That Triathlon Life Podcast - Failing triathlon workouts, Ironman World Championships, open water, junk miles, and more!

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

This week we start by briefly talking about Ironman World Championships, then we get some rapid fire questions in. We do a deep dive into dealing with failing triathlon workouts and some questions about staying calm in open water, as well as junk miles and more! For everything else, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggersham. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And this is where we do a lot of different things. We talk about dogs. We take your questions and we try our best to answer them. And Paul and I are both professional triathletes. And Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlete and just one of our very best friends. And when you say stuff, you mean triathlon. Traathlon stuff for the most part. Yeah. We do triathlon adjacent stuff too, though. Sure, yeah.

It's not solely triathlon, but yes, the focus is triathlon. Yeah. Yeah. Of all the triathlon podcasts, I'd say we definitely deviate the most. Yes. But I will say, I don't know if we've said this on the pod yet, but if you search the word triathlon in Spotify or in Apple Podcasts, we are the first podcast result to come up, which I feel like it's pretty crazy.

I think this was just this weak realization. So what happened since we even talked last. Right. I don't know if we're the most popular triathlon podcast. I don't think we necessarily are. I guess I don't, I don't, there's no way for us to really know that, but we are the one that the algorithm is like, yeah, I guess we're trending. Or hashtag trending. And that's all because of you guys all listening.

So thank you for being so loyal to the pod. And to be honest, we usually record this on Tuesday night. Right now it's like Wednesday at 3 p.m., which is super unusual for us to be recording in the daylight. But we had a stressful day yesterday. We were tired. I had a shitty slash didn't even do my. my workouts. Same with Nick. So we just decided to push it back. And it would have been really easy for us to just skip a week. But because of you guys and everyone who tells us they listen to this,

we are powering through. We are. We can handle it. Actually, I don't know yet if we can handle it. We'll see if we just break down in the middle of this and start collectively crying or not. Yeah, it might happen. I've cried a lot in the last day or two. Well, I was telling Nick when we were all collectively considering not doing it, I was like, I'm always in a better mood after we do this. It's like, it's a mood booster. It's like getting out the door to do anything. It sounds like a thing, but then once you're out, you're like, oh, I'm so glad I went out.

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes I'm like, okay, we got to prep all the questions. And I go through them and I like strike through the sections that are little, that are saying nice things about us, but not everyone necessarily has to hear. And then putting them in the right order, sometimes I have a little game at the beginning, so I pick that out. But then once we do it, it's always very fun. And then I always love when it's out. and some people like send us a message about a joke that was on the podcast or something like that. It's always really nice. It's very rewarding.

So that's us loosely complaining about having a podcast that's successful. Right. And we didn't even have to race a full Iron Man this weekend. So I feel like it's a we all have our own struggles in our own ways. I don't know. After watching that race and having Heather and Lindsay both in it, we know so many people. It was emotional. Yeah. You have a little bit of this like emotional letdown like you did race. Oh, that was crazy. For everyone who doesn't know, I guess,

there might be some people that don't know. Full distance Iron Man World Championships were this last weekend. Eric and Paula are professionals in the 70.3 and Olympic distance. They've been noticed an Olympic, but they don't even do that. So that's why they weren't there

if anyone was wondering. No, just there in spirit. But we had friends. We had friends who did it, and it was a wild day. Wild. Yeah. Yeah.

Fun to watch. I would say it's one of the most exciting, Iron Man World Championships I've watched is because the outcome seemed so unknown. There were guys who were not considered to be necessarily the favorites that were leading the bike the entire way. The super bikers didn't bring

back any time on them. Some of the biggest names in the sport, Jan Fernando and Gustav Eden didn't race due to sickness and injury. I just felt like a free-for-all and it was really exciting the whole time. And Paula raced 70.3 Oceanside a few weeks ago

and she raced against Danielle Arif. and Paula finished way ahead of Daniela, and then Daniela came back a few weeks later, and then just won world championships for full distance decidedly. It wasn't really close. So it was exciting in that way, too. I mean, it was just a fun race, and we're so used to Kona. So it was kind of interesting to see it in St. George.

Yeah. It also was eye-opening to how fragile the whole balance between being fit and being sick can be, seeing like two of the main contenders for the men, Alastair and Gustav pull out the day before. And then some women after saying that they had been sick, it's just really this fine line that we all kind of have to tread when we're trying to stay fit for the whole season,

but get really fit for one race. And you're kind of always exposed during race week to the potential of getting sick with interacting with so many people. So I think it's important, like, realization for us to try to stay as healthy as possible sickness-wise now that everyone's back out, not wearing masks, you know? Well, I heard it a few times in leading up to this race,

because a lot of people have been talking, we're talking about it, like, oh, but so many people are missing. It's not even a real world championship. Except that's,

I, Lionel said this really well, but part of the race is showing up at the beginning. So if you're working way too hard and you're working so hard that you get injured or that you get sick,

it's like, okay, well, you're competing against people who maybe rode that line a little bit better and didn't get injured and didn't get sick

and they were able to show up. This is what we do. It's not like, I don't know, It's not like you were in a car accident. You're sick. A lot of people are sick because they're pushing their bodies a little bit too much, and their immune system is compromised, so they get sick a little easier.

100%. It's part of it. Anyway, we don't need to talk about that forever, but it was really fun. If you haven't seen it, try to find a highlight or something because it was pretty exciting to watch, especially the men's second and third place was very exciting. And then seeing Danielle do so well for me, it was really thrilling, too. Yeah. Every triathlon podcast is debriefed World Championship.

We don't want to be that podcast. Right. We do want to make one thing. We want to congratulate our friend Lindsay Corbyn for being the pro triathlete who has completed the most World Championships, Iron Man World Championships. Yeah.

That's awesome. That's quite a feat. Is it 15? 15 or 14? What? Yeah. Absurd. Oh my God.

I did not know that. I thought it was like eight or something. No, double digits long time ago. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Okay.

