Episode 64 — Transcript (EN)

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

Niclas [00:00:00] Welcome to the A Faster You Podcast, where everything revolves around endurance sports 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. A wonderful good day to a new episode of the A Faster You Podcast. Yeah, sorry for the botched intro. Today, as always, with Björn — and a new person in the mix. Peter, good morning. Yeah, good morning, and thanks for letting me be here.

Björn [00:00:37] Peter Schermann is with us today. Yeah. Trained with me for a long time. No, still trains with me. And also a coach. A good coach. Peter, why don't you introduce yourself?

Peter [00:00:54] I love that line. I wasn't prepared for this.

Niclas [00:00:58] That's so ungrateful.

Peter [00:00:59] What should I tell you? I'm 38 years old now. I came to cycling relatively late, but I've experienced it in a lot of different facets, I think. I've actually been all over the world — 35 countries. I rode a bit on the road, but mainly mountain bike marathon. That was my focus, and in the last few years I've also raced gravel and pretty much tried everything. Tried it all — also raced the Trek 360, the Double World Series — and I've been working as a coach for a few years, which I really enjoy, and this year I'm no longer an elite rider. I'm still training a bit because I think the structure does me good, and I still race a few events in the age-group field. I'm happy to be here for this episode.

Björn [00:02:05] Peter and I — how long have we been working together? Five years, six years? No idea.

Peter [00:02:11] It probably came too late for me. It would have been good if it had come earlier. But now I'd say five, six years.

Björn [00:02:21] And I know, maybe the story has been told to death, but sorry, this just has to be done. Peter has a pretty fascinating life story. But we won't start with the small stuff. Normally you don't like talking about illnesses, but that's part of what brought you to cycling. Peter was actually a passionate basketball player. Really, really good. And then it kind of knocked him sideways. Tell us briefly. It's a wild story.

Peter [00:02:54] Yeah, so I'd basically already stopped. I was doing both in parallel — cycling and playing basketball — which the basketball team didn't exactly love when I'd play regional league on Saturday and race a marathon on Sunday. Then at some point I only rode the bike, and I had a really good first year. And in the second year, I trained properly through the winter, went to Morocco on the road, and two days after I came back I had a stroke at home — that's the short version. I didn't know at the time it was a stroke. I just noticed — I woke up in the morning and noticed something wasn't right. I mean, that's how I feel every morning. I was home alone. And it was basically like — I thought, did you pinch a nerve in training? Yeah. I noticed something wasn't right cognitively. I thought, go take a shower, maybe it'll pass. And in the shower I noticed something wasn't right. The shower was so brutally loud, and I sometimes sing in the shower, and I noticed I couldn't form words anymore. Of course you panic. And then it spread relatively fast — I had — a one-sided paralysis. And then my protection, my lifesaver — it's always dramatic to say it like that, but really, my best friend happened to drop by. He was on his way to the gym and wanted to have an espresso with me. We hadn't actually planned to meet. And he rang the bell. And I think if he hadn't rung the bell, I would've had a hard time helping myself. I could still open the door, and he said at first I was messing with him. But he's a paramedic, and he realized very quickly what was going on and called the ambulance. And that's how, at 29, I ended up in the hospital with the diagnosis — later turned out to be a fairly severe stroke. That pulls the rug out from under you, of course. But I accepted it quickly, and — it sometimes feels a bit uncomfortable to me, that it always comes across as this super success story, getting back on the bike — but really, there was a lot of luck involved, and that gratitude that I had the luck to still be able to do everything I do — that doesn't go away. I'm actually grateful every day. I even thought, after two or three years, at some point this has to — go away, this feeling of always being in a good mood and sensing this gratitude. But I really feel it consistently — I'm grateful that I can do everything the way I can. It wasn't an easy road — it's not like everything just fell into my lap again. It was hard, especially the first two years. And even after that, it often limited me — in different areas, Björn, you know that, or we had problems that were the consequence — but in the end I really can't complain, and I'm very glad how I made it through, or where things are now, since I've also been racing hardrock for a long time.

Niclas [00:06:37] What were the main limitations right after the stroke? When you said you were standing in the shower with one-sided paralysis — did that persist? Did you have to spend the first year relearning how to grip with that side, or…?

Peter [00:06:55] So the acute phase, when the ambulance comes — they don't know, do you have a brain hemorrhage? What I had in the end was basically a blockage in my head, which reduces blood flow, and depending on where it's blocked, in plain language, paralyzes that area. And in my case it was the left side of the body, and every brain also has its own — There's a general schematic where you say, that's where this is — but it's also somewhat individual. Basically, the entire left side of my body was affected, and after the stroke you can see on the images, you have a black spot about the size of a 1-euro coin. Those brain cells are basically lost, which might also explain my behavior. Joking aside, when you're relatively young, the brain can redistribute things — let me call it that. But it costs an enormous amount of energy. The first year and a half I had huge problems with fatigue, had to sleep a lot. Many things that used to be normal — normal conversation, a phone call — were incredibly exhausting for me. And I really had to look very carefully at what I needed my energy for on any given day. And of course there were setbacks, weeks where really nothing worked. Balance, of course, a big topic as a cyclist. At the beginning I couldn't ride a bike at all. And yeah, it took a very long time for that to come back. I can't fully rotate my left hand. But if I were a swimmer, that would be a different story. And about two fingers are numb, where there's still not much feeling. But yeah, those are all things you can deal with.

Björn [00:09:11] Yeah, I had another athlete who'd also had a stroke — he's a teacher. Similar story, especially the fatigue thing, that really worked him over. It was during the Covid period — luckily he didn't have to be present in class, but it was really intense. We noticed it very strongly, he does a lot of — orienteering — with maps and running and so on. The craziest part was, he said running wasn't the problem, but reading the map. I really couldn't read the map at all when I was exerting myself. That took a relatively long time, about a year and a half, and then he got really, really good again. But that combination — to push hard or be under load, and then cognitively do something on top — that was a killer.

