That Triathlon Life Podcast - Eric races XTERRA Germany, off road triathlons, mountain bikes, tires, and more!

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

This week we learn about Eric's experience racing in the pro field at XTERRA Germany, and we also answer your questions about triathlon, both on and off road. To submit your own questions, as well as become a podcast supporter, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Erica Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldstone. And this is our podcast where we talk about what's going on in our lives in triathlon, a little bit of the racing that we do. But primarily, we take questions from all the listeners. I'm a professional triathlet. Paul is a professional triathlet. Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlet, great friend of ours. And this whole thing kind of started. We have a YouTube triathlete. channel. We have an apparel line, and we thought it would be fun to start a podcast. So you're not to hear any ad reads on this podcast. It's completely supported by apparel sales and then also by our podcast supporters, which you can do that through a monthly subscription. That's on That TraathlonLife.com, along with our little form where you can submit questions. We're here in Lottie, Finland, in our hotel room. We can just barely see Nick on FaceTime in California. look like you're in a sauna, like that wood backdrop behind you. And Eric's also shirtless right now.

So it's really, it's giving me the sauna vibes. Well, we were going to do this about 30 minutes ago, but just as we were sitting down to do it in our like Airbnb apartment that we're in, the person above us started like a construction project of some sort. I think they must be putting down new flooring or something that involves a lot of loud hammering. So I ended up taking a shower to procrastinate. You told me it sounded like they were hammering nails into the floor above you. It is really, really intense. It sounds like there's no insulation between us and the hammer, and it's just loud and abrupt. It's fine, but it's just not conducive to recording a podcast. Yeah. So anyway, I took a podcast. I took a shower to procrastinate, and our bed frame looks like a sauna because sauna is life here in Finland.

Isn't it almost time for sleep and someone's hammering nails into their floor? It's like 7 p.m. Yeah. And also is the sun setting there like very late? Like is the sun still out there? Oh, 9 p.m. sun set. So I think it probably, the days are much longer than this, like in June. But yeah, they're long days.

But it honestly is going to make the race nice because we start at 7.30 on Saturday. So it'll have been light for almost two hours by that point. And I don't know. For me, setting up transition when it's light out versus in the pitch black. under the lights is much more enjoyable. For sure. And Eric, have you been able to get any mountain biking there? Is there mountain biking?

I don't even know. Yeah, actually, I mean, that's the reason that I had to take a shower. I was pretty muddy for mountain biking. They, I don't even know how to describe it, but it's kind of like this town is based around their Nordic skiing and they just have this extensive Nordic ski network of, you know, of trails and roads in the forest right inside of town here. and I just kind of went and rode around that as much as I could for two hours and just scratched the surface of what there is. Paula, have you been running off-road running at all?

I don't want to call it trail running, but have you been using those paths to run? Yeah, I don't know if we mentioned this, but we're here because the Iron Man 70.3 World Championships are this weekend. I'm racing on Saturday. Eric's not racing, but he's here to support me, and he just got back from Germany, Xtera. So he raced last weekend, and we're going to do a recap of that in a couple minutes. But yeah, the place is really easy to train. Like I've been in Lottie for a week now and really accessible trails, quiet roads to ride on, beautiful 50-meter outdoor pool. It's kind of like a little training paradise.

So I've really enjoyed my week here. And it's really a relaxing place to be. Like, not a lot going on until now that Iron Man has rolled in. But it's pretty quiet and not overpopulated, easy to drive, easy to park. Just all the things that are stressful about a big city, this doesn't have. So, yeah, I love it here. You guys haven't been home in a long time. And the idea of being there for so long seemed like kind of daunting,

especially when you didn't know much about it. But from everything you guys have told me, it's kind of like a dream. This place, yeah. I mean, we've had ups and downs on this whole trip, but it's nice to finally be in our last location. And we've had some, like, you know, fiascos and stuff. But in general, everything's gone relatively smooth in terms of, like, bookings and having things,

organized for when we arrive, stuff like that. So we just have one more flight to get home next Monday, and that'll be it. Yeah, I would say our travel agent, Paula, did an incredible job of lining all the logistics up and everything. And our one main problem was just that her bag didn't show up to her to her race. Which is not on her, obviously. Yeah, not on her. Logistically, I did organize it pretty well.

Yeah, like rental cars, the pickups, the airport, all the things has been great. So pretty smooth. It took you like a whole day, right? I remember when you were doing it. It took you forever. More than a day. I mean, the whole planning of this trip had been like lingering and daunting me for months and months and months. But it's really hard for me to pull the trigger and book flights for a trip really far out

because obviously a lot of traveling to races is dependent on health and ability to race. And I've had a lot of times in my career where I've booked the whole thing and I've gotten injured and couldn't race and nothing was refundable. So I'm a little careful about kind of waiting till a month out before pulling the trigger. Speaking of health, are you feeling better than you were? I mean, last time the listeners heard, you were still sick. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was pretty sick, but I'm better now. Kind of lasted a week, but yeah, better. And we actually just put out a vlog today, which is Monday, right? So if you guys want to go watch a little recap of the TT on YouTube, and it's mostly Eric narrating it

since I was kind of in a terrible sick place that week, but I still think it's really good. He did a good job of telling the story. The other component to it that people aren't going to know by watching is that we were staying in separate rooms.

