That Triathlon Life Podcast - Eric podiums Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon, swimming race etiquette, giving race splits, and more!

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

This week we start with a little race recap from Eric on his Escape From Alcatraz experience where he got 2nd! We then discuss some TTL apparel updates and get right into your questions! This week we talk about the financials of trying to go pro, improving bike handling skills, the legality of giving race splits as a fan, and more! To become a podcast supporter, as well as submit your own questions, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. This is our triathlon podcast where we talk about what we've got going on, our brand, that trathlon life. And for the most part, we take questions from our listeners and try to answer them and pop out with some trathlon related information. Great job, Eric. That was the first try. Yeah, that was totally the first try. This is not the second time we started recording. We didn't mess anything up. It's been great. Professionals, we've been doing this 72 episodes. We know what we're doing. We are not professional podcasters, but Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlet, and our best friends.

So that's the basis of our podcast. Here we go. He used to be our best friend, but now we only talked to him on the podcast. That is true. I knew you were going to say that. Nick is so busy doing whatever that we haven't even talked to him since the last podcast. Okay, to be totally cleared. And I'm not, not that I'm picking favorites here, but I did talk to Eric a couple times because I was trying to make sure he was doing okay for his race.

Yeah, that's nice of you. And you're there with other people, with your friends. Nick, if we go another week without talking, I'm quitting the pod. Just so everyone knows, she did say this off the air too, so she really means it. This might be the sixth time she said this off the air, but who knows? We'll see. Stay tuned. Another little feedback bite I have about the podcast from my own mom, who is actually a double supporter of the pod.

So she pays $20 a month to support the podcast. She re-listens to the old podcast Because she finishes the recent ones And can't get enough Because she loves my voice so much obviously clearly Yeah And she said we used to be a lot funnier In the early days

So she still thinks we'd give good information But I think we can Maybe loosen the fuck up a little And be funny The way that women feel about having bangs Like they would look good with bangs They secretly think they would look good with bangs It's how men think they all would be

Pretty good stand-up comedians So maybe I'll try some of my stand-up material on the podcast now. What? Is that analogy, but okay. It's like every girl thinks they're Zoe Dichannel secretly. I don't want bangs.

Is this an East Coast thing? Maybe. I did actually get bangs in high school, but I hated it. Really? You know who I think is super hot with bangs? Emma Stone. And you guys are basically

doppelgangers. Emma Stone is definitely like a celebrity crush for me. Yeah, yeah. But I don't think she looks much like Oh my God, I love her in Zondi Land. You guys, when you say someone's super hot and they look nothing like me,

I'm sorry. You guys are doppelgangers. I said you look exactly the same. I did not think they look the same. I nailed that. Well, we both have red hair. That's the only similarity that I see. Yes, it ends there.

Okay, let's move on. You want it funny. We're not that funny, are we? You know what is really ridiculous about this whole Emma Stone and Paula is bringing up bangs? How she, like, makes the thing out of like, does anybody say bang? Yes.

And crazy stupid love. Yes, that's right. That's right. Oh, dude love crazy. stupid love. This is the most excellent movie, which I didn't, I didn't actually watch that the night before Alcatraz, even though it's one of my go-toes. I called you the day before the race, and I was like, what rom-com are you watching right now? He's like, I'm not watching any Roncom tonight. And you didn't, right? I didn't. I just fell asleep super early. I was really tired

to this whole weekend. Wait, we've talked about this before. How were you able, like people, people talk about this and it's definitely something I struggle with. How did you sleep the night before Alcatraz? I slept really great until like 2 a.m. And then I just was up on and off, on and off. And every time I woke up, I kind of felt like I could go race right now. It wasn't this like dread for the morning and I hope I can keep sleeping. It was just like if I was ready to go.

Because it wasn't a 70.3. That's why. Yeah. There's no dread. Honestly, it's just it's all fun in games when it's Olympic distance. Just to a little recap of like what's going on and what you guys are talking about. Eric just raised the escape from Alcatraz Triathlon in San Francisco yesterday, which is crazy, and came second. So, yeah, Eric, he really wanted to win.

He won it last year, but it's a very funny race. Like, so many things can go wrong and right, and to win it requires everything kind of really going smooth on the day. Stars aligning. And a little bit of luck, right? A little bit. Yeah. Mark Dubek had an amazing race. He deserved to win.

But he took a different line in the swim and got it to shore. like 90 seconds. A year ahead of me. But it sounds to me like he might have won that race anyway. Eric, do you feel like that's possible, given the way that everything else shook out? It's definitely possible. I would not say it was guaranteed. It just seems like, yes, he swam really well, but then you guys did pull back a little bit of time on the bike, but then he really ran really well. Yeah, it's hard to know, though. Yeah, he's running well right now. Do we want to do a little mini recap of Alcatraz, or is that?

Yeah, I definitely think we should because I didn't get any video footage of it. I like have some pre-race footage. I think I might just put out in like a fun San Francisco video thing, but I don't have any race footage at all. So this is going to be the Alcatraz, the extent of the Alcatraz recapping. So can I start with a question that I still honestly, I'm not just playing dumb for the podcast. I honestly still do not understand that you have talked about this many times to me about specifically this race because you start in a ferry, you jump off of the ferry into the freezing cold water and you swim from close to the Alcatraz Island

to the mainland. And you've told me that there are like there's two different lines you can take. I don't get why that is like don't you just want to swim the shortest distance?

Why would one person swim a different line versus another? Now why can it make such a big difference for this race specifically? Yep. So if you are swimming from Alcatraz Island

the shortest route to the shore, which is not where you're exiting for one thing. you're swimming towards the bridge a bit at a diagonal, for one thing. But even if you just swim straight from Alcatraz to the shore, you would be crossing a river of water that is rushing out with the tide. I see. Out of the bay and into the ocean.

So even if you try to swim directly towards shore, you just end up getting out a half mile down as you were carried downstream. And then you'd have to swim up the shore to make up for that. Yeah. It would be nearly impossible to swim directly to shore. So what actually ends up happening is like from where you jump off the boat to where you exit the water is like, I don't know exactly what it is, but let's just say it's two miles. But with the assist of the current that you swim through, it's like a mile and a half virtually. Now, if you swim a very direct line from where you jump off the boat to where you get out of the water, that would be the fastest line.

but it's a little risky because you can get caught in the current late and overshoot the beach. And then you just fully miss the beach and have to swim upstream, essentially. The thing I, you've explained this before, but the thing I don't understand about this is it's not like you're picking a line at the beginning and then you have to stick with it. If you feel like you're overshooting the beach a bit, you adjust and every time you cite, you adjust, right? So I don't totally get. But you can't cite. It's so wavy you can hardly cite. I think that's the problem. Yeah.