Peter [00:10:10] He couldn't manage that at all. That was really hell for me too, I have to say. Orientation was never really my thing, but even on lap courses — When you were in the effort. You ride a lap course six times, and on the fourth lap I still didn't know what was coming next, because I just couldn't process it. The biggest problem in races was descending with that slightly disturbed sense of balance, because it's brutally exhausting. And until it felt good enough again that it was fun and you could really let it run without cognitively burning out — that took really, really long. And one big thing — it's not a big problem, but — Of course, when you have a stroke and you're in the middle of life, a young, athletic guy — there's always the question of outside perception. I'd never had a stroke before. I don't know if I'd do it the same way again — making it as public as I did. It was a topic that I often ran into people who said, if you look like that after a stroke, I'd also like to have a stroke. Or if you're as active as that. Those kinds of things come along too — they really got to me at the beginning, because no one except my closest friends and family — had experienced it with me, knew what I'd put into it or how I was really doing at times. You often play it down a bit in public. That was definitely a topic too. But I think what I had to learn above all was patience. That was a very, very difficult topic for me before. I was very impatient, also with the people around me when they couldn't — say something quickly enough, or couldn't, or somehow. I used to make fun of friends when we watched a movie and they didn't understand what was going on. And suddenly I was the one who was completely lost after two minutes. Didn't understand anymore what it was about. And I think it did me good characterwise to get to know that other perspective and to be the one who takes a bit longer.

Björn [00:12:46] Wild. Fascinating story. Wild.

Niclas [00:12:56] Okay, now we have to find a good transition. How do we find a good transition from that? Because you just said you were 29. I'm 29 right now, and I'm thinking, damn. Just imagine — I could just be standing in the shower tomorrow and have a stroke. Wow, especially when you say you still don't have 100% feeling in your fingers, or can't fully rotate your hand — things like that. Some of that you'll probably have for life. Stuff like the fingers, right?

Peter [00:13:33] Yeah, they always say with neurological things that anything that doesn't come back after a year is lost. But my experience was that for me it took longer. Every body is individual, and the statements you get — when you have a stroke as a young person doing competitive sports — The first doctor told me, life as you knew it won't be possible anymore. It's always a question of perspective. Of course, that also — you should add this — by now we also know the cause. I had a hole in my heart that has since been closed with a small umbrella device — a lot of people have that. And yeah, it has to be justifiable. If someone had said to me, you have an X% increased risk of having another event if you keep doing sports, then I would have — tried to find another purpose in life. But the fact that I weathered it as well as I did has to do with the fact that I was in very, very good physical shape compared to the general population at that time. And that was always in my head — that I came out of this because I was fit. And that's also a big part of why I want to stay fit and pay attention to being relatively healthy, because that's the highest good. I really learned that. In the end, it doesn't matter how much money you make or whether you have nice cars or — whatever — in that moment, other things really count. And you become very aware of that, and I think that changes your perspective for the rest of your life.

Björn [00:15:38] I work with a young athlete who had almost the same story as you. Also a small hole in the heart, and he — End of last year, October, end of October too. Yeah, a small stroke, but not as dramatic as yours. And then the cause wasn't found at first. Then they looked at the heart more closely and saw it. That was closed too. Of course it scars up a bit. Then there was some further complication. It took a while until the scarring went down. And now he's already raced Rund um Frankfurt again. He got through it well in the pro field. So yeah — and he didn't train for three months. That just shows again, if you go in with a robust body, recovery is usually pretty good. If you're lucky, let's put it that way. I always say, when you come from a very high baseline, then — the path back maybe doesn't go all the way to the top again, but you can still have a really great life going forward. That's also a bit of self-protection.

Peter [00:16:52] I think in my case, looking back, by 38 the elite years are over — the way the development went in the early years, I couldn't continue that — couldn't keep going. At the beginning it was very promising because it went fast and I quickly reached a level where people said, wow, where does that come from? Then at some point it stalled a bit. I reached a good level again, but always had — problems to deal with that caused some stagnation. But in the end you really have to be happy with how things are. And yeah, life is just that way. You can't choose how it goes. And I think I came out of it pretty well. Yeah, good.

Björn [00:18:01] Both of you raced the Truckee, right? There were a lot of you there. Exactly. Felt like everyone was there. Everyone was there. Andi Seewald, I think, completely destroyed his wheel at one point. And went from 90th place back up to about 25th.

Niclas [00:18:20] Niclas raced well too. At kilometer 50 — well, I was 18 myself, but Andi was stopped at 50 or so. He had a cut in his tire, so all the air was suddenly gone. Couldn't fix it with plug or canister either. He ran to the next aid station — there was a water point right after — they gave him a tube, he put it in, and yeah — I talked to him the next day, because we had his wheels, we were helping him with feeding — and he said, well, he'd prepared all the carbs, tapered, so now he had to ride, even though he didn't feel like it anymore, which I totally understand after a situation like that. Then he rode again, swapped wheels at the aid station at 115, I think, and then — well, like Andi does — flew through the whole field and ended up 25th. I mean, if the race had been, I don't know, like last year's 360, he might've still caught me. Wild. Wild, wild, wild, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Björn [00:19:38] Peter, how was it for you?

Peter [00:19:41] Oh, pretty okay. I finished 17th overall at the Truckee Race, in the 100. I was missing a bit going uphill, because the first hour or the first 70-80 minutes are hard with those climbs. Was it the same climb? Yeah, this year, yes. Last year — they always tweak the course a bit, for the 100 it was set up that way — but the climb is always tough, and in a three-hour race they hit it faster. And what was wild — I always stay with a buddy in Australia here — he was slowly slipping backward out of the group, and I was hoping he'd — stand up a bit so I could ride together with him. But he managed to get over that first climb, and then from behind came a girl in a Movistar jersey. And I'd argue, for a gravel rider I can ride a backup pretty well, especially in the dry. And she was clipping along. I've rarely seen anything like that. I've ridden with quite a few women who are very good gravel riders. And I thought, who is this? And eventually there's a goal. Later, thank God, I was able to drop her again. But Cat Ferguson, I found out afterwards. I've rarely seen something like that. Also in crosswind sections and so on. Does she have any off-road background? She's a track rider, right? Yeah. I rode this Cervélo with the fork. She rode the same thing without the Swiss fork. And we were in a group of five or six. A Spaniard, an Englishman with us. And we just — She basically rode away from the whole group with me, and then she said to me — I asked if she needed anything, because I saw she only had one bottle and so on. She didn't need anything. I should just make sure we'd get away from the other two now. They just couldn't keep up. It was really wild. I really believe we'll be hearing more — from her.