We both had a separate dorm room at this university where Cycling Canada had decided to stay. So it's not like I could just look across the room and have Paula say something. We spent the week like most of, apart except for like dinner. The thing about the YouTube video, I don't want to like, I don't want to call it just a race

recap because it's, it shows this beautiful, I don't know, Glasgow seems like a place I want to visit now after seeing it. It's more of a Glasgow Green Hills. It's a tourism video. That race recap. Exactly. Exactly. So I highly recommend watching it.

It's one of my favorites. The race recap part is very short. And the bagpipes? I don't know. It was just all a vibe. I really liked it. Yeah. Since we, I mean, there was actually no video footage of Paula on television that she went down the ramp or finished or anything because, you know, they just prioritized Chloe Diger and the woman who got second and, you know, a couple of people.

So the, it turned, yeah, turned into a visit Glasgow ad instead of a race recap of the T.T. Yeah, I love that. Before we move on to Eric's races, I wanted to say that we were doing something for a while and then we stopped because. because you guys were traveling a bunch, we couldn't figure out how to do it. But we try every episode, if we have some socks or bottles or a hat, we try to give them one away each week

to a completely random podcast supporter. And so this week we put it into our random number generator, and we came up with, and I promise this wasn't rigged, but Andy McKinley, who's a podcast supporter, and also kind of a friend of ours. She helped me with some hydration and nutrition stuff for races and you guys have both known her actually what's the history there erg how do you know her

i um stayed with a friend of hers in the woodlands texas as i was doing heat preparation for the island house triathlon like six or seven years ago and we've stayed in touch her daughter frea has gotten very into triathlon and races in the collegiate scene and has bought a couple of my bikes um so just long-term friend that's so funny that's so funny we picked her randomly though It was completely random. It was completely random. When we saw it, we were like, oh, man, it's like, I think there's, like, certain competitions or, like, sweepstakes or whatever for companies.

And in the thing, it says, like, cannot be a family member of an employee or something like that in the small text. And we're like, is this, like, is this bad? Like, should we pick someone else? We're like, nope. Random number generator gods picked Andy, and we're now giving her a free pair of socks. It's not like we picked Talbot. You know, it's not like public knowledge that, you know, Andy is not a public figure in

our videos or anything. So if we hadn't said anything, no one wouldn't even know. No one would know. No one would know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Andy, anyway, you know us, but you can email that triathlon life brand at

gmail.com with your address you want us to send the socks to. And actually, I have the socks because we thought of this a little bit in advance. And I'll send you the socks myself. Thanks so much for being a podcast supporter, Andy McKinley. And you can become a podcast supporter too, like Eric said, at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. Okay, Eric, you raced two races, which for people who don't know is kind of the norm now for Xtera, right, for the pros. You guys kind of all have to do the short track version of the race and then the full race, which is maybe you could explain a little bit what the deal

with that is. Yeah, I'd say rather than calling it two races, it's like one and a half races. what they're trying to do with Xtera because Xtera is so difficult to cover from a media standpoint, you know, you swim, but then you just go off into the woods for an hour and a half on your bike and then you reappear from the woods and then you go right back out into the woods running.

It's very challenging to get out there on a dirt bike or something. You probably literally need a helicopter to televise it effectively. So what they've started doing is having the day before, the day after, this main event for the pros, they'll have a short track race, which is like a super sprint, but on mountain bikes.

And it's like 25 to 30 minutes long, like a 400 meter swim and a 6K bike and a like a 2 to 3K run. And in order to like be eligible for prize money in the main race, you have to race the short track. And then also the short track gets you a little bit of points for the year end world cup bonus. and it's just a really fun thing. Honestly, like I had this particular race that I just did in Germany, preferred the short track race to the main event,

just because it's so fast and fun, and they built all these wooden features, like this 10-foot-tall berm that we went around that actually went over the water. You, like, rode across the beach and around this berm. It was just, it was super cool. And they actually live broadcast those, and the broadcast is quite good.

Yeah, the announcers are actually really good. I watched it. It was like 30 minutes, super easy to watch. And then because they're doing so many laps, you see them a bunch of times. So it's pretty cool. But then in contrast, the next day when he did the main race, I had no updates, no live timing, nothing. So I had no idea what was going on. Just thought I was dead.

Yeah, I thought he had crashed in the woods. So from a spectator perspective, especially if you're not on site, the short track is quite good. I was following on the Xera Instagram, and they would put, like, they were kind of doing live stories. And I could see that Eric was like out of the water second. and then that you are with a group mountain biking. But I don't know how up-to-date those were because I saw them in the morning. I think they were doing them pretty real time.

Yeah, they were real time. They were just sporadic. Yeah, right. It was a 37-kilometer long mountain bike ride, one loop, and kind of remote and challenging to get to places on the course. Yeah, what are you going to do? It's not like they could just, oh, zip up the trail a mile and jump off whatever they were on, a motorcycle or something and get a quick reel and then go up another mile.

Like on mountain bikes, you're moving surprisingly fast to be leapfrogging. And yeah, anyway, it was just, like I said, logistically very challenging. I kind of was getting the sense for some reason that the pros are like annoyingly going along with the short track thing, but really they're interested in the next day race. But it sounds like that's not the case. It sounds like you actually really liked the short track. And Paula liked watching it. So maybe it's kind of a win for Xtera.