Well, congratulations, Lindsay. We're going to move right on to the questions because someone made a rapid fire for us. So I think I wanted to start with that. So the question is, hello Eric, Paula, Nick Flynn, in whatever order, which I love, a little callback joke from earlier in the pod. I got some quick fire. Would you rather questions for y'all? If you're down to play, we are. First one for Paula, favorite world and or root on Zwift.

I like the new, I don't even know how to say. it, I'm going to mess up the name, Macuri Island or like the one in Japan. Cool. Is that how you say it? I don't know. Don't Zwift. Oh, yeah, you don't swift. Macquarie, whatever.

What I like to do, this is not, I'll keep this rapid, but what's a fun thing to do is find a route you have never done before. And I think you get more points if you complete a route that is new to you. So I just go through and like, the ones I don't have yet are like the four horsemen and like the mega pretzel ones that really require like a four plus hour trainer ride. But it is cool to just pick a different route every time. Cool, cool. Then for me, would you rather have sweaty palms forever to always be cold? I have very dry palms, so I could do the second half of my life with sweaty palms. That sounds exciting. Being cold all the time is miserable. That's why I live in California. So, no, no thanks to that. Sweaty palms, I'll take it. Eric, having to race a bike, you didn't get to check yourself beforehand. Oh, they really zeroed in on your neuroses, Eric, or having the swim part of the race canceled.

Oh, wow. But they also said the caveat is nothing too bad can happen to the bike. But is it like, does the bike fit me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think they're right. You just didn't get to go through it.

Yeah, yeah. I'll risk it. You'll risk it. You'll risk it. Yeah, the race is, the swim is too valuable. Yeah, yeah. I feel confident that I, you know, might be able to just push through whatever it is

or potentially fix it quickly. Yeah. A swim is just. For people who don't know, before every race, Eric takes a magnifying glass to every millimeter of the bike. and inspects each chain link by hand, disassembles the headset,

rebuilds his wheels, and rewraps his handlebar tape. This is not true, but the more excited I am about a race, the more I clean the bike, and I definitely always check my seat post. Right. With a tour crunch now.

That's true. Paula, would you rather have to swim your race in pools only, or only get to train the bike outside. No more trainer ever? Wow, this person knows us. They know, I say. I really know us. I was thinking about this the other day.

I don't know why. Just swimming in a pool, I'm really not as good as I am open water. But it depends where I live. Yeah, but the no more trainer for you, I just don't see that being a possibility at all. Right? Like you guys...

It is if I lived here. Yeah, I could do it. Interesting, interesting. I don't even think Eric could live without the trainer. There's a lot of cars. Potentially, yeah, yeah. Okay, fine. I picked the pool swimming.

Yeah, I think, well, I feel like, I answer that question for you. I'm sorry. No, you're right, though. You know me better than myself. Eric, and I know myself. Eric, it starts raining every time

your 15 minutes into a ride or your shoelace keeps unleashing it like every five minutes. Wow. For the rest of my life? It's got to be the, you got to do the rain, right? Because the shoelace every five minutes is,

what are you going to do? Yeah. And starting to rain 15 minutes into the ride is definitely better than trying to start while it's raining. Yeah. And you could always get cool, up Velcro shoes like I had when I was five years old.

There is enough gear to handle the war rain. It just takes a long time to put it on. Nick, your lane at the pool is always full of people, or your run is always the third slowest run of the whole race. Well, third slowest run of the whole race would be an upgrade, so I wouldn't mind that, I guess. Today, I swam with two older ladies at the pool, and they loved me. They said, are you sure you're not going to be too fast?

And I was swimming well, and they're like, oh, you're so fast. I'm like, I'm always the slowest guy. So you guys are my heroes. You're making my day right now. What days do you swim? Yeah. I'm coming here every Wednesday at 11. For all of us, doing a full 70.3 at night or doing Ironman distance wearing baggy cotton clothes.

Yes, even in the swim. At night. 70.3 at night. That'd be sick. I would love a 70.3 at night. I mean, like, the Daytona, the first Daytona was at night, right? for the men they went into like sort of dark yeah yeah that was cool that's it that's a great one and then last one this one's for Flynn never get a KOM ever again or never have banana bread again

well he's never have a banana bread again so well he wasn't supposed to have banana bread the first time so yeah exactly you know now yeah it's funny though just to confirm that it's just banana bread we left cookies like on the table fully accessible yesterday not interested no he wants He wants that hazel and blue banana bread. He's got a very sophisticated palette. Yeah. Thanks in advance for playing along and much love from Switzerland, from Matild. That was a fun one.

That was a fun one. That's great. Great job, Matild. All right. Moving on to the real questions here. Hi, Paula, Eric, and Nick, writing to you from Halifax, Nova Scotia. They said some real nice stuff. And then a couple questions for the podcast. How do you cope with a failed workout?

By this, I mean starting a workout, but being unable to complete it at intended intensity and duration. Wondering what your mentality is coming out of a session that just doesn't go according to the plan and whether you would come back to the workout again in the same week or if you would just let it be and move on. Just one of you in particular want to take this one? Wow, this is so applicable to me. I feel like this is our deep dive for the podcast.

I put it first because I wanted to make sure no matter what happened with talking about world championships and all the other stuff that we got to it because it seems Yeah. Yeah. Very apropical. It doesn't happen that often, but often before a workout where it doesn't go well, I like have an idea that it's not going to go well. Either I like got my period or I don't know if you want to put that in the podcast.

But there's generally signs that point towards I am really tired. This is going to be a stretch. And sometimes not only physically, but just mentally wrapping your head around how hard a workout is going to be. And you really have to be set to dive that deep. physically. So yesterday I had one of those days I was supposed to do six by four minutes on the bike hard and I did the warm up and I just could not even fathom doing one. Did the first 30 seconds could like my heart rate got out of control. It's kind of crazy because I think there is definitely a psychological effect where my breathing starts getting too, you know, panicked almost because I

feel nervous about it or I don't want to do it. So I pulled the plug, went home, was let it affect my mood way too much for the rest of the day. Thankfully, Eric is very understanding and he's an angel and puts up with me. But I, it's really hard for me to like move past it. And my coach generally says, don't try to redo it the next day. Like what's done is done. Just move on to the next thing. But for me, for this workout, I did retry it today. And that helped me get over it yesterday because I was like, okay, maybe tomorrow I'll feel better. And I need to get a good sleep. And then I'll complete it better. So you kind of have to play it by year depending on what the week looks like. if you feel like you can mentally give it another try.

