That Triathlon Life Podcast - Eric races Wy'ast 50K with 7k feet of climbing, running shorts, and more!

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

This week, Eric shares his 50k race at Wy’east with a full recap, and we answer listener-submitted triathlon questions, including:Post-rainy ride routineWeekly massage — what actually gets worked onTips for supporting a first-time trail racerPeloton and live spin classesPrivate lap pool or private chef?Split shorts vs. half tightsAdult-onset swimming tips for a pro trail runnerTraining for running in a hilly locationHow important is cooling down?Race radios in triathlon A 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

Hey everyone. Welcome to the TTL podcast. I'm Eric Loggersome. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. And welcome to the podcast. I'm a professional endurance athlete. We established last week. Paul is a professional triathlet. Nick is professional musician, amateur triathlet. And we got ourselves a podcast here. If you're new, TTL, we love multi-sport. Paul and I specifically owe our livelihood to it. And we created TTL to put as much back in of the sport as we possibly can. We've gotten a lot out of it. So, started out with a YouTube channel. We've got an Appareline Now podcast. We've got a development team of young athletes that we sponsor app. And we're always looking to do more. So welcome the show. How could we possibly do more? I don't know. But actually, I do know. I got a lot of ideas. But more on that later. We got a lot to cram into this hour episode, don't we? Yeah. We have an insane amount of questions. And Eric, you race this

weekend and there's a product release coming out tomorrow. So I don't know. There is. There's so many things. Where should we? Yeah, where should we start? I did race. I did a 50K trail race. We'll get to a little bit of a race recap. And I don't know if we have any specific questions around that. But Nick, we don't have any questions around that. We don't have any questions around that. Paula was there. She crewed for me. So Nick, if you are just loaded up with your own questions. I mean, I have a zillion questions. Yeah, feel free to fire them away because you and I haven't even. really chatted that much since the race. But before we get to that, yeah, we do have a really exciting product launch, especially for me tomorrow with TTL. We're putting out my signature pro kit. So Paul and I have had custom kits from Castelli just for us for racing for the last since we've been with Castelli for like five years.

And this is the first time ever that I've decided that I will be launching mine in a version that you can buy. Took the sponsor logos off, but the trail logos on there. It's really awesome. probably the most I've ever gotten, I guess, people messaging about it in all the years that I've done custom kit. So we're going to put that up. It'll be up when this podcast comes out and we'll leave it up for one week. And what does it include?

Jersey, bibs. Yep. I kept it pretty simple. There's a jersey, the jersey that I actually use, the pro jersey. There are, there's a tech tea, long-sleeve tech tea and a short-sleeve tech tea. So just three pieces, keeping it simple. Yeah, and I'm just like to share it with people. I hope people like it.

And it's a cool, it's a cool look. So the fit is kind of like a racy fit? The fit on the jersey is a racy fit. Yeah. Historically with our launches with Kestelli, we've done like the second level down of jersey, which is just, I would say, a more relaxed fit. It's not quite a club fit.

But this is the Arrow Race 6 jersey. Kistelli's top of the line jersey. It's the one that I ride in. Absolutely love, same as Paula. So, because of it. it's my pro signature launch, I can kind of do whatever I want. And I think I would like to share this level of quality with everybody. But the, yeah, the tech teas are great. I trail run. I mountain bike in the tech teas as well as the bike jersey. So very multifunctional. And it looks great with black

bibs. So. Looks killer with black bibs. Everyone has black bibs. Goes with everything. In music and like for example guitars, you have artists that come out with their signature guitar and it has all these like custom inlays and the custom pickups that they use and the knobs are different or whatever and here it is happening in triathlon kits now yeah this is certainly not ground breaking or anything but it's the first time i've done it and this kid's this year's cave was a little bit different i really wanted to mix it up so i put a couple symbols on there that emil means something to me and i'll put out a little bit of a video on youtube i mean on instagram

tomorrow that explains those a little bit but um yeah i don't know it's a project that was special to me and I wanted to share. And is it for men only? No. You can order in a men's or a women's. That's a nice thing about doing an order with Kistelli. It does take about eight weeks to receive the pieces, but we can do,

we can take orders for anything. A women's small, men's large, double XL, you name it. Yeah, cool. Awesome. I can't wait to see it. Because people were messaging me about it. Yeah.

It was on my story. They're like, how do I get one of those? Yeah, that's what kind of put it over the edge. So here we go. Now all those people that message Nick, you can get one. You can get it. You can get it. Okay.

So, Eric, you raced. I'm going to quote you here, the hardest race of your life this weekend. Do you stand by that still? I think if I could have a couple more words, it would be the hardest race that I have finished. I've had a been, you know, I've been feeling worse and had a more uncomfortable experience in a triathlon or an equally uncomfortable experience and not finished it. Yeah. But, yeah.

How close were you? To not finishing? Yeah. I don't know. It's such a crazy thing, right? Because like three to five miles before I saw Paula, I was running through all these things in my head. I'm like, I'm going to tell her that there's no way I can finish.

And I just, I feel so terrible. My calf's cramping and all this stuff. And there's no way on earth. And then by the time I got there, I was just like, I need water. And she poured water on me. And like before I could really get all of this out in the intelligible way, because I was so brain dead, I was like doused in water and I was like running away from the aid station. I mean, kind of similar to trathon. You want to quit and then you come into T2 and there's so many people cheering and it's hypey.

And you're like, well, I can't stop here. Yeah, right. I'll keep going a little further. Paula, if he would have said to you like, I can't go on any further, I'm going to, I'm going to quit. Would you have tried to encourage him to keep going? Would you have tried to get more information out of him? Like, how do you think you would have played that? No, I think that would have been a real convenient place to pull out.

I'd be like, okay. Van is 400 meters away and we're not really that emotionally attached to this race, so it would have been fine. I mean, it was that he had so much climbing to go at that point. So I would trust that he knows his body well enough to understand that whatever was to come was too much. Yeah. One of the things that did go through my head is I'm having this conversation, this future conversation with Paula at the aid station in my mind is the number of times that she's told me in races that she wants to quit. And then she just finishes every, you know, each time. And I was like, you know what? She has gotten through a lot of these like really hard situations where she was significantly less excited about the race going into it. Like I can get my shit together and I can power hike up this thing. But I guess we should like start from beginning. A little context to all of this. Lay the foundation for this. This was a very challenging race for me that I picked out

because of where it fits in the calendar. I want to get ready for the Kodiak 50K by UTMB down in California. It's got a lot of climbing in it. And this 50K was predominantly climbing. Over the course of the 50K, you gain 2,153 meters of elevation. Oh my gosh. Which I think is like 8,000 feet. It was, it was, your Strava said 7,000 and change.

