Episode 65 — Transcript (EN)

AI-translated from the German original. Voices cloned with Chatterbox TTS.

Niclas [00:00:14] Welcome to the Afasteryou Podcast, where everything revolves around endurance sport and training. Here Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka and Niclas Ranker give you valuable tips and insights to help you take your performance to the next level. So, a warm welcome back after a long time to a new episode of the Afasteryou Podcast. Today again with Peter and of course also with Björn. We were just discussing who owns how many MacBooks. I think Peter and I each own one, and Björn just admitted to us that he doesn't even really know how many he owns.

Björn [00:00:46] I said four or five, plus two iMacs.

Niclas [00:00:49] But are they all yours now?

Björn [00:00:51] Or are they... No, no, no. They're all older ones of mine. They just pile up. And I'd say two of the MacBooks are really fresh and new. Yeah, I have the one where the trackpad gave out somehow and it had to be repaired, and in the meantime I needed a new one, so I bought a new one. And now it works again. So I've got a backup here. I also happily roll around with two MacBooks. In case the battery runs out.

Niclas [00:01:15] Exactly. Do you know that Lady Kracher clip? There's this... I'm not even sure if it was Lady Kracher or something. Anyway, some comedy show, and she's basically holding a Kindle and reading it and says, oh, what a great book, and she takes the Kindle and puts it in the cupboard, and then you see the cupboard with tons of Kindles in it. Because she basically... yeah, one Kindle, one book.

Björn [00:01:35] I'm just not that tech-savvy, you know. So I always just buy new. I also have this old iMac. I love it. I open it up every now and then too. No, they still work, but they're just old. The old laptops then go to either Paula or, I don't know, my mom gets the... So the old iMac and an old MacBook, I opened them up, swapped the CD drive for a flash drive, updated them a bit, and then you can still use them for some tasks really, really nicely. You can let them run autonomously, you don't need internet for it, and they just crunch through computing tasks. So.

Niclas [00:02:08] Okay, right. Nobody can steal any data from me. 2 plus 2.

Björn [00:02:13] You can actually run your agent on it pretty hard. Don't need a Windows machine for it. Yeah, exactly, then they just sit around, and I think at some point they'll be worth a lot. I've also got one here, or rather my wife has a Mac here, I don't know, a Mac 1 or 2 or something, this little box, a little gray box.

Niclas [00:02:31] Oh, that one's nice, right?

Björn [00:02:32] No, it's not nice.

Niclas [00:02:35] So that's the one before. So it's not the rounded screen yet.

Björn [00:02:38] No, no, no. Not the classic iMac yet. The colorful ones and so on came around the 2000s. Or the one on that cool stand with the chrome and all. This one is really old.

Niclas [00:02:49] And... That was before my time.

Björn [00:02:52] Still runs too.

Niclas [00:02:53] It still runs.

Björn [00:02:54] Of course. It all runs.

Niclas [00:02:57] Yeah, but it takes half an hour to boot up.

Björn [00:02:59] No. When I get my iMac... from 2009. This sounds totally crazy now. I can work on it the whole way through. No problem. I opened it up. You pull the glass off with suction cups and so on. Then you tinker around a bit. And then you set the thing up so it's at least usable again. Wild. It's not like crazy graphics processes are being run on it. Yeah. At least on that one. And then you've still got a fully functional device you can use.

Peter [00:03:27] My old MacBook is also, I think, nine years old, and speed-wise it was getting a bit... But really, you use it for browsing and then for research and so on. That's no huge task for a laptop like that. No.

Björn [00:03:39] And now think about which Windows machine you could do that with. Yeah, I work here with a... well, not the one I'm on right now, this iMac I have here is five years old. Man, you can tell, it runs perfectly. I don't have to stress at all. It's not like I bought some super beefy machine. It's a classic M1, and I don't know what else it's called. And a five-year-old PC gives you problems. That's true.

Niclas [00:04:02] It happens. Yeah. Good. Exactly. So, what are we talking about? You've wanted to talk about altitude training for several episodes now. And the good thing is, I just came back from altitude. And so did you. Same here, exactly.

Peter [00:04:14] Me too. And I've got altitude training planned. So I'm curious about your insights.

Niclas [00:04:19] So I was in the Sierra Nevada. How high is the Sierra Nevada? You're always at this Olympic training center, the one up there. Yeah, right next to it.

Björn [00:04:27] He's at that center. But I'd say, it's not... Everyone's at roughly that altitude. We were at the second highest. Bora was at the highest. And I looked at Visma and the others. The crazy thing is, within a radius of 800-900 meters, there are 15 World Tour teams, spread out across the terraces. You look out, you get on a plane, and right away there are three World Tour pros sitting with you, and then, all right, where are we headed. So you're all together there. We're all together there, and the nice thing, similar to Girona last time, is you meet people you otherwise never run into, friends and acquaintances. And then you sit together in a café with other coaches who are there, and you have a good time.

Niclas [00:05:11] The important question: how's the coffee?

Björn [00:05:14] Well, wrong question, I only drink decaf. We had a coffee setup, a Moccamaster filter machine and a decent grinder. And then Thorstein Træen from Barcelona had some connection, so different coffees from, I think, some Brew Company, I don't remember what they're called, I'll have to look it up. Anyway, he also brought an excellent decaf coffee. And I'd treat myself to it every afternoon. And then I got two more bags as a gift. Amazing coffee, tastes really, really good. So I can only speak to the coffee we had in the house, in the apartment. But it was totally... there's no... it's not like other teams where two of them bring their espresso machine, seriously, really, no joke.

Niclas [00:05:54] Well, there are supposedly people who take their espresso machine to Girona.

Björn [00:05:58] Yeah, but I'm talking about a proper commercial machine. The mechanics were ordered to carry it into the apartment. Oh damn, it needs a proper water connection. Yeah, exactly. That exists too. We made do with a Moccamaster. Works great too. And then we drank filter coffee. We do that in Livigno too.

Peter [00:06:17] Does your son like the decaf coffee too?

