs they develop are automatically based on what you’ve done before. They’re using your data to give you an idea of what a suitable or suggested training plan would be. I’m going to suggest you share that on the screen, and we can talk about some of the good points and the bad points of that plan and how we might be able to modify it to make it worthwhile for you.

For people that don’t know what Stride Sensors are, they’re little foot pods that you attach to the laces on your shoe. They pull a ton of data off of your running dynamics. The simplest thing it gives is how much power you are producing. It uses the speed at which those foot pods are moving and the number of foot strikes in a minute.

It can give you your cadence. It gives you how long a stride length you have. It can even tell you how long your foot is spending on the ground and your ground reaction time. The big metrics are cadence, stride length, and power out wattage. It converts it to wattage, which, for cyclists, is a handy metric because it becomes a lot easier to understand what good numbers are and what challenging numbers are.

Crystal looked at a number of different programs to see. She sent them to me to ask me my advice because Crystal and I aren’t in a coaching-athlete relationship. We’re helping her understand VO2 Master. I didn’t feel like I had the time to be able to coach her properly. She was looking for coaching options that she could fit into her schedule and work around a schedule.

She sent me to ask me for my advice about Stride One. I was quite impressed with how accurately Stride used the data that she’d presented to suggest tempos for her different duration runs. The one downside about Stride is that because it was using past information, most of the runs that Crystal had done before were short-duration, higher-intensity runs. The recommendations that Stride was giving her were for more of the same short-duration, high-intensity runs, but she’s trying to change what she’s working on. I suggested that the initial program that Stride was suggesting was short and didn’t give her long enough duration workouts to be beneficial.

Stride has this cool thing called a plan builder. You can pick all the different things. I went with a marathon. This was the last one I sent you. I said, “We want this to be base training.”

I’m going to give you my little periodization of training. I’m not a huge fan of periodization. For you, Crystal specifically, and for many athletes who are developed for running their marathon for the first time, you need years and years of base training. You don’t need any of the other parts of periodized training, which includes race prep and tapering. The more base training you do, the better you will be in five years.

We’re going to move away from the idea of periodized planning, but because that’s how they do it, they’re going to ask you to commit to a periodized idea as opposed to understanding. What we’re trying to do is develop your physiology, which happens through miles and months of steady commitment to training. That falls under the idea of base training.

You may not like this one because it’s still saying that I need to build fitness, but there are a lot of easy runs of 30 minutes. The longest run is three hours, and the week maxes at four hours and 55 minutes.

If you saw that page, it had a  smart development. It starts with volume that increases slightly each week. Over time, you can see it adds more duration each week and each month. Is that eight weeks?

That’s eight periods. That’s what it’s doing because it was saying it was twenty weeks long.

Each of those columns is a different week. What they’ve done is the first three weeks is a little bit more each week, and there’s a rest week, but with a lower volume. The next four weeks are more than the first three weeks, and there’s a down week. There are five weeks of higher volume, and there’s a rest week. A typical way that a lot of coaches would write this for you is slowly building up and a break. A little bit more than it did before and a little bit of a break. It’s a reasonable way to do it.

In our coaching methods, we tend to use your body to tell us when to take your breaks. As a basic free or low-cost program, this is not a bad way to do it. As long as you are using some metrics to see how you’re responding to that and making sure you’re not overstretching, over-pushing yourself, or underdoing it, this is a great way to go.

Those durations that they’ve suggested where there are some 2- and 3-hour runs towards the end after you’ve built up a tolerance for that are great. We need to be careful that we’re not over-pushing it. We are going to intermittently do it every 3 or 4 weeks to do some testing to see if it’s working and doing what it says it’s going to do. We’re going to modify the program based on those results. That’s how we are going to use VO two master. You and I are going to use VO2 Master to modify this program. It is to make sure that it’s not over-pushing you and not expecting you to run fast.

Is there anything else that we should look at?

