That Triathlon Life Podcast - Eric Races Triathlon XTERRA Portland, carbs per hour, bike fit, dual sided power meters, and more!

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

This week we start off by getting a little triathlon race recap from Eric's win at XTERRA Portland. We get into some philosophy with a "This or That" segment. And finally we get into your questions about nutrition, Paula's TT future, training with professionals as an age grouper, and more! For gear and everything else, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hello everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Loggersome. I'm Nick Goldston. And we are professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, getting ready for his first Ironman in Wisconsin. And we basically just take your questions and answer them every week, which are getting more and more plentiful. And some amazing questions from everyone. So thank you for sending stuff in. And hopefully to get to some topics that are helpful for training or racing are just life in general. We're going to start today by talking a little bit about Eric's race that he did last weekend in Portland, which was an Xtera. But do you guys have any, you guys talk? I love it. I'm just blown away by your intro.

That was like. Just so everyone on the podcast listening to us, we were right in the middle of conversation. And Paul just goes, welcome to that travel online podcast. Eric and I are like, whoa. I guess we're going in. Like Nick and I were having a conversation. And then the flight attendant showed up and was like, Started your spiel.

Okay, the thing about the podcast, though, is a lot of the time, like, when we're just conversing on FaceTime, I'm like, wow, this would be a great podcast conversation. Yeah, I had that feeling all the time. So I had to cut the conversation, and now we can resume it now that we're recording. Ah, right, right, right. Because it's quality stuff, right? Yeah. Well, speaking of quality, actually, I just wanted to say that we're having some issues getting just one source of audio per each mic. So this episode will sound a little different, but we'll be back to normal.

next episode. So please just bear with us. But we were talking about my crappy calf that is injured right now. But I think it's just going to, I've ice on it right now, literally, right now. And it's getting better. So I'm okay with it. It'll be all right. You can't do an Iron Man build without having an injury scare.

It's part of it. Of course. Of course. Exactly. Eric, I wanted to hear about your Xera. I guess I don't want to give anything away in case there's any podcast listeners that don't know what happened. Well, I doubt, I guess if you follow along on Instagram, then you would know, but it's not

something that made national news or anything like that. Oh, no? It was a little bit, it was definitely a smaller X-Dera race. It was not a professional race, but as a professional athlete, you just need to go to an X-Dera and complete one to qualify for world championships, which is pretty interesting. So I emailed the race people and asked like, hey, does this one work? for qualifying me for the World Championships. They said, yeah.

And so I packed up the van and drove out there on Friday and camped out and raced Saturday morning. It's some back story on this particular spot. This is called Henry Hag Lake. It's just outside of Portland, actually. And it's the site of the second ever triathlon that I did. I did it in the very first year that I started doing triathlon back in 2001.

And it was always my favorite course. I mean, it's still one of my favorite courses. courses. It's just beautiful and a very cool spot. So it had a lot of emotional significance to me in addition to the whole world championship thing. Nice. And was it a very, you said it was not a very

big race? How many other pros were there that you were racing with? There were technically two other elite athletes. One male and one female? Yeah. I don't, and I don't really know what elite meant in this situation if it was truly pro and

it is possible to qualify to be an Xtera pro athlete without being an on-road pro-athlet versus an on-road pro can always go race Xtera pro. But anyway, that wasn't the point. I wasn't showing up there to win money or like have some big impressive result. I just really wanted to go do an X-Dera event and you can camp the night before, like I said. And it just sounded like all the coolest things that I wish triathlon was. And I knew I would see quite a few people out there that I hadn't seen in, you know, maybe even 10 years from back when I lived in Portland. Well, you told me, over the phone after the race that you felt extremely good during that race, which is great,

considering the race before that was PTO Canadian Open, where you felt extremely bad. Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean, the obvious answer is just that like the entire buildup and the stress levels and everything were completely different. I did a totally normal week of training and I swam hard in the morning and then drove straight out to the lake and did a mountain bike ride and, you know, had a beer the night before the race and had some pasta that Paula packed me. And I just went into it and wanted to ride as hard as I could

and just swim, you know, run as hard as I could off of that and just see how it felt and kind of get back into the swing of that, like super punchy rhythm that you have to use or have for X-Dar at racing, you know, before if I go do World Championships. Yeah. And it went great. Yeah, I mean, that's the best I've felt on a bike,

with the exception of like maybe Alcatraz and it's just right on par with that. I felt like no matter how hard I pushed and got out of the saddle and just worked every climb, it just felt like there was more there and I was just getting so much oxygen. Like it is a sea level race

and we're a little bit out too here in Bend, but it was just super fun. You know, where you like go to the well to get more power and it's there. And you go get more and it's there. Isn't that an interesting feeling? You just like keep ticking that thing up until you're like, all right, where is the limit here?

You're like, I'm breathing harder, but I still feel good. Yeah. Yeah, it was really cool. And so, I mean, just like a really fun race experience and a lot of people there that I knew. And then the finish line is actually really awesome. You run across the finish line and then go down a slip and slide, which was wonderful. Oh, yeah, I saw that video. Yeah.

It was about a 90-degree day, so it was hot. And that was super fun. And probably the coolest part of the whole weekend. All two things. Actually, my dad was able to come out and watch and take a couple. pictures and film a little bit, emphasis on a little bit. He was definitely just watching for the most part. But then the guy who got second was actually like my hero when I was a young triathlet just starting out. My coach coached him and he was a local pro and literally all I wanted to do

was be like him. Like he drove a super so I thought Subaru's were amazing and whatever bike he had I wanted and every once in a while I get to go train with him and stuff. And he was there. He got second. the last time we raced, he just destroyed me like 15 years ago or something when I was a kid. And it was just, it was so special. It was really cool. That's awesome. I loved hearing that story. That feels like those things in your life only happen a handful of times, those kind of moments like that. Yeah. I didn't even know he was coming. He just, he showed up like 10 minutes before the race. And we did a little bit of warm up together and then race. It was cool.

That's awesome. Well, good. I'm glad. We're both glad that you had a great race there. I'm hoping that that's a good sign for the rest of the season for you, too. Yeah, yeah, I feel like I just got a ton of energy out of it and really excited to race, you know, after the Canadian Open was like a little bit of a bummer and stuff. So, like, energy levels are topped back up. It was a really good effort. And, yeah, I don't think I need to quit triathlon. I don't think my body's broken.

I think I'm good to go. Okay, good. We need that. This is the natural oven flow of things as a pro triathlete. Great. Well, the first thing I had was a little bit of this or that. And this is, I feel like, I don't know where these philosophical, existential questions I came up with came from. But I guess that's just the vibe I was in when I came up with these.

