That Triathlon Life Podcast - Cold Marathons, triathlon strength training, and more!

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

This week is our last episode together for a few weeks as Paula ramps up for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Marbella, Spain. We talked about Eric’s surprise UTMB qualification, recovering from sickness, and then dove into listener-submitted questions. This week we discussed:Choosing the right cassette for your smart trainerHow much sealant to use in a tubeless tireManaging a warm-weather swimrun raceHow Eric and Paula's Wahoo KICKR Run is holding upCoping with a cold garage pain caveDressing for a cold marathonPicking out an engagement ring for triathletesBalancing biking and running when focusing on run racesStrength training: how much, and how oftenA 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/podcastWahoo Kickr Run Link

Hey, everyone. Welcome to that trathlon life podcast. I'm Erica LaGerstrom. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Nick Goldston. And you're here. We're here. This is our trathlon podcast. We, uh, we, uh, first three good friends. Paul and I are married. Nick's our third wheel. Hell yeah. Paul and I are professional, um, triathletes. Paul's a little sick right now if you heard that cough. Uh, and, uh, this is probably our last podcast that the three of us will do together before 70.3 worlds in Marbea. We, Paul and I are taking off the day after this podcast comes out on Friday. I think we sound a little bit better than we did last week, Paula, but we're both still dealing with symptoms.

I mean, how sick do you feel, feel other than the cough and stuff? Well, last week when we recorded, I was like, oh, I'm going to get over this in one day. I'm determined. Turns out that's not how sickness works. It doesn't care how determined you are. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, so like I did a hard workout and I kept training. and then I got this horrible cough

and now it's just still a horrible cough. Yeah, I probably prolonged it a bit by just training through it, but I feel like dog shit. How about you? Well, I feel, I just have the cough and the runny nose or I'm blowing my nose all the time, but my feeling, I've felt good for a while. But the run workout I just came back from,

I could feel like I was coughing in mid-intervals, which is not ideal, of course. Yeah. I'm not sick yet. We're hoping that I have dodged the bullet. But so far, so good. So as an age reaper, okay, you know, take time off, he'll get better. But as a professional athlete, let's take this sickness as an example.

Would you do it differently? Would you think you should have taken it easier? Or was prolonging it worth it? to get those workouts in? Well, the thing is, I don't know if I, like, went easier if it, like, or if a cold just takes a week. Right, it's hard to know. That's just what it is. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, every single cold is a new experiment of one. Yeah. Well, no, mine is the same pattern for me. It's like burning sore throat turns into, like, super running nose turns into this hacking my lungs up. So I know the pattern every time. I have to say, I didn't get anything with my throat this time really, like no swollenness or sore throat. I'll take coughing and runny nose all day long over a sore throat. Yeah.

Sore throat, the worst. Yeah, worst. Makes it hard to eat, drink, sleep, talk. God, it's the worst. Yeah. Ugh. Okay. Next.

Done with that. Done with that. Okay, we have a couple things here. Eric, you're wearing a very cool hat. and I think we should mention what it's in reference to here. Yeah, this is one of the two hats that we put out, I guess, yesterday, as of the time of this podcast. So who knows if they're still in stock or not. Really cool collaboration project called Multi-Sport Energy Supply, which we explained a little bit,

the meaning behind at the end of last week's podcast. But for me, I really see it as like a restatement of the reason that, TTL exists. We launched a lot more than this, though. This was kind of the mainstay or the most exciting part of the launch, probably. But we did coffee mugs, water bottles, a little bandana, and some running hats that are, it's all really freaking cool, but this thing that I'm wearing is just like a cool collaboration artwork between us and Danny Gardner who did Shreddlebet.

So there's some history there. and we're hoping it goes well and I guess we'll know when this comes out. Yeah, and the content that we made around it, where can people see that? I'm on Instagram. For the most part, it felt like this is the thing that we told about on Instagram

and if you're, you know, subscribe to the email list, you got it there. And yeah, I don't know. Like I've told you a bit, Nick, and the way I feel about a lot of the stuff that we do is we get really excited about being created, and sharing energy and sharing things that we see with everybody. And we do jobs like this.

Because it almost gives a little bit of purpose. And, you know, I guess we can't make everything for free. And TTL is we've got to sell something occasionally. But like my North Star is always like, what's a really cool thing we want to do? What gets me excited and like, oh, we'll try to figure out to pay for it later. Yeah.

That's how we did this podcast too, isn't it? For sure. This sounds fun. Okay, we'll figure out how viable it is in the long term later. Yeah. If it's meant to be, the universe will let it happen. Speaking of if it's meant to be, the universe will let it happen. The last we heard of your UTMB qualification experience was that there were 10 slots at Kodiak.

Something we did not mention on the podcast is we kind of painted this race for you as this big epic failure at the end. you kind of had to walk it in, you still ended up getting 18th place, which it seems crazy. But, you know, it's a long, long race. So even if you walk the last 30 minutes, it's still you're still moving forward. And people walk large parts of these races. So 18th place is not bad. And we found out something else. So first of all, I thought that there was no real difference between an age group and an elite field in ultra running.

