That Triathlon Life Podcast - Cleaning your bike in an apartment, traveling with your bike, triathlon quality/volume, and more!

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

This week we had a quick turnaround from last week, but we still somehow got enough triathlon questions to do an episode thanks to all of you. We did some bike tech with Eric, discussed what it takes to make it onto the start list of PTO Edmonton, talked about how important equipment is, and more! Check out http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hello everyone. Welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Nick Goldston. And we are with you here after only two days since our last podcast. Eric and I are professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician. And we love answering your questions and just talking about triathlon and talking about what we're up to and just creating like a cool community. So thank you to everyone who listens. And because Thursday's our normal release date, we decided to do a real hard back-to-back. recording on Wednesday right now in order to get this out for you guys tomorrow. Insanity. We weren't going to do it, but Nick is a glutton for punishment and insisted.

So here we are. I'm like, do we even have enough questions after like literally one day of putting out the last one? The answer is yes. The answer is yes. There's so many, like, especially the day that we first release a podcast, the questions come flooding in. So it's amazing. T.L. Nash rolls deep. Yeah.

We appreciate those coming. We love it. If you don't do that, you just can't have to listen to us talk about how we felt in our work out. No, if people don't send questions, there is no podcast. I think people do want to hear about how you guys felt in your workouts, though. Speaking of which, you two look like you both got hit by a train. What happened? Oh, yeah.

Well, we had a real busy day. Because just with training, we started out with a pretty hard bike ride where I went after a QOM for no reason. It wasn't even prescribed. And then back that up with a tempo run so that we could finish in time for my sister to come over to do massages on us because she's a massage there. which is a wonderful treat, but also necessary, all so that we could be done in order to record the pod in time so that Nick could get to his trail around. Literally been back-to-back with everything. We're coordinating three people's training plans to make this happen.

That's wild. So it's going to be a short one. Do you guys feel like you're on track to as far as your training goes for the PTO race? Yeah, well, we just sort of started since Paula did. her T.C. Champs race and I did Alcatraz a couple weeks ago. I've sort of just been doing volume since then. And this is our first week really into harder workouts for me in like three weeks now since I did a taper and a race and stuff. We really dove right back into it. Like we've done four hard workouts in a row at this point in two days. We did a hard bike, hard swim, another hard bike

and a hard run. So it feels like we're a little bit in the thick of it. But like we anticipated, it is pretty relaxed doing it in Canmore. And although today was busy, it's just, still not much to do aside from just training. Yeah. And recording the pod. No lawn to be mode. There's, yeah, very few friends here. It's pretty chill.

Yeah, we love it. And both of you are officially on the start list now. I saw that the PTO, like, published the start list officially, and you're both on there. That's nice. Yeah. That might be one of the questions today, but asking about the qualifications, we can get into that a little bit. But I was surprised with how few of the top, like, five athletes on the women's side are doing it. Like, no Lucy, she's injured, no Daniela.

That's surprising. No Cat Matthews. I don't know. I just figured everyone would be there because it's such big prize money. But I guess people are prioritized in Kona and other things. Yeah. And they do have another chance, two more chances, really, to get that big amount of money with the Collins Cup, you know, just for showing up. If you're ranked highly and then the Dallas American, are we calling it the American?

Open. U.S. Open. You know, after that. So it sounds insane to say, but maybe people are like, well, I still got two more chances to make $100,000 this year. It just seems like the timing with Kona is kind of ideal to race right now at like a 70.3-ish distance, no? I think the problem is there's so many Iron Man length races this year, like with St. George and Kona both being World Championships, that it's really hard to peak for two Ironman distance races.

and also peak for two half-distance races in the summer in between. It just leads too much up for, like, injury and burnout. If you're immediately coming off St. George and getting ready for Emmington and Dallas and then immediately getting ready for Kona, I don't know if it's humanly possible to perform well at all four. So I think you do have to be selective. And obviously, Kona is, you know, the biggest thing in our sport right now. And so if you have an opportunity to do well there, like there are women that do that aren't coming to Emmington, then why wouldn't you go for that, I guess?

Also, all the women that you named were not North American athletes, right? Oh, wait a second. That's true. So it's bigger travel. Yeah. No, no, you're right. Oh, yeah. There you go.

Yeah. And the start list is still insanely competitive. Like, it's not, not weak at all. But there's just a few notable names that aren't on it. Yeah. Well, it's coming up fast. I'm very excited to watch it as a fan, as an outsider. I kind of wish I didn't know you guys just because I get nervous for you a little bit.

