That Triathlon Life Podcast - Disc wheel covers for triathlon, when to replace your chainring, race cadence, MOBO boards, and more!

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

This week we start off our triathlon show with some Bike Tech with Eric. Eric lets us know when to replace your chainring, how to adjust your brake level reach, and what PSI you should be running our tires at. From there we get straight into your triathlon questions about how and when to shift properly, dealing with burn-out as a professional, racing at altitude without the preparation, and more! For gear and more, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Erica Loggerstrand. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldston. On this podcast, we talk about what's going on in the triathlon world, how our races went. But most importantly, we take some questions from everybody who's listening and, you know, try to entertain while conveying a little bit of knowledge, hopefully. We're both professional triathletes, Paul and I. And Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlete and just training for his first iron man. Yeah. on that journey. And it's taking years off my life at this point, I think. Yesterday when I started my long run, I was just like, I don't even want to run a mile, let alone two and a half hours. Somehow got through it.

And then today, even just like going up the stairs today, like nothing hurts. But it's just like every step is like, oh my God, how am I going to make it up another step? Yeah, man, that's the deep fatigue. That's how you know you're doing it right. I guess I'm doing it real right because I am quite fatigued. I had a similar moment today. I think it was a little more fuel-based, but just like, in the middle of the warm up of our swim,

we got up early, we ran, and then we went for a swim. And in the middle of warm up with the swim, I just, I was like, I need a burrito, or I'm not going to make it today. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to make it. And we ended up getting a burrito

and had a nap and resurrection. But like, yeah, if you're training for triathlon and you're doing it right, you're probably tired 99% of the time. And hungry. And hungry. I saw Matt McElroy, he made some kind of like post or something. I think he, like, reposted someone else.

He was like, if you have enough energy to cook yourself a fancy meal, then you're not training hard enough. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that was Morgan Pearson that put that out. That's right.

It was Morgan Pearson, though. I disagree. Like, Lindsay's training for an Iron Man and we just stopped by her house for a delicious Caesar salad and steak, and that didn't take her long. It was a quick meal, but it was, quote-unquote,

I would say, fancy. It looked nice. Yeah, yeah. I think it depends on who you are, too. Like, if you're the kind of person that normally loves to cook well, then I think that's fine. But if you're like me who like a grilled cheese sandwich is like a fancy meal, then like an actual fancy meal is like, no, I'm never going to do that, especially in the middle of trading heart.

Yeah, yeah, totally. But speaking of which, Paula, did you go for a long, easy run this week? I feel like I've never seen you do that. Am I crazy? It wasn't that long. It was 10 miles. I mean, it was an hour, 15 minutes. It's not that long.

But for me, that's like I don't run that long very often. And usually my long runs are within a tempo. run. That's what I mean. So I actually get, I get a lot of kilometers in in a relatively short amount of time. But yeah, I just basically told my coach I wanted to start like back to structured training Monday, which is today. So in the weekend, I could kind of do whatever I felt like. And yeah, that's what I did. I did it on that out and back that you did when you were in Bend. So it kind of just goes by fast, you know. It does. Go out 8K, flip, come back, you're running along the river. It's doesn't feel like a big deal. So it was nice. Yeah, it's a great spot. Yeah, I just, when I think of you two,

I never think of you doing long, easy things for some reason. You always have quality in your long workouts, it seems like. This last block that we did before Canada, PTO, open, whatever, definitely. Earlier in the season, we'll have a lot more just like four hours. Yeah, stuff like you're doing right now. I see. Cool. Yeah.

Kind of depends on the time of the year. Well, before we move on to questions, I want to do a little bike tech with Eric. So, Eric, my first question for you, which is something that I'm currently dealing with right now, is with a chain, you have a chain tool that you can see how much the chain has worn and if it has stretched beyond what it should and you replace the chain. But it's much harder and maybe impossible to know when it's time to replace your chain ring. How do you go about that? How can you tell? Oh. Like a dead giveaway is if the chain ring looks like shark teeth. If it looks very pointy versus like a chain ring tooth shape should actually kind of be flat on like what you would think of as the point. The teeth on all chain rings are not all the same at all because there's specific shift points. So like the chain doesn't just jump up whenever you decide to hit it. There are actually like chain rings that are meant to keep the chain on and then there are ones that are meant to allow it to shift back and forth. So that's that's pretty common. And then I would just, just say also, like, if you start to feel like shift performance is going downhill.

Usually, a chain ring is not something that you should have to replace that often if you're doing a good job of replacing a chain on time. Right. It's like that stretched out chain is what wears out those parts, right? Exactly. Yeah. If you're in doubt, you could always bring it to your local bike shop, right? They can take a look at it and right away know if they think it needs to be replaced or not. Yeah. And I'll probably say, yes, it does.

Yeah, that's a hard thing. That's your money. Like, back when I worked at a bike shop, unfortunately, like one out of every three chains will come out of the box reading 50% stretched. It's like, yeah, it's not that accurate of a tool. That's why you're kind of like, okay, how long ago did you replace the chain and also we'll use the tool. And if in doubt, even a little bit, just replace the chain.

It's so much cheaper than a chain ring, especially on like a SRAM. Some chain rings out there are built into your power meter. Like, you just don't want to mess around with that. Yeah, right. Cool. And then next question was, what PSI should people be racing at? Does that depend on what kind of tires you have, if it's tubeless or not? And should people be racing and training at the same tire pressure?

100% does depend on what type of tire and what type of wheel you have. More importantly, the type of wheel. So if you're running tubeless, you can get away with, we'll just use me as an example. I'm like 150-something pounds. And if I'm running tubeless, then I'll run like, 80 PSI. If I'm running tubes, then I'll run more like 90, 95. Now, the latest and greatest thing out there is called hookless, and that's what we're currently running on our zip wheels. And that just means you have a super fat rim, and it really allows the tire to not have that sort of horseshoe shape,

if you were to look at it dead on. And you can run those at like 60 PSI with no rolling resistance penalty whatsoever and it is like the softest most incredible ride. I notice the difference with it too and I'm not as like in tune with that kind of thing as Eric I would say but when you put hookless tubeless wheels

