That Triathlon Life Podcast - Are carbon cycling shoes worth it, e-bikes on mountain bike trails, and more!

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

This week we had a classic TTL episode for you. We played our new game "Shred or Bed" and then moved on to your questions. This week we talked about:Running without a watch.Bike setups to neutralize Eric, Paula, and Nick.Are carbon cycling shoes worth it? What benefit do they provide?Post 70.3 recovery for pro athletes.How do Eric and Paula cool down after their runs?TTL vs Eric and Paula.The ethics and legality of e-bikes on mountain bike trails.Romantic relationships in and out of triathlon.Thank you so much to our podcast supporters! To submit a question for the podcast, and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey, everybody, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Oggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And we have got an incredible show for you this week. Nick just told me. I actually don't know what's going on because I just show up in chat. Paul and I are both professional trathletes. Nick is professional musician, audio engineer, extraordinary, makes our podcast sound fantastic. On this podcast, we talk about trathlon, what we're doing in trathlon, and the bulk of the show is we take questions. So we have something to talk about. If I can immediately derail this already, and this is episode 127, and if you're a music production nerd, that number means something to you. Because when you play a MIDI keyboard, which is the keyboard that we use to basically trigger a million sounds, whatever we want, strings, drums, trumpets, even a human voice, there are 127 discrete values that note intensity can have.

Well, that's extremely nerdy. Little music production content for you. That's fantastic. I think on the scale, I'm like a 62. Okay, good. Intensity level. Of your voice? Life, volume, voice, everything.

I'm a 69. Oh, perfect. Very nice. Hot and spicy. What are you, Nick? 127 most days. Maybe I'm like a 126 today. Okay, cool.

Very obnoxious. Yeah. Loud in your face. You kind of wish it would stop. That's the dynamic that you're walking into everybody who is listening. So buckle up. Buckle up. And speaking of everyone listening, last year we had a call last year. Last week we had a call to action to have our listeners, our beloved listeners, submit a game for this podcast. And the responses were overwhelming. How many did we get? I got many in my personal inbox. I imagine you got some in your personal inbox. And then we got so many through the website.

People just trying to like DM Nick to like slide in there, you know, like get preferential treatment. Of course. You should not reply to those people, Nick. That's not the way to do it. You have a form response. This is illegal behavior. Circumventing the system man. Yeah.

Am I the only one who cares about the rules? We did get a lot, but I did put a little disclaimer last week that maybe no one would win a poster if we didn't like any of the games. And also don't submit games that are bad. And we had a lot of bad games that were like way too complex for a podcast. Like the bones of them were great for like a TV show, you know, like a game show. Right. But for a podcast to be able to simply insert it into a segment format, like where we're still doing stuff after the game, you know, it's got to be like a five-minute thing. Much too complicated.

But we do appreciate everyone who did contribute. So thank you. And we do actually have a winner. We'll see if this segment actually lives on and if we're going to continue it in the future. but we're going to give it a try today and see how we like it. I think for the future, I want to take terrible games for 100. Can we take the worst ones? Yeah, that's great.

That's great. Just throw it out there. But what is the winner? What is the winner? I have a feeling that the ones that were very long and involved, I have a sneaking suspicion that there was some tomfoolery involved and that there was an AI model that was used to generate the game. And that's why it was so in-depth with so many caveats.

And you can tell the ones that were a little more homemade, which is what our brand is anyway, is a little bit more homemade. But the winning game was by Mike, and it was aptly titled Shred or Bed. A plus plus for creativity. Brilliant, Mike. So Shred or Bed, as you might imagine, I will present to you a scenario. And then you have to tell us if you would shred, which means yay, or if you're, you're, snoozing on it and you're going to bed. Very simple. All right.

Nick, I hope this means that you're making a jingle for it. Oh, we've already heard the jingle at this point. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, so you're going to create it in the future. It's already built in for me. We got two words that already elicit a musical idea, shred and bed.

So just wait. Just wait. I think it's got to have a little bit of like a twinkle, twinkle, little star for bed. Of course. Of course. It's first shred. We have like an Eddie Van Halen kind of... Oh yeah. Lots of reverb. Yeah, of course. I can see it. I can hear it. Okay. Okay, so are we ready?

Yep. So the only unfortunate part of this is that I had to come up with the binary kind of questions. Yeah, you still had to do a little work, Nick. I still had to do some work. Would you do a weekend full immersion class? But at the end, you'd be guaranteed to be really good at Wheelies. So you're there Saturday and Sunday all day. I'm going to bed. Wow.

Wait, full immersion class? What is that? As in like... Like 10 hours a day. Yeah, 10 hours a day, Saturday and Sunday. But at the other side, you come out and you can do a wheelie really well. So, Paula, you like, I don't know, you're like riding through Montraum Blonde and you see some, like, people that are trying to take a picture of you and you just can pop a wheelie down the street.

Well, Eric can already do a wheelie. He'd be excellent at it, though. I'm pretty sure I can get excellent in like three hours. So that's what I'm going to bed and I'm going to work on it in the morning myself. Got it. You're going to sleep on it. Yeah. Yeah, I'll sleep on it too because I don't really care about doing wheelies.

Wow. I have dreams where I can do wheelies and I wake up so disappointed that I can't do the wheelie. So you're shredding. I'm shredding for sure. Okay. How about this? What if you were to add a brief fourth sport to a triathlon that involves calmness and skill kind of like something like archery? like, you know, like biathlon, where they have to calm their crazy, hyped up aerobic system to shoot a target.

Is that something that interests you? Shred. Yeah. Shred on. Tread. Right. You think you could, you could zen out and calmly achieve a task in the middle of the maelstrom. I think this is part of what I like about Xterra racing is that there is an element of like, do not crash on these rocks because you are cognizant and like you have enough breath and brain function to not.

shred your face on the rock. A different kind of shredder bed. Shred and then bed. Yeah, I would say yes, because I feel like during racing, it might be like a detriment to me sometimes, but I feel like I'm always a little bit calm and under control. I'm not like freaking out and panicking and high heart rate and going as hard as I can.

I'm kind of like one notch below that. So I think that in order to calm down and do a skill that required a lower heart rate, I would have no problem. That's interesting. Decelerating to that. Okay. Now in 70.3 racing.