So there's three. And you got to pick on each of these three. Would you rather have great confidence in yourself but fail often or have low self confidence but succeed often? Probably have confidence. But fail often? No, I pick number two. This is like my same question with like, would you rather have money or have? happiness. It's to me, when people pick money, I'm like, are you forgetting that the reason

you want money is for the happiness? And this is the same thing. It's like, aren't you just trying to succeed to feel good about yourself? So what if you don't have to succeed to feel good about yourself? Yeah. But Paula, you'd rather just like have that concrete thing. It's just like, no, I just want to do well. It's kind of interesting because when you like to ask this question, I immediately think about triathlon. Of course, obviously. And I'm like, okay, well, there's so many other things in life to succeed at and to have confidence in. So maybe I changed my mind if I think about it. Like, of course, winning triathlons is cool and it's what we do.

But having low self-confidence, I feel like it's pretty normal for triathletes. I think is it maybe necessary? Like, why are you pushing yourself so hard in training to beat the best people in the world, if not to kind of like prove something wrong? to like, you know, so I feel like the people who are loving triathlon who have great self-confidence

maybe are not doing that great as far as how the races are going because they're like, why don't I need to push myself that hard? I'm having a great day. It's a beautiful day. It's kind of like I'd have a different answer within triathlon or within like life in general. Yeah, I see.

But failing often is not fun either. I mean. Yeah, but if you were so confident, you would just be like, well, that must have just been a fluke. Yeah. You would like, you would be, you're just like, well, I'm not. You're just like, well, I'm obviously the best.

We definitely know athletes like that. That's never their fault. No. Never their fault. Okay. Next one. Would you rather be good at something because of a natural gift or because of hard work? Assuming you got to the same goodness.

A natural gift. Wow. Look at you too. It's hard to answer this without being like, here's the reason I think, or I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I understand. I mean, it would be easier to be. do it via natural gift, that's for sure.

What's funny is that both of you pick the thing that I feel like is more who you are. Neither of you went with grass is greener on this. Like, Paula, you definitely do have this natural gift. Eric, you definitely have grinded away at this. To get to where we are, yeah. You both have a natural gift. That's a little bit of an oversimplification. But if we break it down, I'd say like Paula, like 60-40, like gifted hard work.

Like we're both working equal amounts of equally hard, but starting with a little bit of extra, I don't know. Right. And compared to us, both of you are equally naturally gifted relatively, right? Like you're both like top notch 10 out of 10. It's just like maybe on a thousand degree scale, Paul is more naturally gifted, you know, in some way or whatnot. And then the last one is with the same result, would you rather fall over the finish line completely depleted or run right through the finish line and feel like you were, you did great and you still feel good. after the race looking back is what I'm thinking.

Two. If you're, I mean, it is definitely like long-term more satisfying to just be so gasped that you can't do anything because you're like, well, that must have been everything I had. Like, when I crossed the finish line at Alcatraz, like I was pretty tired, but I did feel like if I'd been pushed into a sprint finish at the end, it could have been even more satisfying. That's so easy to say, though, when you win a race. Like, every time you win a race, you're never crossing over the finish line, unless it's a sprint finish. Right, right, right, right. For the most part, when you're winning a race, unless that's maybe like ITU, yeah, and it's like way closer. Well, I was just thinking of Gustav at the Canadian Open.

He kind of fell across the line. Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. I was pretty worked when I won Santa Cruz years ago, and I thought Ben Hoffman was catching me. Yeah, well, he thought that Christian was catching him. If you're, like, under stress, you're going to be pushing harder. Yeah. I feel like I picked great questions because you guys answered all three differently. Yeah, those were very philosophical.

I thought it was going to be like orange or blue. Blueberries or strawberries. Next time we'll keep it really light. It'll be ice cream flavors only. Okay, well, I was going to move on to questions here unless you guys had any other thoughts. Let's do it. We got a lot of good ones, right? Great.

Yeah, yeah, we do. Oh, we definitely do. So first of all, if you want to send in your own questions that we might read on the podcast, the email address is that triathlon life brand at gmail.com. So send those in and hopefully we'll get to it. First question is from Jordan, from Atlanta, Georgia. For Nick and Paula, thank you for sharing about your experience with precision hydration. I am training for my first 70.3.

I've done plenty of sprints in Olympics, but haven't really needed nutrition outside of Gatorade and some gummies in transition. Outside of the sweat test and knowing what you need, how do you know what your body can handle? In my 70.3 training, I haven't gotten to the point where I'm training more than three hours at one time. yet. I think I have a four-hour brick in the coming weeks. I have no idea what it's going to be like in the middle of the run. If you throw up, that was more than you could handle. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I do feel like, yeah, the trial and error is kind of the only way, don't you think? Yeah. Yeah, the only thing I'd say is maybe I have a general idea of what the human body can handle. And until very... The human body, it just... Well, yeah, because some people

might take me, be like, yeah, I'm taking 10 grams of carbs an hour. It's like, well, that's not even close to enough or 200 grams of carbs an hour. That's way too much, right? Yeah, just to know, like, instead of like eating until you're full the way we would normally at home, like there's a little more science to it, I think. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I'd say like the very highest end I've ever heard anybody say that they take on and like

in an Iron Man, it would be like 400 to 450 calories an hour. Oh, interesting. I don't even think in calories anymore because I feel like the things I read are all about carbs, but that's interesting. I just didn't feel like doing the math just then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, what, 150 grams of carbohydrates? Yeah, that's, I think, is pretty beyond what most people or anyone can absorb.

That's like outrageously, one person was able to train. So I would say, don't go higher than 400. Yeah, interesting. And it's so funny because now I think of like calories burned an hour, and it's like you can eat so much and it's still nowhere near how much you're consuming. You're burning in a race like that. So that's why it's so important to try to get as much in as you can because you're never going to keep up. Yeah. So, so I don't know, I feel like I've just been reading about this stuff recently

with, because of my own experience was so enlightening. But the thing that people recommend is, like Paula said, trial and error. Like, you just start trying to see how stuff feels when you're eating while exercising and try to work your way up to more and more carbs until if you can get up to 90 grams an hour, then you're doing really well. And the other thing is, don't be afraid of trying things in training sessions. Like if the training session ultimately ends up being a fail because you didn't get the nutrition ready, you had too much, that's kind of the point of training in a way, you know.

So don't be afraid to test it out just because you don't want to mess up your only Burke workout or whatever it is. Right, yeah. You definitely don't want to be so afraid that you don't try it until the day you race and then you find out that you can't eat it. Yeah. Yeah. So just be open to exploration,

but also don't be crazy. Don't have too much. Yeah. Just keep in mind, I guess, I don't know if people, everyone knows this, that you can train your gut to digest more and more food while you're exercising. It's trainable just like all the other aspects of the sport. Something I've been working on for 32 years, actually. And the second question was a bike fit question.