Björn [00:06:19] Yeah. My son. Did I tell you about this? You were there live. My son wanted to, he's got this urge to grow up now, which is absolutely right. How old is he? 14. Okay. And he said he had to try coffee now. So I said, well, it's decaf coffee, go ahead and try it. And then he drinks it and says, ugh, that tastes terrible. Very good. Right away. Yeah, but I have to say, that's pretty cool. Today, when I drove to school, I had to drive my kids to school because it was pouring rain and one of them has to bring his cello, and you don't want to lug that thing around in the rain on a bike. Anyway, I'm totally thrilled with my kids. It would be bad if I weren't, right?

Niclas [00:07:01] But no. It would be questionable if you said anything else here on the podcast.

Björn [00:07:06] No, I'll be honest, today, yesterday evening I didn't argue with my wife. We rode around on a tandem, met up with friends at a beer garden, they were celebrating a birthday. And then we ride back, and we did a bit of the typical parent thing, talking about it, you two can't really relate. So what those two get up to is pretty cool, and I have to say they're a step ahead, clearly further along, and I take them as a source of inspiration too. I told them that this morning in the car, and here's the thing, the two of them, they're rather shy and quiet and reserved, like I am. And my wife even more so. But they totally rock it. So they're just, the little one plays every Friday at school, he picks some piece of music he's into, I don't know, Taylor Swift or Nine Inch Nails, really, all across the board, anything, learns it quickly on the piano and then performs it on Friday in music class. And he sings full out. And he really goes for it and he's got it. And then you think, wild, why? He just does it. He's into it. And the older one... Sorry, Kafka wasn't famous in his lifetime. On the contrary, he actually wanted all his stuff not to be seen and to be burned. And only his buddy said, no, this has to be published now. Kafka was unknown. Yeah, more or less. Yeah. But that's not what I mean... The older one, briefly, the older one, even more shy, just goes and plays the lead role in the school theater. And you think, okay, why? Because he wants to. And he did it brilliantly too. Les Misérables, later playing Jean Valjean. And then almost in passing he says, I also want to compose the music for the play. And then he just composes the music for the play on the piano, sits in the scenes where he's not acting and plays piano in there. And I'm like, what the heck? What would I have done at 14? Yeah, so, that's an anecdote. I mean...

Niclas [00:09:01] Peter, with your childhood anecdotes we have to be careful, we already had that last time.

Peter [00:09:06] But it fits quite well, because we once also had a kind of school performance, and all the kids played some instrument, so everyone got to do something different, and I had this xylophone, but I didn't really have a handle on it, or rather, in the serious moment of the dress rehearsal I didn't get it right, so they took the xylophone away from me, and then I was the only one in the whole class playing these little chime bars. So everyone played some instrument, and I played chime bars, and then, I remember, I think my mom said I shouldn't be sad about it, that I'd be setting the beat for everyone. So it works that way too.

Niclas [00:09:39] But I have to say, I also found music class at school really awful. I played guitar myself. But music class, that was really no fun at all.

Björn [00:09:46] It was so bad. They have, I think, good music teaching. The interesting thing is, I'm not a musician at all. Well, I do love music. I listen to a lot of music, of course. But I'm absolutely untalented. Or rather, I've never even tried. And they're just amazing. They hear a piece and play it on cello or piano. Okay, how does that work? We can't figure it out. Yeah. The intelligence comes from my wife. So, all good.

Niclas [00:10:15] Yeah, only from your wife. With you two it's definitely one-sided. Yeah. Okay.

Björn [00:10:20] Björn, what's up? Long story short, my role models, at least in that respect, just dropping the act and saying, okay, I'll just go for it. I'll just do it. And then you can take a leaf out of their book.

Peter [00:10:32] But actually a lot of kids have that. That's also why I always get along really well with children, because they have very little of this role awareness or this conditioning of how I should behave in which role; instead, fundamentally, they're very goal-oriented. And that's something, I think, you can really take a leaf out of their book. And if you live like that, or take that as a bit of a role model, I think a lot of things in life aren't as complicated as we make them as adults.

Björn [00:10:57] Yeah, they're just a bit... Yeah, we overthink it too much. Yeah, no, I think there's also a big element of shame you feel when you make a misstep and so on. They're just a bit desensitized in that respect. Okay, I can present myself as a child or even as a teenager, and you're absolutely right, Peter. I think little kids just don't think about it, but bit by bit you get pruned into shape by life, or feel like you're being pruned, depending on the pressure. And then maybe at some point you stop too. And those two are just awesome. I told them this morning, I really celebrate it. I think what you're doing here is really great. Well done, I said. How did they react? In our household. That's also quite interesting. You could tell they thought it was nice somehow, but they were a bit surprised. Maybe they see me a bit differently with the things I do, and they don't see me as a superstar. Not at all, not in the slightest. But I think they sometimes have this feeling that Dad has everything under control and handles it all anyway. That's not really the case. I'm still struggling to upload my stuff online for DATEV.

Niclas [00:12:02] DATEV is also, I mean, until I finally manage to log into my DATEV account, I always think, am I the biggest idiot walking around here?

Björn [00:12:10] And I have to say, I work from a programming background, I don't think I'm a total moron, but honestly, those logins, it's just not very native, it's like... what the heck? And then, when someone tells me I need external help to set it all up, I think, what? What? And then I do it, click click, and it kind of works, but then somehow an error message, no idea why, different browser, really like... It's really bad, isn't it? It's not like a German public authority, sorry to say, built it. Yeah. The user experience is just that bad. And it's like everything with taxes. You pay money for the privilege of putting in the work yourself. That's the kicker. I always have a laugh about that. And yeah, that's... I think you could do it a lot better and smarter and simpler, I'll just say that.

Niclas [00:12:56] But... I don't know, have you ever worked with LexOffice?

Björn [00:12:59] We have that at Afasteryou, yeah. But I can't really say what it's like.

Niclas [00:13:04] Is it better? Well, I do my bookkeeping with it, it works great. My tax advisor only uses DATEV, so I always have to work with both, and that's when I keep noticing, oh, this is so annoying.

