That Triathlon Life Podcast - Diagnosing triathlon injuries, carrying nutrition for Ironman, Swim drills vs fast lanes, year review, and more!

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

This week we have our last podcast episode of 2022, so we wanted to reflect on what this year was like as athletes. We also got to talk about how ultra marathons can help with triathlon training, feeling safe as a woman while on a run or ride, and more. To submit a question and support the podcast, head over to

Everyone, welcome to that triathlon live podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldston. Normally what we do is like Paul and I take turns introing the show, but apparently Paul is pretty tired today. We've got to save every syllable for the content of the pod. We can't waste it on introductions. I'm taking over here. It's been like quite the week for us. Paula's family was in town and we absolutely love having them around. But at the same time, they're like, they're super high energy. My family kind of likes to just hang around the house most of the time. And we went for like three dog walks a day. We went skiing twice. We went to all sorts of cool stuff. We went to the

grocery store like 17 times. It was fantastic. But we're a little bit tired now. We're having a little bit of recovery day. And recovery day from our recovery season. Yeah, vacation from vacation. I feel so much worse than I do in the in season. It's so crazy. I like somehow f***ed up my back. so I can't even walk without pain. And like I was running on the ice and now my ankle hurts again. Oh, God. And also I have like a saddle sore from hell, even though I've only been doing 45-minute spins. So I like literally can't do any of the three sports.

And here I am ready to train again because I'm feeling out of shape. And I just can't. Your body does not want to get back into shape. I can't even walk down the stairs. Oh, body. is telling you no. I like how Eric and I were like take, Paula, take an off season.

She takes an off season. It's like saddle sore, injury, broken body. She's just not ready. She's been going for 30 years. You can't stop now. Yeah, it's because you guys didn't let me just continue on with my exercise. So I took time off and now I'm super messed up.

So I'll just blame you guys. Logical. Well, there was a email that came in from Karen. She was just kind of curious about how we set goals and think about our successes of the last year and failures. And since this is our last episode of 2022, I feel like we could, we talked about this few episodes, but just do a little yearly wrap-up. So I wrote some things down here that came to my mind, but then I would love to hear what you guys think. Nick, I just have to interrupt you,

though. Like me and Eric both did a little intro, but I think you've hit some milestones this week, too, with your training since your injury. Yeah. You've been like running 16K and Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, it's really, it's surreal now because it's so quickly, you go so quickly from when you're injured, you're like, you see a runner and you're just like, they don't know how good they have it. It's just like, oh, I wish that was one of them. And then you're actually running again and you're like, oh, God, this sucks. Like, why am I doing this to myself again? But I still had a little bit of both in my run.

I was like, you know what, this is great. And I was running with people that I know from where I grew up. So it was really nice. Yeah, I was able to run like 10 and a half miles, like not super duper slow. It was like 820 pace miles. I don't know what that translates into K. And it felt great.

And I was kind of surprised that it was good and I didn't have any paint today and I'm going to run again tomorrow. So I think I'm, I don't know about the biking, but the running is back. So I'm going to be able to train running for a bit. And I still haven't been able to speak to my ortho about the MRI.

But the thing, it's so strange, but the thing that really has been, the only thing I've changed is I've been really stretching my calves. And I think where my calf inserts, the upper calf inserts next to the knee, may have actually been at least contributing to the problem and stretching it as helping it. I'm going to keep trying to be proactive about it,

but it's been really nice to be able to run again. And it's beautiful here. It's like Long Island, New York is, it's like great Gatsby looking places. So it's very mystical and magical in that way. So I've been liking that. Nice. Good to hear. Good to hear.

Maybe you get back to our... Yeah, well, first of all, this year, first of all, we started the podcast this year, which is hard to believe. But yeah, in January of this year, we started the podcast. I was in Tucson at the time, and now it's been almost a whole year. Insane. We also... I did my first PTO 100K race, which was really fun. TTR got a film that we did into a film festival, which was awesome.

Paula, you got second at Worlds, second at Canadian Open. Eric, you won two races. And the final thing I have here, this isn't really quantifiable. But the feeling I have is that that triathlon, the TTL community is like, it's grown so much in the past year. And it feels like it's grown beyond us almost. Yeah, it's hard to quantify how much it's grown. I guess that doesn't really matter. but things we can track numbers-wise are like podcast listens, you know, people that watch the YouTube

channel, comments on the YouTube channel, people that buy the gear, and it's all just like exponentially, maybe not exponentially, but at least consistently increased over the year, which is super exciting. It's the reason we do it. It's the reason we are still excited about it, I think, is because of the growth and because of the outreach we have. So, what do you think, Eric? I think, you know, it goes way beyond any of the numbers and everything. numbers do say that it's going well and people care but actually seeing people in real life at races is the coolest thing for us and having those conversations and every time we go to a race now

we have more and more of them of people saying hi and you know they like watching or you know we help them get through their injury or something like that and nick's uh recap of his iron man just totally inspired them that probably was our most listened to episode hey it was it was it was yeah next recap yeah but didn't we have two recaps that day there was like, yeah, it was Eric also raced and won

Santa Cruz, so we really had the yin and yang of racing that day. I should go back and listen to eyes and the lows. It's funny,

I go back and I watch vlog sometimes, but I never re-listen to our podcast. Well, it's like an hour each time. Yeah, but I don't know.

Maybe I should. Maybe it would just like bring me back to the moment. I think that the, the, the podcasts are more like a,

I don't know, like a real time thing versus the some of the vlogs I feel like a little bit timeless just because they're like follow a classic storyline and versus questions. Oh man, we're just really going deep here, aren't we? Well, I think it's appropriate time too.

There was a moment this week that I actually decided to quit the podcast, Eric. Remember that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, because you were reading my text messages. Yeah, I read my, I read it. I may have accidentally read Eric's text message to Nick. Accidentally. This isn't the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth time you've done this.