If I was doing ITU, no. Full manic. Full manic and I to you. Okay, well then I'll skip ahead to this one because it's kind of the antithesis of this. What if during a triathlon, the middle of a 70.3 swim, for example, if you had a little mini floating obstacle course that you had to get through as part of the swim. So this is like the opposite. Like you have to break out of the rhythm of swimming and all of a sudden like,

hike up your heart rate and jump through hoops or whatever it is. Shred. So hard. No, I'm going to go to bed on that one. Snoze it. The connection here that I'm realizing is just anything different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. Novelty. Especially anything that requires any sort of motor skills or coordination in 70.3.

Bring it on. Bring it on. Okay. How about would you, would you be willing to take this? like, keep in mind, it's like a month of your life, but would you ride along with the Peloton and the Tour de France, but on an e-bike? So you could hypothetically keep up on all the things.

As a life experience. Tread on that, yeah. 100%. Who would ever not do that? It's also kind of stressful, and you're on your bike all day for 21 days. It's a lot of work. Even if you're not working as hard as you could,

I could see a lot of people not shredding on that. I would shred on it. Yeah, I'm doing it. My brain just goes to like, well, that's cheating. Right. Yeah, you wouldn't be winning stages, of course. It's just more like you get the gift of kind of a front row seat to what it's like. Yeah, I would just be perpetually struggling with like, I wonder if I don't need an e-bike right now.

What does everybody else think I need an e-bike? Like, maybe I could make it. You know, I would have hard time with that. Real life imposter syndrome. But it would, yeah. But it would be a killer. So I guess I'll shred anyway and just deal with it. Okay, final one here.

Everybody has to cook or create their own nutrition on the race course. Is that something that you would sign up for? Like, do you feel like your nutrition-making skills are above average enough that it would benefit you? Wait, are we like boiling sugar and creating gels and putting them in Ziploc baggies? If you want, yeah, if that's what you want on course. In the middle of the race. No, no, no, no. No, sorry, no.

No, before the race. But, like, think of your competitors. Like, are your competitors competent enough to be able to do that? Or do you feel like, no, actually, I have the edge on this. I definitely don't have the edge. But I don't think it's that complicated either. Like, you could put in some... Multidextran.

Yeah, it's not like baking. Right. You know, where, like, oh, man, you try really, really hard and it can still go completely wrong. Right. Sounds like you need a blender. Paula, what about you? I would say no, like that. Why?

you know, why? Well, yeah, just to give you an advantage potentially if you're like, well, I know that whatever, Amanda can't cook to save her life, so she's going to be without nutrition on the bike or whatever. Yeah, I'll go to bed and leave it to the pros. No, there's so many pros that have like a whole entourage of people that would make them stuff that's better.

No, entourage is not allowed. Pat Lemieux cannot cook for Gwen, et cetera. But Pat Lemieux, you can cook for me. I've seen your kitchen skills and they are outstanding. Ooh, so that would be the next, that would be the follow-up question. Like, you have someone else's support crew has to, like, cook your nutrition for you. Shred, for sure. Yeah.

I'm not a great cook. Well, that was our shredder bed. Thank you, Mike, for that. And Mike, yes, you did win a shred till bed poster. So just write in through the website and we'll get you that poster. We're not exactly sure when yet, right? No, they're sitting on our coffee table. He'll get it before anyone else.

Yes, likely you will. The bulk of the posters that Paula has, numbered one to 50 are on route to where they will be shipped to you from, from our warehouse. But you could completely shortcut the system here, straight from our house to your house. Okay, so a little catch up with you guys. Last time we talked, it was very hot up there. By the looks of you, it still looks very hot and bent. Is that true? What do we look like? It's warm.

Wet dogs? Well, Eric's not wearing a shirt, for example. Also not wearing pants. He's wearing shorts. To be clear, people. Let me paint an accurate picture of what we're looking at here. Yeah, it's still hot, but like, we are heat acclimatized now. Yeah. It's kind of crazy how fast your body adapts to it.

Little desert lizards. Even if it's like two or three degrees Celsius cooler, it feels cooler. Yeah. All of a sudden, like 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and we're like, oh, it's pretty nice out. Because, like, two days ago was 101. But I will admit, I am super freaking over running in the heat. I'm so over it. It's miserable.

I haven't felt like good running. and weeks. And yes, I should just get up and run at the crack of dawn, but I don't like doing that either. Yeah. So then you're stuck running in the dead of the sun

and it's an awful feeling. I don't like it. And I think it does have its like physiological benefits a little bit, heat training. It like, bumps up your red blood cell. I don't know.

There's some like benefits. But I personally don't like it. The struggle that we've been having is the training that I'm doing to get ready for the high cast Ks 100 mountain bike race this weekend and that Paula is also partaking in. It's pretty bike focused. So it's like we're doing intervals on the bike.

And then every run this weekend last week, we're just 50 to 70 minutes easy. And you kind of feel like, well, for the bike, I want to make sure that I get that done when I'm working the hardest and the coldest time of the day. And then boom, the run is just in the afternoon. So. And then you're tired from the bike workout. And it's the whole thing.

You basically have to chug water all day long just to even try to stay. caught up. Do you guys bring water with you on these runs? Do you have like water breaks in the middle at some point? Yeah. We did a trail run last night and I brought I'm running with an ultra vest now because you know I watch Western

States and I'm all into ultras now. So I had like one a little soft floppy flasks on one side and then in the back compartment I'm carrying my water filter just in case I get super panicky thirsty and I can scoop up some lake water and

Yeah. Isn't that one of the, I feel like that is one of the coolest Magiivory things when you're out on the trail and you make water to like hydrate yourself. I just feel like Superman.

It's pretty wild. I still don't fully trust it. You filter water. I've been fine. Yeah, I filter water, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That is cool. That's really fun.

Okay, so what, first of all, what filter are you using, Eric? I think it's pronounced Katadin, K-A-T-Y-D-N or something like that. How does it work? It's like a soft floppy flask sort of thing too. It's just like a normal. looking water bottle head that has a filter on it.

So you dunk the flask in the water and then you just drink out of it as you go. Wow. You could like squeeze it super aggressively into a water bottle, but there's quite a bit of pressure. So I think it's more designed to like be used as a water bottle. Got it. Got it. That's cool. Oh, it's filtering as you put it in your mouth.

Yeah. As you suck the water out of the thing, it's. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah. And then once it's, obviously the nice thing about the soft flask is like once it's empty, it takes up no space. Yeah, that's really nice. I use the bladder in the back with a hose,

but that obviously has its own complications. And my little filter is like a hand pump little filter. MSR makes it. It's called the trail shot. So you just like dip one end into a stream or whatever. And the other end you have to like pump into the bladder. So it's not as fast as what you do. What you do is like instant.

