That Triathlon Life Podcast - First triathlon memories, standard vs compact cranksets, IM World Championship predictions, coached vs self coached, and more!

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

This week we start with some Bike Tech with Eric where he tells us when to change our chain, how to clean our bike, and who should use a standard vs compact crankset. After lightly roasting Eric, we moved onto questions about our favorite swim/bike/run workouts,  where to eat in a race, being self coached, and more! For everything else, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey, everyone, welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Eric Loggersome. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And this is where Eric was supposed to say the intro. Eric, you had two weeks to practice. How am you still? I have a brain block now. Well, the thing is, you know what? I think I come up short because, like, I haven't looked at the show notes, so I don't know exactly what we're going to be talking about. I haven't looked at the show notes either, but we're just going to tell you guys.

Only Nick has the show notes. Okay. Okay. Right, right. Well, anyway, Paul and I are both professional triathletes and Nick is a professional musician and we just have a blast every week talking about trathlon stuff, taking some questions and... That was perfect, Eric. That was perfect. Yeah, good job. Hopefully laughing and entertaining some of you in the process.

This podcast is just an excuse for me to practice my stand-up material so I really appreciate you guys being here for it. Yeah, my mom just actually called and said that she absolutely loved last week's pod and the week before and the week before and the week before. So if anything, we're doing this for my mom.

And your mom, Nick. And does your mom, yeah, and Melanie. My parents love the pod too. And Toby loves the pod, which I'm always so shocked. No, it's actually like, almost daily surprising to me, like, that somebody who will say, oh, because of something such on the podcast. And I just, like, you listen to the, I know. I can't believe you listen to the podcast.

And also the fact that we have this conversation at like 7 p.m. on a Monday. And then people are listening to this conversation later in the week. while they're driving or riding their bike. It's just, it's so crazy to me. The internet, wow. Yeah. There's a feature for on Spotify. If you have music on Spotify, you can log in as the artist and see if anyone's currently

listening to your music at that moment and how many people are currently listening to your music at that moment. So sometimes they'll log in and I'll see, and it's kind of surreal to see it's like, oh, someone's listening to my stupid voice singing right now. That's like the emotional support mechanism of Spotify for struggling artists. So we can't pay you, but here's this cool feature. Hope you feel better. Keep going.

So speaking of feeling better, how are you guys feeling with your training and stuff? You guys got races coming up? Well, I mean, we're racing in like five days from now in Florida. So, yeah, I'm feeling really good. I had an awesome tempo run over the weekend. Hips have been feeling pretty good. So I also love St. Anthony's, and I think I just kind of get in a good headspace

and get excited about it every year. I am, I'm excited to race an Olympic distance race. That is fun for me. I really like going hard on the bike. And in a 70.3, it's a little bit harder to do that the whole time. You have to pace yourself a bit. So I think it's going to be fun just to go out and see how hard I can ride. My run is always kind of a question mark. I've been running, but I'm not as fit as I've ever been. But I think if I ride well, I've shown myself that that doesn't matter. You know what I think we really should be talking about in terms of training? I just realized Paula spontaneously changed her three and a half, I should say her hour, three and a half hour bike ride to a five hour bike ride yesterday. Just out of the blue. I want to ride five hours.

Rare, ultra rare Pokemon card, the Paula extended ride. I don't like long rides at all. Like three and a half for me is like a drag. But I'm a little bit inspired by like Lindsay riding super long. seeing Heather riding super long on Strava. I think Strava is a good tool for that, motivating you to get out of your comfort zone a little bit, and you're seeing what your friends are doing.

And like, okay, Heather's riding seven and a half hours. I can ride five hours. It's kind of cool. It's not like, oh, so I can be better than Heather. It's just so like, this is my job too. Why shouldn't I do that? And also what really helped was having a new bike. That bike is so cool.

I've had it for a while. I've had it in frame form for about a month now. Eric finally found a little bit of time to build it, which it's just like the most beautiful bike I've ever owned. It's actually the same bike I had last year, but the paint job is so insane. So there's something about that too, like, oh, I'm riding this beautiful thing. I can ride for five hours.

It's always what I tell people when they ask me what bike to get. I tell them to get a bike that makes them excited to go out and ride. Exactly. And truly, I think this is the first. first time I've really felt that with a bike, like because of the paint. I've had bikes that I loved in the past and some of the, yeah, custom painted bikes I've had. But this one, I don't know, for some reason, it's like, that's the bike I want to ride every day. So fun. And Paul, I had a question, and you guys, in the YouTube show this week, you talked about those Lulu Lemon running shoes.

What, like, what kind of shoes are they? Are they like? Yeah, they are running shoes. For, like, are they a stability shoe? Are they, like, a speed shoe? Are they a, like, a, long day shoe? Are they a cushiony shoe? That's a bit unclear. And I did have a lot of questions. I don't know if we want to like dive into this too hard, but a lot of people were like, okay, you showed us the shoes, you didn't review them, so that means you didn't like them. Like that was kind of awkward

in the vlog. But the point of me, Lou Lemon asking me to do this was just to present that, hey, Lou Lawn has shoes now, like show everyone, because it's new. Like they make clothing. They haven't made shoes in the past. Not necessarily to give them a full deep dive review.