Björn [00:13:14] It also looks terrible. It really looks like the icons are still from 1985.

Niclas [00:13:19] I was just about to say, it's Windows XP. I'm also sure all of DATEV still runs on Windows XP. Has to be. The way it looks.

Björn [00:13:28] Yeah, most likely. If you have tax advisors from way back driving around with old PCs and still browsing with Internet Explorer, then you have to have systems that can still handle that somehow.

Niclas [00:13:39] So, but we actually wanted to talk about altitude.

Björn [00:13:42] I was at altitude, Sierra Nevada, 2-3, and then you came in with the coffee. That's your fault.

Niclas [00:13:49] But about the coffee, I wanted to add, you have to send me the decaf, because I don't have a good decaf yet, and I'd also like a good decaf for home, because I don't dare to drink another coffee after 12, and that's always a pain.

Björn [00:14:03] Why, actually? Why don't you dare?

Niclas [00:14:06] Yeah, because then sleep quality is worse, because the caffeine hasn't broken down yet.

Björn [00:14:12] You're a hyper-performer of this generation. I'm just trying to ride fast.

Peter [00:14:17] Couldn't care less. Caffeine sensitization. I don't know how it is with the receptors. Probably another topic, I think, with altitude. With iron absorption and receptors. But with caffeine it's of course individual too. But if you take someone who's had 400 milligrams of caffeine at every race for 10, 15 years, you could wake them up at night, pump a liter of Red Bull into their veins, and they'd sleep right on.

Niclas [00:14:40] That's exactly the thing, I find, yeah.

Peter [00:14:43] That just doesn't happen with me.

Björn [00:14:45] When I stopped drinking coffee. Have I told this on the podcast before?

Niclas [00:14:49] I'd love to hear it. But I do remember, when we started working together, you were still actively drinking coffee, because a mutual friend of ours even got you a portafilter machine.

Björn [00:14:58] Yeah, exactly. For a while I even had two portafilter machines sitting around. One upstairs, one downstairs. A Rancilio and a Rocket. Anyway. So I love coffee, I love the smell, I think it's great, the grinding, it has something to it. But at some point, at night, I noticed, I thought about it. how I'd look forward to having coffee again the next morning, and I had this timer set to go off, and then it would turn on and preheat the machine, and you have to grind the stuff a few times and make sure you've got the right grind, temperature, blah blah blah. Humidity.

Niclas [00:15:32] Everything that's nice about making coffee.

Björn [00:15:34] Everything that takes half an hour a day in the cup, like, what's going on here. Right. And then I thought, well, I had this deep joy and this taste. And then I thought, that's already a bit of an addiction. Why a bit? Yeah, actually already a serious addiction. But it's a great thing. Well, at least, for weeks and days beforehand I always had, I really drank a lot, really a lot. Sometimes ten espressos would go through in a morning. Yeah, yeah. And at some point, I don't know exactly, I looked at the screen and couldn't see anything anymore. Yeah, that was it, but I looked at the screen and couldn't really read it anymore. Don't know, what's going on now? I always think we once drank coffee till... No, no. It's like a Gaussian normal distribution. There's bad on one side and bad on the other, and there's a sweet spot. And I just never hit that sweet spot. I either drank nothing at all or always way too much. It's like Haribo, yeah. If you've got 340 grams of Haribo in the bag, either you don't have it and don't touch it, or you've got it and immediately look away. So this moderation mentality just doesn't work for me. It's only full throttle or nothing. Anyway. Exactly, and with coffee it was the same, and then I noticed, man, and I also had the feeling the coffee didn't even wake me up anymore, it made me more sluggish and tired, I'd only ever had the illusion that it woke me up, and then I had this fantasy in the evening, like, oh great, coffee again, and then I thought, somehow that's not great, then I dreamed about coffee and so on, and then I woke up the next morning and said, okay, can't do this anymore. And then I took all my machines... Completely on your own? Yeah, I just sold my machines. No way! Sold everything the next day. Grinder, everything, everything, everything sold.

Niclas [00:17:24] See, and that's why two or three espressos.

Björn [00:17:27] No, that doesn't work.

Niclas [00:17:29] In the morning until twelve. Yeah, doesn't work.

Björn [00:17:32] And then it's fine. No, I don't feel like it. I just cut it out completely. And now I've still got a Bialetti and a hand coffee grinder. I grind my coffee with that and then I just down the thing. Done. And it works that way too. I need one, two. That tastes good too. And then you notice, yeah, that fruity flavor and whatnot, when you've got a good bean.

Niclas [00:17:55] But then only decaf.

Björn [00:17:57] Only decaf. Nothing else. If there's no decaf, there's no decaf. And I'm so dry now. It's amazing. I switched over a bit, drank Diet Coke. But I dropped that at some point too.

Peter [00:18:09] I dropped it at some point too.

Björn [00:18:11] And then we were on a bike tour, we were up north at my mom's, it was a long tandem ride, and we stopped somewhere, and my wife, yeah, I was already a bit wiped, and I was like, okay, then I got a Coke, a regular Coke. 0.5 liters and I was completely buzzing. I was really buzzing hard. And then I thought, oh damn, this doesn't feel good anymore. And then I realized, caffeine isn't really my thing anymore. And since then, something like Spezi or Mezzo Mix, I can just about handle that. But I don't drink tea anymore, only rooibos or something, but no black or green, because I just notice that I get really, I wouldn't say panicky, but when I order a decaf coffee somewhere, I always ask specifically, is this really decaf? The pro feeling is intense, it doesn't push me at all anymore, it doesn't push me, instead it makes me a bit, like a bit on edge, and now you feel totally nuts, yeah. Like, hey, that guy's got a screw loose. But it's a really unpleasant feeling. It's like the people in restaurants, is there really no gluten in this? And I'm the guy going, is there really no caffeine in this? And then, ah, yeah, okay, I've reached that age.

Niclas [00:19:23] I've become like that too now. Damn. But I think you've got to pick up a few quirks as you get older, right?

Björn [00:19:29] I've always had some, but they're getting more obvious now.

