That Triathlon Life Podcast - Eric races Kodiak 50K Ultramarathon, bike setup for Ironman 70.3 World Championship Marbella, and more!

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

This week we hear all about Eric’s epic adventure racing the Kodiak 50k Ultramarathon, and all the ways it didn’t go to plan. After that, we got into listener-submitted questions and discussed:Did this year’s Kona make Paula want to race Ironman more or less?The right bike setup for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in MarbellaUsing a Peloton or old trainer to build winter fitnessDrivetrain maintenance during a gravel stage raceWhat to look for when picking a new TT bikeHow far out to start heat training for a hot raceBest front hydration solutionsA 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/podcast

What's up, everybody? Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Nick Goldston. And you've found your way into our multi-sport podcast. I say that this week because we are going to be going over my 50K trail run experience. But Paul and I are both professional athletes.

Nick is a professional musician, amateur athlete. We all started out in triathlon. Paul is still there. Nick and I are getting experimental on some other things, but we do have a very deep special spot in our heart for trathlon, and that's what we talk about mostly on this podcast. Eric, how is your body feeling post 50K? My calves are still very sore, but in a strange way,

not in a walking way. They're sore from going uphill. So, like, it's a specific point in the range of motion when I go up a stair, or if I were to walk up a embankment while walking the dog, but I'm not experiencing it in regular walking around. But I haven't tried to run.

That sounds like a bad idea. The bigger thing is, I just feel like completely full body system depletion. Like my brain, I can barely think, this is the first day. I don't think last night I could have even done the podcast.

I just couldn't like complete a complete, a full sentence in my brain. And I just, you know, I went for Paula's bike ride with her today, but I was kind of more focused on taking pictures of fall trees than I was on riding my bike. So I'm just letting that desire to exercise come back naturally. Is there anything else on your schedule? Well, let me rephrase.

Was there anything else on your schedule when you started this race for the year? Yeah, I've got like three or four other things that I would really like to do, and I would say that I was realistic about assuming that, like, one, two of those would actually happen. Since this did not go to plan, I think the thing that is definitely going to happen is Pacific Trails 50K, which is a new race that UTMB is putting on,

and that's in about another month after Paula does 70.3 Marbea. And after that, who knows, but I'm definitely just going to be having some fun getting as much of the last little bits of fall before there's like snow on the ground and stuff, you know, giving Paul a company and supporting her through the,

End of her tri-racing season, T-10070.3 worlds. Yeah, sweet. Paula, what did you get up to while Eric was gone? While Eric and I were frolicking in the woods, what did you do there? Yeah, my mom came to visit for the weekend while Eric was gone. That was nice to have company, and I was just mostly training, but we did a little organizing, we did a little on photo shoot, we did a little dog walking. We went shopping, didn't buy that much,

but it was still fun to go out and do some normal things and not be scared in the night because Eric's gone. Scared in the night. I don't like sleeping overnight when Eric's not here. I don't know. Flynn's a shittiest guard dog ever. Yeah, he's kind of... He's scared than me.

He's scared than me. He's all bark. Yeah, so I had a fun weekend. I watched Kona, obviously. So that was crazy, but I have nothing exciting to update you on. Life goes on. Eric, I would love to hear in detail what you felt during this race. And more specifically, we've heard you do your 50Ks before.

What made this one different? And was your body feeling different? Was your mind feeling different going into it? Those are the kind of details. We, the TTL podcast audience, want to hear. Yeah, I've had a little bit of time to process this, but I still think that it's a little bit inconclusive for me in terms of what I would fix about racing a 50K.

If I could go back in time and magically fix anything, it would just be, you know, my mom had an accident a few weeks ago that required me to go to Portland a couple times. We launched Team TTR, you know, like on top of the general life things that I normally have going on, Flynn's a little bit extra annoying. and just I'm not going to list everything out. My green card.

Paula's green card application. Oh, you guys, maybe I should update the podcast on this. Sure. Yeah. To just further set the stage for the amount of stress that I was just kind of like trying to deal with. My green card was approved. Yes. But not immediately.

I don't know if we want to like, well, whatever we can tell people. We don't want to get into the details for sure. I think what we can say is that we were told that frequently they just say, you're approved at that meeting. And for us, they said, oh, we're going to check on a couple other things, but this looks pretty good. And they didn't get back to us for five days of,

in which Paula is in like extreme stress limbo of thinking she's going to get kicked out of the country. This is what happened. The lady was like, okay, we will go into detail. Okay, back in 2010, when you entered the U.S., what was this stopover? And I'm like, I was an infant in 2010.

I don't recall. I don't recall. I do not recall. I can recall what my layover was in 2010 through the USA. So she was like going over it with a fine tooth comb, my entire history of entries and exits from the United States. And I mean, I don't know if I broke rules back then. I don't think I did. But it was super stressful.

She was not overly friendly. She was all business. Obviously the two parts of getting a green card is like proving that your marriage is legitimate. and then going through and make sure you are eligible to become a permanent residence. And one of those things is going through your past history of visas, etc. So I was massively stressed because of how she made us feel at the end of this and because of the types of questions you was asking. And it's like the worst thing you can say to someone is like, I don't know, but I wasn't lying. I'm like, I didn't even have an iPhone in 2010.

I can't even go back and like see what I was doing back then. Right. So I know for sure I was still living at home. in Canada. Anyway, it got approved, massive relief. And it's kind of like, you know, the U.S. is in a funny state these days. There's a lot of controversy, but I do feel like Oregon is home and it feels nice to have that sense of like, okay, I'm here and it's permanent and everything. I'm doing everything by the book. I'm allowed to be here. I'm allowed to work here. So I'm allowed to travel freely without stress of coming back in on like athlete visas and stuff.

So anyway, that's the update. But it also added stress obviously to Eric's lead up to his race because this was like five days out from his race, this interview. Well, I remember Eric a few days before you were still not even in race mode. You were dealing with a hundred other things. And then when I picked you up, I saw it on your face, this feeling of, oh, okay, we're here. now I have to do this race that I've been kind of planning for months that has a great amount of consequence to my future. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm definitely a type of person who works into a mental state around a race slowly and I do a workout and it feels good and I get a little more confidence and I get excited and I fantasize about how the race is going to go.

