That Triathlon Life Podcast - Ari Klau calls in live after his first 70.3 win, the Eddington number explained, keeping bottles cold at races, and more!

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Paula is racing the Canadian National Time Trial Championships, so it's a bro pod, especially when Ari Klau calls in live from O'Hare Airport after his first-ever 70.3 win at Mont-Tremblant to finally explain the shoe phone celebration that baffled the entire internet. We also break down a deceptively addictive cycling metric, answer your bike tech questions, and get into open water swimming in rough conditions.This week we discussed:Paula races Canadian National Time Trial Championships, night-before logistics, bad roads, 23 mph winds, and going off 4th Martin Van Riel is 6-for-6 in 70.3s, the case for showing up only when you're readyThe Eddington number explained: the cycling and running metric you didn't know you needed (and how to figure out yours)When to switch from road bike to TT bike in your race build, Ari and Eric weigh inSharing one wheel set between a TT bike and road bike: does it actually work?How to keep your bottles cold in transitionSwimming in choppy open water: Eric's technique adviceThe most minimalist race belt options, including the shoelace method and the Nerd BeltIs the North American Championship more prestigious than a regular 70.3 for age groupers?Do pros still fall off their bikes? Ari's trainer near-misses and the AirPod problemA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Palmerstrow. I'm Nick Goldstone. That is it. Awkward silence. Awkward silence. Paula is not here with us right now. I'm actually texting her. It's the night before Canadian time trial national championships. And she's actually concerned about her bike being UCI legal, which is a legitimate concern, but I measured it a whole bunch of times. This is just what one does when one is doing a new thing. do we think they put time trials, national time trials,

on a Thursday on purpose to weed out the people who don't want it bad enough? Potentially, it's just like part of the entire national championship weekend. So there's a time trial, and I'm sure there's like a master's time trial, and a junior time trial, and a road race. And a master's road, you know, there's all these different categories that need to happen. And I don't know, for whatever reason.

Time trial comes on Thursday. My parents asked me 100 times today when the race was if it was on Saturday or on Sunday. And I was like, it might not be on Saturday or Sunday. And I tried to call Paula to ask her, but she was understandably busy doing other things today. Yeah, it's kind of like a championship swim meet. There's enough events that they would start

with the 1500 on Wednesday night. And then on Thursday morning, there'd be prelims for the 200 meter backstroke. And in the evening, there would be the finals. and we've got to go through all these different events with prelims and finals and cycling is kind of similar but instead of having multiple prelims and finals just events take six hours with the road race.

And they want to space it out so people can do both things. Do you have to qualify for this? This one, I don't believe you actually have to qualify for. But I'm not completely positive. She has won it three years, three times. So I think she is, if she wasn't qualified, she could probably get in on merit by a request,

but I'm fairly certain that it's just open. And so do they seed them based on like, because she doesn't have any UCI points really, right? No. And so that's kind of funny. She was just texting me. She's whatever going forth. Right.

Right. Out of 80 women. Right. She unfortunately, even though she has won it and has been the national champion, and she is not going close to the end like she historically has. So she's just going to have to set the fastest time she possibly can. And other women throughout the entire day will get the opportunity to try to go faster.

Right. Now there is some caveats to this. She could go really fast and then it can start raining all of a sudden. And it could be more challenging or the wind could pick up or vice versa. It could be wet when she goes and windy and then calm down later. So that's just the challenge with the time trial. do try to send you off all the riders as close as possible to keep that variation in conditions minimal, but it is a thing.

Do you know anything about the course, the distance, the elevation, the technicality? I think it's fairly straightforward, if I remember from years past, and I think it is at least the same course as the last time she did it. There's some punchy little climbs on it, but it's out in farm country. I think she said four hours. is either two or four hours from Montreal, where she flew in. The biggest takeaway is the road surface, she said, is incredibly worn, we'll just say. And so she was asking me, do you think it would be faster to just hit all of the cracks and holes

or spend the entire race looking down at them and swerving constantly? you know and I how bad are we talking here for that to be a serious consideration and there's there was seriously no other big square box or out and back you know between where you are

in Montreal that would be sufficient but anyway that's where it is that and then the winds she said the winds when she pre-rored the course today were about 23 miles an hour sustained which is uh which is substantial oh that's really that's very windy yeah yeah and you know it

To her credit, I've done a couple of TT rides with her lately, and she has been riding incredibly well in the TT bars. So that's kind of what I told her. I said, you've been riding incredibly well relative to how you used to. And I think just generally speaking in the TT bars, in high wind, and you're really strong. And you ride your TT bike more than anyone else on that start line. So take, you know, at least take some confidence in that

and just go out there and do whatever you can do. Does she have anyone in her ear on a radio or is it, it's not that kind of thing, right? No, I was reading through some of the rules and stuff and you have to have like a sanctioned, approved, follow vehicle, which, you know, if there are any women there who are on pro cycling teams, there is a chance they may have gone through that process and we'll have that. But again, just since she's closer to the beginning to the front of the race,

it's not like she's going to have some pacing or numbers to compare to any. anyway. And she's kind of, she experienced that at World Championships, having the team director of Cycling Canada in her ear trying to coach her through it. And she said she liked it to some extent, but it didn't necessarily make her go any harder. And it does open you up for some frustration of someone telling you to do one thing when you can't. You know, sometimes when you talk about, like sometimes the power meter can make you furious and sometimes it can tell you good news and it improves or disproves your feelings about what you're doing one or the other. So it's a double-edged sword.

Do you know if there's, I'm just thinking of a kind of event that not only would suit Paula, but I just feel like suits a certain kind of writer, an uphill time trial. Do you know if they do something like that? Oregon always had one. I don't know if it's a national thing or not, but they did have an uphill time trial in Oregon.