Yeah, exactly. When I'm like freaking, you know, racing 10 hours on the trail and stuff, like I just need the water and I'll be, you know, filter it myself with my suction power later. Yes, of course. Okay, so last order of business before we do questions is there's some Devo team news here. I'll let you guys take it away. Our Devo team is awesome. They are crushing it across the globe and we could not be more excited. Wow. Details, please. So if you're familiar with the WTCS, I'm going to really call it these days, the draft legal pathway, which you go to the Olympics, the highest level of competition where you draft on the bike.

Hamburg just happened this weekend. This is like the hypeiest, coolest race on the circuit. It's in downtown Hamburg, Germany. There's like 10,000 fans, tight course, swimming in the lake. One of our athletes, John Reed, race there, got 16th place. Was he the first American? Yeah, it was the first WTCS race ever. So he's been doing World Cups up until this point.

He was a guest on the podcast a couple of months ago. So somebody might know him. crazy good result for him and then Zach Cooper was racing his first professional race in Roth. Challenge Roth. Ellen Roth,

which is a huge race. Obviously, a lot of people have heard of it. Yeah, also incredibly hypey big and having like 65 guys on the start line. Yeah, was he 13th?

I think 13th. Yeah, that's so good. And he's been like through a bunch of stuff with injury. He's like training with Sam Laidlow and I'm just going to go out on a limb say he got excited

trying to keep up Sam Laidlo had a little bit of an injury. earlier this year, boom comes back. First pro race, 13th place at Roth. That is a good result. That is a very good result. Yes. Yeah, I think on like the list of competitive fields out there,

there's like the Iron Man World Championships and Roth is like right there with it in terms of the people that show up. It's a fast course. People want to get course records. Magnus did live one. Epic. We're so pumped.

Yeah, so good. Amazing for both those athletes. It's cool to see like, I don't know, these are the best performing. This year are the best performing. performing dival athletes that we've had. And it's really, really fun to see that. Well, it is only year two, but our trajectory is fantastic.

So if you are like the CEO of, you know, Bank of America or something and you want to get in on the coolest thing going and triathlon development teams, hit us up, we want to do as much as we can for these kids. It's, I mean, it's just really, really cool for us to see athletes out there, like, living their dream, pursuing their passion, wearing our logo on their chest. And like anybody, the way that we fund this is through sales of the TTL Nation kit sales in December. So if you bought one of those, you are part of this. I hope you're stoked and you feel like your team is doing really well.

Yeah, just to remind everyone from last week, we announced our tailwind partnership. And if you were a podcast supporter, you would have gotten a link to be able to beta test the new high carb fuel. So a lot of you have done that already. If not, the link should be with you. If you didn't get it, just email me and we can send it to you. kind of a cool opportunity to test anything that's going to be coming soon. Is that all the housekeeping things we got to do? I think so.

That's all the housekeeping. So we'll move on to your questions now. And if you want to submit your own questions to the podcast, you can do so at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. And that's also where you can become a podcast supporter, which helps support the podcast. And also we'd like to throw in these kind of cool little treats and perks every once in a while. I'm just going to say real quick that if you go on to the website,

the podcast thing is underneath the community tab. There's not a podcast tab currently. Community tab. Under the community tab, you can also see the bulletin, which is our weekly newsletter. That's probably why so many people have been sending in questions through the customer message forum. Yeah.

Danny. It's hard to find it. Our good friend and web developer guy, we've been having a conversation about how to reorganize that just a little bit. So keep an eye out for a slightly more better website flow. Mo better. Okay. First question here is from David.

Hi team, thanks for setting up such a fun community to be a part of. I raced the Lake Watcom triathlon in Bellingham, Washington this weekend, and had a number of TTL high fives. Love to hear that. That's awesome. My question is on racing or training based on feel. My watch unfortunately died on Thursday, and I couldn't find a new one before the race, so I had to just go by feel. In one way, it was nice because I didn't have something to stare at other than the beautiful scenery. But I also found it really tough not to know my swim deficit, which is usually a lot. a lot, and then in my running pace as well. I did have my bike computer, which was nice.

I noticed a lot of pros don't often have a watch on the run. Is this on purpose? How do you get used to knowing a good pace to hold? Same thing for the swim. How often do you train without data in front of you? Thanks, David. In a 70.3, yes. I try to avoid going out too hot, but in an Olympic distance, for the most part, no, unless I'm just curious for some reason. Yeah, I think that a good skill to have is perceived exertion. And for reasons like this, if your watch stops working, it's not the end of the world if you don't have it in the race. And I think it's pretty common for pros to not use a watch when they're running. I think like Danielle Reefe, for example, there's been some conas where she didn't have a watch on.

That's kind of cool to me. It's just like, go by what your body's telling you. You've trained so much. You know what the pace feels like that you should be going at. and it's a good way to really tune into your body versus just looking at a device constantly. The data can definitely go both ways. It can be motivating if it's going well

and it can be very demoralizing if it's not going well and just being completely relieved of that burden of knowledge. Maybe that works better for your personality. I think a lot of people also just turn the screen off on their bike computer if they want to kind of ride more by perceived exertion or race more to the dynamics of the race versus being so set in a regimented power zone.

So I think even Lionel's talked about that before, just having the power meter there just to collect the data but not actually looking and riding to it, maybe turn it onto the map screen or something different. Yeah, something we talk about a lot that's important to keep in mind a difference between age group racing and pro racing. A lot of the times we just have to go with the dynamic of the race. Because the finish line place, whether we're first, second, third, fourth, you know, whatever.

That's what's important rather than. than like a PR, we just, you know, and we might be getting paces, like splits from people. You know, it's like, oh, Polly, you're two minutes up. That's something that your watch can't tell you that's more valuable than knowing, like, what your pace is necessarily. And how often in training are you guys not using a watch in your run workouts? I will always use them, but I think a good skill to develop is maybe like, if you have six by five minutes or something, run what you think,

you're running, what you think you're supposed to run, and then check how close you are to it. So you start to really get that feel of what does 430 per K feel like? What does four minutes per K feel like? And then you can transfer that to race day when or if your watch doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a thing you're checking in on rather than looking down every one second and readjusting accordingly. Yeah, because I actually find that GPS watches like the instantaneous pace sometimes is not always accurate, but I have mine lap automatically every kilometer, and that's accurate. So usually I won't look at my watch until I hear it beep for a kilometer lap, and then I'll see ballpark what I've been doing. Because you do have to have some leniency with how you're

feeling on the day as well. You can be 10 seconds per K faster or slower depending on terrain, heat, training, all the things. So it's not necessarily essential to look at it every second. if I told you, okay, go out and run, you have a one minute warm up and then you have to run one minute at four minutes per K. How close do you think you could get? Five seconds. Wow. Dead on. No warm up would be the tricky part, yeah. Yeah. What about power on a bike? If I told you warm up, whatever, and then 250 watts for one minute. How close do you think you could get to that? Oh, I'd be so close. I'm so in tune with my power. Not to brag.