Local bike store session, they could do that for about $80 an hour, not a big spender. paying $400 for my $70.3 race was hard. Or is there is a place here that has a computerized bike where they spend a couple hours evaluating everything for $300. Is it really worth it? How much of a better fit can the computerized option give me? Totally appreciate you all, Jordan, from Atlanta. I wonder if the computerized option is retool fit.

I bet it is. I'm just thinking of their little bike thing. The only thing I would say is if you're just having someone at a bike shop doing it, you have no idea how experience they are or how good they are at it. If you're using a reliable tool like retool, they actually have thousands and thousands of data points of what riders should be in for their ranges. So they kind of try to fit you within those ranges. And it's just a little more scientific, but is it worth $200 extra dollars? I don't know. I think the best case scenario is you find a very experienced bike fitter who is also using retool.

as like a measurement device to just confirm where you're at. And then the nice thing with that is you do get a really good readout of data of exactly what your body is doing while you're riding your bike. And then you can very easily match up to any new bike that you get and track things over time. Yeah. As your bike, it changes as you maybe get older and get less flexible or you get injured or something like that. Yeah, we use retool and it's super valuable, I think, even though it might be expensive. and they don't just do a bike fit. They'll do, like, read your sit bone width so you know what saddle to choose,

or they'll put, like, inserts in your shoes. Maybe if you have a high arch or a low arch, and there's just different, it's ultimately going to come down to being a more comfortable experience to ride if you have a proper bike fit. So that doesn't really answer the question, but I would say gambling with just a random bike shop might be a little risky. Maybe they're great. I don't know.

But if they have a good reputation, that might be the way to go, like ask around. I would ask around. that's like the gold standard. If you can find somebody who has a really good reputation, that would be the best. And I think that if you found someone with a good reputation, they probably do retool. Good chance.

It's like the most common bike fitting. Do you think if this person has never had a bike fit and maybe could be way off, the local shop is better than nothing still? Not necessarily. I don't do like the little, I forget, the little dangly drop. I don't know. I don't think we want to just like make a huge blanket generalization

because there are some really bad bike fits out there. They might think that you have to have like this certain angle in your knee and it's way too high or saddle is too high or something. And then you're like, well, the bike fitter said so and then you're getting into it. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, it's kind of risky. Stick to the original advice. Yeah.

Ask some people if you can. Thanks to the question, Jordan. Next up is David Jaff, MD. Hi, TTL team. I was wondering if you folks would want to release a 2-ounce-56-mill espresso cup adorned the TTL branding. As a fellow coffee person with a proper espresso machine, it would really dial in the morning workflow, even for this cycle cross racer. We've been asked that a few times this week, actually, because we got these sample mugs for cappuccinos that are blue, and we want to do some other color besides just white, and we really like the blue. But then a few people chimed in, and they were like, what about espresso mugs?

Yeah, unless Dr. Jof has just been... blowing us up on every platform possible. I just don't know if people would use it, you know? Like, such a small amount of people have a real machine and actually pull espresso and I don't know. I feel like, because we typically have to order like 150 of those, which I don't know if that sounds like a lot or a little to people, but that takes us usually a few months to go through that on the cappuccino mugs.

And you can use those for regular coffee. You can use them for a little cereal bowl. and the espresso is just so... So small. It's only one use. I feel like we could just, we could buy, have to buy $150,000 and have them for three years, possibly. With a cappuccino mug, you could even do like tea or hot chocolate or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So the answer is no. Probably no, unless you send us a thing that is committing to buying at least 40 of them. Right, exactly. And then also, he also wanted to say, I've watched all the TTL content by release date and have even received direct replies from Eric regarding my nerdy coffee questions.

My question is, what if you got excited about the weather, the chance to ride with a friend, or something that goes against your day's workout, or the block you're in? Do you go for it as the motivation and excitement is there? Then augment or remain disciplined. Happy athlete is a fast athlete. So I guess the question is,

if you have some fun thing, how do you react to it? Do you veer from your schedule or do you stay super strict? And I thought this was really interesting because there are days where we have the opportunity to go ride with a friend or something sounds really fun. Or even in the winter like going skiing or something. Like your friends are going up skiing. That's for sure not on your training schedule and you have three other workouts to fit in. But are you flexible enough to maybe not do a bike ride in the winter and go skiing and set or something like that? Yeah.

I don't know. My answer to this would be very like season. dependent and where you are in the season, like a month out from Edmonton, I wouldn't veer from the schedule at all, no matter what. But in the winter and the off season and the fall, way more flexible with that kind of thing. And I feel like it's a slippery slope. Like, if you start missing workouts because you're tired or because something better comes up, it's so much easier to do it a second time. So Eric and I literally never miss a single workout. Like I can't even remember the last time we missed anything on our stuff.

schedule. Yeah. So I don't know, we're pretty good at just like getting stuff done. But Eric, you can answer. There's like quite a few times last year where we had like, let's say, four by 15 minutes on our TT bikes at 70.3 pace. And Curtis asked to go mountain biking. And I just modified that to like five by eight minutes where we just went after five different KOMs out on mountain bikes, which is a very different sort of like power production and everything. but in my mind I was like there's a good chance that that TT bike workout is going to be a fail because I'm just kind of feeling tired and burned out and I know I can get like a really good effort going out with Curtis and just kind of smashing it and just kind of going hard sounds fine.

But then outside of that there's like yeah weekends are pretty fair game. The key sessions that we have, you know, like two hard runs a week and two hard bikes a week, we try to be pretty good with those. But then I'll stretch. I'll like go twice as long as I'm supposed to want a bike ride or something like that or a gravel ride sometimes if somebody wants to go do a cool loop and just try to make sure a fuel well or whatever. Yeah, I think for like mental sanity of doing the sport for so long, you do have to have some flexibility in your mind to do things that you actually think sound good. But hopefully, if you're

training for triathlon, the workouts sound good most of the time. And you don't want to miss them because you're working towards the school, you've invested in it and you throw, you know, throwing a workout out the door to go and do something else is not really pretty. productive for anyone. I don't know. What's your answer to as a non-professional who don't have to do the workouts to make

your living? Yeah, it's still like, it's the same thing you just said, where it's like you have this goal, you're working towards it, and I don't, I'm like you guys, I'd never miss a workout. I pretty much follow everything. I, and it's funny, you said like,

Eric, you said like, I'll sometimes do twice the mountain microtter is supposed to. It's so funny how will all of us, I feel like, will go in that direction. But no one's like, yeah, I only wanted to do half the ride. Yeah. So I only did half. Like, the only thing that's making you do half is if you feel really bad or if you're, like, injured or something.

Yeah. I'll also do that. It's like, I have a four-hour ride. So yeah, I'll come do the five-hour ride with you guys today. You know, it's like so obvious. Yeah, doing less is not in the DNA of trail. No, no, I think so. But, yeah, I love sticking to the plant.