At least last I checked. Yeah, that's just, it feels like a really different kind of effort that is still very, I find it to be very interesting as a cycling fan. Yeah. I don't know if you saw Ian Boswell did the Mount. Was it Mount Whitney? It's Pike's Peak?

No. It's the big eastern peak that has like crazy, crazy weather at the top of it. Well, Whitney is in California. Whitney's in California. So what is it that's out east? Ted, I think, who was it? I think Ted King. Somebody, or Phil Guy.

had the record up it and Ian went to the actual hill climb championship on it with a super light bike that had the drops cut off of it and sawed them off yeah yeah like carbon one one by carbon front ring you know and he totally smashed it and it was it was pretty cool to watch that attempt and the bike and the whole thing all the process going into it so yeah I think there's a place for it and obviously yeah the pike's peak hill climb and car racing is is very intriguing right Yeah, yeah. Well, sweet. Well, we wish ball of the best, of course. I didn't get to wish her a good race today, but she's kind of, well, she's not here to hear this so we can say this. She's been undefeated at that race as a time trialist. I'm knocking on wood here. But she's got, the numbers are in her favor. The numbers are in her favor for that. You know what that makes me think of? That just something that I kept meaning to message you about this week is Martin Van Real, right? He just did freaking, what 70.3 was that?

Elsinor, that's the race. It was, I believe, his sixth 70.3 and he won it. So that means he's six for six on 70.3s. I'm pretty sure it's six. It could be five. But anyway, what occurred to me is that it is such a low number of 70.3s that he has done. Yeah, I've done more. Yeah, exactly.

In my first, in my second year of 70.3, I did more than five 70.3s. And he's just, I mean, kudos. I know T-100, that's a big part of what's going on. And he's done some Iron Man's as well. But that's kind of what I thought was interesting. But it's a good, that's a good case to be made for like, show up when you're ready to show up and just be undefeated.

And just rock it. Yeah. No bad races. Yeah, good for him for showing up. Speaking of which, we can't have this whole podcast episode without shouting out our boy. Ari Klau for taking his take for the first time. It was about freaking time, dude.

You understand two phone calls through the shoes across the finish line? So I should have looked this up. When I saw that, I laughed. You should have just messaged him. I know. I could text him right now. I'll text him now. But I think it, I assumed it had to do with the fact that he had the problem with the blisters.

Yeah. I just wasn't sure if there was some sort of significance to, he had. had them like he had both up to his ears, like they were telephones or something, and I wasn't sure if there was some significance. There was some internet meme that I missed, but I do his brother-sler issue for sure. Like Puma call me? I don't know. Oh, do you think that could be it. I don't know. I mean, everybody, I think the whole internet is trying to guess unless he's come out and explained it. He did the moment. I just texted. I just texted. I said, recording pod now. Can you explain the shoes phone thing in a few words?

All right, he can also just call in if he wants and we can just really have him as a guest on the pod. I'll, I'll present that option to him. All right, all right. I guess if you're new here, we sort of skip the intro since Paul is not here,

but my wife, Paul and I are both professional athletes. She's off racing Canadian time trial national championships right now. Normally race to 70.3. She's getting ready to race her first Iron Man at Lake Placid, which we're very excited about. I'm taking a little bit of a hiatus this year because I had a hip, surgery, which we haven't checked in on lately, and that's totally fine. It's coming along. Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlete, lover of the sport, as we all are. So welcome

to the podcast. We will eventually get to some questions submitted by listeners. Nick and I aren't just going to, I don't know, shoot the shit for an hour. Hang out, wait for Paula to just not be able to sleep and dial into the pod. It would be great. So she can heckle us? It would be great. We're really not good at this. She does carry the show. She does. In one way or another, she does carry the show. Okay, well, while we're waiting for Ari to get back to us, there's also, you were talking earlier about Paul have been riding well.

You also had your longest ride ever by just going on a ride with Paul. So not longest in terms of time, of course, but long as in terms of distance. Wasn't even my longest in terms of time of the weekend. Really? Yeah. Okay, so back up a little bit on Saturday. It was Josh Amber and Ashley General's last day here in Bend. Josh just did Unbound XL, and then he was spending a few weeks here in Sun River, actually,

which is close to Bend. He's with Heather and Wadi, and now he's in Steamboat to do the Steamboat, STMBT, GRVL, or whatever, you know, take all the vowels out, that one. And we went on an epic gravel ride together with us and Heather Jackson and our good friend Curtis, and that ended up being like five and hours and 45 minutes or something. And then on Sunday, I mean, I get back from that. And Paul is, well, I'm glad your hips feeling good so you can come on my five-hour TT bike ride tomorrow.

Oops. Yeah, oops. Should have not made that ride public on Strava. But anyway, I did it. And yeah, it was apparently my longest mileage ride ever by three kilometers. Had you never done a century before? Well, you had on the mountain bike, but it's probably like 10000. Yeah, exactly.

And my previous longest ride was on that Patagonia trip I did with Ian, the fireflies thing. And we did 169 kilometers. This ride was 172 kilometers. But that ride in Patagonia took 12 hours, and this took five. So a little bit of speed differential. But it's kind of funny. Nice. Well, okay, so I have a question for you.

We will revisit next week when Paul is back. My friend Kristen, enlighten me to this thing, and we've been having a field day with it in our group of people in L.A. So have you ever heard of an Eddington number? I think this is going to revolutionize. It's not going to revolutionize anything. I don't know that term sounds kind of familiar,

but I have no idea, and I could be thinking of something else, you know? Yeah, okay, so you're going to love this. I mean, I loved it, and I think anyone listening to it needs to figure out what their Eddington number is, and then it's like bragging rice with your friends. Oh, is this not the thing? No, Uni, that was the thing we talked about last time. Correct.