Peter [00:19:32] Everything gets worse with age. But I think there's also a lot of ritual involved in the coffee procedure. For me, I've got it a bit more under control, I think, regarding the dosing. But I have no caffeine sensitivity at all. I can drink three espressos at 10 and be asleep by quarter past 10. For me it's somehow a ritual. That's something I just can't do. When I don't feel like it at all, then I tell myself, come on, get going, for example yesterday I had to pack up a bike that had to go back, and I made myself an espresso beforehand too, even though it was, I think, half past six or so. So the coffee machine gets used quite well here.

Niclas [00:20:10] Yeah, but if I did that, I'd love to drink coffee all day, but I know if I take caffeine after 2 p.m., then going to bed at 10, 11 p.m. gets tricky. Then I sit there awake until midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m. Caffeine works really well on me.

Peter [00:20:24] take the decaf from Pure, and then we can do a blind test, and see how much of it is you thinking you drank an espresso with caffeine or without. Then you can let your friends decide, and then you'll probably sleep like a rock at night.

Björn [00:20:35] So I'll send you the stuff. Or you know what, hang on. Let me check what it's called. Surely some questions will come up about what it's called.

Niclas [00:20:43] You two can keep chatting. Yeah Peter, then we'll have to do an N equals 1 study on me and see if we can get the monkey out of my head, the idea that I'm sensitive to caffeine.

Peter [00:20:52] Well, I think there's of course also a dosage involved somewhere. I've had that too, when I was working on something, I drank so much coffee. Partly also because the task wasn't all that interesting, I drank so much coffee that I noticed I'm starting to get the shakes more easily. And yeah.

Björn [00:21:09] So, it's Brew Fusion. Brew Fusion.

Niclas [00:21:13] Let me enter that in parallel here.

Björn [00:21:16] Brew Fusion from... Ah yeah, they look slick. Yeah, with the glossy finish and Colombia... blah blah blah, where's it from? Barcelona, here. Nomad Coffee. Nomad Coffee, you have to enter that. Brew Fusion. Really, really, really fruity, super tasty.

Niclas [00:21:32] Brew Fusion also sells Tannat.

Björn [00:21:35] Okay. The other one is Incapto Decaf Blend. I drank that once in Oslo before. I think it's also from them. Let me check. Also from Barcelona. No, no, that's a different company. So Incapto. Coffee is Incapto. Right. And that one's also really good. Both are top notch. I haven't opened it yet. I have two of those. And I had the Brew Fusion the whole time at altitude. And it's really awesome. So... There's also one called Competition. Okay. Right, and we had a huge package of that. And when you're there with ten athletes plus support staff and everything, the beans go pretty quickly too. So it was good. Look, we've already been talking about nothing for half an hour.

Niclas [00:22:15] Yeah, so I'd also say... Niclas has been surfing coffee plans the whole time. Easy. 80 percent of people have already switched off too.

Peter [00:22:24] Next episode, altitude training. Okay.

Niclas [00:22:28] We already said that last time. We can't do it again. What did we actually talk about last time?

Björn [00:22:33] I don't even remember anymore.

Niclas [00:22:35] Last time was your world record holder. Oh right, yeah. Ah, by the way...

Björn [00:22:40] Altitude training works. Yesterday Anton Charmig just goes and wins a stage at the Dauphiné. Hello.

Niclas [00:22:47] Which you posted on Instagram.

Björn [00:22:49] He just had the longest stage, 240 kilometers, a 10-man group went off the front. And then on the final climb, that's about 4-5 minutes going up, he had a pretty good punch for that length. Good VO2max. And then he just left them standing. And won the thing nicely. He just rode it like a time trial, came in with a 40-second gap, having gone clear in the last 10 kilometers. They tried to chase him down at the back, but it didn't work. Looked dialed in to me. His first huge, big World Tour win. That was great.

Niclas [00:23:23] True. Are the 66 kilos on Pro Cycling Stats correct? No. He weighs a bit more. At 1.82 meters, 66 would be on the light side.

Björn [00:23:33] But that was very, very cool and of course makes me really happy and however. And before that we had four weeks of training camp at altitude in the Sierra Nevada. Yeah, and there we, I'd say, adjusted things a bit so they could already perform there. We also didn't travel in directly, we had a week in between and took the load down a bit, sprinkled in a bit of intensity here and there so they wouldn't be at the start line and have the man with the hammer hit right away, because the first stage at the Dauphiné was a killer. It really kicked off there. And we already knew...

Niclas [00:24:05] Yeah. About the training, if I saw it right, this was already the second or third altitude camp for your guys, right?

Björn [00:24:12] Yeah, yeah.

Niclas [00:24:13] So it wasn't the first time.

Björn [00:24:15] Very, very many altitude camps. I think we've already had five or six altitude camps, always a month long. And the Giro squad had, I think, two altitude camps in November and April. Yeah. Or March, sorry. And the Tour squad had this famous training camp in January where they only sat on the trainer and shoveled snow. That was really wild. You couldn't get out anymore. They sat there, and there was really meters and meters of snow in the Sierra Nevada, and they only sat indoors on the trainer, and it took them a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes to get from the apartment down to the center, because you couldn't walk anymore. Exactly. And then we had another one in May, a month long.

Peter [00:24:56] Okay. Should we then... Sorry? I had another question about the altitude training. Do you monitor the riders before and after somehow, with total hemoglobin mass, with that carbon monoxide rebreathing test?

Björn [00:25:09] Hb mass is always measured, before and after. Always two tests taken, basically. You do two tests and take the average, and afterward you do another Hb mass test too. That's standard. With all teams, really, to see how much actually came of it. Sure, you can measure performance... Hb mass is absolutely right and important, but it's also just one indicator, a very strong one, for potential performance gains; there are plenty of others too. So it's always the question. At altitude you also lose things. If you only go long and easy and you're at altitude, you definitely lose a bit of cardiac output. You have to counteract that a bit. Then there are always these altitude windows. Classic literature says, a week afterward is actually bad. One day right after altitude can work quite well, or two days. From two weeks onward and into the next three, four weeks it usually really kicks off. So all the World Championship titles and all the big titles I've won were always three weeks after altitude. And that's no secret. This time we had to rework things a bit, so we sat down together, the coaches who had athletes there, and we made suggestions and moved away a bit from the things we'd done in the past. and ran a slightly different load and a bit more ease-off and a bit of activation here and there, and then it worked out quite well.