That's like a big, big part of what brings me joy in the sport. sticking to the plant. For sure. Yeah. The other thing that we do just to wrap this up is like the week after a race, we won't get a schedule

from our coach for a whole week typically. And I usually take that opportunity to go do kind of bucket list things that I've been wanting to do. Zero guilt. And really, yeah, have fun and feel good about that. And then the week, you know, like one week after the race still end up doing a bunch of training.

It's just like kind of fun stuff that I wanted to do and then start in with like the actual schedule a week later. Yeah, I did this instrument. post that was like super tired after PTO Edmonton just took a super chill week. I didn't do just did what sounded good. And then my coach texted me and he was like, took a super mellow week equals 60 kilometers of running. I roll. Right. Exactly. And I'm like, well, not having swim workouts or bike workouts feels like a mellow week to me. Paulo. Paulo with the jokes. Follow with the jokes. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for your

answers, guys. Next one is from Anat. Hey, Eric, Paula, and Nick. Confession First, when I first heard your podcast episode, I definitely was thinking, why are people asking them about coffee and their dog? Why aren't they talking about triathlon? And I skipped over anything personal. But after listening to a few more and when the question came up about what you do in the heat with Flynn, I wanted to fast forward so bad, but I had to know the answer. So just had to. I mean, it's Flynn. I'm starting to get more into all the encompassing TTR versus the raw information seeking I originally came to get. Love to hear that. I read this out to Eric over dinner one night, and I just thought it was so funny because it was like, yeah, it's kind of hilarious that we're

making Flynn into this, not him, and he's like a character now, and people think they know him, and it's like, who cares how long he stays in the van, but people feel some, for some reason, invested in his well-being and our coffee routine. And it's just funny that that's become one of the popular parts about our story and not just the triathlon training. So anyway, thank you. We're glad that you feel that way because that's our goal. Perfect. And then so, and that goes on to say, my question is primarily to Nick, but all three as well.

I'm also signed up for Iron Man, Wisconsin. It will be my third full Iron Man, but I did the first to 11 years ago and three kids ago. So this is my comeback of sorts and my gift for my 40s. birthday. I'm finding myself getting obsessed with nutrition. How do you approach nutrition? Do you have super prescribed plan? When and how do you decide to go off plan? Do you determine optimal sodium and carbs per hour? Do you add supplementation like hammer race caps or BCAAs? Tums, ginger chews just in case. In my last full Iron Man, I threw up for the whole marathon, Texas. And although I still managed to finish under 13 hours. It was a nightmare.

And I'd like to do everything in my power to avoid that happening again. Yeah, wow. Also, his plan for reference, or I'm not, I'm not sure. My plan for reference, solid real food on the bike, homemade cinnamon, sugar, rice cakes, and oatmeal energy bites from Scratch Labs recipe book, and scratch hydration with the LMNT on the bike. On the run, I plan to use Martin, also on course, and scratch drink and gummies. I mean, at least when I first heard this, it just, it sounded very complicated to me.

And I've certainly experienced when I am on a long ride and I have a picky bar and some scratch and then I run out and then I use some other, you know, I buy a Gatorade and then I buy a donut and that my stomach is just like, what are we, what time of day it is? What is happening? Can we just like, can we get on one plan here? What stood out to me was like the oatmeal during the point. bike. I don't know if that is maybe like too fibrous and just your body's now processing that in your stomach instead of like sending blood to the muscles. It's slowing down. Or it's not processing it. And it's just sitting there exactly. Yeah. So it's like creating this kind of lump. So I think the

scratch lab stuff, the recipes are amazing and that that oat ball could be great post workout. Or even if you're doing like a super easy long ride. But my initial instinct, not knowing much about iron and manned nutrition is that's not like a quick sugar access that you might be needing. Well, maybe for people who don't know, do you want to tell, do you want to just like quickly go over like why you don't want to eat as many like a why you wouldn't want a protein bar on a, during a workout? Like it's protein bar, right? It's for athletes.

Why wouldn't I want it during the hardest race of my life? Yeah, it's just you want all the blood in your body is trying to go to your major extremities to move you forward. your arms and your legs specifically and there's not a lot of blood left over to be in your digestive tract so you want to put stuff in there that is very easily absorbed and like simple sugars and stuff

they just go like right through the stomach lining right and there's not actually instant absorption it doesn't take work it doesn't have to break it down the way it has to break down fats and protein so you want to like keep it as simple as you can without just like going insane you know because all you ate was gels for 20 hours. Yeah, that's where I don't really feel like I'm qualified enough to speak about Iron Man

Nutrition, because people do eat like Snickers bars, which have protein and fat in them. And it's such a long day. And often people aren't really at a very high intensity for an Iron Man. That's the difference is however you plan on executing this Iron Man. Like, I don't think Lindsay is going to have a Snickers on her bike. But however, what's her name? Courtney DeWalter? No, I'm thinking of someone else. She's another ultra-trailer. Claire Gallagher. She literally does snickers

and like icing from like cake icing brings it in her pack and trail runs and can eat it while doing it. But I mean, they are also at like a lower intensity because they're ultrass, but I have to believe that she's just kind of a freak in that sense that she can handle that crazy food and while running.

Everyone is so different with what they can handle and it comes back to the question we answered already about practicing it. Yeah. I like Eric's answer of just keeping it a little bit more simple and making sure that you're using in the race what you're going to use in training, which is like obvious advice,

but not to like draw from 10 different sources of fuel. Yeah, like switching to the Martin on the run, I would try to keep it as consistent as you can. Well, I think he's doing that because that's the on-course nutrition. Well, sure, but then you should use it on the bike too, I think, if you can. Yeah, maybe. I've never tried Martin. I don't know exactly what it is, but is it just a sugar like scratch? Yeah. Yeah, they just pack more carbs into the same amount and it digests really fast and does not cause stomach discomfort.

It's supposed to be the best. Theoretically. Yeah, theoretically, although I've had a very bad experience with Martin personally. Yeah, so I think I would just on the experimentation side, like maybe go as simple as you can. And then if that's like too boring or whatever, add in like one thing. whatever, you know. Yeah. But just try to get it as simple as possible.

I do think the rice cakes could be good, though, on the bike that you're making. Yeah, if it's white rice. If it's like a really simple carb. Yeah. Also, I just want to, we can wrap this question up, but a disclaimer for people that might criticize us for giving advice like this. If it's not true, we're just saying what we think. Right.

And actually, and if you have something, if you are a professional in the field and you hear something that we say that you think we could use some insight on, please send it because we would love to share that with everyone. Yeah, here come. No, it's true. If we're incorrect in sharing information, we would love to be corrected. Yeah, educate us. It's going to help us too.