60 PSI they're still really fast and they're so comfortable on especially on rough roads. That's what I used in Edmonton and on my TT and I had the fastest bike split so. And should be and should people be training and racing at the same PSI or is there like you know like some

people put on race chains or race wheels or race tires like does that make a difference really just across the board it's condition dependent so if it's wet i would run a couple PSI lower than you normally do unless you're already like i said on hookless wheels and you're running 60 PSI that's going to be fantastic in the rain or in the dry um but yeah it's not like you want to put on your race wheels and pump them up to 120 that is very old school thinking and you're actually losing some speed because you're technically bouncing on the road a bit and that's like lost. And then the last one there that I had was can you, if you have small hands, can you adjust the reach on a road bike so that you don't have to reach as far to grab the brakes when

you're in the drops or on the hoods? Oh, good question because I was going to ask Eric to do this for me on my new tarmac because, yes, you can adjust them and it makes a huge difference. Huge. Because if you have to break suddenly and you're like reaching, extra far for your lever, it's slower. Scary, too. Not as comfortable. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Back in the day on mechanical brakes, you know, which pulled a cable to

activate your rim brake or whatever, there were actually like shims that you would put in. But nowadays with hydraulic levers, there's just like a screw that you turn and that just dials that reach in a little bit closer to a lever. Well, Toby's bike, which is running like a very low spec drive terrain, sorry, group set. it's mechanical shifting sorry mechanical braking disc

and there's still a lever adjustment on there oh nice so even introduced that since I was working in a shop and we weren't sure if like it would be on something

that was like not Duraes not Tegra not 105 like not Tiagra below all those and it still had a reach adjustment so I think most road bike levers now have reach adjustment on there

yeah would recommend the other thing if that still hasn't gotten you enough of what you, you know, closer. Different bars are also made for smaller hands or for women or, you know, whatever the branding is going to have on it. But there are certain bars that are actually going to have the hook part. Yeah, the shape itself will allow the lever to be closer to the bar.

Cool. Cool. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for your expertise. And Paula, I really appreciate you jumping in on that one too. That was really a team effort. Yeah, that felt great. Bike tag with Paula.

We'll make a separate theme. Like, don't do anything I tell you. Do the opposite. No, it's rubbing off. Eric's expertise is rubbing off. So, okay, I think we'll move on to questions now. And for people who don't know, which it seems like the word is definitely out

because we're beginning a lot of questions, but that email address is still that triathlon life brand at gmail.com. So keep sending them in, and we'll try to get as many as we can. We have a lot this time. Keep sending them in. Keep sending in your follow-ups. Yeah, exactly.

I texted Nick today, and I'm like, this is getting out of hand because we'll answer someone's question. And then they'll email with another question, a follow-up question. I'm like, we don't have time. We barely got to yours. You've reached your maximum questions for the month. Thank you. Well, I'll start with this one. I think this one's kind of an interesting question that I think a lot of people are curious about.

And I did some research into this, too, Eric, just in case you. aren't completely sure about this. Hi everyone, just a curious question for this YouTube watcher, but not a content creator. Does it really make a difference to your bottom line or whatever kind of money you get back when people hit skip ad before they are done during your vlogs?

Does watching an entire five-second ad versus a two-minute ad make that much of a difference? Might be an odd question, but I watch every ad because I truly appreciate the content you put out and just curious what difference it really makes at the end of the day. I appreciate you all, Suzanne.

Wow, Suzanne. That's, you are a hero status. That's a good question. That is a deep dive and thank you for that. I don't even know the answer. And I think YouTube is a little bit unclear about that kind of stuff. Maybe Eric knows.

So here's what we'll do. I'll say what I think in the next since you've researched. Just like the monetization side of YouTube is so small relative to how much time I've put in. I don't like, I haven't researched that hard into it. And I definitely put in far,

ads than YouTube suggests that we do. So we're not maximizing our potential there at all. But my, what I feel like I remember reading, or at least what I've heard, is that if someone actually clicks on the ad and goes to that website, then that will theoretically give you a little bit more than if they just watched it. But I don't know if the length of time that they watch an ad has anything to do with the payout, personally. Yeah.

So that's kind of right. If you skip the ad or if you have like an ad blocker on, then it's that the channel does not get any money from that. If you watch 30 seconds of the ad, then the creator does get paid something. And then if you click through into the ad, the creator gets paid a different fee. This is crazy because this comes down not, this is like nothing in our control. This is like purely based on the efficacy of the ad and how well it applies to our audience. And just so everyone knows, it's not like television. where a network can choose what ads are put on their programs,

and the programming can be very specific to what ads are played. Eric creates a video, and then the YouTube algorithm decides what ads it thinks are most relevant to the video and puts those on. So Eric doesn't even, can't even control that. It's also what's most relevant to the viewer as well, I believe. Sorry, yes, yes, sorry. Like geographically and all that.

So basically the extent of the control that I have is like how often the timing of the ads, whether we want ads before the video, during the video, and whether we are going to allow skippable or non-skippable ads. I pretty much always turn off the non-skippable ads because that drives me insane when I have to watch those. But that is like, I mean, it depends on how long term of a view you're looking at this, but putting non-skippable ads would in that moment make you much more money on that video.

Yeah. Now, what people need to realize is we're not making millions. off these videos, folks. They does not pay nearly as much as you would hope. So the idea is the videos are kind of just like supplementing this whole world that Eric and Paul have created. Yeah. But it's more, I think of it more of a marketing expense than anything.

The expense is my time. Skip the ads and go buy a t-shirt. Watch all the ads and buy a t-shirt or five. Which actually, people probably do. The final thing that I'll say on this is there is a way, Like if you're watching the premiere, you can give a, it's like a super thanks or something like that. You can like pay five bucks. But even then, that's still not even that great because YouTube takes 50% of that.

50% is crazy. Criminal. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, sometimes people will like drop us $10 and say like, go buy your coffee, but YouTube takes five. Yeah. It's better than zero, but it's kind of crazy. Yeah. Okay, well, we'll definitely hit more on that in some future episodes because I think that's a pretty interesting topic.

We'll move on to the next question here. It's so funny that this question came in because I have seriously been considering this myself for Ironman, Wisconsin. Dear Nick, Paula and Eric, OG listener, second-time emailer, I'm curious if any of you three have experienced riding disc wheel covers, which is converting a shallow-rimmed wheel to a makeshift disc wheel in lieu of a full disc wheel. The obvious advantage is the price tag, but I'm wondering at what point does it make more sense to buy the legit full disc? Does the wheel cover give enough of an aerodynamic gain to justify the purchase? I have a couple races coming up this fall, including the age group PTO Dallas race, and I'm hoping to buy some speed at a reasonable value.

Thanks, guys. P.S. the new TTL shorts instantly became the number one option in my rotation. Five stars would highly recommend. Sincerely, Austin Brown. That's why we call them the ultimate short. Yeah. This question, I think, actually came in today. But I was reading through the questions and I was like, oh my God, Eric, listen to this question.

I was asking if you can put a cover on the wheel. This is why I'm here for reality check for us who don't get $2,500 wheels for free. No, that's, I mean, this sounds so snobby, but I was like, oh my gosh, delete this question. But then I asked Eric and Eric's like, oh, yeah, I used to do that. I did it for like four years. Oh, you did? So it's a good question. Yeah.

Oh, it's a great question because I'm super curious. about it. I had no idea. When I first started doing triathlon, the poorest. It doesn't mean you're poor if you can. No, no. I'm just saying, like, where I'm going with that is that it is actually not that much different than a fully covered built disc.