I think I got the vibe from the pros that were there, that they were maybe slightly annoyed with the short track because I guess I'm in the position right now where I'm fortunate enough that I don't have to make prize money every single time I race. You know, like our sponsors take care of us enough that it's not make or break every time I race. And not everyone there has that luxury.

And when you're being told you have to race this short track event the day before the main race, with the most money, and there's a chance that you could crash and be tired and all these things. Yeah, that's tough. It's definitely much better when they have it the day after, but for whatever reason, the schedule and the permitting with this event didn't allow that to happen. Yeah, got it. Okay, so tell us how that Short Track Day went for you.

Yeah, I remember there was some funny news that was delivered to you maybe a minute and a half before you started. Yeah, so my swim is obviously the strength, and it's even more extreme in Extera. Estera athletes are incredible mountain bikers and very good trail runners, and just, I'm just going to say, pretty mediocre swimmers. Not all of them, but the good guy. Yeah, like the guys who are winning and podiuming are just, they would not be anywhere near the lead pack. They'd be probably third pack in a 70.3, but there's, it's not really important, as I saw in the main race. But right before we started the short track, like two minutes before, one of the other guys came up to me and said, hey, you're not, you're not allowed to wear swim skins in this, you know,

because I had on my swim skin. Excuse me, what? I was like, no, I don't know. What did you just say? I've never not been able to wear a swimskin in Xtera. But it turns out that in Europe, they just run the Xteras off of ITU rules. Instead of in the U.S., they obviously use USAT rules. And in the ITU, there's no swimskins. And so, you know, I had to take off my swimskin. as it was wet, right, at the line. And this wouldn't be a big deal, except I didn't really bring a suit that's designed to be swamming.

What I had was like a front zip, you know, just like tricat, sleeveless, and it works, but not the fastest. But it didn't matter. Well, you have pockets for like nutrition and stuff that can act like little parachutes in the water. Yeah. I mean, very little parachutes.

Luckily, they're on the back. Like I said, I mean, I had a little bit of room to work with here. It was definitely not a good swim for me. I got beat up a little bit on the way of the first buoy and came out of the water and third, having worked like a little bit too hard, but I rode really well. I've been doing a lot of, I've been doing this session that Paula has been given me where I do like, it's like 15 seconds and 40 seconds or 20 seconds and 40 seconds, like max effort and then and then

off. And now you do that for like half an hour and then I ride for like 10 minutes and then I do another half hour or 40 minutes of just riding at at 300 watts and then every three and a half minutes doing a 30 second pickup to like 400 watts. And that just really, really helped with the short track where it's all explosive. It's like cyclocross racing. You're going straight up this super steep berm that you have to get out of the saddle on your back wheel slipping and then you like turn on grass. My question is for age groupers. Do they have short track for age groupers? I don't think they have the short track, but I think that would be really cool.

The issue with the short track is that it's three loops. And I think you definitely would start to run into issues with the number of people on the course and the number of lack of athletes. So it's kind of more for like people spectate it. Yeah. It's a show. And then they usually try to coordinate it with like packet pickup or the awards after the event, something to where there's people around and it makes, you know, it's a spectacle. I'm curious about you were saying like these wattages that you're putting up and your back wheel is slipping and you're trying to. like stay vertical on the bike. How much, how different is it to sustain these powers or do these

surges on a mountain bike on a mountain bike course versus on a road bike or a TT bike? Like, do you notice a big difference? Like, does 300 watts feel the same on, on the two different bikes on the two different courses? Or do you like, I know, mountain biking 300 watts feels a lot more challenging because you're dealing with a lot more elements? So, yeah, it's, I don't know, it kind of depends. I would say it's, if you're climbing and it's not super chunky, it's a little bit easier for me to put out power on the mountain bike just because you're sitting up and your glutes are really activated if it's not super chunky, which this entire race was.

So it's like, I don't know how, I would even know how to describe it, but imagine you're hitting expansion cracks every one second on your TT bike as you're trying, you're like getting expansion cracks and gravel. And just, and somebody's like hitting you on the back is like how the climbs were at this race and how sometimes a lot of climbs are in Xtera. Like, yes, you can put out a bunch of power, but it is just so chaotic. It's hard to, like, if you really hit a rock wrong,

you can just go from putting out 450 watts to, like, zero. And it feels like your entire soul got broken. And it's so hard to get going again. So the bike position lends itself to actually having a more, an easier power output for you. but just the nature of mountain bike riding, especially this course, ends up being harder than if you're on a TT bike.

Yeah, also you're just not looking at your power, so it doesn't matter. That's true, but I'm kind of trying to, for people who have never ridden a mountain bike before, and maybe they see someone's power in a race, and they're like, oh, I could do that. It's difficult to put out power when you're dealing with obstacles and people and rocks

and stuff like that. The thing that's really going to be misleading or challenging for someone to, you know, interpret and compare a mountain bike power file to a road bike power file is the variability of it. Like, you can go and, like, your normalized power might be 350, and your average power is 250. Because you're either going as hard as you possibly can, or you're not pedaling. So, I don't think it's, it's not so much about, like, how easy is it to put out power? Yes, it's hard to put out power as you're trying to navigate a boulder field going uphill at 20%. but also just like looking at a power file from a mountain bike race

if you look to the average power you could be like me i don't know but then if you go look at the peaks and how many times you go over 750 900 a thousand watts just to stay vertical that's what adds up and really zaps your legs by the end of the ride paula do you notice this did you ever have power on your gravel bike have you noticed something similar with that uh i really use gravel for no power like rides where i don't need to work disconnect yeah got it got And the kind of gravel riding I'm doing is not this technical. Yeah. Gravel riding's different.