And basically every time that I was finishing a workout for the last few weeks, I was immediately on my phone answering an email, answering a text, working on something. all of important things, but I didn't, you know, I think I told you, I didn't quite have many of those moments where I could just sit there on the side of the trail and go, wow, I'm fit, that was good.

Oh, cool. You know, and just like bank that positive, you know, experience. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a little bit strange and I think, unfortunately, like, on Wednesday or Thursday, when I said, okay, I'm not looking at email,

I'm not doing anything else, I'm in race mode completely is kind of when that, like, adrenaline, like, fueled, you know, intensity level that I'd been able to hold for the last few weeks, sort of like my body said, oh, cool, the war is over or whatever. And I just kind of had this, like, instant onset of, like, a lot of fatigue mentally and physically. But I still felt like, man, I've done a lot of really good work. And I know how to race this stuff.

If I pace myself well, it should go. I think I should be able to accomplish a top 10, even if I'm. at like 90%. And then the other factor to this race that was really large was the altitude. How much were you worried about the altitude beforehand? I wouldn't say I was worried about it,

but I knew it would be a major thing. I was like I know how to deal with it. I know that I mean to slow down and pace myself and et cetera. And I tried to sleep in the van at altitude the last two weeks every night and just do everything that I could to take a little bit of the edge off and be as prepared as possible.

but it's still, it's still a big thing. Like starting at 7,000 feet, going up to 8,600 or whatever and kind of like maintaining that 8,000 sort of thing for most of the race. Like at no point in this race did I have this moment that I had in Smith Rock, for example, a lot where I thought, wow, this is cool.

I was just like, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I want to slow down. Where is the course? I'm dying and out on top of that. I guess I can start for the beginning, but I did make one fatal error that kind of threw the whole thing sideways. You were not alone in the error.

To be clear, many people made the same error. Yeah. So to take it from the beginning, I flew in as late as possible because you want to fly in as late as possible with altitude unless you can go 10 days early. So I didn't get a pre-run any of the course except for the first like 4K, I think, that you and I did together, Nick. and right about 6K is where shit hit the fan.

I was running a ninth place behind a group. The lead group was eight guys. Top 10 gets into the thing. I thought this is fine. People always blow up. I need to stay inside myself. I'm not from altitude. I was running behind Cole Watson,

who has a long storied career in ultra running, very experienced guy, runs for Brooks. And right behind me, I don't know her name, but she was the woman who first place woman. and we were all running as a unit. We turned to go up to ski hill after about 4K, and things are going fine. I feel pretty controlled,

even though it felt like a little bit fast still at the beginning, we were running like 340 per kilometer and getting dropped from this lead group. So that's 554 per mile. We were doing that on the flat at rolling in this at 7,000 feet. And then we start going up this hill and I'm just like kind of looking at the ground at my feet,

trying to breathe and looking up at Cole because he's like, you know, 20 steps in front of me and paying attention to where the lead woman was. Nick, you were running behind us at this point, getting some footage. And we just keep running up the service road on the ski hill that we're running up and completely miss the first turnoff on a single track.

The bummer here is that when we did the little run recon the day before, we stopped at this exact point. Before this turn off. The first one minute. Maybe you would have seen it. When I ran up the ski hill to extend my run, and I went the same way that you ended up going, because it's so the obvious way to go there.

Yes. It's fully a service road. It's wide. It's buffed out. It's beautiful. And unfortunately, the trail turn marker was all the way on the left side of the road as we were making a right-ish bend in the service road.

So you hugged the right side. I didn't see it on the left side. The lead group had already gone through. Cole missed it. I missed it. lead woman missed it. And we didn't realize it for, I don't even know what, like 500 meters of running, at least 500 meters,

of running straight up like 20% ski run. And part of the reason I think is because we were paralleling the trail that we were supposed to be on. Watch kind of didn't catch it and didn't beep at any of us, apparently, until, I don't know, when we all kind of collectively had this thought of like, this doesn't feel right. We haven't seen one of the little flags in a long time.

And your watch was not beeping. My watch did not beep, unfortunately. It beeped at me so much on this race, and this was not one of those times. It's unfortunate because I followed you guys up that a little bit, and then when I turned around to come back down, I thought, wow, they have such a big gap on everyone else because no one was coming up that ski hill. It was only when I came down, then I saw this other trail. I had never even noticed it.

Yeah. It freaking sucks. Basically, I looked on my watch. I couldn't really tell the scale, but it looked like we were running parallel to the other trail. So I tried to scramble down this embankment In the direction of the trail It was straight down to like a cliff goalie thing To this little stream

That was a dead end I turned around Came back up Ran back down and reverse Like 200 300 meters And then it looked like it should really go through Try it again And I was just full bushwhack mode Like up to my waist in thorny bushes

I did get back on the trail And I had lost a lot of spots I think I was probably somewhere in like 30 or 40th place, just based on how many people I then passed on that climb and what position I was in at the top of the climb, ultimately.