So, like, you want to get the good disc cover, and you can get them. I think it's like wheelbuilder.com is where it used to be. Yes, it's wheelbielder.com, correct. Yeah. Okay. And, like, last I checked, you, like, put in your, what hub you have. Like, back in the day, I had a power tap and, like, what rim you have. and they like laser CNC cut it out and like send it to you and it's very well put together

and it's it's not quite as fast but it's really close did you do it through wheelbuilder you didn't make one yourself no i did not make one myself okay because some people do that as well with like plexiglass or something you you can do it but like the ones that from wheelbiller are like they have a lenticular shape and everything so it's not there's no floppiness to it they're not expensive they're like it's like a hundred bucks yeah i'm just looking at it now it's hundred bucks yeah so I mean, this really rose to popularity back when power taps were a big thing, which is a power meter inside of the hub, and you wanted to not have to buy a racing hub power disk and, like, the whole thing.

And, yeah, I did that for several years, and it worked fine. But, yeah, a regular disk can be faster. But I would say do this if you're getting into the sport, and, yeah, you do want to save some money. And, like, it would be much, much better to spend that money on a power meter that you can use in training. And then the next year after that, work up to buying yourself a used full carbon disc. So let me ask you this, though, because it seems to me like, okay, I can put this arrow cover on. It's going to get me like 90% of the advantage of a disc wheel.

But is there a feel difference? Is there something other than just aerodynamics that is advantageous with a disc wheel? It kind of depends. It depends on the structure of the disc. So some discs have spokes inside of them. Actually, they're like the head disc, for example, is a spoked wheel with a cover on it. versus they might do a full carbon one now, but it's a faring. It's just a very well factory installed carbon fairing.

And then all of the zip discs are like this honeycomb foam with a carbon thing on the outside. But sometimes a disc, a spoked wheel cover thing will actually feel a little stiffer than a normal disc. So it'll feel a little bit better accelerating out of the corner. But I think, yeah, I don't know. Can you feel a difference? I mean, the sound, like, the sound is so awesome of a real disc wheel, right? The sound is the best, best part, I would say. Just sounds like an attack, Apache helicopter.

Yeah. Yeah. It just, it totally depends, unfortunately. If you have, like, a very basic training wheel, it's probably going to be really heavy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm considering it. I might do it.

Wisconsin's pretty hilly, so I'm not sure. I might just stick with what I've got. I have like an 80-milled deep section wheel on the back that's pretty big. So I might just stay with that. Yeah. It's a cool idea. I mean, it is just extra weight. And you do hear it.

Like you hit a bump and it's kind of like it sounds like you have a wheel cover on and stuff. So it's not like the best experience, but it gets the job done if you get into the sport. Yeah. Paul, are you going to say something? No, I was just going to say good question. Sorry, I was such a snob about it. That's all right. You were a snob in the privacy of our own home until you told the story on the podcast.

Well, I just wanted to say, like, I could not believe that was a thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's a thing. It's a thing. So, yeah, so I would say, by the way, to Austin, like, freaking go for it. And if you can afford a real disc wheel, awesome. And it excites you awesome.

Otherwise, it seems like a lot of performance to get for not a lot of money. Next question is from Mike. Hey, Paula, Eric, and Nick. One more time. hopefully makes a charm. Sorry, I feel like that means that he's sent in a few questions and we haven't answered them. But a fan from Poland here, really love your pod, both for really insightful and helpful tips as well as the down-to-earth normal human attitude. I'm an injured trail-slash ultra-runner turned XC rider just about finished my rehab and coming back to running. I was wondering

if you Paula could share some insights on your journey back to running and how much more biking during the rehab translated into hopefully quick comeback to running. Did you experience any potential benefits from the extra riding? Was a comeback tough? Is you're running now better or worse than before? So this is something I've wondered too. Obviously you were biking more than you would have because you couldn't run as much.

So you might as well bike more. And your bike got a lot stronger from that. But is there anything that maybe surprised you? It's like, wow. And actually then my run aspects of my run got better or my bike got so much stronger than my overall times are actually faster or anything like that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the most dangerous part of supplementing running with cycling when you're injured is you still stay super fit and especially if you're also swimming. So when you do have this return to run program that's like one minute run, five minute walk, one minute run, or whatever it is, you don't feel aerobically taxed by it. So your legs are what you're building up the strength for, not your aerobic system. So you really have to be careful if you're, if you are supplementing more riding, because naturally you will. I always do. Probably like

I don't know, 30% more riding than I would normally do. But, yeah, the danger of that is then when I start running again, I feel totally fine. Injury aside, you know, if the injury is healed, I'm like, oh, I feel like I could run an hour. But my legs can't tolerate an hour or whatever the injury is should not be running an hour. So the slow buildback is important, or doing like a really diligent walk run program, aqua jogging, anything like that that can get the muscle pattern back without the low. is going to be super helpful. But I think, like, I've said this on the pod before, my biggest gains in cycling came

because I've been injured in running so much and could really go into bike sessions, not necessarily biking more, but go into them fresher and get more out of myself. So if I was doing a hard ride, I didn't have a run session or fatigue from running at all, so I could really push a lot more watts and that just made me faster. Yeah, so basically what we're getting here is the only, benefit to your running has been aerobic, maybe. Yeah, I mean, you're not getting, like, the muscle recruitment pattern necessarily on the bike that you do running.

It's a completely different motion. Yeah. But half of running, the challenge of running is aerobic, you know? It's like, it feels hard. Yeah. Until you get, I mean, doing super long stuff, like marathons or whatever it is, then you get the muscular breakdown. But if you can keep fit, the comeback is not that hard.

Yeah. And that's how I felt anyway. It's funny because the way you're talking about coming. back to running and not using your aerobic fatigue as a metric for you to base off how much you can run. I feel like this is constantly what I try to explain to people who are new to running, especially if they were athletes in another sport, they just think they're going to go, go, and then they just wreck themselves, right?

Because it's not really about that. That's really interesting to hear you say that. It must be really difficult for a professional who is used to being able to push, push, push, and you're running. You're like, you feel like you're barely working hard, but you're just trying to build up this one little bottleneck in your system, right? Like the ankle or the knee or whatever it is. Yeah.

And I think it's especially dangerous if you have a type of injury if you're able to still bike and swim because you're staying fit, you're staying lean, you're staying whatever. But if you have to stop everything altogether, like for example, Lucy Charles, she couldn't train for four or five months in anything. So she definitely lost probably some aerobic fitness and therefore her run back, comeback might be more naturally gradual and it's easier for her to take it easy at first and build back in an appropriate way because she hasn't been doing the cycling and swimming to supplement that. So just as an example, you know, if you have a stress fracture where you can't exercise at all and you're in your bed, then everything's going to be slow. Speaking of which, Lucy, apparently, she's, as of today, she's back.

I saw, I was watching her YouTube for a second. She's running again. Yeah, she's running. Yeah. Which is great. I mean, honestly, everyone else just has to catch up to her, had to catch up. So this is, it's only fair. She was so far ahead, I feel like.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. She'll come back fast. And then Eric, this same person, Mike, really got hooked on mountain bike riding, but currently own a hardtail or bea. I love it. The thing is, everyone around me keeps telling me how much more efficient I would be on a full suspension bike. I'm not into trail slash downcountry too much.