I wish I could just view it as like, oh, cool thing that's happening. in the sport. Who's going to win? Who cares? Exactly. Yeah. Right. But other than that, I'm still very excited for it. Well, very cool. I thought we would start things off with a... I was talking to Mary Kane on Instagram, and she had a question that I thought would be perfect

for a segment here in Bike Tech with Eric. Wait, wait, wait. You were starting... You were on a... Is that way to just casually drop that? You were talking to Mary Kane on Instagram? Well, yeah, after she asked the question. She replied.

So now you guys are friends. Oh my gosh. I don't know if we're friends, but yeah, we're friendly. After this, after this, I'll tell you how I was talking to Tom Cruise on Instagram. No big deal. Well, I think she might have reacted to one of my stories or I reacted to one of hers. And we just started a conversation. I said, thanks for asking the question, something like that.

And then she brought up that she had some other questions. And so she had one here that I wanted to ask Eric on a little bike tech with Eric segment. She was saying, I would love to know how to clean a bike in a New York City apartment. Because it's easy for us to take the bike out, hose it down. Obviously, she doesn't have the ability to do that. So, Eric, what would you recommend for someone, not just in New York City, but someone who doesn't have access necessarily to some kind of lawn or driveway that they can actually rinse off their bike?

Yeah, I think I would get like a squirt bottle from the store, just one of the empty ones, and fill that with water, and get like a towel or a rag or something and try to spray off as much like the heavy grit and gunk as you can down on the street before you go up using that and then when you actually get it up into your apartment and then do something like an actual cleaner like that cleaner de greaser that I have

or you know just simple green or whatever and do like a little bit deeper clean in the entryway of the apartment probably. Do you think you would do paper towels or would you do some kind of cloth? I would never do paper towels. What a waste. Just for environmental reasons and they just break down and stuff.

Like you can get a like a 15 pack of microfiber towels from, you know, from like auto parts store or something like that. Those work really well and are easy on your paint and you can wash them in the washing machine after you're done. Cool. I also see a lot of people that take their bikes to a car wash, like a drive-through self-serve car wash, if they're really mucky and hose them down that way. If you have just like, if you're riding in the rain and the dirt and the mud and it gets really. really bad. You could do that before taking it back up to your apartment. Yeah, totally. The only thing I'll warn people about that is that those car wash pressure washers, if you point those too much towards parts of the bike that have bearings in them,

it can actually get in between the bearings and get, and like blow out the grease and ruin that component. So if you can just at those car washes, use, like, if there's a mode that has like minimum amount of pressure, like rinse smoke. Rinsements, yeah, something. like that, or if not that, then stand really far away and try not to point it at any components that have bearings. Yeah, that's a good point. Which would be the headset, the headset, the rear cassette, the axles of the wheel, basically. Yeah, the bottom bracket.

You're just getting the frame real clean out of this. Yeah, you can spray it under your chain, but just not, like, right at the bottom bracket, ideally, you know, just like around the chain stay. That's great advice though, Paul. I have seen people do that before now that I think about it. That's a smart move. Cool. And then, Eric, I had a question for you.

I just installed new rotors on my road bike. And now already they're kind of like, they're just not as clean as they were. And I'm trying to keep them as clean as possible. What can I use on rotors to keep the rotors clean? Not necessarily the braking surface of the rotors, but like the central part that just kind of doesn't do anything other than provide structural support. I mean, again, I've used that cleaner to greaser,

but I would not, like, do not spray it. directly at the rotors, like put some on a rag and just make sure that you're not getting anything ideally on the actual shiny part because if you get, if you get stuff on there, that's what causes breaks to squeak and it may never stop squeaking. Yeah. Ever again. So I think, I don't even want to recommend a thing to clean this shiny part with, but off, off air, I think like alcohol, cleaning alcohol, rubbing alcohol would be it.

And then the last question I had to keep on the theme with cleaning the bike is, is there any way to clean bar tape or at that point should I just, you know, actually I have black bar tape that's still somehow holding up. But for people who want to clean their bar tape, should they just replace it? Or do you think there's a way to clean it? I mean, you can clean it a little bit. Try different. I always get black bar tape and they never have to.

Yeah, I would just get black bar tape, to be honest. But if you do really want to clean it, I've had a little bit of luck with, like, a degreaser, like a light thing, like a, yeah, like this simple green, a citrus de greaser, and you just be gentle with it and try not to rub it like in a direction that's going to cause it to pull up or anything. But it's not going to have a ton of luck. Yeah, that's a tough one. Once it gets dirty, it's kind of dirty.