But I had no idea. I at this point was kind of just devastated and figured the race, I had no chance of getting top 10, but I was like, man, I'm here. I feel so dumb to just like head back to the A or B and B right now. So who knows,

as miracle happened, and I just pushed on and started kind of running, everything I wrote in my Instagram caption, mad and sad. I was like going back and forth. Like, this is so dumb, I'm so pissed at myself for letting this happen. And just like a sense of loss of this goal

that I've been working on. Did you know things were a problem when you finally reached the trail again and you were passing people who you, you know, are going at a pace that you normally would not be with? Like, how did you discern that you were not in a great place? I mean, when we went off trail,

there was nobody immediately behind us and I was amongst a lot of people that I was passing rapidly. So, you know, I mean, the good news is I had a little bit of a gauge through the next couple hours of like the rate at which I was passing people was decreasing so I could only assume that I was getting closer

to the front and the place that I should actually be if I was in the race, you know, and nothing had gone wrong. but I was asking every person that I passed, do you have any idea where we are? And nobody had any idea until probably 20K, 25K in even I caught somebody, man, I might have even been 30K,

who was like, I think we're in 12th, 12, 13th or something. And that was the first time in like two hours that I was like, oh my gosh. Like I could actually get back to the top 10. This is, you know, this is, possible. And yeah, I don't know. Up till then, I was just kind of like running, catching people, and just seeing what happened. So I drove up to this aid station where you guys did a little out and back in, you could have been inside. You didn't end up going inside. But at that point, when I saw you, you were in ninth. And I think the tracker only updates when you cross one of the, even though you guys all had cell phones and technically they could have tracked your specific location. the tracker said that you were, I think, in 11th,

and when I saw you, you were in 9th, and 10th and 11th were behind you. And I had been texting with Paula, and she said, well, you know, what are the chances that he gets top 10 now? And when I had checked the tracker before that, you were in 24th. And I thought, no chance.

There's no way he can come back from that. That's too far back in a really competitive field. But when I saw you in 9th, things were going well, and you were actually putting a bit of time into those two guys behind you. So did you feel okay there? I was hurting there.

For sure. Like no part of this race felt great. It was like just varying degrees of feeling like my head was in a fishbowl. Pretty like low oxygen levels. But I was just, I kind of just kept telling myself like you've been a triathlete. Every run you've ever done in your life, you've been tired. Like you can run tired. Just like just keep moving and people will blow up.

And they were. And I was unfortunately blowing up a little bit as well, but just at a slower rate at that point. But it was around there that I really started to cramp. And it just started out with these like crazy, felt like somebody was just poking my calves with like an electric gun or something. I was having these like shots.

Just like going down my leg every time I would pick my foot up off the ground or like toe off. So I was just slowing down a little bit just to try to manage this. that, but also, you know, also just getting a little tired. And yeah, but I was still putting time in on people, so I was optimistic. It wasn't until I think I saw you at the last aid station. Yeah. Which was 10K to go.

And immediately prior to that, I went off course again. Completely justifiably. This one was zero percent in my fault. I saved another guy who was with me because I just heard people yelling at the aid station that I knew we were close to and those yells were getting further away. not closer away, not closer. So we, again, ran through some freaking bush and, like, over some trees and stuff. And, like, we come down to the A station, be like, whoa, people are coming down from over there.

Yeah. And I had nothing left to, like, mute my anger at that point. And I think I said, I was like, I think I was like, I'm going to be like, we were. And then, like, the next person I saw, I was like, I'm sorry, thank you, thank you. Yeah. Thank you for being here. but you're just the first person here as I'm expressing some rage

about the fail of a course marking that should have sent us down here. But I don't know. We started up basically after that we had like three kilometers to climb and then we're going to run along the ridge for a second and then we're going to bomb down three kilometers back down to like the same exact elevation

that we started at. And on that climb, the cramps went from like this crazy shooting thing to like leg just locking up. when I would pick it up off the ground. So I switched to power hiking, which I am zero percent proficient at, which helped like minutely, but I was really only able to run like 10 steps at a time.

I still got to the top of that climb, still in ninth place. Nobody had passed me yet. But as I started trying to run on the flatter bit up there, it was like I could. I absolutely just could not run without having massive calf cramps. Just so you know,

I think I told you this, Eric, but when I follow you up that for a bit, that 3K climb. When I was coming back down, it was a long way to the guy behind you, and he was also walking, and he was also not happy for sure. Yeah.

So you weren't alone here. I mean, that was the thing. It's like, I am having the worst day of my life. I cannot move, but I'm also not getting past, so I got to keep moving.

And I kept moving, and I think he finally caught me as I was just walking on this flat spot for an extended period of time. And then I ultimately ended up man, I can't remember if I texted you before or after, but I got to a point where I couldn't even walk. Like the pro pro propeceptors,

like the muscles that are on the sides of my calves were cramping like so violently and sporadically that I would put my foot down on the ground and I would be on like the outside of my foot, like on the outside right or the inside. Like I couldn't even put my foot flat on the ground and that point I just had to stop and stretch and I pulled out my phone to text you.

And the first thing that I see is you went the wrong way. Yeah, that was from a while ago. That's my first text message. Unfortunately, I was not able to check that in the moment, 40 kilometers earlier. But I think I texted you, like, I can't even move. I'm like, whatever. And then you said you'd come find me. I didn't know how bad it was when you said that.

I just assumed you were running slowly or doing some walk run stuff. Oh, right. Yeah, I think you asked if I was in the top 10. Yeah. I was like, dude, I don't even know if I'm the top 20 anymore. I'm standing here. Yeah. So at what point did you hit kind of critical failure there?

Would you say at like 45K? Or maybe a little before that? Maybe 43. I think I remember seeing 7K. I was like walking at 7K. So maybe I stopped at like 6K for a while to like get to the point of where I could walk successfully again. And I knew it was over at that point and I wasn't going to get a top 10. And I kind of figured I would be not finishing, but the only way to get home,

was to basically finish. So you came up, you walked up the trail and found me with 3K to go and we were just walking downhill extremely slowly, all way back to transition. I think, well, transition, listen to this guy.

Finish, the finish. Old habits die hard. Can't take the, I'm still a triathlete. And was it with like 3K to go or 2K to go that the guy Cole Watson, who went off trail in front of me at 5K in, came by and was, he was like, dude, I am so sorry.

Oh my God. So he just never, he never recuperated from that, except he was able to run all the way to the finish line. We got all the way down off of the trail. And with like 200 meters go, basically just make like a little left turn into the finish shoot. And we saw good friends of the podcast and TTL. Her name's Ning and her partner.

And then a couple of people who were TTL fans. And I, you know, kind of have to be. a little conversation. Nick and I already been having a conversation like, hey, should I finish? I hear there's new UTMB rules that this will like totally tank my UTMB index score, which impacts potential future race opportunities, et cetera. I obviously can finish, but I don't want to do something dumb. And we chatted out and just decided that it would be better to finish. And you know what? If I'm going to get into UTMB, it's going to be off of a good performance, not off of like 17 good performances strung together.

