WHOOP Podcast - Using Data to Navigate Ironman Training with Laura Philipp

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

On this week’s episode, WHOOP Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist Kristen Holmes is joined by Ironman European Champion and Ironman World Championship Bronze Medalist Laura Philipp. Laura is gearing up for the upcoming Ironman World Championship taking place this month in Nice, France. Kristen and Laura discuss Laura’s journey to becoming an Ironman (1:58), training for competition (8:28), using data to improve training (17:50), adjusting training around the menstrual cycle (19:07), Laura’s WHOOP data (29:57), tricks for a good night’s sleep (30:41) and goals going into the 2024 Ironman World Championship (39:44). Resources:Laura’s WebsiteLaura’s InstagramLaura’s YouTube ChannelLaura’s FacebookFollow WHOOPwww.whoop.comTrial WHOOP for FreeInstagramTikTokXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will AhmedInstagramXLinkedInFollow Kristen HolmesInstagramLinkedInSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

That's also a big component, I think, of having a good performance. You should love what you do and it shouldn't feel like a burden to raise or like a job to raise. You know, it's still, even though it is my job now, it's still like my biggest passion. And working with a data-driven approach, I think that just gives me the feeling that I'm actually trying to be the best. Welcome back to the Woo Podcast where we sit down with top performers, learn what the best in the world they're doing to perform. at their peak and what you can do to unlock your own best performance. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Woop. A reminder, if you're thinking about joining Woop, you can visit whoop.com and sign up for a 30-day free trial membership. You get the latest wearable

and the full Woop experience for 30 days to try and subscribe. On this week's episode, Woop Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist, Kristen Holmes, is joined by triathlete Laura Philip at the 23 Ironman World Championships Laura finished in third place and is looking to reach the podium once again at the World Championships in Nice later this month. Laura is a major

advocate for women's health as she was the first athlete in Germany to truly speak out on the impact of her menstrual cycle while training. She also utilizes data and woo to help her prolong her career and increase her longevity in sport. Kristen and

Laura discuss getting started in triathlons. She started at 24 with no formal experience in swimming, cycling, or running, competing and training for Iron Man's, nutrition and fueling, training across the mental cycle, Laura's Whoop data, and her mindset going into the Ironman World Championships. If you have a question once he answered on the podcast, email us, podcast at Wooop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. Here are Kristen Holmes and triathlete Laura Phillip. Laura, when you were 24, you entered a triathlon with no formal experience in swimming, cycling, or running. And now, fast forward 11 years and 20 victories in Ironman's 70.3 races.

And you're just a full-fledged triathlete. Explain to me how you go from no formal experience to just kind of jumping into triathlons. Yeah, thanks first of all. Yeah, honestly, when I hear an introduction like this, I ask myself the same question. So I never really plan to be like a full-time professional athlete or even be a professional athlete. I always love movement, but I don't have a background in any specific sport. So I tried out several things, but swimming has never been one of them. So yeah, triathlon never actually came into my mind until I supported some friends doing

a relay at a local triathlon and it looked like a lot of fun and I kind of had a little bit of experience riding my bike to school and back there was 60k per day so quite a bit of distance and I started running with my dog but just for fun so the only part missing for competing in a triathlon myself was actually the swimming so watching them doing the relay I had the thought maybe to challenge myself for the upcoming year because I, yeah, had the plan to sign up for the triathlon myself, just to see if I can, yeah, still learn something new, talking about the swimming. And I remember going to the pool, just trying to survive a few laps of freestyle, and I still remember how exhausting it was. I could, like, swim, but more breaststroke.

And definitely, I was super slow and, like, a really beginner. And I did struggle quite a bit. So I did question my goal of competing in the triathlon in the next year, but I kept going and this is actually something I'm still proud of because it's tough to take on a new challenge and especially if you're a bit older. You know, it's not so easy to learn something new again. I did the triathlon the following year and I was a bit lucky because the swimming was in a river so I had a bit of a current that dragged me along. So I survived it. And once I jumped on the bike, I felt like, you know, this is my thing. And I finished the first triathlon.