Björn [00:22:05] And not because I was able to ride with her, but… yeah, she's 20, she's really, really good. Tour of Flanders, she won that — in the junior ranks — she also races cyclocross, and, and, and, so she's just… Ah okay, so she's also a cross racer.

Niclas [00:22:24] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I somehow had it in my head that she rode track.

Björn [00:22:29] I didn't have it in my head that she does off-road… She rode track, raced two World Cups. And World Cup winner, and at the World Championships, European Championships I think she was second. So she can really do something.

Peter [00:22:45] For someone 19, 20, I talked with her briefly afterwards — incredibly mature. Incredibly calm and composed in how she handles it. I really have to say, hats off. You know that last climb that goes up there.

Niclas [00:23:09] They've built it into every distance now, right?

Peter [00:23:11] Yeah. It was in the 360 last year too, but it was a bit higher up. You'd come out further up on this tarmac road, and just before that I was able to roll away from her technically, because I think if we both hit that climb at the same time, I wouldn't have come out the top with her. I really have to say that. I was glad I had about 20 seconds on her beforehand in a technical section, so I went in alone, and then I was able to really push there again and brought it home before her. But really impressive, and wild where it's going performance-wise. Yeah, it's astonishing.

Björn [00:23:55] I see it on our team too, at Ulrich's. It's just wild how performance development in women's cycling — we always talk about men's cycling, but the women are making much bigger leaps. When I look at where we were five years ago. And what the numbers are now, it's just a crazy performance bump. How great that this sport, women's cycling, is professionalizing more and more, that real money is now flowing in. It would be nice if the broadcast windows were a bit longer, because the races are super exciting. The races are sometimes much more exciting than the men's races. Because no Pogi rides away.

Peter [00:24:38] And the field has gotten clearly more homogeneous. Earlier, when I trained with women and female pros, there were always big differences depending on who you rode with. Whether they could just go along normally or not. That's clearly become more homogeneous, I think. And I see it with my girlfriend here, Bodi Chapman, what kind of leap she's made. She's already 35. But what a leap she's made in the last two, three years at UAE — you really have to put in a serious effort to keep up.

Björn [00:25:15] Or Franzi Koch. I mean, you know Franzi very well too. She's been crushing it. She's leading the Vuelta again right now.

Peter [00:25:23] Yeah, insane.

Björn [00:25:25] It's just wild. The development is just nuts. So, you were in Girona, I was in another cycling hotspot of the world — Bad Waldsee. What was happening there? Bad Waldsee was the world record attempt — and also a successful one — riding around for seven days straight.

Niclas [00:25:54] I heard about it. I only saw pictures and a very high number of kilometers. 3,860 kilometers. What exactly are the rules? How does it work? How can you picture it?

Björn [00:26:14] Relatively simple. You can pick any route you want. That's pretty much irrelevant. It has to be official, it's verified, you have to send in the FIT files and so on. You can sleep as you want, and you have to do the thing, you can't draft, and all those things. And many people pick a dead-flat course to make it work. And it was Daniel Steinhauser who set this world record now. He rode it in Bad Waldsee. In case anyone doesn't know that hotspot of the world yet, let me bring it closer — it's near Ravensburg, near Lake Constance. And anyone who knows the area — it's not just dead flat, it goes up and down. And he just pulled it through full gas. And it's totally fascinating. Anyone who knows Daniel — you see him and you wouldn't expect this from this guy at all. He just looks totally normal. He looks like he could be a nice physics teacher, or a friendly customer advisor at the bank or whatever. Exactly, the accountant type. Super nice. I still haven't seen him. No. I stayed in the 90s too. I'm still with John McClane and Die Hard. Some say he's a doer, but he's just a guy who pulls through.

Niclas [00:28:02] Without making a fuss. That's just awesome. Now, if it's not a flat course, that means — well, I don't want to take anything away from his achievement, but it means probably, just from the conditions alone, there's still room to do it even faster and better. Yeah, definitely. Flat course, I don't know, I saw pictures, the guy was bundled up warm at times, and it was wet.

Björn [00:28:28] One degree. Yeah, it was really, really cold at times. During the day we had genuinely cool, or rather nice temperatures, and at night it got really cold. He really froze. Those were real problems too. On the first day he hammered out, I think, seven hundred and something kilometers, then really clobbered himself. We then — I had my technique — the project's been in my head for a long time. I'd set the 24-hour world record on the trainer with him, won Race Across Italy, and so on. And then he said he wanted to do this, and could I help him? I said sure, we can do it. It's a great idea, let's do it. And pacing — He said he wanted to ride as much as possible on the first day because he'd get tired anyway. And that's how it was. And he was looking at how others do it, the great heroes of long-distance. And I said from the beginning, physiologically, I'd rather ride it differently. Much more evenly. So that we really have three hours of sleep break per day. Then we can pull this off reasonably well. Yeah, the end of the story was, first day full gas, second day complete — a real complete collapse. I'd say 99.9% of people who'd been in the same situation would have stopped. Definitely. But Daniel Steinhauser is just Daniel Steinhauser. He just keeps going. Even when he's vomiting and it's all spraying out of the tubes. Let me paint that picture. The guy is just… nice. Worse still. Niclas. No. He gets up. Sleeps then. An hour and a half. Gets up. Peace sign. Morning. Okay, let's keep going. Like a switch had been flipped. And then at some point it became a tight thing. And I was — more in the background, and he'd built this incredibly good crew that really — sorry for the question, so a car also follows behind? Yeah, yeah.

