That Triathlon Life Podcast - Eric races Xterra North American Championships, and Nick races IM 70.3 Morro Bay

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

This week on the podcast we hear from Eric and Nick who both raced this past weekend. Eric raced Xterra North American Championships in Alabama, and Nick raced IM 70.3 Morro Bay. After both race recaps, we also answer a few listener submitted questions about: Finding a coach when you're not performance focusedWhy professionals have different wetsuit legal temperature cutoffsWhat to check on your bike before a race A big thank you to our podcast supporters who help keep this podcast ad-free. You can become a podcast supporter, as well as submit your own question to the podcast at ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggestrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldston. And this is our triathlon podcast. We're going to talk a little bit about what's going on in our triathlon life, a little bit of what's going on in our business and triathlon scene in general. But mostly, this show runs off of questions from everybody who listens. So thank you for sending in your questions. And we're going to get to those after the little preamble. A preamble is right. a dramatic preamble at that. Preamble of race recaps from the boys. Just in case you're wondering why you're listening to us, Paul and I are both professional

triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, but an amateur triathlet and he brings a great, you know, like things that it doesn't occur for Paula and I to bring up. Nick thinks of them, he asks us, we try to get as much information to you as possible. It's not even I think of them. It's that, that's, you know, you guys have lived your lives as super elite athletes. I have lived my life as a lowly musician, a late bloomer athlete. So they're just, they're what's happening in my head normally. That's wonderful.

That is our dynamic. So welcome to the show, everybody. Guys, I'm a bit distracted because I'm lazy and I use Instacart for my grocery shopping. But I mean, 99% of the time, it's fabulous. Like the people are great. They kind of text you if they got to replace something or refund something. or if they replace something, it's like, you know, an equivalent item. But the person that's shopping currently is like, like, for example, there was no lemonade.

So she's replacing it with like sugar-free light lemonade. And I'm like, no, it's not the same thing. No, we don't do that. I need you to squeeze some lemons into a jar for me, please. This is like serious first world problems. But she also replaced, I don't know, like something that I try to get Eric some healthy cereal replaced with like fruit loops, that type of thing. So it's just funny that some people just don't have a grasp of...

Should we back up for a second? God, I wish we were getting paid by Instacart. We're not. I pay Instacart. Paula is paying Instacart. But this is like an Uber type service where you, you know, put it on the internet like I want granola and I want like... There has no clue out work.

Shopping items. One would buy at a grocery store. Q-tips. And they freaking bring it to your doorstep and drop it on your doorstep. and you pay a fee for that. And I just choose to not look at whatever the fee ends up being. It's not a crazy fee. And for the amount of, I think that when you're training a lot,

grocery shopping is extremely exhausting and time consuming. And I feel like this is a really efficient way to get exactly what we need. I always tip the person really well. I mean, it's a service for a reason. Zero judgment on my part. Most everybody that Paula is competing against, or that I am competing against, they have like a significant other that kind of handles a lot of the things and we are both handling a lot of things.

So something's got to give. But we're not sponsored by Instagram. If you work on Instagram and you want to sponsor us, that would be great though. Reach out. Slide into the DMs Instagram. Yeah, slide right in. Okay, sorry for that interruption. No, that's no problem at all.

Okay, so what happened this past weekend is that Eric and I both raced very different kinds of races. Also, this is going to highlight more the difference between Eric and myself. but Eric, you raced where and did what, what kind of triathlon was it? So I raised Exeterra North American Championships at Oak Mountain State Park, which is in Shelby County, Alabama. And I only know it's in Shelby County because Visit Shelby, I think, puts in some money and sponsors the event and it's on all the swag and all this stuff. So it was the Xtera of the year that I wanted, that I cared the most about.

It's, of course, it's really good for me. It's North American Championships, et cetera. I didn't have the best race in my life, but I think I've come to a good place about how the race went, and I'm happy to talk about that. So leading into the race, you were feeling pretty good. Am I right? Yeah. So, you know, if you look at the last two months, I had, that's like two weeks of good training. They were unfortunately not back-to-back weeks. But I went and I raced St. Anthony. which was an incredible experience and then I went straight from there

and I watched slash supported Paula at St. George 70.3 which is another amazing experience but at the same time I got sick while I was there and a myriad of other things so I showed up with one week of Xtera-specific training under my belt.

That week went incredibly well but... One week is not enough. Yeah. The way that the Xtera circuit is set up now it's more like this World Cup style thing where year end points matter So all the best guys in the world and women are showing up to pretty much every one of these major events. So long story short, I got ninth.

And that really is pretty much ninth in the world. There were no major players that were really missing from that field. And while I got second place last year, it was not quite as strong of a field and, you know, circumstances and all the things. But I'm an okay place about it. But it was a really big race. It was really good. And it was really exciting. and I'm glad I got to go to it.

Are you glad the short track happened the way it did the next day as well? Did that play out the way you were hoping? Yeah, yeah. So on the exterior circuit now, they have this thing called short track, which is a super sprint essentially style race. It only takes about 30 minutes. It's a slightly different course than the main race that happens, which takes about two and a half hours.

But there are points in the short track, and there's a little bit of money in the short track. So since you're there anyway, everybody pretty much races it. And yes, I'm glad I did it. I was the night before thinking that I was definitely not going to do it. Paula talked me in to just go to sleep, wake up in the morning, don't say no now, see how you feel in the morning. And I felt significantly better on the morning of the short track than I did on the morning of the main event the day before.

So I went for it, did my best. I think I got 10th or 11th in that. Had a couple blunders. It's very. It's kind of a, I felt feel like Eric's whole. experience of traveling here and feeling really bad is a bit of a learning experience for they could benefit other people who are traveling to the East Coast from the West Coast. That three-hour time change or two-hour time change is actually more significant than it sounds for your body

and how it feels. Because I think you were waking up every morning at 7, which is like 5 a.m. back home and maybe you didn't sleep that well. Yeah. I was starting to fall asleep each night and both of you both wanted to talk to me at like midnight my time and it was it's challenging yeah i just think that people that are traveling east to race need to account for that in their travel like maybe go an extra day or to to acclimatize if you can and the conditions were different it was there was a lot about it that maybe wasn't perfect in terms of a race lead in how do we feel about Eric telling your insane story with your first hotel experience. Okay, I mean, I can rip through it as quick as I can.