I think downcountry might mean downhill. No, downcountry is a thing. Oh, never heard of it. I treat my bike as kind of a more balanced training tool. How much would you say my efficiency would go up? Is it worth the cost and maintenance hassle? Hope it's not too many questions, but really desperate to hear from someone as talented and experience as you are.

Keep on rocking both the pod and the races. Cheers, guys, Mike. It really depends on the terrain. Like here in Bend, actually, probably your most efficient bike choice could be a hardtail because we just don't have, it's not very rudy. but if you're in a place that's super rudy, then riding a full suspension

might allow you to pedal over more things when you just have to like coast essentially on a hardtail and you'll have more ground contact time if that suspension working. I wouldn't necessarily just take everything that everybody says as like, you know, everybody knows. And for sure, like anybody that I talk to, like I ride around on like a 100 millimeter travel

cross-country race bike and everybody's like oh my gosh you know like that's just a tiny bike that's so dumb if you don't have at least 120 millimeters travel you're just like missing out but like i've got some of the i've got some very very competitive times on downhill segments around here on strava so um i wouldn't i don't know if you if you feel like you're having a good time and you're going as fast as you want to go and you're not like constantly annoyed by feeling like the bumps or ruining your experience then i wouldn't just sweat it. Don't you think a full suspension bike is just kind of like it's a little more fun. I feel like hard tails are exclusively for people who are so incredibly serious about like every

intraperformance, especially like fast, like smooth uphill stuff. And it feels like full suspension just gives you a little more wiggle room, is a little more fun, lets you kind of have not focus as much. I don't know. Do you not agree with that? Depends on what you're into. If you enjoy, Like I wrote a hardtail forever and it is like a whole different type of experience. You don't have to go as fast. It's much more technical. It's more like bouldering than just like scrambling up a, you know, a hill. It's like it's a little bit more of a thing.

So if you like the kind of the intellectual nature, like working a little bit harder to go down something, then I think it's fun. Speaking of down. What's down country? Down country is just like a bigger bike, like 120 millimeter travel. bike that has more of a racing geometry to it. It's a combination of downhill and cross country. Okay. So like this specialized epic

Evo is the 120 milometer travel version of my 100 millimeter pure cross country race bike. But still less travel than like a trail bike. Exactly. Yeah. Got it. It's kind of a combination of travel and geometry. Got it. Cool.

Well, hopefully that answered your questions. Mike. Next question is from Rubin. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Firstly, I just want to say that I really enjoy your podcast and everything you do for the sport of triathlon. I did my first sprint this weekend, and I can say that the podcast and videos were a huge factor in keeping me motivated in training. Love to hear that. Two questions. I have been having some issue riding my bike and shifting at the appropriate times. I feel like I shift too early or too late, and I end up doing extra work for no additional gain, or really, just not getting the most out of myself for my bike.

Do you have any recommendations for when the proper shift should occur? I would ideally not shift while standing out of the saddle at full power. That's one thing. Yeah, shift before you get into a corner, like in anticipation of what you're going to need to do out of the corner. Or same thing on a hill, like, I don't know, shift kind of while you're getting closer to it, not when you're in the middle of it. I don't know. Yeah, and just inevitably, even if you have like, mechanic, electronic shift. that can shift under pretty high load,

you're going to have to back off just a fraction of power while you shift. I think that's important to say, though, because Rubin might not know that. And maybe that's part of the problem is you have to back off the power a little bit when you're shifting, even for like a quarter of a second. Right, right. Very slight. The thing about shifting on a bike,

it's a little bit like Nick playing the piano. It's like a feel thing. You don't think about it. When you ride more, it gets more natural. It's like practice, you know? So do you ever think about when you shift? Or like the tension that you have to take off before you shift? No, I don't think about it.

But I can remember a time when like back in the mechanical days having a bike that had not as good of a derailer. Yeah. Like down to shifting. Right. Back in the day of like. When you have to take your hands off the bars to make a shift. Yeah. Or even like even non-E tap on a T-T bike.

Oh, yeah. Because then you're like doing it on the front on the horn things. Yeah. So it's just just play around with it. On the horn things, you know, those horn things. The horny stinks. The hornies. Wow.

Wow. Well, I would also say that, I mean, I remember when I was riding up a man of a canyon here with Queen of Reels, our friend, Jen. And she like, Queen of Reels works at Instagram. I came up with this name. Yes, that's right. She was trying to talk me through how she was going to do her shifting. And basically she thought of it in a way that has nothing to do with how we actually shift.

She was saying that she's like, okay, so I'm in the small ring, and I'm going to start in the fourth to easiest cassette in the back. And then once I'm 25% into the ride, I'm going to switch to an easier one. And then 25% more into an easier one. That way she can segment it and not make. I was like, what are you talking about? She's like making an interval workout out of shifting. Yeah, but she wasn't trying to make a workout.

She was trying to just get to the top. I'm like, Jen, just use it. Do whatever is easy. Like, you just want to get to the top. She couldn't comprehend this idea that you could like shift back and forth. She like didn't want to use up her shifts. Right. It's like you get unlimited shifts.

Unlimited shifts, guys. As many as you want. That's our, my gift to you is you can shift. As many shifts as you want. No, it's funny. With the SRAM red app, you can see how many shifts you do in a ride. And sometimes it's like a thousand shifts or something crazy, especially on a hilly course. You could actually, like, we could go to St. George and we could like ride the a world's course at tempo pace or something with a one by and a two by and like make a decision or just like two different cassettes and then look at actual data afterwards.

Wow, that's interesting. With the 1033, you shifted 400 times. and with the 1027, you shifted 50 times. So, you know, that's kind of cool. We've never done that, but that is something you could do. One could. The idea with shifting is that you should be roughly keeping the same cadence. So the rate at which your legs are spinning should be roughly the same.

It's probably going to slow down a little bit when you're going uphill. Probably going to speed up a little bit when you're going downhill. But roughly your cadence should say kind of similar. And that's what the shifting is there for. I feel like that's the main point. And like Eric and Paul has said, said, like, you kind of want to predict a little bit what gear you're going to be in, so you're not putting a ton of pressure on the pedals at a slow cadence,

and then you figure out you have to shift to an easier gear. But what Paula said, I think, is the most important thing. The more you ride, the more you just don't even think about it. You're just constantly trying to adapt your like speed. And then the second question here, I have watched a lot of triathlon videos, and every once in a while, an old one from the 90s comes up. What was with the crop tops back then? Would Eric or Nick even consider bringing those back?

I'm interested to hear your opinion on that era. Anyways, thanks for the positive energy you bring to YouTube triathlon, and I look forward to seeing you all continue to find success in the sport and YouTube slash content creation, best Ruben. So do you know what he's talking about, Eric? Have you seen some of these old videos? I'm all about it. All about it.

Man, that mid-belly, that mid-drift cooling. What is that? You know what? We would not have any more heat stroke problems if R.O. Are it cooling? Is that the issue? I don't know honestly what the logic was behind it, but I think it was just like... I'm wearing a speedo in the swim and I need to put a top on.