And from that moment on, I knew I found my sport. I continuously improved. And you mentioned the success I had, especially in the beginning. I focused on shorter distances, just, you know, because I didn't have any background in swim bike runs. So I really needed to build myself from the button, let's say, especially focusing on getting faster before I go longer from, the distance perspective. It took me quite a few years. In 2018, I actually also did my first Iron Man, like the full distance triathlon. And yeah, from that moment on, I knew I found my distance. And today I can look back on several, yeah, successes also over the Iron Man full

distance. So give us a breakdown of just the components of the full Iron Man. So how many, what are the mileagees, you know, for each, you know, for the run, bike, and swim? Yeah. So we have a few different distances in triathlon, but for the longer distances, the stuff that I'm focusing on, it's mostly the middle distance and the long distance. And the middle distance is also called 70.3 that goes down to the miles that we covered during the event. So the middle distance is 1.9K swim, a 90k bike, and then a half marathon to finish. And the Iron Man distance is then double the distance. So it's a 3.8k swim, 180k bike, and a marathon to finish off with. That's just wild. How many full triathons do you do in a year, full Iron Mans?

I would say as a professional athlete on a high performance level, you can do two to three Iron Man distances per year, like on a really high. level because you really have to consider that you need quite a recovery phase afterwards. There are some athletes that do more, but I think it, yeah, of course, depends on your body, on the way, you know, your background, just how robust you are and, yeah, also the level you're racing on. But for example, last year I did three Ironments and they went very well. Like I also recovered quite well from them, except the last one, which was the Iron and World Championships on Hawaii. And that is such a special race with like such hot and humid conditions.

So that makes like especially the recovery also a bit harder if you dig really deep under those conditions. But for example, this year I'm only doing two long distance races, but a handful more of shorter distances. to stay on the top or even, you know, become better, which is still something that I'm focusing on. Like, I want to continuously become better. For that, it's still super important to do a lot of shorter distances that require more speed and then try to bring that speed to the longer distances as well. Totally.

How long is in an Iron Man? How long does it take you to complete on average? So that depends a lot on the course profile. My personal best time for the Iron Man distance is eight hours, 14 minutes. Hawaii, which is special from the climate perspective, it's a bit slower than it's around 825-ish. It's a long day in the office. But, you know, we share the course with many age group athletes, and they, of course, take a bit longer. And I think the cut off time, so for the last finisher, is around 17 hours for those long-distance events.

So there are some people out there for quite a few hours. And this is actually something I could never imagine. I always try to, you know, focus on speed and be as fast as possible because it's already such a long day. So I'm always telling myself, like, go fast and then you're done. I've been able to look at your data. And it's so impressive how you manage the volume. How many hours are you training per week on average? Yes, so that's a problem.

As a triathlet, it's a lot of training volume. So you definitely need to like training. That's luckily something I do. And then, of course, it depends on the training approach that you're following. Some are maybe more volume focused. Some are more, yeah, intensity focus. So I think basically in the middle, so usually I train around 30 hours per week. that can be more when I'm at a camp for example

or if I'm like right now preparing for the world championships you know you really try to turn around everything and make sure you're in your peak shape so the last few weeks I've been at high altitude camp in St. Moritz in Switzerland for example and there we definitely turned up the volume also so I had some weeks with like 35 fish hours And I feel like this is pretty much the highest I should train because it's so important that you only train as much as you can actually recover.

This brings us to a point where also data is super important, you know, and body feeling and listen to, yeah, what your body tells you. And this is definitely a challenge as a triathlete because there's like this inner voice that continues to tells you, you should do more, you know, on a day where you're, only swimming and biping, for example, you ask yourself, oh, should I still go out and run as well? And yeah, you can definitely overdo it pretty easily. And that's why I'm super thankful to have a good coach who gives me guidance. And most of the times actually tells me to do less. To pull that.

Yeah. And yeah, I think especially female athletes tend to be like super ambitious and competitive and always want to do more. Yeah, I think that's definitely true. And I do, you know, I'm excited to talk about how you think about the data. And we can maybe, you know, veer into that right now. I, especially at altitude, I, you know, I'm curious, how long did it take you to adapt? You know, so I imagine once you got into altitude, your SPO2, your respiratory rate were probably quite elevated,

heart variability probably really suppressed, resting heart rate, really high relative to your baseline. Is that what you observed in the data? And how long did it take you to kind of get back to your baseline? Yeah, you're definitely touching. like all the important points already like this those are the data that I look at also to give me guidance on how hard I should train or you know how we should structure the training especially when we get up to altitude for the first days I'm quite used to high altitude I do several training blocks over the year so my body is pretty much used to it so I only need like two days

for example, to really feel like I'm pretty much adapted already. But I'm always starting with some slow training. And I also have the opportunity, for example, to ride down to Italy from Saint-Moritz. So then I'm doing my first training sessions where I'm actually lowering the altitude again and then climbing back up. So that also helps my body to adapt. But yeah, especially in the beginning, it was super helpful to have the Woop data. to just look at and match it with my feeling.