But I do think black bar tape kind of solves that. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you for that, Eric, and Paul. I liked your contribution to that as well. I can contribute to Bike Tag with Eric. Yeah, I love it. Love it.

Cool. One of the questions actually was saying that they liked the bike tech with Eric segments. People, tinkerers out there, they appreciate it. So if you guys are cool with it, we could just move on to these questions right now. Yeah, let's do it. Wonderful. So you guys can send questions into that triathlon life brand at gmail.com. This week, we somehow had enough, but we always love getting all the questions.

So keep sending them in. The first one is from Jen. Hey, Paula, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. my questions are around the topic of traveling to races with your bike or bikes, and this goes out to all three of the humans, because Flynn doesn't have a bike yet. When you fly to a race, what kind of case do you use to transport your bikes? And do you have any tricks slash tips for doing so? I'm considering buying my own bike case for travel since I've probably spent that amount in rental fees. Any wrecks on bike travel cases, hard or soft brands? Thank you, Jen. This is actually super timely because we're kind of in the middle of a transition. Very apropos. Transition of our bike bags. Yeah.

Yeah, we're just on the constant hunt for the best one. And we've always used Saigon bags, which are really easy to pack and really try bike friendly. Like you don't really have to take many of the arrowbar components off, so they're really convenient. But they don't inspire a lot of confidence in terms of protection. We've, knock on wood, never had an issue with our bike frame being cracked. But there are definitely bike bags out there that are a lot more sturdy seeming, I guess, protective. I always wrap my bike and bubble wrap, no matter what.

Yeah, the Sikon's a 100% soft-sided bag. And I do think, like, the upside of it is that it's got room for your bike to move. And when it's a softer bag, I think TSA takes it a little more seriously versus if you just have like one of the classic Tully clamshells, they'll freaking put anything and everything on top of it. and not so much the case with the softer bag. So I think that's why we may have had such good luck with them. Yeah.

Yeah, but I just recently got a Tully bag. And the only reason we haven't used the Tully Softcases before is that with tri bikes, it's like really complicated to take the base bar off. But with the shiv bike that I have, you can actually fold the base bar down with two bolts. So it fits inside a standard road case. And I love it. It's so beautiful. And it's fairly easy to pack.

It comes actually with a bike stand. So you can take that out of the. bag and build your bike that way, which makes it a little easier. Yeah, it's really cool. It's like the inside thing that your bike is actually like the fork is mounted to and then the bottom bracket is sort of strapped onto, clamps right onto this tripod, which is like then a bike work stand that you can unbuild, rebuild, work on your bike a little bit with and then you just pop it off there and click it into the bag and you're done. It's so nice versus like having to straddle this bike bag that's like floppy in your hotel room with no room. And it's a really nice experience.

Tully one's beautiful. Do we want to talk about that the one that I found? What one did you find? The Evok one? Yeah. I was just going to say that. Heather and Wanda just got these Evac bags and they're so beautiful and we're considering just getting two and selling everything else we have. Even though we love Tully, we're pretty loyal to Tully and they treat us really nicely. But these evok bags, they're like shaped like a tri-bike. Like you don't even have to take anything off. Yeah. You don't have to take the extensions

out. You don't have to take wheels off. Wait, no, you do have to take wheels off. You don't have to take peddled. You theoretically can, right. I would still take your pedals off. Yeah. Just why not? It takes 30 seconds. Why not? Yeah. But Nick, you're also in the, in the market for a bike bag. Correct. I've never had to fly anywhere to race, and I will have to in September. And I had found this evoc bag a couple years ago, and I was like, this is the one I'm going to get. And then now I finally have to purchase it. Wait, it's not new? I thought it was a new thing. No, it's, I mean, it's new-ish, but it was definitely a thing. It was either a year or two. years ago, I had found it. I was like, this is the perfect compromise for me. It's mostly

soft, so like Eric said, TSA treats it with a little more respect, but you don't have to take the, like, headset apart, not the headset. You don't have to take the base bar and the arrow bars off or anything like that. It just seemed, and it's rigid up top. It's kind of like this hybrid. Here's the plan. You buy it, and then test it. Report back and give us a review, because we want to buy one too, and apparently this person does as well. I'd do it. Like, if they've got it in stock, dude, don't wait. Do it now before they are gone. Well, here's the goal. If anyone from Evoc is listening, I'm open to being sponsored by you. I'm the most average age grouper ever, and that can be our tagline.