Okay. And you don't quite descend all of that. And so I thought, which thank God, actually. Yeah. I actually, I think I would have been okay. It was my climbing muscles that really went out on me early and the descending muscles were okayish. But I ended up cramping a lot to, like, skip to that part. But at the beginning, my strategy was to run a little bit harder at the beginning, because the beginning does climb,

you start straight out of the gate with a one-hour climb, but it's only 5%, we'll say, versus the second half of the course is like 28%. Just straight up. 28%. Yeah, like straight up a mountain resort. So basically the way it works is you spend 25K running up to the mountain resort, and then you spend 25K literally running through and up above the mountain resort,

up a volcano. Mountain Hood is a beautiful, incredible, volcano, my favorite one. But it's straight up. So I thought I will try to play to my strengths here. I'm a little bit more of a runner than a pure climber because I'm new to the trail thing. I'll try to go out hard and see if I can get a little bit of a lead on this guy who, his name's Jackson Cole, and he is like on the New Zealand Trail national team. So he will be going to world championships for New Zealand in trail running. Okay.

And I looked at this drop and he's got all these pictures of like being on steep mountains, like rocks and like really high, really high and steep. And I thought, well, maybe I can run a little bit faster than he can. And I can get to the steep stuff with a little bit of a lead and just lose it slowly. And I'm pretty confident that my descending is good enough to like, I don't know. I was hoping hang if I absolutely had to. But I woke up, I didn't feel the best. I'd been like just kind of feeling the energy a little bit weird the last few days.

I tried to shrug it off and went out really hard per the plan. And I think, you know, like after a couple miles, I had a 30 second lead. And I pretty much held that until five minutes to go on this first one hour long climb. And then he just like caught up to me. He caught up to you before the climb started even. No, no. He caught up to me with like five minutes left in the first. one hour long climb.

So he just ran 30 seconds behind me for pretty much the first hour. But stayed there. Yeah. So I think he's not really that taxed. That's disappointing. Yeah. So then we go into a 3K descent. I really hit this descent.

I'm running like 320 per K down it. Probably too fast. But this is like open road like chunky gravel. I put a minute into him right there. Again, he's probably just like laughing to himself. I'm not sure. nice guy and then we go straight into like another 25 30 minute ascent and about halfway through that he did catch back up to me and he caught back up to me and was like hey can I go by and I'm like yeah sure

and then I immediately had to walk for about a minute yeah I was I was like so maxed out like I do think that I do a really good job at like climbing for five or 10 minutes and then descending for a minute and then climb you know like I think I can recover pretty quickly but this like one hour up thing. That's something I've been working on and something I need to work on, but I have not achieved proficiency at. Do you think it's the nature of the kind of intervals you've done in training that makes you good at the five up, one down kind of thing?

Yeah, maybe. Versus like out and out trail runners that do these long days in the mountains where they're used to climbing for a long time? I think there's a little bit of that. And then I think there's just also genetic predisposition. You know, I've never had a VO2 max test that anybody was like, wow, you know? I'm just okay But I think I work pretty hard

And I think I have pretty good running economy You know, relative to what just like A bike power test will show I think like when I was trying to get in with Red Bull Back in the day Like my bike test was whatever They just like checked the box But when I was doing my run test

The people actually acted kind of excited Which is one another thing that kind of led me to believe That I do pretty well with like the engine that I have Technically Right. Interesting. Yeah. So I don't know. That's all I can say to that. But I kind of started losing a bit more time there. Whatever's going on with the body, I just never felt sharp.

I never felt snappy. And with a completely predominantly uphill race like that, there's no, almost no chances to like, okay, I'm going to let my stride open up. And I'm going to recover and try to float a little bit. It was just up, up, up. Are you thinking about third place at all? ever here? A bit, yeah. I wasn't sure who, you know, who else was in the race. There were a couple of these college kids, which is pretty funny. You read ultra runner race recaps of like existing pro runners and half the time it's like spent the whole race chasing a college kid. No one's

ever heard of. Yeah. Got smoked by Jimmy, Jimmy from nowhere. 20 years old. Yeah. Which is awesome. I mean, like, you know, the sports growing and everything. So like anytime we parked next to, camp next to these kids that were from the grand Oregon and they were like oh yeah we just graduated college and we're trying out this trail running thing like oh shit like you could be the guy like you could get 50th or you could finish 10 minutes of front of all of us I don't know yeah yeah um but the kid that kid did end up getting third wow um so like in my moment of of tiredness and about halfway through the races I'm like having this conversation with paup pretend conversation with paula um I do look over my shoulder and Jordan Bryden is also there.

Yeah. He's an old friend of ours and he's helping us out with TTL and he was doing some video and he gave me an indication that I had about a minute, 45 seconds a minute around the halfway mark to third place. Oh yeah. So definitely a factor for sure. Yeah. I was like, goddamn shit. I really just need to blow up in peace here. But okay. Because I like worked as hard as I possibly could in that first 25K, which again leads me to believe that body wasn't quite having the best day. But this kid was doing great. And as we crossed over the highway basically to get to the resort, I look over my shoulder. I see him there. We immediately do this like full scramble up next to a waterfall, straight up trail, like hands on knees, definitely not running. And it looks

like he's about 10 yards behind me. So I'm like, cool. The college kids beat me. It's happening. It's happening. It's like damage control. Definitely cool. now. Right. And then I got to the aid station. He still hadn't passed me. It was probably another 15 minutes to the aid station from there. And apparently he came into that aid station five minutes behind me.

Oh. So we... Something happened. We both had our tough moments right around the same time. And that contributed to me continuing to push on. But, yeah, I got to the aid station. Paula gave me two new fresh things, a tailwind. the high carb stuff, and I actually had one of them just had powder for lightweightness,

and I was going to fill that up at the next aid station up the mountain. Very nice. I felt really smart, and she hit me with, like, this huge sponge full of cold water. I just, like, dunked my head. I pretty much fell into the bucket of ice water there and immediately cramped both of my biceps, trying to get back up out of it. Yeah, at which point, like, all the cramping be started beginning. Yeah, if the biceps are cramping, then you have, like, a systematic issue there.

Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. So I'm like running out of the- systemic, not systematic, sorry. So I'm like running out of the aid stations with my, like, arms straight down to my side, trying to keep them from cramping.

And then my calf starts cramping. And this is, as we begin this, like, 28% for 7K. Okay. Yeah. So I did a lot of power hiking. I didn't see a single person running as I was doing this power hiking. And you get onto the single track part that's up, but like I said,

up in this like moon dust and rocks and everything. And that was pretty tricky and challenging. because it was one way up and down. And that's when I finally saw the lead guy for the first time. It looked like he was about 10 minutes ahead of me. I saw Heather as I was coming back down. I was definitely in my moment of despair, assuming that Heather was going to catch and pass me.