Niclas [00:26:32] But should we briefly, because we're already talking a lot about, I found Peter's question for example was a bit more specialized, should we run through this once at a basic level? Yeah, go for it.

Björn [00:26:42] Niclas, you're prepared, you even ran Claude for it. Now you get to read it out. Haha. Long endurance. Motor adaptation.

Niclas [00:26:52] 3-4 weeks. We don't have to do this, but I think it would be... No, please do. It is interesting to at least give people a rough picture of how you'd ideally do it right. I mean, it also makes, I find, at least a big difference. Do you do it once a year? Do you maybe do it twice? Or like you do, four, five times. I mean, the guys, when they come up to 2000 to 2500 meters, they don't have to train as cautiously as someone doing it for the first time that year. That makes a difference.

Björn [00:27:18] So fundamentally, for people who've never been at altitude. Yeah, some go up to Livigno or Passo dello Stelvio or Tonale or whatever there is, getting somewhere around 2 or 1.8 or 2.3. We were at 2.3 now. Yeah. The first few days you always feel a bit off. You notice that pretty clearly. Heart rate goes up, everything is exhausting, you breathe more, you have to drink considerably more, and at first you should really make sure you just acclimatize. You can monitor all of it. You can use HRV. You can also simply check how you feel overall. Heart rate under load. Then also the question, how often do I go to the toilet? That's always a quite good question too. You also excrete considerably more fluid at first, at the beginning. And that levels out after a few days. You might have considerably more bloating, also relatively normal. So you should give yourself a few days.

Niclas [00:28:14] Can confirm. In the end it's mainly, because many people, I find, always say, you have less oxygen up there. That's not really true, because the oxygen content stays the same. It's just that there's lower pressure up there, so less oxygen reaches the muscles, and the oxygen saturation drops.

Björn [00:28:30] I think that picture is always so simplistic. I think people sometimes can't relate to air pressure at all. Totally simple. Just think of water. When you dive and dive deep, you feel pressure, because the water presses on you. And air behaves similarly. When you're up high, you have less air pressing down on you. And up high there's less, down low there's more. And that's a picture, really simple. People sometimes don't get that. Less air is pressed into you.

Peter [00:28:59] The oxygen content is the same, and the partial pressure differs at altitude. And that's also the difference from a tent, where in the tent the oxygen content is artificially reduced. Björn, what difference does that make for the processes that run in the body? Is it the same?

Björn [00:29:16] Peter, you tell me. I don't know. Actually it should be similar. And I can also say, I've had people in altitude tents for long periods. As long as the duration of stay is long enough, I've also gotten good results with the altitude tent. I have to honestly say.

Niclas [00:29:31] Yeah, in the end, the best example right now is, I don't know, Tim.

Björn [00:29:34] Yeah, he basically just lives in a tent.

Niclas [00:29:37] Yeah, so we also met Tim in Livigno, and Tim basically arrived and said, yeah, my values are all the same, he didn't feel much different, and beforehand he'd spent, what does he say, five weeks? Yeah. And he somehow manages twelve to fourteen hours a day in the altitude tent, and because of that... Wild. he basically felt very, very good at altitude right away. And he was also, comparatively, at the World Cup in Andorra, even though beforehand he had no real altitude adaptation, he could still ride very well on site.

Björn [00:30:07] He didn't have big performance losses. Right, if you look at it, he just had terrible luck, with the crash at the start, then said, honestly I don't really care right now, and just rode through it, and you can really see, you know, he's, I don't know, 20th or 25th or 30th, I don't know, was he 18th? Or 18th, something like that, he started from way at the back and just rode his own pace, totally relaxed, and afterward right after the race he went and trained another three hours or two and a half hours, because he said, man, couldn't ride for the golden banana anymore, you know, not the win or a podium, and then he said, man, that wasn't great, I'll just put another three hours of training on top. Yeah, you can do that sometimes, right?

Peter [00:30:52] Yeah. Yeah, he's pretty stable. Björn, you were there with us. I once took part in this altitude study. I think another athlete of yours too, if you remember. And it was a bit about individual adaptation to altitude. And that's a topic, I find, that you have as a coach. Especially from the point where you do a team altitude camp, where there's of course a difference, because you can't adjust the altitude to the individual characteristics of the athletes like with a tent, where you can respond to it. You can go up and down with the altitude depending on how the body reacts. And that makes it, I find, relatively difficult when you do a training camp. In this case it's, I think, six athletes. Some have altitude experience, some don't. Everyone sleeps at 2.1. Now putting together a training program where everyone is challenged in a way that doesn't burn them out, that's very, very difficult. And that's also something that in the past, I gathered, in the women's World Tour, was sometimes still handled very neglectfully, how the fact that it's individual was dealt with.

Björn [00:31:53] Yeah, so that's really how you have to picture it when it comes to training in a World Tour team. You have a support person, then you have a coach along, and then you have a car with all the food and so on, and then you ride behind the riders. Then you've got your six or ten people in front of you and ride behind them all day. Okay. But you have to time it so it works for everyone. You have people who haven't been at altitude for two years. Anton Charmig, for example, hadn't been at altitude for a long time. And the program had to be cut back first. That means he rode a bit less. He did less intensity at first, or none at all, and then it's individually adjusted, but in a way that doesn't disrupt the group dynamic too much. You can't say I'll set off at 12 and the others set off at 10 when you start together. And from a certain point you say, okay, he just hangs at the back or rides a shorter loop. And the intervals are left out entirely. So things like that are done. And in teams you often also do a debrief in the evening. Okay, how was the training? How did you feel? Things like that as a soft indicator. And then you've also got... Other numbers like sleep duration, HRV and all those things, and from your overall picture, training load, heart rate under load, HRV, sleep and RPE and your own state, you as a coach engage with all that and say, okay, he has to do a bit less, or maybe he even cuts off early because he just sleeps terribly at altitude. There are also people who simply can't do it at all. And then you have to bring a certain individuality into a group dynamic. But usually that's not such a huge issue.