Like I want to do it next year. So I figured I would put the eggs, take what eggs I had left, put them into the Pacific Trails basket next month. I walked across the line. It was very emotional, still emotional thinking about it. But I'm glad I did. Yeah, I was, you know, as a fan of the sport, I'd like to see someone like you actually make it across the finish line

instead of treating it like this business transaction of oh these points don't equal this so I should logically not finish right yeah I mean we've talked about that before there's like a difference between you know what the goal is of a professional athlete

going into a race versus the goal of an average person you know a lot of people's goal is to finish and that's generally not a professional I mean, that's like a requisite thing that has to happen. Right, right. For a professional to accomplish their goal. But, you know, we usually, it's easier for us to be like, oh, well, I needed to get a top 10 or I needed to go sub four hours or like, whatever it is.

And I can't do that anymore. So now I need to move on to the next opportunity to accomplish the goal. But, you know, as a result of needing to just get out of the woods, I got, I made it all the way to the finish line. And, man, I, you know, have just massive, you know, if not, if not. not renewed respect for everybody who finishes one of these in general, anybody who does 100K, anybody who gets themselves across the finish line because, like, as professionals, we're the fittest people possible. Our experience should be the smoothest of anyone and certainly the fastest.

And today, you know, that day I experienced a little bit more of what maybe everybody gets to experience at some point. So, you know, you learn stuff and when you have bad days more than you do good days. trying to learn as much as I can from this and I'm still glad that I did it it was a cool weekend we got to hang out with Heather and Wadi a whole bunch and yeah Heather also raced she did the 100K

last minute right and she also didn't have a good day yeah she didn't make it to the finish so it was just a kind of a hard day for the fam and then you know there were people out there racing the 100K and the 100 mile race and I just wow that just

It's strange how, you know, I know you, Eric, I know how fit you are, and you worked really hard, and your body kind of gave up almost at the end and then to think that there's people who are doing, you know, at a different intensity. But such a longer distance, too, it just blows your mind. Yeah, massive respect. Okay, so Paula, you during this... Okay, let me just come back to Earth. Come back to Earth here. Hello? You were watching both at the same time. You were worried about Sweetie, but you were also watching Kona. What was the experience like for you? I turned the feed off of Eric's race.

Okay. Like, this is done. Sorry, Eric. No, I was watching the tracker, actually. Yeah. And UTMB does, or like, the tracker's pretty good, but it says when they're expected to arrive at the next aid station. They just got to like kind of keep refreshing it. But yeah, I had Kona on all day. It's the most I've ever been interested in watching Kona start to finish. I went out for a ride during the bike ride of their ride, but otherwise I was glued to it. Super exciting. I don't think we need to go into it because there's like a trillion podcast that recap it, but I think Nick was just asking about your viewing experience of the 50K,

but. Oh, I mean, the, the broadcast was showing the 100K, the 100 mile, the 50K, and obviously highlighted the leaders. So it wasn't all just showing your race. Yeah, yeah. It was like sharing the coverage and you were out of the picture. It does feel like the 50K was the focus, though, or at least that's where the fastest athletes were. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I was kind of just like frustrated by the whole thing and imagining Eric's frustration.

So I didn't need to watch the footage. Yeah, I put myself out of the camera broadcast pretty quickly. Well, last thing here, so Eric, you had alluded to this at the beginning. but now that we've talked through the whole thing, can you figure out what went wrong? Was it going off course? Was it the bushwhacking you had to do to correct course? Was it the altitude?

Was it the stress beforehand? Was it a convergence of all these things? I was a convergence of all of the things and just being a high-level event. So I think at a lower-level event, I could have overcome all of these things and still had a good performance, you know, relative to like the goal.

But this was really going to take, a good day for me to accomplish the goal. And I still almost overcame, but if I was going to do something differently next time, like if I'm really focused on a race like this, I have to just much further out simplify my life. But I can't change the green card process. I can't change what went on with my mom.

And actually speaking of which, let's take advantage of this moment here. For people who were accepted to Team TTR, we want to make it clear that we love that you applied, we're stoked that you're accepted, but you actually have to finish with the order and place your kit order for this to actually go through and be official.

Eric, can you elaborate on that at all? Yeah, I mean, I don't, like we didn't want to call it like a team membership do or something like that, but the fact of the matter is to host to do a thing like this, it does have a little bit of, like, we hired Jordan,

and like it takes a little bit of resources and funding. So if you want to be on the team, we're asking the absolute minimum that we can, just to keep the team running smoothly and make sure it's a good experience. And then if you want gear, it's there. And we would love for you to rock the brand and everything.

But you just kind of have to go through that checkout process. So like, no pressure though. If you want to be in and you have the ability to do so, we'd love to have you. Nice. Great. And this race you're talking about that you're potentially going to do is the idea there to qualify for UTMB at that race potentially? Yeah.

Yeah. So what I just did was a North American Championship, essentially. you can think of it like that, a world major. So top 10 qualified. The next one that I'm going to go to Pacific Trails, only top three, which is more typical.

Yeah. When is the deadline for doing your kid orders for TTL team? Friday night. It's all over everybody. We got to submit those orders and get everything in production. Love it. Okay, well, are we ready for some questions here

from our beloved podcast listeners? Yeah, I think so. Thanks for the recap, Eric. Yeah, that was great. I love it. And seeing you suffer out there was hard to watch. But it still seems like an epic thing to do. Yeah, I guess that's the last thing I'll say is that there will be a video coming out.

Nick was there with the camera. Even if it's just my monologue of sorrow when Nick found me with 3K to go, there's going be a YouTube video about it. I've got that and the swim run coming up. Yeah, when's the swim run video coming out? Well, I was going to put the, I was going to put this one out, ASAP, and then put the swim run video out basically not this weekend, but the next weekend. So no matter what, in the next two weeks, either the swim run or this will be coming out.