And I was going to be like third place, you know. Mail. Yeah, exactly. Fourth place overall. But yeah, I made it to the top, thank God. And the way down actually went pretty well. I went one minute faster than the winner on the way back down,

which is about a 35, 40-minute long downhill segment. Isn't this interesting, though, that you're not even an all-on-out trail runner and the descending is so strong? And I don't know. And you're... You are an endurance athlete, and you're climbing relatively is not as strong as theirs.

It's kind of backwards, it seems like. My sister's the same way. And to be fair, this guy at this point could have been like, he's got it in the bag, so he's not going to, like, fully send it. Right. But I am excited to know that I wasn't five minutes behind. Yeah, yeah.

As I was feeling like death. So just like tried to mitigate the cramping situation and made it all the way back down the hill. I saw that the third place kid was like 10 or 15 minutes back at this point. And like, wow, shit, I'm going to get second place. Yeah. Honestly, didn't think. Even on the way up the mountain, I was questioning my ability to go back down because it was a very technical assent and decent. And some of the stuff we were scrambling up, I was like,

I was just like, I'm going to cramp. There's absolutely no way I can go down this rock thingy without cramping. There's no way on earth. And somehow the systems came back around in it and it worked out. Yeah, wow. Well, first of all, good job. Congratulations. That's fantastic.

How hot was it? You said you dunked your head. Was the heat an actual issue? It was very exposed that second half of the course. I don't think it was that hot at that point in the day. But it was, I mean, you're just like baking in the sun and you're at whatever, $6,500 or $6,000. thousand feet or something. So I never felt like overly hot, but we learned in Black Canyon that even

if you're not feeling hot, it's good to dump cold water on you. Because like optimal marathon temperature is like 37 degrees or something. You know, it's like freezing cold. Yeah. Even though you don't feel good, colder is better. And I'll add the cramping to all that, like, you know, just anything you can do to try to get the system back to homeostasis. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, wow. Okay. So crazy race. point to point, lots of climbing, lots of cramping, wanted to quit, but persevered. Yeah. Made it through. Yeah, no, it was a really cool lesson.

And I guess in like, it can feel really, really bad. And somehow there, even if you're down to like 1% left in the tank, that 1% can go a shockingly long way. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'm psyched. I was, I'm not psyched on, on like, how. it went. I'm glad that I took the chance on going out hard and experiencing what that's like, since that's so counter to how I've always raced. I am very curious if I had not gone out so hard, if I just hung back and ran with this guy instead of like trying to go out fast, how that would

have gone, how it would have gone if my body was feeling normal. But definitely check the box on getting a super hard uphill effort in with eyes on the stuff that I have coming up. Paula, you were not even 1% jealous, right? You didn't want to be doing that race on that day with all that climbing. No, I like climbing. I just don't like going down. They also had a 14K and a 28K. Which one would you do if you had to pick?

Maybe the 28K. And was the 28K also a lot of descending? Or was there any race that ended at the top or anything? No, no. They didn't have a VK. A VK, no. I do think Paula would have done well. at this. I think she would have been so strong on the uphill that she could have survived the technical.

It was like a 2.5K up on this like scree type, you know, lava rock type stuff and so 2.5K back down. I think she might have gotten enough lead, you know, to just like totally chill on that down and be okay. Because that was it for like highly technical stuff. And if I'd like to know from you, what percentage of that do you think you power hiked? and what percentage of it do you think I would power hike as an age grouper? For people who haven't done these kind of races who are maybe curious. Okay. I would guess from the spot where I saw Paula all the way up to the very top,

which would have been like 7K, I ran like 25% of it. Okay. I ran almost no percent of that top 2.5K. I think the guys who won the 14K and the 28K, I would say they probably ran 45% of it. Okay. But everyone ran the first half, you think? No, I mean, I passed a ton of people in that bottom bit that were not running. How are you passing people?

All the courses, all the races conversion at the same time. This was not the best design, but I think it was nice to have everybody. finishing around the same time, but like we were catching 14K and 28K people on this climb. They started like 20 minutes before you or something? They started after us, yeah. Oh, but they didn't have like an extra loop or whatever. So basically like we ran up to the resort. They just started in the resort.

Ah, yeah, okay, got it. So that's what was going on. It was a little hectic up top. But yeah, I was running or like slow running past people who were power hiking. And then I was power hiking past people who were power hiking. Got it. So I would, you would think that I might, I might power. hike like 50% or more of that race.

If you were just the part that was in the resort, I would say you would have run like 15%, 10% of the hypothetically. Okay. Yeah, it was just like straight up. But they're all different. All these races are different. Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Cool. Well, well done, Eric. We're proud of you for not losing your body and mind in that race. Yeah, thanks, man. No, it was fun. I mean, we had a great weekend camping. My parents were there. Heather and Wadi were there.

Jordan and Dev were there. Paula was there, obviously, and we all got to, like, circle up the vans and have a camp out and cook out and everything. It was freaking awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, that's the trail race vibe. Yeah, it was 10 out of 10 on the vibes.

Nice. Okay, well, we have a million zillion questions here. So let's get to them. Let's hit it. We add, we, the reason we have so many questions is because listeners have been absolutely crushing, sending in questions. And if you haven't sent in a question ever,

this is your calling. This is the time to do it. You can do it at that triathlon life.com slash podcast. You can also become a podcast supporter there, and we appreciate podcast supporters because they're the only way that this podcast makes any money. And if you're not a podcast supporter yet, next week we're going to do a little behind-the-scenes question

that's going to go out just to podcast supporters. So I recommend you do it now. And for those who don't know, it's $5 a month. There's also a $10 a month option, but it's $5 a month. That is less than a cap of chappuccane. here, okay? Here being, yeah, not in Spain and Italy, by the way, where it's like half of that.

But here it's, it's, yeah, in Santa Monica, it's like $750, actually. So for three quarters of the price of a cappuccino, you can become a podcast supporter. And if you're listening, I mean, how much value do we bring to your life? Eric just poured out his soul. So we would really appreciate if you become a podcast supporter. We also, every once in a while, give out very fancy prizes like the Zwift Head Thubber. phones. We have more stuff coming up on the horizon too. So anyway, that's my spiel. Podcast supporter. Consider it. Think about it. And even if you're not a podcast supporter, send in your

questions. They've been so great lately. First one here is from Kinley. What is your post-rainied ride routine? I try not to ride in the rain, but I get caught in the occasional thunderstorm. I'm just wondering what I should do afterwards to take care of my bike, especially with the wax chain, because apparently they rust more quickly, thanks Kinley. So I did a little research. I did not see anything about wax chains rusting more quickly. And actually... I think that's propaganda from the oil companies.

From big oil. But racks chains, if it's just wet, actually do really well. The problem is when you ride in the wet is that grime gets thrown up onto the chain, and that can then stick to the chain, and that wears the wax out. Like a little bits of sand. Yeah, that's the issue. So if you're in a really nice environment, it's actually fine. But usually if it's raining, it kind of mucks things up.