Niclas [00:33:29] I think what many don't properly take into account is also a bit that everyone copes with it individually, and everyone simply has to ride their own pace sometimes. So if you have an athlete for whom it just... who struggles more with it, well then just ride a bit easier, make the first week even easier, and then you can train along with the guys in the second week. My approach is always to say, okay, we'll just look at you first, you may have to break away from the group a bit and just ride your own thing.

Björn [00:33:56] Yeah, so I'd say, the performance level in a team like that is usually already pretty homogeneous. So it's not like you have someone with a 60 and someone with a 90 oxygen uptake; they're all really close together. So the group dynamic works relatively well. But sure, compromises have to be made somewhere. Yeah. So, when it comes to initial adaptations, I'd say, the first four, five days you can definitely keep things much quieter and above all watch your heart rate and see how you feel. And you also have to eat considerably more. So you don't just burn through more carbs or energy in general.

Peter [00:34:34] Yeah, and take in more fluid too, especially in the first days, when you lose a lot of fluid. I actually always do it so that I only do quiet base work for the first three-day block and watch a bit, and then after those three days take feedback from the individual riders on how they tolerated it, and then look further at whether intensity even makes sense yet. or whether you're putting too much stress on the body, and then it's fighting too many fronts at once, because then you can also quickly mess up this whole altitude effect, which comes with a certain effort and for many with a financial cost. So a bit of finesse is needed there, I think.

Björn [00:35:07] So it's stress, and you mustn't... For the people who are there, who work there, it's stress for them too, because you sleep worse and so on. Little side anecdote. I was then sent a picture by Thomas Köb. Warm greetings to Thomas from here. And specifically... On the first day I somehow arrived in the evening and had to get in the car the next morning. And then we drove down a very, very sporty descent. Really tight, really tight. And the cyclists are of course much, much faster. And the coach I was riding with, Lars Holm, drove down at full throttle. Really like that. Holy cow. Really, really fast and racing around the corners. We almost rear-ended Remco in a Polo. And I thought, okay, a bit slower now. Anyway, I was already grilled and had a bit of stomach trouble. I got to the bottom and threw up first thing. Yeah, that was a bit of a test. Oh, I just wanted to see how you were doing. And I was like, thanks a lot, not so good. And then I sat in the car for six hours, the seat reclined all the way back, thinking, okay, now you just have to survive six hours here. Somehow I managed. It was unpleasant, but afterward my body was cleansed. Cleansed, nicely put. Did a complete detox. And yeah, so afterward it was fine again, yeah.

Peter [00:36:25] But what did Thomas Köb have to do with it? Altitude stress.

Björn [00:36:29] Thomas Köb had sent me a picture from Thorstein Træen, of me in this car, they photographed into the car, the window was down the whole time because I might have needed to stick my head out again. Yeah,

Peter [00:36:42] I lay there mummified in this car, and I thought, I'll send it to you.

Niclas [00:36:47] We definitely need that picture.

Björn [00:36:49] That was of course the big gag then in the internal WhatsApp group. Kafka writing training plans on his computer. Some unicorn with a rainbow and then always that famous picture of that old nag horse with a chimney in the background. Kafka in command. Left a lasting impression. So.

Peter [00:37:07] That's also very, very good for the morale at a training camp. When you keep feeling really rough. Yeah, that's good.

Björn [00:37:15] Then four weeks at training camp get more relaxed. Yeah, I had a good start. But it was super funny. We had a lot of fun and got up to a lot of nonsense. At some point the idea came up, with Abrahamsen saying he'd run the 400 meters under a minute now. At altitude. And then real bets were placed. 100 euros and jokes like that. Magnus Cort and Abrahamsen. And then they raced each other. At altitude. It didn't quite work out. And then it just came up in the WhatsApp group. Hey. From Cort like, Abraham, that's my IBAN, you can transfer it to me now. So we had a lot of fun with planes, remote-controlled planes and remote-controlled cars that crashed into something somewhere. And there was also a pig, it was totally cute. There was this pig that lived somewhere there and had a green neckerchief on, and it always came into our apartment and wanted to eat. So yeah, a pig, it's like a domestic pig.

Niclas [00:38:11] Yeah, but whose was the domestic pig?

Björn [00:38:13] Someone who lives there in the Sierra Nevada? Yeah, someone lived there and had a domestic pig, she lived a floor below us, so to speak, or a terrace lower, and the pig always came to us. Wanted to eat. Maurten then crossed it out.

Niclas [00:38:27] Cute. Then Jonas boxed with the pig over the food.

Björn [00:38:30] Something like that.

Niclas [00:38:32] The pig was amazing.

Björn [00:38:34] So we had a lot of fun. I wouldn't say joking aside, but rather joking is important. Keeping morale up for four weeks in a thing like that, in an altitude grind where you smash yourself in the face every day, which is really hard, where you have to meticulously watch everything so you don't fall on your face, some people there did, some World Tour teams did that for a good while, because the descent is also fast and rough asphalt and so on. And then the training volume has to be coped with, you have to cope with the altitude. Then the weather went from okay and a bit of rain to 35 degrees at some point in Granada, boiling hot. That's why good team morale is extremely important. And they've totally got that. So it's extremely funny. Had great cooks there. Everyone pulls together there. So it's like... The systematic structure there is already very, very good. Grown very organically. And everyone knows what's to be done and what to do. And yeah, that was really cool. That's also why it works so well, because everyone is really into it.

Peter [00:39:37] You have to keep a certain lightness despite very professional work and structure. That's, I think, very, very important especially in a training scenario like that. Because the people also grow together quite a bit there. At races there's also a lot of pressure, expectation pressure, still in the mix. That's actually a good opportunity to hold the team together there too, I think.