Paula picked the best hotel that she possibly could based on the ratings and the pictures and the proximity to the race. But Pelham, which is the actual city that is closest to Oak Mountain State Park, is not, in my opinion, after having been there three years now, it's not the pace to pick the best hotel you've ever stayed in your life. Very nice. a concert venue nearby. Things are a little bit worn out just from concert people, I think, is my impression. But Polly did the best she could, and I showed up at this hotel. When I showed up

at the hotel at, I guess I could back up a little bit to when I tried to go to Chipotle at 10 p.m. And when I tried to go to Chipotle at 10 p.m. after getting in from my flight, I roll in, and the guy says, okay, so we're out of chicken, we're out of meat, we're out of Pigo de Gaio, we're out of lettuce, we're out of cheese. He listed off like basically three, orders of the things that one would put in your Chipotle burrito and then just looked at me. Nice. And I just stared straight back at him because I'd been traveling for nine hours or something. And then started looking at my phone trying to figure out what the next best option was.

I left. I decided not to get a bean-only burrito. And I went to Walmart and I got a lettuce. I got as like a salad and like a pre-made sandwich or something. And I finally got to the hotel at like 1130 at night. And I whirl in and they say, oh, our computer. are down, but if you tell us your name, we can check against this piece of paper that we have that has names written on it. My name was on the list. Thank God. And I got my key card. I went to my

hotel room called Paula while I'm eating my salad. And just as I'm kind of finally winding down from this crazy travel experience and trying to find Chipotle and getting into bed, the door flies open, hotel manager walks in with another guest who thinks they're staying in my room. And apparently, my room had been double-booked or something because the hotel manager is like, what are you doing here? Why are you in this room? He was like mad at you.

He was fully insinuating with his tone that I had, I don't know, but broken into this hotel room that had scratches on the wall and light fixtures barely hanging on by a thread and just was, you know, free loading or whatever here. He's like, you have to come with me.

You have to come downstairs. We have to sort this out. And this is like 12-15. you know, in the morning at this point. And so I go down there and I give him my name and all the things. I'm an incredibly understanding and a polite person and just have no energy with which to be a dick. And we work it out and 1 a.m. I finally go back and get in bed and I think that I fall asleep at like 1.30 in the morning. Brutal.

It was a marriott. And it was like the worst hotel. Wait, wait, wait. You forgot the part where when you went back to the room to go to sleep, the TV randomly came on at some point, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, about 20 minutes. The TV just turned itself back on, and I turned it off thinking that was weird. And then another 20 minutes later, it turns itself back on again, at which point I just unplugged the TV.

So, I, you know, I don't know. They, the day, this morning I got an email from Fairfield by Married or whatever. And they're like, would you like to review your stay at the, I think you guys, you don't want to know. You really don't want to know. Oh, man. But I went down in the morning. morning and I ended up switching hotel rooms and went over to the best Western, which turned out to be better. And the person there was wonderful who checked me in and I got a spot and I actually got a

room with two queen beds because my dad was showing up that evening. And it all worked out in the end. But wow, what a first night in Alabama. I mean, do you not feel like that may have affected how you felt on race morning on Saturday when you felt a little hollow? Oh, for sure, for sure. And the next night of sleep was not great. My dad got in around 11 p.m. And I was there to, to greet him and my nutrition was was very off and wacky while trying to change and then I had some media obligations that I had to do with Xtera, which is great because I really want Xtera to grow and get all the attention that it deserves. But there's a lot of things on race week that happen and it can be like this domino effect where if your timeline is off by just a little bit,

which mine was off by approximately four hours on day one, that just kind of affects the whole week. And I really struggled to get back into a rhythm and get my stride with the two days that I had. Of course. Of course. At the event. So I'm curious because you said you're talking about Xtera specific training. You only had a little bit of that for this. And a lot of your training was for like St. Anthony's and potentially 70.3 training. I'm kind of curious for the average person, the average 70.3 athlete, how well do you think that kind of fitness would transfer over to an Stara, forgetting about the technical skills required just the fitness element. Not very well.

I mean, you can definitely do it, but if you want to race it at an elite level, you really need to do a lot more punchy type of stuff because mountain biking is like you spend 20 seconds at 80 watts and then you'll spend 20 seconds at 700 watts trying to get up this rock feature and, you know, this really steep spot in the climb and then you're off again. And then it's very buried in terms of, you know, like your normalized power is going to be crazy higher than your average power versus like a 70.3 or an Iron Man. You're just working on staying at 217 watts, boom, dialed right, you know, not too high, not too low to maximize your pacing over the course of four hours or two and a half hours or whatever. And the run, you would say similar, right? It's maybe even less technical, but still punchy, like short effort.

and then you need to recover and repeat them. Yeah, a little bit, and you just have to be really good at running while your legs are super tired from those big surges on the bike, and you're changing direction constantly, and your overall pace is going to be really extremely uninteresting, but the whole time you just feel like you're getting just like kicked or beat up, you know, while trying to run versus, you know, it's not a rhythm type of a thing at all.

Good thing it's a shorter kind of race, because the body can only take so much, and it's not the same as just maintaining that, like you said, that steady static pace that we're used to in road triathlon. Yeah, I think the thing that occurred to me the most that I think is an interesting point to make for people who haven't ever done it, Annextera or ridden off road, is that, you know, the state that I was in, I kind of felt like it was bonked when I started the race. Right.

And if you're bonked on a TT bike, it sucks. It's not great, but like you're going straight. If you're 1% bonked or low blood sugar on a mountain bike, it is so hard to make sure that you're turning it just the right amount. You're leaning the bike just the right amount, that you're putting your dropper post down when you need to, and the braking. It's so much more technically demanding

that you need to be incredibly mentally sharp to ride well. And if you have even like 2% off on that, it can have a big impact over the course of an hour, 30 long bike ride on a mountain bike. It's also, like, when I've been kind of bonged on a mountain bike, it gets a little scary on technical stuff. Because you're like, I am just not sharp enough to make the right decisions. Yeah, you feel like your brain's moving a little bit slow. It's lagging, and you really need it to not. So anyway, that's kind of the takeaway of the race.

I can get into the, you know, the race dynamics a little bit if you want. But ultimately, I think this was a little bit of a struggle of how my buildup went and then how the last three days before the race went. And I don't know what I could have done much better other than just saying, no to a lot of things and probably doing half the amount of training and doing twice the amount of sleeping and just eating food as quickly as I could. That might have done it. Who knows? Are you doing a video? Yes. There will be a video that's a lot more in depth with a lot of beautiful visuals. Yeah, let's just watch that everybody. Stay tuned for that. Okay, I guess, I mean, I kind of selfishly wanted to hear any, like, highlights that happened

during the race. Like, you came out with a leader out of the water and you rode in the front. I'll give a quick thing over it. So my strategy was to just fake it until I make it. So I thought I will go out on the swim at my normal swim speed and just hold it as long as I can see what happens. And about 300 into the swim, body was like, no, you're not. Luckily, there was a kid from Canada. I think Henry was his last name.