Where they were telling, talking about how I like go on and on and on and say so, so, so, and. And they were making fun of me privately. So I quit the pod. And I just remembered that I quit the pod. Why am I here? I'm trying to think of the good idiom. It's like, no, that's the opposite. I was going to don't bite the hand that feeds you.

But that's what Eric and I did. So what I really want from you, too, is a formal apology and also an explanation of what exactly I'm doing that you don't like so I can be better for the next year, for the round two, year two of our podcast. I think all we ask for is continuous non-stop praise of everything we say. Whenever we say something, you just need to be like, that was genius. Brilliant work. Congratulations. And I want thunderous applause. I think I give you guys. Oh, no, here was the thing. It was that when I don't think a topic is interesting, I move it along too quickly.

That's correct. Because I assume other people aren't going to find an interesting either. That's correct. I'm saying that's correct because that's what I said. So Eric didn't say that. I said that. Whenever I hear that next question, like, you know, Eric, I never hear Eric say next question. You know, I only hear that from you. Okay, okay.

I'll stop saying that. I think we need that because it's like last week I was about to go into a 20-minute how to set up your GoPro deep dive. I don't know how many people really care about that. Well, there was another question about gopros this week, actually. I left it out because we wanted to do it last week. Next question, though. Next question. Great.

Next question. Okay, well, let's actually get onto the next segment. Okay, let's do that. Yeah, I can't wait. So the next segment, we'll do a little this or that. This or that with TTO. I might actually put that in there. So, Paula, this is for you.

You have to choose. Would you rather do the PTO U.S. Open race again in the heat? where it was just miserable or have food poisoning for one night. Oh, God. No, it's funny. I've never in my life had food poisoning. Really?

Yeah. Does that make me a unicorn? What? Yes, that makes you a unicorn. I've only had it a handful of times in my life, maybe less, and people think that's crazy. Like, I feel people get it like once a year or something.

Yeah, I guess I just have like a gut of steel or something or just have never really been unlucky and had that thing. Eric, what about you? I mean, I haven't had like any sort of throwing up sort of thing since like before COVID started. So I certainly don't get food poisoning once a year. I think I've had something that seemed like a 24 hours, 12 hour sort of thing. But I, you know, I haven't like thrown up from food poisoning. This is not great for the pod.

But I haven't thrown up from food poisoning since I moved to L.A. So it's been like over 10 years for me. I probably never had in college either. So it's been like 15 years. for me. Okay, so my long answer to this is I might take the food poisoning just so I can experience what it's like. Just like, just get the full

scope of life. How bad could it be? It couldn't be worse than a four-hour race in the heat. You know what? You know why I think that they're different? Like, and some people might actually take the food poisoning or the race is because when you were racing, there's one thing to be like, this stinks, but I have no control over it. Like the food poisoning and just like, I'm going to let it do its thing.

but the thing that really was hard about the U.S. Open is that you could have stopped at any moment. And you were the only thing that was making yourself continuing to live inside of that discomfort and that suffering. That can be mentally really, really, really challenging. Yeah, for sure. But at the finish line of food poisoning, do you get 17K? You also didn't have to dread the food poisoning for a month. Oh, my God. No, not usually.

Okay, so I'll do the race again. I'll suffer through that race. That's great. That's great. That's great. Okay, good answer. Okay, Eric, the next one's for you. You had a similar day at the PTO Canadian Open when it was really hot.

So would you rather do that race again or lose an entire edit of a YouTube episode the night before the Sunday premiere? Just to be clear, the Edmonton race was. Not even, like, close to on par with the Dallas event. Like, it did get odd. In terms of heat. It did get oddly muggy, and a lot of guys just blew up as though it was hot, but I think that was a two-pronged thing with poor pacing. Yeah, but I mean relive that race the way you lived it.

Yeah. Not just suffer through the heat, but, like, because you seemed really down, bummed, and over it when we got to you when you had pulled out. yeah i i'd pretty much like burned every mental match i had on the bike and just didn't have anything left to like gut it out through the run so um yeah i do i definitely would rather just lose an entire edit because that is just that crushes my love for the for racing and the sport and if the edit doesn't work out like at least i know how good it was and i would be very upset but it was it's like an instantaneous this sucks versus that was so drawn out yeah and when you have a really

bad race experience like that. It kind of like it is like an indelible line in your brain from then on. It's almost like you never really fully recover from it. I think you can recover, but you're definitely spending the last next month or two or whatever it is till the next race thinking about

that experience. It doesn't necessarily bring this sense of like, oh, I'm racing so well, I'm so excited about training. I'm just, I guess I'm comparing it to my Iron Man experience. I don't know if that'll ever be out of my mind ever again because it was so miserable. kind of need to supersede it with a positive experience. But it's hard, it's hard because it'll

kind of be in the back of your mind for sure. The next start line is your head getting ready for it. But all you can do to, you know, kind of cut that down is to prepare as best you can. Yeah. So, and then I have here, what do you think the coolest, like, what was a piece of TTL gear that you guys made that you're the most proud of from the past year? It could be clothing or it could be one of the mugs or a hat or anything like that. Is there anything that sticks out in your mind? I would probably say the like the fully custom camper hats that we did

because those were just man there was like the ocean and the forest were those the two colors? Yeah I mean it said like TTL on the stitching inside of the hat and we picked out every color of every panel and like everything was just so so dialed

and they took a year to make so we were very very happy about those Paula you too? It might be the fellow mugs. Although we didn't have a ton to do with the development, well, we didn't have anything to do with the development of the mug. They're just really good quality mugs that a lot of coffee shops use. But I think our logos looked super good on the colors.

They did an amazing job printing them. The color palettes that they offer are really cool, and they sold out really quickly. So I think people love taking their coffee or their tea on the go, and it was a really popular item. So one of my favorites. Also, do we release the... TTL hooded poncho this year?

Or was that last year? Man, I remember that. That was this year, I think. That was spring? Yeah, that was another one of my favorites. Oh, yeah, because we were sporting it in Mammoth. Yeah. Because it was one of my, we did a super limited run because we didn't think they'd be popular, but they were gone.

