That Triathlon Life Podcast - Eric and Nick's multi-sport film release, Paula's new bike, double run days, and more!

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

This week we kick things off with the release of Eric and Nick’s film, Look For Things Where You Can Find Them, which will be available to watch on YouTube this Sunday. Watch it here We also share updates on the Oceanside gear pre-order, the poster pre-order, and the new Tailwind High Carb Fuel—then dive right into your listener-submitted questions. This week we discussed:When to put race tires on your race bikeWhen to sit up out of aero during a raceCrewing tips for ultras and gravel races"Seasons" in triathlon and how to think of themRacing a race you don’t want to raceSplitting a long run into a double runHalloween costume ideas for the Javelina 100Paula’s new TT bike paint job and the story behind itOur favorite restaurant or mid-ride snackWhy swim rest intervals are so shortA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcastFilm PostersTTL x Tailwind High Carb Fuel 

Hello, everybody. Welcome to that trathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. We are back. Paul and I are back in Bend, Oregon. We just got back from 7.3 Oceanside. It was a fantastic, terrific, incredible week all around for the squad here. But we are, wow. It feels good to be sitting on my little makeshift chair with my own microphone. Last week, Paula, Nick and I all, like, huddled around next to microphone and is recording. studio and did this podcast, which is... Last week, practically yesterday. It was two days ago, yeah. Yeah, I guess... Wow. Well, I mean, that is... All we do is record podcasts, apparently. Yeah. That's what driving the I-5 from L.A.

all the way back up to Central Oregon will do to you. It feels like a lifetime. If you're new here, Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlete, and we just really enjoy talking about trathlon, multi-sport. and kind of trying to share a little bit of our knowledge that we've gained over the years. We take the bulk of the show makes up questions that we take from listeners who write in. So thank you if you write in with questions.

We could not do this without you. We have a lot of questions this week. We have 10 questions if we get to all of them. But we also have so many exciting things to talk about before we even get to the questions. This is true. We have a lot of news. This is going to be a pretty selfish set of news because we've got to a lot of huge things going on in

the triathlon life sphere and we just, we want to tell you about all of them legitimately. Eric, you're in charge of the news. Let's hear it. Yes, try to get the little news jingle, here it comes. Yeah, so last week, Paula 170.3 Oceanside, Nick and I

debuted. Oh, yes. It was hot. What a weekend. Yeah. But before that, Nick and I screened our film look for things where you can find them in a theater in Oceanside, sold out theater.

And we got some incredible feedback. I'd actually just posted a reel. You can go check that out right now on that trath on Life Instagram with some people's hot reactions of just how excited they were. The great news is if you were not there in real life, it is going live on YouTube on the International World Wide Web this Sunday at 8 a.m. We're freaking crazy, so we're going to be having a Zwift ride at the same time.

If you choose to Zwift and film at the same time, awesome if you just want to sit on the couch and like take it all in also awesome um i can't really i feel like we've talked about a bit but i can't really express just how much nick and i have put into this we're actually doing a last round of editing we as a nick and my input uh as we speak just pot it on pause for this podcast here to make sure that is that extra little bit awesome and crispy for the youtube premiere um we have put so much much effort and money into this and then we're going to be putting it up for free on YouTube. I feel like I don't want to pat ourselves on the back too hard, but I hope that at the very

least, everyone watches it and if they like it, we'll share it or, I mean, my dream is that, and Eric, I know you share this too, but my dream is that people will come back to this to like restoke their fire for multi-sport. Yeah, really my favorite ski films, which is kind of like my biggest inspiration for when I'm sitting on the trainer, there are some that I go watch. And no matter what, frame of mind I'm in when I hit play on that video, I come away midway through or at the end feeling in a good mood and psyched up. So that is really what we were trying to accomplish with this is to,

one, pose this question that I've had in triathlon for the last few years. And two, just like leave people with this awesome energy and excitement to go take on whatever challenges they might have in their life or just ultimately, like, put a huge smile on your face. So if you're sitting there thinking, wow, Eric and Nick, you're the best. How could I ever repay you for this free YouTube video you're about to send me? Yes. I think the number one thing you can do is you can watch it. All the way through.

All the way through. If you can just send it to an outrageous number of people that you know and tell them that it's the best video I've ever seen and they should watch it and share it as well, then it'll go viral. That is the best thing you can do. Yes, for sure. Second thing you could do is we are putting up some posters. We have some leftover jumbo gigantic posters that we're going to be putting up on the internet on Wednesday, which is the day before this comes out.

So hopefully there's a couple left. And then we will be doing some posters later on. So you could buy a poster starting on Sunday. And we will have, there's a swimming one, a biking one, and a running one. They're all grabs, frame grabs from the actual film itself will go incredibly in a pain cave. We're even going to give you an option

if you want to buy them as a set for a discounted price. Getting all sorts of fancy. That's it. This was a true through and through passion project from Nick and I. We set out to send a message, say something that we felt passionate about saying. And yeah, we just really hope that everybody enjoys it and can get something out of it and appreciates it. So thanks so much in advance. The other thing that is currently live on the website, if you are paying attention,

you saw those really sweet long-sleeved shirts that we did at Oceanside. There's also a hat. Those are now available to order on that triathlonlife.com. We'll keep that order open until, I think probably early next week, but we wanted to make sure that everybody who wasn't at Oceanside got access to those because a ton of people who reached out and said, you know, rightfully so. That's the coolest T-shirt I've ever seen in my life.

I need one. And we don't want to keep anybody from the coolest T-shirt they've ever seen in their life. So that is also available right now on the website to, to go go eat your hands on and get yourself all super excited wearing that. Sweet. Sweet. Last but not least, a thing that Paul and I have been used for a long time that we are legitimately excited to share with you,

high carb fuel is now available from tailwind nutrition. Yeah, I know. I know. We did the little early access to podcast supporters. Everybody who got in on that, we got a lot of good feedback on that. But this is what Paul has been using in racing. I have been using in my 50Ks using in training. It's freaking awesome.