Björn [00:39:57] Yeah, and fundamentally it's the case that when you talk about training like this, you first look at how you feel. Heart rate, first put in a lot of volume. In the Sierra it's always very clear, you do Live High, Train Low or Sleep High, Train Low, because sure, you can ride up there too, but that's somehow very limited. Usually you first roll down, then you're in Granada and the area and ride your stuff. First you do, as a rule, all the base work, and then at some point you can put in something specific after two weeks or so. And you always have to ride back up. You always have to ride up this mountain.

Peter [00:40:35] How long does that take?

Björn [00:40:36] A good long hour. Man, no, longer.

Niclas [00:40:41] Look, from Bormio up to Passo dello Stelvio is also already 90 minutes.

Björn [00:40:46] So I think we ride for an hour and a half. It's a totally pleasant climb. It's super nice to ride, never rough, never steep. You ride your, I don't know, 6, 8, 9 percent max, ride up there, nice road, you can turn left at some point after the Repsol gas station onto the old route. Super, super nice. And yeah, it's quite pleasant. Then you meet everyone. I had a conversation yesterday with Jan Oellerich, who works with Thomas Köb. He told me, ah yeah, you were at altitude, Nils had told me he met you at the Repsol gas station, Nils Politt. And like I said, you see people you otherwise never see. That was totally funny. And I also went for coffee with Javier. That was very cool too. We had a lot of fun. Great.

Peter [00:41:30] The specificity in training, does it differ significantly from what you'd do with the athlete if he weren't at an altitude camp?

Björn [00:41:38] Yes, you do more volume. That for sure. As a rule you go easier at first, lots of volume, and then at some point you start building in the specificity. The nice thing is, when you ride uphill for so long, you can also practice the specificity, if we have long climbs at the Tour, then you've already practiced that. Then they ride almost 30 minutes straight, some interval program, and then you have three of those, so you already get to a relatively high load over an hour and a half or so, yeah. At those intensities. Race simulation, so to speak.

Peter [00:42:12] So I can speak a bit from my own experience, when it went above 1.8 and you ride back up to this living altitude of 2, 2.1, you also already get this effect again, that you don't only do Train Low, but you also ride the last part up at altitude. At the Transalp that was sometimes also above 1.8, and that's, I think, also another effect, a stimulus, compared to if you'd climbed the whole thing. So you also still get the last part always train high, and you spend a lot of time on climbs of course. Yeah.

Björn [00:42:42] First of all, purely muscularly it's really different, and being at altitude, living at altitude, so hematologically aside, there are also other adaptations. Classically buffering capacity is massively increased, or is increased at altitude. You don't have to take bicarbonate anymore. No, but... Just the purely mechanical part, riding uphill in that position for a very long time, definitely does something too. If you want to ride mountains in a race, it's not bad if you've already ridden mountains.

Niclas [00:43:16] Do you do it with your GC riders so that in the later camps, the second or third, you also really specifically, after the first two weeks when they're already relatively adapted, deliberately have them ride intervals at altitude? Because in the end... that's exactly what happens at the Tour too, right?

Björn [00:43:31] Yeah, well, I can speak more about my own athletes, or the athletes I've otherwise worked with on the mountain bike or still work with. I do that. But that's... old Sky school, so to speak, yeah. A bit of work hard, or train hard, race easier, yeah. So that maybe there's already a race scenario in mind, and you can perhaps only kind of simulate it. But you don't only do that at altitude, you do it with all the other things too, when it goes into a specific preparation. When you come out of a classic block-training regime and say, I want to do something a bit different now, so I'm more race-specifically prepared, then you can definitely do that. At altitude or also on the flat. But yeah, to answer your question, I do do that.

Peter [00:44:16] How do you handle iron intake at altitude? When I was at Red Bull with Henrike, we talked about that again too. How do you handle it?

Björn [00:44:24] I just take iron. It's simple, but there's a nutrition scientist there, blood panels were done, and they've got it under control. It gets outsourced, but fundamentally the iron status should already be right before the altitude camp, and at altitude you keep taking iron. Otherwise the most expensive altitude camp is for nothing. If it doesn't fit. That's also often seen, unfortunately. As you already said, with World Tour women too it was really neglected. They arrived with iron stores that were far too low, and then the women are at altitude for three weeks and nothing comes of it anymore, except that they train themselves even more into the ground. Could have been done smarter too.

Peter [00:45:02] The recommendation we got now was actually, they say, that you do the iron intake every other day, to spare the receptors a bit, but that very good results are now also being shown when you keep the total dose very low. I think it was 140 milligrams now, that you take it daily, starting on the first day at altitude until the last day, so you're on the safe side. Of course always with a blood panel and so on, but if someone does a private altitude camp now, so they have a bit of a guideline at hand for how to handle it. So a daily intake with a low dose also seems to be something that achieves good results, or the status... Because it's absorbed poorly anyway, you mustn't forget that.

Björn [00:45:41] Only a few percent actually gets absorbed. But there I'm... So there are people who are much more knowledgeable on the topic, but... Fundamentally, iron intake is very, very important. But how, when, where, okay, every other day, that's also about where my knowledge was. Daily microdosing, or a mini smaller dose, can certainly make sense too, but I don't know more than that.

Niclas [00:46:06] I think those are also the two ways, that you either take it daily or every two days, and for that you take a large dose every two days.

Peter [00:46:13] But it's also important, I think, to consult a doctor again. And that's also my recommendation, if someone really invests the money and does a private altitude camp, that they first have their iron status checked again. If they arrive with an iron status at that level, then the whole altitude camp brings relatively little for the money.

Björn [00:46:33] Yeah, go on holiday in Livigno.

Niclas [00:46:37] Yeah, and I find, you must never forget this in the planning, ideally you should check your iron value, I don't know, three months in advance, because if you want to do this, and your iron value at the first checkup three months out is already low, then, you also need time just to be able to supplement iron, to fix this value, say, because it's no use, I do an altitude camp in two weeks and say, well, okay, then do a blood panel. Then a week and a half before, you maybe have your value, and then you see, oh, the value is too low. Well, then you might as well cancel the altitude camp right there, because you won't fix your iron value in a week and a half. And then, as Björn already said, the effect brings you nothing. That means, I find, altitude training actually only makes sense for athletes who plan a whole season cleanly long-term and then also bring things like a blood panel into the, in quotes, routine somewhere, so you check that regularly.