That's not, I don't think necessarily a bragged thing. It's just like it tells you how much you have looked down to that computer and how familiar you are with what it means in your body. Yeah, yeah. Well, I've written it 250 watts a lot in my life because that's kind of my 70.3 watts. Okay, so let's, how about 200 watts? Yeah, still, I could do it. Yeah.

For me, the 250 watts would be harder than my race pace. 300. Right. like 305, 310 or whatever. But I would say, I think, yeah, Paula would be way better at it than me. Some days I look down and like, there's no way I'm going that slow. Or there's no way that. Like, this feels way too easy for that power.

But that's great. And what about swimming? If I told you swim 100 at 1.15, how close do you think you could get? I think I could nail that. In the pool? Yeah, in the pool. Yeah. I could do it really well.

It's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. I feel like it's a cool skill. Yeah. And open water really confuses me, though, because we didn't open on our swim the other day, and it was just an easy 4K. And I averaged like 128 per 100 meters. And it wasn't an easy, like I wasn't floating. I was still moving aerobically.

But if we had done a pool swim, 128's is like sleeping. Like, it's hard to go that slow. So I'm so confused about what GPS tells you for open water versus what your equivalent effort and pace would be in a pool. And I don't know if it's just because of the push-offs or what it is, but I feel like the pace that watches give you for open water are too slow. I'm going to say the watches is wrong. I agree. I agree. Thank you for confirming my fears and doubts. I always feel that way about open water. I'm like, this is not true. I'm faster than this. Yeah. If anyone has any, like, accurate reason why this is.

is. Is it because you're pushing off the wall four times 100 and that much extra umph gives you another 10 seconds per 100? I don't know. Can it be that much? No way it's 10. No way. Well, I feel like Eric yesterday you'd say we were probably swimming like 120 per 100. Yeah. Like feeling if we were in a pool. And then the watch spits out a 130 at the end, average pace. I'm just going to say that wildly different. I'm just going to say that most GPS watches are not dialed in for swimming. Maybe. Like that's got to be a low priority.

I don't know. I sometimes like in my head, I'm like, I wonder if seeing the line at the bottom of the pool has a like trickle-down effect on your form. Like you're like, I can see the line this way. And so, or even just not siding, how much that allows you to go faster. Little things like that you wouldn't really think of. Yeah. Yesterday, though, I was not siding or just swimming. But yeah, I agree, Nick.

There's little things in the pool that are different. Wait, how are you not sighting? We've hammed this to death. Well, it's such an enormous lake and we didn't really care where we went. You're just like swimming in circles, you don't even, you're doing figure eight without knowing it. Like, we're going straight, and then it's a two-kilometer stretch until we turned around, so we didn't really care how straight we were. Wow. But we were surprisingly straight according to our GPS files that we're probably wrong.

According to your incorrect GPS that you were discarding the data from. Yeah, exactly. Cool. Okay, well, thanks for the question, David. next one here is from Mallory How would you alter bike setup so that Eric Paula and Nick could all do the same ride together at the same speed with the same TSS? Which is, as to say, same relative effort. Wow, this is like a little janga mind game.

Yeah, I thought this was an interesting question and I appreciated that it was one sentence. This is timely. This is timely because we had kind of an experience with this this week. It would be tire pressure. Would be the thing. What experience did we have? have. Me doing my 30-30s on my gravel bike and you doing your 30-30s on your much more speedy gravel bike with lower rolling resistance tires. Right. And it's going pretty much the same speed

or drastically different watts. Wow. Yeah, I think that we could all ride a road but, no, that's not true because Nick, we could all do a ride together on road bikes or on the same bikes. If you could utilize drafting and... Oh, well, if we could utilize drafting, I think. I think. I think that's kind of, that seems like cheating to me. I still think that even with drafting, Nick, your effort would be higher for intervals. Oh, effort. Yes. Sorry.

That's right. Yeah. Because it would be Eric, it would be Eric, you, me in a line, right? And I think even me in the back, it would be hard for me. Going uphill, for example. Well, going uphill would be brutally hard, yeah. Because if I'm sitting on Eric's wheel on flat, it's too easy for me. Yeah.

It's a really interesting question. If we're all side by side by side, going up yearba Buena, 45-minute climb, it's some sort of like Paula and I are both on gravel bikes with like relatively low rolling resistance tires. I mean, you have like a flatish center tread. I'm running like 20 PSI. Paula's running 30 PSI and you're on a road bike. Something like that. I think that's right.

Oh, well, yeah, that is right. That is for sure right. Smart boy Eric's on the diverge I'm on the crocs Nick's on a I'm on a brand new S works tarmac dialed to the nines

This would fall apart If we're on flat We'd have to rearrange this But just given Nick's difference in size And body composition I think that would do it And fitness

Let's not let us not forget Yeah let's leave body composition out of this I'm just saying Nick's 61 9 Nick is 511 Okay

There's more Nick My date profile says I'm 6-7, but I'm really 5-11. Next question is from Jay from San Diego. Jay Weber. Hi, all. So I'm in a debate with myself about cycling shoes. All of the internet searching, everyone says to go one way, as the other says, I am blowing my money. What is it? Carbon cycling shoes, are they worth it? Also, Tailwind talk with TTL. Everyone needs proper nutrition, and as a back of the packer and a heavier athlete, Tailwind has saved my bacon. Thanks all, Jay. So carbon?

bike shoes, are they worth it? Right. From a weight perspective. Shred. Definitely shred. It's not just a weight perspective, it's a power transfer perspective as well. I'm thinking stiffness personally is the first thing my brain went to. Same.

I think stiffness before I think of weight for that. Yeah. In a really snobby way, we're not really good people to ask because we don't ride non-carbon. I have. They are not the same. My mountain bike shoes that I sometimes use are not carbon and you, you can flex the soul. Yes.