Crazy, crazy choppy. It's terrifying. That's why I don't do it. And then on is obviously, it's not like all of the water that you're in is going, is in this river. It's like there's a channel that you swim through. So as you get closer to shore, the current is a little bit less. It's not just like all of the ocean, all of the water in all of the bay is all moving out at the same rate. I see.

Okay. That makes sense. Any river swimming, the longer that you stay in the fast water, the better. and it's just, it's very complicated, but ultimately what they do for the lead pro swimmers is they have a boat that has a gigantic yellow buoy on it that theoretically goes the shortest, best line. Now, what's happened before is some people will try to take literally a straight line, hoping that they can just get it right and they just don't even follow the boat at all. And then some people just follow the boat.

And I've had that go both ways. Like the first year I did it, Josh Hamburger did that, and he got out of the water 45 seconds ahead of me and Andy Potts, never saw him the entire swim. The next year he tried to take the same line, and he got out a minute behind us because he got stuck in the current too long and had to swim against it.

Yeah. I see. So this year, what happened? I followed the boat. The boat took, in my opinion, a very screwy line, and a lot of times when I looked up, the boat was in a different position. I'm normally an incredibly straight swimmer.

Wow, brag about it. And we were all together probably, I think, with 10 minutes to go. And then I just followed the boat a little too long as it was not headed in the most direct line to shore. Mark Dubrick took the most straight line. I don't know what percentage of his lead out of the water was due to him swimming faster. Right. Because he is a great swimmer also. He is a great swimmer, but he wasn't way out in front of us at any point.

When he veered off, he was not way out in front. Otherwise, I would have followed him. I see. but he, yeah, came out of a minute and 45 second lead. And that's like, oh shit, that'll take a miracle. When I saw that, I thought, oh, this is, like, there's something wrong with the tracker. After it was like 90 seconds and I'm like, I still haven't seen second place, which I'm expecting to be you, but I'm like, after 90 seconds, if it's not Eric, someone's skin, it's like

something messed up somewhere. But no, that's what he had. And then all of you guys kind of started coming in one by one. Yeah, so my day kind of started off on a poor note because I dove into the water, my goggles fell off. Yikes. Which has never happened to me there. I dive into the water every year. Goggles have always stayed on.

Anyway, they fell off. I had to roll over on my back twice to get them on. And so I started to swim 15, whatever, meters behind everybody caught up. But even at that point, the combination of still having some water in my goggles and the water being so choppy, I just decided I had to follow the boat. I couldn't really sight much on the shore by myself. and that's what's set up, this whole thing up. Yeah. They were the arena cobra goggles, so maybe don't use those.

What were they? There were some blue 70 clear goggles that have worked for me in the past and were fresh. Oh, wow. Interesting. My arena cobras, I do not feel like have the best visual optics right at the very top of them for siding. So I switch to some bigger frame goggles that I've used in the past. Okay. It's not a blue 70 problem. No. It's just, it happens sometimes. Yeah.

And do you put them, are the straps not underneath your cap? You put them over your cap? Nope. I put them on the top of my cap because if your goggles come off and the straps are underneath your cap, that is a real nightmare to get them back on your face. Like they'll be flipped, inverted on your eyelids, jamming into your eyeballs. I like having them on the outside. Yeah, me too.

Okay, great. Yeah. Okay, and then onto the bike. Yeah, onto the bike. I had a pretty decent T1, got out onto the bike. I came out of the water with Miguel, Maddox, and I think Danilo Pimentel was, like, relatively close to us. I ran pretty well through T1,

had a tiny gap getting out of the bike. Miguel and I ended up riding most of the bike together. I didn't really, I really did not feel good. Unfortunately, as much as I've worked on my bike fit and everything, I still just do, unfortunately, think that TT bike position is does not agree with my hip. I'm going to keep working on it, but the whole last week and a half since I've been putting more time on the TT bike, it's just been hit and miss. And this was not like the worst I've had it, but it wasn't great. So I didn't

ride fantastically, but I wrote okay. And we came into T2 together, just me and Miguel. I think we dropped Danilo, Pimentel. And then Jason West was never really a factor, but I thought he could be on the run because he's on fire running this year. So we took off out of T2. I dropped Miguel fairly quickly. I seemed to have a little bit of a speed advantage on him on flat running. But my legs were pretty toast and I wasn't running that fast up the hills. So the gap that I had, I kind of gave away on the sand ladder, really struggled on the sand ladder.

If you've done Alcatraz, you know you run out flat and then you go up to the bridge, then you bomb all the way back down to the sand, do it kind of like a mile on sand, and then you go up to sand ladder, which is just absolutely brutal. What is the sand ladder? It's just like imagine if somebody put a bunch of logs into a sand dune.

Okay, so it's not quite, it's not like steps, really. It's like steps, except the steps are full of sand. It's like stepping in consecutive sandboxes up a freaking, I don't even know what it is, probably a 300 foot vertical climb and at like 25%. It sounds like a weird purgatory torture device. It sounds dumb, but there's like, there are cables that run along next to it,

and it's actually faster to grab onto the cable and pull yourself up, even though you feel like you're not even moving. Nobody runs it. It's unrunnable. Wow. You just are like power hiking up it. Isn't it so messed up that it makes me want to do it?

I'm just like, yeah, that sounds great. Let's try it. Every single person I talked to was like, that was the most insane, hardest thing I've ever done. I can't wait to come back. I'm so psyched. Right. It is the coolest. The coolest race, if you're into quirky stuff like that.

If you like running the fastest runtime and, you know, be an arrow and looking at your computer, like, this is not the thing for you. It's wild, but a cool bucket list thing that happens to be a swim bike and a run. So anyway, by the top of the sand ladder, he'd kind of taken back, gotten back the little gap that I had on him. But at that point, you just freaking bomb down this little, asphalt running path, and then you have that same like two miles flat back to transition. And I reopened up the gap and was, had plenty of time coming into the finish line. But Mark led wire to wire was nowhere to be seen and just had a great day.

So I would have loved if my goggles hadn't flipped off and I had taken the right line on the swim and and and and. And I had been there to find out how I stacked up against Mark. But we'll never know. Yeah, I guess not. It's just funny how we talked a lot about Jason before this. And I think you might have actually run faster than Jason. He just had a really hard day. Like he came out of the water two minutes behind me or something like that.

And just this is really, really rough swim. By the time I got out of the water, I was completely over it. And normally I am fine swimming and I just, it's, I don't mind however long it takes it takes. But this was so rough getting smacked in the face over and over and over again. that I was ready for it to be over. And I'm sure Jason was more ready for it to be over than me. Everybody was very ready. Jason spent a little bit of extra time out there

and I think took an even worse line than I took. Right. And it's just so hard to come back from that. If you get out of the water and someone's like three and a half minutes to the lead. Ouch. Yeah. What am I doing? What am I going to?