Wow, I thought in no world should you redo a workout that you failed, and then here you are, you've redid it, and it was actually beneficial for you think, maybe even just mentally. Yeah, I think so. Like the same thing up in the pool this morning. I went to the pool, did 1,000 meters and got out and went to the sauna. I never do that, but I was just, I'm in this weird funk where I'm like not motivated to train. I don't feel good.

I'm tired. I was worried I was getting sick. but I knew that the feeling I had last night after not finishing that workout was so terrible that if I just tried again today and even if I didn't hit the watts that I thought of at least I gave it a try and whatever so it went a lot better today

and now I'm in a better mood and hence we're doing the podcast. It's so confusing though because I've had workouts that have failed too and I feel like I don't know why they fail sometimes. Yeah. You know, like, it just, do you, you said you know going in sometimes. And when I see a workout that's really hard, sometimes I feel like I'm the reason it's failing. Like I'm like, this is too hard. I can't do it. And when you enter a workout like that, it's just not a great way to enter it. But there's times where I'm like, I'm going to go do this and then I'm just like, I physically can't do this. I can't complete this. I mean, how do you deal with that? Do you even try to, is the healthiest thing to do, just be like, forget about it, move on? Or is it to try to understand whatever caused that?

there's definitely a learning curve of looking back at the last few days and did I not sleep well the night before or did I not eat enough or did I not have coffee or like with something off in my routine. And for us, the last week has been a little bit hectic and we haven't slept quite as well after coming back from Florida. So there's a bunch of signs that point towards having a day where you're really tired and that's okay. And I think the important thing is just accepting that. But you're right. It's really hard sometimes to understand why your body's not doing what you tell it to do. but you just have to keep in mind that stress, your body

doesn't know the difference between like mental stress, physical stress, it's just stress. So if you show up at a hard session and you're unable to get to that really deep place where you have to go to push high watts, that's sometimes just due to total stress and yeah, I think

that's okay. Well, I just wanted to add one more thing, and maybe it's a little funny coming from me, but Paul in the past, you said this doesn't affect you as much, but depending where you are in your cycle as a woman, it can have humongous effect on how much you can perform athletically. And I've listened to this and read about it a little bit, and it definitely varies from woman to woman, but it can be a huge deal.

So I guess for the women who listen to this podcast, kind of keep that in mind and maybe try to figure out what that means for you as far as training and racing. Yeah, I've only recently started tracking pretty specifically with my aura ring, because it can kind of, I don't know if it predicts, but it definitely keeps like a more regular schedule of like when you can expect your period to come next. So it makes sense if I'm like extremely grumpy and tired one day and then get my period the next day. It's like that makes, it all makes sense. Does it track your body temperature? Yeah, it does. It probably does that because I know some some of my friends that track their period purely through taking their temperature

and the first thing they wake up in the morning and it's extremely accurate. Yeah, yeah. It tracks temperature but it also predicts based on what your monthly cycle is. So I can look ahead and see like, oh, this weekend, that's my next whatever. Right, right. Cool. Yeah. Eric, what about you? How do you deal with like failed workouts?

How often does, I mean, how often does that happen to you in general, would you say? And like in a- Eric always finishes the workouts. Yeah. I'm definitely like the type of mindset of like if I quit one workout, then it just makes it easier to quit the next one. So for the most part, like, no matter how I'm feeling, I'll always start and do one rep. And 99.9% of the time, like, maybe it's not that exciting, but I can kind of start to build through the workout and get something out of it. And that's like, I don't know, that

gives me a lot of confidence when I go into a race because, you know, whatever, like, half of the time when you're going into a race, you feel great. And the other half of the time, you feel completely flat and garbage and then you just don't know what it's going to be like until you start. And so it's like a good, yeah. That's true. Like mental confidence booster to know like, oh man, I did, I had like these five workouts where I just felt like total garbage and I was really tired and I still just pushed really good power or ran well.

And, you know, there was nothing indicating before the workout that that would happen. Yeah, you don't have to feel good to have a good workout. That's the other part of this is it's always a good idea to try it, which I did yesterday. And it just wasn't happening. I just remembered too that your coach gives you non, like when he's telling you how much to do on the bike he's using words that relate to perceived exertion more so than actual watt numbers, right?

Yeah, this year he's gone a little bit more to actually giving us from prescribed wattages. Okay. So now my solid zone, which is like typically Olympic distance pace, he's actually given a range of wattages for that. But like just for example, like me, like my wadage's range is 320 to 340 and I like just try to get my first one above 320

and then build from there and some days I start and I'm like hit 330 and some days I start and I hit 315 but I just like constantly trying to get into that range versus Paula has like whatever 270 to 290 and just like set the standard for herself if they all need to be 290 and you know which is which is awesome if you can do that but also it is like mentally a little bigger pill to swallow

as you're getting ready to go do the thing. Yeah. The more that you've, like, crushed a certain workout, you know, you remember that and you can only go down. Yeah. Inside of a block sometimes. Yeah, I see. I see.

I don't know. The other thing, too, like, I try to be pretty much like a goldfish when it comes to workouts. I really miss the days when we were part of the squad, and you would just show up to the hard bike workout with all your teammates. And then Paulo would say, okay, we're doing 10 by 2 minutes. or we're doing six by three and you just you knew it was going to be a hard workout you didn't know the exact thing and start mentally thinking about what you did the last time you did that workout and so I'll try to do that sometimes like I'll know that we're doing like just going blind

yeah I know we're doing like a longish kind of thing but then I'll like actually check and like make sure I know the specific length of time and the recoveries like as I'm riding to the hill that we're doing it on Paula do you feel like you benefit more from knowing what the workout is beforehand and kind of psyching yourself up to it or do you think you benefit more from, oh, here we are showing up. I didn't have to dread it now because I didn't know what it was. I don't know. I've never really been in that position where I don't know.