So anyway, what is your post-Rainy ride routine? I mean, my brain went straight to go sit by the fireplace. Didn't go to bikes at all. Right. Leave the bike in the rain. Go turn on the fireplace. Handle that later. Have a recovery smoothie.

Have a coffee or something, warm up. But as someone who, like, Eric, I think you're really, you're very responsible about keeping the bikes clean and cleaning them after you ride. Yeah. So as someone that does that, when it's rainy, is there anything special that you do or not really? We just don't ride. Yeah. I mean, I grew up riding in Portland in just like the grimyest, crappiest, rainiest, grayest junk.

And that's a huge part of why we moved over the mountain range to bend into the central Oregon area for like less rain. but if we do happen to get caught in it We're usually on our gravel bikes Yeah we don't If it's in the forecast We're on our gravel bikes We'll do the gravel bikes And then

Will you hose them down? Yeah Yeah and sometimes not immediately Sometimes immediately it's go sit by the fireplace And warm up and then Because you're just like I'm so happy to not be in the rain anymore Yeah and also like our rain showers clear up pretty quickly So I could like put the bike underneath you know cover

And then like go back out in 20 minutes And it's probably not raining and I can go hose it off. Yeah. Not in the rain. Yeah, fair. Cool. Okay, we're going to try to be faster because we have so many. Next one here is from James. Hi, team.

Paula and Eric have mentioned weekly massage as being a key part of their staying healthy regimen and have specifically mentioned that it's good for the soft tissues. Is your massage therapist doing specific work on those soft tissues, like focusing on the back of the knee, the ankles, etc. Or does a soft tissue benefit from your standard run-of-the-mill body massage work? Are you doing Thai shiats? you, aromatherapy, any guidance on what type of massage has the most benefit for a triathlete, James. I don't think you guys are doing aromatherapy, am I correct?

No. The massage therapist that we have here, Scott, he's worked with like tons of athletes. Canadian ski team. Canadian cross-country ski team. So we have full trust in him and I think he does a really good job of like a general sports massage. He knows us so well that he can kind of feel of. things are tight and put more focus on them. But if we have a problem area, he'll focus more on that. So I don't go to a PT. I don't really go to any other kind of body care work unless I am injured.

But I just see Scott once a week and it has kept me super healthy for the last three years. So we don't miss a week. It's amazing. Yeah. He usually asks like, hey, is anything bothering you? And I say, yeah, I'm a hip like always because it's terrible. and he'll focus on that a little bit. But for the most part, kind of go through, check all the boxes, good maintenance style. I think that any massage is better than no massage. Like if you're just going to a massage envy or someone that you don't know at all

and they're giving you a flush, it's never really going to be a bad thing. Unless you go to someone new that's going too deep and makes you sore, like that's more problematic. But generally if a place, has like a sport massage option, that's probably the best. I will say my, the type of massage that I feel like I've had the best success with like staying injury free with is ART.

And I don't know if every ART person is created equal, but I saw Gino Cinco at Function Smart down in San Diego for years as I was trying to go for the Olympic team. And that was incredible as far as like something that you can have done and then immediately go to a track workout afterwards. And it's not like making you feel lethargic or anything, but it loosens up important stuff. Yeah, I remember you saying this to me, Eric, because you can

do like ART stuff to yourself as well. Pretty pretty. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah, like the moves that I find most valuable on my hips, I can't do by myself, but you can do some simple things like calves and hamstrings. You're basically like pinning an area and then moving. Pin and stretch, yeah. The joint around it. Yeah, it's

doesn't feel very good. Oh, I think it does. Oh, really? It's pretty painful for me. I don't, that's the thing, dude. It shouldn't be painful. It was never painful with Gino, and he was like very specific about that. He was like, the bunch of people think that it should hurt and it does not need to be effective. Okay. Okay. Good to know. Okay. Next question here is from Derek. Hi, all. Question for the pod. A friend of mine is considering doing an ultra trail run, but none of us have supported someone for such an event. What are some of the best first time support tips and where have you seen other groups struggle?

Thanks for the added multi-sport content. It's expanded my mind beyond triathlon to try new things. Derek. So Paula, I feel like this is for you. This is awesome. Crew chief Paula. So I would say that the most important thing for crewing is to remain calm. When your person comes in, you feel like you need to go as fast as possible, but they've

just been running for X amount of time all alone. And you want to make sure that you check the boxes of everything they need. versus rushing through it. So if they spend an extra couple minutes, that's generally going to be a good thing because it means they're getting replenished or getting cooled off or just getting the good vibes of seeing their crew.

And that's going to be worth it. So, yeah, I've watched crews really rushed their runner through and it just creates this sense of stress for everybody, including the runner. Yeah, I mean that's... Save the five seconds and I see. Yeah, that makes sense.

There's this really funny video of Luke McKenzie crewing Beth. And I mean, they're a great team. She's doing amazing at trail running. But Luke was like, okay, you need to hurry like you really want to get out of here quick. He said that to her. She's so calm in these transition or in these aid stations. It's really impressive. Like just saying exactly what she needs, not feeling like she's in a hurry.

But Luke is like also a former professional athlete. So from his side, he was like every second count. you need to get out of here. So I don't know. It's just funny to watch that dynamic. But, yeah, I don't know. Just have more than you need for them, I guess. As coming from the racer side, I frequently will, I mean, I guess not frequent.

But like two times, I have been approaching an A station to be like, I need this. I need this so bad. I'm going to die if I don't have X, Y, and Z. And then you get there and there's just a lot going on. And you forget. forget that all I wanted was just water and I go running out of there with like 50 gels. Yeah. I didn't want gels. I'm so over gels. All I wanted was water but I just like completely blanked when I got there. So like I appreciate when someone's like asking, do you need this?

Or they just know or you know or like are suggesting things or just like have like you cannot count on your person to like be coherent. I guess. That's what I'm trying to say. Of course. Okay. Got it. smart. So don't necessarily rely on the athlete. Or I like a combination of both maybe where, as Paula said, like, you stay calm, make sure that they can feel calm so they don't feel rushed.

So maybe the ideas can come to the top of mind. Totally. Like having a plan beforehand is critical, though. They should be able to come in there, say nothing to you, and you know exactly what to do. Pull the bottles out, replace the flasks, put two gels, empty the wrappers,

put ice here. Like, that should be planned out, before the race even starts. Yeah. I guess like at my 50K this last weekend, I did have that water situation. And it would have been sweet if, like, if Paula had said, do you want like just a flask of water? Like I might have pivoted in that moment, even though, yeah, the predisposition plan was with that. And I feel like that's just the thing you're going to have to learn over time with your specific person that you're crewing. Yeah.

What they might want that they didn't think of or something. Also, you need to learn how to get good at waiting because you have. have to wait for long times with no updates and they'll come at a moment's notice. Yeah, they'll be there between two hours and four hours is common. And you may not, and that's what's hard is like you may not know until 10 seconds before they're there. No, no, this happened when we were crewing my sister. We thought she was on course to like arrive at midnight or at like 2 a.m.