You're welcome for the free advertisement just now. Please reciprocate. We'll sell at least three with this pause. Yes, that's right. That's right. I guess we should probably just say just in case people, you know, it's EVOC is how that is spelled. It's like evoke, EVOC. Yeah. Yeah, cool. Well, hopefully that was helpful, Jen. I think the biggest takeaway is that people think that hard cases are always better.

But what Eric said, I think, is really important, which is that it offers the same amount of protection at a certain type of pressure. But TSA may treat the bag differently if it's a soft case versus a hard case. That's why not everyone gets a hard case. Right. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Hard cases are also very heavy.

Yeah, right. Okay, well, thank you for that question, Jen. Moving on, this is from Carly. Hi there, Eric, Flynn, Nick, and Paula in alphabetical order. I'm starting to train for my first ever triathlon. Thank you for the inspiration. I am most nervous about the swimming aspect, as are many people. My only experience with open water swimming is in the ocean off the beaches of Prince Edward Island, fellow Canadian here.

And oftentimes there are groups of tiny fish or even jellyfish swimming around these waters. My question is, have any of you had any weird or funny encounters with sea creatures during your training or races? Can't wait to follow along for PTO Edmonton. Cheers, Carly. One year that I did the Triton Man event in San Diego, which is right there next to Fiesta Island, like in Mission Bay area, there was a full-on jellyfish, I don't know if you call it Bloom or thing going on. it was like swimming through tapioca is the weirdest thing ever they were not stinging jellyfish in any way but it there was more jellyfish in the water than water and he swam through it and we swam through it

it was the strangest feeling thing i've ever experienced oh my gosh a group of jellyfish is called a smack of jellyfish this was the biggest smack of jellyfish i've ever seen wow that's great I have swam with a bunch of dolphins and like a little sea lions. Happens all the time off the coast here. Never jellyfish, though. I guess I have swim with jellyfish, but not in L.A. Never had a scary encounter. I mean, it's always a little funny when you're swimming with these like sea creatures that are in control of the sea when I'm like barely floating.

It's always a little bit scary, but it's kind of fun at the same time. Yeah. Paula, what about you? I've never had any encounters. I'll be a pass on this question Do you guys have any fish in the river and bend? Yeah, I've seen fish I wouldn't say that's like a wildlife encounter.

Yeah, did like swim into a wetsuit or anything? That's true, yeah, that's true. I've seen some minnows. You guys have a full on like towed like a frog infestation outside your house. Oh yeah, that's true. We need to deal with it.

I don't know. I think it's pretty awesome. They sing everything. every night. Yeah, we basically have a pond that we don't upkeep. It's just was there when we bought the house. It's frog heaven. Frog heaven.

They're so loud. At first it's like, oh, this is kind of cool. We're in nature. And then it's like, wow, they're going at it. Going at it. Like one keep starts going and they all starts, they're like screaming. I love it. So loud.

We can't even sleep. Well, thank you for that question, Carly. Next question is from Jonathan. Hey, Paula, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. Sorry, hometown hero has to go first. loving the pods and so happy to see everyone being successful in all your racing this year. I've been training for the Canadian PTO race and going up and down the hills over and getting both excited but also a bit nervous. Listening to the pod really helps me refocus that I should

just go out and have fun. I'm not a pro, not a front of the package group or either, just finish and have fun. Love hearing that. My question though, and maybe I'm not looking in the right place, how does one make it to the starting list of the open races? I'm super pumped that Eric was just announced on the starters list, and he spoke in the past about getting a spot. But how do racers get there? It's a bit confusing because now they're talking about wild card spots too. Thanks and take care all, Jonathan. Yeah, super, super applicable question to the-

Massively confusing. No, it's not that confusing. If you're ranked in the top 50, you got a spot on the start list. And then beyond that, they're allowing five wild card selections for people that might not be in the top 50 for reasons like they're racing ITU or they had an injury or they were on maternity leave, give them the opportunity to race as well. And I think those plots will be announced in the next few weeks. So Eric was ranked 50th in the PTO rankings.

So therefore, he got on the start list without needing a wild card. It's not that. It's, yes. Yeah, it's conflictated how the point system works. It was actually top 40 automatically go. And then they start rolling it down. But you had to be ranked in the top 50 minimum to be even eligible to get a roll down spot. So it rolled down to me.