Let’s take a look at one of the first workouts and see what it says. It’s a comprehensive program. There are some drills to do. Day one was an easy aerobic recovery run. It takes 20 minutes to do 1 mile, which is slow and easy. It gives you lots of time. It’s meant to be an easy jog. You can see the wattage. It’s giving you a predicted wattage of 109 to 124. We know that you can run 200 watts at the top end.

This is half of what you’re capable of doing. This is for you a walking pace. It might be a brisk walk. It might be a slow jog. If you start jogging, you’ll hit more than 120 watts. This is easy, but what they’ve listed is an easy aerobic recovery run. There are some drills. On day three, you use some near threshold in intensive. You can see the intensity is done in those blocks.

This is 45 minutes, two and a half miles. It’s saying that these are close to your threshold. If you remember, your ventilatory thresholds are around 155 to 160 watts. That’s what it’s predicted based on your previous run. This is where I was interested in seeing what intensities they were suggesting. It happens that this is going to be close to what I would’ve suggested from the VO2 data. What’ll be interesting for you is whether it feels like that or not and being able to see whether this intensity of interval training has benefits. What this is doing is trying to get you to run close to what your marathon pace is going to be for short intervals with lots of rest.

That’s why they have you recover right after that.

It’s six minutes of running and three minutes of recovery. It looks like they do that three times. They do one minute on and two minutes of recovery, which is twice as much rest as the running, and the OPPosite six minutes of running, three minutes of rest three times. At the end of that workout, that should feel like a hard workout for you. With the recovery, it should be sustainable. If this is predicting right, and if our VO2 testing confirms that those numbers are right, that’s the right intensity for you to do those thresholds, the intervals.

This is helpful for what I’m trying to do for the marathon. That was my other big question because you have me running whatever I can do or as much as I can get. I was nervous about taking on this without talking to you because I’m like, “I don’t know. Am I making it worse? Am I making it better?”

Doing this workout once a week is fine. This is all of your workouts being high-intensity intervals, which is why how you used to do it is not suitable for what you’re trying to build. One workout a week of a fun workout where there’s some higher intensity and challenge is fine.

That makes you feel a lot better.

There’s some strength work and plyometrics, which might be hard after that run. I’d be careful with those. Because it’s the first time you’ve done it, this is where you try it and see how it goes. You’re like, “My legs were so dead after that. I couldn’t imagine doing plyometrics.” My suggestion is you skip it if it feels hard. If it feels good, you keep doing it, and we chat about it after.

Later on in the week, there are some drills and an easy recovery run, which is twenty minutes long and one mile long. It’s short and slow for you. It might be a walk. It might be easy and short. Those are the ones that, if it feels way too easy and you want to add distance to it, you can add distance to that one. Your long run is an hour and fifteen minutes, which is getting close to four miles for you. If you scroll down and look at the wattages, those should be easy wattage numbers to hit.

With the Stride Sensor on and the VO2 testing, we would confirm that those numbers are easy for you. You may again have to walk jogging because it’s low intensity to keep your heart rate down low and keep in that wattage range. Anytime it goes uphill, you’ll be walking, but you may be able to do some easy jogging on the flats and the downhill to hold that wattage.

Do you think I should follow what they have?

I’d like to see what happens if you follow those numbers. I would be giving recommendations on your heart rate based on your VO2 data. When we look at later how your body responded to this, when you pull that data back and look at it afterward, you’re going to have your heart rate and the wattage data. We’ll be able to compare that to your VO2 tests and see where you fit. That’s what we’ll compare and say, “Those watts that you hit gave you the exact heart rate that we were hoping that would get you. We’re happy with that moving forward.”

If we look at that heart rate and your heart rate’s way higher than we expected it to be, these numbers are overpredicting what you should be doing. If your heart rate is low and you never got your heart rate up over 100 or 110, we can say that’s not benefiting you as much as we were hoping. We’re going to increase the intensity. We’ll use the data of how you felt on the day and what your heart rate did in response to these wattages to see whether we think this program will work for you.