Yeah. Anyway, it's tough. It's like a great race if you win it and it's the stupidest race ever if you don't win it. It's pretty brutal if you're having a bad day. Right. You just keep getting punished by each obstacle. And it's not like you're going to feel better. It's not like, oh, if I can just get through the bike, the run will be, no. If you're feeling bad on the bike, the run's going to feel worse. Right. It just gets worse. But it's in a cool way. So I would recommend doing it. If it is, if you're like paying the bills next month is dependent on your result there, it can be kind of rough. But just doing it. Speaking of paying the bills, it's not a cheap race to sign up for all. No, no, like I said this a lot. It used to be a little bit cheaper and they raised the prices, but it is truly a bucket list experience.

How much is it? 750. Wow. I would definitely argue that in terms of the experience that you get relative to any other triathlon out there that's $300, it is a three times better experience. But it's not something where it's just like, oh, I'm just going to do it every year. It's like, I'm going to do this in four years from now. I'm going to save up for it and it's going to be a whole cool thing. doing Roth. I would love to do it. I think it's so funny, like, I'm not one of these people that

loves pain. Like, I love feeling good and being comfortable and laying on the couch. But hearing, like, you talk about the gnarly sand ladder and I'm like, I want to, I want to freaking do it. It's, it is exciting. For me, it's just, it's like a different pain. Like, the pain that you experienced doing like Boulder 70.3 since that just happened, for example, where you're trying to ride, ride on the limit on a flat road and you're focused on, like, managing that pain versus this, like, I just have to get up. up this hill. I have to keep moving up this hill. Oh, totally different. But then I'm going to like bomb down the backside and I have to make sure I don't step in a pothole. Like that's a different

kind of situational pain than me versus myself in my head. I just can't imagine. I feel like all people handle that pain better. Like you're just distracted. Maybe it's just ADD. I don't know. But like the constant distraction, like now there's this thing and it's new and different. And there's this thing. It's new and different. You forget about the pain that happened two things ago and you're just focused on this thing. Yeah. I don't know. You and I are definitely wired similarly. I wouldn't say that everybody feels exactly the same, but it's just different. And it's a cool experience if you're looking for something new and exciting.

Well, we actually have a couple questions about that coming up soon. So we'll come back to it a bit. But I wanted to move on to our little segment this week. And it's going to be the coffee edition of This or That. It's amazing. It's amazing to me when we have supporters or just listeners make us games. Like that's just wild. We don't do any work for this pod.

People just send us all the things. Oh, it's great for me because otherwise I have to make them up. So thank you very much. Okay, so here's the question. For each one of these you have, it's obvious how it works. We've done it a million times. Okay, so first one, drip versus espresso. Espresso.

Will you guys do drip ever? Yeah, totally. We're not that fancy that we absolutely cannot do anything but espresso. Well, Eric was away in Alcatraz. I don't even. know how to use our Lamar Zoko. I don't even know how to turn it on. Wow. That's great. So I made French press while he was gone and I actually really liked it. Nice. And on the topic of drip, one of my favorite things is to go to like Denny's or something like

that and have breakfast and just like pound drips because it's so watered down. You can just have like five and it's just such a. Yeah. Indulgent. And don't they just come by with like a pitcher and just like refus it? And you don't even actually know how much you've had because like by that you get about half to three quarters empty and they're they fill it right back up. And also maybe last thing about that that I'm curious about just because I'm I'm not a coffee snob like you guys. Is there a difference between drip coffees? Like there's a difference between espresso or is like pretty much all drip coffee the same?

Well, you can make different grounds to make the dress. Yeah, different roasts are going to taste different. But I guess what I mean is like, is there good and bad or is it just your taste is different for it? 100% there's good and bad. The difference between what you're going to get at Starbucks and their Pike Place roast and what you're going to get at a gas station is quite different. Completely different. Yeah.

I know people are like, how does he not know this? I just don't drink drip coffee and I don't know much. I bet you could blind taste test like three different coffees and one could be gas station. One could be Starbucks, you know, Pike Place and one could be an Americano made with espresso and just water added to it. And the two nice ones would probably be indistinguishable depending on just like if you like the drip coffee roast. Okay, got it. Interesting. Next one, latte versus cappuccino. Cappuccino. Lottes a little bit much milk for me.

I usually go with the latte because they're the same price and you get like twice as much latte. I feel like mine is usually if I'm going to get a pastry, I do the cappuccino. If I'm not, I go for the latte. Because the latte is a little more sweet already, but the cappuccino I need that chocolate croissant. Do you add a sweetness to your latte? Sometimes if I'm feeling fancy, I'll do mocha. I do like the mocha. I don't know sure I've ever been to coffee with you when you actually got coffee.

you always get like a decaf mocha or just like a... Oh yeah, I don't get caffeine in the U.S. ever. I only go to caffeine in Italy because it's less caffeine. That's not coffee. Yeah. Yeah, well... That is officially brown water. I like pretend coffee.

I like, I want the easy bake oven coffee. Yeah. But we all agree we like the act of coffeeing. Next thing. Yes, exactly. Hot versus iced. I've never seen either of you ever get iced. I get iced in the summer.

I'll get a hot. Even in the summer? 40 degrees, I'll get a hot. 40 is a lot of Celsius. 40 is like 100 and something. You're still sitting in the air-conditioned coffee shop. Right. But it's just like I like knowing that when it's outside,

like I love getting hot coffee in the winter and ice coffee in the summer. This is something about the mood. Mm-hmm. No, you're purest. It depends on the time of day. It depends on the mood. Depends how hot you are.

Okay, how about light roast versus dark roast? I usually lean towards the dark roast. Yeah, me too. and counterintuitively, the dark roast is actually less caffeinated, right? The light roast is more flavorful. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Single origin versus blend.

Who? Beyond my scope of this. Yeah, I'm not that good at tasting coffee where I could be like, oh, that's obviously a single origin. And that's obviously a blend from Ethiopia. But is one like seen as more like as higher brow or as fancier than the other? or are they kind of like, nope, it's just up to your taste? I think typically, though, like, the people will, like,

a coffee shop will advertise the fact that they have a single origin. Such and session, it'll probably be a little bit more expensive just because you had to get all those beans from the exact same place. And then, you know, you could, and it's just, that coffee has to be real good. You can't mix it with a couple other coffees. Like, you could a red blend of wine and, like, come up with something good out of something that was,

eh, to begin with. But, yeah. Oh, and then what, this is interesting, homebrewed versus cafe. I feel like this brings up a question about FICA a little bit. It just depends on the cafe and how good you are at home brewing. I like Eric's coffee is better than going out, but we'll often still go out for the, like you were saying, Nick, the experience.