And it's now available for everybody to get their hands on. Basically, it tastes good and it has 90 grams of carbs per pack per packet. Yeah. So I just put one in each bottle and that's like my bike nutrition. Done. No more thinking required. The freaking cool thing that they're doing is they are going to be giving away to listeners of this podcast three separate $100 gift cards.

You don't have to do this, but if you feel so inclined and you want to get in on one of those, potentially, there's a link in the show notes to a giveaway on tailwind.com. You got to put in your email just so they can get a hold of you.

You can unsubscribe from email marketing immediately if you so choose, but they're a great company. I don't think it'll be upset. Sweet. Love it. I'm going to enter my name just in case. You never know. I'll think $100 to Tailwind. Why not?

that's a lot of food. Never enough. Well, that wasn't so bad. We kept it under 10 minutes. I think that's a reasonable, a reasonable updates and news section here. Agreed. Agreed.

And like I said, I think this is all awesome stuff. So I hope you great. Okay, so let's kick it right off with some bike tech with Eric. In Bike Tech with Eric, we have our resident expert, Eric, who used to work as a bike mechanic

and a bike shop. I feel like that's something we don't actually talk about. I worked very part-time. I would fill in on some things when the mechanics needed a little bit of help, but my primary function at the bike shop was helping people on their carbon purchase journey.

Yeah, nice. But I picked up some stuff from the mechanics, and I actually picked up a new fresh bit of information and stuff from Tony, the head mechanic at specialized. So maybe we're even going to level this up a little bit more. Oh, are you talking about the bar tape thing or just even more than that?

Oh, there are so many things. The cool thing is if you hang out with a bike mechanic who's truly passionate and you're just like in the shop while they're working on a bike, they're just going to tell you all sorts of stuff. Right, right, right. Oh, dude, check out this like $75 pair of scissors that I found that just changed my life when I cut bar tape. That is actually going on my buy now list of things. Those are so satisfying to use. Eric also builds all of their Paula and Eric's bikes. For example, Paula's brand new shiv, which everyone is raving about the paint job.

No, he didn't. Tony built it up. Oh, you're right. That is the very first bike. You're right. That's why I flew to San Francisco because Tony was building it. Is that also why you flew in Oceanside, though? Because that bike is batting a thousand right now.

Yeah, it's a really beautiful frame. It's a work of art. I do consider myself to be a pretty good mechanic, but there's like just an X-factor level with guys who deal with pro bikes and their level of seriousness and just the experience that you get from building 10 bikes a week. Yeah. So I'm always happy and always on the journey of learning a little bit more in new stuff. Yeah, cool.

Okay, well, the question here this week for Bikesek with Eric is from Bastion. Huge fan of the podcast, love listening during my long training days, doing my first triathlon in July at 70.3, Oregon, and I'm doing it on my road bike. Oregon, let's go. I ride mostly on the trainer, but as my race gets closer, I'm thinking about switching to tubeless to hopefully alleviate some stress while racing. I was wondering how close to my race should I switch to tubeless as I don't want to wear it out

before I get there. Love the content, a ton, and thank you. Bastion. I like this idea that he's going to wear out the tire before the race. What do you think? How soon before the race should you put these on there? I mean, yeah. You can definitely wear out a tire before a race.

If you're thinking this is going to be your racing tires for the year, then, yeah, I would say, save them and not ride on your racing tires until like the week of the race. Wow. Definitely. The week. The week of. Like there's no reason not to.

But like I would also say get yourself some tubeless for training. Like have the tubeless training tires and then yeah, use your, use your tubeless racing tires because there are, there's definitely a difference between fast racing tires and training tires that are less prone to flooding in terms of speed. Ideally, you have both. Yeah. I just fear for someone who has. not set up tubeless before that I would definitely give yourself

a few or more rides on the setup to make sure you're not rapidly losing air because it didn't seal well or you don't have enough sealant in there or do you think that's a non-issue? Assuming that you set them up properly and you shake the ceiling all around and there's some tricks and stuff that I'm sure it's probably available on YouTube if you search it and they aren't losing air I mean, that's that. You can accomplish that by a lot of fancy waving the wheel around

versus riding on them. And I don't think there's not a learning curve. They're not going to feel significantly different, you know, in terms of cornering and stuff. They're just going to feel better. My first tubeless racing story is that I put them on my TT bike, was my first road bike I used them on. And on the very first race, when I got back to my bike after I finished,

there was sealant all over the front of my bike. So I would have flatted using a regular intertube on that. Paul had a little bit of sealant on her seat post after Oceanside. After Oceanside, there you go. Day saved. There you go. Yep. I just like we cannot advocate enough for tubeless.

And even after consulting with Tony and Paula's new coach who is extremely knowledgeable in this department, yes, like running a latex tube with a certain tire is a little bit faster than tubeless. But if you are doing a triathlon and there's a chance of flatting, there's inclement roads of any sort whatsoever, like it is 100% worth doing tubeless, just got to do it. Nice. Love it. Okay, let's move on to our more general triathlon questions. You can submit questions to the podcast at thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. importantly, you can also become a podcast supporter there.

And since the podcast is free and we don't do ads, we give that as an option for you to support the podcast. And we also throw in some goodies every once in a while, some behind the scenes, some extras. And one of the things we do is pick a random podcast supporter and give them a little TTO goody. And this week, to kind of commemorate the release of the film, we are giving you a special little gift from Orca

it's a dry bag. It's an orca dry bag. And our random number generator here pulled Stacy Murphy. Congratulations, Stacey. And thank you so much for being a podcast supporter. Reach out with wherever you want us to send this, and you'll be getting a fancy orca dry bag. Okay. First question here is from Jared. Ola tripod.