And it's fun to see them at racism. I love that. I love that. I mean, I don't own one, but when I see them, I'm like literally jealous of people. They're cool. Nick, we have two. We'll just give you one. Yeah, we got one with your name on.

No, that's not right. You should have your. own. But if they found its way into my checked baggage, I would not be so sad. Okay. So let's talk about, yeah, exactly. Let's talk about next year, 2023. How did you feel like your balance of races was this year? Do you wish you race more? Do you wish you race less? Are you happy with the amount of racing that you did for both of you? Yeah, I was just going through the super annoying task of the days we were away for our taxes. and stuff, like all of our travel dates.

And we traveled a lot for races. So I don't think I would race any more than we did. I think the balance was good and it was nice that Eric could go do some races by himself. And I could go to some like Collins Cup by myself. So we didn't necessarily have the exact same schedule. But I felt like it was almost too much racing, but I didn't have a choice because every race I, it was so important financially and competition-wise that I had to go do it. and because it's my job, but I think that if I could race slightly less this year, I would, but I don't think that's going to be the case.

Yeah, maybe just that race, like, I'm trying to think of what races you could have not done and nothing. Well, the Florida race, the one that you want, actually. Oh, St. Anthony's. Yeah, I mean, it's a great race, right? That's a really cool race, and you did really well there. But, like, the PTO races, you have to do. Right? You have no choice.

I don't want to say you have no choice, but they're so. It's so rewarded to go do it. World championships, you have to do. Collins Cup, you have to do. It's like this is a lot of big travels. Like St. Anthony's at a 10K prize push for the win, so that was worth it. But it is like another match that you're burning when you do another travel across the U.S. and back and three-hour time change, all that.

So I don't know. Maybe I'll address things like that. Oceanside is a bit of a stretch. It's kind of early in the year and everyone shows up firing. But I never learned my lesson. I'll probably do it again this year. Yeah, I would say ocean side is like. Oceanside's like top of the list of races that I wish we could skip, but I also love so much.

So we always show up to it and it's always just kind of like a roll of the dice of how you're going to feel. It's inconveniently convenient, right? It's so close. It's so fun. Actually, you know the race that really, really was tough this year was the couple's try in March, early March. Because we were trying to get ready for the super duper short sprint race, that like relay that Eric and I did and put on by Waterfall Bank. that was a stretch because I think that we tried to like bump our fitness up in February to get ready for that and we didn't feel like doing fast. We did not feel like bumping our fitness up. Yeah. So that may have like set us up on the wrong foot. But to be fair, I raced well all the way till December. So it's fine. Looking back, I think it's fine. Although in December at the end of that race, you were ready to stop. You were really ready to stop.

For sure, for sure. Eric, what about you, Eric? You, you, you, you, like, I feel like you picked and chose really well. Yeah, I think I raised the perfect amount of times, and I feel like the pacing of it was pretty good. Like, I had a couple of blocks that were kind of intense around like the L.A. Try, St. Anthony's Alcatraz area. But I wanted to do all those races. I felt good about them. They were Olympic distance races. And then I kind of had a bit of time after that before anything that I really cared about. I probably could have skipped Chattanooga. But I don't feel like it took that much out of me,

but that's probably the one race where I look back and I go, yeah, I probably wasn't totally ready, totally firing on all cylinders going into that one. And if I was going to do anything different next year, it's like really hard because I want to incorporate next year like a gravel race or two and do more Xtera, which could mean as few as three. It's hard to figure out because I had so much fun with this year's schedule, which races I would take out. Probably something around when Chattanooga was,

and I might, yeah, that kind of like middle time of the year, June to August. It's hard, too, because you had one of the best years you've ever had this year, as far as results go. So it's like, wait a second, how much do I really want to change this, you know? Yeah. I mean, I got to remember, too, though, that, like, I think part of the reason why I had such a fun years, because everything felt a little novel.

Like I hadn't done Alcatraz in a couple years and hadn't done St. Anthony's in a couple of years. So they felt new and a little bit new and exciting, but I had good vibes and memories around them. And still, there's quite a few things that I wanted to do this year that I didn't get to. So I got to remember that and maybe just, you know, put one of my favorite go-to races on the back burner

and do something a little bit different this year. You know, like I didn't get to go to Tram Blant when I really wanted to. I really want to do Padigan Man. And I didn't do that. I was thinking about doing Indian Wells and I have to reschedule the season a bit to have energy that late in the year. In Italy?

In Italy, yeah. I mean, that's my biggest regret of the year is that we canceled the trip to Xtero World Championships. You know what? Great news. Guess what? They're doing it again there. They're doing it again there in 2023. That made me very happy to see

because that is the one thing where I don't know how if it would have really been able to fit it in any sort of great way, you know? But I'm being able to go back and do it next year is I'm psyched about that. Okay, next question is for Paula. Paula, more or less training camps with the van in different places for 2023? More with the van, because we'll have a sick van. Okay, good.

I strategically asked Paula this question. Borrowing that storyteller when you had like the shower, the heat, the AC. It's like a house on wheels. It's amazing. So more, more and more. Yeah, that would be fun. And I hope some, at least one time you guys will come down to L.A. And we can do some training together.

I think we will. I think we will. Come down to L.A. And definitely not park in front of your house. What the heck? No, we'll get the permit next time. Yeah, we'll get the permit. Yeah.

And then I was thinking for the new year, I wouldn't, I'm always really interested in in hearing what people think about the dynamic of the podcast. And so if there's someone I know that tells me they like the podcast, the first thing I ask them is like, don't think about it. just tell me what you think we could, like, what works, what doesn't work? And something I've heard a few times from people. And it was something that we talked about a lot when we started it was, do we want to have guests on? Like, how much do we want to have guests on?

And the thing I was told Eric is like, when we were like trying to workshop this, is like, when you're watching, like, when you're going back and watching, like, episodes of Seinfeld or friends or whatever, you don't want the, you don't want to watch the one episode where they go to vacation in Florida, right? you want the most, you want them in the apartment just having their back and forth. That's what kind of excites me when I go see those episodes. So I kind of get worried that having too many guests is a little bit like the vacation episode of one of those shows. So I do think we should have a few more guests this year, but I still think about keeping it just still not changing the dynamic of the podcast. And even when we have guests on, they're just another really cool voice that can answer these questions that we have.