I think, especially as an athlete, you're so used to listening to your body that most of the times your feeling is pretty accurate. But I still have and had those moments where I was surprised about the data, for example, that something was suppressed like my HIV or even, you know, the blood oxygen levels. And that just, yeah, showed me that maybe I should spend one more day a bit easier, easier and give my body more time to adapt, for example. And something that I always notice is that my sleep quality is going down in the beginning. And this, of course, has also big impact on my recovery.

So this is something I'm looking at. And, yeah, I just think it's also super motivating to see over a period of time then how you're adapting, that the adaption is actually working so that your resting heart rate is going down again. And yeah, that's just really cool. And I can tell my coach then, you know, I think we can go and try to go include more harder sessions, for example, and then see how I do. And yeah, I think just to work around the data and the feeling is just a lot of fun as well. I love that. Do you have, you know, I would imagine at this point, you know, training for an Iron Man, for example, there's probably really good baseline understanding of electrolyte use, like how you

need to fuel in order to make sure you can, you know, maintain energy levels over the course of a, of a session. So I would imagine all of that is pretty well known at this point. Is anything that you're, you go into a race being like, this is a variable that I just don't know how I'm going to deal with or you're not sure how you're going to react to, you know, what kind of gives you the most stress going into a big race like an Iron Man? I think I try to prepare as best as possible. You touched already the most important points like preparing the nutrition part, especially for such a long race.

We call it the false discipline, nutrition. You really have to train it. So it's actually part of my daily training to practice. Also my nutrition, like I need to fuel my sessions. I'm training three times a day. and this wouldn't work without a proper fueling strategy. And yeah, I think most listeners probably heard of the term you need to train your gut. You know, you need to train your digestive system to absorb the carbs.

So I definitely have a lot of sessions where I consume a lot of carbs. It's a lot of sugar. But, yeah, knowing that I burn it, you know, I need it. And this actually helps me to then, yeah, have. a great race because my digestive system is trained to absorb the carbs under effort and for Ironman distance racing, this is definitely key. I always try to prepare as good as possible with knowing that there is like a little room, you know, where you need to be flexible and you need to adapt to just, yeah, the situation. For triathlon, there are many things that you can actually

prepare very well on beforehand. I love that, just to mitigate or kind of account for as many of the unknowns as you can, to your point, like preparation is the key. What are some things that you do to kind of be a couple steps ahead? So just when you're preparing, you know, it might be something physiological, it might be something psychological, it might be something technical with your equipment. I would love to hear kind of how you build that buffer in to ensure that you're as prepared as possible. Yeah, it's a good question. You know, you're always hoping that you have like little advantage over your competition, but it's getting tougher and tougher. You know, one big component in triathlon, like the longest distance in the race is obviously the bike part.

And you can be like super nerdy about your bike equipment. And there's actually a lot of, yeah, performance gains just from the material. that you're using you know i spend a lot of hours going into a wind tunnel for example where i do some aerodynamic testing with all of my equipment and i think going this extra mile you know it's quite a few hours that i really like spent there and those are hours where i don't train but um i always feel like it's super worth because those are the moments where you actually find like those little gains believing in your training in your approach in yeah the work that you've put in and making sure that you are on the start line healthy.

I think that's number one and happy. That's also a big component, I think, of having a good performance as well. You should love what you do and it shouldn't feel like a burden to raise or like a job to raise. You know, it's still, even though it is my job now, it's still like my biggest passion. and the training I need to do every day, I actually love to do. It's like not every session that I love to do. I also have like a few things, you know, where I really need to push myself to do it. I think probably most people don't really like to go outside of their comfort zone, like super hard.

But I know there are a few things that I need to do. And I know, you know, working with my body feeling and checking the data and also working with a data. driven approach. I think that that just gives me the feeling that I'm actually trying to be the best. 100%. I definitely feel like it just gives you an extra layer of confidence, you know, and I think too, it enables you to course correct. So you don't kind of get really far down a path where, wow, okay, these things weren't working for me, right? And you don't really know that it's not working for you until it's too late and you find that out on race day. You know, I think that's the real opportunity with data is you can recognize pretty quickly. Ah,

You know what? I'm doing too much. I'm doing too little. And you can course correct, you know, whereas without the data, you can miss a lot of that nuance. And those are the oftentimes the margins, right? Yes, you're so right. For example, I just finished this big training block leading into the Iron and World Championships now. And coming back from high altitude, we did some lab testing, you know, just to check, you know, how well my body reacted, adapted to the training. Yeah. And sometimes you don't see the numbers that you were hoping to see. And then I would have still had like a few weeks time ahead of the race, you know, to react to this and then try to be better. But without measuring it, you know, we wouldn't know. So I think it's so available to have the data, you know, like have a good feeling, a listen to your feeling, but then have the data to really guide you. I want to thank you.