So I would say I prefer to dwell on it for at least 48 hours. You're kidding. But for me, like, I do like to see it coming. I like to like, okay, kind of visualize it here it comes. Because weeks from really busy and I don't have time to do that. And I just like, oh, okay, now I have to go off for this hard run. It kind of feels like it's like, I don't know. know, catching me off guard in a weird way, and I'm not emotionally prepared to, like, put

myself in that hard mental place. Yeah. Everyone's different. Everyone's different with that. No, there's definitely a component to that. Anyway, that was the first part, half of their question. The second half is a little more light. What are your pro tips for achieving the perfect transition?

I'm considering cutting the bottom of my wetsuit based on conversation than previous podcast, but I'm curious what other lesser known tips could benefit TTL Nation. So let's, let's, for the sake of the podcast, let's talk about T1. Just for the sake of you cutting your wetsuit, my advice would be to not cut it just like straight across. You want to kind of cut like a half moon sort of thing into it. That'll definitely help that come off better. Like most wetsuits, I think if you kind of mirror the way that it already looks at the

bottom versus just going straight across, that'll be helpful. And it really, I mean, it just totally depends on the wetsuit whether or not you need to do that. I think a lot of wetsuits kind of have a seam protector at the bottom of the suit. Yeah. So you don't have to worry about when you cut it, it'll like completely unravel. There actually is at least for like six inches this extra layer. I think wetsuit companies have like a welded seam. Anticipated that people are actually going to do this.

And it makes a huge difference. If you can cut it, it just opens up that ankle width so much more that it slides off. And I would say coating your ankles in like body glide or something really helps it slide off better. and your wrists as well. And then the actual technique, while we're on wetsuits, of kicking off your wetsuit is very important. You want to kick it off. Think of like you're kicking off shoes.

Eric is so athletic. Eric is so athletic with it. Ideally, think about like trying to kick off a sandal as far as you can into the air. Yeah. All right, nameless person. Hey, Eric, Paula, Nick, and Flynn, sanity. Well, they know us very well.

Still loving the podcast, coming off of Paula suggestions for going used for going used for a bike via the pro closet. Pro's closet, I can't speak today. I got my first TT bike there last week, a 2020 giant Trinity, which I think will be a great starter bike, and it was a fair price. Yeah, that's going to be awesome.

As someone who was a couple years into their YouTube journey and is planning to start sharing beginner's perspective of some triathlon content, I wanted to tell Eric that his work on the vlogs is inspirational. I loved that Shiv segment, a couple of YouTube-based questions. First, how many other triathlon YouTube channels have a Grammy winner providing music for them?

Congrats Nick. Yes, thank you. Second, this one is apropos as well. Eric, you mentioned your long-term goals for transition four. Now that TTL is a well-established brand, have you considered changing the YouTube channel name to TTL or is there a reason you have kept it under your own name? Keep them coming, and if you ever make it to Boulder,

would love to see you all. P.S. maybe Flynn needs a sibling to keep him busy. Just kidding. Don't do it. So, Eric, I don't know. Is this, do you want to talk about this? Where do we even want to start? What was the first question? Yeah, the first, the, the, oh, Grammy winner. Whatever. No. Try as the other YouTube triathlon people might. We have not met. We have the monopoly. We have the monopoly on. We've signed him to an exclusive deal for music. They pay me a lot. So that's why I stay here. Don't you forget it. Would you ever change the YouTube channel name to That Triathlon Life, Eric?

I don't know if you've noticed, but this week we did actually change the name of my YouTube channel to, it's now our YouTube channel, that Traathlon Life. The reason that it took so long to do it, I had a conversation with Nick probably a year, year and a half ago about doing it, but if you go into like YouTube and say, okay, I want to change the name, it's this crazy process where they're like, all right, make sure that you're logged out of all your channels on the desktop, and then you want to make sure that you only log into this one, and then you need to have this extra channel ready to go. And, like, I would always, like, read the process and, like, just start sweating.

It's complicated. Because there's, like, yeah. And also the consequence of doing it wrong was losing all your videos. Yeah, they were, like, all these red words. And they say, like, you will never get them back. Lose all comments, all subscribers, all video permanently. It's like, oh, my God. Okay.

Yeah. So like, it was enough to scare us into not changing it. It was like, who really cares? Like, that's not worth the risk. Right. And, yeah, so like this past week, I was, I called up Nick and I sent him the link of how to do it. And we were just like going through it step by step together. We're literally like double checking each other.

Like, okay, so then we do this, right? Yeah. And then I am sitting downstairs on the couch. The computer genius. This is ridiculous. There's no way. It's this difficult. So I just Googled, like, how to change your YouTube channel.

And there was like five articles that came up and it was like you go to settings and you just change it and you push okay and it's changed. I just love Eric and I, the like Uber computer nerds all about technology. Like we're so into this stuff and Paul is downstairs on a computer like, hey try this link and we click it's like

oh it's pretty simple actually. So it took them five seconds to change it. Anyway, this is a new feature that YouTube has come up with that you can do it much more easily which I don't know why they didn't have from the beginning, but probably because we could just randomly change our account channel to like wild birds and their mating calls.

I think they're more worried about people doing like, oh, here's a bunch of cute dogs, and then they get 500,000 followers, and they change it to 5G internet is controlling your mind or something, like some weird conspiracy stuff. Yeah, maybe. I will say, I think it should be a little harder than it was, but there we go. It's now been done. So everybody who's been asking that, here we go. oh, it's now got a different name.

And for everyone out there, it seems like so obvious, but Eric is an athlete and there's like inherent value and him having a YouTube channel under his name that he's worked so hard on. So changing it to that triathlon life is kind of this, I don't want to say selfless because you are, you are such a, you're the heart and soul of this thing. But it's kind of a nice thing.

It represents like not just you guys, but all like TTL Nash together. It's like making these videos. Yeah, totally. Like, Eric has put a decade of work into building this channel. So for him to take it away from his own identity as Eric Logstrom was a bigger deal than just changing the name of the YouTube channel. Like, I've done absolutely nothing. That's not true. You haven't done nothing, but Eric has done so much. Yeah, he's the whole, like, you know, everything behind it.