Because shoes are so individual. and me specifically as kind of an injury prone runner. I don't like to switch my shoes around too much. I've been really impressed with the Louie Lemon shoes how they feel and walking around on them and doing some easy, easy runs in them. But I don't think that they'll replace my main lineup of what I'm really comfortable in and confident in using. However, I am impressed with how they feel.

Like they did a lot of work to make these a good quality running shoe. And they truly are a running shoe. They're not just meant for cross training or walking. They're meant for running. So I would recommend anyone who's curious to try a pair out. Are they even out yet? Yeah. Oh, they are.

Cool. Cool. Yeah. When she actually got them was the day that they dropped and became available. And we just took a month to actually put out the video. And, you know, so we knew that they were good shoes before saying, yeah, you go try these out. It's worth your time. Well, we've talked about Paula's bike and Paul's shoes.

Now it's time to do some bike tech with Eric. I'll just step out of the room. No, we need to hear, Paula, your emotional support. So, Eric, the question I had for you, I have three little things. The first is, do you think most triathletes out there should have a compact or standard chain ring? And maybe you want to start by explaining the difference between the two? I mean, this is a good question, and it gets a little bit interesting now with the introduction of 12 speed. from SRAM. Like, if you're going SRAM 12 speed, then the chain rings are not the traditional

numbers and everything. But like, historically, 5339 has been quote-unquote standard, the bigger of the options. And then the compact has been, what is it, 5034. And basically, like, I think if you're in a very hilly location and you don't like to go fast downhills, then a compact is going to be the better way to go to give you a lot more options while climbing. But you will find yourself spinning out going downhill. And I think like a good option for a lot of people would be subcompact, which is right in between the two. So 5339, 5034, and then a subcompact is 5236, I think.

Oh, yeah, that's a semi-compact. A sub-compact is actually even smaller. But did you ever use those? I used that for a couple years while racing an ITU, and it's a really cool setup basically because you can spend 99% of your time in the big ring with that combination, and then if you really hit a big hill,

then you can shift down and you get a lot more range than you would with 53-39. But ultimately, just get a SRAM 12-speed setup, and you're going to have so many gears, you don't know what to do with all of them. That's the answer. I find that for me, Me, I'm way, way, way more often running out of gear

is going uphill than I am going downhill. Usually going downhill, I can descend better and break better and go faster that way rather than pedaling. And going uphill, I'm always like, oh, thankfully I have this gear. And I have a compact on my training bike, just not on my race bike. I think that's the nature of where you live, though, because the hills are so steep. Yeah, that's true. So you're not going to be pedaling downhill.

If you live somewhere like St. George, or even in Bend here, like we have really long mountain descents, like from Bachelor. And you can pedal the whole way down, but you're going really fast. Right. That's true. Where I'm at, like, I'm on the brakes the whole time descending. And I'm like out of the saddle ascending. Well, I'm on the breaks the whole time coming down from Bachelor too, but Eric's not. You got to get on the 12-speed program, man, that 10-33.

I'm on it on my mountain bike. So dreams are made of. Is this rapid fire? I forget. No, it's not. It's not. But next question is, you could have like, Very long conversation about that.

So the second thing, which is quick, is what should you wipe your bike down with when you're trying to clean it? Do you just use water? Do you have a special solvent or something? You can use water, but I think we in the garage right now have is WD40 cleaner and degreaser. And I just use that on the whole frame, and that'll take stuff off your chain rings. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Yeah.

Wow. I use like Simple green sometimes for the frame. Yeah, you're simple green. I bet you Eric's going to get roasted for using WD90, 40 on that. WD90, he'll definitely get roasted. It says cleaner and degreaser. So there's definitely grease on your frame and it needs to be cleaned. It's not like a super, at least I don't know, I don't think it's a super gnarly thing.

It's not the same as they're just like pure cleaner. Right, right, right, right. It's like a spray. Wow. Yeah, it's just a spray bottle. Okay. Cool. Feel free to, I don't know, try them in, though.

I mean, your bikes look amazing, so. The real pro move is if you want it to be glistening is to spray you down with pledge. It's got a little oil in it and it'll just be like waxed. Right. Nice. And last thing, speaking of chains, how do you know when to replace your chain? This is a hard one. You really need to put a chain checker on it. But I would just get in the habit of doing it every few months. Eric, you are out of your mind with the bike maintenance stuff.

I think no one on planet Earth is replacing their chain every few months. And you like, anyone buying a bike from Eric, you might as well pay full price because you're getting a brand new perfectly kept bike. See if you can throw some old chains in there too. Here's the thing. If there's somebody who rides a lot and I said six months and then they're riding freaking 500 miles a week, they're not going to, they are going to wear some stuff out because their chain is so worn out and then you ruin your cassette and then you ruin your chain rings. And chains are $35. That's what I did. I ruined my chain rings and cassette because I waited too long.

Yeah, so get off my back. Would you say two months? Let's talk to like... I said few. Oh, okay. I was shooting it very much on the like, if we just want to make sure you don't ever ruin anything and chains are $35, that's safe.