I have an arrow question for you. I love that tripod is catching on, by the way. I have an arrow question for you. When you're racing a hilly course on a TT bike, when you get to a steep climb, at what speed would you recommend sitting up, breaking arrow, and pushing power?

In other words, how fast or slow do you need to be climbing such that arrow matters less than comfortably pushing watts to get you up the hill? Love and vibes, Jared. Do you guys have a number that you go by,

or is it more of a feeling? 13 miles per hour. Really? It's that low. I was going to say 15K an hour. Yeah, it's really low where the aerodynamics are playing no part. Like that's the goal,

but also it tends to be that when you get to something that's that steep and you're going that slow, you want to sit up so bad. Yeah. Because you're gearing out or something. Probably fudge it and, you know, do more like 15. I definitely go by feel. I don't look at a number and sit up when I'm at that number.

It's like my cadence gets too low or I feel like it's unnatural to be an arrow. But I tend to stay arrow longer than anyone else on a hill. Yeah. Paula is the goat of staying arrow on a hill. I never looked like she's working hard. I'd only aspire to this level of commitment to the arrow. Well, I just feel just as strong in it.

I know. I wish I had that. That's so bad. That's so good. That's really ideal. Yeah. But of course, a steep climb, like a 10% or whatever. You're going to sit up and you're getting it out of the saddle.

And I think a lot of the time, courses are so rolling and you're never at a time where you need to get out of arrow that sometimes you look for a hill as like a little bit of a relief or like change your position, get out of the saddle, loosen up, and then get back in. And if you do feel the urge that you need to sit up, do it on a hill when you're going a bit slower, even if it's not as slow as Eric saying. So well said. Do you guys feel that you intentionally try to avoid getting out of the saddle to save your legs or anything like that? No. I love getting out of the saddle.

It just almost feels better to stretch your back out a little bit. You're going to be upright when you run anyways, so as well, not completely lose connection with that feeling. But that's also a feel-based thing too, climbing, you know, getting out. Yeah, totally. Okay, love that. Next question here is from Abby. Hey, TTL and the spirit of multi-sport.

You all have inspired me to sign up for other events outside of tries. Abby. We love that. Music to my ears. Including Unbound 100 Mile and the Grand Traverse Ultra Trail Run from Crested Bute to Aspen. 40 miles, 7,000. 7K of gain. Eric and Nick, you should sign up.

I'm down. So Luke, who is my cousin, who is like one of the absolute heroes of the film that Nick and I are putting out, he's been trying to talk me into this Grand Traverse thing since we were at his cabin in Colorado. Sounds crazy.

Crazy awesome. And you can do it, I think, in the winter. and in the summer, so I'm just assuming we're doing it. We're talking about the summer edition here running versus the Schemo edition. The winter sounds really challenging and a whole new set of ways. Yeah, but that's incredible.

Way to just freaking jump straight off the deep end and the coolest things imaginable. That's awesome. My friends and I are required to have a crew at Unbound, which is a gravel race, by the way, for everyone. Who's curious? So we've signed up our partners for the job. Since you all are also

pros at being crew now. I feel like this is a question for Paula. What does it take to be a killer crew? How should we prepare them, et cetera? For context, there is only one official checkpoint that our crew can be at, which is at mile 54. Thanks for all you do. TTL is the best. Abby. I think a big part of crewing is having the athlete be the organizer of it. Because let them tell you. Yeah, I'm a good crew person, but only because I do exactly what the athlete asks me to do. and I'm there on time and have the options. And I think the biggest thing about crewing, especially in a hectic scenario where Heather and Eric are fighting for the win

and they want to spend as minimal amount of time as possible at the crew station, it's really important to stay calm as the crew member. Because you don't know what experiences they've had in the last several hours before they got to you and what their mood is going to be, how their physical state will be, how their mental state will be. So the best thing that you can do really is just calmly ask what they need. Don't act like you're in a rush. There is time.

And just have all of the extra nutrition plus extra, you know, have the things they that they definitely want plus some extra for just like a buffet of options. And normally when Eric and Heather come by the crew station, I'm like, don't you want some more of this stuff? Like we brought so much stuff. And you just took one thing and you left. But it's better to be safe than sorry because if they were really in the hurt box or having a hard time,

some of those extra things might be the saving grace. Paula, do you feel like you, have you encountered a situation with Heather or Eric where your job wasn't just to provide fueling, but a morale boost? I don't know. I think Heather is so generously complimentary of me that she says she likes having me and her sister Becca at the eight stations because we do give her a morale boost and we're so positive and we inspire her in a different way than a stranger doing a crew for her. So I think there's definitely an element of being alone on the trail or in this race for so long. and not really seeing many people you know

and then suddenly coming and seeing some of your best friends, your partner, whoever it is, that's for sure. Amarales, it's something to look forward to. It's something to give you energy for the next X amount of time that you're going to be alone in the future. But it's not just me doing crewing. Like Eric and I watch a ton of films and stuff

about ultra long distance runners and like Sally McRae and videos on the, whatever was that? big race. It just happened that nobody finishes. Oh, by Carcliathons, yeah. Yeah, and it's my favorite part of those films sometimes is watching the whole crew station, aid station experience. Because I think it's so fascinating.

Yeah, there's a film. I think Solomon might have put it out on Courtney DeWalter and her partner. I think it's called like, it takes a team, something like that. And I was equally as fascinated by that, like the pit crew, The strategy is so interesting. Yeah, I will say for Eric's races, they're 50K. It's similar to this unbound race where your crew can only go to one spot. Okay, that is the easiest crewing on planet Earth. Like, there's no logistics.

There's no real timing involved. But when Heather was racing Western States, Wadi, who is the crew leader, it was like rocket science, trying to figure out how to get everyone to where they were going with the appropriate things. And driving to some of these aid stations was more challenging than running, it seemed. At least in terms of time, because you had to go around big mountain ranges to access it by road. Yeah. So there's obviously some races that Heather's doing or Courtney DeWalter that are much more complex from a crewing perspective.