Peter [00:30:52] Feeding comes from the car.

Björn [00:30:53] Yeah, exactly. Car-fed feeding, and we'd also worked out the nutrition strategy completely. We started three days beforehand eating only liquid. To stress the stomach as little as possible. We'd tried it out in training. So we had — Nutrition like you get in intensive care units.

Niclas [00:31:13] Like Fresubin and stuff — the kind of thing they use on the road too.

Björn [00:31:16] Yeah, exactly, Fresubin. Then we used a slow maltodextrin, then also rice balls — that's it. Then we took blood, which is really interesting — we looked at the values, and potassium kept dropping. Then we fed in a bit with very ripe bananas, worked totally well, no need for additives. And we didn't — overfeed crazily, like 100 or 120 grams — really more on the low end, because we wanted to keep the gut relatively safe. That can get pretty critical on such long distances.

Peter [00:31:52] Right, the duration of the days does it eventually too. Yeah, yeah, sure. If you did 120 over several days in a row, eventually you'd hit a problem. Then you have to go to the safer variant probably better. Yeah, exactly.

Björn [00:32:06] First day we rode 180 watts. In 22 hours or whatever. And after that it dropped a lot. Cadence we optimized pretty thoroughly. We said really low. 70 — that's metabolically the most efficient, that's also nicely shown in the study by Clemens Hesse and Katharina Dunst, and aerodynamically useful in places. And of course we put him on the aero bike — I'd fitted him to it years ago. And we chose a position that was reasonably okay. The neck was of course the absolute problem afterwards — he couldn't hold his head up anymore. It just didn't work. And then you can rig up an expander on the back. But we didn't do that either. Then he rode in the upright position. Completely wild. He also really swelled up. His whole body was swollen. But we always took blood. It's going to be interesting. We'll write it up properly. Yeah, but it doesn't happen often in seven days. And he had a great crew that really — It just goes to show again, at every race — if you're well organized and have a real plan and a structure worked out, then it runs. In between, around day three, it got really tight. And then I said, yeah, I saw kilometer-wise, we were losing ground. And then at some point I put together an Excel sheet and said, this is the plan. And the point isn't to stick to the plan, but rather to have something in your hand and say, okay, we have — I don't know. 2,000 kilometers. We still need to ride at least 1,860 kilometers, or 1,835. How much was the old record? How much did you have to beat? The old record was 1,833, I think. And we rode 27 kilometers further. Just having something in your hand.

Peter [00:34:11] I think that's a really important point generally in the training process and in the race process. This plan that you work out breaks the whole thing down into doable chunks. And that's also incredibly important for the psyche, that you have something in your hand. Of course it still has to be adjusted. But it just gives you the certainty — that it's broken down so you can manage it. That's actually what you do in the training process too.

Björn [00:34:42] Eventually you see how many kilometers it is and how many it should be. Where do we need to go? Where are we right now on the schedule? Then you've worked it out a bit. Up until the end you didn't know if it would really work. But at some point we had a pretty good buffer. I'd estimated that we'd — On day 4, I said, if we keep pacing like this, we'll come in at about 3,860. And we actually came in at pretty much exactly 3,860. Then I obviously looked into my crystal ball and slaughtered the goat and the pentagram and so on. Then I also knew the score. Lay hands. Yeah.

Niclas [00:35:28] All the rituals you also do before a Tour de France time trial so you can predict things like that. But I know now how it works.

Björn [00:35:35] Did I tell you about the palm-reading party? No. We're curious, come on. Quick story. I was at a party. For an Olympic gold. Oh yeah, I know the story. And eventually I end up with this guy who reads palms.

Niclas [00:36:07] And he's like… so he looks at the lines on your hand or what? Yeah, exactly.

Björn [00:36:12] And he's also a physio or whatever. Apparently he does a really good job, at least he works with very, very good people. But a big part of his approach is also palm reading, like character analysis and so on. And then I ended up at this party where everyone — had a lot of fun and drank a lot of alcohol, except for me, because I had to drive back the next day. And then my palm was read and I was told what kind of person I am and so on. It was pretty interesting. Did it fit? Yeah, it's — I think it's like reading horoscopes and coffee grounds. They pull out these clichés and you say, yeah, kind of, that's right, you're a cool guy, fits. Yeah. I had an experience like that too. But you can turn every crappy trait into a good one. Yeah, you're stubborn. But you're energetic and whatever. Sure, great. Sounds great, yeah. But, yeah.

Peter [00:37:15] It's also always the case that people like to say things that flatter you. You're assertive. Someone once told me, you have a very big mouth, you have an incredible need to be heard. Those are the kinds of things where you say, you're right. If you've talked with me for two minutes, you know I have a big need to communicate. There's no real magic behind it. But I have another question about the world record. Specifically, what do you focus on in the immediate preparation, let's say six weeks out — what's the physiological focus for something like this? Because it's largely in the back half also —

Björn [00:38:01] a mental thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That thing only works through the head, plain and simple. And he's really ready for that. And that's a quality. Damn, I have to take another turn. I'm really sorry. But the physiological stuff also comes. Honestly, you talked about it yesterday. Namely, this quality of really putting yourself into shitty situations and coming out of them well. So, I'm talking now about my mother-in-law and about my mother. Both have very, very different life designs.

Niclas [00:38:45] This could get dangerous, right?

Björn [00:38:48] For you, Björn. The inheritance is secure. From my mother I'll get nothing. And from my mother-in-law, my wife gets everything. Absolute fool's freedom. Absolute fool's freedom. Say what you want. No, but life designs different. My mother-in-law, highly intellectual, studied at Cambridge, blah blah blah and so on. Lived very consciously, did sports and so on. Gets cancer twice, really seriously. Three years ago there was another diagnosis, nasty skin cancer. And then, yeah, this is only going to be okay for two more years. Then the bell has tolled. And she just pulls through. Not in a 'I can do this' way, but just, okay, always positive, said okay then so be it — I still have some money, I'll make bronze sculptures now, lots of them — and just pulls through, the whole time. And it's really completely fascinating that she doesn't let it get to her at all — she got surgery, radiation, then immunotherapy, and, and, and, the whole program. And they actually said that everything we're doing here is life-extending. It's not that she'll be cured. End of the story is, the stuff's gone. It's just gone. I always say, snarky as I am, she's also a person who's energetic and has done a lot in life. Which means, in a certain way, also exhausting. I always say, the cancer just doesn't feel like dealing with her anymore. Just gone.