And that's my own ignorance. but can you explain what ended up happening, Eric? A couple days after the race, I got an email from UTMB to say, congratulations on your stellar race at UTMB, Kodiak. You have qualified for world finals in Chamon. So how does that work? Because you did not get one of the 10 slots that we thought were available there. Yeah, I just found out yesterday, and it's been a week and a half since I got this email,

but I had to email a couple of different people to try to find out. And it turns out that I qualified in the men's 35 to 39 year old age group. This email came from elite services. So that's why I was confused and didn't think it was about the age group thing. But yeah, I was third in my age group still after all of that. And it turns out that the only real difference between a, quote, elite athlete and someone who's in their age group is just whether or, not you get to start in the elite corral, which is like, you know, five lines of people in front of

just the throngs that would start in Chamonie. So the other thing that's interesting about this is after talking to several different people who are fairly knowledgeable, some people have qualified as an elite, but not had a high enough UTMB score to be in that elite corral. And some people have qualified, you know, that these knowledgeable people know of as an amateur, you know, an age group athlete, but had a high enough UTMB score to start in the elite corral.

So it can go both ways. It can go both ways. It's like a little bit murky and confusing, but there's a really strong chance with my UTMB score, which turns out not negatively impacted by that race.

And especially if I have a good, early season race next year, that I would still be in that elite corral via merit of UTMB score. even though whatever, I qualified as an age grouper. Yeah. I've got that in the back pocket. I can go to the race no matter what.

But I'd still like to have a really good performance and feel like I qualified to be a, quote, elite between now and then. What time of year is UCMB and Chamon? 24 to 30th August, 26. Okay, got it. Yeah, so that's plenty of time. I mean, it is interesting. I've asked my sister about this a lot

because she's been in the ultra space for several years. now and winning races on like the local slash regional level like what is an elite athlete? What does a professional ultra runner mean? It's not like triathlon where there's a oh you qualify and then you're in the field

it's just kind of like you're finishing high up in the race. Yeah and you're sponsored by Nike or something but it's not like this you qualified and now you are one. It seems like the shoe contract is the big divider that is between pro and

not pro. That kind of feels like it. If you see somebody wearing, yeah, full Brooks kid or Nike kid or Adidas or whatever, like that's kind of it. Right, right, right. Sweet. Okay, well, we're happy for you, Eric. I mean, what, it seems like a great story. I'm, I can't believe you're, you're going to go. It seems so awesome. Yeah, I was a little bit anticlimatic, but, um, I do, the stress off of getting another race in. Yeah. I really, Now I'm kind of a little bit TBD on doing the Pacific Trails race. My hip has been pretty uncomfortable since this thing, and I've also just been like deeply, deeply tired.

So I think I'll be making the decision pretty quick here in the next few days of doing it or not doing it. And that'll help take a little bit of the edge off if I decide not to do it with Paula going to Worlds and things between now and then. So, okay, Eric, we're going to tap you in again here as our genius resource in bicycles with some bike tech with Eric. There are people who may be in a mechanic their profession. I'm a pro.

Well, they're not here. They are not here. Isn't the guy that sent this in say he just wanted to hear the jingle? Yeah, he said bike tech cue for Eric, sort of. To be honest, I just want to hear the jingle. So here we go. I recently bought myself a Wahoo Kicker, a huge. huge upgrade from my wheel on trainer.

Been loving it so far, but had to go find myself a cassette because my bike is old and runs as a 10-speed cassette. I was able to find something close to my bike, and I'm wondering if that's okay to ride without adjusting my rear derailer. For context, I run an 1125 tooth on my bike and found an 1123 tooth for cheap at the local bike kitchen. Also curious what you guys do if you're changing which bikes you put on your kicker all the time.

Cheers, Scott. just a little disclaimer here. Eric and Paula are sponsored by Wahu. But the information we give on this stuff is very much our actual opinions on this. So, Eric, what do you have to say for Scott? Can we... That was a little bit of a confusing question to me.

But I think, like, the main thing there at the end was can he put a different size cassette and run it on the same bike? As long as it's a 10 speed, it doesn't matter the gear. Whether there's an 1125 or 1126. You can even run, you're going to have like an 11 speed chain on a 10 speed bike because the chain is narrower, but you cannot run a 10 speed chain and derailer on an 11 speed derailer. I mean, on an 11 speed cassette.

Maybe this is a good time to clear something up for people who don't understand this. with a 10th speed or an 11 speed or even a 12 speed, the new cassettes. I think maybe some people are a little mystified of, are these cassettes getting wider or is it staying the same, but we are somehow fitting in more and more gears and the chains are getting smaller and smaller? Yeah, exactly. The gears on the cassette are getting narrower,

the chains are getting narrower, the spacing between cogs, the gears on the rear cassette, those are getting narrower, but it's all fitting, also it can still fit in the same amount of space. Like the distance between your rear dropouts, like the width of your wheel at the hub, that's not changing. So is that part of why it's so expensive is because the tolerance is up to be so tight, the technology has to be so that all of this fits in that same space? I guess so. I mean, I think that cassettes have been on a pretty like normal regular rate of increase in values from 9 speed 10, 11, 12, you know, like a lot of money goes in developing these things and inflation and yeah, it's luckily there's always like the way that it works is if they come out with the top of the line thing, usually that works its way in and is basically the next level down. So like 2011 SRAM red. basically becomes 2012 Sram force. And the technology just trickles down slowly. And you can get a force or a rival below this RAM red category

for like half the cost. And it works almost, almost as well. Well, a lot of the times just as well, it's just not quite as light. And what do you guys do? Scott wanted to know what you guys do when you're switching bikes out. Well, we're very blessed to be sponsored by specialized in SRM

dream companies and all of our bikes are the same. They're all SRAM red. So they don't, we don't have to switch between. It just works. No, all the bikes feel exactly are exactly the same. If Paula got a flat in the middle of her workout and I'm just out there having a good time riding along with her, I could, we could swap wheels immediately. Yeah.