You've been such a huge advocate for women in sport. in just in general, and I think you're one of the first female athletes in Germany to talk about training and performing, you know, during a menstrual cycle. Would love to talk to you a little bit how you think about your menstrual cycle across the training phase. Do you use it as a signal? How do you leverage it or how do you think about it over the course of your training? Yeah, so thanks first of all.

Yeah, it's a topic that is really close to my heart. I think it's such an important topic, not only for athletes, but for females in general. I don't know how I was able to, you know, train or even live without the knowledge I have now. What brought me to the point of, you know, getting more interested in the topic was that I was just noticing that I had a few days in a month where I simply couldn't hit the target numbers of my sessions where it just fell completely flat. And I should mention here that my coach is actually my partner. Like we are married. It's Philip Seif. He's a sport scientist, a sport coach.

It was so cool to have him so close because obviously in the beginning, it takes a bit of courage to talk about certain topics. And it was a lot easier for me, obviously, to talk to my own husband about the issues I had. But still, like, even he didn't know anything about. the connection between the menstrual cycle and the impact on training and performance and he never heard of it during his whole study and obviously in the beginning he trained me like he trained like the guys right so i did all of the training i in the endurance world you know also faster training is a big topic to have a good fat metabolism and stuff like this so i did all of those training

sessions and i still developed as an athlete but i still struggled during a certain certain phase. Did you struggle with, was it low energy? I felt super flat after doing the faster training. Like during the sessions, I felt like flying. Sometimes I felt super strong. Looking back now, I know that, you know, probably I spent like all the cortisol during those sessions and then I hit like a big low afterwards and felt like I could eat like the whole day. I definitely also felt it from the energy perspective. But like the menstrual cycle, cycle phase hit me really strong, you know, I think I really felt like the highs and the lows. And, yeah, obviously I started reading Dr. Stacey Sims' book, which was pretty much the only thing

available a few years ago. And, yeah, it was really eye-opening for me to see the connection between my cycle and my feelings and also my training data. And once I started tracking my cycle, you know and matching it with my training data you know I really saw like the connection there and this was so helpful because I remember having like big breakdowns emotional breakdowns during sessions where I asked Philip my coach like what's going on why can't I run the certain pace today and you know I was really questioning things and the training right yeah the training and he didn't have any answer to me like as Laura I don't know why you feel like this today and you're not sick or anything you know and yeah it was like really eye-opening to see okay um it's just because

i'm close to my period that i feel fled then the corona phase came and that actually gave me the opportunity to really um try out things um because we had no racing going on so i told philip like okay so let's really try to use my cycle as a guidance and try to build the training around it and that helped me so much. I feel like, you know, first thing, we did no faster training anymore. In the beginning, you know, I know he was actually worried to see if my fat metabolism will become worse again. And surprisingly, it didn't.

I feel like so much more in balance from a hormonal perspective. So I have to say, like, I think I stopped using a contraceptive hormone stuff around 10 years ago. So since then, I was having natural cycles. Looking back, I'm so grateful because I never knew, like, the connection. And I always had my period, but I always had, like, big PMS symptoms as well. So I was, like, having a lot of pain, a lot of cramping and bloating and so on. And my number one goal in the beginning was, you know, just to track my cycle. So I always know, like, how long it is.

So then I actually started to see what could interest. interrupt with my hormones, you know. Sport is an interrupter first hand. And then there were also stuff like, you know, the cosmetic stuff that I used. So I skipped everything that was not natural, you know, because there's always like so much stuff that is like fake estrogen like and microplastic stuff. Exactly. So I just looked in all areas of things that I could improve on.