Open to thoughts on that, but the swim run video is almost done. It's pretty much ready to go. Eric, I always feel bad when I, when I, like, come up to you when you're not doing well and I'm like slowly pulled a camera off and put it in your face. That's what you got to do. We need this, though. Yeah. Well, I wanted to basically wait with a swim run video until like after the Kona insanity

has like blown over. So that's what I was going to put out next weekend. Yeah, right, of course. Okay, well, we're going to move on to questions here. You can submit your questions to the podcast at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast where we also have a bunch of really cool gear for you to check out. If you like the Team TTL stuff, you should check out the other stuff we have on there as well. You can become a podcast supporter for the podcast in the same place.

Parathlonlife.com slash podcast. This week we picked a completely random podcast supporter to get a sweet, sweet piece of kit. This is the Orca Dry Bag. This is a high value item. Last one. Last one. And we randomly picked a podcast supporter who I'm curious if there's any relation here. Amy Rappaport, thank you for being a podcast supporter.

You are the winner of the Orca Dry Bag. we were curious if there's any relation to a summer Rappaport or if it's total coincidence I did do some light stocking Amy and saw that you're a 20-time Iron Man finisher that's so many Iron Man's I trained with Summer on the triathlon squad for a long time

and I don't remember her saying that her mother had done 20 Iron Man's I feel like that would come up I feel like loose relation if any but you can let us know Amy Yeah, send me a message to confirm the address, and I'll get you that dry bag sent out right away. Thanks for being a podcast supporter. First question here is from Brad.

High TTR question for Paula. This year's race was wild. Brad is referring to Kona. With both leaders succumbing to the conditions, given your interest in Kona each year, did this year's race make you more or less interested to race it yourself? Thanks, Brad. It made me realize that I'm getting old and I need to do it if I'm watching. to do it. So yeah, I'll do it next year. Why old? What about it made you realize that?

Well, I'm like, oh, I'll do it someday. Okay, yeah, now's the fucking time. Otherwise, I'm going to be 40. So, yeah, I mean, it looks extremely hard, but I also was so into the hype and the lead-up and watching everyone prepare for this one day. I thought that was really cool versus like peaking a thousand times a year and trying to you know be good at every single race since March so I don't know

it definitely interests me and I'll most likely be there next year I have to qualify of course yeah it's calming it's calming for me to think of the season dedicated to that for you of the simplicity jumping around and bouncing around continents

it's just you know it's it's been hard for me to watch that I haven't really traveled that much this year to be honest, though. I'm not talking about travel. I'm just talking about another race is always, you know, less than a month away. That just, you know, like you can do, some people can do that and some people, I just, the idea of having a race every three months or two months and being an Iron Man sounds like very calming from that regard of mental preparation. Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. Thanks, Brad. Next question is from Julia. Hey, guys, excited for 2026 as a TTL team member.

we get a jingle for team TTL? Anytime somebody mentions it, we just have like a one second like starburst or like cool. Yes, we can do that. Yes, we can do that. We can definitely do that. Now that we're done with Iron Man racing, can we talk about 70.3 World Championship?

What are Paula's thoughts on race course and Eric's advice on bike setup? Road T.T. Cassette, for example, would love to know the point of view of a professional versus an amateur is not going for the podium, thanks Julia. Well, I actually think we should do the opposite here because I'm sure you guys have gotten these two. I've gotten a lot of messages from people

asking what to do as far as bike set up for Marbea. To be clear, I am not racing Marbea, by the way. Only Paula is. Yes. What would you recommend for an A trooper? And maybe more importantly, is there something you would not recommend? You know, honestly, Paula knows the most about this by far.

No, I don't know the course that well. I just know it has a lot of climbing. But I'm going to say this about any course in triathlon. If you're comfortable on your TT bike, you ride a TT bike. It's going to be faster on the descents. It's going to be faster on every flat. Personally, I'm just as comfortable climbing on my shiv as I am on my tarmac. And your shiv is super light.

Yeah, yeah. TT bikes are heavier. So I'm wondering if this like dilemma people are having or is due to weight or due to comfort. I don't think, I have not gotten the impression that it's like Nice level technicality of like being more comfortable handling a road bike. Yeah, I've heard that the descents are not that technical and just very fast. And the climbs are more technical, which doesn't matter as much on a climb. But I would definitely use a two-by, not a one-by. Yeah.

That's what I'm going to do. And just make sure you have a small enough gear for climbing and then a big enough gear for pedaling the descents. I've heard it's maybe similar a bit to Snow Canyon, that really fast highway descent in St. George. Where, you know, I've spun out and ran out of gears multiple times during that race. You're talking about after. Snow Canyon when you come down on the other side. Coming down from Snow Canyon. Yeah.

Usually what we've been doing is we'll look at, you know, we'll put the course into Strava and then we'll look at any segments or we'll just grab a section of the climb basically and see like what is the kind of the scariest most long sustained pitch there. And if it's, and you can kind of make a decision on how big of a cassette do you want to go based off of that. Well, what Joe Skipper said to me was that if you just take the whole climb, it says average 6%, 7%, whatever. But within that, there's some descending.

That's what I'm saying, yeah. So there's actually some extremely steep pitches that are averaging out. Right. That's what I was trying to say. Yeah. Is you have to look at, okay, yeah, it's a 20-minute climb, but there's three minutes of it that are at 17%. And that's what I'm like, when I'm scrolling through looking at a course, I'm on the lookout for like extreme. situations like that. Or is there, and on the other side of like,

okay, is there like a relatively long, straight looking descent that is you're going to spin out? And then we need to make sure we have a big enough front chain ring. And either way, there's a ton of climbing in this race, even if it's

never that steep, which I think it is, it does get quite steep in certain sections. So if you have a cassette with a wider range, specifically on the easier end, I do think this would be the place to use it. If in doubt, we'll personally be bringing at least two cassettes. Just, you know, like we'll usually put on one that we think is going to be okay.