But I think for this race that you're doing with your significant others being your crew, it is a good gentle introduction to crewing. Because they just have to be in one spot. And they won't miss you. Be calm, smooth as fast. The Courtney film is called a team sport, by the way. Okay. It's funny because when Becca and I, Becca is Heather's sister, we were crewing Heather at Western States, and this was my first time crewing, but Becca had done it lots. But we were so funny and having such a great day that we thought they should be doing a documentary on us being crew members.

Like, forget following Heather. Follow us. We are hilarious. No, I think that's totally a thing. And you're so right about the vibe and the energy that your runner is getting one. they come to you and like maybe being able to match that with the runner and whatever they need like is an art because I remember Heather saying that like it was so fun for her to get to Paula and Becca versus like when she came to the station where it was like me and Wadi with the camera and one of the dudes who were like crewing yes we were like very business about it but like potentially too much and she's just been like all business in the woods by herself for the last three hours and she rolls up and here's guys that are just like do the job do the job do job proper

really do the job, you know, versus Paul and Becca are like having a great time, but also doing the job. Right. Yeah, there's one of the cruise stations at Western States where you got to drive for like two hours and then get on a shuttle bus to take you to the actual aid station. It's this tiny little road that's like going to, you're going to fall off a cliff in a school bus. And Becca and I are hauling up two giant Tupperware container tubs of stuff for Heather. And it's what I was talking about earlier. She rolls in, takes like two things and leaves. Meanwhile, we've got like backpacks, tubs, ice, all this gear. Are you sure you don't want a sandwich?

Yeah. Like we brought the sandwich. Like you're telling me you don't want any of this water that we just told up here. We could have given anybody a water bottle. But it's really fun. It's so fun to feel like you're helping someone else's race. So good luck. It is super cool.

I just want to add right at the end there. Like Paula and I were a little bit confused about like people asking, you know, their friends and family to crew them on these things. Like, geez, that seems like so crazy and inconsiderate that you would ask somebody to give up their entire weekend to go do this thing. But you do have such a sense of ownership and a feeling of you're a part of this person's ultimate success or not. Like having been there for Heather at Western States, it's hard for me to decide if it's

more fun to be the one racing or to be the one supporting. It's really cool experience either way. Yeah. Yeah. It was, this reminds me of the one thing I'll add to this as someone who's not crude, but I did run with Heather for a portion of her 100K is a question that I was asking Wadi, her partner, which is not so much relevant to these people because they are, their partners know them well. But when you're crewing someone that you don't know as well, I think a valid question is, if things aren't going well, do you want me to hype you up? Or do you want me to commiserate with you? Do you want me to try to change your, like, a, ignore this? Do you want me to distract you from this? Because when you're down in the dumps, if someone is giving you the wrong kind of thing, it can be so, so bad. Right. You know. Heather's never down in the dumps, though. Heather was, it's unbelievable. She was literally

down in the dumps. But yeah, she was still so positive. So positive. Okay. Next question here is from James. Hi, team, newish listener, who is really enjoying the archive and working my way backwards. Not grinding through, as another listener once said, I'm only back to the low hundreds, so a fair ways to go. So he's not going to hear this until 2026, but... No, he's keeping current, but also working his way

backwards. One new one, one old one. I see. Yeah. So most pros and pretty much all of the high-vis people in triathlon talk about seasons. But most also live in places with changing climates. I'm a Tucsonian. I hope that's right. Tussonin? Tussonin, I think.

Living in Southeast Asia and the only The only seasons we have are hot and hotter. I'm new to triathlon, just finished my first 70.3, and just signed up for another, but now I'm torn on how to structure my training. If you lived in a place with no seasonality, no weather that ever precluded outdoor training, would you still have an off-season? Or would you just keep going like the Energizer Bunny? James, what a great question, James. You know what this makes me think of is when I first turned pro

and moved down to San Diego Poway specifically hometown of Blink 1282 we had like a one year long drought where it did not rain for like 380 days it was devastating and they were afraid of everything catching on fire

and I do think that being in that situation it's a little bit mentally fatiguing after a while It was like, you don't check the weather. It's always beautiful. There's no extra things to think about. And the only thing that ever snapped me out of that was specifically was off-season. And I would fly home to visit my folks in Portland, Oregon.

And all of a sudden, you're like plunged into winter, plunged into the classic idea of Christmas. And without that, it was very hard to be home, even up to like three days before Christmas and not feel like I needed to train just because it was beautiful outside. So maybe you just need to take like a vacation to Iceland in December to like force your own offseason. Yeah, what I was hoping you would touch on, which I know that you know and I think you maybe are taking for granted that James here knows is that it's just as much a physiological thing to do as it is a seasonal thing. It's important that you do give yourself time off. It's not based on the seasons. That's just kind of a convenient word that works for both.

We just structure it as such because you can't really race triathlon in the wintertime. And Oceanside is kind of like the first good weather race in North America. And then we close it out and, you know, around the Kona time on September. Around the Kona. Yeah. The Kona. And yeah. And also equally as important as the physiological break is the mental break. So whatever it does, you know, you give yourself a little side project.

pick up a hobby in the offseason and cool your jets. I'm back better in the spring. Sweet. Okay. Next question. We're just, we're rifling through these. Next question is from Nat. Hey, gang. Have any of you struggled with racing a race you don't want to be doing? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Never. Any tips on getting motivated and excited about a race you're signed up for? I'm signed up for Iron Man, Texas in a few weeks, and mentally and emotionally, I don't want to race at all. I'm trying to convince myself to go do the race

and just see how the day goes, but I'm struggling with 16 Gs. Thanks and best of luck with your race seasons, Nat. Yeah, you're doomed. You're doomed. No, I'm serious. Like, when I am in the state, I don't want to do it and I don't want to go.