And there would be like not a moment of hesitation. Because they're also all through axle, all through axle bikes. Yeah, they're all through axles. I have the same size brake rotors on them and everything, and the cassettes are all compatible. So no problem. Yeah, that's awesome. Great.

Well, Scott, go ahead. Use that 10-speed cassette. It's going to work just fine. We have another bike tech with Eric question here that I kind of squeezed in here from Amara. Eric SOS. I've always had tubular tires. Oh, boy.

And recently bought tubeless tires off of a guy. Can you do a quick over for dummies about adding sealant and when I should change it out? See y'all in Marbea. Okay, I'm going to ask this question here. Eric, do you measure out ceiling anymore? No. Yeah.

I mean, I used to be so particular. And now I'm just like, yeah, just put a bunch in there. I just eyeball it. When I do, Paul, is race wheels. I do. I have an extra canister sitting around and I just fill that up just to make 100% sure I don't go on the short side. Yeah. I think better to have a little bit of extra ceiling in there.

and not have a catastrophic flat since, who knows, one neutral sports coming by. Some of these sealant bottles have, will tell you how much to put with their sealant in different types of tires, like if it's a gravel tire, a mountain bike tire, a road bike tire. Yeah.

And that can be a good starting point for you, Amara. I also like to use a kitchen, like, scale for this. So if it says, you know, whatever, 120-millimeter. grams, I just put that on there and keep putting it in until it's down to 120. Oh, yeah. That's very efficient. If you're trying to be specific, I'm definitely at the point where I just eyeball it. Yeah. And different sealants are a little bit different. They might tell you on the box, you know, the packaging, good for three months. If you, if you pick like a race sealant, there is race specific sealant for most brands. That'll sometimes go dry in like one month.

And it's gross. You're going to replace my sealant for Marbea? Yes, of course. I'm replacing your tires too. Well, how often, Eric, do you, for your road bike, your training bike, how often do you look in there to check the sealant? Probably every three months. Yeah. Every two months.

I don't know. That's a lot. That's good. Or if I'm going to be going on a mountain bike ride that I know is like four hours and it would be really, really not good to get a flat or have, there's no Uber. Then I will double check in those situations. Yeah. But I just, man, I think two weeks ago I redid like every single bike that we had. I just got on a roll and was opening up all the tires and had the compressor running and listening to music.

And I had a lot of dry ceiling. Yeah, yeah, I bet. On the training stuff, on the training bikes. Nice. Okay, well, we're going to move on to our regular questions. Eric, thank you for your expertise on that. You can submit questions to the podcast, that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. you'll probably already be on the website

because you were checking out the multi-sport energy supply drop that came out the day before, I'm sure. Much appreciated. Of course. You can also become a podcast supporter, which is also much appreciated for the price of one of those

mini pumpkins. You know those like, you know what I'm talking about? Those tiny pumpkins that they sell the grocery store? I don't know. Are they goords? They look like pumpkins.

Oh, they're all gourds, right? Right. They are, right. Categorically, they are gourds. But yes, that, you know, think about that. mini pumpkin and I recommend you buy both a mini pumpkin and become a podcast supporter. Yeah, I don't know if we should be asking people to like deprive themselves of a mini pumpkin.

I would never, I would never tell you to do that, especially since- New pumpkins could bring a lot of happiness. Halloween is tomorrow. So. Wait, what? Yeah. No, it's not. Oh, it is.

Sure, yeah. For when the pod comes out, yep, on a Friday, it's going to be wild. The youths are going to be youthing on a Friday night for Halloween. I'm going to miss it. You'll be on a plane? Yeah, you will be. Well, I'll party extra hard for you guys. First question here is from Sarah.

Hi, all. I just signed up for Austin Swim Run after hearing Eric's story. Eric, where is the referral link for Swim Run? Jeez, I know, exactly. I'm super excited, but also a bit worried since our weather hasn't cooled down much for fall yet. It's been in the 90s still, and it looks like race day could be in the 80s. Fingers and toes are crossed, but I'm wondering if, you have any thoughts on managing a warmer weather swim run, especially since they still require you

to wear the wetsuit. Like Eric, I'm also sensitive to heat ever since experiencing a heat stroke, so managing my body temperature has to be a priority. Thanks for any tips or ideas, Sarah. So, Eric, I remember you being worried about heat with your swim run, which was not in the heat. And it was cold. So what would you do if you were Sarah? But it pains me to say, but Orca does not have the thing that you need, but I've been having a conversation with them about developing swim run stuff into the future. Now that I'm a freaking expert on it. Hardly.