Gravel riding is the easiest way to hold consistent power, in my opinion. Yeah, because you're just constantly kind of have to put torque out to move over. There's so much friction, you know, on the surface that you're riding on. You're typically not bouncing as much as you would on a mountain bike. Yeah, what about, did you say how you did it in the short track? I got, what did I get? Fifth in the short track? You got fifth in both, I think.

Yeah, I had a great. ride. The short track was not chunky like we're talking about. This was on grass and a little bit of trail and it was really cool. The main race, I got fifth in as well. That was really chunky, brutally steep climbing. 37 kilometers, 1,100 meters of elevation gain. And it took you an hour 40. And it took an hour and 40 minutes. Normally these Xteras take like an hour and 10 minutes. Yeah, it was a slow course. Wow. Very long and slow and brutal. which really favors the people that are strong at climbing and stronger on the bike. Yeah, if I could design a course that was not good for me, this would be it.

If I could just make something up from scratch, this is what I would make up. Do you not think there was a slight advantage that the course was so long, and you obviously have more of that aerobic base than they do because of your 70.3 training? Or do you think it doesn't make a difference or something that short? There's nothing to do with aerobic base. It's just spiky. to do with powered away and spikiness because the climbs were like eight minutes and then four minutes and just over and over and just brutal like yes I did really well on the first 20 minutes

which were like 2% to 4% average as you're like getting out to the main climbing and I did really well on that on the way back but the middle parts were just really about climbing ability and not technical climbing just like there's some technical climbing for sure, but mostly just like, can you continue to put out a whole bunch of power on this kind of annoying surface? So as soon as I, you called me after the race, you were like, this is dumb, hate this course, I'm not going to worlds, but your mentality kind of shifted as you digested the race a little bit.

You said that you passed a bunch of guys who got flats. Like I think in the big picture, you actually managed it. Well, you took the right lines. You didn't get a flat. You pasted okay. I don't know. It seems like, yeah, some people got flats. It's not all luck.

What are the takeaways? I don't know. I got to such a dark place, three quarters the way through that, where I just didn't want to be there anymore. I certainly was not putting out as good of power as I could have. I can chalk a little bit of that up to it being so hot. It was like 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah, it was very humid. Like 67, 80, 70% humidity.

And so I just, I did bring it back well and I had a pretty good run. And like Paula said, the descents there were very scary, not in like a fun mountain bike, not in the way that I think of fun descending, but more just like very fast and some chunky rocks where things could go wrong really fast and badly. And I ended up passing four guys, I think, three or four guys from the lead group who got flats. And I definitely just hit a spot in the back half of the race where I thought, you know what, I don't want to risk this this much. want to like break my back hitting a tree or just doing something. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, I haven't done this course before.

Everyone in front of me has, and I'm going to play it a little safer. And that did end up paying off. Yeah, I came into transition in seventh or seventh or eighth and past three more guys on the run. It's like a war of attrition. It's very much a war of attrition. And the thing is, is like, when you blow up in Xtera, you blow up so hard. It's not, you can't just kind of like.

coast it in and tempo run it in. It's because you just hit these walls on the run and on the bike where if you don't have anything left in the tank, you can lose a minute in three minutes worth of riding. It's so extreme. I think that is part of what makes it fun. And for someone who is maybe a little tired of the 70.3 style of racing, which is that, like lock it in and then keep it for two hours. And then same on the run, like try to run for an hour and 45 minutes or whatever it is.

for people who are sick of that, I feel like that's the whole appeal of the Xera. It's like, it's exciting that's like, nope, what's next? I don't even have time to think about my effort now because in two minutes, I'm going up this thing that I'm going to be crawling up and working as hard as I can. It's very, very different from a 70.3 and especially an Iron Man, totally different stimulus, different training. And yeah, right afterwards, I was pretty upset and frustrated, and I was expecting to be writing single track and having some flow.

and it was the opposite of that. And as I mentioned that to people at the finish line, they were like, oh, you're going to love Italy World Championships because it's exactly the same. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I was like, oh, no, I'm not doing it then. F that, you know. But I was just still overheated and very frustrated.

And as time went by, you know, I committed to doing X-Dara Worlds. I'm going to do everything that I can between now and then to get ready for that course. as many hill repeats as I can, I'm going to ride much less single track and bend and just, you know, suffer it out and try to see how much, how big a gains I can get just focusing and preparing specifically for that course. I also think I could do a lot better job with my suspension tuning. You know, mountain biking, you need to have a different suspension set up if there's really tight roots versus big rocks versus nothing. And I think I had that completely wrong. And

that was not helping me on the chunky climbs and descending quickly. So, you know, kind of like Paula, after her Glasgow TT, I feel like there's definitely room for improvement and some stuff that like scholastically I need to work on and then some pretty obvious training things that I can do between now and then and see how it goes. Yeah, why do you think Xera, it seems like I've heard this from you a few times now, why do you think Xera is picking these courses with these like long climbs that are non-technical and not a lot of single track. Is there an element of like, well, no one can pass on single track or it's hard to pass or safety issues?