He had it on his suit. And he was swimming really well, so I got on his feet. And it was a situation where I felt like I could go around. but if I tried to go around it was just going to be twice the effort and I thought just conserve energy, stay here, your body doesn't want any part of this right now

and get on the bike and restart give everything, get out on the bike. So I did that, got on the bike. It went pretty well for the first 15 minutes. I made it through all the technical stuff without getting caught and then when we got onto the climbing road it took about a minute of being on the long climbing road

for the leaders to catch me. I think there was like three of them at that point. and dude I cannot explain to you how fast these little exterra guys climb like I looked down yeah I looked down while Felix Friessier the French guy was going by me

and granted it's just a rule of thumb if you're going to pass somebody you pass them at extreme pace to just crush their soul right but still I was doing 420 watts and he was just like gone like on a motorcycle going up this climb and this is a 25 minute long climb on a fire

road. I did hang. I hung for a couple of minutes, did the best that I could, but then, you know, when you're not feeling it, when you blow, you blow real hard. And so I went from riding 380 watts to like 280 for a couple of minutes and then I was able to bring it back to my initial goal on this climb of like 330. But then I was just kind of in damage control there. A couple more guys came by me. I was doing really well in the technical stuff. I don't think I was losing much time there just because like I know these trails pretty well. These trails are the type of riding that I grew up doing. It's my jam.

But on the climbing stuff, anytime it was punchy, I know those guys were just going crazy. And I lost some more time. So I think coming into T2, I was three minutes or something behind the leaders, a minute and 10, 90 seconds behind the little group that was in front of them, that was behind them between me and the leaders. And again, I set off on the run and I was like, I'm just going to go my normal pace. And like maybe now all the stuff that I've done to try to correct my fueling and I've been fueling really well and whatever.

Maybe that'll come around and again just like roll with it. And I made it, I think two and a half, three K, running at a really good pace and bringing back the guys that were in front of me until it was just like, boom. Carpet got pulled out from underneath me. The humidity really became a factor. It's humid in the south. Yeah. And the sun came out and it was like greenhouse mode.

So I kind of went into push it as much as you can but also don't pass out in the woods because someone might not find you. Oh God. That's a bad idea to have going through your head while you're racing. And I just kind of held that all the way to the end. I really feel proud of myself for I kept trying to push it.

I kept trying to push it. Every time I felt like I had a little bit to give and not pass out, it was really the feeling that I can describe it as, as dramatic as that might be, I tried, and I really gave myself every opportunity to kind of come back from this feeling of total crap. And I ended up in ninth place.

Like I said, that's like ultimately equates to like ninth or tenth place in the world. There might have been one guy here, I mean, one guy that wasn't here who is a big factor in the world rankings. So initially I was very upset because I was hoping to be on the podium, but then my dad was there watching,

and luckily I got to chat with him for a couple hours after race and stuff, and I came to a place of like, okay, this isn't that bad. Remember, you know, the last couple months of training, remember the last few days, and, like, cut yourself a little bit of slack that you can't necessarily pull off this superhuman thing. All these guys live, sleep, eat, triathlon,

and they're all in. And as all in as I have tried to be, I've had a lot going on in the last couple months, a lot of things, and I hate to make excuses. But you got to be reasonable. with yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

I love that perspective. And I could tell that you kind of went through a transformation a few days after that. I mean, it's still, like you said, still like close to top 10 in the world and a sport that you've only really been focusing on for like a year, a year and a half or two. And later into your career, it's great. Yeah. You know, I think if I'd like really want to have the best race in my life here, I would have not gone to St. Anthony's and done the TT by work. I would have not gone to St. George and supported Paula on that. You know, who knows what the ramifications would have been?

I certainly do not regret that decision to do that. But if I'd done that and, like, putting more mountain biking rise and blah, blah, blah, slept more, you know, like, maybe could have had a better race. You also got sick at maybe the worst possible time you could have gotten sick for this race. Yeah. Yeah, that was not optimal. So anyway, I just wanted to put that out there. That's going to be the kind of the main point of my video of the week as well.

because I think a lot of people hopefully can identify with that. Like oftentimes we will say, oh, this is my goal for the race and this is my reasonable thing. And, you know, you set that out for yourself at the beginning. And then when you sort of do something that makes sense with that goal in the race, you get upset. Because you like all of a sudden bring in this completely unrealistic expectation, which could have been your stretch goal when really you didn't have any business having that stretch goal based on, you know, your preparation for the race. So just like I said, be realistic with yourself, expectations versus reality, and just do what you can with what you got on the day.

I feel like that's a perfect segue because I raced this weekend as well. And my goal was, this is one of the advantages of being an amateur versus a professional, is that my goal was to have a good time at the race and to enjoy it and to like refine a little bit of that love for 70.3 racing. And I raced Morrow Bay, Iron Man, 7.7. 70.3, Morrow Bay. And a lot of people may have heard of this race now because it has kind of made its way into the mainstream of triathlon

due to drama on the swim, which is so funny because I was already quite worried about it going into it because of the water temperature. And you guys probably never do this because you don't care. But I was every day, like five times a day, checking the water temperature of Morrow Bay. It's not a matter of not caring. It's a matter of that is not under our control.

You're right, right. You know, and like the number of times we've been to a race and they're like, oh, the water's half a degree over wetsuit temperature and you just feel like they made that up out of nowhere. Oh, that's... You know, you're like, I'm just going to show up, I'm going to bring all the things and what happens, happens. So it's perfect that you said that because a week before the race, the water,

there were two sites. One was like 62 degrees and one was like 52 degrees. And I was like, well, I really hope it's the 62 degree one is accurate. It was not. Fortunately, we get there and we find out that people are swimming the day before and the water is 53 degrees. Which, after doing some research, actually I'll get into that later, about the USAAT suggested temperature regulations and shortening and canceling and all that stuff. But we get to race morning and we hear the race director announced that the water, they measured it at 57.6, which very conveniently is just, above the temperature that USAAT recommends to do the full swim for.