And she arrived at midnight. And like me and my parents were just asleep. in their RV. She had all of a sudden become way ahead of schedule. And did she knock? Oh, somebody knocked on her behalf and she was not happy.

It's like, I'm rising! You guys are sleeping! Like, well, we fight. Okay, fine. Yeah, yeah. Here's your gels. Wow, wow, wow. Okay, well, there you go, Derek.

And good luck. Frank, this is one from Frank, and it's a very short. Thoughts on Peloton and live spin classes. Oh, wow. Like spin bikes. Yeah, I was just talking to my friend about this earlier today, actually. I guess, like, Peloton specifically, is there, like, a training program involved, or is it, like...

Yeah, they do have training programs. Super random or... No, there's, so you can, like, take a class where it's a live class, and there's someone, a trainer in the other side that's as a camera, and you take the class with other people who are actually taking the class. I guess my feeling is, like, if it's early season and you've got six months to your triathlon, and you're just kind of struggling for a re-exam for a real. reason to get on the bike, like, go for it. You know, like, whatever gets you out the door.

Like, I'll accept a ride from... So to speak. Yeah. That's in the door. Whatever gets you on the saddle. Yeah. Like, I'll frequently accept, you know, going for a ride with, like, my dad who hasn't written in three months or, like, somebody who's completely out of shape in the

wintertime just for, like, we're going to get on at the same time when we're going to go out there and, you know, something's better than me procrastinating this for three more hours or not doing it. Yeah. Don't forget, like, your legs don't know the difference between a Peloton live class and a Zwift session. Yeah. Well, I think that the only difference is the geometry of the bike and the... You know what?

You're right. Your legs do know a difference because one is your race bike and the other one is definitely not. That's literally the only difference because I actually think that spin classes and Peloton classes are an insanely good workout if you do them appropriately. And I think they teach you to have good cadence. Like they often are like, you're doing cadence to the music beat, which I love. I love spin classes, by the way. I went through a phase where I did them all the time. And I just thought it was like dancing almost because you're like spinning to the music.

And the music is like so loud. And you're just like immersed in this feeling of everyone working out together. And these people are obviously not all training for a triathlon. But I think that if you're getting to a class and enjoying. it having fun, working extremely hard, way harder than you would on your own bike in your garage. It's not a bad thing. I love that you guys said this because I just saw another podcast in triathlon post a clip about spin classes talking shit about them. And we are not about that. Like Eric said, if it gets you out the door, so to speak, yeah. Yeah. And often, like I said, it's going to be a

harder workout than you do alone. Like spin classes are so hard. You can crank the resistance up. really high if you want. And you can go with your friend who's not cranking the resistance as high and do the same workout as them. I'd just say that at least a month or two before your triathlon, if that's what you're training for. Get on your race bike to learn how to handle a bike.

But in terms of the fitness component, it's completely fine. More than fine. It's very fun. Okay, next question here is from Jack. Another shorty, but we love it. Would you rather have a private lap swim pool in your backyard or a private shift easiest answer of all time.

Definitely private lap dance. In the pool. Hey, what was the question? I'm sorry, I just blacked out. What was the question? I would rather have a private chef. I would also rather have a private lap dance, actually. That's good.

I'm thinking, chef. Of course, chef. I don't mind... Don't keep the pool away from me. I don't mind, like, having 10 minutes to, get to the pool to think about what I'm about to do. Also, what we experienced with the master spa is, that's different than a pool, but going outside in your own backyard to swim is sad.

Less inspiring. Like, you want to go to the pool where there's other people swimming. Yeah. Particularly at a pool like Ben, where there's other people, not just swimming, but also training for things and doing this hard thing that is not inherently enjoyable. So I like going to the pool. pool. Yeah. Yep, agree. Unless it's the pool in Dallas,

Oregon, there's Band-Aids on the car. Yeah, I mean, if your pool is terrible, then maybe it was go with the backyard pool, but if you got an okay pool nearby, go to the pool. Okay, next question here is from Darren. Hi, guys, no favorites. Spelled with the U. So, you know,

Darren's from across the pond. Or Canadian. Oh, even the Canadians do it with the U, yeah. I am a Canadian, and we spell things in the British way. Favorite. A long time. listener triathlete since 1997.

I don't know how that works. We have not been doing the podcast since 97. We have not. Maybe Darren was born in 1997. Got a clothing question for Eric. When Eric did his first two trail races, he wore the half tights and running shorts, but when he raced last weekend, oh yeah, so this was, there wasn't one question. Weekend at Y East, he was wearing a more traditional running track short. Was there an anatomical reason for this? I was looking to start doing some 50K races in wondering what the most comfortable is.

Thanks for the pod and the videos and happy anniversary. By the way, I hope Nick enjoyed Gerona. I've raced there three times now, and I'm sure Eric would enjoy the Scrail 100 run. Jan Fredino puts on. Thanks again, Darren. I happened to be at the village where the race starts, and I was with this girl, this friend who I met there,

and she pointed out the start. It's so epic. So epic. That town is so beautiful. So what do you think, Eric? You know, I don't actually know why, but I've just really been liking these shorts lately. They have some extra pockets in them,

which I didn't end up using for the race. And they just feel a little bit lighter, I guess, versus a half-tight. The black half-tites in the sun can get a little bit, can you get a little bit warm? Yeah, no, actually, I hadn't really processed that. I didn't have these shorts back for Black Canyon. That's one thing. They're relatively new. What do you think is more likely to chafe if that's an issue for people?

I got a, you know, man, okay, this can go either way. I just chafe in different places with them. Like I chafe on the insides of my legs a little bit with the shorts after a really long time, and I chafe, like, right on my nuts with the half tight sometimes. Yeah, they can like, with the tight sometimes, like up in the crease where your legs meet your crotch. That's where you can get some chafing. These are unfortunately not, I've had these Adidas half tights for like 15 years now. And I like them, they feel great, but they're definitely more for like cross country or like track running.

And they have a seam that goes straight down the middle. And I assume, like at least if I was going to make a tight for like ultra type stuff, I would not have a seam right there. Yeah. You're wearing ties that are 15 years old. Maybe, man, 10. He's a utilitarian. That is, I would say 10. insane.

Those are going in the goodwill bit. I mean, I haven't worn them that many times. Like I have some stuff that I was given by Adidas by a guy that I met on a group ride prior to having any sponsors. And he gave me a bunch of stuff. And I every once in a while find like an unopened pair of tights from, yeah, like 2012. Nice. Eric can get on stuff, but he resists.

I like the three stripes. The three stripes, pretty cool. All right. Next one here is from Michelle. High tripod, professional trail runner. And have unfortunately been sidelined from running due to a chronic injury, Achilles tendinitis. Wait, professional trail runner riding into our podcast? That's correct.