Yeah. Yeah. So Eric, do you feel the same too as like, is it the experience of going to the cafe that you're after or not necessarily the coffee because you like the coffee you make at home? Yeah. 100%. I do think that they're, it just kind of depends. Some baristas at some cafes around here make an eight ounce oatmeal

cappuccino better than I do at home. But like, I make it home twice a day every single day. Yeah. So I've kind of gotten the hang of getting it just perfectly. And sometimes we get better ones and sometimes we get worse ones. Okay. Now, you're only allowed one coffee every morning or you can have as many as you want, but they have to be afternoon.

What do you pick? One in the morning. One in the morning. That's pretty much, that's mostly what we do. Yep. Anyway. And last one here, it's mostly for Paula. Tim Hortons or Stabax?

For coffee? Yeah. Tim Hortons, because you could get a donut as well. Oh, you can get donuts at Starbucks, but yes, it's not the same. Really? Don't say such things. Not really. That's blasphemy.

I would never. But I don't think that Tim Hortons coffee is that good. But, you know, you just like double double, two creams, two sugars, and it tastes like a treat. So they do espresso drinks at Tim Hortons as well. Sorry for my eyes. just a coffee. I definitely more equate Tim Hortons to like Duncan. Yeah.

Yeah. Got it. Got it. Got it. Great. Well, those are our, that's what's this or that coffee edition. So thank you for the podcast listener. Dave from Montreal.

Well, thanks Dave from Montreal. Thanks, that was killer. Okay, so I don't know if you guys remember, but last week we gave a bottle away. This week, we still have bottles. They are going fast, but miraculously, we still have some. They're still on the website, that triathlonlife.com. But since we still have one, we're going to give one away this week. week and we randomly picked Matt Sinclair from Kirkland, Washington, which, by the way, how far is that from you?

Not that far. I mean, as compared to, like, Australia or... Right. We've been very lucky to pick U.S. people so far. Yeah, it's probably like, we've just gotten lucky. You know, it's like saving us a little bit of money on shipping. But we can guarantee that this is truly random. Matt Sinclair from Kirkland, Washington. Congratulations. You can, we think we have your address right, but just in case, can you please email that triathlon life brand at gmail.com with your current address. And Matt won because he's a podcast supporter. And you can become a podcast supporter too at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. The point of the podcast supporter is we made a decision to not do ad reads on here. And the reason

we're able to do that is because a bunch of you are supporting the podcast by giving whatever it is that you want to give each month. And that saves us from having to, you know, take on ads when we need to buy a new microphone when breaks, anything like that. We feel like they're all our little children. They're all our kids. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we really, really, really, really appreciate it. Like, I don't think we say that enough. Everyone who supports us and, yeah, donates every month or just listens. It's what keeps this thing going. So thank you a ton. And what Nick just said about the hoodies, we do have like a, a, pretty good lineup of things that are being released this month, starting with a collaboration

with Foreign Rider. Foreign Rider is Ralph Dunning's company. Ralph designed our logo. And since then, has been our mentor, has guided us through what to do with TTL and how to make it a thing. And it probably wouldn't exist as it does without him. Certainly not. And it's in all the ways that it's, in what it's become. And the quality of his clothing is what we've always aspired to do, because it's so nice. It's made in Canada. It's just like the kind of stuff you want to wear every day. So to be able to put a TTO logo on his stuff is the coolest thing ever.

And we guarantee that whoever gets one will love it. Limited quantities, but... We only have 100. Yeah. Oh, boy. That's not very many. So we're going to be putting them up on the website. Probably Wednesday this week is what we're shooting for.

And then they'll be shipping around the on the 26th. He's launching his entire... Like in two days. Yeah. So before the podcast goes live. So if you're listening to this, they may already be out. Yeah. Unfortunately, that's just what we got to do.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's totally, that's totally fun. But it's funny. I don't think we've ever acknowledged that he designed the logo and that he is a big inspiration for how the apparel has been in general. Yeah. Maybe not on the podcast, but I've certainly talked about it on Instagram and in YouTube before. Yeah.

So that's pretty much the coolest thing, but we've got other stuff coming up as well. T-shirts. Some T-shirts. Some shorts. Summer stuff that is smaller. Love it. Yeah, we just got the short samples. They're really fun.

I'm wearing them right now. It feels like wearing nothing. Still has a tag on them, by the way. Are you thinking you might return them, Eric? No, I just got to leave the tag on there for when we do a product picture of us. So you can see the super cool tags that we got custom made for the short. The whole thing, man. Details.

I don't know if it was like a trend you're starting to say. You know, like when people had those like flat-brimmed hats and they still had the stickers on them. Like, just to prove that it was brand new. I'm if you're trying to start a new trend with shorts to keep the tag on there. He's just running around bend with the tag flapping around in the wind. Maybe that's how you know I'm going fast.

That's the wind sock. That's the triathlete win sock. Okay, first question here is from Leah in Minnesota. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn. I love all that you do for the sport of triathlon. Last weekend, I competed in a local Olympic distance race as I'm gearing up for Steelhead 70.3 in two weeks. curious what you guys feel about swimming race etiquette during the swim at the first turn someone touched my feet i didn't think much of it as we were making a turn and things happened but this person continued to be on my feet the rest of the race no joke they touched my feet at least fifteen times

should they have gone around me i'd consider i'd consider myself to be a strong swimmer as i will swim a 123 per hundred yard pace this did push me to swim faster because i tried to out swim them but it got very annoying as they just dragged off me, wondering what the right move is in this situation. Keep up the amazing work. I look forward to the podcast each week. Nice job at Alcatz. Eric, can't wait to hear your race recap. Lee in Minnesota.

Yeah. It's actually pretty funny and very appropriate because... I thought you might find it appropriate. Miguel did this to me the entire swim at Alcatraz. And not only did he touch his feet 15 times. He touched his feet 150 times. Probably more like 150. Yeah. 15 is not that many, to be honest.

And when you're on the feet 15thes'clock. someone's feet, touching their feet is just confirmation that you're close enough to get the best possible draft. So it's fair game in a draft legal race. Fifteen times is actually pretty polite. I've had people like every stroke touch my feet. Yep. That's really annoying.

Which equates to thousands of strokes. It's very annoying. I've just never had, it's crazy. I think this happens at the front of races for age rupers and for professionals. Obviously, you guys, professionals, you're all very fast. But I've never been able to swim with. someone in a race. Yeah, well, what are the chances that you started nearby somebody who's the exact same

swim pace as you? Yeah, it's a lot higher likelihood for us. Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of jealous of this, like being able to swim in a pack like that. But Nick, Nick, it doesn't make you, it doesn't. It's not that good. It doesn't make you feel like you're going that much faster. You're still working super hard.

And it's like, I feel like the concentration of trying to stay on someone's feet is actually quite difficult, which is why you kind of touch their feet because you're like, it's hard to see. You're just looking at bubbles. It's hectic. You're sighting and you see just waves. Is the sighting easier, though? Are you just like kind of trusting that the person in front of you is going straight?