That's, yes, that is not that. It is nothing to that. It says specific to cycling and running. All right. Okay. So, okay, I'm going to try to describe this in a way that it's not super confusing. Your adding to number is the number of, rides that you've done at that same mileage. So, for example, if you've done 50 rides at 50 miles,

but not 51 rides at 51 miles or more, your number is 50. Your Eddington number is 50. Oh. Even if I go for 100 miles all the time, but I've only done 90, 100 rides. Right, then it's not, then it's not 100. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Then it's, then if you've only done 90, 100 mile rides, your number is at least 90. It might be 91. it might be 92 if you've done 92, 92 mile rides. Greater than or equal to the... Greater than or equal to. So you have one for running and one for cycling.

So we were in the car driving back from Yosemite and we went through all our Strava activities. It's not too hard because you start with like, you know, if you're running, you start with like, all right, have I done 20, 20 mile runs? So you like you'll filter by 20 or more miles. And it's easy to count them. You're just like, okay, there's seven of those.

So it's not 20. And then you bring it down to 19. It's like, oh, there's 13, 19 mile runs. Okay, you bring it down to 18. It's like there's 17, 18 mile runs. So then you're bringing down to 17. Hopefully you have, you know, you have them all. And it's the same for cycling.

So I know my numbers because I calculated it. I'm not going to give it away. We'll talk about it next week on the pod. I want you to try to predict what your Eddington number is for cycling and what your Eddington number is for running. I'm going to guess my cycling one is something like, I don't know in the 60s 65

right you guys ride consistent this is what's funny is you ride more volume during the week yeah I mean I could have like 300 60 mile rides right but like not enough to have 70 70 mile right you know for example

exactly exactly so okay so so what do you think you if you had to predict yours you'd say 65 yeah okay and what about your running one and keep in mind this is like Do you think you have almost everything on Strava? Because this is the only way to really confirm this.

Yeah. Okay. For the most part. Okay, great. And what about running? What do you think you're adding to numbers? Man, it would not be high. Because it's like marathon training is what bumps that number up. Yeah, like maybe 18?

18's pretty high. You think you've done 18, 18 mile runs? Well, for the ultra stuff, for the 50K, you did do a lot. Yeah, purely based on last year, training. Yeah. Plus, you know, I did just some, like, in the last couple years,

I've just done some big, long mountain days. I don't know. I'm trying to think of how we can include podcast listeners in this little game. Like, how do we, how do we get people a place to put their Eddington number? Like, let's, I want to know what kind of unhinged people out there. Like, is there anyone that's done, like,

a hundred centuries? Yeah. I mean, we could do some sort of a Google poll. sort of we'll figure it out and we will insert here now that's the method that we come up with well Eric I have to figure it out in like three hours I have to have to edit the pod tonight so I don't know we'll do an instagram story we'll do an Instagram story or something that will allow for you to partake in this little game here yeah you got to go follow TTL right now so you don't miss it yep follow that triathlon life on Instagram so yeah I've been dying to

shared this with you guys at Edington number, but it's been... It's fun. It's fun. It's been a tumultuous couple weeks for all of us. For people who don't know, Paula had massive travel issues to get to Montreal. Eric, do you

want to give us a little, like, low down here? Or not. We don't have to bring it back up because it's been traumatic. I'll just give you a little anecdote about I'm on this photo shoot with storyteller vans in Big Bear, and I'm driving down a mountain gravel road while on the phone with a United

Agent, while Paula's in the air, because she got stopped on the way to Denver from Bend, had to be rerouted to Grand Junction because their plane had a cabin pressure issue, which caused her to miss her original flight from there to Montreal. So I'm driving down this mountain road with one bar of service trying to help get her onto different flights that will be ready for her when she arrives in Denver six hours later than she's supposed to. Absolute insanity.

And she didn't end up making it to Montreal until 3 a.m. the next day after she was supposed to make it. Bikes did end up making it. But it kind of took pulling out a lot of stops and asking a couple of favors from Air Canada, people that we know, to get her and everything there, even remotely close to the race.

So luckily her mom was there to meet her, was able to help drive to the race but did not have a lot of sleep. I did not have a lot of sleep. This is like the stressful thing and when we were talking about should she do this race or not

with Lake Placet on the future, this is kind of the stuff that I had thought about but didn't be a negative Nancy with his travel can just be such a shit show and burn so many matches. I think she's handling it pretty well but it's not easy. Yeah, she's there now.

That's what's important. Do you know what time she goes off? Fed? She just texted me now. 1220, which that's in Montreal. Time to sleep in and right, okay, so. Yeah, she has not had to actually get on Eastern time zone to make this happen, so that's a plus.

Yeah, yeah. And it's 40 minutes long. So it's not 40K. It's shorter than that. I think the women do 30. It's just maximum. of them effort so hard and fast which she's good at boy okay uh well we do have some questions eric we've killed time for 20 minutes here but i think we should probably get to some actual questions oh one last thing i just want to say the devo team women crushed it last weekend

oh yeah they did marley and sam marley becket sams school both went uh top 10 at iron man 70.3 montron blanc divot team's doing so well this year john reed also he's a little bit of alumni but we're still behind that guy love him to death uh he got a eighth place at w tc s it's like a guiro it's very hard to pronounce but speaking of alumni lydia russell also got second uh at montraublan so congratulations to her that's two silvers in a row yeah she's just soaking up podiums yeah we can't mention ari without mention aurelia boulanger who uh won montremblain congratulations a really great race we're not we're not really a race we're not really a race podcast. That's not, that's what the Oklahoma boys do. But, um, congrats are in order to those. That's a great race.

We don't pay attention. No, that's right. Um, okay. So I'm, I have a bike tech with Eric that is a selfish question that I'm going to ask you, but I'll, I'll pepper it in later into the podcast. And we'll actually just start with questions. You can submit questions to the podcast at that triathlon life.com slash podcast. You can also become a podcast supporter there. Last week, we had a whole spiel about how much we adore and need. And Eric, I really appreciated your vigor in which you encouraged people to become podcast supporters last week.