Peter [00:47:27] You need a professional structure there, I think, to really profit from it, also long-term, because you also have to gather experience. How do you react individually afterward, regarding race planning? You need certain capacities there to use it profitably long-term, I think.

Niclas [00:47:42] Björn, how hot is the Tour de France preparation with you right now?

Björn [00:47:46] Hot. A Dauphiné is running. It doesn't get much hotter. Now you have to see how you come out of it.

Niclas [00:47:53] Is the roster set with you already?

Björn [00:47:55] Yeah, there are of course always a few candidates on the bubble, or rather, you always have two riders where you don't know, or they're set up so that if someone gets sick or something, things like that. But after the Dauphiné it'll be decided pretty clearly who's coming along now and who's not. But I'd say, the roster planning is actually done by November.

Niclas [00:48:15] Wow, wild. That means, since November, say, 10 to 11 riders know, okay, you're the Tour de France roster, you 8 are definitely coming and the rest is reserve.

Björn [00:48:25] In November the complete calendar is set for all riders. Whew. Which is awesome. And not all teams do that, because you can really say exactly... And it's also genuinely handled that way, that you sit down with the DS and say, or with the Head of Sports and Performance Management, you sit down, okay, where can we still fit in training. Because otherwise, if you bomb people with races and they're also so awkwardly spread out that you have a race every two weeks, you can't do anything anymore. It's really about race phases. Then you have four, five, six weeks again to do something else. That's already paid attention to.

Niclas [00:49:02] But I think that's also, at least from what I gather from the Continental Team scene, how it is in ProConti I don't know. But that's the big advantage of the World Tour. Your calendar is 90 percent fixed. You know which races you ride. And in the Continental scene, if you, I don't know, if I asked Matthias in November, yeah, which races are we riding next year? Yeah, how do they even plan the athletes? And then he goes, yeah, no idea what we're riding. Let's see where we get invited. They can't even register us for the race yet. That's a huge difference.

Peter [00:49:30] The periodization of training suffers from that, because the riders somehow always still have to be ready. Because an invitation to a race can still come at short notice as a Continental team, where they can present themselves. But ideal from a performance standpoint, also I think for developing young riders, it's definitely not. But that's also partly down to the structure of the Continental teams, I think, because the portion of races where they know they're riding them, those they should at least plan out, so you have a rough plan of who, which team, which rider, is deployed how and where, to really put real development of the riders front and center and not always just firefighters. Yeah.

Niclas [00:50:08] Yeah.

Peter [00:50:09] Yeah.

Niclas [00:50:11] We tried that for the first time this year, for example, giving the riders a calendar as early as possible. Okay, these are the races we'll ride 90 percent. To at least give people a rough plan. Although we just saw it again, we got invited to the Wallonie at fairly short notice and then have to figure out who's even fit right now to sensibly ride such a well-stacked race. And that's then, I find, on the one hand always a huge opportunity for riders, because, oh, so cool, you can battle World Tour squads, and on the other hand also super hard, simply because you maybe, especially our, in quotes, top rider, Christians, feels like he's racing the whole time, because he constantly performs relatively well and of course then gets sent to every race by us. You really have to keep an eye on that and talk to the rider early and say, okay, we have to chill now, otherwise we'll burn him out. What's up with Olli? Olli... last year, I'd say, was better. But he trains very well. I don't think it's down to... So Olli himself is humble as always, gives it everything, trains well, rides as well as he can. I think for him the race situations just haven't come together yet for him to really show what he's got. Purely on the numbers, Olli is strong as a bear as always. He's been a bit short on luck so far, in Hellas taken out early by a crash, had an early flat and then of course lost time in the GC and stuff, that was unfortunate, but the form itself, he's fit, he can ride fast. I think he just has to stay calm now and then a good result will come of it too. I think it'll come good.

Peter [00:51:35] Yeah, for sure. I just think it's also important, especially with younger riders, or it came very late for me too, once they have the effect, when you work toward a race for four, five, six weeks, which you can basically also achieve in training, when you prepare specifically for one thing. Once that clicks a bit, that's, I think... but you first have to have the freedom of course, and the lower the level is, the more you always get thrown in somewhere, or rather, you have to present yourself on very many different stages. But I think a specific preparation like that also does something with the athlete somehow. Because it came to me very late too, that I noticed, okay, this normal fitness, sure, racing, but when you work specifically on one physiological ability for six weeks, something really happens there, and that's nearly impossible if you race every weekend or every other race.

Niclas [00:52:25] You get into a completely different form, and above all you also always come in with a completely different mindset, a different attitude toward a race. You know, okay, what's waiting for me here at this race, I've trained for it, I can do it. You're more confident, you know, okay, the climb is this long, you can ride the numbers, and then you do it, you carry it through. That's something completely different than when you, I don't know, at least I always find, when you have to train a bit of everything, because you have to be able to do a bit of everything, and then you, I don't know, get thrown into an Alpine marathon. Yeah, thanks. That I can't perform there, if I basically don't live there, don't reside there, am not used to the altitude, is, in quotes, normal. Anyone can reason that out normally, I think. But that's definitely the case, Peter. It's quite wild. A specific preparation like that. I think just what it does in your head is already good. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Then thanks for the fun round. My pleasure.

Björn [00:53:19] We'll hear from each other next time. Which topic? Any idea? Should we toss it out there? Altitude?

Peter [00:53:26] I'll think of something.

Niclas [00:53:28] Now we've got altitude. Go for it. I'll think of something. Then, guys, I wish you a good week.

Björn [00:53:33] Yeah, you too. Good training. We'll hear from each other. I have to slip into the next call right now.

Niclas [00:53:40] I have to drink an espresso and get on the bike. Perfect. Guys, thanks for the episode. We'll hear from each other. Ciao, ciao.