But I did have a lot of thoughts after my first one. And one of the things that I noticed, just every single person who I talked to before after the race, I was asking them what they're using and what that is and how does that work? and they a couple of people had a lot of people had a significantly thinner suit than I had that was like almost no neoprene to it and it was more like just almost like slightly thicker than bike short like level uh pants and then a fully textile upper but the upper had like some pockets in it so they could still carry some things which is which is huge but much more like a swim skin than a wet suit specifically for does it if you're using

a huge pole boy, does it even matter if you have any neoprene? Because you're floating from the pole boy. Yeah, it's much more of a, I think, thermal regulation. Yeah, the neoprene would be for the... Yeah. But you have to wear neoprene in the rules. I don't know exactly. I actually don't know that because the guy who got second is specifically whose suit I noticed that, and I asked him about it, that had almost no neoprene on. It was a lot of textile. Yeah, so maybe You can just wear like a swim skin type of thing. Well, Sarah said that they require you to wear a wetsuit. Now, how you define wetsuit maybe is kind of up for interpretation.

That would be my strategy is, you know, get a hold of whoever you need to get a hold of and find out what is the minimum viable thing that can be counted as a wetsuit. And I'm sure you're not going to be the only one to answer, asking this question. You know, like people who put on swim runs are swimmers and they overheat in hot water too. So, yeah, it can't have. imagine this is an unusual query with hot races. It's just like born in Sweden. Like those races are never hot.

Yeah. I think it's kind of unusual that the swim runs would be somewhere hot. Yeah. It's becoming more of a thing, though. I saw that they had one in, like, in Cairns. Like right where we, Paula raced, you know, French Riviera. Wow. No, I think this is pretty good Spanish swim runners.

But you can pull up. Definitely French. Yeah. So that's called what I can't remember what they called it. Oh no, you can't really pull up and down the top because you got that stupid penny on. Well, if you watch the swim run video, you get help from people at any station. They'll help you strip it down and then pull it back up at the end. Did you watch them video? Yeah, I watched your video. I saw that.

But I mean, if it's a short run, you're not going to do that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Well, next one here is from Meredith. It's another Wahoo question. Day one are keeping it short. Thanks, Meredith. Any update on the kick or tread? Do you still like it? Any critiques? And also, will there ever be a promotion and discount code for the tread? I'd love one, but $7,000. Yikes. So sad I missed the team TTR applications. I was in the middle of midterms and grad school application deadlines. Hope to join the next time it's open second round. Oh, definitely, Meredith. We are definitely going to have a second round. In 2025? I'll just be next year. No, no, no. Gotcha.

Next year. So there's going to be no option for someone to order a tri-kit later. No. If you're inside of the team, we'll do a little something, like a mid-season refresh, if anybody needed a second one or war one out, et cetera, or maybe like a special edition Kona kit or, you know, something like that. But no. The only way to race in a TTL kit at this point is to be on the team.

We're not a kit manufacturer. Castelli is, so we're really appreciative of them partnering with us on this. But yeah, those are the only race kits we sell. Okay, thoughts on the kick or run? Nothing's changed. Still love it. Yeah, my only thing I don't like about it is that as soon as you jump off the belt, it stops. Yeah.

So you can't do intervals off and on the belt. Oh, I see. It's extremely, extremely safe. You know, supposedly you can't, an infant can't, get sucked under it and like if you fall while running on it, it just shuts off. But that also makes it so you can't do what Paula said. Even if you're just like standing on the side of the bars and you want to get it up to speed before starting your run, you can't. You have to be running on it for it. You have to be walking to jogging to running. Yeah. So doing like hard intervals basically

where if I was to do like a three minute repeat and then you just want to jump off for your recovery, the belt will stop. But that's literally my only complaint. And in terms of, you know, like comfort running. I like how it doesn't have a front console that's huge. It seamlessly connects every single time to Zwift or to the Wahoo console app thing. It's so user-friendly. I think it looks super cool. It's the nicest treadmill we've ever run on.

But it's just that one feature that I don't like. It feels like they could easily implement some kind of toggle that's like safety stop mode. Off. You know? Reckless mode. Interval mode. Interval mode.

Hill rep mode. Something like that. Maybe it's not impossible for them to do that. I think it's definitely not impossible. It's just, do they want to take that on? Is that any sort of liability?

Every other treadmill on earth does that. I mean, I'm seriously just coming up with anything I can think of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just don't think that the engineers thought about people doing that. They're like, oh, you get on the treadmill and you go for a run.

When you stop, when you get off the belt, you want to stop. You want the belt to stop. They're not thinking about someone off and on doing fast intervals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like strides or something, you know? That would take like literally a runner designing it to know that that's a feature you need. A runner who has done a lot of treadmill running, which not all runners have. So, I mean, I feel like you guys could maybe bring this up.

You have the power. did. Oh, we did? Okay. Well, I mean, I did. I just, I just, why who sends out, like, twice a year gear surveys, like, what do you like about this and this and this? And what are your thoughts? And I always fill them out. It's not a reason to not get one. I mean, like I said, everything else about it is great. And in my opinion, like, if you go look at a Woodway online, it's 15, 20 grand, you go to Dick's sporting goods and you can buy a treadmill for $1,000, but it's going to feel like a piece of junk. And it might not last a year. So in my opinion, I think, like, it's actually priced pretty fairly for a treadmill of that quality. It's certainly, it's certainly significantly better than half of the quality of a woodway.