Exactly. Extra small tank top, even though I'm six foot four. This was just a natural progression. I was like, hey, it's hot out. What is the smallest piece of clothing that I can wear? I guess that's true. Totally. This is before tech, like, super techie fabrics that, you know, like could block UV and, like,

black fabrics that were actually cool and not just hot. But anyway, it's, it's sick. I'm into it. Let's get some. I just had an idea. April Fool's, we should make like a very small run of actual crop top tank tops with some cool kind of logo on them. All right. We'll do it. I'll talk to Castelli. Talk to the designers. Yeah, Dr. Castelli. They're like, you want what? No, I am serious. Yeah, great. Okay. Thanks for that question, Rubin, and for the comedy. Next one is from Hannah. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn, in no particular order. Hello from Norwich, England. Thank you so much for all the amazing

content. You all seem like such lovely people. We really are. The pod is absolute favorite, and I always save it as a treat to listen to on my long run to help with motivation. I look forward to it all week. I know exactly what she's talking about. I know that feeling. My question has to do with cadence on the bike. Well, Hannah, crush it. Keep going. Yeah. Keep going. You got this. You got this. She's freaking out right now. My question has to do with cadence on the bike. How appropriate. do you all have certain cadences that you try to aim for on the bike? Or is it something you don't even look at? Should there be different cadences for different length of races,

i.e. maybe higher cadence for longer races. Also, this is probably a very stupid question, but do you think it's okay to be in the small ring on the bike for most of the ride? I find I feel more comfortable there, but have been told the larger ring is more versatile, but I'm not sure what to do for the best. With the context, I usually do 70.3s and I'm a middle of the packer, but I'm doing my first full-distance Iron Man in two weeks in Finland.

Eek! Thanks so much, Hannah Stanley. That sounds awesome. That's going to be epic. The Finland Iron Man apparently is super epic. I want to do that. That sounds great. I mean, this is like kind of a perfect thing off the back of our extremely lengthy shifting

conversation. Like, be where you're happy. If you find, like, you're using more gears in the small ring, that's fine. If you feel like you're pushing the appropriate effort level for whatever it is you're doing. So there's like two different, there's a lot of different types of sizes of chain rings even. We've talked about that a little bit before. There's like a compact crank set that has smaller chain rings and a standard crank system that has, you know, bigger chain ring. So it's really just about finding where you use the most things and ideally have to do the fewest amount of shifts between the smaller ring and the big ring.

Yeah. And then what we're, oh, RPMs. RPMs, yeah. You want to take the RPMs question? Yeah, I don't pay attention to it really. When I race, I tend to do between around 85, I think, is usually my average cadence near the end of it. I just looked at my cadence average in Edmonton was 82. But there was a lot of hills.

That's with the zeros or without the zeros? It's with the zeros, yeah. Okay. Of which there were lots in that course. Of course. So I don't know. That's just take that with zero. Oh, it's with zeros.

That's interesting. I think it's zeros. I feel like that 82 to 85 would be without zeros is what I would assume. So with zeros, that means you'd be really pedaling fast. I would say just based on riding with you. Okay, well, one of the hard workouts I did recently, 85 average. So I would say I fit into the 85. And that's perfect.

Like, that's kind of what most people should be shooting for around something like that. Yeah. And I did a little bit of research on this. And apparently running off the bike and just doing a pure time trial on the bike, you'll find different cadence levels. Apparently, if you're doing a pure time trial, the cadence is higher. And if you're going to try to run off the bike,

people try to kind of match the cadence they're going to run at. Do you ever think about that, Eric, or not really? I think just, I don't know. I kind of am curious if that's just a correlation more between cyclists versus long-distance time trialists. Like if you're doing an Iron Man, typically the cadence is going to be lower. There's some research about just total muscle contractions

and glycogen conservation. But I would say that the longer the distance you're going, probably the lower your cadence is going to be versus the opposite. And then the reason that in like an ITU race or like the Tour de France or running a higher cadence is because that gives you a lot more ability to respond to a surge. If you're riding 50 RPM and somebody attacks, you cannot, you can't cover that. Yeah. So you've got to ride around more like 90 plus to be ready for accelerations.

That's really interesting. Yeah. And then also just like, Like with running off the bike in a shorter race like ITU, you're going to be running a lot faster cadence than someone who's doing an Ironman ride. Yeah. So to like wake up your legs almost, it's like keep it at 90 and then you're running off the bike at a high cadence. Like everything's just a little bit snappier and faster than ITU.

But maybe without as much torque. Exactly. The other theory there is that there's less torque, which is like theoretically damaging muscle more. Yeah. The, my cadence for my TT Canadian National Championships, was 85. 45 minute max effort That's just the thing We don't shoot for it at all

But it's always the same Everybody's body Everybody's body It typically finds a place That it likes and is efficient Well I just like to point out That you two are very high level professionals And so things might come naturally to you

That do not come naturally for everybody else But I do think cadence does kind of You do I don't think I think having too low of a cadence is usually something that can lead to problems It can lead to even like knee problems, right? Because you're putting more strain per stroke.

So higher is generally better until you like are spinning too fast. And then you're just wasting energy. Should we just say don't go below 70? Yeah, don't go below 70. Unless you're doing big gear efforts. Gross. Last thing I'll say on this. Last thing I'll say is like I don't look at cadence really or pay too much attention to it.

But I do have it as one of the metrics on my screen. Oh, that you glance at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's like I think when I worked with Neatens really. Henderson for cycling. We did so many cadence drills. Like 30 seconds max cadence, you try to get above

120, like just the neuromuscular response and things like that. And I think it makes you a lot more of an efficient peddler if you do have that ability to touch really, really high RPM. Like insane speed, zero resistance, trying to get as high as you can. It's like a track cycling mentality almost, but it really evens out your pedal stroke when you drop back down to like the 8590 range. he was like an amazing cycling coach still is and I learned a lot from him so it's a cool thing to pay attention to that's the same philosophy that I grew up on as well

yeah yeah yeah one last thing I wanted to say for Hannah is I just maybe Eric you wanted to quickly warn her about cross-chaining because she said she's spending most of her time in her small ring yeah so if you find yourself if you're in your smallest your small ring in the front and then you're in your

smallest gear in the back so like the hardest that you can go while in the small ring, that's really not, that's, your bike's not happy. That's putting a lot of tension on the chain that's going to wear out the chain and the cogs and everything faster.

So typically you don't want to be in your small ring and like your three fastest or your three smallest cogs in the back. Because it's cross chain. Yeah. It's bad for the chain. It's also slower, right? Like if you're giving up some resistance there.