I think what I'm realizing is just that mountain biking means different things to different people all around the world, depending on the terrain that you have access to. And certain cities have the budget to build trail and they have been for a really long time. And maybe it's a little bit more of a U.S. thing to have cross-country single-track trails that have been built. In Europe, it's a little bit more like, you're in the mountains, and you're on a bike, you're mountain biking. Yes, it's a fire road from 1812, but you're in the mountains.

And so just like adjusting my expectations and then like learning a little bit more about the course before I go there to find out how steep the climbs are, what the terrain's like, how I need to set up my tires and my suspension and everything. And do I want to do that course versus. really dig to find a one that suits me a little bit better, you know? Yeah. It's just like expectations versus reality. And I don't think it's bad.

It's just that's the terrain that they have to work with in some of these places. Okay, got it. So fifth on both days, and then you're still going to race Italy World Championships for Xera. I mean, I can't wait to see what that will be like. I thought it would be more single track because just the trail experience I have in Italy is all single track. not a lot of these like fire roads but yeah I mean that I was expecting single trackers like oh world championships

it's gonna be awesome right but I just think we'll find out when we get there and the thing that's challenging is because of the challenge to create content around a big loop we don't there's not like a course video for the entire thing and the highlight video from Xtera is going to feature the most interesting

parts not necessarily giving like a play by play of exactly every foot of into the course. So just need to talk to more people and really try to check it out on Google Maps. And if anybody lives there, you know, just do the best we can. But it's going to be climb heavy for sure. So lots of hill repeats on the schedule. Paula, did you notice a difference in Eric's like he was, like he was upset after the race initially? Was that different than how he is, you know, after a 70.3? Or did it remind you kind of a similar thing? It's very situational. I don't know.

the whole week, every time he called me, there seemed to be some fiasco. Like, I can't get out of the parking. I don't have any euros. Or, like, it's hot in my hotel room. I can't sleep. And then after the race, it was like, that was f***ed. I wasn't allowed to wear a swimskin. So, I don't know. I was kind of just, like, bracing for not the best experience. And to be fair, this whole trip has been a little bit surrounding my races and Eric not having the ideal prep for his exterior. because he's traveling with me to all these places for my races.

So it's a little bit, I feel a bit guilty about that. But yeah, I think in general, Xterra brings him more happiness than 70.3s, but he's gone in 170.3s and been in a great mood. So I don't know. It's very results dependent. Just to wrap it up, you know, like we talked about the course a lot in my experience, but I think the biggest thing, if you're considering doing Xtera, Germany, or any Xterra, for that matter, the atmosphere and like the,

the race experience itself is so cool. Yeah. Like, very hypey. It just, the venue was amazing. The short track scene. The expo was going off.

They had like seven different beer tents and all these food tents and they have a full on DJ concert that goes until 3 a.m. After the race, it's, it is a scene and is so cool. And I think that's probably the thing that I am loving the most about Xtera. And Germany has got to be, it's definitely the best one I've been to.

for that. So definitely recommended from that perspective. It's kind of in like a small town, which is cool. If you have a race in somewhere that's like a big city, it's kind of just a thing that's happening. But literally the thing that was happening was the Sycesterra sounded like. Yeah, like the mayor spoke at the press conference for the athletes about the town and what they're trying to do and the initiatives. And he was there at the party. And just it's like, this is the big thing that happens. And they're so proud of it. And it's, it's badass. And that's cool to see. That's awesome. It's funny. It sounds like the exact opposite of the kind of vibe at 70.3 is just like, this is very serious. You are an incredible athlete. You are, you have trained, you have done all your intervals and now you perform. Sarah seems like a bit more of like a party, a bit casual and be like, yeah, you rock and now let's rock out together kind of kind of thing.

A bit, a bit. Yeah, have you seen that that t-shirt that says mountain biking is the spirit of gravel? I think that pretty much applies. If you, yeah, that's what, that's just like mountain biking, I think brings that out in people. It's just, that's the vibe. It's more fun. It's, you know, it's less about getting every ounce of power. Like, you just can't measure it. It's just how quick did you do the course? Did you feel good about it? Did you send it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. Cool. Well, thanks for that. And congratulations on both days. Fifth is really great in a profile like that. And maybe you'll even be able to improve on it for worlds. If, you know, considering what you may have learned from this race about setting the suspension up correctly and the kind of fitness that you need to do well at these races. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have a lot of time to find some more uphill fitness,

but I'll do the best I can. I'll have a little bit better swim set up. It's my goal to podium there, and it has been since beginning of the year, and I'm sticking to that. So we do everything I can. Yeah, let's book the flights. Asap. Okay, on to questions now. Our first question here is from Profil, and there will be more questions about the Xterra. Don't worry. First question is from Profil. I saw Paula's bike in Scotland hooked up to one of the feedback bike trainers. Not sure if it was zero drive or overdrive. I found it curious that her disc wheel was on the rollers. I always wondered if those rollers will ruin race wheels. Do those rollers not impact the rubber on the wheel negatively in terms of wear and tear? Any insights based on experience slash expertise will be