But I think probably most people can do six months. Just do it every six months. I think I do more than six months. But yeah, I use a chain checker tool. Yeah, so do I, Nick. Don't worry. I use a chain checker tool. But anyone who's buying it,

a bike from Eric in the future, just know. That bike is basically brand new. He's cleaning it down with WD40. He's replacing the chain every three days. The brakes get replaced every two weeks. That thing is brand new. Yeah, and we do have a lot of bikes for sale, so inquire within.

That's right. Inquire within. Shoppers welcome. They're all size small, though. Everyone who inquires about Eric bikes are like, oh, I need a medium to large, but Eric actually rides a size small frame and a 52 road bike, so. That'll save you some time. if you were going to message me.

Yeah. Don't message us if you're looking for a large. Well, on to the questions here. The first question is, this was from last week, but we didn't get to it. So I wanted to ask this. This is Camille from Cleveland and D.C. Hey, Paul, Eric, and Nick. I've been listening to the pod for a few months and just love it.

I look forward to it each week, so keep it up. I'm racing in my first ever try sprint distance in three weeks. Super excited and listening to you guys gets me even more excited. My questions are, what do you remember from your first triathlon? Did you like it? Tepaula and Eric, did you think from the get-go that you'd want to do it professionally?

Hope y'all are great. Peace, Camille. I don't think I even grasped the idea that a professional triathlet existed after my first triathlon. Yeah. But I had an absolute blast, and that first race is what kept me coming back

for several years. I did it on a mountain bike. It was like a 2000 Schwinn. I don't even know how much. many speeds it had mountain bike. It was definitely not a mountain bike course. And I like put duct tape on my tennis shoes to make sure they didn't fall off while I was running. It was fantastic experience. I did not win. I was not anywhere close to winning. But people were really nice. I was 12 just for some context. I was 12 years old. I was 16 when I did my first race. And I can guarantee you I was faster in

that race than I am currently. Not even kidding. What? Really? Yeah, because I was swimming competitive. 10 times a week, and I was running track. So I could run like the fastest 5K I ever could, and when I was 16, and I could swim the fastest 800. I'm probably better at cycling now. Yeah, guarantee you would have given up like eight minutes to yourself. Yeah, not even close. No, that's not true.

Not even. For sure. Well, I won the race men and women. You went overall. Yeah. Wow. It was just a, it was a local race at the University of Alberta. And then my whole goal for that was to qualify for junior worlds.

and like I was more on the Olympic pathway. So I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm going to become a professional. I was thinking I want to go to the Olympics. I don't know if that's the same thing. No, they're definitely different. That's a whole other conversation we could have. Yeah, but I would say if you're heading into your first race, just don't have any expectations except for enjoying it.

And if you'll do that, then you can like take out the things that you might want to do better next time and work harder on those in training and then come back and sign up for another one. That's kind of the main thing. And I think a sprint distance is the perfect distance to start at. Yes, please. Everybody, start with a sprint distance. Just go have fun. Yeah. I have people who ask me, like, I want to do like a 70.3. I want to do an Iron Man. Like, how quickly can I do that? I'm like, you're thinking about it all wrong. Do the sprint and have fun with the sprint for like a whole year. And then maybe next year do Olympic distance races and have fun with that. And then if you want, you can move up from there. But no one's telling you you have to. It's not like the longer distances are better.

Totally, yeah. It's fun to go fast, too. It really is. Cool. Well, thank you for the question, Camille. The next one from Parker says, Hey, guys, I have a few more questions for the next podcast. For everyone, favorite swim bike run workouts, predictions for Iron Man World Champs in St. George,

as far as the winners go, favorite desserts, and favorite restaurant in St. George. So let's start with favorite swim bike run workouts. How about I'll say a swim, Eric, say a bike, and Nick say a run. Okay, great. My favorite swim workout is When the pool is closed and you can't go swimming

COVID and the pools are closed. No, my favorite swim workout is river swim, open water, and bend takes like 20 minutes to get up and five minutes to get back and it's so fun you're like flying down river. That's my answer. That's a good one. Am I bike? Yeah, your bike.

I think I do really just like, we do these things called Fat Max rides and they're like kind of a high power output and when I go do those on my gravel bike, it's just so, so fun. And the power kind of comes naturally, and I explore a really long ways away from home and just, like, get lost in it. And for me, the run, my least favorite run of the week used to be the long run. And then when I started replacing those long runs with trail runs, now they're my favorite run of the week.

So on Wednesdays, I do my long run. I just do the same amount of time I'm supposed to do. But there's so many beautiful trails here where I live. So I just go and I usually bring a friend with me and we have fun. So basically we don't like intervals, any of us. That's right. Why are we triathletes? We did not say four by ten minutes. No. It's a necessary evil, I think.

Cool. Oh, wait, and the next question was, predictions for Iron Man World Champs in St. George for the winners. What do you think? Like who will win? Yeah. Gustav will win. Yeah.