And then we'll bring one, you know, on either side to like, so she has as many usable gears as possible and still has to bail out gear if it gets super steep. Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully that clears up the 1,000 Marbeia bike choice questions that we have been getting. I don't think there's a right answer. Like I, of course, my gut says T.T. Bike all the time. But I could get there and ride it and be like, oh, shit. Like, people would benefit from a road bike here.

Or it wouldn't make as much of a difference. I don't know. It has almost 1800 meters of climbing. That's so much. That's like doing Bachelor twice. It's so much. So, anyway. But everyone has different goals, too.

If your goal is to complete it, then maybe you go for the road bike. That's, I was kind of going. going with the, here's how we make the decisions. I think everybody, like, put that into Strava, really go through it with a fine tooth comb, try to get a feel for how twisty descents are. Yeah, yeah. Make your decision. Okay, next question here is from Amelia, who's from Oregon, by the way.

Hello, TTL, I started listening to you guys to help prepare myself for my first 70.3 last month, which was Tri-Cities. And all your advice was a huge help and a ton of fun, so thank you. My next race will be Oregon 70.3 next summer. and I'd like to improve my bike pace from being recreational, as Paula would put it, to being a bit more speedy. I've got the whole winter to train, though as a busy physician and mom, I really have to be efficient with my time.

I have a Peloton bike I love and an old bike trainer I haven't used in over a decade. Here's my question. For indoor cycling, do I need to put my tri-bike on the trainer and use something like Zwift, or am I okay to use the Peloton all winter, then switch to biking outside when the weather improves next spring. Thanks team. P.S. Nick, congrats on the Iron Man, of course.

So there's a little Easter egg in here, which is not an Easter egg, but a key point, which is that this bike trainer is 10 years old. The Pelot? No, she has a bike trainer that is not the Peloton. Right.

And so that's the question is to put it on there. I have a feeling it's not. She says, old bike trainer, I haven't used it over a decade. I have a feeling it's not a smart one, right? There's no power. There's no feedback system on there. And a Peloton technically does have power. I don't know how accurate the power is on a Peloton though.

Yeah, the power might not be accurate, but the efforts can be accurate. I honestly think going on a Peloton bike is a good way to get through the winter. They have like the classes. It's fun. My problem with like spin bikes or I've never tried a Peloton bike is that it's you're, I'm at least way less likely to do like a longer ride on it. I feel like Peloton is more like a 45 minute class. Yeah.

Or something. And if I'm getting on my TT bike on the trainer, it feels more like a thing where I'm doing 90 plus minutes and it's more mimicking an outdoor ride, especially if you're using Swift. But I don't think that if you're, especially if you're time crunched and you have. a peloton that works really well, it's comfortable and you know you're going to get a good workout with it, it is a decent way to carry your bike fitness through the winter and then focus in the spring on getting outside as much as you can. And I think if Oregon is in the summer, you know, riding from April till the summer outside and putting a focus on that will be, you know, that's a good idea. That's enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. But I wouldn't just

assume that the 10-year-old trainer is a piece of junk. It doesn't have to be a smart trainer, a direct drive. It's probably just not going to feel awesome. My mind just goes to like, oh, it's going to be so hard to set it up and get it moving smoothly. But, I mean, it's not a bad idea to also do that a little bit if the trainer actually works because your TT bike is completely different position. That's what I was thinking is like get the Peloton as close as possible to your TT bike

dimensions and everything. Use measuring tape, get it as close as you can. I don't know how possible that is with those bikes just because they're so designed for the average person and not this aggressive slam position. Yeah, it's such a fitness thing. It's not really like bike training.

You can at least get your saddle in the right position. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. The best case scenario here is you just get yourself a kicker. Yeah. I mean, and the Zwift cog. I tried that at our homestay in Augusta. It's actually like such a good idea.

You don't have to shift your gears on it. You just put it on a kicker and then use the Zwift buttons of virtual shifting. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great idea. If money's no object, that's our recommendation. Is it cheaper to buy a kicker or a kicker bike? A kicker. Oh, my God. Is a kicker bike pretty expensive?

Yeah. We have one now. Eric loves it. Really? I actually like it a lot. I haven't tried it yet. I do. I was so skeptical, but I like it.

I haven't tried it yet. It's super silent. It's like dead silent. It's set up, ready to go. It's comfortable. It's super adjustable. Yeah. And no chain, right?

It's all like internal friction on the bottom bracket. You got these buttons to like pick which, you know, make turns on Zwift and use your power up and like menu and it's like the shifting feels like it's Shimano, unfortunately. You do have a front and a rear derail. left and right situation, but yeah, I actually like it. And it's so easy to

change, you know, like Paulus fit. We can just mark the stuff and like it takes five seconds to switch. So anyway. Just a little kicker bike plug, but... Yeah, we are sponsored by Wahoo here, to be clear. Maybe that's not the best solution for us. Yeah, I mean, that's that we

don't get sponsored by things we don't want. We're fortunate at this point in our career to be able to make those decisions. And yeah, it's actually pretty sick. Yeah. Okay, well, we're going to move on here. We've spent plenty of time with that question. Next one is from Nick. Hey, team, thanks for sharing the Fireflies ride in Patagonia. The YouTube video was awesome and inspiring. All that gnarly and muddy gravel got me thinking about drive train maintenance on stage races like that or long bike packing trips. I started waxing

my chains this year and I love it. As far as I'm aware, riders should rewax their chain every 300 kilometers. Eric, how do you maintain your drive train on your 10-day 1,000,000 gravel ride or what would you do on a multi-day backpacking route? Thanks everyone. My partner and I are stoked to be on Team TTO. Insert jingle. Insert jingle. That's from Nick. So Eric, the bike that you rode there, was that a waxed setup? No, but they had mechanics cleaning all of the bikes every night and fixing anything that was wrong, looping the chain, following in a follow car, where it was possible. There were plenty of places that was not possible. So this was like full tour to France style level of support. Wow. That alone, I feel like makes it. Yeah, it was amazing. It was amazing.