So yes, thank you so much podcast supporters. It is so simple. We're not happy to start doing ads. I mean, we can definitely go down that route. If that's what you want. We'd also love to not. Okay.

This is the first question here. Mark from Tampa. Oh, no. Hello, Fentf. because Harper is in the mix now so it's not P-H-E-N-F. Oh, God. That's the first mark.

Okay. I figured that was going to happen eventually. Q-Q-More for Eric and Nick. Why do you wear a swim cap in the pool? I grew up swimming competitively and have only worn my swim cap for races and never during training swims. Wait, is this why I'm going bald?

Thanks, Mark from Tampa. Okay, well, okay, so the first thing is, before you enter, Eric, my friend Nick, who grew up swimming and swam Yukon, he said that the back of his hair that stuck out below the swim cap was like brittle and much a lighter color than the rest of his head. So the swim cap apparently does protect your hair to some degree. Does that something that you noticed at all?

Oh, 100%. Growing up, my hair was just like platinum, slim, shady straw. Great. I mean, both from the sun and from being in the chlorine, I never wore a swim cap. And I don't know. I can't remember when it was. Oh, it was when I started doing ITU racing, you know, to what WTCS now, I was very uncomfortable for me to wear a swim cap.

I didn't like it. It kind of made me feel claustrophobic. But I just committed to doing it in training because that's how I had to race. And it really only took, you know, a week to get used to it. and for sure it preserves your hair. Just not having water consistently flowing through it constantly instead of it's kind of, it's protected to some degree. It helps a lot.

Is that why you wear it now? Is it to protect your hair or is there some other reason? Both for that. And I just, I have long enough flowing locks at this point that if I don't have a swim cap and I push off the wall, it just goes straight over my goggles and I can't see. Oh, I see. So I'd have to wear some sort of cute.

little hair band if I didn't wear a swim cap. I'll give you my anecdote. Then I swam for years without a swim cap. And then the reason I started wearing it was because it was a couple reasons. One is like, I think I do want to protect my hair. And also, embarrassingly, I just wanted to feel a little more legit. I wanted to feel like I was actually doing the thing at the pool with the swim cap. It's more legit for sure. I had the same problem where it felt claustrophobic to me. So the first thing I did is I would swim a bit, get my hair wet, and then put the swim cap on. And for some reason, that wasn't as bad as like putting the swim cap on dry and then swimming. And then I slowly got to the point where now I can put it on.

I don't feel claustrophobic. It feels totally normal. So for anyone who doesn't love the feeling, you do get, I think you do get used to it. I got used to it. Eric got used to it. Yeah, you got like two options when you swim. Like number two buzz cut or lower, bald is preferred, or a swim cap. Nice.

And if you do swim cap, then you get to represent something. You get to wear a cool TTL swim cap. You get to wear some swim cap that has fining Nemo on it. You know, let your freak flag fly. So it's just, I mean, we don't have a lot of accessories as men. Swim caps can be one of them. Right. And the last thing is, is there something that is, if you were the fashion police,

is that what you're talking about here? Like, is there a cool or not cool thing to do if you are a legit swimmer? I would necessarily say that, but I would just say that's kind of what the dividing line is, is if you have very short buzzed hair, then you can get away with doing it because it's not going to get in your eyes and you're not going to mess up your real hair. Right. And we would, when we were really serious, when we were like 13 years old and down, we would shave our heads for swim meets.

Really? And every exposed hair on your body, right? Yep, exactly. Like full freaking naked mole rat. Nice. Oh, the ladies love that. Oh yeah. I mean, we weren't too concerned about ladies at that point. Right. And they weren't too concerned about you.

Yeah. It was fine. What a time to be alive. It was so simple. Nothing to worry about. Right. Right. Okay. Next one here is from Alex. Keeping it short, we've all heard about having one frame with two sets of wheels. How do you feel about two bikes with one set of wheels? You get a TT bike and a road bike and Ari just texted me. He said, I would literally love to. I'm at the airport in Chicago waiting to board. Okay, so, but hopefully we'll get an answer from him. Bummer dude.

Yeah, bummer dude. Okay, sorry, back to the question here. How do you feel about two bikes with one wheel set? You get a TT bike and a road bike and share one fancy carbon wheel set. Provided the gearing is the same and the clearance are sufficient. Is this a good strategy? Thank you, Alex. So I think this is kind of a bike tech.

with Eric questioning because what other considerations need to be made if this is even something that you think is a good idea? This is more like ramen noodles with Eric question. Because this is how I lived my life for the first four years of being a professional athlete. I had one set of wheels and I just had a TT bike hanging on the wall with no wheels to go with it and I had to swap back and forth all the time. So you've done this literal exact thing.

Yeah. Yeah, it completely works. I sign off on it. It's great. I see no downside, especially now that you're not using rim brakes. Well, that's actually my question here is that's my concern is the difference in, for example, in rotor size, although there seems to be pretty standard in cycling now, in road cycling, that is. Yeah, just use the same rotor size, just so your bikes up the right. And then do you worry at all about like the positioning of the caliper and how that might change from bike to bike.

As long as you set it good, it should be good on both, right? Yeah, dude, just set it good. Okay, so Alex freaking go for it, dude. I mean, obviously it helps if you have all SRAM or all Shimano or all, you know, whatever, just keep everything as same same as possible on the group sets. But I frequently will, even in our current life, have to just swap a wheel real quick if one's gone flat or if I feel like the tire isn't good or, you know, whatever.

Oh my God, look. No way. You don't even know how prepared I am for this right now. I have my headphones and my mic and my backpack. Probably more prepared than I am. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we got Montremband champion Ari Klau on the line right now. Foning in from O'Hare.