Exactly. But thanks for that question. That was great. And thanks for being invested in Flynn and stuff. Yeah. I like that they're trying stuff out because you've got to get that figured out as soon as possible. One more quick thing before we move on. Eric rolls his eyes.

But I would say, he said that he's obsessed with nutrition. don't be obsessed with it. Like, take it down a level, and then it might not be stressful, and then it might be easier, you know? Like, when you're completely obsessed with stuff, it ruins the fun of it. That's some good Paula advice right there.

Anyway. I like that. I like that advice. I like that advice. Yeah, figure it out, but don't obsess over it. Yeah. Cool. Okay, next question.

That sounds like a summarization of Keep It Simple to me, but okay. I think they're not exactly the same. I think keep it simple and don't be obsessed with it. Can both coexist. Next question is from Hayden from Hamilton, Ontario. Nick, Paula, Eric, and Flynn. Thanks so much for your dedication to the pod and shout out to the really great questions.

Oh my God. T.TL. Nash spelled vertical bracket, forward slash, vertical bracket, at sign, dollar sign, more brackets and hyphens. It does look like Nash. I'm impressed. They've been asking. Anyway, just completed my first triathlon.

Iron Man 70.3, Montreau Blant. man, I'm totally hooked. First, power meters. Can you explain some of the pros and cons of single versus dual-sided power meters? Is it worth the cost to get a dual-sided or will single-sided be enough to inform training and racing? This sounds like a bike tag with Eric. I mean, my very anecdotal evidence is the single-side is just as good. That's what we use, right?

Is it the quark spider-based ones? I guess so, like ours is built into the spider versus it being, purely in the crank arm of one side. You're getting the amount of power that's going into the chain ring. But it's not like some of them out there that literally have a power meter on the left side and on the right side. It's still like algorithmically figuring out which right and left balance is going on. The only downside that I could see with major downside was one that's like just a left side or just a right side, is that if you are for some reason super lopsided and your left leg puts out, you know,

59% of your power and your other leg puts out 41%. Then it could give you a little bit of erroneously high or low total power number. But what's the problem with that? Like, it's still, at the end of the day, it's still going to be consistent for that athlete, right? Yeah. Like, they're not going to be able to compare with other people and that that's not going to, I guess that's not going to be helpful to them. But as long as you're using the same bike or even different bikes with the power meters

in the same side, I think it would be fine. maybe if you're coming back from injury and you're worried about things not being balanced, I could see maybe that being an issue. Or if you ever decide to go to dual leg power meet, like just for like forward compatibility. That would be the problem. That would be a problem. The other thing is what triathlon on planet Earth is not taking their power and comparing it to other people's power? That's a great, I certainly am.

Or comparing it to your lift power. Yeah. But I would say that for the sake of saving money, if the option is like single or not, single is a thousand million times better. Totally. Totally sufficient. And for the most part, most people are going to be like 51% on the left, 49 on the right. Like you're not going to have these enormous discrepancies.

And if you do, you'll be able to tell, I would say, if you're like so injured that you're literally putting 10% less power up. Yeah. So just go with the single for sure. Do either of you ever have anything more than 51, 49? No. Have you ever had 52-48? I don't really look at it. I've had it go on the high.

higher side when like I'm really feeling like my left leg is going very numb and stuff. Oh, yeah, interesting. And then you're just looking at it and I'm just getting pissed off. So I don't know if I'd even want it there. There's not much I can do. Right. Right. Yeah. For me, I have my road bike is dual-sided and my TT bike is single-sided. And they read it the same to me. And my Garmin data always says 50-50 or 49-51. Perfect. So yeah, definitely get a power meter no matter what it is.

I'd say it's more important that it's like somewhat reputable brand versus it being dual-sided. Yes. Next question here is from Mark from Melbourne. Hi, Nick, Paul, and Eric. I was wondering whether Paula got offered to join the Canada team for the TT race during the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. As a Canadian national champion, it would have been great to see her there. Maybe next one's Paula versus Kat Matthews. Man, that's tearing up the internet right now.

Congratulations to all of you for your races at the PT. Canadian Open. Please give a new trisuit to Nick. Please. Oh my God. Should we tell them? Yeah. Literally the morning that that podcast came out, someone from Zoot emailed.

Mark from Zoot emailed. Mark from Zoot emailed. I didn't know we were allowed to drop his name. emailed me and asked me just, he's like, hey, I heard about the pod. Just give me your sizes and your address. And so they sent me, it actually should be in the mail today. Oh, really? I've really nice.

Race kit, their top of the line bib, their top of the line jersey, and their top of the line vest. What? Send all that stuff to me. So I'm going to be reping that stuff for sure. Thank you so much, Zoot. Thank you so much, Mark. I am so stoked right now on it. And other companies also reached out, but you even had an offer for a custom kit.

I know, no, too custom. I had a couple of people message me on Instagram, too. Can we just say what awesome companies reached out? and offered you kits. Jackaroo. Are we allowed to say that? Yeah, we can say. Well, it's not that we didn't go with that,

that you didn't go with it because it wasn't good. It's just like what Paula said. And then do we count win? I forget exactly how that was. Yeah, Jordan Blanco offered a win. Yeah. And then I had two custom kit makers that were like smaller and reached out to me on Instagram.

I forget their names now, but they were super nice, both of them. What a great community. Speaking of the community, I just want to say that I went for a long run this weekend with my friend Kathleen who listens to the podcast and probably just screamed when she heard her own name on the podcast. But she's great and she's getting to triathlon. She's a marathon runner. And as we're like kind of talking about the podcast and talking about other stuff, two different people on my two and a half hour long run screamed out to me and recognized me from the podcast.

Just random people on the beach path in Santa Monica. One because of your voice. Because you were talking to people a lot of work. Yeah, of course I was talking to. too loud. I was talking the whole time. Yeah, the first person was writing the other direction, so they saw my face. And I was wearing a TTL hat. So I guess they could have just seen the hat. But the second person turned around and did like three double takes after hearing my voice and then said my name. I said, Nick, TTL Nash. And so I was just, you know, it's so fun. I love that.

That was very exciting. Yeah. Kathleen was like, do you know her? I'm like, no. I don't. It's what it like to be trathon famous. That's right. What was the question? Yeah. If you got offered to join the Canadian team.

Oh, the Commonwealth team. Yeah, for the Commonwealth games. I just included this because there was actually like a lot of questions about this. Eric does this thing where he starts to talk and then he stops and he rolls his eyes and just does a sigh. Like, oh, fine. I didn't roll my eyes or sigh. Okay. We're going to one day sell these facetimes for millions of dollars so people can see what the behind of the scenes is really like.