Just like wake up in the morning and walk out and your bikes like sparkly clean. Wow. Freaking batteries are charged. Everything. Tires are pumped. Good to go. Okay. So that was your very specific, amazing, elite, luxurious situation. I mean, you too can have this experience if you do the Fireflies. It's for a good cause. Charity ride. It is for a good cause. Yeah. There's mandatory amounts of money you have to raise, but you can get that treatment. So if you weren't doing this, what would you do? Ah, man. If I was staying at, if I was doing like credit card bike packing or something and I was

ending at a hotel, I would ask if they have a hose somewhere, hose the bike off. Oh, wow. bringing along some wax-based lube. I would just dry the drive train off after hosing it. I maybe do this every other day. If it gets super muddy, yes, just hose it off, and then apply a little bit of new wax and rock on. So you wouldn't do the traditional oil-based loop for something like this.

You would still stick to waxed. I don't know. That's just what I've been doing, and it's worked great. So for me, the squirt lube and the wax-based stuff from silka, and we've got a few of them have held up great, and that's what I use for mountain biking and dirt. So I don't know, maybe there's something that's like slightly 1% more optimal,

but that's just what I've been using. Yeah, cool. Okay, next question here is from Danielle, from Baltimore. Dear TTL crew, long-time listener here, thanks for all the great content you put out every week. I'm not a new triathlete. I've podiumed in my age group a few times, raced in Kona and at several 70.3 world.

Wow. Heading to Marbeas soon, hope to see you there for a short shakeout run. I've been riding a 2018 Cervello P3 that I got from Facebook Marketplace when I started in 2020. It's been an awesome workhorse, even though it's a bit big for me, and the arrow bars are too far out to adjust. Still rocking rim brakes and tubes. Wow. Lately, my coach and I feel I've hit a point where an updated, better-fitting bike could really move the needle for me. My question is, how do you go about finding it?

the right bike. Is there a well-known or go-to-fitter you'd recommend or a way to actually test-ride different brands, Factor Specialized Canyon, Cervillo, etc., before committing? I'll never be a pro, but I'd like to make a smart, lasting investment. Thanks so much for the advice and for all the inspiration. I'll be cheering loudly for you guys in Spain. Paula, I yelled so loudly as you passed me on the run in Augusta. All the best, Danielle from Baltimore. So you guys obviously have sponsors and you have allegiance to that sponsor. So you have to ride their TT bike. But before that, is there a process you went through

to figure out which bike would work for your position? I think nowadays you can make any bike work for your position. I think things are pretty darn adjustable. With all the aftermarket air bars. Yeah. There are fitters and bike shops. We did this when I worked in the tri-shop. we carried Scott and Sorvello and Argon 18 and, you know, like three other bike brands.

And you could come in and get a pre-fit. And we had a retool bike there that, you know, was infinitely adjustable. And you could get on that and say, oh, yeah, my back feels great in that position. My arms feel good there. And then they'd boot, boop, boop, put that in the computer and be like, you should ride a 52-centimeter Cervillo P3. It's the most optimal. And usually we'd also say you can definitely still make an Argon work and you can probably make a Scott work.

but theoretically the Cervello is most naturally you fit into it easy with adjustment on either end of aggressiveness so you can do that

that's one option and I think there's probably like a network of retool fitters that you can look up certified people I would guess and you can just call around to to bike shops

or to coaches and find a fitter who does that sort of a thing the other they're going to be a little bias towards the bikes they sell it

shop, obviously. Yes. If they're not just like an independent bike fitter and they're actually a bike fitter associated with a shop, yes, they will of course want you to buy something that they have. I agree with Paula, though. I think most people could probably fit on most bikes to some degree, to a large degree. I think the nice thing about having a bunch of athletes sponsored by a bunch of different bike brands is you can see which bike you like the look of.

And honestly, like, that makes a huge difference is riding a bike that you are attracted to. You like the color. Like all those things, they don't make a difference in the fit, but they make a difference in your desire to ride it and you look good, feel good. You know, that's the thing. So if you're just like in love with the Canyon SpeedMax

or you're in love with the specialized shiv, see if you can find one, whether it's brand new or secondhand or from another pro or from a pro who's getting rid of one. Yeah. And most likely you'll be able to make it work. The most important thing is just making sure you get the right frame size.

for your height. And then all the little things like saddle height, bar reach, all those things can be adjusted after the fact. Yeah. I would say that when in the bike shop, the two things that sold pushed people a direction of a bike or not, aesthetic, we just came in and like,

I want this type of bike or this fits in my budget. So I guess aesthetic and budget, but then test riding it. We sold so many freaking Argon 18s because people were just in love with them. when they test drove, when they test rode the Argon 18 TT bike. And this was like back in 2013,

when whatever. Like, they were riding the Cervillo P3, which was designed for Fabian Cancelara, and then they were riding the Argon 18, which like had been designed for triathletes, and they felt so comfortable and stable on it. It was generally like $500 to $700 more expensive

than the Cervillo at an equal spec of components, and they would go with that because it made them feel super confident when they rode Arrow. So I would say, if you have the opportunity to go to a bike shop that has multiple brands and you can test ride them, that could be a big thing, a big factor. Wow. Yeah, TG bikes have advanced so much that most of them are going to feel pretty comfortable.

They do have their own personalities, though. They are different. I mean, we're not even a good judge of that because I haven't been on any other thing other than a specialized in four years. So I don't even know what a canyon feels like or a track feels like, but I'm sure a specialized feels the best. Definitely. I mean, it's going to do so much lighter. Definitely the lightest. It's going to feel the most exciting. Definitely the best bike for Marbea.

I just remembered when I got my TT bike fit, the guy told me that I should have come in first to do exactly what you said, Eric, which is to use every tool bike fit system, and then he was going to go through different bike brands and tell me which ones were best for my body. but my general feeling is that all the bikes now are going to work as long as you buy the right size. There are modular enough that you can make it fit to your body time. Yeah. As long as you get the right size. Yeah.