Yeah, I think the important thing is to not change the structure of the podcast. So if we have a guest, they're answering your questions as well from their own perspective, which is really could add some different insight. It doesn't have to be a triathlete. It could be a professional mountain bike or a professional runner. Yes, because they might have some interesting info as well. So as long as we're just still staying true to the whole idea of this podcast, I think it could be cool. I just always wanted to feel like we're hanging out because that's what we set out to do

and how it still feels for me. And the only time I have ever had this little feeling that I didn't like what was going on is if I could tell like somehow we switched into this interviewee style or questions were just being asked and answered between us versus like we're kind of just throwing ideas around and stuff. And so whenever it makes sense and if we have a thing that's coming up

that we can bring in an interesting person and they have some interesting thoughts and it's like we're just all hanging out in a coffee shop and chatting, perfect. Yep, totally agree. Okay. So let's move on to questions. And if you're curious about how you can have your question answered on the pod,

you can go to Thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. And the podcast will always be free to everybody, but you can submit your questions there. And if you want, you can also support the podcast with your monthly subscription. So first question, actually, the first thing I wanted to do was address two questions from last week. We had a question about heart rate, resting heart rate in the off season. and the reason why your resting heart rate can come up kind of quickly, even though your fitness isn't really taking a hit once you really decrease your training load.

And this is from a PhD student in sports science, is that your plasma volume is very quick to adjust to your training volume. So the higher your training volume, your plasma volume really reacts quickly. And when you have less plasma volume, your blood has to pump more to get the energy to your muscles. So even though your fitness isn't really changing that much, your plasma volume has that effect. So that's why,

Eric, even though you had only taken like five days in the off season, you had already noticed an uptake in your resting heart rate. Interesting. So there's that. It doesn't really mean you're losing fitness, though, so nobody freak out if it's okay to take a week off. You're going to be fine.

And then the other thing was how to do with the foot numbness question. and we had a couple of people who kind of chimed in about that one of them was a football player in college now a triathlete and basically they had this numbness that was really a problem for them and their foot and it was kind of radiating up their leg and it was getting pretty bad and some other students at the school kind of used them as their project and try to figure out where it was coming from

and for them it was related to sciatica and the solution for them was strengthening and foam rolling glutes which seems like it's a solution for all body problems is strengthening the glutes. But that was for them

and then someone else reached out to me on Instagram and told me that for them they had done a ton of different things. They had gone to a ton of different physios, a bunch of different people

was about to go down the surgery route and then they found out that strengthening their foot with the mobile board and some other strengthening exercises

was what eventually help them. It was like four years of pain. And now they're totally pain free. For both people, it was like a strength training, mobility type of program that really helped. We hear it's so often, but I can't believe that is, that is so often the answer. Well, when you go to a physio, a lot of the times they'll give you these exercises to do that are super monotonous, super easy. They don't feel like you're doing anything. So you just don't do them. But if you actually do those exercises every day and you're diligent about it, they make an enormous difference. Like there's a reason they're giving those to you. So I think, that's a good lesson for all of us to hear. It is. And she said the same thing. She's like, there's nothing more boring than foot exercises. She was doing 20 to 30 minutes two or three times a week. But then within a month, her pain that had lasted for years was gone. And really, that's not that much time.

You know, 20 minutes before you run every other day, that's like no big deal. You just got to, like, put on a YouTube video or something or a show of some kind. Let the time pass like that. Listen to the pod. I mean, this is exactly how I feel about the work that we've done with Aaron Carson. None of it is super exciting. It hasn't been high weight or anything, but it's a bunch of body weight,

making sure that your muscle patterns are firing. For me, glutes was a big thing for sure, and for Paula the mobile board. And it's not, you're not like doing heavier and heavier reps or anything, but it gets everything turned on. And then when you go run, I find that first 10 minutes isn't just garbage. Everything's online.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Okay, real question. now. Here we go. First one. Hi, I'm a high school triathlete and cross-country runner, as well as we're covering Pop-Tark addict. Oh, Jacob. Girl, I feel that. Stay strong. Important question for Nick. I love seeing your Strava posts come out, and I always enjoy your beautiful pictures you take. Eric, this question is going to be kind of for both of us, I think. What is your process like for taking and editing your photos? Obviously, some of the videos are shot on a GoPro, but I'm curious how you take your other photos. Do you use a phone camera or something else? Do you color correct and

edit them. What would you say your amount of photos taken to photos on Strava ratio is? Oh, that's good. So Eric, too. Eric takes a lot of photos while running. He just doesn't put as much time into his Strava because he does 15 exercises a day and he just doesn't have the time. But my one great piece of advice for people is get ready to write this down. Clean off your freaking lenses, you dirty animals. There is so much grossness on that lens. That's why the photos don't look good. I wipe down my lens every single time I take it. And all those photos on Strava are on my phone. Then none of them are from the GoPro.

They're all from my phone. No one another rule I like, Nick, is like every time you post something on Strava, you have to post a picture with it. Even if it's like just a goofy picture that you don't put effort into. Every time. I think that adds to the funness of it. Sometimes it'll just be like a blurry, whatever while I'm running, but it adds to the story.

I think it's funner than Instagram. Funner's a word, right? Oh, definitely. there's nothing less funner than afternoon ride with no photo yeah agree and also nick so you take your all your phones with your phone but you also edit them i edit every single photo yeah yeah which is why they're so amazing and editing i don't use filters oh for sure for sure and of course like and i and you too paula we've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what we like and what we don't like in photos so i can't speak very generally i mean i could get into some nerdy things

things, but I don't think that's the point here. Maybe my ratio was like for every, I'll be at a cool spot and I'll take like six pictures. One of them will go on Strava. You know, something like that, the one that I really like. And I try to like develop a vibe for the batch of photos. Like maybe I'm like boosting the blues in the highlights or, you know, whatever, without getting too technical, but something that looks like it has a through line through the photos.