and I tried to improve and already this had such a big impact on my cycle like I got better skin you know better mood and then the best thing actually was to get my period without any signs beforehand you know so I was like surprised that I had no pain I had no bloating I was like oh my god this is actually possible then I also saw some effects on my performance as well like you know when you start to actually try to do all your hard workouts in your first half of the cycle where I actually feel like I also mentally feel so much more ready to you know hit it hard and I try to play physical phase exactly do a bit more easy training during the second half of the cycle doing this had such a big effect on my performance but also on the way I was feeling like I was I was feeling so

much stronger doing this over a few months. And also my cycle got a lot more regular. Beforehand, it could always vary between, let's say, 28 and 35 days, for example. But it got more regular. And yeah, as I said, like the bad symptoms why most of the women, you know, hate their period, for example, just disappeared. And that was like so cool to see. And that's what we need to kind of scream to the rooftops. I think some folks maybe don't want to hear this, but our lifestyle just really matters, right, when it comes to having a regular period, you know, that doesn't come with, you know, tons of symptoms. Like it's, we have, and not, not for all women, of course, but for a lot of women, we have a lot more control over, over the

symptoms. And I think being able to, you know, manage our training when we're most equipped to take on a lot of volume intensity, just so smart, you know. And I love that you've been able to, you know, leverage this knowledge to, you know, be most importantly just a healthier, you know, happier human. Absolutely. And I think it's so often just small things like, you know, just the pure knowledge about something can help you already so much. For example, you know, knowing that my body temperature will be higher during the second half and then maybe go into a hot and humid race, for example, then I can just prepare for this. It's not that I won't race because I feel like I have a disadvantage going into the race

with like already the elevated core temperature. But I can prepare with like warming up with like a cooling vest or even, you know, supplementing beforehand. So with like omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium, just stuff that helps my body, you know, to lower symptoms that could maybe occur. closer to the period, or also skipping like dairy or even caffeine, you know, close to the period. Those are just small things that really helped me. Even during the second half of the cycle, I had so many great, also harder sessions because I

feel so much more balanced that in the beginning I was super strict about, you know, doing the super hard stuff in the first half and then the more aerobic, easy stuff in the second. But maybe since a year, I feel like I can actually perform. form like all cycle round let's say like this or if i for example do a hard session in the second half i just go into the session knowing today i won't push like super hard philip often gives me like a range for example on the bike watts that i have to push during an interval and he will give me a higher upper end and a lower for like the range and then i will probably focus more on the lower in the second half and really try to go for the upper in the first half, for example.

I love it. I appreciate you sharing all of that. I think it's so important for folks to hear. And I know at Woop, we're working very, very hard to create a super robust menstrual cycle coaching experience, you know, to your point for folks who actually don't have, you know, overall class coach like you do, you know, can get some of these insights that we know, super helpful when we want to do, you know, that marathon, you know, during the latter half of our cycle, for example, you know, how can we mitigate some of those symptoms? What can we do from a supplementation standpoint? You know, how do we need to maybe think about our day so we can still get the sleep that we need, you know, what is the role of caffeine? You know, it's the big

change that I've made, you know, just in the last, you know, four or five months is just really trying to be more intentional about my caffeine consumption in the lead up to Menzies. What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at woup.com. Back to the guests.

It's been really fun looking at your data. So you've been on since April 29, 2021, and you've logged out of 1,176 days. I actually raised every day. I think I never forgot it. I think we only have eight days of data. We're only missing eight days of data in that entire time. So 99% compliance, which is really, which is really crazy. So I wanted to talk a little bit about just your baseline data. We're at a stay hardwood is 41 beats per minute, you know, one of the very lowest resting heart rates we have in your age group. And your HRV is in the top 14%. So you have one of the kind of highest baseline HRB at 74 milliseconds. And I think a big contributor to that, of course, is your sleep, which I want to talk about, you know, you're at 90% sleep performance. You

are 81% with your sleep wake consistency, which I talk about all the time as being like one of the biggest competitive advantages. We see it bubble up in our research all the time. So you have a very pretty stable sleep wake onset, offset, and just in terms of our general population, they're at like about 64%. So you're at 81%. And then I would kind of say this is one of the harder behaviors to nail. And your sleep efficiency is 89%, which is incredible. This is actually interesting. I never looked at the data like this. Yeah, yeah. Long term over years. I know. I know. And, you know, in sleep consistency is one of the big drivers of sleep quality or sleep efficiency. So we have really stable sleep wake times. Generally speaking, you're going to have a more consolidated

sleep experience, less fragmentation. And that's certainly kind of what we see in the data here. very hard to have really a regular sleep consistency and have good sleep efficiency. How do you think about your sleep? You know, what are you, you know, how do you think about your light behavior? How do you, you know, what are some big rocks that are kind of non-negotiables for you, really, that's your sleep? Yeah, I think sleep is so important. Using whoop was pretty eye-opening for me in terms of how much hours I need to spend in bed to actually. actually, you know, get the numbers or the hours in that I actually need to match my training load. And yeah, tracking my sleep and strain with whoop helped me to realize that I need quite a lot more hours in bed than I thought I need.