If you literally flexes. If you take them and like really try to flex, you can flex the soul. And you only have to try that hard. Cannot do that with a pair of carbon shoes. Okay. Then yeah, it's worth it. And the nice thing about carbon shoes versus a carbon bike or, you know, other things that are really expensive is you don't need to buy a new pair every year.

They should last you like two seasons, maybe three. Oh my gosh. It depends where you're writing. They will last you so much more. So much more than that. Not if you're riding in the dust, dude. Oh, really? Really? If you're riding in the dust, it struggles.

Well, the boa just gets a bit clogged, but the integrity of the shoe will be fine. My struggle with shoes, honestly, is they get really stinky if you ride the trainer with them all winter. And you're just like sweating and you're riding, whatever, 13 hours a week in these things, then I think maybe a one or two year turnover should be necessary. Potential hack for that, that we have not tried, but have seen somebody that we relatively trust do, putting them in the dishwasher all by themselves. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, I've never tried that. Because you can put them on the rack. They're vertical. They're not clonking around. Wash them out. If you want to give it a shot, you could also just change the insoles. That could help.

Well, now your champagne glasses smell like a Wahu trainer. So I'm saying. You put them in all by themselves. Right. A little personal bath. Yeah, it's a little bit gross to me. I agree, Nick.

But the other thing is that if you're going to get carbon shoes, I personally use the specialized insoles, which have a little bit of arch support in them, so that you're just fully filling out the shoe. And a lot of the stock insoles are just a flat thing. Flimsy piece of like material. Yeah. So I'll use the blue specialized inserts, a little bit of arch support, and you can replace those before you replace the shoes if they're getting worn down. Also, there are plenty of carbon shoes that are not that expensive.

Yeah. You can get a pretty good budget pair of carbon shoes. Yeah, but you should get specialized ones. I mean, I have the S-Works specialized ones, and they were so expensive, but they are so good. And they came in a wide for my gorilla feat. I've been getting them since way before I was sponsored by specialized. I used to go into the bike shop and just give my friend Joe the credit card, and he knew my size. And I said, I cannot know.

Don't tell me. I need the shoes. I know they fit. I know they work and they feel good, but I don't want to. He probably gave them to you. No, he didn't. Okay. He didn't.

I did get a receipt. Ouch. Yeah, they're the best. They are the best. Love those. Well, thanks, Jay. Go for those carbon shoes. Next question here is from Ben from Ottawa.

Hey, guys, love the pod. Can you go over your recovery after a 70.3? Post-race meals, easy swim or bike after the race, and how long until you get back into training? Just really dependent on the race, on the results, on how sore you are, on the time of year. I don't think we can have, like, a blanket answer. but generally earlier season races, I get more sore from.

Yeah. I think like emotionally, spiritually, we like to have a little bit of a nice dinner the night after. Once gone to awards and all that stuff, get a cocktail, have a nice dinner, things that, you know, we didn't feel like we can necessarily do the week leading into the race. And ideally, you're in kind of an interesting spot and you can be a little more adventurous with the food. That's kind of what I like to do on the Saturday. and then the next day our coach likes us to typically do some sort of blood flow moving activity on the Monday right after the race. And then the day after that is kind of like we can take totally off.

Maybe you travel that day or whatever. Yeah. I usually don't like going back on an official schedule until a week after the race. And I'm still training that week, but it's more just on my own schedule, like what I feel like doing. going too hard and maybe swimming more than running because that's a really good recovery activity in my opinion. And then a week after the race, if everything's good, I'll go back on a schedule. But it also depends when the next race coming up is. It's like a week or two later, then it's like right away I kind of want some guidance of what I should be doing to best prepare for the next thing.

Yeah. When you're doing these down weeks, the week after a race, can you kind of ballpark how many hours of training you're doing because I just want to give people context. It's not like you're going down to like four hours of training, right? Maybe like, maybe like one and a half to two like just because of... Hours?

Just like an eat, like I want to go for a bike ride and just like spin around for an hour and a half. He's talking about weekly though. Oh, no. Yeah, just per day. Yeah. I would say honestly, often my total hours that week are still pretty much the same as a normal week of training,

but everything's just easier. And it's like your bike rides or spins, you're not going and doing intervals. So the total like training load is so much lower, even though the hours of training might not be that different. It's funny. Because like we've both realized that like when we don't have to train, like we like training anyway, but like when we don't have to train, that's still what sounds fun. We want to go out and just like go for a chill swim. Like go swim 2K and get in the hot tub. That sounds just luxurious and wonderful.

versus when it's on your schedule, you know, it becomes like work. Okay, so final little thing here is, Paula, let's take you, for example, your decreased intensity, but maybe maintaining the same volume. Do you think that is the best thing for your body, or is it just kind of what you guilty pleasure want to do? Do you think you should be taking more off in those times? Or do you think it's okay? I think it's totally fine. I've been racing really well and I'm not injured. Great.

So what I'm doing is working. I'm not going to overthink it. Good. Good. If I was getting injured again and again and again and had chronic fatigue and I was not racing well, then of course, I would reassess. But I feel like what I'm doing is working fine. Are you trying to get me to say something else? No, no.

I'm just curious because I think some people out there would be like, wow, she should not be keeping the same training volume the week after her race. It's like, no, she's doing it. It's working great. She's not injured. She's doing well at races. So it's okay for her. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you tapered for the race, and the race was four hours. Most weekend days, we train for four hours.

So it's not this sum insane. If we did the Western States 100 mile run or like when I do the 100 mile mountain bike race or if we did an Iron Man, that might be a little bit different conversation because it's such a big day. But it doesn't smash us to that point typically that we can't do stuff for the next week.

Yeah. Right? Okay, next question here is from Skyler. This is maybe the shortest question we've ever gotten. So Paul, you're going to love it. How do you cool down after a run, Skyler. So similar kind of concept here.

If let's say you did like a tempo run or something with some intensity in it, is there something you consciously do to cool down from that at the end? I think just like the robotic nature of us is we just do a 10 minute easy jog after we do our intervals. That's probably really common. And it's like really slow like, you know, the Kenyan shuffle type of pace just to slowly get your body out of like on mode. But lately we've been jumping in the creek to cool down. That is all I can fix.