much appreciated. Also, my training partner, best friend, and I got to swim in the lane next to Paula and Eric when they were in Milwaukee, and it was just the best thing ever. Thank you for using our little rec park outdoor pool, Proffle. So I think Propel is not talking about the wheel so much as the tires, right? So I've heard this before too. Maybe the wheel too. Yeah, by the way. Oh, really? Don't remember you, Proffel. Yeah, we remember you. Oh, wow. There you go. I think that for the purpose of that trainer is like a warm up, cool down situation. I'm never on it for more than 30 minutes. So it's not a concern. If you were using it as your primary trainer through the whole winter and doing two-hour rides on it, which I wouldn't recommend

because it's not like the best trainer. Then you might have a tire concern and you can buy like trainer-specific tires. Yeah, typically we're swapping out our race tires every three races, so significantly under the amount of mileage that they're rated for. So 20 minutes here and there to warm up on that thing is not an issue. And same thing for the wheel. Like the disc wheel is fun on it, right? Oh, yeah. I've never heard of wheels being a problem on road as your trainers. Well, they're not, but I could see where his brain was going

with like, it's a really fragile, expensive $3,000 wheel. Right. And you're putting this weird, yeah, I don't know, it's different than a road. So, but yeah, it's totally fine. But for Profil, people make, like, trainer tires that are not intended to be ridden outdoors, right?

They're much stronger. Not only a feedback trainer, like if you have a tax trainer that's not a direct drive, it has a, or a Wahoo, like there's a lot of brands where you're putting your tire directly on a rolling magnetic thing. And for that, you can buy a specific tire to put on your wheel. Yeah, for like long term use. They'll last a lot longer on the rollers or whatever, but they're not meant to be ridden outside, right? No, no, no, no. And sometimes there are different colors. too, so you don't forget. Yeah, they're like red or something. Yeah, yeah, I've seen those. Yeah, yeah, that's a smart little tool there. But yeah, there you go, Prof.

So they only use it for a little bit out of time. I don't think it should, it will affect it too much. And like you said, Eric, you guys switch out this stuff way before their, like, lifespan so that they're, you know, obviously as pro athletes, you want to have the best stuff all the time. Makes sense. Yeah. Next question here is from Craig.

Is there any chance of a clear? picture of the front of Eric's tri-bike. I've been trying to find extra height on my shiv try, and since you mentioned Watch-Up on the podcast, my ears have perked up. I can't find a clear pick on Instagram and just interested how everything fits together and see if it's worth pursuing in the off-season.

Thanks, Craig. So first of all, do you think you can get higher with the Watch-Up bars than you could with the front end that comes with the Shiv? Not necessarily higher, but I think Watch-Up, like they make adapters for a bunch of different kinds of bikes, including the Shivtry, because every bike is going to have a different base bar with different bolts and different attachment points. But Wat Shop, I think, as you're purchasing it, you select which bike you have,

and they have the adapter for that. So. Yeah, I'm not actually sure how the Wat Shop bars interact with the Shivtri, because the shivtry is a mono riser and the shiv t-tis are individual risers for each arm cup and they can make a crazy crazy high riser stack for that for sure but you also get a whole bunch of risers that that come with the shiv-t-t-tee and that's ultimately what we have underneath you're using the specialized ones not watch shop doesn't give you the spacers right watch shop can make a custom angle to be the last piece that goes between those spacers and your arm cups, but you're ultimately still using the shiv-T-T spacers to get the height. The thing that is is that the watch shop guys are

really, really great, and if you reach out to them, they will tell you exactly how all this works. Yeah, but every bike is so different in watch-hop is good at adapting pieces to each bike frame brand. So start there. Yeah, cool. Next question here is from Amy, hey team, hopefully a quick one for the pod. Which should you put on first swim cap or goggles, or does it really not matter? I've seen a mix of people wearing their goggles under their swim cap and over their swim cap. And so I'm wondering if there is an advantage to either. I always put on my goggles last just out of habit.

Thanks so much. Safe travels and sending lots of love from Australia. Amy, by the way, speaking of earplugs, I got a text from a friend who sent me Trevor Foley's YouTube video. and in it he is wearing earplugs in the swim. And I'll say that Stremmer Foley, great athlete. He's fun to watch, not known as the best swimmer. So I don't know if those two are related, but just to add to the saga and drama of the earplugs here.

No comment. No comment. So you definitely put your swim cap on first and then you put your goggles on. That's the classical way to do it. I've heard of people putting their straps under just so they don't fall off. But then if your goggles leak or something, you're totally trapped. Like it's hard to get the water out because your straps are underneath.

Or if your goggles do flip off and your straps are underneath, oh my gosh, that is just the worst thing ever. Typically they flip inside out and are cramming into your eyeballs. It's better to just, I think on the outside is better. Yeah. Tell you what I do.

You guys tell me if this is dumb. I do for the pool. I always do cap first and then goggles on top because I like to be able to like rinse them off or whatever, take them off easily. But for a race, I don't want to risk losing the goggles. So I'll put them under the cap just for racing. Interesting. Yeah, a lot of people do that.

I wouldn't. I would just make the goggles as tight as they can possibly be as as as they need to be to not fall off. I see. Then that also helps your hold on your cap. Yeah. Also, if our goggles, like, flipped off, we'd have to, like, you have to stop to fix them, which could be slightly more catastrophic in a pro race where there's pack dynamics and stuff. And you really want to stay.

Yes, for us, it's not catastrophic. I can and I can tell you that getting kicked in the face is a very real concern for us. Yeah. Right. Okay, cool. Well, there you go. It seems like Eric and Paula will suggest putting it on top of your cap. And since they are the fast members, maybe take their advice on that.