So I was conscious of that and for that reason never pushed it. I was like, just keep it how it is. But the truth is, because it was so easy, we could always change it back. Yeah, that did make it easy. But I still, I appreciate, Eric, the vision you have for this whole brand. And obviously it's working on people, you know, we all feel like I were a part of this big thing. Even me before I knew you guys, I remember feeling like I was, I felt like part of like this mini family, I guess, of people that liked the channel. It's like, oh, this isn't like other triathlon content on YouTube.

It's not just like push the hard. as you can watch all the time run hard swim hard it was like oh right there's a there's like a whole life that you live as a triathlete and kind of picking up on that aesthetic and that texture and and you gave it life and now it's now you've fully transitioned to it i love it yeah hopefully it'll be a little bit more discoverable now as well so if people are looking for triathlon content we might show up higher i don't know how the algorithm works but that is part of the thought is that it's more easily findable. Cool. Well, Eric, thank you, Paula.

Thank you. We'll move on to the next question here. Good morning. Paula, Eric and Nick. I really appreciate what you guys are doing. It brought me into a sport I now very much enjoy. Mission accomplished. However, y'all's show and podcasts would be enjoyable with or without the sport. A few people have said that. I don't know if it's true, but we do love to hear it.

My question is, being new to the sport, I started swim and run in December due to overuse injuries to my feet from too much road running. I swim well in the pool. I'm in control and comfortable with pushing myself. However, I tend to freak out in open water. My heart rate goes way up and I gas out quickly. Any tips for staying in control while in open water? I think the answer is just swim more in open water, but I'll take any advice I can get for mental game or physical tactics. Also, they added, I approve read this in Nick's voice. Thanks for all three of you do. Cheers. I do that too as I'm reading through them it's like Nick's voice in my brain

And I actually think there were like two questions About open water swimming this week And I just wrote one of them in there I think they're both in there I crossed the other one out Yeah okay well so we'll cover both bases With this one question Eric take it away

I don't know if Eric's a great example Because Eric were you ever scared of open water I mean I definitely had a phase of my career Where I didn't do it well where I was also coming from just a exclusively pool swimming background, and my time's indicated that I should be first pack out of the water, and then I just dove in with an IT race and got destroyed. So I don't, yeah, I mean, I think open water to me is definitely a mindset thing,

and this is like a cyclical deal when you go, you know, like it didn't go that well. Maybe I'm not good in open water, and then it like can kind of self-confirm and everything as you go along. So definitely like getting used to it and doing open water, swimming outside of a race as much as possible. Like if in any way possible, that's great. Swimming in a pool with your wetsuit on so you get used to that feeling of like closeness in the wetsuit being on you and play around with like shifting it this way a little bit, shifting it up, like, you know, trying to find where it feels like you can just breathe

the best. And that brings me back to just like the final thing of just breathing. I would say like before you get in the water, like close your eyes, visualize swimming and like do some good deep breathing. Make sure you're just like getting your entire lungs. in on it. It's really easy to breathe, like, very high in your chest when you're starting to get stressed. And for me, like, even just this last year, I've started swimming a lot better by thinking more about, like, breathing from, like, lower chest cavity, like almost stomach.

And that just, like, really relaxes my whole body. Yeah, good points. Swimming, open water, swimming pool, everything. So I feel like a lot of the reason people get nervous and panicky open water is the contact with other people. And that's something you really don't experience in a pool. So if you are lucky enough to swim with like one or two other people in the pool, something we used to do with our coach is like push off from the wall three in a row, like three abreast in one lane and do 50s fast. And it's not comfortable. It's like you're hitting arms.

You have to get used to swimming and like weird currents that other people are creating. But it really gets used to that feeling of the first few hundred meters of a race where you are with a ton of people. And naturally there is going to be some contact with them and being okay with that. So I think the more that you can get used to that feeling. the better. I love that as an idea for a drill. Go with two friends and try to swim three deep in a lane fast, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like start speed kind of fast. Even if it's 25s, you know? Because it also like the current is so different if you're sitting on someone's hip versus if you're slightly in front of the two other people, you feel like you're being dragged under water. And it's all these different feelings that you don't feel when you're swimming single file in a lane in a pool. Yeah. Take turns having the person like in the middle, like go slightly in front. And the other. people sit on their hip or like stuff like that and just kind of play around with it and get used to

what it feels like. And then if you have things that you do when you're normally swimming, where you're like, oh, my coach tells me to like have a tall, like push through the top of my head or something. Like focus on that and try to focus on those cues that you know are good versus what's this person next to me doing. You know, like you're trying to still swim, do your own thing even though there's other stuff going on. Wow. That is such a good drill. That's such a good drill idea that I had never considered. Paula, do you feel like you ever freaked out in open water early on or were you pretty much always comfortable? For sure. Well, I still do a little bit when it's like an ocean swim and it's very wavy. I don't like that. Coming from an ITU background and then transitioning to 70.3,

there's way less contact, a little bit more calm of a start. So I don't tend to get panicked anymore. But another reason people could panic is potentially because of cold water. And Lionel said in one of his videos about Oceanside that he really paid attention to being really warm before he got in, like sweating basically before he got in the water. And that really helped him get in the water and feel good right away and not feel like you need to take the first 400 meters to warm up. So if you're an age grouper and you're not allowed to get in the water for a warmup, just do some running before. Like make sure your heart rates up and be warm. That's Flynn in the background. I feel like that's fine, though. I mean, he's part of the pod. He is part of the pod.

I only heard of no I'll say this as To be fair There's a big black dog Walking around In our front yard right now To be fair Of course

And he needs to be best friends With him obviously So I'll say this As someone who I think that being a really good swimmer Doesn't necessarily have any effect

On how much you freak out Or don't freak out When you're in the ocean If you're a very good swimmer In the pool So as someone Me Who is not a good swimmer

But I did grow up a ton playing around in the ocean and surfing and like doing water sports, I've never had any fear in the ocean and it's not because I'm a good swimmer. I think so maybe another little piece of ice I would have

is to if you can get in open water swims, great but like just play around in the ocean a lot. Try to jump around like with friends and like throw a ball around and without being able to touch the bottom and just I don't know like learn what it feels like to be in the ocean

for extended periods of time. I think it subconsciously then gets in your head. I'd never, even in my first races, never had problems with people hitting me or whatever because I just felt like, oh, I know, even worst case scenario, I know I float. You know, I can just turn on my back and just like, it'll be okay.