And I'm going to go a little bit against what, Maybe most people will guess and say Heather Jackson. She looks super fit right now. And I know Heather and Wadi can freaking rally when there's a big event on the line. They're going to this freak crazy hermit train mode. It's like gnarly. She's also so good in the heat. I don't know.

And she's light. She could do really, really well. It'll just, I think the one potential thing is just like she needs to stay warm early in the race. And that's for everybody. It's not like a her thing. We've talked with Lindsay about this. Like St. George could. easily be 40 degrees Fahrenheit when you start the swim and be 87 degrees when you're running.

So being able to be cool with that whole gamut, which is part of why I think the Norwegians will do pretty well. Right. Yeah. How about you guys? Those are my predictions. You can't have to pick something different. What do you think, Eric? If Gustav doesn't win, then my pick would be Christian.

I feel like that could go either way. I don't really, I personally don't see anybody else challenging them super seriously, but you don't think Lionel has a chance I feel like Lionel will be He always has a chance I think Lionel will do well He's got a chance But like he didn't

I don't think he biked as well in Oceanside As like As we thought Even if he was like under a lot of training volume So I don't know that Maybe just like Shook my confidence in picking Lionel for the win But I mean he'll be

It'll be fun to watch 100% I'm gonna go on record and say One two three for the men's Is Gustav Lionel Sam That's what I think Nice. No, K-Baloo. No.

We're good friends with Christian. He's great. He's great. We went for dinner with them. Yeah, he's great. I love them all. I have no idea on the women's side, to be honest. Like, Paula knows.

I think Heather would be an awesome underdog pick. Definitely possible. I want Daniela to do well. Yeah. And I'm going to say... Did you say Cat Matthews was like a... Yep, she could do well. Serious contender.

But this isn't the St. George Review Pod. So let's move to the next question. Yeah. Paula follows people on Instagram. I don't follow any triathletes for the most part on Instagram unless they're also photographer. Right. Right. Right. Got it. Cool. Okay. Well, yeah, I'm excited to watch it. We'll see. We'll see how that all goes down. And then favorite restaurants in St. George? The Indian restaurant? Oh, yeah. That place we went to with the Norwegians. And I'm not even going to say our favorite place because we don't want it to get overcrowded. What about the little French bakery type cafe thing?

Yeah, Farmsted, I think it's called. Yeah, Farmstead is pretty cool. And then if you're out for a trip and you want to drive up to, is it Laverkin? Yeah, Lavercun. For River Rock. River Roasting. River Rock. River Rock? Roasting Company.

Yeah. Cool. Really good. Cool. Epic view, good coffee, good sandwiches. Yeah. Cool. Thank you, Parker.

Hopefully that answers your questions. Next one is from Jen. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. Is he back there? Is he still back? there. He's passed out. He's passed out.

Finally. Good boy. John says love the pot. It's my favorite big TTL fans in TTL Nation, also known as TTL Nash. I've noticed Paula wears a variety of running shoes, and Eric seems to stick to Adidas. As someone who's running injury prone,

I have spent tons of money on shoe fits, skate analysis, etc. I have an awkward foot strike, and I've found I can only run in a specific Brooke stability shoe. I'd love to be able to branch out and try new shoes, but I'm fearful to do such. and always worried about injury.

Is there anything specific you look for in shoes, and do you believe shoes factor into injury prevention? Any advice is helpful? Thank you so much for all that you're doing for the community. Yeah, really good question. And I worked with Nike for a lot of years. So when you have a shoe sponsor, it's amazing. You get amazing support,

but it narrows you in to only wearing their shoes, like them or not. So now the last couple of years, I haven't had an affiliation with any shoe company. I've been able to branch out a bit. And I've just tried out, I can pretty much instantly tell if something's comfortable or not. And I do think that footwear choice has a huge factor in injury prevention. And everyone's different.

Like I said about the Little Lemon shoes, they're not going to work for everybody, but they might work great for some. And I think the biggest thing for me wearing different shoes is like the type of run I'm doing. So if it's a long, slow run on pavement, you're going to choose a shoe with a lot more cushioning. If it's a faster, shorter run where you want to feel a little more speed, you'll wear like a lighter shoe that, you know, has a little bit more spring or something. Yeah. But if something works for you and you're not getting injured, I'd say there's no point in branching out just for the sake of it. Stick to what works. And that's kind of always been

my philosophy. The only reason I've tried different things is because maybe someone's like given me a pair or told me they were really good for this issue that they had with their feet. Yeah. And I don't think you would like necessarily found like the perfect bullet shoe from Nike that was making you super happy. So, ergo tries to try a little bit of things. I mean, yeah, the whole year of COVID 2020, I wore Nike's and I was the healthiest I've ever been. So it is really hard to like, you know, attribute it to one thing.

Erika always wears Adidas. He's not as picky about shoes. Try to stay away from these ideas that like a certain type of shoe is like the best shoe. Yeah. You know, like, or like brands who only make zero drop shoes telling you that zero drop shoes are the only way to stay healthy. or brands that have a carbon plate saying that the fastest you're ever going to be

is with a carbon plate. We're all very different. We all need very different things to stay healthy and even just to be the fastest version of ourselves. I will say the carbon plate thing is the fastest shoe, though. Wear a shoe with a carbon plate. Same for me, but you can't be fast if you're injured. Yeah.