I've been forced to take up cross training while rehabbing my Achilles, which has mostly been road gravel mountain biking. But listening to your podcast has inspired me to broaden my multi-sport repertoire and take up swimming. The only problem is that... Why would you do that to yourself? The only problem is that I totally suck. I get passed by everyone in their mom in the pool, and swimming for more than 200 meters is completely exhausting.

As the perfectionist I am, I've watched countless, YouTube videos about swimming techniques and drills, but it just doesn't seem to help at all when I'm in the water. What do you recommend for an adult onset swimmer with a decent endurance background and baseline fitness, but who has little to know experience with swimming? Are there specific drills to focus on? Do I just need more time in the pool? Should I get a private lesson? I'm too embarrassed to join a master's group because I'm that slow. Thanks for your advice and giving me entertainment to listen to as I sweat my ass off on the bike trainer. Michelle. First of all, is this true about Masters?

This is also my perception is that if you're that slow, a Masters Group is not the place to be, but am I wrong? I feel like it depends on the Masters Group. I feel like some master's groups are more welcoming than others, and the coach might take some time to help you. But I agree, I'd be like a little bit nervous to check it out. But what you could do, the Masters Group that I used to swim with just outside of Portland,

the head coach of that also did private lessons. So it might be worth calling the master's group and saying, like, hey, here's what I'm after. Like, is there anybody who does, like, adult swimming lessons, like, with the intention of, like, trying to not just survive a falling out of a boat, but be a, that would do laps. I wouldn't even call it swimming lessons. I'd call it a private coached session. Sure. Swimming lessons sounds like you're learning to tread water. And if you're coachable, I feel like even a few of those sessions could go so far.

Yeah. the biggest thing with swimming is that you often look a lot different than you feel. Right. So having someone actually with eyes on you and doing some video feedback is enormously helpful. Underwater camera, super simple to do with gopros and iPhones these days. But I think that you can watch all the YouTube videos of Katie Ledecki swimming perfect freestyle. But unless you see a video of what you actually look like, not just what you feel like, it's hard to implement those changes. But I would also say that as an injured runner that really has no ambition of ever doing triathlon,

it's okay to be really slow at swimming and have a 200 be really hard because ultimately you're doing swimming to get a good workout. And like if you become really proficient and efficient at swimming, you're going to have to swim a lot more to get the same workout. That's a great point. It's almost counterproductive, actually. Yeah, I think so. when I, now Eric and I grew up swimming, so our strokes are pretty good.

And I think that for us, swimming 1,000 is always going to be like going for a walk. But for some people, swimming 1,000 is like a really good workout. No, Nick, you don't even fit under that category. But anyway, that's my thoughts. I don't think you need to like, I think you can get a bit better

so that you enjoy it more, but you don't need to get so much better that. Maybe she has secret X-Dera. ambitions. We don't know. Anyway, good for you for trying it. You could also go to the pool and do a bit of water running. I'm sure that that's... You could also just go to the pool and ask somebody in the lane.

It looks like a pretty good swimmer. Hey, could you give me some pointers? Oh, they would love to. They would love to give you a pointer. I've had people give me unsolicited pointers at the pool. People give you pointers there? I've had a couple of different master's coaches walk over and be like, hey, you know, you should breathe a little earlier.

you know. Well, it's different if it's a master's. I've been trying the whole life. Okay, next one here from Nick. Hi, team. Congrats. Paul and the Boise Win and Eric on the second at Y-East 50K. Wondering about running workouts when you live in a hilly place. I live near mostly gradual incline roads. It's hard to find a truly flat ground that is longer than a half mile. This makes anything like negative split long runs, mile repeats, or other longer intervals difficult. Any wrecks. Track is available. but so boring. Thanks, Nick. Yeah, we have a bit of the same thing here in Bend. Pretty much everything is a little hilly, a little bit rolling, or you hit a hill eventually. But I've found that being mentally flexible and doing intervals on hills is actually like a really good thing.

Way more fun too. But if you run out of room, like if you can't even get a mile, and what do you do? Well, he can get a mile. He's just going to start going uphill. I'm sure there's a mile stretch that maybe is just like a positive incline but not running up a mountain.

One of my favorite sessions to do, actually, back in the day was up-down miles. I haven't done it in a little while, but we did that prior to like 2016 and everything where you do one mile up a 1% thing and you turn right back around and do one mile back down. It was kind of a cool stimulus.

It made the workout seem like half is long because you're like focusing on your uphill form a little bit and you're having to drive a little bit more and then on the way down you're getting a little bit of over speed and you're floating like I don't think that's bad I enjoyed that that's probably healthy too yeah hard to dial in a pace maybe but you're just kind of like floating a little bit below and above the target pace is what I would do a lot of races are not flat too like a lot of races are not flat yeah that's usually what I try to think of when I'm we're doing a speed workout and there's a little bit of the hill involved was like, this is real life. Everything is not perfectly controlled and I'll be ready when things are a little bit challenging in a race. But I would also say that utilizing the track is not a bad idea. Yes, it's boring, but it is a good way to do a little bit of speed work in a controlled environment if you want to get ready for a specific race or actually do flat mile reps.

Yeah. So it is a good tool to have that, but mostly here in Bend, we're doing things on. undulating terrain just with fluctuating paces. Man, ideally, yeah, you don't have to do like an eight-mile tempo on a track. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I'm thinking more for like K-repeas or something. But also a lot of watches have a graded average pace or a great, like... Great adjusted pace.

Great adjusted pace. So if you're running up a hill and you're running a 530 per kilometer, the great adjusted pace might be a 450 per kilometer. So watches kind of predict what you would be running if you were on flat based on what the incline is. So you could put that on your watch screen. When I do trail running, I have that on my screen. Yeah, same.

So that if I'm running a seven-minute kilometer or a 10-minute kilometer, I'm not completely disheartened because beside it, it says, oh, you're actually running a four-minute clock. Yeah. If you're on flat. The effort equivalent. Yeah. So that's kind of a fun.

I really enjoy having that on my watch as well. Yeah. Strava does it too. If you do a run, any run. It does, yeah. Even if it just has like 20 meters or 50 meters of climbing, it'll tell you your great adjusted pace for the entire run. Yeah. Yeah, I like using that because we, I did a run on the coast this weekend.

I had almost 500 meters of climbing, but no big climbs. Just that run we did together, Nick. Oh, yeah. We're just like up, down, up, down the entire time and it adds up. And I felt like I was so slow. But the graded adjusted pace was like 45 seconds per K faster. 45. That is so much.

It's very hilly. It's deep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next question here is from Jenny. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn. Here's a short and sweet question.