I was in the top 50. Yeah. Which is amazing because at the beginning of the year, what were you ranked? Yeah, but that was kind of 80-some. That was weird, right? Well, no, I mean, it wasn't weird. It was just that you have to go to races and have really fast times. It's not just about going and winning a race.

And it's three races over the past year. Asterisk, asterisk, asterisk. And, you know, like there's a bunch of if-thens about it. But basically you just have to have three really good performance. in the last year, essentially. Unless you've raised certain events that those numbers last for two years, right? Right. There's a couple of exceptions in there, and Iron Man races are worth more points,

and yeah, there's a lot of things to the point system. But like Paula said, ranked inside of the top 50. And then the wild cards are just a judgment call based on who the PTO deems to be an exciting athlete, or is there some criteria for that as well? No, no criteria. Like, for example, they could offer Flora Daffee a wild card because she's an Olympic champion, or... They could offer you a wild card if they just decided that would be the most interesting thing for the broadcast. No, they're going to, I mean.

Come on, Evac. Give me that bike bag. I'm going to PTO Edmonton. You probably need to be a professional athlete. That's, I think, the only reward. Show these pros. Who's who? They also give the host country one wild card slot each.

So Canada can invite one male and one female Canadian who is not ranked in the top 50. I think it would be interesting to have, like, I was just watching Lionel's Montreblant video and this part where he's just going by every pro on the bike because he had a flat at the beginning. And I was like, that is so interesting to watch. Think of how fun it would be to watch all the pros go 10 miles an hour faster than me on the bike, just fly by me, me trying as hard as I can. No, you wouldn't be ahead of them out of the water. That's the thing. Excuse me. I'm a fantastic swimmer. I don't know what you're talking about. Isn't that like a Seinfeld skit or something we need to like throw in a random person into every Olympic event? Yeah, of course.

For some context. It's like watching the 5K, you're like, these guys are just out for a jog. They're not going fast at all. You know what? Put average Joe out there running his fastest quarter mile, and he can't even come close to their 5K pace. So, yeah, that's what we need. But yeah, okay, got it. So we'll see.

And you said in the next few days, a few weeks, they'll be posting the wild-garde. In typical PTO fashion, they're going to release them very dramatically and slowly. One out of time. We will find out. I mean, it builds excitement. I get it. Yeah, I does. Well, thank you, Jonathan.

Hopefully that cleared it up for you. Next question is from Liz. Hello, team. Oh, this is great. This is great. I love this already. New listener here and first-time question submitter. My name is Liz, and I've been listening for about three weeks now,

including retroactively listening to old pods. We'll be super bummed when I run out of content because I've quite enjoyed the feedback and insights that they provide. To confirm, I did, in fact, find your pod via searching triathlon in Spotify. you were the first result. No way. There it is. We got one for sure.

That's great. Love that. We love being the top triathlon pod. It's our life goal. It's great. I love it. Well, you know that we're also the number five running podcast in Canada.

Wow. Even better. We're not even a running podcast. Even cooler. Yeah, yeah. So that's cool. We love it. Some context.

I'm an age grouper finishing middle to late in the pack. The distance is, I focus on are 70.3 and full distance triathlons. My question is around balancing workout-based versus distance-based sessions. Traditionally, I've been hyper-focused on distance-based because I thought it was critical to get the body used to the miles and time under tension. I'm beginning to worry that my strategy is much too biased for me to make speed improvements. Can you give insights into good balance between workout-based and distance-based? And then she clarifies, she says, workout-based, I mean like sprint intervals.

Hill repeats, etc. Versus distance space being building to a 20-mile or 100-mile bike, not really focusing on effort. Best Liz. Also, she did hashtag T-T-L-N-E-H-S-H spelled N-E-I-G-H-H-H,

which is, I feel like that's pretty close to. Yeah, that's cool. It's like I spoke Geisha. Yes. Good question, good question. This is like basically sort of a how many hard workouts to do a week. I don't think necessarily.