Did we mention get the right size? And the right color. Of course. Okay. Next question here is about heat training. Hey, Tripod. Got a question about how to approach heat training when you have a lot of time to prepare. I'm racing Hawaii 70.3 in May, which is.

is usually in the mid-80s or about 30 degrees Celsius and humid. However, I live in the Pacific Northwest near Seattle and it's going to be 45 in overcast pretty much every day until then. Sad. Seeing what happened in Kona at the Women's Iron Man World Championship has me worried about adapting to the heat. With six months to work with, is there anything I can do to prep for the heat and humidity? I don't think heat training in January or now is going to help you in May. I think it's the thing you do a month in. Right. So that's what we're getting at here.

What can you do to prep for the heat and humidity? Wear tons of clothes on runs and use a space heater when riding my trainer and how far out from the race should I start doing anything special? P.S, I'm doing this race with two of my brothers. So I'm willing to go through any amount of suffering if it means I can beat their times. Oh, yeah. That's a great idea. I love that. So, yeah, elaborate on that, Paula.

As a non-scientist, I would say two months out, maybe you start to. doing heat training. And it doesn't have to, like, heat training sucks. So don't put yourself through it now. But yeah, I would say that, like, you can carry on with your regular training and then at least the way that I do heat training is add on like 30 or 45 minutes at the end of a workout indoors with all the clothing with the space heater. So you're still getting the quality in without being hot and then you do some heat training

after. I don't know exactly what the optimal window is, but I'd probably two months is enough time to get acclimatized and taking some, I mean, Kona looked brutal, but May is a completely different time a year and I think a 70.3 is a different beast

because you're not going to be running into the afternoon, most likely. Right. Right, that's a good point. You're finished before noon most of the time. I think you could do one where you're like twice a week

you're doing this for two months or you could do one where like three or four times a week for one month. And I feel like I can remember doing both, like a little more condensed version that's like more times a week and one that's like a little more, a little longer. One investment you could make, which is a bit absurd cost-wise, is the core sensor. And it takes your skin temperature and has an algorithm with your heart rate and tells you what zone you're in. And it'll actually keep track over time of how acclimatized you are to heat.

So if you're spending, basically you want to get into like zone three that they consider. This is not like a watt thing. This is a heat stress. And if you spend X amount of time in zone three, it starts to accumulate all the amount of time you've spent in the heat zone. And gives you like a readiness score basically for racing in heat. So it's kind of a hack, I guess. But the core sensor is like an expensive $400 thing. You know what else is a very cheap thing that you can buy?

that's very effective, apparently, because I've seen my friends using it, is a painter's suit. You put on a painter's suit and it traps in all your heat and it really makes you hot. So you don't even necessarily need a super hot room to get really, really hot underneath that thing. Yeah, the more clothes, the better, right? Yeah. You can also just buy a thermometer and try to get your body temperature up to, I don't know what the number is. You can also just buy a sauna. I'm green lighting anybody who wants to buy a sauna.

A little DIY sauna. Sure, sure. Yeah, but don't start now. Wait till the new year. It's too early. Black Friday sauna sale. Sometimes he's got to go. We're going to make a TTL sauna.

Start selling it on the site. Okay, last question here is from Jesse. Hey, guys, I started listening earlier this year and just caught up on all the back episodes a few weeks ago. I listened so much that my kids started complaining that whenever I drive them places, they have to listen to my triathlon podcast. Jesse's kids, we apologize. We're so sorry. I'm looking for a triathlon bike, front hydration solution.

I'm curious if you have thoughts on which kind is more aerodynamic. I'm looking at the X-Lab torpedo versus slim or something more like the profile design area. Also curious if you have any other thoughts on usability like cleaning, refilling, or anything else. Thanks, Jesse. I'm thinking like negligible aerodynamic differences between these bottles. They're all shaped like a submarine. Don't get the area. That's slow.

Based on what Lucy Charles uses and some other fast people, I would get the X-Lab. Yeah. The area for those who don't know what we're talking about, this is like dangles down in front of the head tube of your bicycle. Not those. Not that. Get the one that goes between your arms. like fully between your forearms. The X-Lab torpedo, you can like

cut the straw to different lengths or you can keep it long and bring it up to your mouth. You know, there's a lot of flexibility with the straw. And it's relatively easy to refill during the race. Relatively easy to clean because you can pull out the silicone plug and wash the inside like you would a normal bottle. I can buy them on Amazon.

Yeah, and they don't fly off, right? you guys have used this in a lot of races. Yeah, if you're worried you can always put an elastic band around it. I never had one fly off. I find them. Mine have leaked a little bit and squirted stuff on me, but so did regular bottles a lot of times. Yeah, I think, like, isn't the X-Lab torpedo designed for the X-Lab gorilla cage? So they actually stay really well together.

Yeah. They're meant to be with each other. Yeah, it's not going anywhere. Yeah. A lot of people just use regular bottles now, though, because then you can chuck them and refill from eight stations. But it's a really personal preference. I'm still using my front hydration system that's built into my bike and not loving that at all. It also leaks a ton.

Yeah, you need a new TT bike. Hard to clean. Eric, you raced, and we hung out for a bit afterwards, too, soaked up the vibes, the big bear vibes. And now you're back and bend, almost almost. back to your normal self, I would say. Getting there. Yep. One more good night of sleep, I think, and be

firing again. Yeah, I did a podcast with Joe Skipper. Junk-Gared dogs. Did we talk about that last week? We did. Yeah, but now it's officially out, so you go watch it, listen to it. I thought it was good. It goes back deep into my past. What's Flynn barking at right now?

The moon, his reflection in the window. Maybe doping control. Wow, that would be. That would be interesting. That'd be crazy. Really? That'd be annoying. Yeah.

It's mostly annoying. Although I do have to pee, so it would be okay. Okay, great. Perfect time. I'd be at first. Perfect timing. Thanks for hanging out, everybody. Thanks for listening to my race recap.

And we will, no races next next week. So we'll have a normal podcast with chock full of questions. Normal podcast. Come up right up. Yeah. See you there. Bye, guys. Bye.