So then when they get put on, they all feel like they were taken in the same, with same idea in mind. The three of us are just, well, maybe the two of you, I'm a little bit, but the amount of time we spend editing pictures and having an eye for that, that people don't even realize they're looking at your pictures and they look amazing, but they don't realize why they're good. It's just a thing you have to be interested in and be artistic with, I guess. A lot of people just don't care enough. That's the takeaway is like, we actually put time and energy into it. I wonder if people, they're like, whoa, my photos don't look as good as theirs. Do you even care?

Did you even try? Yeah. I mean, Eric, you do a lot more, and your photos have a lot more impact because a lot more people see them. When you're out on a run and stuff, like how often do you think, I mean, how much are you thinking about the photos?

It kind of depends, but I guess I'm pretty reactionary when I see something that I feel is beautiful. I take a picture of it, and I think my framing kind of comes pretty naturally as does Paula's. and then I'll pull the pictures off my phone or my camera, whatever I took them with,

and try to, yeah, do the same thing as you do. I use a filter and then adjust everything a little bit off of that just so that it's quick, since I probably do 50 to 100 photos a day across all the activities that we do. The greatest compliment that people can give me is when they say that I have a good eye for taking pictures. That is the greatest compliment ever.

You do. Both of you, both of you do and Paul I feel like you've come a long way since I've known you too like the photos just look better and better thank you neck I'm learning from you guys I think there is definitely a thing to like what you see a lot of you just subconsciously are going to I don't want to say like regurgitate but you're like going to recreate that a bit so like that that's why I like watching ski films that are filmed beautifully and I follow photographers on Instagram instead of I don't

know, athletic bloggers or something, is like, I want to see this beautiful imagery, and that kind of just leaks its way into your subconscious, and I think you recreate that. It reminds you of something my mom tells me, we're in a beautiful place. She says, in her heavy Italian accent, she just says, look around and fill your eyes up with all this beauty. It's like, you constantly want to do that, right? Or I try to. It's like, always everything needs, I liked everything to look good around me all the time. It's like, you're filling your brain and your eyes and your ideas up with that beauty, and then when you take a photo, you're subconsciously just framing it and coloring it and exposing it the way that you want it to be done.

Yeah. The way that you saw it, you know, in your head. Right, right. Like if I'm looking, if I'm running down a trip. Guys, we're getting real deep here. Oh, here goes, here goes. This was a test, Paula, you failed. We can move on now.

Yeah, yeah. But there you go, Jacob. I do think a huge plus for most people is to clean off your iPhone lens. before you take the photo. With your t-shirt. That really helps. Oh, your tongue. Yeah.

Yeah, link it. By any means necessary. Okay, next question. I really like this one. Hello, humans. This is your dog. Can you please let the kids know what it's like living van life

with me tagging along? By the way, you'll never guess how I got on a computer. Okay. So how is it with Flynn in the van? For someone who is considering either buying a dog who already has a van or buying a van who already has a dog.

It's absolutely ridiculous. He's way, way too big for a van, but we do it anyway. No, I think the thing that bugs me more is the amount of dust he carries in the summer. So it's not his size. Actually, the storyteller was amazing because it has this thing called the groove lounge, which folds into a second bed, and he fits perfectly on it. So we could get him off the floor on this groove lounge, and he would just sleep there and hang out there, and he loved it.

but my bigger pet peeve was sweeping the van out all the time because every time he jumps in the van, he's covering the dust. Yeah. So that's the thing you got to think about. It's the reason we don't have a super fancy, beautiful, white, fancy fabric desire for our future van. Like, we kind of want it to be a little more utilitarian, something you can easily clean and wipe down when he's muddy and he gets in there. And the storyteller kind of checked that box because everything was wipeable and super easy to clean it.

But if you have a small lazy dog, that might be the best. Totally. Totally. Small dogs are better for sure. For this. Eric, what would your ideal dog be for the van life? A pug. A pug.

Can't run very far at all. And if he does get away, you can hear him. Exactly. I'd like any sort of dog that's a little bit athletic, but, I mean, doesn't need, like, as much or more exercise as we do. The reason that I get Frusory with Flynn in the van It is like purely the space

And it's got it's like a human is not any different It's just when you're trying to like Oh I got to go to the back now to get my toothbrush And I have to somehow get past Paula and Flynn It's just that's a van though It's not like Flynn's fault you know Yeah right It's a small space

Cool Next question is from Emily Howdy Gang I've been wondering if Paula has any tips for staying safe As a woman when you're running and biking by yourself there's always so much scary stuff in the news. Merry Christmas and thank you all for a wonderful year of triathlon content. Can't wait to ride

into the new year with TTL Nash. Paula, it's funny, I've never heard you even bring this up as a concern. Why are you laughing, Eric? Oh, because I was just thinking about how, you know, I was assuming you were going to say because you run with Flynn and then I was going to say something about how this is when a pug would not be ideal.

Yeah. For protective running partner. Now the pug will be like, oh, what's going on? Hi. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know, I did read this question, obviously, and I can send it to you because I think it's a very important topic, especially if you're running in the dark. Like if you have to run before 7 a.m. or after 4 in the winter, it can be kind of scary,

especially in a big city. I am fortunate to live in a place where I feel safe, kind of no matter what, and maybe I'm being a bit naive with that, but I've never feel uncomfortable running here in Bend, Oregon. and I'm usually running with either Flynn or Eric, so that helps a lot too. I don't feel as nervous on the bike for some reason. I think that having a bit of awareness of your surroundings and not totally drowning everything out with AirPods or with headphones is important.

So just if you are running before sunrise or after sunset, maybe stick to the treadmill if it's the only time you can run. And then if you're in the daytime, lose the headphones. and yeah, just a lot of their time people run to drown out everything and kind of forget what's going on. But having alertness, I think, is the best prevention from anything that's maybe scary happening and running in populated places, not running through downtown in a dark place, you know, common sense things, but things that could be important if you are nervous about these things. It's interesting, though.