So for some people, those carbon-plated shoes, for example, there are no carbon-plated shoes that aren't neutral. And some people really need stability to say healthy. So if you're going to be unhealthy, doesn't matter how fast the shoe is. That's a good point, Nick, yeah. The next question is from Brian. He says, hi, Eric, Paula, and Nick and Flynn.

He says, he has a long paragraph saying some very complimentary things, which I'm not going to read right now. But then he goes on to say, T-Tail Nation watches your channel for inspiration and good vibes. What are your favorite YouTube channels or podcasts that you consume? Do you watch other triathletes or athletes besides Lionel? Well, I talk too much on the last question, so I'm not answering this one. I don't watch any tarathl on YouTube channels to be like 100% honest.

Paula watches all of them and if there's like one that she really likes. No, I don't. I will, you know, like maybe overhear it or she will tell me to watch it or something. No, I don't. I certainly do. I don't know. I prefer watching like a ski movie or there's just there's some like ridiculous. There's this off-road recovery channel that I like with this guy who's in St. George.

And to me, it's just, it's like tuning out. Like, I spend a lot of time thinking about how our video is going to go each week and then editing. And, like, I just want to watch something that's completely unrelated. Or I'll watch, like, you know, cinematographers doing something for inspiration. A lot of the time, Eric overhears what I'm watching, and he's angry that I would watch such a low-quality thing. He's insulted that it's been put on to YouTube. Okay. I will allow this to go into the podcast,

but just because I think a lot of people could just do a podcast. If you're going to set a camera on a tripod and talk to it for 27 minutes straight, might as well just do a podcast. I don't feel like that needs to go on YouTube. But you're not, the reach of YouTube is so much more vast than the reach of podcasts. Yeah, but like I agree. I agree. Yes, that's, yes, of course.

Of course it is. And I'll say that I watch, I think, every single. YouTube Triathlon channel that there is. I think you do. I watch them all, partly because I really do enjoy them. There is a part of me that actually wants to watch them. And then part of me is also like,

I'm educating myself on what everyone else is doing so that TTL can be the best it can be. We live inside the context of what other YouTube shows are doing. We can't ignore that. Exactly. So we watch them. I mean, I watch them all. And we're like friends with those people,

too. Yeah, my favorites are Lionel and Talbot. I think they're such a good team. And every time, like, I watch a Lionel video, I'm not the only one. Thousands of people think that. It's like, this is amazing. Text Talbitt, Tell him is a genius.

They're so good. And then he goes on to say, how much homework do you do before a race? For example, are you checking the start list and game planning out the race, calculating needed PTO points? What would be your suggestion for an average middle packer? Are resources like best bike split,

Obstri, race, Facebook groups, etc., too much, or is it best to just trust the training? This kind of like comes perfectly with the last question of like watching YouTube. And part of the reason I don't want to watch YouTube is because it's Lionel doing something freaking insane or it's Gustav doing something freaking insane.

And like I kind of just want to happily do what I'm doing and focus on what I can do and be the best of me that I can be without being like, oh my God, Lionel Road for 47 hours on Tuesday. day. And at intervals or whatever. So, like, I'll get a little bit of an idea of what's going on with the start list, just on, like, who I follow the couple of people that I, like, you know, follow on Instagram and everything and kind of go, all right, Ben Canute's going to be there. Sam Appleton's going to be there. I know the front pack's going to be going fast.

I don't need to know what guys, like, 40 through 47 on the start list, who they are, just to, like, have something extra to think about. But Paula's definitely more studious, I would say. Yeah, I look up the start list. Eric's right. It doesn't bother me to watch Lionel's YouTube's because I don't have to race them. But if someone else who I have to race was putting out YouTube videos like this, I might be a little more intimidated or just like protect myself by not watching it because it does psych you out sometimes. Yeah. But a good amount of research I would say for an age group athlete would be reading the course briefing, like kind of having an idea of what the course is going to be like and the temperature or stuff like that that you put. personally can control versus external things like who else is going to be there. Do the two of you know about best bike split? Have you heard of that?

That's intense. I used it once. And it's, I mean, if you're trying to squeeze every ounce of performance out of your bike leg, it really is amazing. It can get as granular as you wanted to and tell you exactly what power to push up what part of the course. And you can program it into your head unit so that, it'll like tell you exactly what wants to do. Based on where there's supposed to be like wind

and all sorts of stuff. You take all of the fun and thinking out of it. Yes, there's no fun and thinking. It's just pure performance. Wow. That's insane. Yeah. Yeah, if you're trying to do that.

Yeah, if you're trying to do that. But like, why are, as an age grouper, why are you doing this sport? Is it to squeeze every ounce of performance out? Or is it to do races that are fun and look around and enjoy the race while you're doing it. I guess maybe everyone one of the others is different, right? So for me, I found it to not be worth it.

It's more like look around at my competitors and feel like I'm racing instead of staring down at my head unit. Even though I would love to qualify for world championships, I want to be the fastest I can be, but there's a limit to how much I'm willing to do to get that. Yeah. Is it free? Is it free?