How's it going, bud? Not great. A little rough around the edges. Not going to lie. I got stuck in Montreal for two extra days. Oh, you too. Everybody's doing it. Yeah, it's a cool thing to do.

Airport hotel. But yeah, we're at Chicago, headed home to Seattle, and I'm going to get back to it soon at like two in the morning. Okay, so Eric and I were wondering because we are... As is the internet. Yes, we both had a very interesting last week. And of course, we saw you take tape in dramatic and eccentric fashion. So we're curious, what is the deal with the shoes?

Is it related to the blisters? Is there something else going on? Are you waiting for a phone call from someone? Is this Buma call me? You looked like you were talking into the shoes? No, I guess the phone celebration ends up being like a kind of a common thing. But I had maybe a little too much time to think about what I was going to do. And I was like, oh, I got to do something.

Because there's those pictures of me running with my shoes in Dallas when I had the blisters. So I was like trying to run without my shoes for a while. and I was like, okay, yeah, I got to take my shoes off at the finish. It's going to be this great callback to the blisters, like started the season with disaster, and then coming back to win my first race. It's going to be so cool, and everybody's immediately going to understand exactly what I'm doing. And then, yeah, it just made no sense on the Internet. But in my head, the last couple of miles, I get appreciated.

Like, no matter what, I just think it looks, it's like, wow, I haven't seen that before. No, that's interesting. Yeah, that's just that came out of it. It got more views on social media because everyone was like, what the hell is this guy doing? It was so clear that whatever it was, it meant a lot to you. And that's what we were all here for. Like, I don't know what he's saying, but shit, he's so stoked about it.

Yeah, it was tough. It took me so long to get the shoes off too. It was like proper tough. I was embarrassing myself a little bit. You sent a lot of people, uh-oh, emails on Strava without race, man. Oh, a lot of my KOMs on that bike path from like 2000. And Brad Williams over at Precision 70, you took one of him on the bike course from 2014. No way.

Dude, it's got to be like disc brakes have slowed everything down. Like you'd have thought that those would be gone by now. But those back in the rim break days, these are Stravacanelms from all these rim break bikes, dude. But also the one that you posted on your story, Luke Jones actually took from me by seven seconds. Like, must have been 30 minutes after you posted that on Instagram. So, wow. So I don't even have that one. Do I need to give him a shout out?

You got to give him a shout out. You got to just pan forward, et cetera. Yeah. And I can repost it. Well, you kind of blew up the internet, Ari. Like everyone, clearly there's a lot of love for you in triathlon because people were really stoked for you for that win, regardless of the phone celebration questions.

No, I felt the love. I really felt love. It was awesome. But dude, it's been a journey that we've all gotten to watch. You know, it's not like you just rocked up and won your first race and kicked triathons ass. We got to see you go through the whole process and become a student of the sport

and freaking trapes through some shit. And it's, no, so it's awesome. We feel, we feel like. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's the benefit of the YouTube channel over the years. It's like getting, I got to share that

and people get to see that. I'm like, it's tough because I just started training a lot more. And that's like, that's been the key to the success, but it's also makes it impossible. to upload YouTube videos and be active on social media. So it's like I'm definitely missing that part of it. But hopefully then there's a like a pendulum swing or a little parabola where eventually I can pay somebody else to do it.

That's the goal. God, dude. Yeah. I'm waiting for that parabolums. Okay. Yeah, we'll be done. Parabella. Wait for that swing myself.

Yeah. This was a dream. I've been waiting to get invited on the pod for so long. So my five minutes of fame have been amazing here. There's very, very, very few guests on this podcast that we've ever had. So this is rarefied air. Yeah, no, it's like me, Jackie, Heather. Yeah, Trixie Mattel.

Oh, dude, it's Talbot. Wow. And that's it. And by the way, I get emails every single day. This is a little inside baseball, but I get emails every single day from people. in sport that are trying to get on the podcast. Wow. And you didn't even ask.

We called you on here. I just had to call the shoe phone. You don't, yeah. It's a special phone. It's like the red phone in the Oval Office, but it's the shoe phone. Like that's how you get on the podcast. Well, okay, I can see you're not boarding right now. Do you want to just stick around until you have to?

What's your deal? No, yeah. I can, we can maybe do a segment or whatever if you got some stuff coming up. And let's do this question together because this is a good question for you guys. Hi, TTL. My question is, when is the right time before a race to switch over from a road bike to a tri-bike during the lead-up period? I typically ride a road bike for training and use my tri-bike very rarely since it sits on the trainer when not racing. Should I take it outside more often? Thanks for all you do for the triathlon multi-sport community, Dmitri from Philadelphia.

So I think this is kind of two-sided question. One is how much should you be riding it in terms of being safe on a bike and having confidence on the bike? And on the other side, is how much should you be riding it for the physiological adaptation that is riding a TT bike versus a road bike? In your opinion. Ari, do you own a road bike? Yeah, I don't ride it very much.

I would ride it more if it was like really nice and fit me, but it's way too small. That's one reason. Let's hook this guy up. Bike brands. Flood his inbox. Working on it. No, I would say,

I heard there's a Louis Vuitton, Pinarello that you maybe could have. Don't even, I want that thing so bad. You do? You don't think it's hot? I think it's so hot. I can't not see the model. I think that's the lamest thing I've ever seen ever.

I can't believe. When I saw it, I was like, please tell me it's April 1st. Yeah, I see, I feel like it's a triathlete because I think the gear he was wearing. That was like a wetsuit, but all the cyclists are claiming it. I think he's a triathlete. like the model. Yeah, I think it's supposed to be a speed suit, but it does kind of check the triathlon. Just because it's so uncool, I'm like, this guy's definitely a triathly. Yeah, I saw on Instagram, someone was saying it was like Sam Laidlow's new tri-kid.