I guess I'm right, right? you don't really ever think about it in Bend. It is something you consider or not even, no? Not even for a second, no. But then again, I'm running like midday, riding in the pure daylight, very familiar roads. And you're very fast. So anyone who's even trying to get you is like,

okay, that's not worth it. I can't even catch her. You're really scary news stories of people, you know, getting pulled into the, I don't know, it's just horrible, horrible stuff. But I think that's the minority. You know, we read and hear about horrible things. all the time happening and it's one person in a million who's going to get have something bad

happen to them so don't let it you know take over your running joy or your cycling joy but be alert i think they actually have these rings that where you can like flip them and they have like a stabbing mechanism or something so you could like fight off someone if they try to grab you like there are these tools like that kind of are disguised jewelry or that's true that's true it is illegal in some places to carry pepper spray on you, which is... If you're really not worried about it. I would definitely say, if you're going to do the pepper spray thing, I'd reemphasize leave the AirPods at home.

Yeah. I was like, I've had that realization before, and I'm so glad you brought up the AirPods thing because, like, I've run up behind women on single-track trails, like, in kind of remote places. And they just don't even hear you at all. Yelling. Excuse me, excuse me. And then at some point, you're just like, ma'am!

And then they just freak out flip. Completely freak out. out and I just, I kind of, it's not my place, but sometimes I just want to be like, what if I was a bad guy? Like, or a bear or literally anything. Or a bad guy, geez. Bad guy bear, too. Worst combo. I thought I was a bad guy.

Yeah, bad guy bear. Those bad guy bears suck. And then their first reaction is to like spray you with that. Yeah, exactly. That would like, sorry I heard it on a podcast. Now imagining that. Okay, lose the pepper spray. Don't bring the pepper spray, but take out your AirPods.

Oh. Yeah. It's a good question. That's a great question. I do feel really, really fortunate for Ben, because I feel like it's like a perfect blend of where you feel like kind of alone on the trails. But for the most part, you never go for more than five minutes without seeing a person walking or, you know, if you were to trip and fall and break your ankle, like somebody would find you, like, relatively quickly unless you're way out there. What do you guys think of the idea of, you know, I think Wahoo has this as well. I know Garmin has it is when you start an activity, it can automatically send an email to people so they can track you the whole time.

Do you think it makes sense to have like a buddy, like a run buddy that always has your location and they always have yours or something like that? Especially when Eric's out on the mountain bike trails, I follow it on Wahoo. Yeah. We don't have it set up for like every time you start an activity. Otherwise we'd be sending each other emails, you know, three times a day. But I think that's a fantastic thing. And also I just realized, this is just a cool thing I remembered. Our helmets have this crazy sensor thing on them that can like sense when you've crashed.

Especially got hit by a car. You know, whatever. It's like that's looking. to a helmet like that if you're if you're kind of concerned about that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. There's a lot of things. Like now the new phones, if you crash, you know, they'll send an SOS or just keep in mind that for the Wahoo and the Garmin thing, you have to have cell phone service for that location to constantly refresh. Oh, Trixie's FaceTiming me. Tricksie, I'll have to call you back. I'm so sorry. Next.

Okay. Next question. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn. I got interested in tried during COVID and did my first 70.3 last year. I love the sport, especially because of the great content folks like yourselves put out that give a glimpse into the life of a pro, great tips for us non-pros to use. So, thank you. My question is about injuries. Oh boy. When you start to feel pain and fear an injury, what is your process to diagnose it? I've been having some pain in my hip and have been going to physio, but it doesn't seem to be improving. Is there a point when you move past physio and go to a sports doctor?

And if so, how would you typically know when it's time to do so? Thanks again, and special thanks to Paula for representing Canada so well in the sport. Read from Ottawa. Good question. I think intuitively, I kind of know if it's really bad or if it's just a tightness that's going to go away, only because I've been exercising and getting injured for 20 years now. But it is a tough thing to know. If you're going to physio, it's not going to be instant fix.

Usually, it's going to be going home, doing the exercises, getting treatment. And after four or five trips to the physio, if it's still just like square, one, no improvement at all, then I'd say it's good to get some imaging done. And that's really the benefit of going to a sports medicine doctor is getting a referral to get imaging, to know what exactly is happening. And by imaging, what do you mean? MRI is like the best, but a lot of the times that the doctor, if you don't, you have to get an x-ray first, which is usually going to show nothing and then an MRI. So either of those things. But MRI is kind of the soft tissue gold standard for seeing tears,

labor tears, stuff like that. Yeah. Eric, do you have anything? Eric's different, though, because he doesn't get injured that often. No, no, I don't get injured that often. So when do you know if it's like bad or if you can just run through something? I mean, the hip thing that I have going on right now is like the exception to anything else I've experienced in my life.

Like last time, the only stretch fracture I got. got. We both got a stress fracture at the exact same time. And I mean, I had to be wheelchered to like the medical area because I couldn't even hop on one foot because the foot that I was off the ground. It hurts so much to get even jiggled around. Exactly. So that was like pretty obvious for me. And yeah, I went and got an MRI or you know, whatever the protocol is, but had a pretty good idea that was fully a broken bone. And I don't know. The rest of the time it's, you got to kind of play it by year, but typically, like,

there's some rules of, like, if the thing starts to feel better as you run, then it's probably, like, a tendon thing, and it's worth trying the next time to, like, warm it up a little bit before you start. And if it feels like the trend with the injury is getting worse versus just staying steady each day, then if it's getting worse,

I'll probably try to take a couple days off. It feels like it's getting steady. I'll probably just, like, decrease the stuff that I was going to do or not do a run workout. You know, just like try to do half of the normal thing. And it's just, it's a little bit of a dancing. If it's getting worse, though, and it's been a month, I feel like it's time to see someone.