Niclas [00:40:44] Well, sympathy and never piss her off. Yeah, I love her, really.

Peter [00:40:55] There's a point — I talked with Bodi Chapman about it yesterday. I think it's something — I can't even remember where I read this — but I think there's a lot of truth in this early-childhood phase. when we're raised by our parents. And then of course there are negative events as a kid. And the fundamental way that's handled — something negative happens, the feedback is negative, or the feedback is — and I think there's also a study on this — I need to look it up exactly — that you basically say two positive things after something negative has happened. Example: a kid falls down, has a scraped knee, and you say two positive things. Good that you didn't fall on your head. Of course it has to go in the right direction, but the brain learns to deal with it in a different way. And I think it's something — I've tried to transfer this. I don't remember exactly where I read it, but in the Truckee race, I get dropped on the first climb. The first reaction is, of course — I've raced Truckee five or six times now, always came over that first climb with the first group. The first reaction is, this is shit. You're really bad, you got dropped right away. But I told myself two positive things, like, well, I still have enough food with me, and I'm still in the front third — I was somewhere in the top 20. And you have a different way of dealing with it afterwards. It's a bit of self-manipulation or self-deception, but I think there's a lot to it, depending on the environment you grow up in and how it's conveyed to you. Yeah, it's just something you take with you for the rest of your life. How do I deal with setbacks or with things that are negative? There are always two ways to handle it. I think it's a big asset that your mother-in-law also has. You can change, that she has it.

Björn [00:42:56] Both arms off, but head still on. Mega. Yeah. No, but my mother, watch out, now, attention, always super healthy, now come all the longevity experts. I'm debugging this now. My mother isn't exactly the most athletic woman in the world. Though she has always cycled, a lot. We didn't have a car, or only very, very late — by then I'd already moved out. And smoked a bit, likes to eat chocolate and sweets. There's also a magic cupboard there — you open it. I can't even handle that. There's one everywhere. No, but I'm like hypnotized. It's such an early-childhood imprint. I show up there and it just doesn't work. I can manage half a day — to keep away from it. And after that, that cupboard opens up. Peter knows it. You're already turning red. I eat everything. No joke. I'm definitely eating 7,000 calories a day there. It all just evaporates in the esophagus. And then more has to go in. And then I always think, oh damn, now I need two weeks of detox at home. I won't buy that stuff now. But my mother has it all in the cupboard. I also like to drink an Aperol Spritz now and then. Anyway.

Peter [00:44:26] Who doesn't?

Björn [00:44:29] My mother at least, at some point, she started declining a bit and was short of breath and said, something isn't right. Then she went to her doctor at the time — the GP did a performance diagnostic and then said, everything super. She was 75 or 76. It all fits, super. I saw the data and said, this doesn't fit at all. This is so bad. You're basically statistically dead. Something with oxygen uptake. No idea. Then I said, well sorry, two or three years ago you were still tip-top on the bike, this doesn't fit. Then I said, you're going to the cardiologist now. She went to the cardiologist, who kept her there immediately, said, we're going to the clinic now, you're getting an operation — and one day later she had three bypasses. That's the story from the GP. On the topic, you can still guess. At least this attitude again now. My mother, really, it was a brutal surgery. And it really knocked her down. But she was positive. She managed it mentally somehow — where you actually think, this can't be, how do they do it? And both of them are similar that way. Now my mother is 80, sits there, thinks, this is actually all okay, another 10 years on top is fine. It's fine. And she does zero sports. She drinks her Aperol Spritz, snacks and says, hey, all easy. I just ride my bike through the area, and now my e-bike, and have my grandkids around me, and actually life is great. Cognitively super sharp, completely fit. It's incredible, really wild. And it's exactly the same with Daniel Steinhauser. He's just super solid inside. Totally relaxed and sees so many things positively. I find that a totally fascinating quality. And then there are people who — I've also experienced this — I've worked with people in my coaching career who you'd call high performers, who in life always — have pedal to the metal, and in their professional life they think hustle mode is everything. I think stress just chews you up. And if you add sport on top, where you're also under load, then it just doesn't work at all. And then they just collapse at 65 or in their early 70s. And I think this very simple idea — just take it easy, easy. Udo Lindenberg style. You gotta, right? A bit here and there and schniggi-schnaggi and everything's fine. You can't take it too seriously. Exactly. I always tell my kids, when they get to school late and the teachers complain, I tell them, listen, the universe is always expanding. Even if I come late, nothing actually happens.

Peter [00:47:32] There's a nice anecdote from my father. He always drove my brother and me to school. And every day — school started at 7:55 — we'd just arrive at 8:00 every day, and our report cards would say, Philipp and Peter repeatedly arrive late for class. Even when there was a test, we always came late, because my father didn't see why we'd leave earlier. School starts at 8 for him. What can you do? We managed it too.

Björn [00:48:06] And I get it, being late and so on, or not showing up at all, that's of course also shit. Of course it's also respect and the flow of the lesson and so on. But when we're late, there are two options. Either you race like crazy and crash your bike somewhere — option one. Or you say, well, I'll be two minutes late, but not completely sweaty, I arrive somewhat mentally present, and I didn't crash into a wall. I think that's the better option. Then you just have to say, I was late, it happens, sorry, the universe keeps expanding, all good.

Niclas [00:48:45] Have you had to have this conversation with your kids' teachers?

Björn [00:48:51] I talked to a teacher once, and I totally got it, I'm not really a stickler about it, but with training and stuff I do try to enforce it. I said, look, we've been late three times now. And at some point I said, at the very end, a bit less stiff here and everything will be fine.