It's not a big deal. So maybe just like getting more comfortable in the water in general. Yeah, yeah, totally. Does this apply to lakes and rivers for those less than a lot of next portions? Yeah, why not? You know, like if your friend has a boat or something,

like go try wakeboarding. or tubing or water skiing or something. The ocean really is just a huge advantage, man, because that is like the ultimate, the water is moving around you. It's as hectic as it gets. There's like no way to like swim out into the waves and be out there for a minute

and come back in without like having to experience, you know, things that will like trigger you. Yeah, that's right. You could go belly flop into a lake. It's no big deal. Yeah, I guess that's true. So can people stay at your house when they come to their ocean? I live three blocks from the water in Santa Monica.

So I have a nice, This studio here can be an extra bedroom, so just hit me up. Be careful what you say. That was a joke. I can't have all of you staying here as much as I would love it. Good question. Thank you for that question. They didn't have a name either.

Okay, next question. Hey, guys, thanks for all the great content. A random question for you for the podcast. What's to deal with triathletes and gigantic oversized sunglasses? Is there a performance benefit, or is it just the current style? I personally think it's so they can't see our. tears. It is not just triathletes, by the way.

Pro cyclists have gigantic oversized glasses, and everything is driven by the sunglasses companies. So right 100% Oakley, et cetera, want big glasses to be the new thing. That's what you got off. It's big sunglasses. That's who's to blame. Yeah. There are, I don't know, I think smaller ones are making a little bit of a comeback.

But, like, ultimately on the bike, the bigger the sunglasses, like, the less stuff could potentially fly in your eyes. So that is great, especially while riding on. trail. You all have stuff like flip up underneath, like between my glasses and my cheekbones sometimes if I've got a smaller pair of glasses. Oh my God. Do you ever have this? Do you ever have your sweating and a sweat goes in, like between your eyebrow and the glasses and then gets on the lens? Of course. Do you ever have that? Oh, I hate that. While time trial, while riding arrow? Yeah. I hate that. Because you're just like, you're obviously leaned over, so it just falls right into the

inside of the lens. Yeah. Bruttle. What is sweat? I don't remember. It's been cold and done for five months. Yeah, and more I have a problem of icicles freezing on my... Honestly, that was part of the reason of my mental breakdown yesterday was that was fucking cold.

It was so cold. I was like, why am I freezing my ass off? It's like May 10th. So I just got, I just was getting so mad. It's like Jack Nicholson at the end of the Shining where you're just like... Yeah. Okay, great.

Well, that was Lowell. So next question. And this is now our third. time trying to answer this question because I have messed this up so many times. So, hey, Eric, Paula Flynn, and Nick. Sorry Nick had to do it. Love the podcast and I'm a huge fan of the coffee sub. My wife got it for me for Father's Day last year. One of the things that always stick out to me about your videos is a soundtrack. I'm a musician and a music educator and just wondered who puts that together and what is the thought process behind choosing the right

tune. That's at the end of the question? Eric, this is the third time I've asked you. I thought by now you could have recited it back to me. The last time you instantly launched into your own answer for the question. That's true. So I was going to say basically that I don't have anything to do with the music selection. Sometimes I'll have one of my own pieces of music in there. But that's something I sent to Eric randomly.

Very rarely am I composing something for a specific thing. The exception being maybe the Shiv build. Yeah. You know, Eric had that. And I was like, please. let me compose some music for this. The thing about the Shiv built as well is Eric was using a song that was

licensed so he couldn't use it. So you listened to it and you created a song that was very similar which was so mind-blowing. It was so cool. So that's literally what I'm teaching a class in now by the way. Oh really? It's like it's songs for sync and licensing and part of the one of the like

classes was music replacement. This happens all the time in TV shows where a TV show or a movie doesn't have the money to license like the Beatles. So they have someone create something that tries to match as much as possible without infringing on copyright.

That's cool. Insert the beaples. Yes. Or beatless, the beatless. Yeah. But to answer the question, I find all the music. It's a huge part of my time spent editing

every week. I kind of, I start, I go online and there's a website that has all these things. different songs that we can use for music. And I pay a monthly fee for that and spend like sometimes two hours a week just sifting through all these songs trying to find something that. And we're not telling you what the website is.

Don't even ask. Well, even if I gave you the website, I guarantee most people don't want to spend the amount of time I spend searching for these songs. And it ain't free anyway. No, it's not free either. But a lot of the times the songs, you can't just find them on Spotify. They're actually just on this website. website.

So yeah. Anyway, so like it is really a big trick to go through and like find the song and then match it up with a point in the video where it makes sense. You know, I'm not really, I don't just like go in and like, oh, I need something super exciting and just like try to make everything upbeat. It's like really I do try to find a thing that feels like it matches the emotion of that I was feeling when the actual, when I filmed the thing that happened. Aaron also had a question about breathing in the open water and keeping your heart right down.

staying in control, but we kind of already answered that one. Yeah, we did go through that earlier. Right. But yeah, the music stuff, that's, I feel like people always comment on how good the music is on the show. Yeah. So it's not like Eric spends a lot of time on that. That's why it's good. Yeah.

And he has good taste. Yeah, he has great taste. Actually, both of you do. Paula, too, I love the music, the music, I love the songs you choose for reels too, for your reels are great. I usually only do reels when I have a good song. It's half the fun of it. See? See, there you go.