Like, I'm trying to say that woodway is 100% not twice as much. As with most things, of course. Have, like, lined up to buy those in droves. So, no, I mean, if you have the money, we love it. But use that affiliate code. Use that affiliate code. Oh man, yeah.

Anything that you, if you go to Nick can put the link, direct link in the show nuts, but anything that we have on the site under gear picks, we do get a little bit of a kickback on that, which helps keep this podcast going. Buy your Wahoo stuff to do there. But no, we do not have any promotion and discount codes,

and we don't know of any coming up either. If we get some, we will be sure to share them. Don't worry. Oh my gosh, holy cow. This is Nick coming in with some breaking news. After the podcast was officially released, Wahoo discounted the treadmill for the first time.

So it is now 25% off. Our link in our description still works exactly right. So please use that if you do decide to buy the treadmill. Anyway, exciting times. Back to the podcast. That'd be a good thing. Like, is Wahoo giving the team a discount? We're working really hard to get it to where we want, yeah.

That's a little teaser. Okay, next one here is from Eric. Hey, gang. Big fan of the podcast. Question regarding the garage gym, since we're talking about treadmills and such. Oh, my gosh. I went through because this reel,

the garage tour reel, I was like doing pretty well on Instagram for me. I was like, this has got to be one of my more successful reels. And I was scrolling back, I was like, this might be my best real. Oh, wait, no, here we go. And it was the last time we did the garage tour. Oh, my gosh.

People love a garage tour. People love the pain cave. Wow. And then people are like, oh, that garage looks so clean and organized. He spent hours cleaning it. I've been asking him for years to clean the garage. And as soon as Wahoo asks for a video, clean garage. Of course.

So thank you, Wahoo. I have cleaned the garage many times inside of the years asking. She's just been asking me to clean the garage since we've had a garage and will until we die. It doesn't matter when it was clean. Sometimes it's not clean. The question will remain. Exactly. It's evergreen.

What was the question? The question was, I've been debating moving my smart trainer to the garage for winter riding with the intention of opening the garage so I don't feel as claustrophobic in my house office. I do have concerns, though, that I live in a cold region getting down to below 20 degrees, and this may be a bit too cold for training. Do you guys insulate or heat your garage or just accept whatever the temperature conditions are outside and layer up as necessary?

Thanks. Eric. Because it does get cold and bend. Yeah, we get plenty of 20 degrees days. So, like, my dream is to have, like, a full-on shop heater in there that's, like, mounted at the ceiling and runs off of natural gas and is huge, but haven't gotten there yet. So for the most part, whatever is going on outside is going on in the garage. The garage is a bit insulated.

We got the thickest door we could. And we got a little space heater in there. But if Paul and I both go out there and we're working pretty hard, it takes about five minutes before we strip off jackets and are like the garage just kind of warmed up. And you've warmed up. Yeah, I kind of like it. I kind of like it. It's funny when you're in your main living room kitchen area and then you walk into the, you open up the garage. door, if you guys have been training in there, it is so much hotter just from you guys being in there.

Yeah, by the end of a hour and a half ride with the two of us, like the garage is warm and steaming and going and the house feels cold. Yeah. And the garage is like that door, like you said, it's as insulate as it can get, but it's not, it's not great. During COVID when we were training in Canmore for Daytona, we had our trainers in the Canmore garage during winter. that gets to like minus 20 Celsius or more. And so I would just go out in like puffy jacket, gloves, hat. And within 15 minutes, I was down to like taking everything off down to my bibs. So I do think that like when you're riding, you're producing so much heat that you actually, I actually enjoy riding in a cold garage.

I think it's performance enhancing. You know, I think people maybe even worry about their, their toes. and their fingers, but those things when you're not moving through through the air, there's no wind, there's no wind, they don't get cold. Yes, exactly. You still want the fan on eventually.

Yeah, that's so crazy. Next question here is from Yishang. Dear TTL Nash, I've been a follower of the podcast for my weekly long runs. This is a follow-up question about a previous question

not sent in by me. The previous question I was referring to asked if training in the hot weather would help in a cold race. As I live in Singapore, it's hot all year around. As Reese Barkley puts it during T-100 Singapore, I've been to Kona eight times, and here is definitely hotter.

Wow. My question is a two-parter as someone who has never raced overseas before. I will be taking part in a marathon in Japan. The expected temperature is zero to 10 degrees Celsius, so that's about 32 to 52 degrees Fahrenheit. There's definitely no way to train in a cold environment right before the race, but how should I layer for the race?

I will definitely be wearing tights and was wondering if Eric experienced any chafing issues during your swim run event. If yes, what did you do to help keep it at bay? Thank you for all that you do for the triathlon and multi-sport community. Thanks, Yisheng. So, Yishang is just a runner, and I don't see how the swim run is relevant to this, because there's such different gear and different amounts of moisture. but unless Eric

Unless that does ring true to you I think he's thinking You know like You must be a chafe Anti-chafe master Because of how chafy Swam run sounds Right right right

It does sound extremely chafy Yeah I actually didn't chafe at all It was incredible Probably the most incredible part of the whole day That I didn't chafe one bit But what I would say for you Is Bodyglide Is your friend

I mean that's what I would do If I was going to do a road marathon, and it was there was any chance, around that like zero to 10 degrees zone is where you just get tacky. Like you're sweating, but like everything rubs a lot more than if you're just dripping in sweat and it's a 90 degrees, I find.