When you said that, all I thought was jump in the river. Didn't even occur to me like cool down from the workout. It was just like get in the river immediately. Yeah, I've been doing all my runs beside water lately. And a couple days ago I did a run along the river and jumped in after. It was honestly the best feeling of all time. just getting cold. But the river's not so cold that it's like shocking and uncomfortable.

It's kind of the perfect temperature just to get that relief from being hot for 75 minutes. That really is the best way. Love it. Those are so nice to have those creeks near you guys. Rivers Life. Okay, cool. Next question here is from Austin. Hey, TTL parents.

Congratulations on the new partnership with Tail One Nutrition. In the pod announcing the partnership, Eric announced it as TTL's new partnership rather than Eric and Paula's new sponsor. Is there a nuance between partnering with TTL as a company versus partnering with Eric and her Paula's as athletes? Does TTL as an entity have other partners as well? And is that intent moving forward? I would be curious to understand the details behind all of that.

Thank you guys. Your kid, Austin. So this is interesting. Kind of differentiating between what is TTL and what is Eric and Paula. Yeah. I'll be honest with you. We're making it up a little bit as we go. But I said TTL partnership because Paula and I are both sponsored, partnering with Tailwind.

Tailwind is very excited about the entire TTL community. They recognize that value and want to be a part of the community that we're building, not just like Eric and Paula race to the win, you know, drinking this stuff. You know, Paula has a relationship with On. I do not have a relationship with On. There are things that we don't share in common. and that was kind of the thinking behind saying it as TTL versus Eric and Paula. Yeah, I would say a lot of our partners, like the contracts are signed as athletes,

like Paula and Eric as athletes for the most part. But it's really clear that a lot of the brands have more interest in TTL in the community and what we've got going on there than they do in our athletic results, for example. I would say, On is more interested in me going and winning races in their shoes. and Tailwind is more interested in what we have built with TTL and getting tailwind into the hands of our community. So it's just a little bit of a difference in the way that we think the companies are interested in us, I guess,

or what they see is valuable when they're partnering with us. And it is a little bit muddled because obviously me and Eric are TTL, but we also try to distinguish a little bit between we're going out in racing and then we also have this podcast and we have this YouTube channel and we have other things that other athletes don't necessarily have. I think it's also just going to be a little bit of an evolving thing over time. You know, Paul and I can't race forever and we want like the development team, for example, to outlast our own professional racing careers.

And, you know, is that going to mean that TTL development team is partners? with, you know, I don't really know for sure, but we're feeling it out as we go. There's no like super, there's no book on how to do this. But it just felt right with Taylorman to do that because they are such a fan of the community aspect. And I think that aligns really well with what they've built with their brand. And we're going to do a TTL custom flavor. Mm-hmm.

It's not going to be the Paula custom flavor. It's not going to be, you know, whatever TTR lemonade or whatever flavor we come up with. Oh, if anyone has any ideas of what they'd want to see. What I initially thought of was there was lemonade in the St. George Hotel that we stayed out. And they had, I think, put a little sage in it. And that was very interesting, if not, to the palate. So, I mean, that's kind of the cool things. Because they developed their own stuff in Durango, we could say,

can we get a sage lemonade and a strawberry lemonade and a herbiscus lemonade? Like, name your thing, and we can try it out. So, pretty sweet. Ooh, abyscus lemonade. I just made that out. I don't know if that's a thing, but maybe it could be. Stay tuned. I could see someone wanting to sponsor TTR

and not necessarily being like, and not necessarily sponsoring Eric or Paula. Like, no, we, like, whatever, we see this thing for the community, then that's what we're excited about. Financially for us, though, it's the same thing. Right, right. Yeah. In a way.

Okay. Next question here is from Katie. Quick question regarding your thoughts on e-bikes riding the mountain bike trails. We've had a lot of issues outside of Seattle where Surons, electric dirt bikes, are creating thousands of dollars worth of damage to the mountain bike trails and claiming that because e-bikes are not scrutinized for being on the trails, then Surons shouldn't either. I'll admit, I love a full suspension e-bike to run hot laps down my favorite trails, and so do a lot of

other riders, but technically, the ADA rules say that they are only for disability use on motorized trails and public service roads. I have yet to hear larger platforms talk about this issue. I'm getting ready for Xtera Whistler and it makes me sad to see my favorite trails closed down because of damage from unauthorized usage of trails. Also, most of our trail builders are volunteers. Is this something you deal with in Bend? How do you feel the situation should be handled? Katie? So this is like a, this is a big, big, big question to ask. I mean, this is a hot topic. People are very polarized on it. I feel like there's, it has, it has, I don't know if there's any great answer, and I'm almost hesitant to answer because I know people are so passionate on either side of it.

And I'll just say what's going on in Bend. In Bend, there has been a proposal to make, do a test where e-bikes are allowed on certain trails. And it's going to be like Class 1 e-bikes. And I think it's going to be mostly limited to our one-way trails closer to town right now. So, like, we have Ben's Trail. You can only go up and Phil's Trail. we go down. That makes sense to me. Because if you think about somebody who is now able to go uphill at 20 miles an hour, you've got people coming downhill at 20 miles an hour. You have a 40 mile per hour

head-on collision. Trails are often hard to see around a corner. Instead of somebody going two miles an hour uphill, you know, you've got a little bit more time to work there and potentially avoid a collision. So I think that's a safety thing. The trails in Bend specifically are very fragile. We have moon dust here that's like volcanic dust that's super fluffy. and regular cross-country bikes can overshoot a corner and just destroy the entire turn and has to be reconstructed for hours. You just add to that people on e-bikes

going a little bit faster. Potentially, you know, like the concern is that somebody can get on an e-bike that doesn't necessarily have these skills at descending and cornering that match their ability to get to wherever they are on the trail. And so just like too much speed, not enough skill, more issues with trails being wrecked.

That's the concern. I think the pros for this are, yes, I'm an elder person. I have had a heart condition. I still want to be, you have anything that would like make it. So being on an e-bike allows you to access the trails. And to be honest, I don't think, I don't think anybody really has a problem with that. The concern is more around what you're talking about. If you say, okay, class one e-bikes written by 50 plus year old people that have a ADA card or, you know, however you decide to allow bikes. Are you now going to hire a bunch of rangers to go out and be like, is that a class one? Are you, can I see your license and yada yada? And then the Suron people, I didn't know that was a thing. Like, you're just, you're just drawing lines progressively further in the direction of dirt bikes. And who's to say, okay, yeah, an e-bike that can go 20 miles an hour on a trail is totally fine. But a dirt bike, which can also go 20 miles on the trail, that's not okay. these are all different user groups that are at conflict and all want access to the beautiful outdoors.