Oh, all right. Yeah, so 57 and above. I love it when it works out like that. Yeah, like 57 to something's really high is full, full distance. And then there's like a temperature range where it's, oh, it should be shortened to 1,500, and then there's a temperature range where it should be shortened to 750. Uh-huh. And once we started swimming, everyone's watch, you know, and you might say the watches are not as

accurate as the device that Ironman uses to record the temperature. But all of our watches were reading like 54, 53 degrees, mine included. So anyway, we were definitely concerned before. One second. Were you like getting into the water ahead of time, like looking at what the temperature on your watch said? So I purposely did not do that. But I talked to people who did practice swims the day before and they just said it.

I didn't necessarily want to know. You know what? For San Francisco Alcatraz race that, I have to do in a couple of weeks. They are going by World Triathlon rules, and it's similar situation where if the water is a certain temperature, they're going to have to shorten it. But there are these ranges of temperature where they don't shorten it, but they make booties, hand gloves, and skull caps mandatory.

Hand gloves, too. Yeah, I've never swam with any of these things. but if the water is between X and X degrees, mandatory to wear all these things. So I got booties and hand gloves and a cap from Orca that just came. So I think I have to go to the pool and practice swimming with all these things because there's a really good chance that the water actually will be between that range. And in the past, Alcatraz is just kind of its own race. But now with T100, it's like underworld triathlon rules.

So we got to go by that. So anyway, Nick, I sympathize with you. It's probably similar to the weather, water temperature you experienced, right? Yeah, not that far away. Well, man, I swam with booties in one race, and let me tell you, it feels very weird, and they feel very slow.

But if everyone's wearing them, then I guess that kind of evens it. That's the equalizer, yeah. It's like everyone's got to have them on. And let me tell you, they're hard to get off, too. Yeah, it's weird. It feels like you got floppy socks on your feet while you're still like. You just imagine what that feels like,

and that's exactly what it feels like. I could see how they would be a nice thing to have if you were like doing cold water river swimming for fun, you know? They're nice feeling things. I put them on. I walked around the house. I was like, yeah, these are pretty comfy. They feel like ballet slippers. But yeah, you'd go and try and kick and swim fast.

And there's no way that these things are helping. Not built for speed. Anyway, sorry to interrupt. No, that's great. We love it. I chose not to wear any booties, but I did wear a neoprene skull cap. So you could have. You were allowed to.

Oh, yes, you were allowed to. Boots and gloves? No, gloves are always illegal. Oh, okay, okay. Because they could have freaking, like, webbed fingers. Yes, exactly. Maybe that's what I'll do. You can't wear anything on your hands.

But I'm happy to say that when I got in the water, I knew I was going to get, this happens to me when I'm cold, Eric, this happens to me to when we were in June Lake swimming this past summer. I get like an ice cream headache. You know, I don't know what you want to call it, brain freeze. and it's really uncomfortable and the only way I can get past is I have to pop my head up,

swim above the water for like three seconds, back in, out, and out in. So I remember thinking I'm going to keep doing this until it goes away and then make a note of how much I've swam so I can tell the podcast listeners. So at about 225 yards

is when I could swim normally and my head didn't hurt. This never happens to you, Erica. No, I was going to say So Chris Corbin, our friend here in town, husband of Lindsay Corbin, ex-professional triathly, he's all into cold plunging. And he, like, convinced me to do some cold showers and some cold plunging with him, like, sometime last year.

And I realized that when I was in the shower, like, trying to make it through this freezing cold shower thing, like, focusing on my breathing. And, like, specifically even the diaphragm really helped me to kind of be not there and, like, transport myself a little bit. And then it just so happened that we went and, like, did an open water swim in the river here and Benwood is super freezing cold, like within the week of me trying this thing that Chris Corbyn was into. And doing that in the water while swimming, focusing on the breathing, like trying to remain really calm with that and like actually actively blowing bubbles out my mouth and focusing on that, I was able to work through that initial like two minutes of extreme face stinging pain without having to stop. or, you know, it is like a Zen master sort of, you know, technique.

Cold water is for sure a thing you can, like, train your body to get used to. Like, you can work through it. Well, the good news for me is that after that point, I was never cold. My core for the whole swim never got cold. My head stopped hurting was a non-issue. Yeah, my hands and feet, I could tell we're cold, but they weren't bothering me. You know, they just were. There's an initial time period.

And you just got to get past. Yeah, and honestly, it just wasn't that unpleasant. That headache thing, I knew it was coming, and then when I got through it, which I knew I would, it was totally fine. And from that point on, and this may come to a shock to people who have been reading the stuff about the race, but from that point on, my swim went until I got out perfectly fine. I had no awareness that anything was wrong. I did not understand that there was a current, although when I went, around the first buoy to start turning back. I looked at my pace and I was like, wow, I'm having

the swim of my life because I just thought I was swimming fast and I thought, great. You know, this is fantastic news. And then as many people that are listening know, the trying to go back is when stuff got very weird for a lot of people. The way the tides happened to line up, there was a current coming into the bay where we were swimming. And many people were not able to. to make forward progress on the swim. So there were an insane amount of DNFs. Their initial number was like 300 DNFs. Over 300 people had to get pulled from the water.

And then another 150 people technically finished the swim, but they were like beyond the cutoff point. So there's a ton of footage out there of people like swimming in place and kayakers that are trying to paddle but are going backwards. So it was a real mess. But I didn't know this. I was just swimming,

doing my thing and I'm like, you know, wow, time really slows down when you suck at swimming. And then as I got out of the water and saw my watch, I swam 41 minutes, which was like roughly 10 minutes slower than what I thought. I was like, oh, no, I just, what's new? I fucking suck at swimming, you know, like that's what I thought. That's what I thought. And as soon as I saw that number, I thought to myself, I'm here to have fun today and this is kind of a gift. There goes any chance that I'm going to have a fast race. Obviously, my body's not in it today. Fully transfer over to do whatever you can in the moment to have a good race. And I didn't think about the swim once after that.

I was just onto the bike trying to do the best I could. Perfect. I know people are very upset and people want to blame the race director and Ironman. I mean, there's so many things they have to think about on the day. I also know that there were some like environmental agencies that only allowed them to make the course a certain way because there is a lot of wildlife. life in that water. Mm-hmm.