But, no, I would say if your goal is, you know, like performance, you should ride the TT bike on the trainer and outside pretty much as much as you can. I know there's some guy like Trevor Foley almost exclusively rides his road bike and somehow just gets on the TT bike and smashes if I rode my road bike like most of the build into a race

and say got on my TT bike the last two weeks into a race I think I would ride really poorly like I need a lot of time on the TT bike to really be able to hold the position while and push power I don't know if you're similar Eric

I don't know I ride the road bike. I ride the mountain bike. I ride the cross, I mean, whatever, the gravel bike. And maybe I could be slightly faster if I just committed to the TT bike, but that's how I choose to live my life. And I think I get some benefit out of the enjoyment aspect of those other bicycles. But then every time, like I'm training actually specifically for a 70.3, I will make sure that every single hard session and then probably the long ride is on the TT bike. Yeah, that's pretty good. I think the intensity, the reps. Like I did, uh, leading into Tron Blant, my coach went kind of crazy.

And we did two back-to-back, like, 23-hour bike weeks. And I did a lot of that on the road bike because I just, I was like, I won't survive or have a good time if I do 100% of this on the TT. So a couple of those rides, I kind of like, it's not cheating. It's still like you're still getting fitness from it. But yeah, I feel like that's a good medium is at least, at least a long ride in the intervals in TT position is probably the best bang for your buck. Yeah.

I mean, it's awesome. We hear that from you because we talk about this all the time on the podcast, like that balance of optimal versus what is going to keep you in the sport for more than this build into your next race because you just completely crunched with living, you know, this, I don't know. Strict, strict training lifestyle. Yeah. Ride the road bikes, folks.

It's good for you. Yeah. And as a non-professional, I'm not winning Montraum Blant. I can tell you that I also need to ride the TT bike to feel good on it, even at a way lesser level of fitness, it still, I think, is relevant to us mere mortals to ride the TT bike to get, to feel like you're actually getting the most out of your fitness.

Amen. Next question here is, I'm afraid this one doesn't have an answer, but I'm hoping Eric and Ari may be you guys with your more experience know something I don't. Hey friends, what's the best way to keep bottles cold on the bike during training? I use insulated ones that work well, do they?

However, by the time I get to my bike in a race, I'm not the fastest swimmer ever. The carb mix is warm and gross. Any tips? Kenley. So first of all, I've tried those insulated bottles and they just, I don't know, I feel like they keep the water colder for like five more minutes maybe, but that's it. Do you guys have secrets?

Is it the night before? But then you run the risk of it, you know, a third of it being a block of ice. This is during a race, yeah? Like this is during a race. Yeah. That's somebody. Yeah, yeah. I mean, during a race, but I think it's relevant in training as well.

well if you like is there something that you know of that actually keeps it cool well what I would do if you if it's really important and like the race is going to be hot well like one I don't I don't care I will just drink that sugar water hot if I need to like whatever takes totally yeah um but I would test it like just literally test it figure out what time the race goes off and estimate kind of like how long the bottles are going to be out when you set up transition and what time you get on the bike and try freezing your bottles the night before and just leave them out that exact amount of time,

try to replicate the temperature and figure it up. Or if that, if it's like still frozen, then maybe put a bunch of ice cubes in there. Like this is what I love about the sport. It's like, I mean, this is sports science. That's real sports science. Experimentation. This is like pseudoscience.

No, that's real science. It's real science. You're testing. This is the Norwegian. method. That's true. That's true. What occurs to me is if it's that important, you just put them in a little cooler next to your bike and transition. Also that. On ice. And then just right the last second,

you know, you put on your cycling shoes to run out of transition. You put your iced bottles on your bike. But to play devil's advocate for that, at the end of the day, dude, I mean, your bottles are going to be hot on the bike after sitting in the sun. I mean, you're not going to get to your second bottle for like an hour or at least 45 minutes. Any bottle sitting in the sun for 45 minutes it's just going to be... I don't know.

The cooler idea is pretty brilliant, though. I do think that totally fixes the slow swim problem. You just pop them out of there, you lose like five seconds putting them in the bike. That's worth it. I saw two guys doing that in Race Morning in Chattanooga. Two guys were carrying like a massive Yeti cooler

in a transition on race morning. I don't know if you need a massive one. There's like the portable ones. I know, but I was just like, they're having... Transition wreck. I think they were like just trying to have beers in transition, doing like a beer triathlon.

That's the vibe I got. It was like too bros carrying a Yeti. Tailgating the transition. But people do it is the point. So if you're not too concerned about your T1 time, then cooler. If you're like so concerned about your T1 time, then yeah, do my Norwegian method bottle testing method. Yeah.

Wow. Okay. So next question here is from Kristen. And I love that we have Eric Lagerstrom and Ari Klau here to represent two opposite sides of this sport. Hi, all, any tips for swimming in rough and choppy conditions? I don't have any trouble with open water swimming when it's relatively flat and calm, but as soon as it gets wavy, I have trouble finding a rhythm and end up swalling a lot of

water and regretting my life decisions. Of course, Kristen, I'm familiar. Thank you for all you do for the multi-sport community and go team TTL, Kristen. So, Eric, you're one of the best open water swimmers, or at least in your prime. You're one of the top open water swimmers in the sport. Ari, you are... Just say it like it is. you're really funny

you've got a great heart so much to the story yeah yeah he's so I don't know if either one of you have some way to get around this I don't know I mean I'm kind of curious to hear what Ari has to say just because I think I suffer a little bit from having done it so long that it's it's like worked its way out naturally

so I try to sit and think about what am I doing right I'm you know but what I think is important here is turnover and focusing on pushing water back. You can't get too caught up in any one stroke. And it's a bit of a feel thing. I don't think it's like an exact science

that you can boil down to. I don't know, like this special technique. Yeah, I was going to say, I also regret my life decisions and swallow a lot of water. So that's good to hear Eric's advice. I don't even mind. Like, it doesn't freak me.