Do the cool kids cool down? That's probably enough, but here's some context. As an age rooper, I'm noticing how much warming up helps me train well in swimming, biking, and running. My confession is that I sometimes cut the cool down short. Am I leaving something on the table in terms of recovery, performance,

or just mentally winding down? Thanks for all you do for the sport, Jenny. I don't honestly know if there's like a bunch of data that, you know, suggests that cooling down is like way better than not cooling down. Personally, we, I feel like we usually cool down in the pool for like 100. Yeah, in the pool, we barely do any. And then, you know, you go to walk to the car, that's cooling down. You got to get a coffee.

That's cooling down. I like this. You know, these are all like ramping out of the intensity of the session. but then like on the bike I think it's a little bit more naturally built in right you got to like ride over to a hill and then you've got probably a half hour to ride back home so that's just like naturally in there but

well if you look at the Tour de France they're finishing on a really high effort and then they're all spinning on their bikes after do you think they actually need to ride their bikes more? No they're trying to recover and cool down they're not trying to get extra miles in their legs so I think there is a factor of like flushing out lactic acid

and depending on how hard the session was it can be really important. So it doesn't have to be long, but I think it should be present. Yeah, when was the last time you finished like five by a mile and then just the second you crossed the line, you just like walk straight to the car and did nothing. Like you jogged around inevitably.

We don't cool down after races. That's kind of interesting. We just. But you don't have to race to another stage of the Tour de France the following day. Yeah, exactly. It's true. Exactly.

But if you did want to optimize your recovery post 70.3, you would technically get on a bike and spin a bit. I wonder how much warming down is enough. We cross the finish line at 70.3, and it's like 300 meters of walking over to get your bike. That's not cooling down. I mean, I think cooling, ideally, you'd do a hard track session and you'd cool down on a spin bike.

I think spin bike is the ultimate thing for cooling down. Bring your peloton. Put it in lane one like Lionel did. Like, why? Like, how is walking around not cooling down? You're just like moving blood? around without having your heart rate out. I think it is, but I'm, you know,

I don't know what you guys know. Obviously, we're just making it up. It's different if you're just like limping your way to T, what to pick up your bike in the heat. I mean, it's just, that's not like, you can't classify that as like, oh yeah, I checked my box for cooling down. That's the question I'm posing is like,

why not? Like, what is the thing that's actually happening in a cool down? Is it just blood moving sub-max or I mean, I'll give you, so when I do my Monday interval runs,

I run down on the beach path and then I stop at the bottom and I walk about 10 minutes up the incline, up the cliffs, and then back home. And to me, that very much checks the box

of a cool down. I also technically do like a cool down at the end of the run, but I'm still like run running. I don't know. That to me feels like I've done the thing.

My brain is like, oh, the run is over, but we're still moving. The legs are still moving. Yeah, you didn't immediately lie down. Right, right. Although I do. wish I could sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just like be on your own personal exploration if warming down for 10 minutes or one minute or like what makes you

not feel like puffy the rest of the day and sore as much as possible. You certainly do need to warm up. That is not not up for a non-negotiable. Okay. Next question here is from Pierre.

Hey, Pfen. I thought it was PENF. Fenn. is the French. Getting too creative for their own good. Thanks for all the good vibes you bring to the community, helping to grow the sport and help me to go through my long training for Ironman, Wisconsin. I'm stoked to see Nick there, by the way.

I've questioned related to travel. Even if I'm trying to race locally in Dallas, I still need to pack my bike for nationals, Madison, and the worlds in Marbea. Just for the bike, I need two luggagees because of the extension bars and the helmet that don't fit in the bike vays. I'm guessing that's case. I think Pierre... And the bike calls?

Yeah. And honestly, I don't want to take the risk to harm my bike frame with other stuff. TSA doesn't really put back the things nicely after opening the case. And my question is related to the helmet. I'm packing mine, Wingdream,

in the case which I got it because it's very fragile. The issue is that it takes up almost half the space of my luggage. Any tips? Where does Paula put her specialized? Big up for all. you guys do. This is a three-word answer and you just carry it on the airplane. Carry it on. The airplane, five words. Okay, wow. And as, and they don't give you grief for like, hey, that's a personal item that's not your backpack. I've never had a problem. I think actually Indy Lee had a problem one time and they were like, oh, you can't have a backpack and your helmet case. That's two items. Yeah. So she put the helmet on and it was this like super hilarious. That's funny. At least I, maybe I'm dream.

this, but she would do something funny like that. But for the most part, like the specialized helmet case has a little handle, and I just like loop that on my arm, and I have a backpack on, and it doesn't look too crazy over the top. I think most flight attendants are going to be understanding. You know what? I think you could do to get away with this, because I was just thinking that I actually clip my helmet to my backpack if it's not a TT helmet, like my road helmet, and that works great, and they don't care that it's like too big, really, because it just looks like this airy thing. But what if you were to carry it? And then when you get to security, you clip it to your backpack.

So it looks like one item kind of thing. Yeah, my backpack is... My backpack is one with my helmet. Yeah. Hello. Duh. Yeah. But if you have to pack it, something you could do is like fill the empty,

the negative space in the helmet with socks and underwear and like your kit or something like that. So you're optimizing at least that space. Yeah. The reason I carry it on is not for saving space. It's just to protect it more. Right. Right, because it is fragile.

Yeah, I just don't want it to get smashed or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, carry on is the safest. Okay, next one here is from Anson. Hey, Tripod, maybe not even the type of question you typically answer on the podcast, but I thought it might be fun to get your different perspectives. I work at a bike shop and would love to hear what makes or breaks a bike shop for you. What are the things, product, services, et cetera,

then make a bike shop stand out and keep you coming back over another bike shop. Thanks, Anson. man, I've had bad experiences at bike shop that make me never want to go back there. Yep. Bike shops are broken by unwelcoming employees. That is to me like more than half of it. But I've also had bike shops that are amazingly helpful and makes me want to go back to them. Exactly.

Well, to me, that's it. It's like more than anything else is the friendliness. of the staff and the non-dushiness of the staff. Because there is this elitism in bike shop sometimes that is so, I'm allergic to it and I don't think I'm alone. No, you're not. This was, I've worked in a bike shop

and I witnessed this happening. People's reactions engaging with one staff member versus a different staff member or a staff member who is having a bad day or whatever. And like the word would get around and there's so many bike shops in Portland, like you would get a reputation,

Instantly. One person has to go in there and feel unwelcome and they tell a lot of people. And the mechanics. Your mechanics are, that is like the freaking lifeblood of the store. If the mechanic inspires confidence, like their bedside manner for like a black of a better word, makes every person, especially women, feel like heard and like their concerns are important and valid and that you're going to take care of their bike like it is your bike, that will make a bike shop successful. just a good mechanic. I get that people probably come in and are so annoying.

Customers are rude and disrespectful. But then if you take it out on the next person, they don't know that. They don't know that someone was just rude and disrespectful for you. And now all of a sudden they had a bad experience and now they're never coming back. Yeah, I think it's tough with customers who want immediate assistance. Like everyone thinks that their bike should be bumped to the front of the line or something.