So it's okay to live in the small ring if that's the speed you're, going at. But if you're going fast and you're, like Eric said, you're using one of the three smallest cogs in the back, it's not the best. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Cool. Cool. Next question is from anonymous, please. So we're going to keep this person anonymous. Hey, P-F-E-N. Question for you guys as pros. So I guess that's just for you too. Have you ever felt you were burnt out and how did you do you deal with it? I suppose you can't just stop your training or end your season, do you just push through and wait until the off season to fully

regroup? I imagine there are no official supports for this type of thing offered by Ironman or PTO to help you guys through hard times. No, there's not a hard time help you out. I've never had such a deep burnout that my season has been over. I feel like it's something you can kind of fix in like a week or two, but that could be different for someone who has true like adrenal burnout or like some kind of bigger. Oh, like the hormonal, like full. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're feeling so wrecked that you just like can't imagine doing anything for several days or, you know, a week, then. Or longer. Yeah. Or longer. Yeah. Just if it's more than just like a couple of days of a while, I just don't want to do this. It would probably be worth looking into getting a blood test and making sure there isn't like something underlying issue.

But, I mean, I've been in this position a little bit before back when I was doing ITU. and we've touched on this, but Paula had a great ITU arise to where she got on funding quickly and was, you know, top in Canada and the world. But for me, it was more of a grind and kind of getting jerked around and trying to qualify for races. And I had a couple times where I just had to, like, I'm leaving the training camp. I lived in San Diego with all my teammates and I just, I have to go home. And I, like, bought a plane ticket for the next day because I just felt like I need to go home, hug my mom, recharge a bit. And like a week of that and just kind of stepping away. and go for a bike ride every day, but just relax and usually come back around and you want to train again.

Yeah, I think a lot of that also comes from mental burnout. It's not even necessarily physical, although when you're in those training environments, the physical load is insane and you're just like racing your teammates every day. But I think at least for Eric and I, within a week or two of really relaxing, really chilling, even mid-season, like it's important to take a rest in the middle of the season, and we'll really re-energize you, I think, and you can come back to the other end feeling good. And we're lucky that our easy weeks off are truly easy,

and we don't have a job we have to go to. We don't have kids. We have to look after. So that could add another element of stress to someone who's trying to train and balance a family or real life. Yeah. So you might need longer than a week. But I think it's just really important to be in tune with your body

and listen to what you need, you know? Yeah. I also wanted to add one complete, opposite perspective, which is that the only time I've ever really felt like I had like, I have no interest in training or I feel like I'm like allergic to it almost is when I have just taken like two or three weeks off. It's the getting back into it. There's something about like I haven't reestablished that pattern yet. And all of a sudden I see triathlon in a different way, which is like this huge time suck of thing that takes up a huge portion of my life and like

cognitive load that, you know, it's like, wait, why am I doing this? And like, I have to trick myself to get back into it. And then a few days in, then I'm back. But I don't know if anyone else has this before. I guess I just want to tell them they're not alone. And then it's totally, it totally goes away for me. Not even we have that too. Yeah, I agree with you. Nick. I mean, it's less for us maybe because we're doing it as a job. But I could totally understand that. You're just like, this is, it's really nice to have time. Off break. Yeah. Yeah. Wait a second.

I don't have to spend my whole weekend doing this thing that I'm tired from doing. Yeah, exactly. Good question, though. Thank you. Great, great question. Next question is from Everett. And actually, we have quite a few more, and we've been talking for a while. So let's try to go through these kind of quickly.

This one, I think, is mostly for Paula. Greetings, I'll have the questions for Paula. My partner got me a mogo board. After seeing Paula use one on the vlog, I've just started using it, and wondered if you had any tips on how to best incorporate it in regular strength and mobility regimen. I am not rehabbing at the moment anyway, and so this is simply preventative. I'm training for some trail running this fall and plan on doing my first Xtera next summer, and so hope to build up core and stabilize your muscles. How often would you recommend doing

mobile exercises? Are they the best before or after a run? Thanks again, Everett. And maybe if you want to start Paula, by explaining kind of try to explain what this thing is. Yeah, I'll go through this one quick. The mobile board is basically like a very special balancing board. Not your typical one. It actually has the toe cut out, your big toe cut out. Or no, wait. All the other toes cut out. All the other toes cut out.

So you only have your big toe to stabilize with, and all the other toes are kind of just hanging in a hole. And the idea is that your big toe is such a driver for, like, the rest of your chain, that it's important to activate that before you do running. For me, I use it as a tool mostly before I run. Not after. I think it really helps to activate my muscles, warm up my ankles. It's really been a huge.

piece in my puzzle for getting my ankle healthy again. And the one thing I can say about the mobile board is not to overdo it. I think five minutes before a run is plenty. And you can't actually fatigue your muscles a lot if you're using it too much. But you don't strictly have to use it before running. I think it's a great tool to use in the gym or doing it as part of your strength routine. It's hard to like explain exercises over a podcast. But a lot of single like stuff with like maybe a dumbbell or some like, you know, deadlift type of things while you're balancing on it. You can basically take any exercise you do on the ground on a single foot and put it on the mobile board and you're just using different muscles. So Jay Dakari made it. He's a physio and bend. He's amazing. And if you don't have one or don't know what this is, I would recommend looking it up.

And a lot of people come back and say, it's just a balance board, but it's not. It's completely different. It's not. Once you see it and you use it, you can tell it's not. The cutout. it's very important. Yeah. Yeah. And it's mobile, M-O-B-O, by the way. Yeah. Great.

Yeah, go get one. Cool. Thanks for that, Paula. Next question is from Matt, and we kind of already answered this in one of the previous questions here today. But I wanted to take a second to talk about it because I think it's kind of an interesting topic,

especially in the aura of conversations that's happening even outside of triathlon. This is from Matt. Hi, all, been hanging on the pod since Numero Uno. Does the PTO have in? access to mental health services, etc., for current or past athletes slash employees. Post-triathlon, there must be a sum of major life changes that may be unwanted, unwelcome, and unknown that present major challenges for some people.

It seems for me, and I'd assume many, exercise helps with mental stress, but may also create some. Just wondering, as competing at your level for years has a con also. Cheers for all the love and support, Matt. P.S. Got to add stay in your lane, Nick. Appreciate it that. Thank you, Matt. Yeah, but I mean, not just for that.

Doesn't it make sense that the PTO would have some kind of like therapist or something? Do you want to answer this? I was just going to say that I'll let Paula talk about it because she's actually on the PTO board, but USA Triathlon does have a program like this in place for IQ athletes that are trying to figure out what you do next. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, Paul, what do you know about this? Actually, not Triathlon Canada. I think there's like a organization just for Canadian athletes in general that help with transition.

Athletes can or something like that. The PTO is basically a relatively new organization, and we've created these committees. So there's like the Anti-Doping Committee, the Mental Health Committee, things like that. And they are works in progress, and all of these things have been brought to the table and brought up as ideas that are really important. But they're kind of being executed one by one. like the anti-doping is kind of up and running now and things that will be implemented and are very important, but

all take work and just time to build within an organization. But there's, like Eric said, help out there. And I think a big piece of this as well is just reaching out to other athletes and the PTO is really good with that, like kind of creating this sense of community or being able to reach out to your peers

for advice and other athletes that have been through retirement or had rough times. or even maternity. If you've had a baby, you reach out to someone else who's had a baby and done a comeback. So that's what the PTO is really, really good at right now, I think. Yeah. I think the relationships that we have with other pro athletes, you know, we can ask Simon Whitfield what, you know, it was like for him.