I think it's confusing because we do our workouts on the bike, time-based. And then we do a lot of our running also time-based, but I think a lot of athletes do that distance-based, like kilometer repeats or a 10-kilometer run or, yeah, I think it's a lot more common in running to do things by miles or by kilometers versus by time. I find that doing things by time allows, like, she said a lot more opportunity to push yourself a little bit more or to not push yourself as much if you're not feeling well. It doesn't put this kind of like limiter on yourself or expectation

on yourself. Say you're doing kilometer repeats and you know what you can realistically hold or what you should be holding. It takes that stress away if you just do four minute repeats instead, like four minutes on, one minute off. Don't pay attention to the distance you're going. Just go hard for four minutes. I don't know. Different coaches have different approaches. We just tend to do a lot more of our training time-based versus distance. Yeah. But I don't know if that's answering your question. It's funny because when I read her question,

I thought she was talking about one thing. And then when she tries to clarify, it sounds like workout-based, she's talking about quality and distance-based. She's talking about volume. Getting in the distance that you maybe be racing. Right, right. Well, the distance would just be like getting to the end of 100 miles,

not necessarily pushing yourself in any way, versus if you go and do five by five minutes on the bike or five by a hill climb, you're really pushing yourself beyond just your aerobic finishing pace for a long ride. So I think it does make you better to do that kind of structured training for your hard sessions, and then it's still definitely important to get in your longer rides where you're doing things to get through a certain distance. I think my instinct tells me that faster of an athlete you are at a full distance, then maybe you can start focusing more on like high intensity stuff.

But if you're like she says like a middle of the pack to late in the pack, it seems like the priority still is like getting those long aerobic days in, right? Yeah. I would agree with that. Really high, really, really successful pro athletes, they can still put a ton of intensity into an Iron Man. Yeah. Like they're still pushing hard for a lot of the race. Whereas like age groupers that are finishing middle of the back,

it's really just controlling your effort the whole time much more so and trying to save as much as possible. And just making sure your muscles can endure a full marathon or a half marathon. Exactly. Can you actually finish it? Yeah. But I'm just like you guys, I love the time-based approach for the exact reasons you said it, Paula. Other than the pool, which obviously you can't really do my time, it's like the running and the cycling for me. I really like doing my time instead of by distance.

Yeah, I like it a lot too. And another thing about, like you said, getting in the full distance and doing things more less focused on intensity is that a lot of time age groupers don't have as much time to train. So therefore, doing an hour bike ride with some intensity, I think is more beneficial than just doing an hour bike ride at your Iron Man pace. It could be an effective tool with limited training hours to get fitter. So it's not like one or the other. I think it's important to incorporate both if possible. Yeah. Yeah, love that.

Eric is like the master of just doing what his coach tells him and not thinking about it, whereas I'm like analyzing so many things. I mean, both approaches have benefits and negatives. But yeah, Eric doesn't think about it. He just does it. I'm closer to Eric. I'm like, here's what's on the plan and I'm just going to do it. That's what I like about having a training plan.

I know it works for me. And I know that putting in some of these like three hour rides that are kind of hard and under tension is works really well for me, but also if I don't do some race-paced, you know, timed intervals biking and running, then it's just not going to develop the speed required to go how fast 70.3s are these days. Yeah. I'd say that if this person's new to triathlon, they'll start to learn what works for them, too. Yeah.

If I was just doing an Iron Man, though, like, I would, I feel like it would probably slant a lot more in the direction of just getting longer, longer, more volume in and relying on some, speed quote unquote from what we've already done. Liz, thank you for that question. That was a good question. And also thanks for listening to the podcast. We're really happy you found us.

Yes, we're really happy you found us. And we'll try to keep you. We'll try to keep you as a fan. And our last question here, and this one, I'm very curious what you guys say about this. Because I think I wonder about how pros would answer this question. And I think a lot of people wonder how pros would answer this question. A question is from Tommy in Boulder, Colorado.

I had a question regarding Paula's recent TT success. Congrats again. If you look at your successful performance on a 100% scale, what percent would you attribute to the following three categories? One, your fitness and talent. Two, your aerotech technique, like aeropositioning, bike handling, etc. And three, your equipment. Just curious on a shorter, more focused event like this TT,

how would you break down the major aspects that ultimately led to this big win? Also, would Eric consider a TT in the future? Thanks and have a great time up in Canada ahead of the PTO race. Hashtag T-T-L-N-E-H-N-E-H-H-H-H-H-H-H. Wow. I love it. That's a great question. Yeah, this is an interesting question.

I also want you guys to answer. I want both you to answer this because not just the T-T, I wonder about your triathlon success as well, how you would break it down in these numbers. I agree. And they don't have to necessarily be the same as the T-T, but. Yep. I would say 50% talent in a training, 10% arrow and bike skills, and 40% having the fastest equipment I can possibly have. Wow.