out. I don't feel like it messes with my head, but I've just, it slows me down so much that that frustrates me and I wish there were a way to figure it out, or is it just like, yeah, it slows you down, it slows everyone down. Okay, here's an idea. Here's an idea because I'm just thinking about when I swim in super choppy

water is that I allow my stroke turnover to be very flexible and roll a little bit with the cadence of the swells, of the waves. So something that you could practice in the pool is like two strokes at a high tempo and then do one stroke distance per stroke and then two or three strokes high tempo, one distance per stroke and try to feel that like changing in rhythm. Because as I'm

thinking back to escape from Alcatraz, any ocean swim that I've done with a lot of chop, that's kind of what ends up happening. And if you just stick with this like, this completely dialed metronomic rhythm, you're going to swallow some water. You're going to take a sight when you're at the bottom of a well of water instead of at the top of the wave and you got to kind of be able to roll with that and continue to propel yourself forward in a sort of uneven way. I feel like it's one of those things where like, you know, you can listen to Eric talk about it and you're like, oh, it makes so much sense. And like you're going to go in a, you know, windy day in the open water to practice. And it's just not going to work. I'm going to do it.

I'm going to be like, oh, Eric said, you know, be flexible with my turnover and it's just not going to work. I feel like it's like riding a super hilly bike course or like cross country running. Like you, it's kind of similar. Like you have, you need to have flexible cadence or flexible turnover on both of those, obviously to a lesser degree than a super choppy open water swim. But you probably just have to get out there and do it. But honestly, luckily, I don't remember many races that have been super choppy. There have been a lot of windy days where I've done an open water swim.

And I have that experience. but races are so early in the morning. It's usually not like raising windy. And these days when it is that windy, they cancel the swim anyway. So too soft. You're right. Too soft. But there's a reason, Eric, you and guys like, you know, Mark Dubrick and Greg Harper

are just like would love a choppy swim is because like, yeah, you probably go slower, but you go a lot less slower than I do. Yeah, exactly. It impacts the other people more. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Great. Well, I love that.

I kind of like your answer and I feel like we could as a as podcast listening to athletes, it's something we can at least try instead of just like deal with it. Yeah, I don't know. When I dive into the water for a choppy ocean swim, I just, I'm literally thinking be like water, like be one with the waves, don't fight it, just try to roll with whatever comes. And that might just be something that I can do because of years. I gave away my childhood. How nice that would be, huh, Nick?

Yeah. No, I don't regret it. I don't want to. I'm glad I didn't wake up at 4 a.m. And go to swim practice. It's not worth it to feel that that Zen he feels with the water now. No, dude, my parents came to Montreux's like a six-hour drive from where they live. So it was cool having them there.

And then, you know, I still swam almost four minutes back from the lead. And I was telling them, I was like, I can't believe you didn't just force me to do like one season of swim practice when I was 12. I could have been so, so good at triathlon right now. Yeah. Like, I don't, like, you should have just made me hate you for it. You know, just one season, two seasons. But I don't know. I guess.

Summer is a special breed man to be able to look at the bottom of the pool for that long year after year when no one else in the world cares. There's some self-loathing involved in that, I have to believe. Okay, next question here. Are you still with us? Are you still holding strong there? Okay, great. I think the flight got delayed, so. No.

Serendipity. I like a kid team. Well, they haven't called us. That's how they start. Okay, so this next one here is from Say Hall, from Ottawa. Is that a thing? Or is that just, okay, well, from Ottawa. I assume that's Ottawa.

Hi, team, I'm looking for the most minimal race belt there ever was. Where can I find these and can I DIY it? Cheers. I'm thinking of like the Yon Fredino like yeah oh the shoelace I've had to do that before it just sucks because you got to tie it

but then you can step through it kind of I've done it there's a knot you can tie where it's like you can make it adjustable length so I've like looked that up on YouTube or you can get a piece of string cut it and put two edges of

Velcro together I've done that too I can't believe this question actually came up because Jordan and I are for the last few months have been working on exactly this defined as most minimalist easy to put on race belt ever.

I feel like they're all the easy though like what's the issue? No there's no issue with that. They make clips but like just step through it. That is the fastest way to do it. I'm assuming this person is fumbled trying to work the alligator clip and it like slides up on their,

just the classic thing. You either have to have it like below your butt cheeks or like it's riding up to your freaking nipples and it always is feeling weird. Get a nerd belt, dude. There we go. The nerd belt. Do you have an affiliate code or anything?

I swear by it. I think it's R.A. 15. I swear by it. I don't know. Use the code. Don't use the code. Just get a nerd belt. You'll stay fueled on the run.

Love it. Okay. Well, there's a question. here that I'm afraid, like, Ari, did you ever, how much did you race as a non-pro in triathlon? I did a couple, like, local age group races. But no, 70.3. No, I've never done an age group 70.3. I did age group nationals, and I came third in the Olympic, which I got my pro card, and then just did, like, pro-7403s after that.

Yeah, right. Got it. Okay. Okay. So this is a question. You know what? I don't even know if it's interesting. I'm going to read it out loud and we can just mix it from the pod if we don't like it.

This is from Troy. Hey, Eric Paul and Nick and Pups. So Ari, you see what category you get pulled into here. I was curious if the North American championships are regarded as a higher achievement for the age groupers than a normal 70.3. Seems confusing when being an open registration as to whether it's the best of the best in North America or not. Curious if the same goes for the pros as well or if it's a qualification scenario for them. P.S. Longtime listener, T. TLT member, base camp athlete and fan of the pod, and all you do for the multi-sport community.