And yeah, anywhere that you think you might chafe, I would put body glide and, you know, do whatever you can to find some clothes that ideally don't rub too much. Would you wear tights in zero to 10 degrees? I think I might wear shorts and a long sleeve. No, shorts. That's not cold enough for tights, I don't think.

I have some really thin tights that I might wear. I would definitely wear gloves is the only thing I would wear. Yeah, I like having shorts no matter what. And then do your top long sleeve with gloves and a ear cover. Yeah. Did you say ear cover? Is that what you said? Yeah.

Yeah, that's the only thing. I would cover ears and hands. Like a headband. If you want to do the layer thing, you could also do arm warmers. So wear like an actual jersey and then wear armormers. You can take the armormers off. If you get too hot at any point, just like the gloves. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, nice. Good luck, you shang. You know what? We really love it when people who aren't necessarily triathletes still listen to the podcast, whether you're a swimmer, cyclist, a runner, or even from another sport. Appreciate you listening to the pod. Thank you. Next question here is from a girl trying to stay romantic and arrow.

Hey TTL crew My boyfriend and I are starting to talk about getting engaged And I have a very triathlete specific question for Eric and Paula When you picked out Paula's engagement ring Did you think about how it would hold up during training I train every day and would love to wear mine all the time swim bike run Did you consider durability, comfort or even just practicality when choosing the ring To either of you train with it on now

Any advice for choosing a ring that fits the triathlon? lifestyle without sacrificing the specialness of it. You three are the best thanks, a girl trying to stay romantic and arrow. Anonymous. Yeah, you know what? This is, you know, right now we're doing multi-sport energy supply. I think next is going to be romantic and arrow. I'm calling Danny right now to get him on the graphic for that.

Thanks for the inspo. This is the weird thing. I don't know if couples do this, but we didn't ever like talk about getting engaged or my ring. I talked about Paul's ring with everybody. except for Paula. I mean, I knew of the ring for a long time. Is that a thing that people like talk to their boyfriend or girlfriend about... Sometimes they'll go get the ring together before they're engaged. I love my ring. I wouldn't have picked it any different except it doesn't fit me perfectly. So it's a bit loose, which is not a fault of Verick. You know you can get them fitted. I did get it fitted and it's still

too big. So I take it off to swim. But I think the key to this is that, I have only one spot. Do you guys remember Meredith Kessler? She's a triathlete? Of course. She got me the nicest gift when we got engaged and it was like a dish for my ring. So I have it on my bedside table and I put it on there. It's got like a little pokey thing sticking up.

It's like a finger sticks straight up. And if it's not on my finger, it's on that. Yeah, nice. So that's the good, you can't have a ring that you're taking off and on to swim and exercise. Totally. Where you just leave it like on the counter. That's how I am with the watch that I have. Yeah, you're going to lose it.

I do not take it off unless I put it in the one place in my house. That is a secret. Yeah, but if I could get it fitted a little better, I think I could wear it all the time. It only has one diamond. It doesn't have like diamond on the band or anything like that, which I like. It's pretty simple. But Eric wears his wedding ring all the time. Never take it off.

And we picked that out together. Yeah. Mine did come with like a little rubber band that you can take off, which I always tell myself, like, I'll put that on it and I go like run up a mountain that has a scratchy lava rocks. And I never do. So my ring's like pretty scratched up. But I don't know. When I was talking to my dad about this, he was like, oh yeah, you know, the goal that will get scratched up and everything, but it becomes part of it.

And it's not like meant to be just like perfect and glassy forever. So like there's a couple scratches. and they have stories. And yeah, I love it. Picking out Paula's ring, I spoke to one of her best friends who was very confident on what she thought Paula would like.

And I agreed. And it was everything that Paula just said. It's like simple, not a bunch of diamonds. You know, but like picked out a unique shape and got a good diamond for it. But nothing huge or distracting or catch it on stuff. What about when you were lifting weights? like holding a barbell or a dumbbell

I'll take it off and put it in my pocket just while I do a couple extra if I'm doing a circuit that has like you have dead lifts in it I'll take it off for that and if you were really eager you could put on the rubber one for that specifically

because I know a lot of people who lift weights a lot will do that just that at the gym that I can like hit up by a bunch of chicks to me it's kind of an eye roll like just take it off for the I don't know but I get people are precious about that yeah

don't even try try to come talk to me. I am taken. Yeah, exactly. It's never even crossed my mind to wear my ring so that people know I'm married. Dude, people say this to me all the time. They're like, oh, that girl, but I never look for a ring in a person. I have guy friends and girlfriends who look at men's or women's hands to see if they have a ring. It doesn't even cross my mind. I think we're starting to get to that age where that needs to cross your mind. First, yes, thank you. You two are married.

I am as far from married as you can be. Yeah, okay. Good to know. Don't be looking at my finger at the pool next. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be empty and it doesn't mean I'm available. Yeah.

That's funny. That's funny. Okay. Well, girl trying to stay Arrow Magic and Arrow, best of luck. Hope that engagement goes well. Find a fun ring. Next question is from Claire. Love listening to you guys every week.