Yeah, you're pretty much trusting them. And then every once in a while you're siding to look to make sure you're not wildly on course. But if you're on someone's feet, you're going faster. And even if they swim a couple meters extra, it behooves you to probably stay with them. Yeah. And there's nothing really you can do to stop them besides surge and drop them, which is really difficult because they're getting a draft on you. So just put up with it.

I guess you both probably swam faster because of it, right? What you do is you start to drift off to the right. That's what I'm going to ask you. And then you cut hard left and sprint for 20 strokes. Yeah. Wait, when did this happen? What are you referencing? I feel like this happened in a race.

Collins Cup. Yeah, Collins Cup. That's what it was. It was so annoying at Collins Cup because we started in groups of three. Right. And Cat Matthews and Sky maybe. Oh, it was. Yeah.

It was the bikers. They put the bikers together. Got on my hip and I couldn't drop them. That's the worst. So I was like trying to like do what Eric just said, drift to the left and cut hard right. And I knew if I could get ahead of them, I could drop them. But when you're sitting on someone's hip, it really drags you down. And they just can kind of swim effortlessly there.

It's the worst. Don't be the person who sits on the hip. You're an absolute. For the Collins Cup, it was a good tactic though. Because it didn't matter what our time is like. It's literally designed to slow everybody down. It is not the fastest way for two people to swim through the water. But if you know that you are significantly slower than the faster person,

you can actually slow them down and just... Stay with... F-deem over. Eric. Wait, he's not allowed to curse, and you are? No, he is. Yeah, Paul drops, like three F-bombs an episode. And the second I say F anything, she's like,

and I'm the one that has to go in and do the bleeping. My mom's listening. Who also says F frequently. Okay, next question. So our answer to that is, it's 15 times is no big deal. No big deal. It's annoying, but yeah, your only solution is to start faster and get away from that person. Hey, TTL, thanks for all you do. Recently, I was spectating

Eric at Escape from Alcatraz. Congrats at a great race. Eric, I instinctively wanted to give you splits on the run, gap front behind, because I know how much I like having this info when I'm racing, but I'm an amateur. This has always been a prearranged thing from a friend who I was expecting to give me this info. I looked up whether providing splits is actually against the USAT rules, and it looks like it is legal. And he even gave USAT 3-4D is where it is legal. That's awesome. Did the research.

But out of an abundance of caution, I didn't give any split info when you ran past just cheered. My question is, is there an etiquette around fans providing this info to pros? Do you see this as an outside assistance that would potentially be frowned upon? Or is it totally cool and helpful? Thanks, Adam.

So these are two different things. One, is it frowned upon? Two, is this something that you personally would want from people that you don't know and don't know how correct they are or what info you're looking for. Yeah, I don't think it's frowned upon at all. I do appreciate it,

but every split that you get, you got to take with a grain of salt because you don't know how accurate that person is when they were, you know, and it's very evident when you run past one person and they say, oh, a minute to the front.

And then 20 seconds later, you run past the next person and they say it's a minute 45 to the front. Like, okay, so it's probably not, 20 seconds. It's probably, but it's rarely can you just take it. Like every mile you're passing somebody in the split is going down perfectly. You know, it's, you just got to, I appreciate it. It's helpful, but I don't, and I don't think it's against the rules and it's just luck of the draw if you get good information or not.

I 100% want to know every time. It's all I want to know. Don't cheer for me. Just tell me the gaps. That's all I want to know. Even if they're a little bit wrong. Wow. Every time I run past a person, even if I don't know them, I'm like, what's the gap? What's the gap? You have the tracker on your phone. Tell me the gap. Please tell me the gap. Tell me the gap.

So, I don't know. That's just me. That could be the difference. One person looked at the tracker and it hasn't updated in a while a while and it says 1.30. But somebody else actually counted from the person who was in front of you and it's a minute. Yeah. I'm not necessarily expecting them to be counting. It's more of the tracker.

And even if it's a ballpark of two minutes versus 30 seconds. You know, that's a, that's helpful information. The only thing is, like, sometimes, like, it's obvious to you. Not always. No, no, no. I mean, like, who you want the gap to the person in front of you or the person behind you, but it's not always obvious to the people on course. True.

Sometimes it's like, okay, it's whatever. I'm going to pass this person in front of me on the bike. I know that or on the run or whatever. I know that. But the person behind me is a great runner, and I'm more interested to hear how far back they are. That's the hardest split to have, though, because, like, that person has to know somebody who's like further back on course, they can get that split. Or it's a multi-loop thing and that information's pretty old.

Or if it's off the tracker and that information could be really old. Yeah. But you're right. You need to be a hardcore triathlon fan to give the right kind of split. Right. Like what's the gap to Tamara Jewett? Yeah, Paula's like, okay, Canadian runner behind you. That's who she wants to know, you know?

Yeah. She's six minutes behind me right now, but it's going to be three soon. Yeah. Jordan Blanco actually crushed this at Alcatraz when I got to the first climb. On the run, she was like, 130 to Mark Dubrick, Jason's 315 back, but he's not closing the gap at all. Like, well, that's all the information you need. Absolutely perfect. She's, she's my hero, and I've said this before, but she's who I aspire to be in triathlon,

is Jordan Blanco. Okay, so. She's great. We love her. Okay, so next question here is from Kizzy, which is a great name. Longtime listener from Australia and Love Your Podcast. My question is regarding, how do you, start your career as a pro triathlete and fund this journey. I would say I'm an above average

athlete for the amount of hours I'm able to invest in training between work and study, as well as the budget that I have to spend being not very big. I've had to take a break this year and sell my bike due to time and money, and I'm wondering, how did you go about funding your career prior to having sponsors and therefore super nice equipment for free? Kizzy. Well, we had, Paul and I have different stories. Yeah, it's it, I, I don't know. There's no one set way. Getting on the TTL development team, definitely helps.

But that's why we started that. If you're not aware of that, the TTL development team, we tried to start this little program where we give some kids some kits and some access to some of our sponsor stuff and a little bit of a stipend to pay for some travel because it is really, really difficult. And 90% of people who want to be a pro triathlet don't make it and run up credit card debt

and can't ever bridge that gap to being profitable. Yeah, it's an expensive sport to start with, especially because of the bike. So if you can find a secondhand bike from a professional who's selling one, I think that's the best way to get the best possible bike for the best possible deal. But it's not all about the gear. Once you have that set up, I don't know. I can't anecdotally talk about my own situation because my rise to success was pretty quick. and I had sponsors way quicker than I, than is normal.