It never goes well. No. You have to flip your mental state right now. I'm curious why it is, you know, I wish we could have you on the phone right now. Like why it is that you feel like you have to do it. I assume it's because you spent the money. Yes, of course.

You signed up. You're committed. For sure. And that's like not a transferable thing. You just do it. You told people you're doing it. I mean, it's the same reasons we're doing it. Sort of.

I guess you just have to decide like would you pay that same amount of money to get yourself out of having to do this race? Right. Right. So then you just don't do it. Right. Well, I think there's obviously so much back story to this that we don't have information about. Of course. Have you been training for it?

Are you fit enough to finish it? Is it your first one? Why did you sign up for it if you maybe wouldn't want to go to Texas and do Ironman triathlon? But all those things aside, in these situations, I've done plenty of races that I don't want to go to. and they're never as bad as you think they're going to be. And the more that you dwell on the fact that you don't want to go, the worse it will be. Yeah.

So like in Dubai, for example, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to race. The whole time I was there, I was moping about it in my brain and thinking about the fact that I didn't want to be there. Instead of switching my attitude and thinking, I'm here. Like, just do it and pony up and have a better attitude about it. And at that time of year, while I was alone in Dubai, I didn't have that skill to really do that myself. But looking back retroactively and if this ever happens again in the future, I think that I could use a lot more mental tricks to just get myself maybe not excited about it, but just accepting the fact that I'm doing it.

and that just, you know, enjoy the little things about it. Yeah. Because there are some fun things about going to an Iron Man event. I think it's so cool to like go and be part of the whole vibe and go to the expo and pick up your race package and set up your transition on race morning and feel the nervousness and everyone else around you. There's a lot of really cool things that come out of it. And you'll go through highs and lows throughout the day. But ultimately the day will end. You will finish the race.

and I don't think you'll look back and regret it. So, I don't know. What I was going to bring up is something that I had actually said on the podcast before Iron Man Wisconsin for me a couple years ago where I did end up DNFing. But it's that whatever, in 10, 20, 30 years, you were going to give anything to be back doing that race, being young and fit. If that can help you change your mind about the fortune that you are

that you're experiencing right now, maybe that can help at least kickstart what Paul is talking about here, which is like just switching your mindset now as soon as possible. Yeah, just go and do as best as you can do. And another thing that's really interesting, and this quote sounds kind of mean,

but it's actually true, is that nobody cares about how you do or if you go or, and people care about you and your happiness, of course, but nobody really cares. You care more about yourself and your experience in your race than anyone else does.

So take away all the external pressure, whatever you might feel. My vote is you just make up some games for yourself. I think Paula, like, nailed it in the middle of whatever, this whole thing of like, maybe you just go get your fastest bike split ever.

Maybe you have your fastest 40K instead of a bike split. Maybe you finish the bike stronger than you ever have. like you set yourself on finishing the marathon, not walking a step, like come up with some little mini goals inside of the huge thing to like give yourself

a bite-sized chunk of a thing that you can say, this was a victory because I nailed that. Love that. The absolute last thing I'll say is if, if you really cannot change your mindset, it is okay to actually not do it. And there's a lot of races in my career

where I didn't want to go. I knew it was going to go poorly. went, it went poorly, and I should have just not gone. So if that is truly the state you're in, there's other life stuff going on, you didn't train for it the way you wanted to, you're maybe injured, I don't know what this situation is, but it is completely fine to not do it. Who cares about the money? There's tons more races you can do in your life. So not to give you an out, but I think it's like completely fine to not go. Coincidentally, you may love our film. Right, right, coincidentally, yeah.

If that's your frame of mind. Yeah, Nat, we would really love a follow-up on how this goes, since Iron Man, Texas is actually right around the corner. Are you going? Are you going? Are you not going? Maybe she's decided by now, she's not going. Potentially, potentially. But we'd really like to hear how this goes and what the experience is actually like for you physically and mentally. Yes, send Nick and Instagram about that. Yeah, I'd love to hear about it. And we'll probably share it on the podcast. Okay.

Next question here is from Pam. Hi, all. My question is regarding splitting a long run into a double run with the intent of mitigating injury risk. Have any of you had long runs that you converted to a double run day? And if so, what do you think is the minimum number of hours between runs that will offer enough rest to help lessen the risk of injury? Thanks, Pam. Yeah, Paulo is really into this, isn't he? Yeah, this has pretty much been the basis of my run volume since being with my coach Paulo since 20,

12 very little long runs a ton of 50 minute run in the morning 50 minute run in the evening or 60 in the morning 60 in the evening or like a run workout in the morning and then a 40 minute run later yeah something like that just like now that I'm doing some of the experimenting with the ultra running space I am doing like one big long gnarly run per week to just try to build up you're running for three and a half hours for a 50k but during triathlon all double run days And I think it was great. You know, it's like ultimately in a trathlon, you're running tired, but you don't want to be, you don't necessarily be to running so tired that your form falls apart

and that you get injured. So I think the double run thing, if you do one in the morning at 8 a.m. And then you swim in the middle of the day and then you do one in the evening at 5 p.m. In a perfect world, that's great. What do we want to say about like the, let's let's push it to the limit here? What's a minimum amount of time that you would give yourself to kind of reap the benefits of this, to avoid the injury risk. I mean, I think if you're running within like less than three hours, like is that...

You might as well have combined them. Yeah. You need to be able to, like, we'll just say rule of thumb roughly, like you got in a full meal and you were able to lay down for a minute. Yeah, you were, yes, you show. Although sometimes often Eric doesn't shower between the two. Yeah, Paul was just looking for a great way to slide that in there. Eric, it's okay.