I'm starting back running after baby number three and have signed up to the Gold Coast T-10010 kilometer and hopefully the Gold Coast half in June. Most of my training is now indoors. I mostly do workouts as I find easy stuff the hardest to do on the kicker and treadmill. I'm wondering if you have some suggestions about structuring a week when chasing running PBs

but also wanting to keep cycling and swim a little maybe. Thanks and all the best for the rest of the season. Claire. So Eric, I feel like you're such a perfect person for this question because you are still riding and you are still swimming. But if you were in Claire's position specifically where you are, you're targeting a 10K and a half marathon, but still want to bike and swim, how can you do so in the most beneficial way? The swimming stuff, because like what we always talk about with the time that it takes to go to the pool and everything.

But what I do, so let's just imagine that you go to the pool with somebody else or you carpool or something. I go with Paula and like one day I'll swim. Yeah, ringless, my ringless wife. And I'll like lift for half the time that she's swimming and then I'll swim for the second half. I'm doing that occasionally.

So if there's some way that by like going to the pool, maybe your pool also has a gym and you can make two workouts of it, but decrease your total swim volume down, that's kind of what I'm doing. But it does feel really good to just loosen everything up in the pool generally. And what I've been doing on the bike for the most part is just like adding volume to the run.

So just like continuing to keep the aerobic load high or whatever, but decrease some of the pounding on the legs. So how much intensity are you doing when you are biking or swimming? Most of the year I haven't done any intensity biking, but this new plan that I'm on right now, Paulo is having me do a couple of...

They're not like massively hard bike workouts, but they are a bike workout each week, and the running high-end workouts have backed off. So if you were doing during your triathlon training, if you were doing, if we're talking about time, 50% cycling, 25 running, 25 swimming, what would you suggest for, for Claire, knowing what you know about yourself,

if she wanted to focus on running, but still kind of bike and swim. 60, 30, 10, or like 60, 25, 15. I would say 60 to 70 for the running, but you can get a lot of really good time on the bike and not run the risk of injury. Yeah, yeah, sweet. Well, good luck, Claire.

Joy the Gold Coast, too. Yeah, and for people who don't know, the T100, they do have these races that are not triathlons. They're like a 10K for example. Right. Last question here is from Johnny. Hey gang, long time listener,

unabashed jammer wearing adult onset swimmer here. And then in parentheses, more surface area for garish designs. Yeah, well said. That is true. Well said. That is true. We had another follow-up text thread about this after the fact, because

people were texting Nick on Instagram, and saying like, you guys are being a little bit snobby towards people that are a little bit heavier. It's not comfortable for us to wear speedos if we have extra body fat. And I fully agree. You guys are being elitist. We got a little heated in our own chat actually about this. And then I sent you a picture of Michael Phelps wearing a jammer. And I'm like, you can't say this is not cool.

he would never wear that in practice. It's cool for racing. Okay. See, what I just don't understand here is how somebody asked, what do you guys think is cool? And we said, this is what we think is cool. And then people, you know, like we're not making any sort of judgment about people's, like,

weight or appearance or anything. She's like, if you have the option to wear both, this is what we prefer. I feel like that's the question that we were answering. Not like, you suck if you. You wear a jammer, like, full stop. In any way. You know, other podcasts are getting canceled for other things.

Other podcasts are like leaking information and ruining people's lives. Oh, boy. Yeah. And yeah, I don't know. If I could say anything about that conversation, that's just what Nick and I thought, that's what we think is cool. Yeah. For us.

And I will not be wearing a jammer. There's a lot of different reasons to wear a lot of different suits. So, no. I'm getting you guys jammers for Christmas. I hope they have Rudolph on them. Yeah, you know what? We have all these really cool bike kit companies. Is there a cool, like, Speedo company?

You know what I'm talking about? Like, women, you guys have the, what are those Joe Lynn suits? You know? I don't know if there, is it just not possible on a Speedo? This is what I'm wondering. I know we should say brief. Speedo's a brand. Sure, sure.

Sorry, you're right. But, no, I've spent a bunch of time on this because we've had a conversation. with Orca about like designing a suit. Like, oh, I'll just go Google like cool swims. And like an hour and a half later. They're not there. Okay, I think everybody's just gone in the direction of like, we're going to make this so ugly because it's like ironic

and you just are like a goofball at the pool. And because we're just going to throw in the towel and admit that we can't be cool. Yeah. And I think that might actually be the right call. You know what? I don't know. I haven't, I haven't, the real estate for design. I'm kind of, I think there could be a jammer that I would want to wear.

Wow. This is just a long con to get people to buy a TTL design jammer. I'm just thinking about like if you draw a parallel in running, satisfy. Imagine, like, there is the satisfy of swimsuits and they do it on jammers. A moth tech jammer with holes in it. Peace tech. Oh my God. I mean, I think it could happen.

Like if the design was sick, then maybe start the jammer. revolution. Dang. Wow. Would love to see that. Yeah, this is a challenge. We're going to find a jammer that we think is awesome. The problem with jammers is not the coolness.

It's the fit. If they fit you even slightly baggy, you're wearing a full-on drag suit. That's tough, yeah. And a lot of the lycra material deteriorates fairly quickly. So in my brain, remember how I said last week, like, Jammers brings me back to age group swimming days when all the teenage boys were wearing jammers. But they were baggy.