Yeah. So yeah, the Canadian time trial championships was too late to qualify for the Commonwealth Games. They had already selected their teams and had their qualification prior to that. And I think a lot of it was discretionary for the selection. But I got to be honest that watching that race and seeing the results from it made me so badly wish that I was there. Like more than any triathlon ever has. I was like, oh, I'm just so curious more than anything. would stack up in a field like that. And I don't know, like I won the Canadian one by a minute or 40 seconds or

whatever it was, but it would be cool to be kind of like immersed in that kind of a field where the time gaps are going to be smaller. How far am I from the winner? Am I the winner? Like, obviously I'm not. But if I was going to be selected for a team like that, I'd obviously put more focus into my TT riding and investment into it a little bit more. But it definitely confirmed to me my desire to be on a Canadian team for the time trial at some point and at some major games. I think it would be so cool, even at a world championships. And I keep meaning to email cycling Canada. I don't even know how to go about this and be like,

excuse me. Operator. I really want to go to the Olympics. How does that work? That is that. Where's the frequently asked questions? So anyway. That is really cool. Wait, I didn't see the race.

Is it 40K? No, it was short. I think it was 30K, but pretty hilly, pretty technical. I, like, followed the winner on Strava,

and she doesn't post her power, but just could see some of her statistics. And the most interesting thing to me was that her cadence was 95 average. That's, yeah, that's the question that we had from last week, right?

That's cycling, cycling cadence. I told my coach that. I was like, oh my gosh, my cadence was, 85 and polo said it's not unusual for cyclists to have a high cadence like that it's like they're trained to do it they come some of them from track cycling and so yeah that was interesting i think

i'd have that's the other thing that interests me about racing the t t is i'd have so much to learn and improve versus triathlon that i've done for my whole life so anyway that that's cool that people questioned that and i wish i had been there yeah well you know that if uh if you're you do make that team, I'm going to download Duolingo French and get better so that we can go to Paris and I can get around. Eric and I took many years of French and you grew up in Canada, so between the three of us, we would be probably okay. I better email them real quick because that's like only two years away. Yeah. Yeah. They'll come up fast. Like, what do I have to do to secure my selection? I mean, I feel like you did the thing that you have to do, but...

No, I think you got to do more like world tour stuff. I don't know. Anyway, next question. Thank you for that question, Mark. I was entertaining. Okay, next question is from Brad. He says, hi, Flynn. Please ask the humans if there is any benefit or encouragement for us to post Zwift Frides under their Zwift club name. Good boy.

Regards Brad. Nick, have you done any research into this? Because honestly, I don't 100% know how that functionality works. I kind of assumed you would know this, so I didn't look into it at all, especially since I don't use Zwift. No, I don't know. Do you know anything off the bat that there's any advantage to it? Not really, no, I don't.

They didn't give us a hugely in-depth brief on what Zwift clubs are. That's like kind of a relatively new thing, and they're constantly building the functionality out more. So I don't think it hurts, and I was kind of hoping that it would naturally grow with people who did understand exactly what the purpose was. Yeah, if nothing else, it's just someone might see it and click on it. Yeah, I think potentially you could,

you could make a friend. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, isn't that why we wear the stuff in public? Is there any technical benefit to it? It's like, no, it's like we're representing ourselves in that way

and we feel part of this thing. Yeah. Yeah. So if you feel like doing it, awesome. We love it. Also, we should do another Zwift group ride this Thursday when this pot is dropping,

which is terrible time ago. It's just been, it's just been so warm here and our garage is not air conditioned. So it's, uh, we could do an early morning Thursday. Yeah. It would have to be a morning.

one for sure. We'll set it up. We'll set it up. So maybe someone will be listening to this, the podcast while on the group ride and be like, oh my gosh, I'm on the aforementioned group ride right now. That'd be crazy. Your brain will actually explode. Group ride inception. Okay, next question is from David. Yo, T.T.L. This question is specifically for Nick. As an age grouper who gets to work out with the pros, where do you notice the biggest difference? Oh, this is such a, I love this question. I love it too. I love it too. Even though you say you're an average age grouper, you are clearly above average based on your recent races and it sounds like the bike is your best. Do you feel like you can sort of keep up? Is Eric

talking about the weather and the burrito he's about to crush while your lungs are exploding? Tell us what it's like. Just how much better are they? Thanks, David. So, I think... You know what popped into my head? What, tell me? The ride that you and Paula went on in St. George. Oh my God, where I died. That was like all my highest heart rate data was on that ride. I think that was some nutrition and heat related but that's just what popped into my head. When I think about that, I think about the run that you and I did up the river

like two times ago. Do you remember? Oh, yeah. When Paula was walking Flynn, and I remember you were talking the whole time and I was running and it was just so hard for me. And it was, we weren't running fast at all. It was just a hard run for me.

It's different. So I would say for each of the sports, for swimming, it's great because we, you're not going anywhere, right? So it's like running next to someone on a treadmill. I can just totally do my own pace in a different lane and we still get to feel like we're kind of hanging out.

So I like that. But what is a difference like? It's monumentally insane. It's beyond the biking and the running. I can't understand it. Me at my full 50 sprint is what they like race and train at. So it makes it seems actually maybe maybe faster than that. So it seems physically impossible for someone to,

able to swim that fast, and I cannot comprehend it. Like, if you ever swam in the water with a professional swimmer or a college swimmer or one of these two, you think like they're wearing fins or something, because it's not like their body is doing anything that looks that different. They're just going so much faster. It's unbelievable. And then on the bike, I feel like, I feel like I can, I mean, they, obviously they're faster than I am, but we can kind of ride together for the most part, right?

Yeah, I mean, if we were to go try to do like 70.3 pace intervals, that hill that's one thing but like you and i could go ride four hours together no problem and it wouldn't be like you were slowing me down at all yeah i would i might be slowing you down a little bit but i don't think it's it would be as much of a bummer as like if we were doing an open water swim together right you'd be like constantly waiting for yeah yeah um and then for the run it's also like makes no sense because my race pace is slower than their warm up pace not true well it's like pretty you guys warm up well i know in minutes per miles when we've done it together that's like a little bit slower than what I just raced the PTO open at.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, like you guys do like 7.30 per mile kind of like easy, whatever, chilling pace. And what's weird is that for me in the beginning of a workout, that does feel like easy, relaxed pace. But then for whatever reason, at the end of a race, I can't hold that pace. Whereas you guys in the race are just going so fast a pace that I can only do for like a mile maybe. like anything sub six minute pace is just like so hard. But Nick, you're relative to most age group athletes, you're at the top of that.

And still, there seems to be such a huge gap between me and you guys. It's hard to compare yourself to Eric because he's like one of the best male pro triathletes in the world. But I feel like you know why are more similar. I wouldn't even say that. I would say, well, let's put it this way. The bike is my strength. And Paula still outbikes me. by a lot.