For example, if I want to sleep eight hours, I need to at least stay nine to ten hours in bed to actually. get eight hours of sleep in this is like one learning I had that I need more time to wind down for example to then fall asleep and get like all the benefits from sleep you know if you look at the sleep data you understand a lot more how your body works and yeah what it actually needs to to hit like the amount of hours that you're yeah striving for or you thought you're giving your body and also seeing the impact that my training actually has, like seeing those high strain numbers. And, you know, being a triathlete, it's super easy for me with all the training to get like super high strain numbers on a normal training day. I often go above 20. And for example,

during the training camp over the last weeks, I was close to 20.6, 20.5, like super high numbers. and then on my easy days it's always like a little bit of a challenge for me to stay below 12 and that's tough you know especially if you I have a dog for example I want to walk my dog and for me it was always super tough to calm down

you know to also switch my nervous system like to the parathematic system you know to actually allow my body to rest and recover and I'm not someone who is able to take naps Like I will lie down, for example, during lunchtime, and I love to jump into my recovery boots, for example, because then I'm forced to rest for at least 30 minutes, knowing that I don't nap. I know that, like, getting a lot of sleep is super important for me. Having a cool, cooled bedroom, like the temperature of the room really matters for me.

then also inspired by whoop i i started you know to use like a eye mask so the room is actually like super dark and now um you know i think yeah i'm also using um earplugs very often and um you know just uh trying out stuff and then actually seeing the improvements in the sleep data i think it's always like so motivating if you see something is actually working And then it's also so much easier to stick to, I feel like I sleep a lot better. And as an athlete, you travel a lot. You have a lot of time zone changes. And, you know, I always love to sleep in my own bed.

I think we all know that it's so good just to, yeah, have the comfort of your own home. But as an athlete, you need to be flexible to sleep pretty much everywhere in a hotel room. if the mattress is not, you know, like you like it and so on. So I think like having the eye mask, the ear plugs, and then I'm always traveling with my own pillow, like those three things already guarantee me pretty much getting. A decent night. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

I have one suggestion that might help when you have really heavy training load days and you might be kind of between sessions, yoga nidra. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. It's a yogic practice. It's basically a mind-body scan that mimics. So from the brain's perspective, it mimics slow-wave sleep. Okay. If you got your recovery boots on and you practice yoga, Nidra, yeah, it's super, super restorative.

And there's lots of new research coming out that's looking at this practice specifically on markers of recovery. So it definitely seems to have a really positive impact. And it probably also includes some. breathing exercises, I guess. Yeah. Because this is also something that helps so much, you know. But then you also mentioned like the lifestyle choices, for example, in connection with sleep, I noticed that I can't eat late, for example.

So I really need to leave time between my last meal and then going to bed. This has like super big impact. And I don't drink alcohol very often, but obviously this would also have a big impact also on my sleep pattern. And for me, it's super important to try to go to bed always at the same time, kind of. So my rhythm just, you know. Your circadian rhythm. Yeah.

And especially talking about the menstrual cycle and the effects also on the circadian rhythm, I definitely feel them that it's a lot harder to fall asleep and get like decent sleep and recovery during the second half. I need to focus a lot more on, you know, winding down, drinking like a, a cup of tea with like herbs that help my body to relax and stuff like this. Knowing about the things, then you know how to react to it and support your body. No question. I definitely, one of the strategies I've seen be really effective in the ludial phase

was talking to athletes and experimenting myself is just being really intentional about many moments of deactivation throughout the day. For some reason, I'm just, I'm way more sensitive to stress during the ludial phase than I am during the follicular phase. You know, I used to struggle with my sleep during the ludic phase. And a lot of it, I think, is because I wasn't necessarily building in enough rest during the day, enough intentional rest. So I just kind of ramped up. Like, during that phase, I just do 30 seconds to a minute of just physiological sigh where I'm doing.