I think people are very quick to blame Ironman. I don't know. Well, yeah, I want to have a race in an impossibly beautiful place in the ocean and also have it be perfectly calm water and get a PR and, you know, it's like... Well, this is a crazy circumstance because so many people didn't get to finish. Yes, for sure. There was some, like, criticism about, well, you should have just, like, trained harder, been a better swimmer, but some people are like good, competent swimmers that can finish a 70.3, but with a

current, it's not possible. It's not about Nick is a good swimmer relative to a lot of people. There is an added element here, which I think is difficult to confirm, but I do think is what everyone says that happened is that the way that the 70.3 swims work is that for age rupers, you seed yourself according to how quickly you're going to swim. The fastest swimmers are towards the front, the slowest swimmers are towards the back, and the current apparently got worse and worse and worse during the swim. So the slowest swimmers got the worst current, and of course, then they're not going to be able to finish. And that does feel unfair. And I'm like, I felt a little heartbroken for people, like those people are the people who have not done a ton of 70.3s potentially, who have,

who have trained a lot for this one race, and their family flew out, and everyone came to watch them, And then because of things that were totally out of their control, they weren't able to finish something that normally they would have been able to finish. Yeah, you know what? I think the solution here is go back to a normal triathlon start and get rid of the rolling start. That would have made this all better.

Running an age groups. Well, at some point. They're still trying to get 1,000 plus people across the line. It's going to take time no matter what, right? The start? I don't know. I don't know how rolling starts work, I guess. I feel bad, and I feel for both sides.

really feel bad for the athletes. And I guess technically there was a way that Iron Man could have predicted this by having swimmers of different levels swim at the time when the tide is doing this thing. You know, that just seems like a lot of logistical craziness. Do it never happened last year, Nick? We swam the same exact. Well, and that's what's funny is in the course last year for people who remember, the loop was a little wider and it went over a very shallow water.

And we walked for like 30 meters in like 20 centimeter deep water. This year they made it a tight. turn, but it has nothing to do with that. It had to do with lining up with the tides. That's the problem. So it just happened to line up very unfavorably with the tides this year. Yeah. I mean, there's only so much you can do.

If they'd cancel the swim, people would be upset about that too. You're in like a lose-lose situation as a race director. That's exactly right. So technically the temperature, according to our watch, should have been a 750-meter swim in accordance with the guidelines that USAT puts on their guide, but they're not rules. But then people are upset that the swim is short and they didn't do a real 70.3.

It is like a lose-lose, I feel like. Yeah, but the times would have been kind of the same. Yeah, you're right. You're right, you're right. That's true. I think that's, that, like, of course, retrospect is dumb, but I think it should have been halved.

That would have solved all these problems. That would have. And I really feel so bad for all the athletes that were not able to finish the race. Yeah. Someone was texting me like, The swim's so weird. Nick swam so slow.

And I was like, that happens. Nick's swim slow sometimes. But relative to the first person out of the water is only 10 minutes down. So I don't think it's a problem. Right. I didn't know that you normally swam a 30 and you swam a 40. Like what a time is? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, right. But I thought, okay, he's on the bike. He is alive. And honestly, once I was on the bike, immediately I just felt great. And I was just, I was like, okay, I'm biking. And in my head, I'm like, I have this wax chain set up on this bike. I have Paula's disc wheel on the back. have a bunch of gels. I'm ready to rock. So I went out and I held power that I thought was

reasonable for me, keeping in mind that I had the cramping issues in Los Cabos last year, so I was a little nervous about that. But I, I biked well. I wore gloves because I was worried about my hands, but I was never cold. It was like drizzling a bit on and off. And whenever it rains in a race, that always kind of makes me laugh because I think back to Wisconsin. I'm like, of course it's raining. This is my curse, you know, it's going to happen. But I was, I was never cold. And for those who remember last year, I was really upset about the drafting situation. This year, I don't know if it was due to the fewer number of athletes that were on the bike course because of the swim situation. But there was no drafting.

I basically had the whole race by myself and I loved that. And when I was looked around, I didn't see other people drafting either. That's definitely a result of the swim. Yeah, I kind of wonder a little bit because am I biking with people who started the back of the swim pack? not really. So I'm not sure. But either way, I do think there were less people on the bike course in general, for sure.

I kind of like pushed a little harder on the way back when I realized that the cramping wasn't going to happen. And I felt good about the bike. I think it was my highest power I've held while feeling good. I did about 230 watts and had a lot of carbohydrates. I did 100 grams per hour and felt great. Highly recommend, if you have not been racing

while eating a lot, It is like a cheat code to feeling good. Felt really good. Ended up biking 2, like 228. And then I really had to pee at the end of the bike. That's a good sign. I'm peeing in T2. I'm not dealing with this for the rest of the run.

And I've never really been able to pee on the bike. And I'm just like, I'm not going to pee myself for this race today. So I took 90 seconds in T2. 90 seconds to pee, dude? No, well, it was 90 seconds. I had to run back towards a race today. porta potty's. I timed it with my, I looked on training peaks and I like highlighted that exact brutal. Yeah, it's fine. I was just like, you know what? I'm peeing, which means I'm not dehydrated.

I was like, it was all good stuff. And your swim sucked, so you were just like there to be there. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm trying to teach myself like, hey, this is fun. You do this for fun. This is Eric and Paul's job. Your job is to be one of the people that are out here doing it for fun. And so that's what I was doing. And I was really proud of my bike. I was going to pee when I have to pee. Yeah, I was going to be a goddamn port potty, not on my leg. It was one of the big ones, one of the big port-a-potty, so I felt like a king. Then onto the run started out a little too fast because last year I kind of started out a little too conservative, so I thought. Well, you were fresh and you were fresh from going to the bathroom.

That's right. I was fresh. And like a new man. Light and breezy. Yeah. So the run felt the first half, I mean, nothing that exciting happened on the run. The first half felt good and the second half was. very hard for me.

I mean, that's how racing goes, I guess. But the new course had, compared to last year, we did three loops. This year, we did two loops. It had an extra 100 feet of climbing, but it was so worth it. We went into this park, this out and back on this beautiful park. And when you're running back, you can kind of see Moro Rock through the trees, really scenic. I really do recommend this race to people. I think it's great.

I don't know what they're going to do next year and following years to make sure the swim goes well, Ironman is very well aware that the swim was an issue, so I'm sure they're going to look into it and fix it. But at one point, David was out on chorus because he was supposed to run 30 miles with his friend the day before, and he was

on the tracker, and he ran him, he's like, you're a minute down or a minute and a half down from eighth place. And in my head, I'm like, I've never been top 10 age group in an Iron Man race in a 70.3. So I was like, okay, this is happening. I could actually do this. And then

The idea in my mind of qualifying for 70.3 world started to kind of, like, sink in just a little bit. So I just kind of held on. I did 65 grams of carbs per hour on the run and never felt sick all day, just like stomach ironclad. I felt like Paula who can just eat anything and never feel sick. Or eat nothing and never feel bad. Yeah. She's an alien in that respect. But then kind of like was falling apart a bit at the end and kind of slow down a bit and felt, I felt like multiple body systems kind of being like, hey, what are we doing here? This cannot go on for much longer.