Maybe even like 60, 10, 30. I don't know. I feel like top end bikes are all fast these days. And my arrow position, I haven't focused a ton on it. And my bike handling skills are garbage, so. But that's not what he's asking. he's asking, did that contribute? So like not, so you're saying no, because the course wasn't really technical. Exactly. Yeah. Right. And of course, era position's important in a TT,

and I think my era position's decent, but it's not something that I focused for months and months on perfecting. Exactly. When I went to the wind tunnel was specialized, we found that moving my bars up or down didn't have a significant impact in my overall drag. So we've went with a position that was a bit less aggressive, but comfortable and powerful. So And then, yeah, just a lot of it is for some reason I'm really good at going hard for 45-minute intervals. Genetically. Yeah. Eric, what about you?

I mean, and Paula, do you think that those same splits there, the way you're breaking up those ratios? Do you think those are the same for your triathlon success? I think so, yeah, about that. I'm interested to hear Eric's breakdown, though. Yeah. I would say that for me it's much more like 70% fitness talent. It's like kind of a little bit interesting to put fitness and talent into the same category. I agree.

Or like 60 or 70. And then I would like add in another category just for, you know, I'm not sure it fits into fitness and preparation. But like being mentally ready for the event and mentally ready to go hard, not over-training. So maybe that's inside of the fitness aspect, but I feel like that could even be one of the biggest factors or percentages of all, even, you know, like 40% of your performances really, are you ready to go hard? Are you scared?

Are you just, you know, mentally, mentally ready for a hard effort and excited for it versus, oh, man, I can't believe I have to do this. And then I really, I don't think the bike, as long as we're comparing to like the best truck and the best specialized in the best Argonne and the best giant. I think the bike is like a very, very small percentage point. Assuming you have a top-end bike. Right, exactly.

That's the thing. It's like every brand that makes this top-end bikes, like they're all amazing bikes. You know, they're all good enough to do really well at something like this. But if it was like a road bike versus the fastest TT bike the specialized makes. That's a huge difference. That's like a 30% difference. Yeah.

But ultimately still like, you know, a world-class tour. rider is going to be able to spank anybody, even like a continental pro, you know, when they're on a road bike versus a TT bike, it's an engine is still going to make this, you're going to have the biggest impact. Yeah, yeah. And then what was the final one? Like, I just skills and stuff. I would say Eric's skills have a bigger percentage than mine would because you're so good at

skills. My skills have the, and in a race like Alcatraz, the skills play, we'll say 20%, 20%, 30% thing, but I would say the typical 70.3 out there, it's like in the neighborhood of 10 or less percent. Like, people have won Kona unclipping at the U-turn and putting a foot down, you know. It's just, it's a non-issue relative to your engine and your ability to handle heat in most, in most 70. In most 70. In most 70.3s, yeah. And then something that, because I, these three categories that Tommy broke these down into,

they're, they're interesting, but it made me think of something else. I wonder how much of your success, Paula and Eric, comes from this physiological gift that you were given at birth versus the mental gain that you guys have had with the training. So I think if you had to break, and this maybe is a little awkward because you have to talk about yourself in this kind of funny way, but if you, like, if we took Paula's brain and put it in my body, and I was born in Edmonton and had the same family Paula had, do you think it would have been possible, could I have had the success that Paula has had, or was there just this thing that, like this physiological thing at birth that Paula had? Paula, you've grown up around

athletes your whole life. So you've seen, hey, this girl works just as hard as me and she's less fit or more fit or this person works nowhere near as hard as I do and is so much fitter. Do you have a sense for how you, how your, the things that you can't control have helped you be an athlete, specifically like one of the top pro-traithelies in the world? Yeah, I think definitely your genetics and physiology play a big part of it. But everyone at the top end of the sport is pretty similar in that aspect, I'd say, in terms of like their physiological ability or sealing or gift or whatever it is. And then like Eric said, a lot of it then comes down to your mental capacity to push hard

and to train hard and to train smartly and not get injured to be consistent. There's so many pieces to the puzzle that people deal with differently. Yeah. But I mean, both of my parents are really good athletes. I think that definitely has a part of it, not just physiologically, but the way that I grew up, training and being active and being introduced to sports and watching my parents compete. It's all like the competitive drive is a big part of it as well, not just your physical ability. Yeah. I grew up immersed in sports, just like Paula, I grew up swimming and got into triathlon.