This is a reasonable place to start. I don’t have any problems with any of those workouts other than listening to your body while you’re doing it to make sure that you’re not over-pushing. On those two easy workouts where they’ve given you twenty minutes to do a mile, it’s going to feel easy. If you feel like longer than that, by all means, those days, you’re okay to go longer, as long as you’re keeping it easy.

Anything else in Stride that you want to look at?

The main thing was to take a look at the first week because you can see all the weeks are similar. They’re going to slowly build distance up. They mainly do that by adding a little bit of time to each of the workouts. Instead of being a 20-minute workout, it’ll be a 30-minute easy jog. Instead of being an hour and fifteen, it’ll be an hour and a half. That’s how they’ll build the time.

That’s perfect because you can see a plan for twenty weeks. Mentally, that’s good because you are committing to something that’s going to keep you on track. A positive part of this whole thing is having some positive feedback that you’re checking out the boxes and you’re getting the work done. We’ll take a look and see how it’s responding.

We’re going to use VO2 Master to help. Is it making the difference that we want it to make? Are you feeling the changes that you’re expecting to see? It’d be interesting to see how your test goes this weekend. You and I’ll talk after the test to see how it went for you. The next time we get together for a podcast, we’ll have two more tests to see over time. One after your vacation and holidays. My suggestion would be in 3 or 4 weeks. You’re going to test again after three weeks of the Stride training, and we’ll say, “Here’s what we expect to see, and here’s what happened in that test.”

That is helpful. It’s disheartening that I feel like I went backward, but I genuinely feel better. When I go and do these runs, they feel easy.

There are two things to remember to not be disheartened about. That test was between August and September 2023, when you were getting started. The tests were different. One was a one-minute ramp test, and the other was a three-minute ramp test. Three minutes is harder to do. You’re spending longer at each interval.

We pulled those up not to say that you were taking a backward step but to show that if you look at VO2 max numbers and ignore everything else, your numbers look way better. You went from the 29th percentile to the 50th percentile. They’re way better. My concern is that if we ignore all the other pieces of information that are in that test set, we can be fooled into thinking you’re a remarkably better athlete. In four weeks, it doesn’t make sense that you would go that much.

What it shows is the difference in the test because you’re not that much different from an athlete in four weeks. I would’ve expected to see small changes. Your max heart rate was no different. Your ventilatory threshold was almost the same. Those are the changes that are going to happen slowly over time. It’s important not to get caught up in one number or test.

When we ignore all the other pieces of information that are in that test set, we could be fooled into thinking we’re a remarkably better athlete, which doesn't make sense in four weeks. Share on X

Because you’re noticing that there’s a difference, you’ll see more difference between the August and October tests or between the September and October tests because you’re noticing a difference already. That feeling will show up in a test. When we redo it again in 3 or 4 weeks after consistent training with a Stride Sensor, you’re going to see another small change. That’s what we’ll have a fun time looking at in the next episode.

Andrew, thank you so much for all of this. I  appreciate not only your time but your expertise and helping me understand all the numbers and stay on track. Thank you for all of this.

It’s a fun journey. I’m glad I get to be a part of it.

I am too. Thank you.

‐‐‐

I’m going to jump in before you wrap things up. I talked to Andrew Sellars after we went through all this data and I realized that I had been using my Stride on the tread to get my power. The point is that for a couple of those tests, I didn’t have that so the power is completely off. When we ran the numbers, I had improved by 40 points on my power across the board. He was like, “Make sure that at the end of that, you tell people that you have improved 40 points. I was super excited about that and I will be talking to Andrew again. That’s another checkup in a couple of weeks and I will have another update for you very soon.

I guess that brings the show to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can also find me on all the socials and the Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our Patreon at Patreon.com/TheClipOut, where for $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content and you get ad-free episodes. We like extra. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, keep pedaling and running and rowing.

 

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