We're going to start falling apart. But then I finished the run and I had a good run not quite as fast as last year, but I think with the extra climbing is probably close to identical. I did a 130 half marathon. And then as soon as I finished, it was, I didn't, I, once again, I had not thought about the swim. I was just like, yeah, I had a bad swim. I swim poorly.

This is my thing. everyone, all anyone could talk about was what happened on that swim. And then everyone starts to figure out, oh, there was a current. And then everyone's talking about that. But man, vibes for me at the end, vibes were high. I was really stoked. Also, this was my first race with the TTL kit. And I just, it's something about having that big logo on the back.

So many people cheering TTL during the race. People that were racing, people that were. just watching the race. It was so awesome. And the first lap I was like, you know, yelling back. But the second lap, I'm like, just don't die. You know, just like focus. So thank you for everyone that said something.

But I was so dead the second lap that I was just focusing on getting to the finish. I think for next year, if anyone's going to invest in a kit purchase that's going to return the investment on number of cheers on course, TTL is the only kit that makes sense. Like you get a Zoot kit. It's going to be super comfy. and you're going to look like 200 other people in the race. But you wear a TTL kit. You're getting so many cheers.

Instant friends, instant cheers. Instant vibes. Instant community. Even people that don't have gear themselves know who it is. Yes. They're going to cheer for a TTL. It's just, I think it's so fun. This is exactly what we wanted it to be.

It's amazing. It's like a, I swear it made me race better whenever someone cheered. And it was, I mean, without exaggerating, it was like every 15 to 20 seconds I would hear a TTR or go Nick or something like that. Outrageous. The kit makes a big difference.

It's like a beacon, you know? Totally, yeah. I think that this should be a good lesson for people that want to get TTR kits for next year potentially. Plant that in your brain. Plant that in your brain. And Nick, how is the kit in terms of comfort?

The kit is perfectly comfortable. It worked for me just fine. Yep, worked for me just fine. It's a little tight around my... I just have thick legs. So it's a little tight around my legs, but very comfortable around my torso. I forget what size I got. I think I got a medium.

But, yeah, loved it. I mean, I just felt proud to represent TTL. And it was a very fun. The whole thing, which just made the whole run so much more fun instead of feeling like you're out there by yourself. Totally, yeah. So do you think people were recognizing you or the kit or both? Both, I would say. Probably both.

They see the kit. That attracts their eye. oh, it's Nick, and then they'll say, go Nick or TTL Nash or something like that. I've definitely heard people, people have definitely messaged us who are not Nick

and said that they've experienced a similar thing running in the kit. So it's not just a Nick thing. And I'll even say that later I went to awards because I was hoping to get a slot for 70.3 World Championships and

right, you know, they call all the age groups and then they call my age group and everyone kind of claps for someone who accepts their slot. And I'm very happy to say, I'm not going to get emotional about it. But my first message to Eric, you know, next week on the podcast, I'll read it. But my first message to Eric when we first started talking, I mentioned that I was trying to qualify for 70.3 worlds.

And that was years and years and years ago now, many 70.3s ago. And I got eighth in my age group this year at this race, which is by far the best I've finished. and I got the second slot for 35 to 39. And when they call my name and I said, yes, there was just a little bit of a cheer that happened because some people were there who listened to the podcast and knew that I was looking for that 70.3 world slot. And it felt really special.

My parents were there too. So yes, I accepted the slot. Looks like we're all going to New Zealand and sleeping in tents. Can't wait. Yeah. Bring a sleeping bag. Sleep next to your bike. We did have a few people email about having extra rooms with their Airbnbs.

So that's really nice to people. Thank you. Well, I know you guys aren't, or I don't know if we want to say this, but I know you guys aren't 100% sure if you're going. Only because of the freaking hotel room situation. Yeah, I'm zero percent going. I'll just throw it out there immediately. Well, you might come with us. I would really prefer if none of us went and we just took a vacation in Yosemite.

But, you know, if that's what you guys want to do. Well, maybe I'll go with Nick. Maybe Nick will be my Sherpa. Okay. My parents are going to go, so the four of us together could go and they could be our Sherpas. Oh, that sounds fun. That sounds fun. It's just a little too close to travel nightmare for me to think about traveling New Zealand right now.

So check back later. Right, right. Anyway, oh, something we didn't mention too is that the TTL, like, little shakeout run the day before the race, that was super fun too. Everyone showed up to that, and we did a little run. I mean, just, I had a great weekend. The only negative mark was how many people. people were so upset about the swim and how negative an experience it was for them. Yeah, that's tough.

Well, we're really happy for you, Nick. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. It was not my fastest 70.3 time. But if I had a normal swim, it would have been a PR overall for 70.3 as well. Old weather boy. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know how much I ever want to do a cold water race again. Even though it wasn't that bad, I just, I freak out the days before the race too much about it. I don't know what it is. some weird. You were being a little bit about it, I won't lie. Yeah, I am. Checking two different websites for the satellite imagery of the water temperature. Dude, just show up and do it.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. But I'm very pleased. And once again, thank you so much to everyone that shouted something out on the run. And even on the bike, too. And yeah, I just love the vibe at races. It's so fun.

It's so fun. So you guys have done your race recaps. Do you want me to do a garage sale recap? Before we fully move off of race recaps, I just want to say that the development team had an incredible weekend of racing as well. Anzley Queen, she did her first 70.3 race in Chattanooga. She got 12th in her very first professional 70.3 race.

Wow. Yep, that's freaking awesome. I did a run with Ansley when I was in Colorado for the Foreign Rider film premiere. She's super cool. If you don't follow her or support her, I would highly recommend doing that. And then John Reed, he went to Hotoko, Mexico,

which is also known as the surface of the sun slash Mars. And he got third in the World Cup there, which a World Cup podium is a huge deal. The best World Cup place that I ever got was second, so I'm still a little better than John. He's got a lot of years ahead of him, and I have no doubt he's got a win in his future, but that's a lot of points.