at a really young age and everything, but neither of my parents are high-level athletes at all by any stretch of the imagination. My dad, just in his later years, got into cycling and does cycle Oregon and kind of like bigger one-day rides and stuff, but he doesn't race. And my mom played a little bit of softball in high school, and that's it. So I definitely feel like a bigger part of my success

is like perseverance and working hard slowly over. time. I didn't like have any, like my first triathlon I did. I was the hundredth place and it took me like four years to ever win a triathlon and to win my age group at national championships took me a long, long time. So I certainly subscribe more to like trying hard. Hard work pays off. Yeah. And my last thing is, and I hope I can ask you this in a way that makes sense. If you had to quantify from zero to 100, zero being the least that, in 100 people, the least and 100 the most, at the highest level of pro triathlon, if you had to, if you had to quantify the genetic gift that people were given versus how great their mental game is, like Eric was saying,

like perseverance, training hard, overcoming difficulty. Do you think there's a bigger spread in the genetic gift department or in how strong people are mentally? Like is everyone at the top level a 100 on the genetic, you know, gift? And then you just have people like, let's say, stereotypically Lionel who can just push hard and work hard versus someone who is constantly up and down and gets in their own head and misses training sessions because of it. I mean, there's no way Lionel's going, the speeds that he's going, without some sort of genetic gift and his genetic gift might be high lung capacity or bigger blood vessels or you know whatever it is like you know another person's genetic gift might be really

bouncy calves and long Achilles tendons so they can run quickly you know like and another person's is mental perseverance and these are all different you know talents or things that you were gifted with and i'd say the people that are at the very top have like the the best blend of all of these things. They have the engine, they have a very efficient technique and they have the mental capacity to not burn themselves out or just collapse under pressure. So it's like it very much a sum of all parts kind of a thing. I think there's a lot of top athletes though that do get in their own head more than we think and could perform better if they were more mentally not strong, but this is a really stressful sport and it's really hard and the roller coasters are just

hard to deal with and some people deal with them better than others. So it's definitely no one is to blame if they struggle mentally during a tough times, but some people can bounce back quicker than others and easier than other people. Yeah. And that's a pretty classic Achilles heel of a high level performer and like anything, whether it's like a symphony or it's a or it's a running race. Like a lot of the times that great mental capacity for work and, you know, obsessiveness with an and goal can also come around to bite you. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like both of you are saying that at the top level,

everyone has a similar kind of gift. Maybe it's distributed differently, but similar gift. It's just how everyone has handled that and grown that in different ways and nurtured that gift. Yeah, I don't think there's anybody at the top that's just, like, woefully untalented

and they just worked and worked and worked and, like, there's something going right. Right, right, right. Cool, cool, awesome. Yeah, I guess I've always wondered that a little bit. Because we all, us age groupers, we always compare ourselves. I don't even know if our questions are accurate.

I think, I think. Just our opinion, man. I would say that, like, relative to a sport like, like basketball or baseball or some of these a little bit more technique-driven sports, like triathlon has a higher percentage of people that would be, quote, unquote, less talented than, than the top basketball players out there that they were able to compensate with more just like slow work over time and building an aerobic engine. Nick, you got to go to your trail run.

We're running out of time here. I got to go. I got to go. And I hear, my friend Kylie's here right now. Yeah, I got to beat you guys in the Vert Challenge. Yeah, we have a Vert Challenge on Strava going, and I'm dreadfully, like, low down on the list. You're going to beat me after today, I think, Nick. Today I'm going to pass you again. I keep getting notifications.

Paula Finley has passed you in the Verit challenge. I know, I think you and me are going to. We're going to go back and forth. Yeah, because we're not like these crazy vert monkeys that just climbed 2,000 years. Well, I feel like I am, but compared to a professional who is not, I feel like it kind of now that evens out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think your vert per mile is going to be very high up there. But it'll just be if you have the time to get the volume.

That's right. That's right. That's right. Cool. Awesome. Well, I'm glad we got this one in. Hopefully T.T.L.

Nation appreciates our grind, getting this podcast out a few days after the one we put out. It's good to be regular. And thanks to everyone who sent a question in yesterday because basically those are the questions we answered today. It sounds that for instant gratification. Yeah. That's right. That's right. It's basically a hotline at this point.

Yeah, yeah. Next week, we're just going to be live all week. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, thank you guys so much. We'll be back next Thursday. Can't wait to check in with you guys see how it's all going. All right.

Thanks, man. Bye, guys. Thanks, everybody. Bye, bye-bye. Ciao.