And that's as powerful as anything. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I thought of it for the first time how much I feel like a pro athlete probably would benefit from some kind of therapy, more so than most other groups. Just like you have these extreme highs and lows, a lot of expectations,

a lot is based on things that you can't control. It feels like a primed scenario for very, to have a very mentally challenging time. And a lot of pro-trauthes do work with sports psychologists. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not unusual. And I guess the thing is we, us amateurs,

we're obviously not pros, but sometimes we, in our heads somewhere hidden in there, we think we're kind of like a low-level pro, so we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. So if you're thinking like you might need some help even as an amateur, that's totally fine, right? Like it's still probably a lot of benefit to be had there. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't be embarrassed to try to talk to someone about something, even if you're not a professional athlete. No, I'm a huge proponent for that. It's just like going to see the doctor. I think everybody in this world could benefit from having someone to talk to who knows the right thing

to say and has zero judgment. So whether it's sports or not. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you for that question, Matt. Next question from Rachel. Saided to ignore any naming order. First, I would like to say thank you for everything you guys do for TTL Nash, N-A-Y-S-H, sorry Eric, she says. I really enjoy the community you've built and look forward to watching on Sundays and listening during my long rides. Both are little treats each week for me. Appreciate you all. Two questions for the pod, one for all, and one for Nick. First one is I'm training for my first 70.3, hoping to complete

Boulder on August 6th, which is coming up this weekend. I'm born and raised, Oakey, oh my God, from Oklahoma. Wanted to get your advice on what to do for elevation and altitude training if you live in a place that lacks elevation. I know you guys all

live at altitude, actually I do not, so it might be difficult to answer, but appreciate any help. I've been suffering in the heat for my training since I've heard that heat training is a poor man's altitude training. But curious to know if you have any further suggestions. To help bring some context to this question, Tulsa, Oklahoma is at an elevation of 722 feet, while Boulder, Colorado is at 5,318.

What a difference. Well, since you're going to be listening to this podcast on Thursday and you're racing two days, I would say the only advice we can give you is to not go out too hard. Pace is conservatively. Readjust your expectations of watts and pace, especially in Boulder. It's such a hard race if you don't live there. We've experienced that. And not to say it's undoable.

I love the race. I think it's a really cool course. But go out on the bike, 20 watts lower than you'd normally go out. Yeah, I agree. And like for the rest of the year, I mean, you're really your only option would be to like have an altitude tent unless you're going to go to elevation ahead of this race for like three plus weeks. Ordish like, I mean, getting fitter also helps.

Yeah, that's true. The biggest thing is just being fitness. That'll apply to any altitude. Yeah. And Rachel, just so, tell me if I'm wrong, Eric and Paula, but blowing up at sea level versus blowing up at altitude, you do not recover at the same speed. Like, blowing up at altitude is now, it's much, it takes much longer for you to get back to a point where you're feeling okay. Yeah, that's why I'm saying to go out conservatively. Just don't do it.

It's not just go out conservatively because you will not be able to hold as many watts. It's also because if you do screw up and go a little too hard, it's even more punished than if you're, at sea level. Yeah. I think also like getting enough carbohydrate and maybe I'm making this up, but maybe eating a little more than you normally would. And definitely drinking more. I think elevation has dehydrates you.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think boulder's pretty dry as well. So overall it's a miserable race, but hope you have fun. Yeah, right. Well, we have friends racing there. Matt Sharp is racing there and Holly is lacing there, right? Yeah, Holly's racing, yeah. Yeah, Holly is racing.

so hopefully they do well. And they're coming from C. Oh no, I guess Matt lives there. Anyway. Yeah, Matt lives there. Matt lives there. Have fun. And the second question was, this is for Nick. I know you're currently training for your first full Iron Man.

When you complete the first full and if you enjoy it enough to do another, would you ever consider doing Iron Man Tulsa? Go back to your family's roots slash Talbot could film it maybe. No, it's so crazy. I'm having such a deja vu. I swear we answered this question. We read this before the podcast last week. we just never actually said it on the show.

I'm having such a deja vu. Yeah. We never actually answered this one. But Tulsa was my number one pick for a full Iron Man. That's what I wanted to do, and I thought it would be really cool to do in Oklahoma since my dad is from Oklahoma. But my dad didn't seem that excited about it.

And he said it was going to be too hot. And the course apparently is, it's fine. It's not, I kind of like the epic nature of Wisconsin. It's a little more hilly and has a little more of the nature that I kind of like. If you're going to be doing an activity for like 10 hours, it should be better than fine. Right. Right.

Exactly. That was the answer you gave in my deja vu experience. I was because the answer I told you. Yeah. Why did we talk about this question on the pod? Well, there's a bunch. We also talked about the person who wrote in an Italian and then I already gave my race recap, so I'm not going to read it on the pod now.

I'm going crazy. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. We're almost there, Paul. We're almost there. But thank you for that question. Rachel Wilson. Next one here, hello Eric, Paula, and Nick, the order you're listed on the podcast description on Spotify.

Flynn isn't in the description, sad. Several months ago, I began adding more resistance slash strength training. I have heard that there is a great benefit for triathletes, but also heard there is a risk for over-training. I'm currently lifting twice a week. I'm wondering what you do as far as frequency, intensity, types of workouts, etc. Curious to hear Nick's routine also as a fellow age grouper. Congrats on the impressive season so far and continued success in the future. Another Nick.

We've definitely talked about this. Yeah, we have. I don't think you're at risk of overtraining with strength training. I think it will only help you. What we've said is that like if you have 10 hours a week to train, you should probably use all of those for triathlon specific swimming, biking, and running. That's a very polo answer. Who's our coach?

Yeah, but if you have extra time and the ability to get to the gym and all that, then yeah, it will help. I'll say one thing real quick, which we've also said, I think, is as you get a little bit older, I think strength training might have a bigger importance. Yeah, true. With injury prevention. Lindsay lifts heavy twice a week right now as she's getting ready for Ironman Montrein-Bla. And as she gets closer to Kona, she kind of tapers down the intensity of it. But she finds that lifting heavy right now really helps for the durability of running an Ironman.

And just staying healthy. So Nick, do you do strength training? I don't even know. So I used to do it. Before I was in triathlon, I was lifting weights. That was like my main form of exercise. Yeah. And I feel like I have some of the residual benefits from that still now.

Like I don't get very skinny the way that some triathletes do. We can think of another reason. You're right? No, no, no, I eat flawlessly. Anyone who's seen me eat sugar treats, it's actually Photoshop. I don't get very easy. But I guess I don't lose. I don't lose a lot of muscle mass.