And you are one of the strongest cyclists as well, but it's really not close. I would say we probably have a similar FTP and Paula weighs like 40 pounds less than I do and can sustain power for longer. Well, I don't know. Yeah.

It's an interesting question. It is amazing. It's a really like, if you can handle the, I guess I wouldn't call it embarrassment as because I don't think many people would be embarrassed. I certainly am not. But if you can get through that,

it is amazing to see what it's like for you to be at your maximum effort and then someone just come by you that seems like they're not working hard at all. It's inspiring. It feels like, whoa, the human body can do so much if it really focuses on this one thing. It's a similar feeling to me when

like you're swimming with a real swimmer and they pass us effortlessly. So you guys have that feeling too. It's even that big of a difference to talk about the sports specialists. Yeah, for sure. Specifically in swimming, it's just like you said, unfathomable.

It does not make sense. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, cool. Well, thanks for that question, David. Yeah, it's very fun. I love being able to work out with you guys because it's always, it always inspires me and it blows my mind how much fit or someone can be.

We can wrap this up. But the fun thing about training with you, Nick, is that you can do 90% of our workouts with us. Like a lot of our workouts are aerobic or easier. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. easily. And it's just maybe when we're touching on race-paced stuff. But yeah, that's, you're definitely fit enough to train with us on a regular basis, which is really fun. Yeah, that does make it fun. That does make it fun. Okay, next question is from Mo Mo. Hello,

from Tokyo, my favorite triathletes slash artistic creators and Flynn. Tokyo. I love your blog. Yeah, that's a first. Yeah. My question, sorry, I love your vlog and podcast. Keep up the awesome work and keep them coming. My question, is regarding post-race blues. I finished my first Olympic distance race this summer after having trained for almost two years. While I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and wanted to sign up for another race, my post-race blues was surprisingly intense and I want to come up with a strategy to avoid it or at least bounce back from it quickly in the future. Have you ever had a bad case of post-race blues in your triathlon career? What's your strategy for speedy post-race mental recovery?

Thanks so much, MoMo. Well, first of all, are we talking about only races that went poorly and you have post-race blues? Or can you also have that feeling when a race didn't go poorly? I think it's any time. Yeah. Honestly, I think people that win Olympic gold medals come home and have post-race depression. Yeah. So it's definitely

not tied to the result outcome. Yeah. And it's a totally normal thing. Yeah. You just like had a thing that you were looking forward to for months, maybe even a year. And made you feel like you had purpose. Yeah. And then you're just, okay, now it's over. It's like, I spoke

talk to a really good friend of mine who felt this exact same way when he got out of medical school. He's like, well, I guess, yeah, and I'm a doctor, but I've been working towards this forever. And like, now what? Now I just go be a doctor forever? Okay. It's, you know, it's like totally natural. And do you have any tips for them? Like, you guys have gone through this probably more than anyone else that's listening to?

Yeah, I would say there's, like, different approaches. One that's not necessarily the most healthy is to just immediately focus on the next goal and put blinders on. And this happened to me post-Olympics. I was like, okay, I'm like depressed as I've ever been, but I'm going to pretend I'm not and just like get ready for World Championships in two months. And then my body completely broke.

I gained like 25 pounds. It was just the most unhealthy decision I could have made. So the flip side of that is like being nice to yourself, focusing on other things that you love in life, maybe spending more time with your family or your friends because you have more time for that. And definitely thinking about the next race that excites you and maybe putting that on a calendar is a healthy thing to do, but not immediately just getting back into the grind. Like it's okay to take a rest.

Yeah. It's okay to, you know, be proud of your accomplishment, whether it was a success or a not a great race. You still got ready for it and you finished it and you, you know, check that box. So, yeah, I think everyone's going to have a different approach, but there's definitely some that are maybe healthier than others. Yeah, I like getting back from a race and like kind of starting in on the to-do list of things that I've been putting off for the last month because I've been like so focused in on the race and you're like, no, okay, I'm not going to go, I don't know, you know, like, rip up that flower bush because I just need to lay down and calm down and just taper properly. So I'll get back and like I'll go rip up that flower bush and like mow the lawn and like try to fix something on the van. And then after a couple days, I'm just like itching to start training. again and it just feels natural and it kind of comes back around.

That's a nice, like, natural progression of things. That's what I think helps you, not just with post-race blues, but to maintain a healthy mental relationship with the sport and physical. Yeah, totally. And you still feel productive when you're doing that. It's not like, I'm just sitting around not doing what I normally do because I'm resting and I don't know, I'm thinking about the race. It's just we've got other stuff to do.

Yeah. For anyone out there who needs to hear it, it's okay to take time off after a race. Yeah. And I think like a lot of negativity surrounding that comes from feeling like when you're not training hard, you don't, you feel like you're like gaining weight or losing fitness. And you're just always operating at this level of thinking about your body and how it feels and preparing it to be optimally primed for a race. So when you let that slide, it's important not to get anxious over maybe eating a bit unhealthy or feeling like you're gaining weight. You're probably not. Like that's what I get into is like, oh my gosh, I had a week off. I'm so out of shape now. but it's just in my head. Yeah, yeah. Just be conscious of that as well. It's okay to eat like 12 donuts after you race.

I love that advice. I'm going to write that down, actually. Especially after an Iron Man. Direct quote. Just as a reminder. Great. Well, thanks for that question. Next one is from Connie.

Thanks for all you're doing for the sport of triathlon. I've been racing tries since the mid-90s and recently returned to racing after a five-year break. I have never been more excited about the sport. Thanks largely to the content you and others create. Thanks for the motivation every week. I actually have a coffee question for Eric. I'm newish but super enthusiastic home barista.

During COVID lockdown, I bought myself a Breville barista, touch, and taught herself how to use it. I am looking to move to a more sophisticated machine. I've already upgraded my grinder, but if you could have any home espresso machine, what would you buy? I want to make enough of an investment that I won't need to upgrade for a long,

time. Thanks for any suggestions and keep up the great racing and pod content. P.S. The TTL Coffee Club selection last month was a bit light for espresso, so I made a cold brew and it was amazing. That's Connie from Leon's Colorado. That's awesome. La Mardzocco, Linnea Mini. Whoa, you had that locked and loaded. Yep. I lost for that machine pretty hard. Say it again, nice and slow for the people who didn't hear it the first time. La Mardzocco, I think you say Linnea. Oh, La Mardzoc. Yeah, so that's the Italian brand that you actually see in coffee shops. They have this absolutely gorgeous single group head home machine and it's like

$5,000. Wow. There you go. So if anyone wants to make right, for Eric's birthday or Christmas or whatever that's that's what you can get him. There's some even more obnoxiously expensive ones out there but I've just like cast those out of my brain you know like I just don't think about buying Ferraris because it's why you know. Right. Okay and our last question for the day is, A-T-L-N-A, she's spelled

G-N-A with the line over at S-H. Love it. Love listening to the pod each week and I have been learning a lot. I've been making my mediocre age group performances just that bit quicker. Two questions. One is,

what triathlon adjacent event or storyline are you all excited about currently? That's kind of a cool, cool little question. I don't get it. Well, for example, like Lindsay, her final road to Kona. or you could say like

Lionel and Aaron's baby or Lionel's tooth and Hawaii he still hasn't gotten it fixed adjacent to triathlon at all I guess that's triathlon that's purely triathlon But yeah what does triathlon adjacent mean I guess it's like it's like okay

Lionel's tooth has nothing to do with his racing but somehow I'm kind of intrigued by the whole situation like why has he still not gotten it fixed I really am hoping that the American cross-country mountain bikers continue to have a good season, and we see one of them be a world champion.