It's so funny hearing you guys talk about this feels exactly like when people are like, how do you make it as a musician? There's just, there's not one path. It's like, it's so random and you kind of like piece things together and you have this skill and that skill and this person's letting you crash at their place or like use their recording studio and it sounds the same. Yeah, it's totally, I could imagine it's very, very similar. And then you have a breakthrough race or something and everything.

comes together. Or a song that yep, 100%. Yeah. I must say that having supportive parents is a huge part of this. If you have parents that will kind of help fund the beginning of your career, it takes a huge load off and are supportive of your

goals and... It's just like anything. Have the financial freedom to be able to buy bikes. It sucks that that's kind of a requirement. But both Eric and I... I mean, different different situations. Eric's parents are insanely supportive, but they didn't buy your first bike.

I mean, they bought me my first bike when I was like 12. Yeah. Right. Your first racing bike. Yeah. Well, I actually bought, I actually bought my first racing bike for $15 from a garage sale. 15, 15? Yep. I was a Schwinn traveler. Actually got two bikes for $15. So two for one deal. That's a good ROI on that $15 bike. I used that for a couple years. And then somebody in the triathlon community sold me their daughter's bike that they weren't using anymore for $300. I trimmed this arbor vita bush in my parents' backyard like for three weeks in the summer to get $300 to buy that bike. And then they actually bought me my first pretty nice racing bike on close out at a trek store in Portland.

Yeah. Okay. So I was wrong. I was wrong. So why were you shaking your head of me? This was still before the age of like 14. Oh, okay. Okay.

Anyway, and that was a $1,500 bike on close out at a truck store. Wow, that's pretty. And that was the last and only bike that related to trathlon that they bought me. To like briefly describe my pathway, what I ended up doing is I did drop out of college. I went to college to run track and field to try to get better at running for a trathon. And then I went and worked at a trathlon shop in Portland. I worked there for like two and a half years while paying rent at my parents' house, a small amount of rent, but still some rent.

And I saved up all the money that I made. And I got to $10,000 and I quit the job and moved to California. and like lived three guys to a tiny little apartment to try to coast off of that $10,000 startup money for as long as I could. And in the process of- Oh, God. And in the process of- Hell yeah, Eric, I fucking love it. And in the process of working in the bike shop, I got access to what's called pro deals from bike companies,

where as an employee of a bike shop, you can buy a Cervello bike for half off. So I got that. And, yeah, it was not glamorous. It took a lot. It took two years of living like that, three guys in one bedroom for me to win $1,500 at a local race. And then I ended up winning. I mean, it took, that was in like 2012 that I moved there.

And it took until 2015 until I won Alcatraz and that was a $10,000 win. And now look at you. Now you have your own company, your own house flying all over the world to races. Dang. 11 years later. That is the ultimate grind. I don't think I could have done that. I did not like trath on enough to do that.

My story is that I'm a spoiled brat. My dad's a brain surgeon. And they bought me all my shit. You also are like such a freaking talent that you could... Yeah, it's just different. It's just different. This is not helpful for this girl. But I think that a lot of it comes down to you have to...

You kind of have to just work for it at first. And hopefully later it pays off. But it's not a guarantee. Usually what I tell people is like if you want to be a professional triathet, you got to do it because you really want to live that lifestyle. It cannot be because you want to be famous or make money or anything. Be famous. There's a very small chance that you make money ever. But if like traveling around and going to races and being super duper poor and maybe someday it pays off sounds fun, then go for it.

It's a great life. The bike thing that you're talking about, like the bike, your parents buying a bike, it reminds me a lot of when my parents, They bought me that guitar and they were like, oh, okay, now we got him the guitar. Like, finally, we got on the guitar. Like, that's the one. Meanwhile, like, 10 guitars later, I'm still, like, looking at more guitars. Like, it never ends. It's n plus one for guitars as it is for bicycles.

It's like, it never ends. Do you still have the first guitar? Yeah, I think it was a nice, like, Taylor. And I do still have it. Actually, I just brought it to L.A., and I have to put new strings on it. But, yes, I also have many more guitars since then. Well, because it's, like, it's hard to explain to people who, it's, it's, it's, kind of like, yeah, I have a road bike, but I need a gravel bike, and I need a mountain bike,

and I need a TT bike. And I also want to fix you to get around town. You know, it's like, guitars are like that, too. They serve different purposes. Yeah, I totally understand that. Different sounds, different vibes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they don't take up as much room, though. Yes, they don't. They don't. Not quite. They're very artsy, too, that I feel like they're beautiful. But so are bicycles. I have my fixie up in my living room hanging on the wall, even though I didn't use it. So yeah, Kizzy, the answer to your question is, it's, it's make your own adventure kind of. We could do like a freaking five-part series on how to attempt to be a professional

triathlet and all the potential hurdles you have to jump through and things you could do. Apply for the Devo team for 24. Yeah, that's the one thing that we really enjoy about that is they can message us via email or Instagram or like whatever and ask us questions like, how do you, does this make so? Can you read this proposal for another sponsor or whatever? and that's pretty enjoyable to be able to try to help out. Okay, next question here is from Kinley.

Hey, I'll have a question. That's mostly for Paula. When you're doing laundry, what temperature do you wash your cycling shorts in? Everything I've read says to use cold water to ensure that you aren't hurting the fabric, but does that really clean the shammy? I don't want to hurt my kit, but I also don't want dirty shammy. Any laundry help would be appreciated, Kinley.

I looked this up too. Oh, you did? Okay, well, what does the internet say? The internet says that this idea that hot water cleans better used to be more true. It's still kind of true, but the new detergents are basically hot water accelerates the chemical reaction of the detergent. That's the idea behind it. And it also sanitizes more. But the number one rule I was reading is you follow what it says on the tag of the fabric.

That's the most important thing. So if it says wash it cold, wash it cold. I don't necessarily do that. I wash everything warm. Like, you know, when you put the things in the washing machine and it says normal, I just use normal. You, like, hang up all of our nice stuff. Yeah, I think that to me it feels like drying stuff ruins it more than the temperature of the wash.

So I'll hang up all of our bike shorts and our jerseys and anything that's kind of more delicate or, like, technical fabric I won't put in the dryer. so that has helped preserve the life of... Okay, but that brings me to my second question. What is the life of a shammie in the TTL household? Oh, man. Maybe we keep stuff in a rotation for two to three years. I don't know, but we do have so many that we're not wearing each one that much. Yeah.

I mean, I have shammies from like six years ago that I wear once a week. Oh, it's for sure too long. But there are still like $250, $300. If anybody in your life can smell it, it's too long. I mean, it's not even this. It's like a musty smell when you have things for too long, I think. You just can't clean the sweat out of it anymore. Yep.

Not saying you smell like that, Nick, but that's just what happens when you keep things that are maybe too old. But yeah, the normal cycle for me and I use just like a sport detergent. I think that could be a good solution is something that's a little more specific for sportswear that will actually get some of the bacteria out or the smell out that builds up more in sport clothes. than in your regular clothes. I don't know. But I'm definitely not a laundry expert.