We'll just say that is what we do. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Next question here is from Tyler. I guys, I have a question for Eric about trail bikes versus a dedicated cross-country bike for racing in Xera. local XC races. I bought an Orbea Ocom at the start of the season before I discovered triathlon and Xteris. Great all-around bike, but I recently did an XC race. XC stands for cross-country,

for those who don't know, and found that I was having a real hard time keeping up on the climbs, but on any flats of course on the downhill, I was more than able to hold my own. Do you think a dedicated XC bike would make a huge difference over the trail bike? Or would setting up the bike for XC, such as getting the right tires, new wheel set, not looking to podium in my age group next year, Sarah Quebec, but definitely want to be competitive. Keep up the great pod and thanks for all your advice. Tyler. I guess if you can only have one bike, I would pick the bike that suits whatever you're going to ride the most, like at home, what kind of trails that you have access to? Because riding a cross-country bike on chunky,

bigger trails is not fun. It's pretty brutal. But if you want to race Xtera is 100% the fastest option. No course that I've done requires more than like 100 millimeters of travel in the front. Maybe you could go to a 120 if you really want to. But getting lighter wheels on that trail bike will definitely help. Like that's going to be the biggest weight difference and stuff. But there's just, I don't know. I mean, if you have a lot of travel, you at least want to be able to lock everything out for climbing. That's tough. I would say if you could go for something, I always recommend the epic Evo that specialize makes.

If you go for something like in that range that has like 120 millimeters of travel in the front and like 100 in the back or whatever where it's like kind of an in-between, like closing, getting close to the down country concept, that might be the best bet because you want something that's going to climb really well. So sell the Orban and get a Evo.

Yeah, I would definitely put, the emphasis on pedaling efficiency. Just to add to that, I have a specialized stump jumper, which is specialized trail bike, and when I was in Bend a few months ago, or more than a few months ago now, Eric let me use his epic, which is an X-C bike. And I definitely felt the difference, climbing. And for me, at least personally, as a not-super-technical mountain bike rider, on the descents, I still felt great on the epic.

I didn't miss my bike too much in terms of suspension. I think the main difference was the tires on my bike are just so much burlier than the ones that you have on the epic. That's what made the biggest difference to me. So I think if you can swap out tires or something, that might make, I don't know. What do you think about that, Eric? Yeah, I guess if you wanted to just go one step at a time and potentially spend more money doing one thing at a time to find out, you know, how different things feel, get a cross-country race tire. Get something like the fast track from specialized or what I've been used. using from Victoria, the mescal, maybe the Barto.

And put that on his trail bike. Yeah, put that on your trail bike, something that's like 700 grams, low rolling resistance, very small knobs. That could make a huge difference. And maybe that'll be enough to kind of check your box for a little while. Yeah, because he's not trying to win. I just think the reason I said that is because we talk about tires for road biking and T-Ting and they make a difference.

But in mountain biking, it's a humongous difference from one tire to another, how much it can change the kind of traction you have and the rolling resistance you have because you're riding at way lower PSI as well potentially. Yeah, from my perspective, traveling to Xteris with Eric, it's always a bit of a gamble before races because you don't know the night before what the conditions will necessarily be the next day, whether it'll rain, whether it'll be dry. So he's shuffling around tires up to the last minute. And it is a big reason why pro mountain bikers on teams have mechanics with them at all times.

they're also shuffling things and tire pressure up to the minute before the race. So it's a very, very technical sport from a gear standpoint versus road bikes or TT bikes, I would say. Yeah. Yeah, there's just so many different conditions that you can encounter that have so many different use cases for different equipment. Yeah, cool. Okay, and last question here is from McKenna. Hello, family. I'm a longtime competitive swimmer and college soccer player that recently.

got back into triathlon a couple years ago after getting injured. Eric has inspired me to do either an Xtera or a mountain bike race, but I just started law school and do not have much money to buy an awesome mountain bike. I have a road bike and a TT bike and would like to buy the best bike at the lowest price to start mountain biking. Let me know what your thoughts on this would be. Thank you from Austin, Texas, McKenna. So, Eric, my question then would be, should this person be looking at, I mean, is it okay to buy aluminum bikes for mountain biking? Is it okay to buy second hand

for mountain biking compared to like road biking? Should she buy a hard tail versus a full suspension? What do you think? I would say the only reason where a full suspension could be a downside is just if you need to get that rear shock serviced immediately. Like getting your forked

and getting your shock serviced, that can add up. Those can be a few hundred bucks each. And it just would like factor that in to the cost of buying a used bike, just like be prepared or do your research and ask the person when was the last time the shock was serviced, you know, or if you've got a good relationship with someone who knows bikes well or a shop, maybe they can check it out. But I bought my first like, I guess all my

mountain bikes until the current one that I have, I've bought used. And I did a couple of hard tales. And then I bought an epic from a friend. And I checked with him and he had had the epic brain shocks serviced in the last couple of months. They need to be done every couple years. But you can honestly like mountain bike technology from a couple years ago is just fine. Like the geometry has changed just slightly, but it's bikes aren't moving that quickly. So I would look at like a three or four year old epic or a Santa Cruz or aluminum is totally fine. and if you can get a full suspension, I would probably go that route.