It's tough because the Suron does not look like a mountain bike at all. It looks like a dirt bike. It doesn't have pedals. It has pegs. Functionally, completely, like you're still on a thing that goes very fast on a trail that was designed to go X speed because people who peddled on it built it. I think like if there are definitely places in the country

that the trails are tacky enough, machine built or whatever, that these like mini-motorcycles or e-bikes are not going to ruin anything. They've got enough one-way trail, traffic, you know, like the sight lines are far enough. Not an issue, but, you know, like at least here in Bend,

which is the only place I can really speak to, I think a lot of issues arise that would need a lot of oversight and stuff. It's a touchy subject. It's very touchy. Which is why it was the, Oh, for sure. For me, it's like zero percent.

I think people like to say, oh, you're just worried about your straw like KOMs. Zero percent a concern about that. I don't care. E bikes already exist on the road and everything. It's more like a safety in the trails. And I do 100 percent feel for the trail crews that go out and pour their heart and soul into these trails to rebuild them. And then they just get destroyed. Like, that is not good for anybody.

My on the record opinion is that motorcycles should not be allowed on mountain bike trails. Well, these aren't technically motorcycles. They just kind of look like them. Okay, well, then they are. I think a delineation that people make is like pedal assist versus not. Like you must be pedaling to activate the motor versus like you have a throttle. Yeah, if it has a throttle, it's a motorcycle. Right.

Well, some e-bikes have throttles. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can hack a throttle on it. That's why it's tough. No matter what, there's going to have to be some monitoring of it. And that's an additional person that the city has to hire. And no matter what, no matter if it's an e-bike or a motorist. motorcycle, it's heavy. Yes.

Which is what's destroying them. Very. Even some heavy downhill mountain bikes that are real bikes destroy the trail because they're so heavy. Completely. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone just ride a light hardtail.

Again, like I said. Yeah, ride a light hard day. Yeah. Totally depends on the trails and where you are, yeah. Yeah, cool. Okay. Well, Katie, thank you for that tantalizing question. Last one here is from Nick.

this is a lifestyle question more than a triathlon question. And for Eric and Paula, you're both committed athletes and were before and when you met. How did you find the time to date and build a relationship around training commitments? I have a friend I'm interested in, but I have work and triathlon, and she has her own business and her own hobbies and interests. We each have our routines. How are you able to adapt your lives to start dating and create a relationship? Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Nick, it's funny, Paula, you and I were just kind of talking about it.

this a couple days ago. Eric rolled his not only his eyes back, but his entire head back as you were reading this. So we don't have to answer it, Eric, if you don't want. No, no, I'm totally fine answering. I just was like, oh man, how do I tell you that I just, Paul and I do the same thing. That was very convenient.

Yeah, it'd be much more challenging if one of us was not a professional triathlete. Yeah, we don't really have completely different interests and things that we do outside of our training and our work, our training is our work and our hobby. Yeah, so in a way it was easier. I mean, I changed coaches

to be coached by your coach. Yeah, we were long distance for a hot second. Yeah, I kind of wanted, I needed to change coaches anyway, and I knew Paula from back in the day, but we changed a little bit, but we weren't like drastically changing our lifestyle

to morph into the other person's life. I guess here's the things that have changed for me. prior to Paula, if I saw like a four plus hour bike ride on the schedule, I would go for six. And I would not have a route in mind. I would just go out and just make it up as I went and listen to music and like whatever. Paula doesn't like long bike rides. So now we do four hours in one minute and we have to plan the route.

And this is like a concession that I've made. And Paula has conceded in letting me plan the route a lot of the times. So you don't, you have to, there has to be some meat in the middle. For sure. That is our metaphor. That is our meet in the middle example. Yeah, it's really rough. Wow, what a compromise.

Okay, Paula, what if you met Eric and he wasn't a triathlet, but the rest of him was the way he was? How complicated would that have been and how much would that have entered into your potential attraction to him, you think? Because that's what the situation that this person makes in right now. I've never even thought about that. It's hard for me to imagine because, like, what do we have even met each other? Yeah, that's why it's hard because we wouldn't have even met each other. But I would say like I've been doing the sport for so long that if I met a different person back in the day who was like had a like a doctor or something in a city and needed to live in the city, I would have been okay I think at a certain point in my career retiring from triathlon, going back to school, pursuing a different career. So I think being with Eric has kept me in the sport because he has.

also is a pro triathlete and I was kind of in such a bad place with racing and training and everything when I met Eric that at that time if it had been a different person, no problem leaving the sport. So in a way he's kind of saved my career, this career. But I could have seen my life going a completely different direction and being happy that way as well. I'd probably like be, I would have gone to. medical school and been a resident and been hating my life in a lot of ways. Or it just would have been like, obviously that's very challenging to go and be a doctor, but that was kind of my plan from the start.

So if anything, Eric has strung me along, kept me in the sport. We've done a lot of cool stuff together. My career kind of turned around and got good again largely because of him. So this isn't really answering the question, but it's just like thinking it from a different way of us. If I had met someone else, I think I would have had to change a lot of my ways of needing to exercise and needing to train and morphing that into a little bit into someone else's life. Thankfully with Eric, I didn't have to change a thing. I just kept doing the same. Agree? Yeah, I think this kind of comes down to priorities. I rode mountain bikes with a guy

the other day who was telling me, like, he's been trying to be a pro cyclist for a while, and specifically in mountain biking. And he had a really really. And he had a really relationship and they had some struggles and he came to a place where he's like, the priorities in my life are relationship, work, and then the bike. He said, you know what? And actually my bike, the biking has been going great. It's just technically the thing that has to give a little, but when I get to do it, I'm super psyched about it. And I have kind of let go of the like, here's what the optimal perfect training plan is and how do I fit everything else around it and more like how do I optimize the training around the other things that I have to do in life. Yeah, I think

that's super important. And it also, if you can go out and actually enjoy and appreciate and make the most of every minute you have to go and train, I think you can actually get a lot more out of yourself versus if your whole life is structured around the ideal training plan. Yeah. Which a lot of amateur athletes experience all the time. I think as pros, we kind of take it for granted sometimes that we can just train all day and do whatever we want and do our schedules how we want to and not enjoy it all the time. whereas people would kill to be able to train whenever they want like we do. I don't know.