Yeah, we know what you're saying, yeah. Yeah. I still got plenty of meat around the waist here that's not doing me much help. But yeah, I still do some strength training like once a week, but like pretty light weight. I don't, I'm not lifting heavy the way I used to before to triathlon. And then I do think the like trail running and occasional mountain biking kind of helps with some of those muscles that aren't directly in use during a race. Totally agree. You can get like, what do you call it?

Like sport-specific strength by doing things like trail running uphill and paddles in the pool, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And then this is the last question. It's kind of a big one. I just think it's really interesting and I'm curious to hear what you will say. This is from Brian. Hey, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn.

Congrats up Paul in the Great Race in Edmonton. As one of the top swimmers in the age group field, I often come out of the water ahead of several female pros. Although the pros I pass I know Brian Oh there you go Although the pros I pass in the water Are often not in the contention For the race win or even a podium

I'm still caught amongst the pro field nonetheless Sometimes they catch me on the bike As do other amateurs Whenever anyone passes me on the bike I may try to ride with them a while Staying the legal distance behind them That's racing right In my last race

One female pro in particular Came by me on the bike at a pace that closely matched my planned race power. While I promised I stayed the full legal distance back, there was plenty of officials on course, so I was very aware. I ended up riding with her for nearly an hour and had to burn a few matches to do so,

but the benefit of a small draft seemed well worth the risk. While I rode with her, she was noticeably agitated that I was in her draft and kept looking back and veering to the middle of the road to seemingly shake me. I even shouted at her at one point, telling her I'd come around and pull, but I was already at my limit.

Eventually she dropped me on a climb when I was doing well over 300 watts, only to ride 100 meters in front of me for the rest of the bike leg. I passed her a few minutes in the run and apologized for sitting on her wheel, but assured her I was the legal distance back at all times and that I wanted to help pull but wasn't able to.

She accepted and thanked me for saying something. Was I in the wrong? Should amateurs treat the pros differently than other racers in similar situations, or was she just being grumpy? From what I know about aerodynamics, it was technically faster for her to let me ride with her.

Thank you for all you do. No, that's not true. If someone's right, right, right behind you, there is a very small benefit, but if someone is 12 meters behind you, I cannot imagine there's a discernible benefit there. Yeah, but I don't think... Paula's going to take this because she's the female pro,

but this lady was being grumpy. I agree. Really? She can relax. I'm so surprised. Okay, no, no. If Brian, here is like continually repassing her and then blowing up and getting and impeding just like her

flow that's that is one thing but sitting at the legal distance behind this person was just frustrated that she was not strong enough to drop this guy that's and just to be clear brian is like an Olympic trials swimmer he's like as fast as eric is swimming so he gets out of the water he like catches the pro women you know right so i can imagine he's going to run into this problem at most races and he's a super fast age group male. So he like wins his age group. So he's not a weak cyclist either. So I think that he was completely in the right if he wasn't drafting. And I think if this happened to me and as long, the only way I ever get annoyed, as Eric just said, is if you pass a guy and they get annoyed and they try to pass you back right away and then they slow down and then you have to pass them back again.

And that interrupts the flow of the women's race. But if you're at a legal distance, and I don't think there's any obligation for you to have to come around and take a pull for her, whatever it is. It's better if you don't. It's almost better if you don't because the women are racing for money and whatever that is benefiting her then, which could help her bridge up to someone

in front of her. Yeah, that gets messy. But what you were doing is totally fine. So my question, the thing that my brain went to right away with this, wasn't so much how it was impacting the girl in front of him, but how it was impacting pros coming from behind who now have to pass

two people who now he's affecting he's effectively like affecting how women could like slot in or get penalties for slotting in and I do feel like it's interfering with the women's pro race or is that just the way it goes though I mean yeah that's how it goes and that passing two people that are 12 meters apart is not that big of you if you're truly better than those than that person it shouldn't be that big of a deal I've never run into an issue where I like can't get around it's you think it would be an issue until you are actually in the event and it's It's one thing if there are seven people in the line, and if it's two people, if you can't make that pass, you shouldn't be making up there.

But sure, but I mean, this is just a slippery slope, though, because it could be three people, right? And it could be four people. I don't know. Yes, this is the stuff that you think of in your brain when you're sitting at the pro meeting. You're like, what if there are 50 of us? But it doesn't happen. It's really not an issue. And the other thing is, like, there, I think that what people say,

in general, even between pro men and pro women, is just stay in your own race. Like, don't interfere with the other gender's race or the other categories race. And Brian is in his own right racing his race. And those are his numbers. And he's, like, pretty close to the same speed as this female pro. So that I think is totally fine unless, like you said, Nick, you're in the case where you're like pro female, pro female, age group male, pro female, and you're in like a train. Maybe that's a bit ridiculous.

You should drop back or pass them all. But if it's just one person, it's not a problem. And even the fact that you apologize, I think it was probably not necessary, but nice of you. I also like that he apologizes as he's running past her. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He beats them anyway. Oh, ouch. Okay, and then he says, one more thing.

He says, P.S. Nick, as a podcaster myself, I'm curious what software you used to record the TTL pod. The audio is super clean and sounds like you're all in the same room, even though you're not, allowing you to naturally interject on occasion without the selecting muting that seemed to happen with many common video call services. Is that just Grammy winning editing quality I'm hearing, or do you have a recommendation on which software slash services to use things? We can text Brian this separately because we don't want to disclose this. Oh, there's nothing to disclose. I was going to say we should save it for another podcast because I think it's kind of, it could be interesting for some people. But the short answer is,

yes, I do edit it, and that's why it seems tighter than it is and that we're all in the same room. So it takes time, unfortunately. That's the, that's the sad secret. What's the ratio of, just throughout the ratio, and then we'll be done. Well, it used to be like for every minute we would be recording. I would have to spend like four minutes editing. So like four times the amount. But now I'm down to- to-add-hour podcast. Yeah, yeah. But now I'd say it's probably like for an hour recording, it takes me maybe 40 minutes to edit it,

because I've come up with some kind of cool workarounds. Maybe I'll share it another week, but it's kind of a cool, a cool little system I've come up with. Yeah, maybe we'll do an editing podcast where we'll talk a little bit about video editing too. Yeah, cool. Audio editing.

It's not like other triathlon podcasts are actually going to implement this. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. But that's a great compliment. Thanks, Brian. Yeah, yeah, thank you for that.

That's really nice. And I have to say, just in general, TTLNH is extremely nice to me. me. I realize that I'm not a professional. I'm kind of just like this random age grouper, but everyone is very, very nice to me. Everyone I've ever interacted with. So I appreciate that. We appreciate it too, because we don't do a lot for Nick. So you guys make him feel so special. Of course you do. I stole your straw. That's true. You did.

Okay, well, that's all the questions I had. You guys have any final thoughts? No, I loved all those questions. It's just 9 p.m. It was like to keep going. Yeah. Thank you so much, everyone, for sending stuff in. And what's happening this weekend? Eric's Racing Extera Portland. So we'll come back out with a little recap after that. And talk to you guys next week. Oh, can't wait. Wonderful.

Thanks, guys. Bye, bye. Bye.