Simon Ward, Be Battle Ready triathlon podcast - The podcast for strength, resilience, and longevity cover art

Simon Ward, Be Battle Ready triathlon podcast - The podcast for strength, resilience, and longevity

Simon Ward, Be Battle Ready triathlon podcast - The podcast for strength, resilience, and longevity

By: Simon Ward
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The Be Battle Ready triathlon podcast is where everyday athletes, adventurers, and seekers of strength come to forge resilience - in body, mind, and spirit.

Hosted by coach Simon Ward, each episode explores the true pillars of endurance: purposeful training, nourishing nutrition, restorative sleep, a resilient mindset, and the art of recovery. It’s designed especially for those in their 40s, 50s and beyond who refuse to rust - men and women who know that age is no excuse to stop sharpening the blade.

Whether you’re preparing for your next Ironman, rebuilding after setback, or simply training for the demands of life itself, this show will help you stay Battle Ready: strong, adaptable, and unbreakable.

Expect conversations with world-class coaches, scientists, and everyday warriors - those who walk the path of longevity and high performance - sharing wisdom, tactics, and stories from the front line of endurance.

👉 Subscribe now and step inside the ranks of the Battle Ready Society - where strength is forged, and rust never wins.

Copyright 2017 . All rights reserved. Hygiene & Healthy Living
Episodes
  • Why Training More Is Making You Slower (And What To Do About It)

    Why Training More Is Making You Slower (And What To Do About It)
    Jun 10 2026

    If you're putting in 12, 14, sometimes 20 hours a week and your times are going backwards, this episode is for you.

    This is a solo episode, and I want to talk about something I see constantly with athletes over 50, and it frustrates me because it's so avoidable. High volume training feels like commitment. It feels like the right thing to do. But for athletes in their late 40s, 50s and 60s, it's often the thing that's quietly breaking them down.

    In this episode I explain what's actually happening physiologically when you stack training stress on top of work stress, poor sleep and a less forgiving hormonal environment. I talk about what smart training looks like for this stage of life, and why the athletes I've coached who go sub 10 or earn Kona slots are almost never the ones doing the most hours.

    This isn't about doing less. It's about doing better.

    5 KEY POINTS

    1. The body doesn't distinguish between types of stress - training load, work pressure and poor sleep all land in the same bucket, and chronic overload triggers sustained cortisol elevation that works directly against recovery and adaptation.
    2. The hormonal environment after 50 is fundamentally different - lower testosterone and growth hormone mean the margin for error is much smaller than it was in your 30s. You can no longer outwork a poor recovery strategy.
    3. Sleep is where adaptation happens - around 95% of daily growth hormone is released during deep sleep. Cut sleep to squeeze in an extra session and you're adding fatigue, not fitness.
    4. Consistency beats volume every time - 10 hours a week for 52 weeks is 520 hours. Sporadic 20-hour weeks followed by burnout or injury will never outperform steady, sustainable training across a full year.
    5. Recovery weeks are not a weakness - planned recovery weeks are a strategic tool, not an optional extra. Without them, training stress accumulates without the adaptation following.

    3 TAKEAWAYS

    1. Make easy sessions genuinely easy and hard sessions genuinely hard - most athletes do everything at medium intensity, which delivers neither recovery nor adaptation.
    2. Strength and mobility are non-negotiable - schedule them first and never cancel them for an extra swim or run session.
    3. If your times are going backwards, it's not a motivation problem or a commitment problem. It's a strategy problem and strategy can be fixed.

    KILLER QUOTE

    "These athletes aren't lazy and they're definitely not lacking commitment. If anything, commitment is the problem, because they're committed to an approach that is quietly breaking them down."

    LINKS & RESOURCES

    Want help building durable training?

    If what I talked about today resonates and you want a training structure built around your whole life, not just your swim, bike and run numbers, SWAT is where it happens.

    Find out more and join SWAT here

    FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

    A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

    Ironman Sanity Checklist

    Connect with me HERE:

    https://linktr.ee/simonward

    You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

    Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com

    Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

    Download Simon’s Free ‘Battle Ready Lifestyle’ Infographic — https://simon-ward.kit.com/battlereadylifestyle

    Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!
    Show More Show Less
    27 mins
  • What If Nobody's Actually Clean? - With James Witts