It's just going to be a little bit more fun in more conditions and allow you to not just get pogo-sticked around. Yeah, we've talked about this before, where hardtails, obviously, they're cheaper, and they are, you know, at the same level, they're going to be lighter. But I feel like really technically good riders are going to be able to do much more with a hard tail

than someone who is, I guess I'm saying, as full suspension bikes are just so much more forgiving. Yeah, there's like on the cross-country World Cup circuit, yeah, they all have hardtails and full suspensions and they can pick if they want to use a hard tail for a certain course. But if they just had to pick one bike for the whole season, they're 100% going with the full suspension. One question we left out of the pod was about laundry. And this has been a very mountain bike heavy pod. Hit us with it. The person asked for a follow-up on the dirty lab stuff that I bought on recommendation of a pod supporter.

months ago now. And I got it in the mail. I've been using it a lot. It's basically like a powder enzyme. And it's really, really effective at getting kind of like the musty smell

out of workout clothes. And it works super well. I've been so impressed with it. I love the smell of it. It's not too strong. And you basically put like a scoop of it in the washing machine. And then I also bought the Dirty Labs

detergent. And that's really nice too. So not sponsored. I bought it myself. But if you have a Long-term review. If you have a problem with like stinky smelling clothes or like you can't really get the sweat smell at your clothes or whatever, then I give it like a 10 out of 10. That's great.

I mean, I've been really happy with my clothes lately, so I approve. Yeah, it's called Dirty Labs. I mean, it's super expensive. It's a bio enzyme laundry detergent. Is that the one? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I don't have a discount code or anything because it's fully just, yeah, bought it because I wanted to.

try it, but I'm super impressed with it. Really nice branding, really nice company. It came in the mail really quick, all that. So I think it's like you can buy it on Amazon. In the U.S., it's $26 from their website, and they say it's 33 cents per load. So that doesn't seem to be too

bad. Yeah, if you just use the little tiny, like, thimble that they tell you to use. I kind of always use a little more, but yeah, not crazy when you break it down like that. Yeah, I like this per load cost. I mean, 33 cents. I think. I'm actually going to order it.

Not smelling all the time. Yeah. That seems worth it. Nick, didn't you try it when you were at our house? Yeah. You did like, Nick brought one cycling kit to our house on his visit, and he wrote every day, so he had to do laundry every day. So I think I used it, Nick.

I did use it. I did use it, yeah. But I have some stuff that has, like, this baked in, like, musty smell, and I would love to, like, see if it would fix that. Yeah. I haven't figured out. A lot of the times that has to do with clothing being too old and having lost a lot of its anti-microvial properties.

But yeah, follow up. If you've got something that's super old and fits that category, Nick, I'm going to try it. I'm going to order it today. For comparison, Tide costs like $23 to $0.28 per load. So this is $0.33 per load. And then also you're buying the enzyme powder, which might actually be more.

So we might be looking up to more like $0.50 a loan. But no, no. I think it's worth it. Oh, the enzyme powder you think is the important thing? Yeah, I think the enzyme powder is the key piece here. Got it. Oh, 38 cents per load. But by both.

Got it. Okay, cool. Well, I love it. This is a fun little deep dive into laundry, which we all, it's just like, you know, they say like nutrition is the fourth discipline. I feel like laundry is the fifth discipline of triathlon. So we're getting into it with that. We have the laundry machine at our Airbnb here, but they don't do dryers here, which I kind of

like because they have these really awesome drying racks where you can fit your entire a load of laundry really easily without like jigsawing it onto a tiny one. So I think at home, my new thing is going to be just to buy like a really good, we already have one, but get a better one and then never use the dryer. It's not really necessary to use the dryer. You don't even have the option here. I don't use it for any of my sports stuff. Yeah. Interesting. Well, congratulations, Eric, on your races. You did well. Paula is racing, not Xera, 70.3 worlds on Saturday. You said you guys, you guys, start at 7.30 or 8.30, did you say? Yeah, 7.30 a.m. local time. It'll be on outside watch.

to be able to follow along. And usually the broadcast for these big races is really good. We figured out that was going to be like... So it'll start at 9.30 p.m. your time on Friday night. 9.30 p.m. Pacific on Friday. Yes, 9.30. That's great. How dedicated are you? So what you got to ask yourself. I'm staying up. I'm staying up to watch it. I have to wake up at 5 o'clock.

next day. So if people want to watch the race, it'll be 9.30 Pacific time or unfortunately, it'll be 1230 in the morning, East Coast time. I'm supposed to leave for a trail adventure trip for Sequoia National Park in the morning really early on Saturday, and I am going to stay up and watch the race. So 930 Pacific, and you said it's on outside watch. I'm sorry, did you say you trail adventure? Are you a trail adventurous? I'm adventurous. So that'll fun. I'm very excited for that too. There's been a lot of racing recently, but somehow I'm still motivated to watch them all. And also, just so you guys all know,

just so you guys all know, the men race the day after at the same time. So women will be Friday night in the U.S. men will be Saturday night in the U.S. at the same time. That's commitment to watch both. I'm going to be watching both. You'll be really watching one of them.

Time will slow down. All right. That's it. That's all we got for you guys. And we will catch up with you next week with a recap of the World Championships, hopefully back in Bend. Oh, yeah. Reunited to Flynn. Thanks for listening. Yeah, everyone.

Bye.