Great. Well, thank you very much for the question, Aaron. Next question, hello, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn. This is Ario from Edmonton. Hope you all are doing well. Cut straight to the questions. One, what are your thoughts on junk miles? Hmm. We just answered this. I think, like, I guess maybe even before we start, like,

establishing, like, junk miles is this even, like, it's not like FTP, whereas, like, junk miles are defined as, I think it kind of depends on the person. And a lot of the times, like, I think of junk miles as just something where I've, where I'm tired. And I go, like, I don't understand the purpose of this. It feels like it's just useless. And I'm too tired to do this properly, like run or swim. Yeah, your technique might fall apart if you're really just truly fatigued.

And I think I was, the problem with missing the recording the first time is that I feel like we answered it so well the first time. How could we ever do that again? We're never going to be able to do it. But I think I said something along the lines of, Junk miles for running. Like, running can never actually be super easy. Running is always a little bit hard. So to go for an easy run,

maybe that's what people classify as junk miles. No, because easy, so like if we're going to do zones, like training zones, like your long run should be like zone one, zone two. And then your threshold and tempo runs are like zone four, zone five, depending. It's zone three that people say like, oh, you should never really train at zone three. Got it, got that. That's like, yes, sometimes you'll race it. that zone, but you should either be above it or below it, because it doesn't quite allow enough

training impulse to garner favorable adaptations, but it's not easy enough to not tire you out and potentially injure you. So that's why people think it's not really helpful, but a lot of people are doing a lot of training in that zone. Like, I think even some of the fastest people in the world are doing a lot of training in that zone. It's kind of seductive. It feels fun. It's a little bit exciting, you're going kind of fast, but it's not so hard that, you know, it's like throwing up red flags. I think the biggest thing is you finish that and you feel like you really did a workout, you know, versus if you just go for a super easy bike ride, you're like, was I a point in that? Yeah. If you have a little bit of an exercise, addiction to like the

endorphins. It's a little bit like Iron Man pace, right? Like I would say, that's what people race Iron Man's at is in that, in that zone. The reason it's a problem for a lot of people is because you have ever heard like they aren't going hard enough and they aren't going easy enough? People just go out, oh, people who run casually, they go out and they pretty much run every day at this junk mile pace. You know, it depends on junk miles is a negative word, but some people are prescribed a lot of time in this zone. And it can work for some people. Anyway, their other question was, which is more beneficial, a long run or a long ride? And we had kind of, we were kind of talking about this. And I guess establishing what does a long ride and the long run even mean for Olympic distance.

Yeah. Like for some people, a long run might only be 60 minutes and a long ride might be two hours if you're training for a sprint or Olympic. Right. And I think that durability-wise, if you want to be able to like run the 10K fast without breaking down, maybe the long run is a good thing to add to your weekly thing if you have to choose one of the other. But like you said, Nick, both are pretty important. So if you can work it into your schedule to make both of those things appear. And the other thing people think is they have to be on the weekends, just because that's when you have the most time.

I'm doing my long run two day after this recording. Yeah, if you can fit it in better spaced out throughout the week, it is a good thing to try to get at least one kind of over distance, but you can one over distance run per week. Yeah. And for like a sprint and Olympic distance, we were also saying, like, we don't run, especially when we were training for ITU,

the 70 minutes would be our absolute longest run that we would do. in our like, at least for me. And then like a workout, a hard workout would come in right around an hour with, you know, kilometer repeats or something in there. So I don't think that to do an Olympic distance properly, you need to do a two-hour run by any means. Yeah, yeah, I agree. We get a little bit skewed in our views because we train with Lindsay and Heather Jackson and they're doing like three hour long runs.

But that's not what you have to do to train for a sprint or an Olympic or maybe even an Iron Man. And you probably get away with like a two and a half hour bike ride as well, as long as you're like your hard sessions or, you really nail those. We have one last little question here, and I think it's especially appropriate since Eric, you're racing this weekend, right?

Oh, yeah. Yes, I am racing this weekend. We kind of forgot to mention that. In L.A. You're staying with Nick. Yeah, we're going to have a twin bed and we're just going to cuddle together in it all night. And Toby's going to be here too, and Flynn.

Eric, you get your own room. You're going to be in this room, Eric. Oh, sweet. I thought I was just sleeping on the couch. I thought so, too, but then my friend from Italy was here last week, and we put them in here and it ended up working out great. Well, it's probably like silent since it's a sound-street.

Yes, it's all sound-treated. You needed some white noise. But the question was they started with some nice stuff. And then you both have many friends in the professional triathlon ranks. Is it hard to spend race week or tow the line with your friends? Or does it help you to have friends to help you stay chill? Thanks for all you all do for the community. Ron.

Helps. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've like made all these friends. like sort of feeling like you're in the trenches with these people, especially from ITU days when you're all headed over to Germany or something and you don't speak the language, you just like have to become friends with people or you don't have anyone to talk to. It's interesting looking at the first WTS is happening this weekend in Yokohama. Tommy Zafaris is there and he's posting all these pictures of like all the athletes running

together and you can like truly sense the absolute joy of everyone just being reunited like from different countries, from different training groups. and in two days they're all going to be like lining up head to head to try to win. But I think there truly is a sense of friendship and community, especially after COVID when you didn't see anyone for a year. And we feel like that when we go to a 70.3, like we know more, some athletes better than others. But personally, I always find it calming to be lined up beside Heather Jackson or Lindsay.

It's just like, okay, we've trained together so many hours. This is just another day. And ultimately, we both want to win, but we're happy if the other person wins. Like that's kind of hard to explain. No, it's true. I've seen it with you all the time. And maybe people assume like, oh, you know, they only train with people that they're not really competitors with. But you train with Holly, you know, she's great.