No, it's not free. Actually, I think it's, if I remember right, it's about $120 a year. But if you have a Training Peaks subscription, at least at the time, it was a little less. Yeah. But it's amazing. It is amazing how well it works. Right.

That's super interesting. Yeah. And I don't know what Ob's try is, but he mentioned that too. Me either. Anyway, thanks for the question, Brian. Next question is from Mike. Hey, Paul and Eric, enjoying the podcast and thought I'd toss you a few questions. First off, thank you, Paul, for the link to the Chrome Industries Handlebar bag, loving it for my gravel rides.

What? That's a way's back. That's deep in the catalog. Oh, yeah? That was like during... During COVID, maybe? During COVID, for sure. Wow. Competitive cyclist?

Four year ago. Question one, nutrition on the bike leg. I'm still fairly new to the sport, but my strategy in past races was to hydrate and have a gel on the hill climbs. But now I think I should focus in on the hill climb sections and do the nutrition on the flat sections. How do you guys plan your nutrition on the bike leg?

I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this. Um, yeah, it's, I mean, like, aerodynamically speaking, doing it while you're going uphill, it's definitely the most efficient. Yeah. If you're not so tapped out that you're, that you can't actually, you know, put something in your mouth and swallow it. Then I guess second would be is if you can maintain pretty arrow on a downhill while not peddling, if you need like to be not pedaling to digest or whatever, you know. Yeah, it's just a little sketchy. The faster you're going, the sketchier it feels. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can do it. You can do it just as you crest the hill, and you're starting to go down before you've, like, hit terminal velocity.

I'll always take a gel going up a hill and not, like, the steepest wall of a hill where you need to be out of your saddle. But when I slow down, I'm more comfortable taking a hand off the bike and taking a gel. But strategically, I think he's more talking about, like, pacing yourself when you're, what part of the race should you be taking nutrition? And I would say, whenever you're thinking about it, take it. Oh, really? Oh, I thought he was talking about, like, flat versus. is downhill versus downhill versus crime. Oh, maybe.

Yeah. I've always done, if I can, on an uphill. Because if I'm already sitting up, then it just makes it so much easier to eat. For sure. Yeah. I agree. I would say definitely just not on the flat. Yeah, not in the flat.

If possible. Yeah. Question two. Eric, I enjoy your TTL sweat music collaborations. Any chance you and Nick would make a new TTL sweat mix. Thanks for all the awesome work guys. Good luck, Paula, Eric, and Nick to your 2022 race season. All right, well, first off, the TGL sweat things are just under my Spotify,

but they are 100% a collaboration between Paula and I, and sometimes Nick, and sometimes everybody from Instagram. Yeah, I have just as much of a collaborative influence as everyone else on Instagram. Usually I get one of my suggestions in on the playlist. But yeah, I mean, we haven't done one a little while, so we 100% can work it on another one. I don't know if Eric, you remember this, but you and I talked about something. I do remember it. Okay.

Do we want to go there? I think so. I think so. I think so. We'll see. I thought it would be kind of cool if I composed with Eric and Paula's input maybe like six or seven tracks, kind of longer tracks that were designed to be played while you're in a bike or run workout if you're on the trainer or on a treadmill. kind of like maybe like 175 BPM so similar to a lot of people's run cadence kind of something energetic and uplifting that people could just like loop and play whenever they're in a workout yeah yeah think about like the paula's shiv build sequence yeah that was nick singing i did the music for that um and something like that maybe some with vocals maybe some without but nothing like too distracting and like very rhythmic um Eric would have to do very little actual work, just creative input. So Paula doesn't have to be scared about this potential project,

but it could be fun. And I don't know, it could be the beginning of a kind of a different thing. That's how you know Nick loves his job. He's willing just to make us an album, a detail album. So how do we measure this? Do we say DM Nick? And if Nick gets more than 20 requests for this album, it'll happen. Yeah, let's say that. If I get plus 20 DMs on Instagram about the album, we'll make it. Also, is there any way we could, like, charge for it so that Nick gets a kickback? Well, here's the thing. If we put it on Spotify, I have, like, a label.

That's my own label. So, yes, we could put it out on Spotify. And no, we wouldn't charge for it. But if people... So here's the thing. If I were to create something that people really liked, 10 songs, and it really turns out great, you listen to it. Like, let's say three times through it all the way through, which is a lot.

I barely get anything. anything from that. But if you were to play it like once a week, every week for 30 weeks, that's a lot. That actually starts to add up. So if TTL Nache plays it like every time they have their Tuesday trainer session, it actually does start to like add up. And it would make some amount of money. And shop Spotify pays you then. Spotify pays, yeah. I think it would be, I think it would be fun to just, we can put a product on the website that's like Tip Nick for his song. We'll just put that up there. Just in case you want to...

This lowly musician. Show some appreciation instead of 0.000-0-0-0-1 pennies for each play. People can just buy the awesome gear you guys have. That makes me just as happy. And if they really want to help me out, they can... We're not talking about your happiness. We're talking about you not ending up on the streets. I would rather them just listen to the music.