And that just seems to like tap my, the parisymph branch, my nervous system helps calm me down. So I'm like basically mitigating that negative stress accumulation proactively throughout the day, which helps me fall asleep and stay asleep at night. yeah that's such a great advice yes yeah yeah because i think a lot of times like you know women oh you know why am i not sleeping you know it's in a lot of it is just our responses to stress are just different over the course of our cycle and it's just the reality and but there's so many things that we can do during a phase of our of our cycle that is is just inherently more demanding and i think it's just figuring out as well like all right what are these really big rocks that I need to just be better at when I know my body is a little bit more stressed and a little bit

more vulnerable to to these stressors. And you pointed out the alcohol, for example, like during your Lou phase, like maybe that's just not a time to drink, right? Because your body, again, is there's already a lot of metabolic demands on your body. So throwing, layering more stress on top is just super counterproductive. Eating meals close to bedtime. Again, really, you know, pretty counterproductive. So there's things that I think you can do proactively to really set yourself up to maintain performance levels during that phase of the cycle. You know, I don't think we need to see these big declines, right? It's just being smart about how you're thinking about stressors on the body and just doing, you know, the little things as right as you can to offset what we know is

a demanding, demanding time frame. Yeah, that was very well said. All right. So, we've got our main world championships the end of this month. How do you feel? Yes, actually, I'm already getting super excited. As I said, I just had like this big training book at a high altitude. Right now, I'm back home for a few days to unpack my staff and now I have to pack everything for the race. So we'll do like the final preparation at the location where we will race. It will be in Nice in France. And yeah, it's an amazing place. It's super beautiful. Nice is incredible. The Iron Man World Championships used to be at Hawaii, always, in Kona. But since two years, Iron Man decided to split the events. So we are now having Nice and Hawaii.

And last year, the women were racing at Hawaii and the men in Nice. And this year we switch. And actually, yeah, I'm excited. It's obviously a bit closer. to where I live. I don't have to travel all the way to Hawaii. I was able to do most of my preparation back home or Switzerland is not so far. So that was cool. And also the course is very different. Nees is a super hilly area.

So we will swim in the ocean, which is beautiful, of course. To be honest, the swim in Hawaii is spectacular because you have dolphins, you have like all amazing kind of fishes and super warm water. so it's super nice to stay in the water. You never get cold. This maybe is a bit more challenging in knees. It will be a bit colder. It can be choppy, wavy water.

But as soon as we jump on the bike, we will ride through the mountains. And it's a super tough and challenging bike course. And this is a part that I'm really looking forward to because that's something I'm used to like where I live. It's also in hilly area. So I'm definitely used to climbing with the bike, to descending with the bike.

And, yeah, I also think it's exciting to bring like a technical component to a bike course. In Hawaii, for example, we are riding on a highway. So it's just like 90K into one direction, turn around and, yeah, back. And in these you definitely need to be a good bike rider. So you need to know how to descend with your bike. And yeah, this was definitely something I was preparing on now, riding in Switzerland, all the mountain climbs. And then the run, the marathon is on this.

Promenade de Angles. So it's basically on a promenade next to the ocean and it's a fall loop run course. So yeah, having watched the men's race last year, it was super crowded, lots of spectators and it just looked like a really great atmosphere. Yeah, honestly, that really helps you to push through the pain that will always come if you're competing in an Ironman. I never experienced it to go without any pain or fatigue. It's part of it. And that's why I train every day, you know, to be resilient for race day and hopefully push my boundaries and hopefully have a great day. You know, as I hear you talk, I am just, I'm blown away by just the joy that you seem to have. I mean, you've been in this, you know, for 11 years. It's a long time to

maintain your enthusiasm for something. Just talk a little bit about, you know, where does that joy come from? How is this kind of living your values? You know, because it just seems like it's coming from your soul. So I think swimming, biking and running are just three super cool sports. And then to combine them in a competition is really special. I just love the variation of the training. You can always do something different. Even if you have a niggle or an injury, you know, there's always something you can do. I love the feeling that it gives me. And I love the places where it takes me, you know, riding a bike, you can explore so much, or even just putting your running shoes on, you go to a new city, you put your run shoes on, and you can easily explore

like the whole city during a 10K run, for example. I just love the pure freedom that those three sports bring me. Also, for me, it was the access into the competition to compete against other athletes, this is something I never thought that I would actually enjoy or have the desire to do. But once I entered my first competition, I actually found out, like, this is so much fun to compete and you try to prepare as good as possible, and then you just see where it brings you. And obviously, winning races is a lot of fun. So I'm sure this also played into my passion for it. You know, you want to have this winning feeling. again once you know how good it feels, you want to have it again. And I think this also helps

a lot to push every day. I love it during the exercise, but also the good feeling you get afterwards. And I think sport teaches you so many things. For example, that you should not be afraid to make errors. You know, without errors, you wouldn't make any progress. So even if I would stop being a professional athlete. I learned so many skills that I can use in like different areas of life. You know, you always need to be open, always try for progress. And this is fun, you know, looking for details where you can improve or weaknesses. And, you know, obviously I have a lot of weaknesses because I started the sport so late. But to see them in a positive way, you know, as room for improvement and then trying to find those spots where.