Yeah. That can be exhausting. It is frustrating if you go into a bike shop and they're like, okay, I can get to this in a week or two. But that's not really the bike shop's fault. I remember when I was first into cycling and all I had was my fixie. And my fixie came with these white wall tires that I really liked. And the tire was worn down to the point that I needed a new one.

And I went into a random bike shop around where I lived at the time. And I walked in there and I asked for if they had another tire that would fit on my bike that had the white wall. and the guy treated me like such an idiot because I wanted a white wall tire and I remember he was so rude to me that I just grabbed the tire and I was like I said thank you but it was kind of like thanks for nothing and I just walked out of there

and I remember thinking not only do I never want to come back to this place I don't want to go back to any bike shop ever it can be such a negative experience it can be but not always no not always and actually the shops in Santa Monica I think are really nice and I'm sure most places kind of have figured this out. I feel like if you're alive currently, if you've been a bike shop for the last 10 years

and you're still in existence, you have to have figured this out. Yeah, that place that I'm talking about actually closed down. There we go. Okay, this one is from Nate. Last one. Last one.

Thinking about the future of technology and triathlon with regards to racing, drones, race ranger, etc. Would there be a place in the sport for pros to wear an earpiece to receive information like splits from coaches or penalties given from a remote official watching Race Ranger data and race footage.

Or does that in some way take away from the purity of sport? Good look at all your upcoming events. Nate. Well, this is interesting because obviously in pro cycling, they have this. Dude. But they don't swim first and they don't run later. So I think this is a thing that we should do on the podcast regularly. Questions like this.

Paul and I were listening to this podcast. called the single track podcast, and they did an entire segment on, like, crazy race things you would want to see. So, like, somebody does Western States only eating glazed donuts, or you do the whole Coca-Donough 250-mile race, but you get an IV at every aid station. So, like, exactly, like, oh, that's just really interesting. So what if we did a segment every once in a while, we've got to come up with Jing on all the things of, like, totally wide-open race ideas? And this is, like, a great example. Okay, okay, okay, I see.

So, like, entertaining these ideas that maybe seem far-fetched, but giving them a chance, kind of. Yeah, exactly. Hypothetical stuff. Like, they're never going to let you get an IV infusion in an aid station. It's dangerous in so many ways. But they were just thinking hypothetically about how much would someone's performance be better if they just had, like, not an IV of a blood bag, an IV of fluid to replace the fluids. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. that's very interesting. Okay, so let's play the game here. How would this work? Because you can't wear the

earpiece in the swim. And I'm guessing, I mean, maybe you could. Let's just say you can. Oh, I see. Let's just say you can't. Like Lucy, you know, so-and-so is at the back of the pack. Like, accelerated around the next buoy for 20 strokes. Like, this is what they do in Formula One. You're like, watch that. Take care of the tires. Right. Or like, now mode push. Right. Or like Paula's four back and there's a separation in the same in front of her that she can't see. It's like, okay, you're dropping, you're getting dropped by the front group, go around the girl in front of you and try to catch them. Right. This seems like this is really bad, but like you just need to go hard for the next one minute. The person in front of you is so and so, and they're definitely not going to close the gap.

You cannot check. Yeah, I could see how this might be seen as unpure and it changes the sport a little bit, but personally, I would really like it because I think a lot of the time on the I'm like wondering what's going on. You're not getting any feedback, especially in a 70.3. And I want splits. And it's encouraging for me to hear gaps. It doesn't feel unpure to me for whatever reason. I don't feel like it like, I don't know.

But I also don't get it when in baseball they don't want to use like the strike zone thing or they don't want to use instant replays in some sports. I'm like, I want what's fair. It's also logistically really hard. where the team managers? Yeah, where are they going to talk to you from? I can understand it with regards to like an iconic race, like Kona or something.

It's like we don't want to all of a sudden have a whole bunch of new records that have an asterisk next to them because now we have radios and the people from 10 years ago. It's cool to be like, how fast are we relative to Dave Scott. Yeah. But we're not using the same, you know, bikes and the same shoes. It's all a whole slippery slope of continuum. but I would definitely be in favor for like a couple of events a year or just like we made an event

that that's the entire basis of it like the sub eight sub seven project where it was just such a novel thing and it opens up such a Pandora's box of questions it's you got to watch it. Yeah. I like I would love that athletes on the course that are you know on the bike it's like you're losing time to first place. They're now like three minutes and 20 seconds ahead of you and then and then on the run I don't No, I kind of like that too. As a fan, I'm not, it doesn't make me feel like there's, it's like cheapens it at all. Yeah. No, like I would, I would totally watch a race where there's only

five people, like they invited just the best five, you know, men and women. And each one of those people gets a full-time crew. So there's like, just like cycling. They're handing you bottles out the side of the team card. Nobody's having to have freaking bottles. Wow, that is cool. You know, like, you don't have have bottles strapped your bike in all these stupid ways and like you can cool like super duper well because you can get ice out of the window of the car like how fast could we go paula how similar was Beijing to this what like last year in Beijing wasn't it how many women were you racing against oh it's a small field but it doesn't change it that much well i just kind of thought it was cool that it wasn't just like i don't know 40 people it was like 10 of you or maybe even fewer

Yeah, six. Yeah, six, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's a great idea. I would kind of be into that too. Very exclusive. I mean, I think the T-100 is already being, having only 20 people's. Yeah.

By the day, we didn't really talk about T-100, but T-100 London happened and the women's race was incredible and extremely exciting race. If you haven't checked that out, that might be worth a little. And the men's race. Hayden winning was crazy. Well, yeah, Hayden after the crap. I mean, that's crazy. If you guys don't know, Hayden Wild was in this horrible crash, and he broke a bunch of stuff in his body. He had to get his scapula, like, surgically fixed.

And I don't think anyone thought he'd be swimming again. And then he freaking came away with the win. It's amazing. We didn't do a news. It's amazing. Yeah, we didn't have time. I thought about it. But, yeah, anyway, that's the pod this week, folks.

Eric second at his trail race, getting ready for the Kodiak race. and then we answered as many questions as we possibly could. Yeah, that was a lot of questions. I think we did a good job of getting through them. Yeah. We had plenty more too, but those are good ones. To new next week. There's more where that came from.

That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. All right. And don't forget to check out Eric's Trail Collection. One week. No, tomorrow.

Today. Today. Yep. On TTCL.com. Great. That'striathlon life.com. Thanks for listening, everybody. All right.

Also, I want to say a quick thanks to everyone who wrote in with their experience is on dog injuries given Flynn's condition. Oh yeah. He goes in tomorrow. He's going to get on Friday for the full diagnosis. Poor boy. All right. See you guys.

Bye. Bye. Bye.