Over the last few months my perception of the podcast is that there is too much getting into the weeds on the biology side of things. Whilst I appreciate the podcast is based on questions sent in I feel the general TR population, especially newer recruits may prefer to hear more about the product, the plans, real world examples and more general workout execution style input.
As I say this is my perception based on how I’m listening to it, which more recently involves a lot skipping through. I’ll caveat this by saying that you cannot knock the effort put in to research these questions and I appreciate we need a bit of everything to complete the puzzle. I just feel it’s gone too much the way of biology.
I guess they can’t keep going over the programs over and over and over. For long time listeners it becomes redundant, so they’re trying to provide more new, detailed content…maybe?
I like the biology focused deep dives but I do think they may be getting a little too frequent. I think they were more interesting when they were every 3-5 episodes or so and not every episode.
I definitely miss more talk related to specific races, training questions, gear/tech, and having special guests bringing in more insight and ideas.
Lots of very specific nutrition & biology stuff lately and also found myself skipping 2 hours of the last 4 hours of content. Love the incredible, free content but agree it’s been for a very niche audience lately.
Having listened to all the podcasts I like these deep dives, there’s only so many times slightly different TR type plan questions can be answered. But I see your point. The pods seem longer these days too (haven’t checked so maybe they aren’t) so perhaps it’s more like ‘extra content’.
It’s the offseason. If there ever was a time to prioritize biology over races, it’s now. No one is racing, no new tech has been announced now that we are passed Eurobike
And there are only so many times you can address ‘how do I plan my season’ and ‘how do I upgrade’. I prefer the niche content over general repeated content.
Also, in before everybody complains about the podcast being all about jonathan’s push for nats next year, nate’s cape epic plan the year after, and then nothing but triathlalon for the following year.
Deep dives are too much info for my taste. I would prefer a readers digest version and a link on where to get more background info. I do like science but would rather read it than listen to long explanations that at times need going back to the start to ensure I understood it correctly.
I just skip them much like I do with any podcast that covers something I really dont need to hear.
This is actually a good idea. Would prefer these deep dives to be in a written article format on TR with links to other articles or the research in which I can read on my own time and at my own speed.
I think the deep dives are a good thing when you consider that they’re an alternative to getting little pieces of a bigger subject here and there, either the same ones repeated over and over or different parts all split up.
Instead you get the science and reasoning behind a specific subject, well structured and explained in a holistic manner, as a reference in a single spot.
I do feel like they should make an event/plan matrix. IE: this is my A race (or lack thereof), what are the default recommended base/build/specialty plans to prepare for it. One starting point plan reference, to tackle people’s initial questions.
I have to say every now and then I miss the early days Chad short answer spitfire style every now and then.
I love these deep dives. It is something unique to TR podcast. Of course, more “storytelling”, guest, analysis etc is very entertaining but these biology things and dives into deep side of topic is something more what is hard to find elsewhere. To be honest I am a little bit tired of all the “entertainers” from the web. Deep understanding of the topic and ability to explain it to the avid user was one of the main reasons I have subscribed into TR. Do not get me wrong - I love good guests (Amber rules!) or race analysis - but is really hard to provide new, fresh content.
Just to leave my own two cents I could not disagree more. I will often listen to the deep dives 3-4 times to better understand them. They make the podcast harder to listen to while doing other tasks but way more informative in general.
I would rather listen to another conversation on Nate’s gut biome than listen to more trainer/product discussions. There are countless YouTube channels discussing products. Let’s stick to things that make us faster.
And L-Carnitine! But I think it’s fair to say that in order to know what does work we have to invariably try things that don’t. Perhaps raw milk is one of those things