Can't wait to see Eric and Nick do a 70.3 on a tandem bike. That would be sick. Troy from Buffalo, New York. So I have a theory about this, but I'm curious what you guys think. Is this more prestigious as an age group athlete to go to North American Championships, which just happened in Happy Valley? I mean, I have the same question. I have no idea, to be honest.

I also never did a 70.3 as an amateur. Same as Ari. I did USAT Nationals. So I don't know. My feeling is it's the same as I think more of the very fast people show up, but I think that is the only segment of each age group that is affected, just the very top. I don't think it attracts more of the middle of the pack of each age group.

It's kind of like it's the same thing that happens with, as you get into older and older age groups, you see that there's fewer and fewer athletes, but it's not less competitive because those fewer athletes, they are the people that used to be the fastest when they were younger, and they are the ones that have stayed with the sport the longest.

So you have fewer athletes, but you're always, if you keep at it, you're still going to get that 13th place you keep getting because those 12 people in front of you, they were always racing and they stuck with it. The people behind you stopped racing. That's my theory. That's my theory. There's no fact here. That makes sense.

I just think about it, I'm assuming that, I mean, I would personally prefer to win Oceanside or St. George. That is exactly what I was going to say. Whatever race has been designated national championships for the year. For pros, it makes sense because there's potentially more slots on the line, there's more prize money, et cetera. But like the races that have legacy, like the same reason that people just want to do Kona because it's Kona.

You know, that seems important. And St. George was both, right? It was North American championships, but it also was this kind of iconic race in a way that Happy Valley is not yet, at least. Yeah, the legacy is important. Yeah, my gut feeling went literally straight to Oceanside, same as Eric, as like the race that all the age groups

would want to go to. Yeah. Okay, so we got one more question for you guys here. And maybe Eric and Ari's answers will be different. This is from Sarah. Hi. Ever fall off your bikes anymore? Unclipped too late.

Tipped to the wrong side. Sarah? Only when I'm mountain biking. I fall down on the mountain bike all the time. Paul gets super pissed. Comes back bloody. I'm like, oh, what's this? Yeah.

Basically, I only ride the trainer, so I can't say I do. If you're falling off the trainer, you've got bigger problems. I have almost fallen off the trainer a lot, though. You ever, like, drop an AirPods, and you've got to, like, kind of, you want to pick it up without unclipping, and then you all, the entire trainer almost tips over. Like, I have that happen probably once a month. Intimately.

Wow. Wow. So, no, though. So, Ari, you don't crash. How do you find yourself to, like, how much of a good technical rider are you on the bike? I mean, the courses aren't technical. Yeah, how would you know?

Yeah. I got to go to France. Yeah. I'm going to have to go to France and, and, yeah, do some crazy dissents. Yeah. I mean, I definitely am not, like, losing or gaining crazy time around corners. There's really, I can't think of any, like, technical courses in North America.

I'm really, I wasn't even really thinking about racing. I was more thinking about just riding your bike and training and riding for fun and going around corners and just trying to find the apex. I would say I'm decent, but I don't have much to compare it to. Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely not scared to, like, go down a hill in the TT bars at, like, 50 miles an hour. But there's not much technique to that. That's just, I don't know, staying focused.

That's just nerves of steel. Yeah, I honestly, I bet I would be a pretty middle of the pack, like, Sprit racer, dissender type of thing if you took all the triathletes and, you know, put them on a technical course. I think I would be pretty, I don't think I'm terrible, but I'm definitely. not great. I do some outdoor riding. I definitely ride outdoors when the weather's nice. So this time of year.

Paul and I have this conversation. I mean, we've had this conversation several times of like, what is the motivation to do so? And Nick and I, you know, we're on the team of, because it's freaking fun. And going downhill and cornering hard and feeling on the limit is super fun.

And then half the population at least, that doesn't make any sense to. And you don't need it for triathlon, 99% of the time. So it's like, are you good bike handler? It doesn't matter. Do you need to work on it? Probably not.

It definitely is a lot of fun when I go somewhere else where there's descending to do. And like when you hit a corner just right, like it feels so good. But I also am not one to take risks, especially if I'm not super familiar with it. So that's kind of like the drawback from trying to test how good my handling is, you know? Totally. Yeah, you don't want to test it too hard. Don't ever test it too hard on your first time down the hill unless you're having a really, really good time. Asterisk.

And you might never come back to that hill again. This is not medical advice. Please consult your doctor before. And yes. Ari, thank you so much for coming on the pod. This is such a treat. I'm still not sure if I want to spoil the fact that you came on the pod and the title or not. We'll have to have a little inside meeting to see if we want to use your name for SEO.

Very special champion guest. Champion triathlete guest. Oh, yeah, happy I could fill out the tripod today. It's an honor. We were tipping over there without our third leg. Yeah, I don't know if you were hoping to come on the pod and have Paula on here, but you are Paula today. Perfect. I just got to doodle

on the whiteboard over here. You're not going to be at Placid, are you? Hell no. Okay. I'm still scarred. Maybe next year. All right. Well, we're getting all geared up for that, but

That's going to be crazy. I will be watching excitedly. Are you going, Nick? You're going on the way over Europe? Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Did I tell you that?

That I was doing that? How did you know that? No, I listened to the pod. Come on. He listens to the podcast. I forgot. He's a fan, man. I forgot.

Well, Ari, it's awesome to have you. As I've mentioned explicitly on this podcast before, you are one of, if not my favorite pro athlete in the game other than Eric and Paula. So it's really fun to have you on the pod. Oh, thank you. That means a lot. Thanks for coming on. And thanks for listening, everybody.

Thanks for bearing with us. Leave some awesome comments for Ari. Let us know. should we have people on those show more often? We'll see you. We'll see you next week, folks. Later. Peace.