It's part of your brand, dude. It's not like I just get home and I like sit on the couch. No, no, he's just instantly working. It's like I work and my intention was like, oh, I'm just going to work for an hour and then I'll, you know, have lunch and whatever. And then before you know it, it's three hours and it's time to run again. Of course.

Of course. No, I think your mindset is more. Well, I'm running again. I don't need to shower now. This is very dependent on the climate you're in. If you're in the winter and you don't get really that sweaty. I don't know. I kind of like it.

It's just like professional athletes being sweaty is kind of cool. I can see your sweat states right here, dude. That's spiraled. Until you get like a saddle sore or a rash on your butt. That's true. That's true. That's like me right now sitting here soaking in my sweat from my run. Yeah, I'm so not against.

I'm so against this. Yeah, ideally just if you're going to do this, I do it naked. So you're at least not in your sweaty clothes. Yeah. There you go. Great advice from the TTO podcast. Get naked. We're just Rylan Paul it up super hard now.

All right. Moving on. This one is from Chris. Hello, athletes. I'm signed up for the Havillina 100 this year. A Halloween-themed Ultramarathon in the desert. Wait, the Haplema hundred is Halloween-themed?

I didn't know that. It's on Halloween day, isn't it? I see. But Heather wasn't like dressed up when she won it. Well, I don't think that you dress up if you're going to win. Unless you're just that much of a ball. That would be awesome. Okay.

If you had to wear a Halloween costume for 100K or 100-mile race in Arizona, Oh my gosh. What would you wear the goal of finishing well while also trying to win the costume contest? Oh, there is a costume contest. Okay. Oh, shit. Man, it would be so, so sick to win the race and the costume contest. That's the ultimate.

That is the ultimate. That was like there was a guy who did an age grouper who won the USAT Nationals Sprint and Olympic distance on two days doing the whole thing in just a speedo. So like my dream scenario here, and I don't know, you know, if this is possible from an engineering perspective, but a costume that's both aerodynamic and flamboyant. So like thinking about like a peacock for inspiration where you could run and it would be a little bit, you know, you wouldn't quite know until you cross the finish line and you spread those feathers and people are like, you've had that the whole time. I think that would be like, you know, or maybe like the Borat bathing suit where it's like a, it's like a speedo, but the. tops go over the shoulders. Have you ever seen that? I mean, that checks the aerodynamic box. Very arrow. I think you might get some chafing, but it's very arrow.

I think it would be kind of cool to dress up like a Super Mario. Yeah. That might get a little hot. You know what this made me think of is back? No, like a Super Mario, but like a singlet with, oh, like a sexy Super Mario. Oh, yeah, that's where my brain went too, yeah. Hot Luigi. Oh, wow. What this made me think of is back when Jesse Thomas used to put on that

inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex costume he called it Picisaurus he did the most hilarious set of videos of like

Picisaurus packing picky bar boxes or like doing calisthenics like yoga ball and it was oh my god

he's so good pure genius but with the Super Mario you could have you could paint on a mustache and you could have the red ball cap because you're wearing a hat

anyway and then you just have like a suspender type singlet with briefs. No, this is true. This is the most conducive to running quickly. Put some ice in that Super Mario hat. I don't know. I think it's kind of fun. Anyway, that's my idea.

All right. Okay, love it. Did he say his name is Mario by any chance? His name is not Mario. No. His name is Chris. Oh, shit. His name is Chris.

Okay, next question here, and this is something that we kind of teased last week. I don't know if it's worth using the word tease, but, there's a lot of clamor about this. So this is from Margaret. Hi, all, I love the custom paint job on the TT bike that Paula got. I'm wondering what went into that process and if you guys had any input on the design. Margaret. Talking about my new bike?

Oh, yeah. How truthful do you want to be about this? Okay, so I'm just going to tell the story. Okay, I put it in here because I assumed you were okay with telling the story. That's why it's right. Yeah, I don't think it's a bad story. I don't think it sheds anyone in a bad light. Okay, okay.

But I designed my kit with Kristen from Betty Design, who I have worked with now for four years. She's become a friend, and she's always made the coolest kits for me. I just love her style. So we started working on my kit back in November, December for this year, and I sent her this inspiration board with, like, 70s vibes and stripes and race cars and color palettes

and same thing I do every year, just a big idea board of what I want my kit to feel like. And she comes back with like eight different kits. And I narrowed it down to the black one with the strike. The one you've all seen on Instagram, the one I raced with an ocean side. And I reached out to Specialized and said, it would be so sick if I could get a shiv-t-tie painted to match this kit. I was imagining a black shiv with the same kind of pins. stripes and like a white fork or something to maybe not match completely, but compliment the bike. Tie it all together. Tie it all together. So I have never had a custom painted shiv for me from

specialized before. So I thought the chances of this happening were like 5%. But it so happens that the wheels were in motion and Lumar colors in Europe who does a lot of the super cool S-Works paints for teams, for Remco, for the Olympic bikes, was going to make me a custom bike. Dream come true. So I was so exciting. So far so good. Yeah, so when it's ready,

and this is like a week or two before Oceanside, the specialized guys ask Eric, do you want to see a picture, or should we just send it to you? I'm like, show Eric a picture so he can say if I like it or not. I was playing a whole grand reveal, like a wow moment.

Yeah. So he sends the picture. to Eric and we're like, okay, this is beautiful, but this is definitely the wrong bike because it looks nothing like my race kit. Are you guys definitely? Sure, this isn't Demi Vollering's bike. You didn't look at the picture of my race kit. The colors are wrong.

The design is completely different, but it's a freaking beautiful bike. Like, I love it. It's going to clash so bad with my kids. When you guys told me, you were like, it's really cool. is clearly not the right bike though. Yeah. So anyway, I'm not going to turn it down, of course. So in my brain, I'm like, can we make a new kit to match the bike?