Lindsay, she's great. Heather, she's great. And you race against all of them. And on any given day, one of you or another one of you could beat the other one out. So it's like, maybe things change a little bit when the race starts and you're just like, I'm going to have the best race I can. have, but I feel like before and after, it's all love. Totally. And I feel like the one exception to this is when you're training with people from your country trying to get Olympic spots. I've experienced that before. And that's

when it gets, I mean, Eric, as well, that's where it gets really, really heated and tense every day because you're training together trying to beat each other daily and it's a lot more toxic, I would say. Why is it even, I see what you mean. And I intuitively understand what you're saying. But if I think about it logically, why is that different than someone who you're going to race in world championships? Because there can only be one winner. Well, because you're fighting for Olympic spots. Yeah, just like you're fighting for first place. No, but going to the Olympics is a different, man. Is it just because the Olympics is a bigger deal? Is that what makes it different? It comes once every four years. There's just like, there's like an insane tornado of pressure that goes into the

Olympics and you have federations and like so Canadian or like for my example like USA triathlon is deciding who they're going to give money to and who they're going to send to the next race and then that race impacts what who goes to the next race and that impacts who gets the points who gets to even get the opportunity to race for the Olympic team so it's like very much more of a like every single workout every single race every single everything like matters on this like small scale because it's so like and all honestly maybe this might be a result of of federations and not a result of like training with your teammates. Federations can be extremely toxic.

And just for context, Eric, you were a, what's it called? Alternate. Alternate for the U.S. Olympic team for triathlon. And Paula went to the Olympics for Canada for triathlon. So they both have experience with this. And two of my teammates went to the Olympics and I did not. Guys I was training with every single day for four years leading into that. I feel like I'm going off on the,

tangent here. That was a bit of a tangent. I don't even know what the original question was, but it's a really interesting tangent. It's just about like training with the people that you then race against. Yeah. I would, I would say it would probably be very challenging for either of us to like think of who our main rival is and then just start training with them. Like there's probably one person out there who like Paula thinks is like the person that she thinks most about when she's going to world championships and it would be pretty hard to train with that person day in and day out. I don't know. Like if you threw me into a training camp with Daniela, I would just be like, looking up to her so much and like trying to learn from her.

Yeah. So it's, I don't feel like I would be like that for anyone. Even like Holly. I was going to say Holly. Like you guys right now, just looking yesterday are right next to each other in the PTO rankings. And I,

and you guys love training together. Yeah, I haven't trained with her that much, but pre-race, anything, it's like very chill. And so I don't know. It's,

maybe it's different for men and women as well. Yeah, I think it depends on the men. There's just this weird, aggressive energy that some men have. I hate it, but it's kind of pervasive in all of things. I don't feel like it's so bad in triathlon, though. Like, the way I see like Ben Canude and Eric interact, you know, they're very similar

athletes. And Eric's always like talking to Ben before the race. Like, okay, how do we do this? Like, how do we work together to race both of us well? Right, right. Yeah. Well, there's also, I mean, once you're at the race, there's a feeling of like, you've done the work, it's going to be what it's going to be.

Yeah, right, right. You know, if like every single day I went and did a hard bike workout with Ben and he dropped me every single day. It would be like very challenging to maintain. Yeah, that's true. You know, confidence through that. And then, you know, like what happened? I mean, the last time we were both in a bigger group, we were younger as well. And then it's really hard to fight that urge to not get back of that person in the bike. I mean, on the run where they're weaker. Get back at them. You know, it's like you have that sense. And I would notice that happen all the time. Like somebody has a bad bike workout. And then the next long bike ride, they're in like revenge mode because they're like,

I've got to make up for that somehow. And it's, oh, then it's just like, it builds and builds. And it's very hard to keep that from happening. Yeah. Our coach, Paulo, this is the last thing I'll say, this is going on.

But it's an interesting question. But Paulo is really good at least for the women, like dividing us into groups of people that he knows will work well together and not create these heated battles.

He'll like send off, whatever, two people that. Yeah. Yeah. Like in Joel Filial's group, like Martin Van Riel and, and Yelligan's like could not do

run workouts together anymore because they like both got like a stress fracture on the same day because they just went. pushing each other so hard. Neither one would back down and stuff like that. There's just like,

nope, those two people don't mix and it's okay. It's funny how this is like so almost not irrelevant, but for most age groupers, this means nothing. Unless you are at the very top

of the age group rankings, which is very rare, it's like, no, we're all just trying to have our best race. So training with your people that are your quote unquote rivals is only going to help push yourself.

Maybe too far, like Eric was saying, like where you're overtraining. but it's never going to be like, oh, yeah, I'll never be as fast as him. It's like, who cares? Totally. We're each doing our own thing. I was thinking that as we were answering.

I'm like, this isn't really relatable to anyone who's listening, really? But we're all very interested in what it's like to be you guys, too, not just in trying to get, figure out what things that help us. That's true. Yeah, well, we do talk about ourselves a lot, so hopefully you're interested. That's right. That's right. No, great. Well, I'm glad we finally got this recorded.

It's not real roller coaster. Pod 17 is we face the most adversity we ever had as a podcast. And also, Nick, if you don't put this out tomorrow, like, that's fine. Just edit it at your leisure and put it out when it goes out. I'm supposed to go on a two-hour trail run right now. And then I have my friend Fast David coming over. Okay. We're watching Spider-Man tonight, but hopefully I can get it all done.

That does not sound like a recipe for success. This is classic Nick, by the way. Nick, don't worry about getting it out tomorrow. TTLNH will forgive you. They'll just be grateful there's one out this week, I think. Okay, great. Great. Thank you. But anyways, thank you guys so much. Eric will be in L.A. with Nick this week. I'm actually not going. I'm staying home, and then I'm going to meet Eric in Chattanooga

for 70.3 North American Championships the following weekend. The reason I'm not doing L.A. is I just feel like I'm a little more fragile with my injuries and racing back-to-back weekends is a little aggressive. So I will be here for an extra five days. Just getting ready for Chattanooga. But maybe you guys can record a pod in L.A., just the two of you. Well, we were thinking potentially, yeah, a special guest. Yeah, a special guess.

Should we just leave a cliffhanger? Let's leave a cliffhanger. Who is it? I guess I would always bleep it out. Yeah, just bleep it. We were thinking of that I was talking to him today on the phone. Oh, yes. Or even like, or someone.

Literally anyone. So many people. Yeah, yeah. There's three bleeps, three different names right there. I feel like I was talking on the phone earlier. He's driving in today. And then I was talking to about this potential run. So it could be fun.

Yeah. That's awesome. Cool. Well, thanks for listening, guys. Thanks for putting up with us. Thanks, everybody. These guys will talk to you next week. See ya.

Bye.