That's a tangent. Do you feel like as you get older, how much weight you personally put into relationships is taking up a bigger and bigger piece of the pie of what is important to you? Or has that not really shifted? No, definitely. I prioritize not just my relationship with Paula, but with other people more than I would have in the past. You know, like in 2013, when I was desperately trying to make a living as a pro and it was not succeeding yet, there's no way I would have gone to Western states to pace Heather and, you know, taking that time out of my schedule and, like, unoptimized my training.

Like, I was skipping weddings and birthdays and all the things. And just, like, every single set of every single workout is do or die. Yeah, we're definitely different now. I think it's great. Yeah, and I don't know if that means we're like less. motivated or less serious rather than you realize what's important and you realize every single workout is not do or die. They all add up and make a difference. And having had numerous friends that went after the Olympics and then immediately retired because it was just too much and they'd,

you know, tried so hard. And like I made a conscious decision at some point like I need to slowly get to the point where I feel like I can do this forever and I'm not deprived of myself constantly and I'm loving it and still being able to live a life. So for this person named Nick, do you feel like it's worth investigating at least see what it feels like to develop something with this person even though there seems like their lifestyles are not as complimentary as they would be in your situation? Yeah. I don't see why not.

You know, I don't know what exactly the friction points are, but maybe you go, man, I love swimming, biking and running and playing World of Warcraft. photography and you go, okay, instead now I'm going to like watching friends instead of playing World of Warcraft. And that's just a thing that I'm cool with because I like this person and that's the thing that they're into. And try that out. See, you know, you might not miss it at all. Ditching World of Warcraft so you can hang out with your, that's okay with me. That's okay with me. Eric, were you ever into World of Warcraft? No. No, I was. That's just the first video. That's the first video, Halo 2, Halo 3, you know, whatever.

Okay, I got it, yeah. Nick, what about you? Well, I can't think of a less qualified person to give relationship advice right now. No, Nick, don't say that. I'm marrying Eric and Paula. I'm the third part of this, the tripod. That's my contribution. You can definitely be with us for ever. Yeah, I think, especially now, but what matters to me more than anything else is definitely relationships, like human relationships are taking a huge part of the puzzle for. for me. Yeah. Is that what you're asking or did you mean like would I be willing to? Yeah. The other question, like if you met someone who is not an athlete at all, how would that affect you swim, bike run?

We've all talked about this a lot about what that means. And I think Eric is the person who, he always says this and I think he's right. I don't think as an athlete you necessarily need to be with an athlete, but you need to be with someone who understands the, mind of an athlete and the dedication that it takes and the time that it takes. I think that's more important. Right. Yeah. Did I speak for you correctly there? Yeah. Yeah. I always kind of thought that like maybe the ideal partner when you're a pro triathlet is like, or a pro athlete is a retired professional athlete who like fully gets it and understands what you have to do and isn't going to be like, oh, you already went running this morning. Why do you have to go swimming this afternoon? But is not also in the selfish place of having to optimize everything for them

to make a living with their body. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough question. It's a tough question. And it's one that no one really has the answers to. I feel like you just, you know, you guys have something beautiful between the two of you and you figured it out.

But I think two people in similar situations it might not have worked out. Yeah, you got to feel it out in real time. You meet this person that makes you feel so special that you're willing to give up some of the other things that you love. Then there you go. You'll know.

And I think you'll know when you feel it. Wow, is this a relationship podcast? Are we like... Yeah, this is suddenly a relationship podcast. We have so many people that send in questions asking us probably like 10 at least. Just like, can you tell us about your wedding? And my answer to that is no.

Thinking of things that we're making up as we go. Yeah. We have not been married before. We are not specialist in that at all. Yeah. The answer to that is I will never be having another wedding. That is for damn sure. And yours is relatively simple, too.

Keep that in mind. It is relatively simple and relatively affordable. I mean, they're all stupidly expensive. But I think like our budget for a wedding, not that I had a hard budget in mind, but some people just spend that on flowers. Yeah, crazy. It's crazy.

It's crazy. And the flowers are gone the day after. Gone. And great pictures, great memories. I, you know, I still, like, what's going to make it feel special and memorable to you? It's like being, you know, it's like being given a car versus buying a car. Like, you appreciate it way more when you had to put down your hard-earned money. And if that means, like, it costs you a little bit more to get the flowers and buy the new tuxedo when you already had a tuxedo.

But it feels that much more special and important to you than, you know, go for it. I don't even think it's that. I think it's like this culture a little bit of like Instagram perfect wedding. Of course there's that. And you see on every single thing I'm fed on Instagram right now is this perfect table settings and beautiful dresses and $600 wedding shoes. And it just creates this feeling like, oh, I need mine to be like that too. But you don't. It can be so much simpler.

And what matters to me the most is the people that are there. and that the food is good. Yeah. It's truly my priorities. And we are having it at one of the best restaurants in the city that we're having it in. Oh, is it that secret? We don't even say the city. I mean, people don't need to know the details.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, great, great. We share a lot of our lives on here and some things are for us. Extreme details of our wedding and such. We can figure it out eventually. The thing that I struggle with the wedding a little bit, bit is I'm not actually that like romantic of a person. So the thought of writing vows and like doing all the cheesy stuff kind of is cringy to me. So I have to like switch my mental state a little bit and be

like, okay, this is a romantic occasion. He romantic. It sure is. Somebody help me write my vows for Eric. Just kidding. No, I have so many. I would rather just like tell Eric how I feel impromatic. private. Every day. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I am a very romantic person and I feel the same way. I'm like, this is great. This is making it official in front of all our friends and family, but also like, I just, we get to spend every day together, and that's what is important.

Totally. That's the kind of romance that I'm into as well, by the way. What? It's just like quality time. Quality time. That's the magic. This really has become a romantic advice podcast. No, I don't even know if it's advice.

Like everything else that we do on here, this is. what we're doing. We are not specialists. This is just what we're doing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Okay. Well, that's it. Those are the questions we had this week. Cool. Going out hot. And thanks so much for the game, Mike. And thanks for everyone who submitted games. We will certainly be using many of them in future episodes because they're too fun to just Yeah, there's a couple good ones. And Eric's racing on Saturday, 100 Mile mountain bike race here in Bend. Woo! And... Give it another try. So next week, we'll be able to be.

might have a little bit of a race recap. That is true. Oh yeah, we will. Yeah. Thanks everybody. Thanks, everyone. Bye.