Like, what are we going to do here? Because I also love my kit. But the styles are just totally different. So Eric's like, I don't think it'll be that bad. Your bike doesn't have to match your kit. Plenty of people ride bikes that don't match their kits. So we get the bike. It goes to Tony.

It specializes in. San Francisco. We pick it up the Monday before Oceanside. It's the most beautiful work of art I've ever seen. I love it. I just try to put out in my head that doesn't look like my kid. It's all going to be fine. We'll do a kit reveal separately a couple days later and then I'll just wear it and we'll see what it looks like. And I don't want to come across as spoiled or not grateful because I love both things, but I am extremely picky about colors, put-togetherness, how I look.

And that's why I put so much effort into my kit every year. There was just some sort of a communication thing that happened between someone at specialized saying, yeah, Paula, send us your kit design and the pantone colors for it and the thing that we pulled out of the box. So anyway, again, beautiful. The real that Lumar colors posted on their page and collaborated with me has a million views.

Wow, already. It's like viral because it's so cool how he did this paint job and it's such a cool end product. So he says on his Instagram caption that he had complete creative freedom to do this bike. So that's making me think there was like lost in communication somewhere. Anyway, I think it actually works. The kit looks fine with the bike. The bike is like so eye-catching on its own. So I'm fine with it.

When you're running with the kit, the bike's not with you, so it's a totally different thing. There's a small chance that will redesign a kit to match the bike to wear it in the last half of the season, but I'm less concerned about it now as I was as I was freaking out about it matching earlier on. Yeah, right. So that's the story. I feel so lucky to have this bike. It's gotten way more positive attention than I ever thought. And when Eric and I saw pictures, it was just the frame, which we were, you know, amazed by. But when you put it all together with the wheels and all of the stuff, attention to detail that Tony put this thing together with, like little gold bolts and stuff.

That was my idea, actually, but Tony did put them on. It's truly, truly beautiful. So thank you specialized. Yeah, it's sick. And thank you to Luma colors for putting so much work into this. Cool as Mike ever. That's the story. it. Well said, Paula, and I don't feel like anyone was offended. You know, whoever hears this.

It's literally nobody's fault. But my worry was coming across as like complaining about it. Yeah. But I am extremely grateful for both things. Great. Great. Love it. Okay. Next question here. Swimming question from Brandon. Hey, PENF. One thing that doesn't quite make sense to, and I agree, by the way, Brandon, I really agree with this. And I think we need to be the change we want to see. the world. One thing that doesn't quite make sense to me is swim workout rest. 10 to 30 second rest seems really common. Even less than that is really common. Yet in any bike or run workout, the rest will be significantly longer than this. I understand that the rest is literally not moving, but I don't feel like my heart rate comes down hardly at all in a 15 second rest. I feel like I might as well keep

going or stop and recover and go after the next active set with full gas. Curious to hear your thoughts. Brandon. Yeah. What the heck? Why can't we get like 60 seconds or 90? Or Or 90 seconds at the wall. This is what I wanted to. Because you'd only swim one kilometer in an hour. Okay. So it sounds like a win-win so far. That was a really good question.

It's a good question. I don't even really have a good answer for it. But your heart rate in swimming is just lower in general. It's a non-weight-bearing activity. I think that's the big thing right there, actually. And the reps that you're doing are so much shorter in general, 50s, hundreds. You can't take minutes of rest between each thing. And I think the point of swimming, pushing off the wall and doing another repeat when you're not fully recovered is that's how swimming feels in a race.

You're swimming through this fatigy, high heart rate feeling. And it's very hypoxic. And I think you just have to practice that in the pool. That is a really good point about the, like, if you were doing 60-second pickups, you know, running, you're, You wouldn't have a minute of rest. You wouldn't be a minute on, a minute off. Well, you might. But your heart rate's also going to be...

Generally, I mean, I don't know. I haven't done that. Like, versus, like, a minute on, 20 seconds off. Yeah. If you're doing, like, a fart-like type of a thing. But think about if you're doing, like, on the bike, 10-minute repeats, you're going to have three minutes rest, and you'd never really sit at the wall swimming for three minutes.

Yeah, how often do you do 10-minute-long repeats swimming, though? Yeah. For so rare, yeah. Yeah. and like if you're if you're doing really truly trying to get speed in the pool and you're doing 50s then you might be doing those on the 130 or the two minutes which is like a big rest there big big rest and that's it if you're really truly trying to build speed you know the thing is that floating at the wall is literally easy on your body than laying down it's so it's you're just

completely weightless in the water so you do get such a fact even compared to holding your body up on a bike, not pedaling, it's significantly easier than that. Yeah, I think your heart rate comes down much quicker. Yeah. In the water than it does when you're jogging or walking around or like you said, like spinning on the bike. You do strangely get used to it, though. Like I remember having the same thought of like, why is it that my run and bike intervals are so much longer? And then the swim, the thing that for me is the hardest, has the shortest rest. but I am used to it now if I stick to my rest times from my workout.

Yeah. It's the way it's done. Yeah, it's, yeah. It's kind of like this, like it's just been that way since the beginning of time. Right. Yeah, it's like that's certainly the way it always was in swim team back in the day.

So I think that there's some science and some information data coming from there that got brought in a triathlon. But it's very interesting. The fitter I get swimming, the more I feel like even a 10 seconds rest. My heart rates, I'm like ready to go for the next one. So the more you swim, the less, maybe the shorter you can start to make the rest. Start with more.

And then as you get fitter, make it 20 seconds, 15 seconds or whatever the point of the set is. Like it's just less hard on your body, right? Like you can do 10-100s, as hard as you can possibly go with like 10 or 15 seconds rest. and then you can go do some other things. If you did 10 by 60 seconds as hard as you could possibly go running with 10 seconds, that's it. You're done. You're cooked for the next few days.