Floppy. Because they'd worn them for more than a couple weeks. And the lycra and the speedo just completely dissolves. That's true. It's much more obvious when it's supposed to be stuck to your leg and it's not. Yeah. Yeah, the Michael Phelps jammer.

It's got to be painted on you. Okay, we're getting a little bit away from the question here, which is from Johnny. Love the energy you guys bring every week. the pod never fails to put a smile on my face. Would love to hear what strength training you are all doing, if any, and why. How do you approach setting strength goals and programming, and how does your approach change during the season and off season with limited time,

even for the pros, how do you consider the tradeoffs of spending time on strength training versus say more volume on the bike? Cheers, Johnny. I chose this question because Eric, you texted me this week in a moment of joy, Eureka, saying that you had done some strength work and it made your hip feel considerably better. So I'd like to hear from both of you about your relationship with strength training

and maybe even more so your ideal relationship with strength training because I think a lot of people kind of lit. That's the first thing to go when you're running out of time. Yeah, yeah. It's very challenging to do in the season. I always try to start up, not always, but in the last couple years now, the last three years.

I tried to start up a program in the winter, and it's a lot easier to get in the habit of it. When the days are short, like, you can't do as much outdoor training. You're doing less. Like, it feels kind of nice to go to the gym when it's cold outside and everything. But then once you start traveling for races and being in different places over and over again

and you have to find a gym with the right rowing device or whatever, it becomes harder and harder. And dream world live twice a week. usually, I mean, I'll go for like two months at a time, at least in the summer without being able to stay on the bandwagon. Yeah, my ideal world is I have like a premium gym in my own house because I love doing it. But I think a lot of the hurdle is the last thing I want to do when I get out of the pool is stay for another hour and do gym. Or getting to a gym like later in the day means leaving the house. So as much as you can make it simplified

So you have enough equipment to do a bit of it at home I think that you're more likely to do it Yeah for sure At least be consistent with it and do some of the maintenance Because I really like doing gym too But I just know what's weird When Eric goes out of town and I'm home alone I do gym like every day in the garage

Why is that? And I feel like when Eric's here I'm just like hanging out with Eric in the house Yeah hanging out together takes up a lot of time Whereas when it breaks away, I'm like, oh, there's nothing to do. I'll just do gym. Yeah, and what kind of exercises do you guys find to be the most helpful versus maybe what you prefer to do? Or are those often the same thing?

It's hard to say for sure. Since I got like our strength coach or the guy who does our strength here in town, Richard, he's awesome. He gives us like two circuits basically. So you do like circuit A three times and you do circuit B three times. and you do sort of B three times. And inside of that, you know, we'd do like hexbar, you know, type squats. And we'll do a remaining deadlift. And then in the next one, you're doing like an around the world lunge or like a split squat.

It's like hard to necessarily pick out exactly which things are the best. But I think for me it's, I think doing like the split squats and the squats and the and the things with like actual heavy weight that uses my full chain from like waist through knees to ankles, that's the thing that's kind of like forced my body. like to use all of the muscles and fire in a proper manner because that's what it takes to get the weight off the ground. Yeah. That's my theory. Yeah.

And that's just for like, you know, good power on the bike and good power feeling while running. I have the same feeling when I do strength work and I get a little sore. The next time I'm on the bike or running, I just feel so much more solid and like one unit. Planted. Yes, planted. Yeah. Yeah. Same.

I'm bonking, guys. I'm fading. I need to go to sleep. Perfect timing. We're all done. We got it all wrapped up. Well, Paula, do you have any, if we're not going to have you in the pot again until 70.3 worlds,

are there any final words you want to say before we hear from you again? We're going to miss you. Eric and I will be in Marbea. If you see us, come say hi. Don't be scared. Maybe Eric will arrange a little shakeout run. Who knows? Mm-hmm.

We don't have any formal things. We're not really selling any TTL stuff. We're there to just race fast. But we do love meeting people. So never be afraid to come say hi. Yep. I had high hopes for some activation type stuff there. But in all honesty, life's been pretty busy lately.

We'll hope to see everybody there. If anybody else wants to meet up with other TTL people, that's awesome. And we'll try to facilitate and help with what we see on the app and everything. but just trying to go in there and get the job done. Okay, awesome. Well, next week is going to be, we're going to do things a little bit differently, but we hope you'll still tune in.

Thanks, everyone, you know, for listening to this podcast. It is so crazy. I know every few weeks it kind of dawns, I mean, like, God, so many people listen to this freaking podcast, and it's awesome. It's such a cool community. It's really incredible. Yeah, it's incredible.

I've got to be, like, I can be totally honest. If they were only like, if they're only like 20 people listening to this, we probably would have stopped a long time ago. So thank you, everyone, for giving us a reason to continue. Nick, you're a Dodgers fan? I mean, I'm not a baseball fan, but... But you want the Blue Jays to win. Otani is the best baseball player to ever live.

We know. Over 100 million in endorsements alone. Yeah. They're tied 5'5, top of the ninth. Really? I heard my neighbors screaming like they were murdered an hour ago. Oh, boy. Yeah, the Blue Jays, they got a win for Canada.

Yeah, it would be a first, right? I'm also not a huge baseball fan, but... I just don't know anything about sports other than triathlon. We can just completely transition fully into conversation. Yeah. Okay, bye guys. See you next week. Bye.

Bye.