Niclas [00:49:15] He thought it was funny. He thought it was funny? He thought it was funny. I could also imagine — I can very well imagine — that there are teachers who'd hit the ceiling at a line like that. I packed it well.

Björn [00:49:31] I've learned that professionally. But I mean, you two — I think you were both Tabor kids at school, right? No, not at all. You always had Ritalin infusions running.

Peter [00:49:47] I'll say hard stuff for an entire extra episode. By the way, we actually wanted to talk about altitude training.

Niclas [00:49:56] We're already at 50 minutes, and you said earlier you have to be at some appointment.

Björn [00:50:02] Okay listen, let's do it like this. We'll wrap this thing up now with the world record. Exactly — I'd say the world record is enough for this episode. The world record is enough — otherwise this would be a world-record-worthy episode in length if we also talked about altitude training.

Niclas [00:50:21] And also about the Ritalin infusion. Yeah.

Björn [00:50:27] But you guys are better at that — I never took it.

Niclas [00:50:31] I didn't either. Now I'm the only idiot in this round. But Peter, you guys didn't get any?

Peter [00:50:38] Or your parents didn't want it? I'm a twin. I have a twin brother. And we were pretty wild as kids. I'd say so. A few stories are so good, but we unfortunately can't tell them. Why? They're hard to tell. But I remember that at some point — it was said — my mother said, they're healthy, they don't need anything. We were enrolled in a different club every week. Judo, basketball, every day a different sport, to get rid of our energy. And if we missed one of those sports sessions during the week, we'd go completely off the rails. So, positively put, I think very — wild kids. You can't even imagine it today.

Björn [00:51:33] No, but what's interesting, what really fascinates me — with you, Peter, it's extreme. Your whole life is planned in TrainingPeaks. Everything's in there. And I know that structure — it's well known that people who have a tendency to be a bit more active and a bit jumpy, that they have to work very, very structurally. And you see that very strongly with you. And with Niclas too. I'm more like — I have a whiteboard, I write everything on it and —

Niclas [00:52:03] My daily plan is just a… yeah, it's actually completely funny, because I do all my appointments, I make really clear appointments with everything, write it in the calendar so I won't forget it. And when Björn used to set up a phone call with me, Björn would say, yeah, just call. But when?

Peter [00:52:23] I need a time. Tell me — when? That's something — in any case now, with structure around cycling and generally in life, it's something that — is sometimes exhausting for others — but especially in phases where I have a lot to do and can do less sport, then it's often Franzi, my girlfriend, who's like, don't you need to go out for another hour of training, because otherwise it gets too much quickly. But that's how it is.

Niclas [00:53:04] But now — I think we were only at day three of the world record.

Björn [00:53:09] World record, plain and simple. World record, plain and simple. You know, that's the fascinating thing about Daniel Steinhauser. Daniel Steinhauser is just this totally normal guy. Normal in quotation marks of course. But he conveys this feeling: hello, I'm Daniel Steinhauser, I'm from Bad Waldsee. I'm a financial advisor. And if you want, follow me on my world record, and you know, if you can read between the lines, I convey the feeling that everyone here can do this. I'll just make it quick. And it's this feeling he conveys — taking this seemingly impossible thing — and making it happen. And that's also what he conveys to this whole crew. We're pulling off a number here where you think, are you guys nuts? Are we pulling this off — and these weren't necessarily people who were cycling freaks — they were just normal people, like I don't know, people who go through life in a structured way, but they weren't cycling freaks. No, on the contrary. And that sometimes helps too, because they approach it with a different perspective. It's like Tim Carrison, who went to Team Sky as a swim coach and spent a year just watching cycling, then came at it with a totally different lens and said, okay, maybe we should do it like this, and organize it like that. And he built a crew that was super motivated, that he could also super motivate. Then he combined it with a brilliant kids' campaign — a donation drive for the children's hospice in Bad Waldsee. And you never have the feeling that with these campaigns it's about him — it's always about the cause. It's about, A, the cause — we're raising money, what a cool thing. Like the children's hospice — at his 24-hour world record, he raised money for a small rehabilitation pool, mainly for kids. And then it's about the thing itself — pulling off this seemingly impossible thing — to do it as a normal person. And no fuss is made out of it. Or he isn't the fuss, the cause itself is. And that's so incredibly, incredibly great when you have someone who doesn't turn it into a mega-story. And he just delivers. And that's just how it is. He just clearly delivers. There's little entrepreneur and wishy-washy and so on. I just do it. I don't give a damn. I just push. Delivered. And that's just how it should be. I've also trained — I don't know — Wiesbaden world champions and so on. You don't need that. You just do it. Yeah, no, but that's what makes the whole thing so incredibly likable. And then I was there — unfortunately I was super, super tight on time. I drove on the last day, the second-to-last day, at night from Munich to Bad Waldsee, two-hour drive, arrived around 10 pm. And then all the fans were sitting there — later we did a 17-kilometer loop — He had three different routes that he'd rotate, depending on the weather and, let's say, mental freshness, so he'd see something different. And then later he had a 17-kilometer loop, and the people were standing there. At night. Awesome. At midnight. With flares and fires and they were drinking it up, and I land somewhere — Isn't that great, I was at this fire. And then they were like, oh, you're the coach, can we take a selfie? And they were chugging stuff and were like, oh, do you want a drink too? And I was like, oh, but I have to drive home. Oh, no problem, the car knows the way. And I was like, oh, no. Because it's small. To Munich I still have to drive a bit further and so on.

Niclas [00:57:34] The car knows the way.