All right. Just jam it out. Well, in your request to Nick, you'd let him know how you would like to pay him back. Compensate me. And those DMs to Nick. Right. Oh, I've created a monster here.

Okay, great. Well, thank you, Mike. I think we will make that. And that's not to say that we won't still make another TTL sweat playlist. I think those are pretty cool and we'll probably still keep making those. Yep. Next question is from sent from my iPhone. I come from a run background of cross-country and track and feel.

two-mile in high school and a year of crap college running. I haven't truly been coach since high school, best coach ever. Nice. Triathlon coaches seem to be about 90% online slash virtual for age groupers like myself. When I raced well before, my friends and I were just in shape and did master swims, fast, large group rides, and team runs. I'm currently being coached. I have some time goals at a few races this year, 70.3 and Iron Man,

sub 445 and sub 10. That's pretty quick. And I'm hoping my coach will get me there. But it feels like I know myself and capabilities more. Do you think being coached is always the way to go for a specific goals like this? Or can an athlete train themselves to be elite? I mean, for me personally, having a coach is definitely the way to go. It really cuts out a lot of the decision-making process where you're like,

oh, I wrote 10 times 200, maybe I'll just do 8, and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I just like getting the schedule and doing exactly what's on it. but if you're like a super motivated, disciplined person, I do think it is possible that you could do a little bit of research and figure out how to follow a program and not need a coach's input. I do think coaches are probably better overall, though. I would say the answer to this is so dependent on your personality.

And you said you do have experience with cross-country and you swim masters. So you do have a little bit of guidance along the way. and I think if you're disciplined enough to set out a program for your week and that does include like go to Masters Monday, Wednesday, Friday, go to the group rides Tuesday, Thursday,

and then run with this run group on a Sunday, that's enough to get you really fit and you don't necessarily need a coach analyzing your power and your paces all of the time. But some people do need that. Eric's the kind of personality where he's not going to sit down and write out his own training program.

He wants someone to tell him what to do. Whereas I feel like I could maybe do that and part of that is just having a lot of coaches over the years where you can pull different pieces that you think of worked. I would also say just like a risky that you run doing that sort of a thing too is more over-training even. Oh yeah. Just because all that stuff is so fun and you want to do it and it's easy to overreach, you know, over the course of a few weeks. Yeah. Going to all these things that are not really totally in your control even though they're they're super fun. And I would also just like last thing would say like if you if you do have a coach and you go to

Coach Trout, just be super community to give to them because you said, you know yourself better. Well, tell the coach, hey, like, I really think that I do well with long runs. I really think I do well with high intensity on the bike, et cetera, and, like, develop that relationship, truly. Yeah, I think as far as her goals go, these are, that's fast, but it's not that ambitious. So, for example, for 70.3, she wants to go sub 445. I've gone sub five hours a few times without a coach, and I am definitely not naturally talented at this. So I think with her background, it's very much possible for her to do that

with or without a coach. But like you said, it depends on how motivated she is. If she's motivated enough, yeah, I don't think you need the coach to be there for you every second. But I don't know, it seems like I wish I could do it. I wish I could have a coach. So it feels like if you have it, take advantage of it. Yeah, but it is expensive. Yeah. Like if you could pay for a coach for a year or buy a super nice tri-bike with race wheels. Like, maybe get the tri-bike. I don't know. Again, depending on the person.

I really like my coach. I'm not anti-coach in any way. But I think it's possible to do it without a coach. Yeah. Yeah, cool. Well, thanks to the question, anonymous. Hopefully you are going to achieve those goals. Sub 445, 70.3, and sub 10 Iron Man.

That would be fun. Next question is from Pam. She says, hi, I have a two-part question for Nick. his penchant for talking to strangers is great I like how he takes on an interest in everyone kind of like how Hewel Hauser found all kinds of places and things fascinating when some might appear on the surface to be a bit mundane

does Nick consider himself a full-on extrovert or does he also have an introverted side this is a little funny, me asking and answering my own question here yes I do think how does Nick feel? I do find everyone interesting for the most part because every single person really is actually very interesting. Everyone has lived

in very high highs and very low lows. At least they perceive it to be that way. I would consider myself a full-on extrovert. I can do stuff alone. It's not like I'm I don't need someone there every second of every day, but I guess I would prefer to have someone there every second of every day. Like it just makes things more fun for me. Yeah. Yeah. I think I remember you and me, you and I talking about this a little while ago, and I think you are like, you're so good at identifying

what somebody cares about. And when you kind of get them going on the thing that they care about and they're passionate about, that's like, it's so fun to feel that person. Yeah. Yeah. No matter what, like, you're just really good at pulling it out of complete strangers, like walking up to do a dude with a Harley Davidson motorcycle on the side of the street in Santa Monica. And like five seconds later, he is like telling his whole life story about how he discovered Harley Davidson's. And you're, I mean, like, your ability to pull that out is impressive. Oh, thank you. I think people can tell when you're, like, genuinely interested in something

and when you are just trying to, like, maybe, I don't know, sell them something or get something from, yeah, yeah, humor them, exactly. And I am genuinely interested in it. So people have a sixth sense for that kind of stuff. And so when he says, now, how does he handle striking up a conversation with someone who might bring up some offensive topics or perspectives quite contrary to his values, it's always good to know what the other side is thinking, but it can also make a chat uncomfortable. And obviously that for sure happens, especially in the United States,

especially right now with like very divided political things and I mean very divided class things. But it depends. If the person is being rude, my thing is usually I will, if they're being really rude, I will make fun of them without making it obvious that I'm making fun of them right to their face.