I just do a lot of laundry and our stuff seems to last pretty well. So I think the hanging method is kind of a good tip. Definitely do not put a nice stuff in the dryer. Yeah. Sometimes when I'm super lazy and I forgot I did laundry though and it's like 930, I'll just put it in the dryer. All the stuff. Yeah.

No, with heat sometimes. Oh, is that what happened in my Marino long sleeves? and not Marino short sleeves Yeah Crop top marino short sleeves Base layers and stuff does shrink That's really sad yeah But as I'm zero percent critical

I appreciate you doing the laundry so much Doing laundry is such a Hanging it up after is the biggest Job ever for me Okay next question here's from Jonathan Hi Paul Eric Nick and Flynn I recently did Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga had a great race going for me

42 minutes swim 2 23 bike but on the run about mile nine I had severe pain and barely finished. I was having a bit of hip pain for about three weeks out, but my family doctor thought it was just strained hip flexors. After seeing my orthopedic doctor, after race, I found out that I had stress fracture and had been put out of training for six weeks.

After doing some research, I believe it was caused from me doing 95% of my runs on the road. What percentage of my runs do you think should be on paved road versus trails, and what do you guys do? No percentage on the road. Zero. Stay away from the road at all as much as possible. I'd say the road is okay for specific workouts or if it's like a tempo run or something like that.

But I think that your worst enemy is concrete. It's a lot harder than like... Asphalt. Asphalt. Yeah. So if you're running on a sidewalk, for example, or I don't know, some bike paths are concrete, but I think that's a lot harder. Most of our runs are on trail or gravel roads or crushed gravel paths. And then when it's closer to a race or sometimes in the winter we have to run on the asphalt a little bit more just because the trails are snowy.

But we'll shift to that a little bit in the season. But for the most part, we're staying soft. I would just say as much as you can get on soft stuff. What's your opinion on the benefit of running on those crushed gravel roads being, the soft surface versus a surface where how you're striking is continually changing because there's slight variation like a pebble here, a pebble there, a little rock here, a little rock there versus striking the same exact way. No, you don't feel that really. I mean, it has to be a pretty bumpy gravel road and I think what you're talking about has as much to do with

turning as it does with the surface being uneven. I do think anything's better than nothing. but the gold standard would be for sure if you could run single track without hurting anything if you want to get a little bit of a proporeoceptive workout in while also going for a run but it's also obviously harder to run quickly

so you got to balance that against your time with leg speed and everything. For this person's specific scenario, racing is 70.3 all on pavement in super shoes. When you do train exclusively on soft surface though is the worst thing you can do. That's when you're going to break your hip.

Although he did say he had pain before the race, but I think that could have been the final straws. Like, you don't have the impact pounding in training, and then you go run two hours on pavement hard. Right. So that is pretty catastrophic in both Eric and I've had stress fractures that maybe were a stress fracture before the race, but for sure were once we did the race because of the hard surface. So you have to train yourself for that and do some of your runs on the road before. you race. I want to, I want to, this reminded me of something anecdotally that I, that you guys helped me realize, or I should say kind of like the entire pro field to kind of help me realize, but I do, I used to do like all my runs on hard surfaces and I remember Eric, you were in town

for some reason in L.A. You were staying with me. And you came on a run with me and David. And David runs like 100 miles a week on hard services. Or now he's trying to bring his volume down and quality up, but he was running a ton every week. He's just a runner. And you ran with us and you were like, I cannot believe you guys run on this hard surface on all your runs. And I don't think I'd ever really thought about it. I thought you guys just kind of liked running on soft surfaces, like it was more fun and like a little more adventurey.

And then I started noticing this that like, okay, and then I remember talking to Holly, Holly Lawrence, and she was talking about where she ran when she lived down the street from me. And she tried to do as many soft surfaces as possible. And then I started noticing that all these pros who were doing all this volume. I mean, it's so obvious to you guys,

but I didn't notice this at all. that these pros are doing all this volume are trying as much as possible to do to avoid these hard surfaces. And I don't know if age groupers are as clued into that. I mean, we still get stress fractures too. You just don't have that many options. And a lot of people have no options

if you live in like downtown Miami or I don't know, just somewhere that doesn't have a trail network or anything. Yeah, it's not easy always. But treadmills are softer than pavement. Yeah. So you can always cycle that into the rotation. But when I run in Santa Monica on the bike path, it hurts my body.

Wow. Like I can feel it jarring, especially if you're a bit sore from the day before running on the bike path. And then you do it the second day. Like I think maybe it's a good thing, though, for you, Nick, because you've built so much resilience that you don't even think about it. I would still argue that if you did a primarily soft surface run twice a week, you would ultimately end up running faster. your body would be less beat up twice a week. You would recover a little bit better. Yeah.

Especially for easy runs, yeah. Yeah. It just adds up all that pounding. Pros get stress fractures. We hear about them all the time. It seems like more frequently than amateurs do. Of course they're running more volume. But do you think any bit is also due to the fact that pros are so optimized with so many things

that they're kind of like riding this line, like body weight, musculature, bike volume, total training volume. Yeah. Like if you're just really tired from a lot of bike volume and swimming and everything, that can really open you up to having a little bit worse run technique and you're trying to do a high run volume. And I would also just throw in here before anybody else talks is that we're pretty much obligated to tell everyone when we have a stress fracture because we can't race for several months. So I bet plenty of age groupers out there get stress fractures and have stuff like this. They just don't need to tweet about it. Right.

Right. Right. But I think that catching this while it's a stress reaction, hopefully this person did, they heal relatively fast. And then does it something you have to be careful about forever? Or once it's healed, it's like you're pretty good if you're smart. If you're susceptible to stress fractures, you always have to be cautious of it. Some people have weaker bones than others, I guess. I guess what I mean is like if you've had tendonitis in a certain spot, you're much more likely to get it there again.

Is it the same with stress fractures? No, it actually is like heals stronger. Okay. I think it heals stronger, but also maybe the root of the cause of getting the stress fracture in your hip was an imbalance somewhere else that if you don't correct it, you'll continue to put that pounding in the wrong spot, which is the weak point where the fracture showed up. So maybe getting some physio work done or massage, just even when the stress factor is healed to make sure you're moving while and this doesn't recur. Yeah, what caused it. Got it. Okay, next question here is from Christopher.

Dear Paul, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. Christopher from Berlin here. a newbie triathlete and avid listener of TTL. My last triathlon featured a water start, an in-water start, which I found very tough. I started too fast, got kicked, lost my rhythm, swallowed too much water, panicked, reverted to breaststroke, and got overtaken and kicked some more.

Dude, I'd say let's just start a petition for no more in-water starts allowed. They're the worst. Nobody likes them. Because that's what happens every time. It's just a freaking churning washing machine for those first 50 meters. It's terrible. So he finished 200.