To get damaging, for sure. For sure. Might as well. Cool. Next question is from Carlos, also Canadian, from Vancouver. Longtime fan of the vlogs, the pod, and the dog. I'm fairly new to triathlon, was wondering how pros consume and carry all their calories during races.

I've done one 70.3 in Galveston and had one of my main nutrition bottles eject off the bike about 20K in and was forced to consume coarse nutrition. I've never had. Very specific to the amount of electrolytes I consume as I'm extremely prone to cramping and not having my nutrition led me to walking

the half marathon due to cramped quads. Conversely, I did a 50K ultra with 510K loops which allowed for easy refueling and managed to race hard to the very end, finishing second in my category. Congratulations. Racing with what I practice with seems to be essential for me. I know some people

over-concentrate their bottles with whatever their preferred drink mix is. I did notice a ton of pros stopping for their special needs back in Kona this year. I'm racing Iron Man Italy next year. See you there, right, Nick? Yeah, maybe. And would love some tips to how to carry nutrition for full distance racing.

So if you have two bottles in the center triangle of your bike and maybe even two bottles behind your saddle, would that be enough for a full distance race? Well, I think that Eric can talk about this month. That'd be right on the limit, I think. You'd probably want to grab some water on course.

Two bottles on your down tubes is extremely slow. Like, I would not do that. Unless it's an aerobottle. I think it's better to have it between your arms, behind your saddle and then an arrow bottle on your down tube, if you have to. We've never done an Iron Man, so we can't really talk about nutrition carrying.

I can easily carry all the things I need for 70.3 on the bike with me. But I think in an Iron Man, everybody picks up nutrition on course, whether it's just water or their special needs bag. Yeah. So what I'm thinking, I'm just thinking out loud here, if you have this super specific amount of concentration that you need in salt, but you also don't want to have two bottles on your down hoop and be going five minutes slower per hour as a result of that, I would figure out what's going to be on course, figure out what the salt concentration is of that, then bring some salt tabs, supplement your salt with those salt tabs while grabbing the on course nutrition plus water bottles. when you passed eight stations. 100%. That's exactly what I was going to say. That's what I tried to do from Iron Man was I brought the little tube full of tablets.

And that way I could take the on course water and then just drop that in there. So I'm bringing way less weight and volume with me. Do you have to dilute it in water? Could you just take the salt tab and then chug it down with water? I've never taken salt tabs. Some sort of version of that. Whether you're dropping in fizzy tabs and you have time for that or you're just popping a salt pill. Yeah.

That's great advice, you guys. I never even thought of that. I'll just say one thing to look out for that happened to me. I didn't close that thing very well. And since it was pouring rain during my race, water got in and they all started to foam up because water got in there, and they're very reactive to water.

That would have been a fun thing to distract you from the misery, though. Oh, yeah, so many fun things that day. It was bubble bath in my bento box. Yeah, it was fun. Bubble bath in my bento box. That's fun to say. Okay. Well, there you go.

Carlos. Hopefully that helps. I think that's, that's a good one. Good advice. Next question here, and this is a wild one. Hey, Flynn and everyone else, another Nick here. I'll try to keep this short. It's not short, but it is great. I've been listening for about a month, and I have a few questions. I haven't really heard you guys talk about. Come from an absurd and very unorthodox background. Let's just say I was born with the skateboard, sponsored by 14, in prison for 10 years by 21, exonerated in January. Exonerated. Prison for 10 years and then exonerated. What? That is crazy. That is...

I cannot believe that's possible. I cannot believe that's possible. There's a great quote, a Benjamin Franklin quote, that I'm going to say here. Better 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer, or something along those lines. He locked up, right? That's the general theory. I mean, everyone has their own beliefs, but I fully stand by that. Anyway, this person is an ultra-runner for the past year, but running wasn't enough.

and I fell in love with cycling too. Now I'm training for more appropriately living this lifestyle. I usually get my swims in before 7 a.m., followed by a bike ride to work. I've surfed the Oregon coast half my life but never swam. What key methods do you think

would help exploit my strengths as an ultra-runner? I don't hear much about ultra-running doing triathons, and in Eugene, I don't know any triathletes. My plans this year include 350Ks, 250-mileers, all 6K-plus elevation in the mountains. some sprint triathlons and trail races series mixed in.

Trail race series mixed in. At least three Olympic triathlons and a 70.3 or 2. That's a full year. I'm yet to find my distance, but I have finally found my sport. Just hoping to hear about translating ultra running into triathlon. Thanks again, and keep up the good content. First and only podcast I've ever listened to past episode one, and I've played them all. Awesome.

Okay. We're honored. Yeah, so I feel like the mental strength it takes to be wrongly convicted and then in prison for 10 years, there's no way that didn't translate over into some, at least if you can see a silver lining, some performance benefits mentally for ultra running and endurance sports, right? You've got to be mentally tough. That's still just blowing my mind. Yeah, that's just wild.

So what do you think? I mean, what about ultra running do you think could translate well into triathlon? on. They really should have pretty strong glutes. Your glutes should be activated from all that vert. Speaking of glutes. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

It's like you should, like relative to somebody who just runs 500 meters on the track or something, you would think that you would have a little more just like strength in your legs versus pop. You know, somebody's like guys like Mo Farrah jumps on a bike. He's not going to quite have the same sort of strength, quote unquote, as somebody who is running up and down mountains. So I think that'll serve you well. but theoretically you should have a pretty big fitness base and you need to spend some time in the saddle just getting used to that movement pattern.

Yeah, I think you're going to have to cut your run-down mileage down more than you want to in order to have time for the swim in the bike because ultra-runners have crazy high run mileage naturally. And I think that if you really want to do triathlon, you have to spend time in the pool and running or biking just because they're very like muscle-specific patterning. You're still really fit from running, but it's just learning how to translate that to the other two sports.