Björn [00:57:36] Class. Just awesome. Big film crew. There were four people filming. They're also making a movie out of it. Selected cinemas and for the Bicycle Film Festival and so on. And they really pulled out all the stops. And then around half past two at night I was back home. And the next day I prepared the kids' birthday for my son. I'd of course already baked a sheet cake the day before and conjured up a multi-layer cake with my wife. What kind of cake was there? So I first made a lemon cake. Lemon sheet cake. And it's always fascinating. I find it again fascinating how much — when you put that glaze on it, you should put it on really early in the morning so it hardens through — how much powdered sugar you sink into a topping like that. You really use surprisingly little lemon juice and then sink the powdered sugar, and that was 300 grams of powdered sugar, which is a lot. And there was another cake, a classic sponge cake. I have a new oven now that makes sponge cakes, so awesome. Cut nicely into slices, then filled with a mascarpone cream, then a ganache with 500 grams of melted white chocolate, plus cream over it, and then fondant on top, white fondant, decorated nicely and so on. Went over well, yeah. So, more details. Sounds awesome anyway. Yeah. Exactly, so Daniel Steinhauser pulled off the world record, was celebrated in Bad Waldsee, TV, SWR and so on, and rocked his bath — and you know what, we'll invite him onto the podcast. I think he's now able to speak again.

Niclas [00:59:31] How long, after seven days like that, is he really out of order?

Björn [00:59:36] I'd estimate it takes several months too. It's just numb. Or parts of it. I once rode from Kusum to Munich in three days, but on a mountain bike with luggage and knobby tires. I'd just written my Abitur exams, then I rode like that, and I had a normal handlebar. And I really pinched my nerves, and the inside of the little finger, inside of the ring finger were numb for three months. It just takes a bit. I don't know how long the neck takes. But I'd estimate you need several months to recover from this.

Peter [01:00:17] I thought he'd be back selling building-society contracts on Monday. Right away. Monday, 8 am. First appointment. List in hand.

Niclas [01:00:27] But did he take vacation for the week after, for example? Yeah, first of all, he's self-employed.

Björn [01:00:38] But the way I know Daniel Steinhauser, he's a real family guy, which is cool. He's not doing sports now, he's family-time now. He says, okay, I've kept everything on its toes for seven days. My wife had to manage life alone with our kids, who fortunately are already a bit older. But still, now I'm home, give me one or two days, and then I'll be handling everything again. Cooking, washing, cleaning. And quickly again, since you asked, what did training look like? People find that totally fascinating, but it's relatively simple. You have to be able to ride for an insanely long time. And we'd already pushed VO2max and VLamax really well. But at the end of the day, it's about — these little things you might feel in training after 12 hours, like a small stone in your shoe, or something nudging here, or pressure from the pad of the aero things — that can't happen. Every little thing, every seam, every tingle, every this, every that, anything chafing a bit, that can't happen. You have to sit on that thing and — And the first 12 hours — we had training sessions that were another 12 or 16 hours long. You have to get off and say, okay, hello, where's the piano, can we start? I'm here now. That's how it has to be. And if you feel anything after 16 hours, then you have a problem. That can't be the case. You have to feel mega, mega good. And we'd fitted the bike completely, front to back.

Niclas [01:02:19] But also everything, really gone through from A to Z. Shoes, insoles, clothing, everything.

Peter [01:02:26] The whole equipment, I think, is a huge point.

Björn [01:02:28] Yeah, yeah. And then aerodynamic positioning. He has a good suit, a very, very good suit from Van Dyck. Peter, you know him too. It has this mega chamois in it from SQ Lab. And the things are super well cut. And we were aerodynamically really safe on that side. It moves great, nothing chafes. And then he just pulled the thing through. Sure, at night when it got really cold, we always had to put on different things. We always rode with heat zones and heated gloves. Sure, when you've been out 15 hours and then it's 1 degree, you freeze. You're just done. Plain and simple.

Peter [01:03:10] And how did you handle the pacing then? Once you were on site, did you adjust anything? Did you give him a target depending on which route or loop he was riding? They probably had slightly different profiles, so you'd say, I'll ride this one like such and such. Or does it become…

Björn [01:03:32] You stop looking at that. He was just riding 60, 70 cadence at some point. Really slow, to not fully blow the fibers, and metabolically too, to keep everything a bit easier. And then it was, okay, we need to average 25 km/h. And we need to, you just have to crank that out. That's —

Peter [01:03:57] It doesn't sound that fast at first, but for seven days? Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, that's heavy.

Björn [01:04:05] And on the first day he was putting out 180 watts.

Niclas [01:04:10] How many hours — of the seven days — how many hours of sleep over the seven days, or total — how much downtime?

Björn [01:04:20] I think we had about one day. Don't pin me on that, I have to check. But I know, we had — I think after the second, third day, we had relatively a lot. I think the last two days we only had about two and a half hours, eventually even less.

Peter [01:04:35] Are there rules that you have to rest a certain amount?

Björn [01:04:40] I don't think so. I said, when we discussed it, also with the doctor — this was unknown terrain for me — but I said, eventually we'll have, as harsh as it sounds, a corpse sitting on the bike, and we have to be able to get this thing home somehow. What was important was that he was always cognitively present. We worked a bit with caffeine, but really dosed. 50 milligrams here, 50 milligrams there, maybe sometimes 100 milligrams. So nothing overdone. And important with the blood that we could see potassium wasn't dropping, so that we wouldn't get arrhythmias or whatever. We kept a good eye on that and it worked well. Also no fluid retention or anything. Brain ended up a bit swollen. But that comes with the territory.

Niclas [01:05:26] Those are just things that happen.

Peter [01:05:32] But for these very long things — Niclas has also raced something very long from a race perspective. That's of course a completely different number. For these things, in my assessment one of the main points is that you manage to feed yourself so you don't get problems with absorption. That you stay on the safer side. Once you have that problem, it's usually too late. If he gets problems on day three or four, then it gets really, really, really tough. Did he have a slump in between where he said, I can't take in anything anymore? Yeah, yeah.

Björn [01:06:13] Yeah, after he'd really overdone it on the first day, he ended up crashing pretty hard. Not much stayed in. But then with more rest and especially sleep. And sleep is really — everyone says sleep is important. But you really see what happens when someone, after 90 minutes or three hours — we had two sleep cycles, three hours — the power behind being able to actually sleep calmly, that's — He's a different person, when he comes out. He gets up, you see his face, he's fresher, says, okay, let's go, we can go again. And people who power through and then at night bite their fingernails and think, oh damn, I still need to do this, I still need that, emails here. Hey, you're not recovered — but everyone knows that.