Specifically, Christopher Blevins, and it would be great if Kate Courtney could pop a really big result. Wait, didn't some other American just win a world title like two weeks ago or something? No, she won a World Cup. Yeah, it's Gwendolyn. What's her last name?

I don't know, I can only think of it in the accent of the mountain bike here and Elsa on. Oh, right. Rob, Rob Warner. Gwendolyn. What is her name? But it was a cool story. She's like kind of under the radar.

Completely under the radar. Like in this weekend's World Cup, like in the camera, you know, goes down the front line of all the women and everything. Gwendolyn Gibson. Gendalindlein Gibson. There it is. Very nice.

She just looked like she was going to start giggling, you know, the camera came in front of her. Like she's always been on, she hasn't been on the front row. I don't know, but it was really cool to see. That's cool. That's the stories you love to see. And then the second one, are there any triathlon-adjacent events

that any of you would be interested in competing in or curious and trying? For example, biking-only events, races like Unbound or Leadville, or Schemo or Nordic racing, or maybe running-only races, like a track 5K or 10-K or road half or trail ultras. Thanks for being super rad. Good luck with the rest of this season and go kick ass at Collins Cup, Paula. that's from Drew. P.S. Eric, he is actually recommending a bend artist

that you should check out, maybe paint a new motorcycle helmet. His name is like at BKZGRFX. All right of him. Send that to me. Yeah. Nick. I will.

Because I don't have the question. My answer for that is the time trial like I just talked about. Yeah, that's good. Paul, I want to see you just do so well. I don't know why I'm so invested in it. I'm like, yeah, she can win another 70.3. That's fine, but a time trial? Yeah.

If she wants that, that's awesome. That's so much cooler. Okay. What about you, Eric? Eric probably has like a thousand. I do have a lot. But the number one thing that I wanted to do this year that was like in this category that I didn't get a do because it was the same weekend as Paula's time trial,

there's this race in Ben called the best of both. And you actually ride a gravel bike up Mount Bachelor, transition to your road bike, ride your road bike on the road around Mount Bachelor, transition to a mountain bike and take mountain bike trails back into town. So it's like crowning the master of all disciplines of cycling. And it's been on my bucket list for several years now. That's fun. That's really fun.

How about you, Nick? I would love to do an Xera. I think it would be cool if we could do that one in Italy. If Eric and I could both do it, that would be fun. Can you do world championships there, Nick? Wait, did you say our world championships there? That's world championships. Yeah, it's world championships.

Oh, so I couldn't do it? I'd have to qualify. Tahoe. Tahoe, baby. I guess I could. I mean, what about with a heavy trail bike? Is it even possible? Well, I was thinking, so here's this ridiculous plan that's probably not going to happen.

But Paula on her way back from Collins Cup was potentially thinking about going to the wind tunnel to kind of like compare the shift, try the ship. I don't think that's going to happen. Okay, never mind. End of the story. Well, you can still tell me the potential. Okay. Forget Paula. I was considering driving down to do Extera Tahoe, which is like.

that same sort of back last day of the Collins Cup. So I could just bring down my mountain bike that you rode while you were in. Oh, the other epic. Yeah, I'll even make the brakes work. Yeah, well, I don't need the brakes. Brakes are, I'm trying to go fast. I'm not trying to slow down. That's true.

That's true. Nick, would you be open to going to Italy Exetero World Championships in October? It's this October? Yeah, I would be open to it. If we timed it right, we could, like, stay at my parents' house and use our car. We need to actually dive into logistics because I need to buy plant tickets pretty soon. Yeah. It would be, I wonder how hard it is to qualify for an age trooper.

I love mountain biking. You just got to win your age group. But I'm just not that fast at it. Are you sure you have to win? How come you just had to do a local- Pros are different. Look at that mullet. They just let people with that mullet into the world championships for Xera.

It's a prerequisite. So, and I'd love to do a, I think I'd like to do a 50K, ultra run, even though I'm not a great runner. I like the adventure aspect of it, and I've really fallen in love with trail running. Dude, my sister is doing a hundred mile race and bend in like three weeks. Running. 100 miles is running. Just everybody knows.

Eric's sister, Elise, is an extremely good trail runner. Total bad. She's, like, getting better and better and better, and was winning races and podiuming at races pretty consistently. Yeah. She asked me to be her guide for the last 45 miles. Yeah. It's just like, oh, so just two marathons. Okay, got it.

So I'm going to do the last 18 with her, but anyway, tangent. Even that is like... That's a lot, but I think there will be a large percentage of them will be walking. Yeah, yeah, the up hills, I think it'll be a lot of that. Yeah. Well, that's cool. All right, well, I feel like I could just keep talking to you guys forever. Yeah, I think we sort of like spirals and talking here.

Yeah, so let's just end the pod and then we'll keep talking. Okay, perfect. Yeah, see, people, what people don't realize is that, like, we've been doing this for years. And now we're just like, we might as well record this and put it on the internet. Yeah,

and now that the requests were getting crazy, things that we never thought. Oh, wow. Well, thank you guys so much. This is still so fun for us. And we are loving your questions. You can send them to that Triathlon Life brand at gmail.com.

We will talk to you next week. And I think Paula and I will actually be in the same room when we're recording this next week. Yeah, because I'm flying to L.A. on Saturday so that I can fly to Vienna direct from L.A. on Monday. So we can record the pod Sunday night from there. That'll be perfect. That'll be perfect. If Eric can make time for that.

I probably won't have time because I'm going to have to be watching Flynn and Chimmy. Okay. Kind of a big job. Okay. You are really big letting on the dynamic group dynamic care. No, your Chimmy sitting doesn't start to the following weekend. Shit. I guess I'll be there.

Nice track. You love the pop. He loves this ball. Nice try. Nice try. Thanks for listening, guys. Thanks so much. Bye.