Yeah. So it's just got to be less taxing in some sort of a cute way. It's completely, swimming is so hard. You just need a breakfast. But it's also less taxing. Yeah. But like for me and I think for many people, at the same effort, the swimming is 10 beats per minutes, lower heart rate than biking.

and running is 10 minutes beats per minute higher than biking. And the relative effort feels the same, but the actual impact on your body is just less. Yeah. Sweet. I don't know if we answered that, but that was what we think.

Yeah, I really don't feel like I answered it, but I strongly believe in the concept. Right. I don't think you should change it to be longer rest. Mostly because don't you want to just get it over with? Well said. Again, that's not science. No, but that is a thing.

If you're taking a minute rest between each 100 meter repeat. Definitely a thing. You're there all day. That's true. Okay. Well, this last question is a fun one. Not that we don't always have fun with all these questions, but this is from Jay. TTL, just a quick question for each of you individually.

What is your favorite restaurant or mid-ride snack when on long endurance rides? Love the pod, and I appreciate how your videos blend your training vlogs with adventure stories. Thanks for making my commutes more enjoyable. Jay. Hell yeah, Jay. Love that. Favorite restaurants? Well, I mean, have you ever stopped at like a McDonald's in the middle of a ride? No.

I haven't. It's been some of my most glorious times. You know, the first thing that comes to mind is they've got these gigantic rice crispy trees. They're like, I don't know what she would like borderline gourmet rice crispy trees. I think are like 670 calories. Oh, wow. That is, yeah. Must be really big. Yeah, it's a little like, you know, sort of a local boozy grocery store. and sisters, which is exactly an hour and half of riding from here. And riding out there, getting one of those things and riding home, that's pretty...

Is this all the lemon that we're talking about? Yeah. All the lemons. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Eric, Rice, Krispy Treat. Paula, do you have something that your mind gravitates towards when you hear this?

On a mid-ride. Yeah. Let's go out a long ride. I don't really do long rides enough to... Like five, six-hour rides, you mean? Yeah. And I think you adopt the same pool of philosophy. where you kind of just get it over with, right?

You don't like take your time and stop. You're like, you're pretty true to the workout. Yeah. Point of it. Right. If you're doing a five-hour ride, but you stop for one-hour lunch, I don't know.

It's not really a five-hour ride. It's two-hour rides. That's fair, but we said the same thing about splitting up a long run, and we're saying that there's value in that. But I agree. Of course, the physiological impact is different. It depends on your long ride. Different people have different.

points of their long rides. Fair. Okay. But so you, I mean, I've stopped with you before for like a quick soda or something. But do you know how? Yeah, I like to get. So, I mean, if I could choose and it was an easy, casual ride, I like to eat a sandwich in the middle of it, like real food, you know? I've had a burrito.

I've had an entire burrito in the middle of a long ride. Yeah, because if you're not riding that hard, your gut can kind of tolerate whatever on the bike. So. The thing I tell myself on long rides is that absolutely all bets are off and I can eat whatever I desire. So I've had a great McFlurry in the middle of a ride, but I usually will go to like a pretty decadent pastry, like something very chocolatey. Or I really love a chocolate chip cookie and a latte or something. Yeah. I just go all in.

Okay, but I just want to come back to the fact that stopping for an hour long break, ride is not the same as splitting your long run into two. Can we please all agree on that? At least you are. We're just being so, like, extra about this. Like, we're making a 30-minute stop and doing an hour-long stop. And like an hour, nobody's stopping for an hour in the middle of their five-hour ride. An hour is long.

But I want to hear why, Paula, you can't just say that. Can you give me your reasoning as to why it's different? Is it just because you're not going to get hurt on a bike ride, so there's no positive to it? Or do you think there's actually... A different thing that's going on there. Well, if you're running in the morning and then if you have a six-hour gap, you are going into rest mode. You're eating in the middle of it.

But if you're just stopping for 30 or an hour on a bike ride, you're in the middle of the same activity. Your garment is going to be saying that's the same ride. I think what we're getting out here is it's the worst of both worlds. You're not recovered from ride number one. but you're also, like, it's not really the same as riding five hours continuously as one would inside of an Iron Man race. I'm guessing that's what we're going on. That's totally fair.

But then I would also say that, yes, there is a risk mitigation thing for splitting up your long run. But then you are also missing out on a potential physiological benefit of doing that run altogether when you do that. As long as we acknowledge that, I think that's totally fair. Oh yeah, 100%. I think that the like one long run a week, three weeks out from your Iron Manor, like, whatever your coach tells you is not replaceable.

But if you're trying to get to a certain higher run volume per week, breaking it up into doubles instead of doing four 80-minute runs, you know. Okay, so I'm going to ask this question again then. What do you think the maximum amount of time to stop in the middle of a ride to get food is acceptable before we're going into this territory of like, okay, what are we doing here?

10 minutes. Yeah, I don't know. If it's like a six hour ride, 20 minutes, if you like got a sandwich and a coffee. Got it, got it. And we're really smashed. I like it. I'm going to push that limit as much as possible,

but I do like to have a real answer from you guys for it. What's our favorite food to eat in the middle of a ride? A turkey sandwich. In less than 10 minutes. In less than 10 minutes. That is all we have time for, ladies and gentlemen. Well, we really hope that you guys check out the film. It comes out on Sunday in a few days and snag a poster if that tickles you.

And share it with every person that you know, 10 people. The person shows it with 10 people. This film will be a success. And also do yourself a favor and watch it on your big screen. Oh, my God, please. At least a laptop, but ideally a TV. And hook a sound bar up to your flat screen TV. We put a lot of effort into the sound as well.

so we hope you'll enjoy all of it. Good, good call, Paula. Thank you. Yeah, that's it. Thanks so much, everybody. We really appreciate listening, and we'll see you next week. Two pods on one week.

That is a treat for you guys. Wow. Wow. You're welcome. I love it. You're welcome for listening to us. Okay, thanks everyone. Bye. Bye.