10th out of 320 with a 1927 swim time for a sprint, so a summit 750 meters, a far cry for my 15 minute pool time. How would you suggest to tackle such a crowded start? Should I have stayed behind a pack and attempted to overtake people? It felt like I needed five minutes to get my heart rate and breathing up to really start swimming. Thanks and keep up the great work, Christopher. Well, I mean, the pro solution is to swim more and get out in front of all the nonsense. instead of being caught in the scrum,

but that might not be an option for an age group athlete. I don't know if like waiting for everybody to go and then starting is a better solution because I assume the clock is running while that's happening. Yeah, but if you're stopped in the water doing breaststroke anyway, you might as well be on shore

and like chilling out for a minute before getting in. My thought just based on the way that that question ended was that maybe work on your warm-up protocol so that when you get in the water, you're more ready to start swimming quickly immediately can have a little bit faster start and get into the rhythm sooner. So that could be, if you can't warm up in the water, you can do some like sprinting running around, just like do a run warm up and swing your arms a lot, at least get your blood pumping.

That's a good point. And also selection of where you start on the in-water start. If you kind of go closer to the edge, maybe it's not the straightest line, but you'll have a bit more clear water if you have the choice versus in the middle where it's going to be the most hectic. This reminds me of when I raised St. George and I like was like, who cares where I start with the swim group? I'm never swim on anyone's feet, so I'm going to swim my own speed, whatever. And so I started like 30 minutes later than my swim group did with people that were much slower. And so here's the funny thing. You'd think that would affect the swim. But it actually didn't really affect the swim. I sure I swam past people. But it affected the bike and the run big time. The bike, because then I'm biking with people who are much slower than I was. And I was kind of dealing with passing. people the whole time, which definitely slowed me down.

And then it affected my run because I'm running, like, it sounds dumb because it's only like 30 minutes, but like that's 30 minutes of more intense sun that you're dealing with. It's hotter in the day. And I remember it got up to 93 at St. George. And I was like, oh, man, if I would have just started sooner, I would not be in this position. Yeah. Totally. That's a good point, Nick.

I never thought of that. Everybody fake your swim times and start early. Well, they do anyway. I promise you that. And then our last question here, hey, y'all, getting right to it, how do I get better at biking? I'm not worried about my FTP or watts per kilos. What I struggle with is feeling confident on fast downhills and even just moderately fast and hugging the edge of the crown of the pavement. I always feel like the bike is about to slide out from under me.

Any suggestions? Is it just ride more or are there other things I can do on and off the bike? The bike is definitely not going to slide out from underneath you. Well, I mean, there is a limit, but people are usually so far from it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm guessing that you're pretty far from the limit. And I honestly, I think the best way to work on this is you just, you have to get out of your comfort zone a little bit and you have to push it just a little bit. Just a little bit.

You can go to the same curve and ride up and down on it like 50 times. And each time try to take it just a little bit faster, trust your tires just a little bit more. And over the course of 100 times doing it in a few weeks, you might realize just how grippy your tires are. or you might get real intimate with some pavement. Yeah. And then you got some cool road rush to tell your friends about. I think if you just, like I said, push it 1% each time you go around that corner. Well, you see how fast the tour to France people go around corners and they're not at the limit.

And you're never going to go that fast. Well, they're pretty close to the limit. Yeah, sometimes they go over it. But I mean, you're not even... You're nowhere close to what they're doing. So I think you can handle it. Yeah, but I get it. It's so scary.

I'm bad at it too. The more I do a trail or the more I do technical things, the more comfortable I get. If I go from like trainer in the winter to outside, it's pretty rusty. And then the more you ride outside, the better. Yeah. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad to like watch some tutorials on like how to corner on a bike because I have like, I have a triathlete friend who like is standing going around corners on a bike, on a road bike. It's like that's the opposite of what you want to do.

You want to get nice and low and try to put some weight on the back wheel, you know. which are things that if, you know, if you write a lot, you kind of instinctively do. But if you don't have those instincts, maybe you do need to kind of go out and explicitly learn about it, read about it, try it out. Like Eric said, push it 1% more every time you go around and put these things into action until you can start to actually have that feel. Yeah, I do think that would be really helpful to watch a video about it. You're right. Like body position and where your center of gravity is, front to back, and just like getting low, It makes a huge difference.

We both played like racing games growing up. So maybe we just, we already did that work when we were younger, like riding dirt bikes and riding mountain bikes. Yeah. Did you guys skateboard too? Did you skateboard, Nick? Yeah. Yeah. I think skateboarding is actually a big part of it.

Yeah. Understanding the tilt and the curve and the be just being comfortable going fast, being able to save yourself from a fall, all of those factors. But you can't go back in time. Yeah. I don't know. The principles are going downhill on any device are pretty similar. except going around a corner on a mountain bike and where you put weight on that

and a road bike are very different. Like you actually lean the mountain bike over more than you lean your body over on a mountain bike whereas in a road bike you're kind of in line with the road bike. So I can see why it is confusing to people. But once you get comfortable with it, it becomes second nature and your body figures it out.

You're still counterbalancing the road bike a little bit when you corner, but it's not as aggressive as a mountain bike where you're trying to dig in the corner knobs on the tires. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Or like on a motorcycle, it's the opposite. Like your body leans and the bike stays more vertical.

It's kind of interesting how those three have different things. That one's weird. Yeah. Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent there. But yeah, those are all our questions this week. Nick, it's so late for you. You're on the East Coast. Oh, my God.

It's almost been night. Yeah, it's okay, but I got to get used to West Coast time because I'm flying back tomorrow. That's true. So you can wake up at 10 a.m. The pregame and the West Coast time. Pregame in the West Coast. I'm running with my friend Nicole tomorrow morning at 7.30. That's the hard part is you're like, oh, I'm going to get on Pacific time in the night time.

But then in the morning, I'm still on East Coast time. So I'm just not sleeping. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Not fun. That's okay. Well, we appreciate it.

Thanks for doing it. Of course, my pleasure. And I'm excited to get back into normal training since I have been just traveling ton and not been able to train. And I had a cold. But I'm very excited and motivated to get back into high volume training. Nick, what does your next couple weeks look like? because I just got a reminder on Strava that a year ago we did a ride together here. Oh, that's cute.

I want to come up there in July. What about next week for a little training camp? I haven't had one weekend here in like two months. Yeah, well, and also keep it going. Well, I can guarantee you'll be having good training if you're hanging out with us. Maybe the problem is... More enough E&P time. I agree. I agree.

I'm pretty sure we'll be a better influence on your training. I went to hang out with my professional athlete friends and my training was shit. I never said that. No, it was I begged for death when I was running up Misery Ridge at Smith Rock, aptly named. You loved Misery Ridge. Stop it. I did.

Oh my God, I did. That was so fun. It hurts so good. You will hear from us next week. Yeah, send your questions in. And yeah, thanks for listening. Later. Bye.