can still improve this is so cool and i just see the whole thing as a as a journey you know and also as something where i have nothing to lose like i never planned you know my career or something so i take every success i have like as something really special like i never thought i would achieve something like this and i think that makes it even more special for me and my team you know to see how far we already came for a professional career with like the minimum of time we had you know Usually you say you need like 10 years to actually become good at something. Because I started so late, we always needed to be extra smart in order to make fast progress and pay a lot of attention to detail.

Also worth, you know, waking up motivated in the morning and just to see how far I can come with, you know, the body and the life I have. Well, I feel like your growth mindset and how you approach training is it has to be your secret weapon. It's just, it's incredible. And yeah, I thank you for sharing that. This question is probably like asking for you to pick a favorite child, but what's your favorite?

Run, bike, or swim. Yeah, that's a tough question for a triadly. You need to love them all three. I think running is the coolest because it's so easy. Yeah. You just need a pair of running shoes or you can even run barfoot. And, yeah, the freedom that running brings you, you know, For swimming, you always need like a pool or at least some water to swim in and cycling is always a lot of equipment.

So yeah, it's running. If you're in a good run shape and you feel healthy and you feel, you know, you're nearly like flying effortless. This is like the best feeling in the world and also something I'm always striving for, you know, that doesn't mean every session feels like good. But yeah, if you have a session like this, it's the best feeling. What is success going to look like for you at the World Championships? I think I know the answer based on everything that you've said. So I look at it like the first success is making the start line healthy and happy. I think as an athlete, you know how hard it is to actually make the start line.

So that's the first win. For me personally, of course, I want to win the Iron Man World Championships. Like this would be like my dream come true. And also something I try to visualize during sessions. you know, me actually being in the front of such a big race, but then everyone knows, you know, in sport, only one person can win and I'm not the only one working hard for it. So I think at the end, if I execute my best performance swim bike run,

I will be happy because I need to be happy, you know. There's not much more you can do than giving your best. And this is actually also something that I'm continuously asking myself during the race, for example, when it gets tough, which is most of the time during the second half of the marathon, so towards the end, it's always worth asking yourself, like, am I giving 100% right now? Or is there like an inch that I could push more? And as long as you can always answer, like, no, I can't push more. Like, I'm giving everything right now.

Then, yeah, you need to be happy at the end. That's pretty much how I will approach the race. you know, I know I'm prepared and just to be able to participate in such a big event is an honor and hopefully fun will be fast. What did it mean for your team last year, for you and your team to reach the podium? I mean, you came in third at the World Championships last year in Hawaii. What did that feel like? Yeah, that was an amazing feeling.

You know, making a podium in Hawaii is definitely. special. It's definitely one of the most brutal races in the world with like the special conditions. I tend to struggle a little bit in hot and humid conditions. I'm a bit taller. It's a bit easier if you have a smaller body to actually run really fast in the heat. So I knew this will be challenging for me. And then since we talked about the menstrual cycle, I also knew that I was starting with a little bit of a disadvantage because I was close to my period and my core body temperature was pretty high. So I knew I had to really focus on all the cooling in order to actually perform well.

This podium meant a lot because it showed that we ticked so many right boxes and prepared well. And honestly for me, like there's not a big difference between second and third. It's like making the podium or winning, you know, like making a podium at the Iron Man World Championship in Hawaii was definitely like a lifetime goal. achieved and made the whole team really proud. And as an athlete, you know, you always want to give back to your team. And, you know, scoring a good result is always the best way to give back because that's what we are working for. In that moment, I gave everything and it was good enough for a third place.

So that really made the team and myself really proud. Well, this has been such an inspiring conversation. We at Woop wish you the very best at the World Championships coming up here in a few weeks. Thank you so much. hey everyone big thank you to laura philip coming on the woof podcast where we're wishing her a lot of luck in nice for her next big competition if you enjoyed this episode of the woof podcast please subscribe to the woof podcast you can check us out on social at whoop at will omid at christin underscore homes two one two six if you've never tried whoop before you can literally sign up for a free 30 day trial

this whoop strap in the mail as part of that trial. That's all for now. We'll see you next week on the WOOP podcast.