It's a really big deal to tough race. Richard Murray got first. Like to me, seeing someone cross an ITU finish line podium with the TTR logo, that's like a million times cooler than anything else TCL, in my opinion, because that's where I came from. Yeah. Like having a logo on your kit as an ITU athlete and having a sponsor. And it's really cool. So to see that on John's kit and plus John is just so cool himself, it was really, really awesome to watch that. So congrats to John.

We have an utmost respect for chasing that. particular pipeline and pathway and yeah we're just have him represent us super well yeah our goal he said he's down but we're going to try to get him on the podcast next week for a little bit of a recap you know sort of thing about his journey in that race um so just you have be looking forward to that also if um we do have a link on our website to donate to the devo team i know the initial way to support the devo team was to buy a kit but if you miss that and you want to support them all the money we get from that donation goes straight back to them. So that's an option as well.

That's awesome. Great. Well, do we have time for a couple questions here? I think so. I mean, time is on issue. It's just the brainpower. So let's see what we can do. One sec. One sec. The garage sale was a huge success.

Oh, right, right, right, right. I put like, it must have been a hundred things on there. Like all the Castelli stuff with the EG1 logo and a bunch of TTL stuff we had. Went to the post office and the guy was a little bit grumpy at me, because I had 100 packages to send out. But it was worth it. It was so much work. I'm taking a pause from it right now

because it's pretty empty, but there are some bikes that I'm putting on there. There's some disc wheels, a couple wet seats left. I still am going to keep it alive, but the bulk, like, single t-shirt shipping was too much for me. Yeah, yeah.

So that's the end of that. But we'll still do big-ticket items, periodically throughout the year. Thank you to everyone who bought something. Yeah. If you do want a very cheap TTR thing, we do have a few things on sale on the website. So you go check that out.

Just scratch your itch for deals. Oh, yeah. Love it. Okay, sorry to cut your garage sale off, Paul. I know that's very near and dear to your heart. Let's do questions. Yeah, I didn't cut your race recap off, Nick. No, you're right.

Literally. So you're saying that, Did Nick edit out the snoring during the race recap? No, I truly, I think Nick, it dragged on a little bit, but I really enjoy his race recaps. I mean, he's a passionate, he had a great race. I think it was a great race recap. Thank you, Paula.

Very impassionate. Thank you. Okay. First question here is from Taylor. Hi, TTL crew. I just completed my first triathlon at Chattanooga 70.3 this weekend, after taking on my first trail race during a 50k back in the fall. Is a coach actually worth it for someone that enjoys the sport for the activities they are?

Has modest time goals, enjoys learning about training methodologies, but isn't trying to be elite. If coaching is something I should pursue as I look to continue progressing in my training, how would you recommend on choosing one when most of the conversations with the coaches I spoke to seem to be pretty similar? I know this is a loaded question, but would appreciate any insight. you may have best Taylor. I think this is a bit of a journey. You're not necessarily going to find the first, the first coach you find is not,

it's going to be like your dream coach and your life partner in terms of coaching. It might take one or two to find somebody who really lines up with you and your goals and your style. But I don't think it's unreasonable all to find somebody who kind of matches up with what you just described. You just got to be super upfront.

The person who comes to mind, just when I was hearing this, and this is not a knock against him, but Matt Lieto, here in Bend, I think has like a very holistic approach as a coach where he realized people have jobs and people want to go climb mountains and do skiing and also do triathlon or maybe a gravel race. And the people that I've talked to who have used him as a coach feel like he's very receptive to them bringing stuff up like that.

Versus like the first triathlon coach that I worked with was like a drill sergeant and thought everybody should be super committed and trying to go to USAT Nationals and like getting 10 hours of sleep at night and doing whatever. it took to live like a pro athlete. So I think just having a very upfront conversation with that coach and explaining how you want to operate and your goals is huge. She's asking if it's like worth it. I would say, yeah.

For sure worth it. And I think it takes the thinking out of what you're going to do every day. It's really nice for most people to have something on paper that they can check off that they've done and not question whether it was the right thing to do or should I do another workout today or do I need to, you know, when do I do you get in my long ride? Just having someone who understands the general what it looks like to train for a triathlon if you're fairly new to it. And hopefully it has a little bit of science and nutrition experience and can share that

with you as well. Yeah. Yeah. I think it really makes you feel like you're doing things properly and you're moving in direction and purposefully. And that's a really good feeling. It's like the same thing as why would you get a nice bike with a disc wheel? Because it makes it more fun.

It makes it feel more real. It's, and not everyone needs that. Some people will like to race triathlon on a mountain bike on a road course. Yeah, I was definitely going to say just race, right a mountain bike, but not on a road course, on a dirt course. Yeah, right. Okay, great. Next question here is from Allison. Hi, TT, a long-time fan of the podcast and big fan of Paula since her ITU days.

I tried my first sprint in Victoria and wore braids in my hair because she did back then, not realizing that we're the most uncomfortable things in my helmet at the time. massive headache coming off the bike. I'm hoping that Nick gets to talk about his swim at Morrow Bay. This leads me to my question about the swim temperature and the pro field. Why do pros have a different temperature for wetsuit legal than the age group field? I remember in Whistler, where the lake is quite cold, Trevor Wirtel declined to start because it was a non-wetsuit swim for the pros and a wetsuit for the age groupers.

The cold was just not going to get him off, a safe start for the day for an Iron Man. Fair enough. why the difference. Thanks, and I really hope to see you in. I think it's called Topaw. Someone from New Zealand message me, and let me know how it's pronounced. But Topa, it is a beautiful venue

and will be an amazing and unforgettable event, Allison. The professional swim temperatures are lower, I think, probably because, generally speaking, we're pushing ourselves harder than, like, you know, if you just pick like the average of the average age grouper. We're running a little bit higher heart rate

and effort levels higher. You're generating a little bit more body heat and there's really no concern of buoyancy with us completing the swim. So there would potentially be more of a concern of overheating. People have passed away in professional swim races due to overheating. So I think it's just that's my thought on it.

We're professional athletes. This is our job. train to swim in cold temperatures no matter what. You're in the water less too, since you're so much faster. Yeah. If I'm a race director, yeah, I'm going to want the age group wet suit cutoff to be quite high just so the maximum number of people have floating life preservers wrapped around their body, let alone, you know, for the temperature issue.