    What If Nobody's Actually Clean? - With James Witts
    Jun 3 2026
    We called them cheats. The reality is far more complicated. There have been plenty of books written about drugs in sport. Confessions, memoirs, exposés. But this one is different. James Witts is a sports journalist and former editor of 220 Triathlon Magazine — someone I've known for well over a decade. His new book, Dope, isn't a first-person account of falling from grace. It's a proper state-of-play analysis of where the battle between dopers and anti-dopers actually stands in 2025 and 2026. Who's winning? How are athletes sidestepping detection? And what's driving people to dope in the first place — because it's rarely as simple as wanting to win. We talk about Colin Chartier, David Millar, Team Sky, TUEs, blood bags, the Enhanced Games, AI, and why this issue reaches much further than elite sport. Including age-group athletes who will go to extraordinary lengths just to qualify for Kona. This is a nuanced conversation that will change how you see this subject. 5 KEY POINTS Doping is rarely just about winning — identity, imposter syndrome, financial pressure and team dynamics all play a significant role.TUEs are widely exploited — therapeutic use exemptions are legitimate in principle but have become a well-documented route to legal performance enhancement.The Enhanced Games raises an uncomfortable question — if records aren't broken when athletes can openly dope, what does that say about clean sport?Social media is a direct pipeline for dangerous substances — young athletes are being targeted by adverts for drugs like DNP, linked to over 30 deaths in the UK alone.AI cuts both ways — it could help create novel undetectable drugs, but also help anti-doping agencies crunch data faster than ever before. 3 TAKEAWAYS Look beyond the headlines — calling athletes cheats and moving on ignores the complex web of pressure and identity that leads many there.The line is rarely clear — from TUEs to grey-area supplements, the boundary between legal and illegal is often deliberately blurred.This isn't just an elite problem — age-group athletes and recreational competitors operate in the same ecosystem, with more similar pressures than we'd like to think. KILLER QUOTE "It's so damning if someone is found to have taken a prohibited substance — it almost feels worse than murder. At least with murder there's a sense of rehabilitation." CONNECT with James James Witts is a sports journalist and author specialising in cycling and endurance sport. His new book Dope is available now from Waterstones and all major booksellers. X/Twitter: @jameswitts LinkedIn: James Witts Buy the book: Dope - available at Amazon, Waterstones and all major booksellers James's favourite book: Racing Through the Dark by David Millar LINKS & RESOURCES Mentioned in the episode: WADA Prohibited List 2026 Enhanced Games Other blogs, Videos etc you might want to check out Honest Sport Substack - Edmund Wilson Icarus documentary - If you haven’t seen this you must. Film maker and amateur cyclist Bryan Fogel sets out to investigate the furtive world of illegal doping in sports and ends up revealing the biggest international sports scandal in living memory. The hidden cost of doping sanctions on Kenyan athletes FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out. Ironman Sanity Checklist Want help building durable training? Inside the SWAT Inner Circle you’ll find structured training plans, strength programmes and regular coaching insights designed to help endurance athletes train consistently without breaking down. £30 per month. CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION Connect with me HERE: https://linktr.ee/simonward You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter Download Simon’s Free ‘Battle Ready Lifestyle’ Infographic — https://simon-ward.kit.com/battlereadylifestyle Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Your FTP Won't Save You at Mile 150 — With Dave Schell

    Your FTP Won't Save You at Mile 150 — With Dave Schell
    May 27 2026
    If you've ever wondered whether your endurance base could carry you into gravel or mountain bike racing — or whether your FTP is really the thing holding you back — this episode is a timely reality check. Dave Schell is the founder of Kaizen Endurance, based in Boulder, Colorado, and has spent 15 years coaching cyclists and endurance athletes through some of the most demanding events on the calendar — Unbound 200, Leadville, ultra-distance gravel and mountain bike. Before that, he spent seven years at Training Peaks as coach education manager, so he understands both the science and the real-world application better than most. We talk about why FTP is overrated as a race predictor, why skill and technique will give you more free speed than another training block, how to actually prepare your body for eight to ten hours in the saddle, the mental game of ultra-distance events, and why consistency remains the most unsexy and most powerful tool any athlete has. There's a lot in here that applies well beyond gravel. 5 KEY POINTS FTP is overrated for long events — after eight hours everyone regresses to the same sustainable pace. Durability and fat oxidation decide the result.Skill delivers free speed — technique improvements will outperform another fitness block for most athletes, most of the time.Race your race bike — training on the road and racing gravel leaves your body unprepared for the physical demands, regardless of fitness level.Recovery is where adaptation happens — most athletes need permission to rest, not encouragement to go harder.Consistency is the only secret — the work never changes, you just keep doing it week after week. 3 TAKEAWAYS Sign up for something that scares you — if there's no real possibility of failure, you'll wing it. The fear is what gets you out the door.Context beats data — RPE and athlete feedback tell you more than power numbers alone. Data without context is just noise.Extreme moderation wins — train at the right load, not the highest load. The athletes who stay consistent are the ones who progress. KILLER QUOTE 👉 "My job is facilitating consistency — because over 15 years of coaching, consistency is the biggest secret. Whatever helps you be consistent, that's what leads to progress." CONNECT with Dave Dave Schell is the founder of Kaizen Endurance, coaching cyclists and endurance athletes for ultra-distance gravel and mountain bike events. Website: kaizenendurance.coach Instagram Substack Podcast Dave's favourite book: Endurance by Alex Hutchinson - Alex was a guest on the show talking about this book. You can listen to that episode HERE LINKS & RESOURCES Mentioned in the episode: Tim Gabbett research papers - Should athletes be training harder & smarter Acute vs Chronic Workload ratio Dave also mentioned Goodhart’s Law - “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” - worth considering for any athlete FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out. Ironman Sanity Checklist Want help building durable training? Inside the SWAT Inner Circle you’ll find structured training plans, strength programmes and regular coaching insights designed to help endurance athletes train consistently without breaking down. £30 per month. CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION Connect with me HERE: https://linktr.ee/simonward You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube Email: Simon@thetriathloncoach.com Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter Download Simon’s Free ‘Battle Ready Lifestyle’ Infographic — https://simon-ward.kit.com/battlereadylifestyle Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to beth@thetriathloncoach.com and you might just hear it on a future episode!
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 6 mins
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