You're going to feel pretty fit at first. It's not going to feel hard necessarily, but it really is just like learning the muscle patterns. Like swimming is a very different type of exercise than running, and that will take some time, I think. Yeah. I do think your ultra running is not really going to necessarily suffer from that either. And I'll just throw out an example of our friend,

Heather Jackson, who's been an Ironman triathlet for, what, 20 years? And she did the Havelina 100 off of a couple of really, of longer-ish runs, but for the most part, every single time Heather did like a five or six-hour bike ride, she'd go for a 30-minute run afterwards. And I think if you kind of, if you work on that

where you sort of maybe don't get in some of these like 10-hour runs or something, but you get in a longer bike ride and then you finish it off with an hour run, you'll simulate some of that, like, running on tired legs. It's probably, from what I gather, talking to my sister,

who also does ultras, simulating that really tired legs feeling at the end of 50K. Yeah, that's a good point. I just think of the mental strength that takes to do ultras, and long days in the pool, long days on the bike,

those are going to be so much easy for you than someone who doesn't have that in their background. Aside from the physiology. You're going to be bored of the swimming pool. Just brace yourself. There's no pretty trees or mountains.

You should be swimming in the Oregon coast. Yeah, just do all open water. Six-K swims on the Oregon coast. Wow, well, what a crazy, crazy story. Best of luck to you, and we would love to hear a follow-up in however long, whenever you do one of these million races you have this year and see how it's going. Yeah, I would just, I would say, I mean, you probably know your body, but really be careful with a schedule that ambitious, like,

try to space it out well enough and, like, be more careful than maybe you initially think you should because that's a lot of racing. My sister did a hundred-mile and it's like six months, four months later, whatever now. She's still not totally back to normal. Wow. Yeah. Cool. And then our last question from today, hey, TTL fam, this is from Todd. I recently started working with a swim coach and they have us doing a lot of kicking drills. This is a big shift from my regular front crawl work. Front crawl is British for freestyle as I've been introduced to sculling, back kicking, Superman kicks, side kicking, catch-up drills and three-stroke breathwork. I feel like I spend half my time sucking back chlorinated water and the other half worried

about upsetting the other swimmers in the lane. My question is when you are doing drills, should you move to the medium-paced area of the pool and then back to the fast-paced area for regular front crawl until you get fast enough? I spend a lot of time at the end of the pool waiting for people to pass me so I don't slow them down while I'm doing my drills. For the most part, this seems to work, but just curious if you ever had to switch lanes to do different workouts. Any tips on how to improve on sculling? definitely something I need to it's definitely something I struggle with as my legs sink behind me and I feel like I'm not moving anywhere love what you guys do for triathlon keep up the great work and all the best in 2023 Todd Nick I don't know if you're like totally aware of this or not but freestyle

technically means you can do any stroke you want you can really by any means necessary get to the other end of the pool you do butterfly you could do breaststroke you do well you name it but people just do the front crawl because that is the fastest stroke so so so so let me myself front crawl is not British for freestyle. Front crawl is just maybe the technically correct term that is just more often used on the side of the pond. Everybody calls it freestyle, but classically, the freestyle event. You can do anything. Get to the other end, man. I used to have people that were for fun when I swam swim club would swim backstroke in the 400 free just because you could do any stroke you wanted. Whoa, I've just never seen that. Well, because obviously it's not as fast, but that's interesting. That's interesting. But there's, there's still rules. Like you can't do the whole thing under water, right? You have to be careful about

like the dolphin kicks or whatever. You still have to obey the 15. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But to answer this person's question, I don't think you should have to like jump around lanes based on what you're doing. Just do what you're doing and people can go around you. So you're being super polite by waiting for them to go past you since you're sculling. But usually if you're sculling, you're moving so slow that it shouldn't take that much effort for someone to go around you. And it's always up to the passer to do it and handle it properly. So as long as you're in the appropriate lane for what you're swimming for the majority of the practice,

doing some 25 skull and kick and drill is totally fair, I think. Yeah, like, when I do skull or drill or whatever, typically it's at the beginning of a workout, and I'm in a pretty warm-up, chill mood about it anyway, so I absolutely do not mind sitting at the wall for an extra three seconds for somebody to go by. That's exactly what I was thinking, yeah.

But I'm definitely not going to go over to the medium lane and lose the fast lane opening, and, you know, all that stuff. And just, yeah, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say you, you doing your kicks is like me doing, like a real hard effort freestyle, you know? Sure, but still, like, I'm swimming with Paula,

and Paula can, like, if I'm swimming in a lane with Paula, she's definitely going to pass me if I'm sculling. So it's just try to be courteous. If you know somebody's coming up to you, just as you're about to flip, try to stay out of their way. Yeah. Well, that was it. That's her last question.

We hope that everyone has a very, safe New Year's Eve and that you had a good year and that may if you're if you're in the off season if you're taking time off keep taking time off keep it easy keep it breezy have fun don't keep it too easy otherwise you might blow your back out oh poor Paula oh god but yeah what a fun year we've had huh oh it's been amazing I hope next year is even better I started to make I know you guys hate reels but I started to make like a little fun reel of like the highlights of the year and it's impossible to fit in much. There's too much. 30 seconds. It's totally

impossible. So I might need to put out a few reels. Also, Nick, another fun thing is you are flying to Oregon next Tuesday, so we will be recording the next pod as a threesome. Is that writer? I mean, I sure hope so. Have you bought that ticket? Yeah, dude. I bought it. I bought it today. Oh, it's official. It's happening.

About it today. And you know who else is also? I gave Nick a little teaser. We have someone else who's going to be here for next visit. Oh, Lamar Zocco. Mr. Zoko, coming in hot. On Thursday. Literally coming in hot. They were like, they're like, they call the FedEx Fright called us today.

And they're like, you guys need to be home between eight and five. We're like, no problem. 100% no problem. We will be on the front porch. We'll be on the front porch so we don't miss the doorbell. That's great. Yeah. Very exciting.

I'm very happy for that. Well, thank you all for listening in for this whole year. We're looking forward to 2023 altogether as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we could not do this without you. So you or the TTL Nash, you. Oh, I thought you were talking about TTL Nash. I was talking about you, Nick, and I'm talking about TTL Nash.

Everyone, I'm so grateful. So.