Niclas [01:07:12] Since you said he hammered out the first 22 hours. Would you say he could've done 4,000, or 4,500, if he hadn't ridden 180 but 120, but consistently 120 and not had — no, like — my stomach just blows up, I can't keep anything in, and stuff like that. So I think, with different tasting — that's always the beautiful thing about these

Björn [01:07:42] ultra things, or really every race, is that you always have a steep learning curve. And before he even pulled it off, before all these successes came with Race Across Italy, the 24-hour indoor world record, and now this — we screwed up for two or three years first. Well, what does 'screwed up' mean? But made mistakes. I was leading the first Race Across Italy, ahead of Strasser — The mix, the carb-fructose mix, got mixed up. Which meant the fructose was way too high, and then it hit the stomach… boom. Yeah, done. He threw up. Game over. First learning. Better structuring. Second learning. The second time at Race Across Italy, the service car got driven into a guardrail. He wasn't allowed to keep going. Second learning. You need a crew that's really there. You can't just take anyone, you really have to say, hey, listen. For me to pull this off, you guys have to be just as good as me. Your job has to be done just as well. There can't be any slacking — hahaha, this is fun, we're on a leisure trip — no, you're just as locked in as I am. That was the second learning, and then we get to the fine-tuning — okay, this on the bike, and crashed here once — I know, at the Nordcup race, we know, okay, we need to — these little things. So you build up — like with many athletes, with me too — over two, three years you learn to minimize mistakes, and once you've eliminated the mistakes, then you can perform. And that's always what people don't like to see, or what often gets overlooked. At the beginning you mess up, and then it's the ability — to pull yourself out of it.

Peter [01:09:43] And you also learn from failures or when something goes wrong, the learning curve is much steeper than when it still somehow goes well. Because a lot of people who, let's say, have a very, very high level get away with a lot of things — still. And a real learning process comes from things that really went wrong, where you think, I invested so much and still nothing came out of it, or it didn't work at all. I think it's important that you — still keep a cool head and don't question everything, because I've also experienced this with athletes — when something happens, it's often little things in the end. It's the sport in the end — if you, for example, miss a feed and bonk, that has nothing to do with your form, but the result is still probably bottom of the barrel. Then everything gets questioned. You shouldn't question everything — you have to keep a cool head and turn the right knobs.

Björn [01:10:52] I always say, let them fail. It's like — Fast failing and mistakes and learning fast. Making mistakes and learning fast — that's the most important thing. But that mistake has to be made, and above all it has to be accepted. It's not like — I don't know, you're a young entrepreneur and you keep crashing your company into the wall, and you have parents who keep pushing millions in, then you probably won't learn anything. Because that's not how it works. I have Mom or Dad who keeps pushing in cash, and that can't happen — that you also have a coach who the whole time maybe also says, ah yeah, that was maybe my mistake and this and that. Or an athlete even better — coach's fault, I'll just switch coaches. Sometimes you see an athlete who's gone through eight coaches, because it's always the coach's fault. You have to ask yourself that question fundamentally in life — I've done it a few times too — after you've worked with people, or at company XY, and then you leave again, is it me, or is it the others? You have to ask that question very honestly. And surely some things were on me too, because I'm also a stubborn guy sometimes. The palm reader was right.

Peter [01:12:13] But I think it's really very good when you — Niclas, I'm having a lot of fun in this episode.

Niclas [01:12:20] Yeah, definitely. It's been good here.

Peter [01:12:23] But also, when you can simply admit that you made a mistake as a coach — because you also make mistakes, as a coach — I think that's also a sign that you have a good, trusting relationship with the athlete. But I think it's also very important, when you work with athletes who, for example, have already had a lot of success, or who had or have a level that exceeds Mainz many times over. You still have to be the one who gives him realistic feedback, and not the one who basically mutates into a yes-man. Because people who have success now or who really have a name and are a bit of a star, they need someone who also gives them honest feedback, and not, as is often the case, someone who just says yes and amen to everything. Because that's also, I think, a recipe for it ultimately not working anymore, because yesterday's successes don't bring you much next year or next season — but the expectation of the athlete themselves and also of the environment is of course a different one. And there I think it's important that you as a coach are someone who gives feedback as objectively as possible.

Björn [01:13:40] I never have that problem, Peter. Listen up, what I say goes.

Peter [01:13:47] I know it from our work together.

Niclas [01:13:54] So fundamentally, there are coaches who make mistakes, yeah. But Björn doesn't. I'm right.

Peter [01:14:02] Björn does make mistakes — I just haven't seen one yet.

Björn [01:14:08] The Chuck Norris of training science. I think I have — it's not on my Instagram — only human, born to make mistakes. You can listen to that song by The Human League, a cheesy 80s band. And they have that song, Only Human Born to Make Mistakes. And I think that reminds me of my childhood. You guys weren't born yet. And my brother used to listen to that song now and then. He was a bit older. And I always have to think of it, it's burned in a bit, next to Madonna, whom I always loved listening to. I think the first album that got drilled into me was True Blue. And yeah, that shaped me. It's still the case that I know all the Madonna lyrics by heart, at least the older ones. And whenever something comes on the radio, I have to sing along. It's like that cupboard at my mother's. And I sit in a cab or on a bus with a team and Madonna comes on and I sing along and everyone looks at me. What the heck? Dude, what's going on? Get a grip — it doesn't work, I'm programmed. Maybe I'm one of those Russian super-agents. When some keyword or whatever comes, I go totally rogue. I'll wait down here. So there's still a lot to look forward to here. It's delightful today. Peter, wrap it up, I have to go.

Peter [01:15:37] Okay, that's it for today. Was great.

Niclas [01:15:40] We'll talk again. Yeah, thanks for listening. I hope it was an informative episode, maybe also a pretty funny episode. And we'll talk again. Ciao, ciao. Next time, altitude and Steinhauser Daniel. Okay, ciao.

Björn [01:16:01] Until then, ciao.