Totally. Okay, and we'll do maybe one, maybe two more questions here, but hey Nick, Paula, Eric and Flynn. fresh off Moro Bay 70.3 where I had to stop three times on the bike course for mechanicals admittedly all related to the same issue with my rear derailer and likely caused by my poor bike mechanic skills

race brain. My question is what pre-race checks do you do on your bike to ensure your bike is race ready? Interested in both your perspective as pros, is Nick not a pro yet? Yeah, no Nick is not a pro. Not even close, by the way. Definitely a bro. Yeah, I'm a bro.

I'm a bro. I'm a bro. who wanted to super fine-tune your bikes for each race and any advice for any age group or with limited knowledge who doesn't want to spend Boku bucks on a bike tune up before every race but also doesn't want their back wheel to fall off at mile 40.

Love everything you do for the sport. Marcos from Argentina. This was my favorite question that was sent in this week. I think it's so applicable because even as a pro, if Eric's not with me, what are the things I need to make sure

are good? and the bike's ready to go and the bike is in prime condition and not just taken off the wall for a training ride with gunk on it, you know? Mm-hmm. So what would you say, Eric?

This is a question for Eric, but I love this question. I mean, this is, this could be a long question. Like a simple, a simple check. Like, personally, I say, like, go through with an Allen key and tighten all the bolts.

Don't just tighten every single bolt a quarter turn. Like, if you have a torque wrench, Torque the things to torque. Otherwise, like your fifth race of the year, everything's snapping. Yeah, make sure nothing is loose. For sure, that's a good one. Especially things like around your arrow bars, your handlebars, make sure nothing is loose.

If you have a torque wrench and you can torque things to spec, that is fantastic. Especially if you've just assembled it to travel. Yes. Obviously. If you have mechanical shifting, just like looking at the cables where they meet the derailer, where they're in the actual mechanical shifter,

like at the end of your air bars, making sure nothing is frayed or looking rusted. There are ways to see more of the cable than what's exposed, but I think it's a little complicated for podcast. I would check your brakes. You know, look at your brakes if you have disc brakes and make sure that you're not running really low on pad compound. And then if you have rim brakes, again, same thing. It's hard to really describe what a unused brake versus a very used brake versus a very used brake pad looks like, but it should be nowhere near the brake shoe, which is the metal thing

that holds the rubber brake pad. It should be nowhere near rubbing down to that point. You should have, I don't know, I'm just going to say like... But who has mechanical braking? I don't know. I'm just like... Oh, plenty of people. Plenty of people still do. Plenty of people. I would run through the shifting, you know, put it in the big ring, put it in the small ring,

try to get through every single gear, make sure it shifts into those gears, isn't skipping gears. It doesn't drop the chain when you do a shift from the big ring to smaller. So are these all things that someone could do without much bike knowledge? No, I really think the solution here is you take at your bike shop and

you get a pre-race tune-up. When I worked in a bike shop, we did a $35 pre-race tune-up and this is all that happened. We just like went through the bikes, made sure they weren't going to break. Okay, yeah. 35 is probably, that's a fair amount. Just say like, you just call the bike shop, say, hey, I don't need anything

drastic done to this bike. I just want to make sure that it's good to race and it's not going to break on me. And I feel like that should be like in the 50 bucks, maybe now with COVID dollars. I don't know. Yeah, and do it maybe before you leave for the race. So you're not trying to overwhelm the bike shop at the local. Get it two weeks out. Call them, tell them when the race day is. Make sure that you got enough time. That would be my number one recommendation. Otherwise, go through the things that I just said. I would also be so willing to bet that if you put into YouTube pre-race bike check, something is going to pop up. And if it doesn't, email us and we'll freaking make one.

Yes. Because that should exist. Maybe we should make one anyway. Maybe we'll make one anyway. Nick, come up here and help us make a pre-race bike check video. I love that. We have a few ideas like that that we want to do. So that'll be one of them.

Yeah. The one thing I thought of too is if you are traveling, make sure that you don't just build your bike in your Airbnb and then go race it the next day. Make sure you ride that a little bit. A pre-ride would be good. Check your tires. Make sure that your tires aren't flattened off on the part that you ride on.

in which case they're running low on rubber and you could get a flat very easily. That's it. I mean, like you could go wildly in depth. You could just marry a bike mechanic. Yeah, it's like significantly easier if you just date a mechanic and are a world-class athlete, so they're super motivated to keep your bike tuned up perfectly. Nick sent me a funny reel the other day or whatever you call those stupid Instagram things. And the guy, the husband is like, did you pump up?

your bike tires? And the girl was like, I'm the talent. I'm not supposed to do that. Not supposed to worry about such things. I have the talent. You know what's funny? Is that Paula, relatively speaking,

is probably a great bike mechanic. She knows a lot of stuff. She's had to travel with bikes a lot by herself. But we paint her as this clueless person. But it's just because Eric is so good at it. Like, Paula could totally work on her own bike. Maybe she couldn't do the really intense. stuff. But do you not agree?

Yeah, I agree. 100% can build and unbuild the bike and pack it by herself. We definitely go with like a dividing conquer strategy when we travel. If Paula wasn't there, I would starve. I would absolutely starve. The clothes would never be clean. And if I'm not there, then Paula has to build her bike. You know, it's like just more efficient.

Stick to what you're good at. She does a couple of things while I'm building both bikes really quickly and efficiently. You know, it's a good strategy. Yeah. Someone's on a question in this week about like, how if you, made your marriage work after all these years. I got bad news. We're not even married yet. So hold your

horses. Still in the test phase. We're still the testing phase. Well, man, I have a bunch of questions I still wanted to get to today, but... Did we fail to mention that Nick is in his Tesla, like in the middle of nowhere recording this? That's correct. And he still has to edit

it? Oh my gosh. Yeah, we should probably save the questions for next week. I think this was a real recap heavy. pod, but, you know, and history shows people like that. I think also people are pretty fired up about at least, I don't know,

maybe my social media is really prioritizing it, but fired up about the moral base run. Xera. Well, I'm fired up about Xtera. Well, I'm fired up about Xtera. Especially the short track. That's what we do here, man. We make sure we hit all the dramatic things going on in triathlon,

breaking news. Yes. Yes. Well, thanks for bearing with us, everybody. And I don't know, I could answer questions all night, but it sounds like we're saving some for next week. So thanks for listening. Yeah, it seems so lame to answer just three

because that's like the whole basis of our pod, but it's okay. You know what? We're going to be doing this for a little while longer if this is not the last one. That's true. That's true. It's pretty rare that we have to do two recaps in one podcast. Yep.

Doubleheader special. Yep. Okay. Well, Nick, drive safe. We'll chat with you guys next Thursday. Ciao. Later. Bye.