I've seen you do this. So like, yeah. So like if someone's being really rude, you know, I'll make a little slight comment, but pretend like I'm agreeing with them. Can you please give us an example? I can't understand this. Like if someone's saying, like, if someone's complaining about, you know, people on food stamps and how they're sucking the blood out of America, I'll be like, yeah, I know, right? Like, how stupid are you? If you can't afford food, you should just die.

You know, I'll say something like that. And then they'll, they'll kind of be like, yeah, but they'll be like, wait, that seems a little extreme. I'm like, yeah. Whoa. Is that what I'm... And that kind of fish tails, like, when someone isn't being rude, but they just have a very opposite opinion, usually I think what I try to do is I'll...

My mind changes on things all the time. So they might actually have a good point. And if I don't think they have a good point, and I think they are straight up wrong, what I'll do is if I want to change their mind, I don't tell them my perspective. I pretend, like I agree with them

but then give the perspective of the other side which really is what I really think if one word to disagree with you they might say Nick you're a psychologist

it sounds a little bad I usually don't people for the most part do I do agree with people like everyone for the most part wants what's best for everyone else and it's just we have different ways on how to get there

Yeah. Anyway, that was a lot of time spent on that question. That was well set, though. Thank you, Pam. Thank you, Pam. I think this person's name is Cheers. Okay, hey, brand new listener to the pod, actually a binge listener. Check them all off on my long ride Monday.

Thanks for making me laugh in the midst of power heavy intervals. Is you a 13-hour ride? Yeah, seriously. Oh, yeah. What episode is this? This is 15? That's a good ride. Yeah.

It's a good ride. even Paula wouldn't be able to last for that. You've had a lot of questions about training, your favorite Frankenstein races, and so much more. Love it. I'm interested in the business end

of being a pro triathlete. Paula Inc. and Eric Inc. Obviously, prize purses and bonuses are how you're comped, but what else do you have to do to make a sustainable living? Do you have an agent

that works on your behalf to arrange sponsorships, or do you have to essentially market yourselves? How do you manage all the things like travel arrangements, race entries, social media, and marketing, etc. These things seem like they could be a full-time job themselves. How do you

all do it? Thanks for all the questions and best luck this season. See you in Daytona, question mark. Sorry, Paul is having conversation with me. That's okay. It's okay. Well, you just reminded me, I'm like, I did it right before the podcast. Oh, today? Moments ago. Oh, wow, okay, okay. I just said,

Eric, did you register for Chattanooga? Because long story short, we do everything ourselves. And it's a lot of freaking work. We're not Inks, though, we're LLC's sole proprietorships. One LLC. Yeah. Man, I feel like this requires a full podcast.

I agree. That's why I was so overwhelmed by it. So I'm like trying to think of how we can like summarize it really quick, but then put this on the list for like a main topic for another time. Yeah. But I mean, long story short, yes. We do everything. There are some triathletes out there that, we'll just use Lionel as an example.

like he pays Talbot to do his YouTube and his wife Aaron is very supportive and cook some meals for him and stuff I'm just saying I think she does more than that I don't know Aaron is a goat Aaron does amaze all of amazing she is driving the ship and then he's got a manager so like

us on the flip side we've experimented with having a manager we like to have a little bit more personal connection with our sponsors so we do that ourselves I make our YouTube videos Paula does the lion's share of the cooking and gets groceries. Books flights. And is TTL customer support?

Yep. And we all send photo albums to sponsors with photos I've taken recently and we have to do all our own posting and everything. You can outsource some of that, but you have to be making quite a lot of money be very high up in the 0.01% tile of pro triathletes to be able to start hiring people to do stuff for you.

I think Eric and I enjoy doing a lot of it ourselves and that's why we've chosen to take on that role, even though maybe we could outsource some of the things. But like Eric said, it's really nice to have personal connections with your sponsors, and I find that builds relationships that grow the sponsorships ultimately. And the things that Eric does putting effort and time into these videos and pair that with winning races and having good results, it becomes so much easier to get sponsored.

And I mean, that's a stupid thing to say. Of course it does. But if the more marketable you are, while staying relevant, having good races, it gets exponentially easier. And it has not always been like that for us. Like we did our time with, like, you know, not having real sponsors and, you know, just begging for a free of sunglasses. Like literally anything, I just can't, you know, like getting credit card points from family

members so that you could, you know, buy a ticket across the country, like that kind of stuff. So it's, yeah, we've been out this for 10 years, and it's only in the last few years that we've really gotten to the point where, you know, we have enough sponsors that it's, that we have the conversation of like, do we need somebody to talk to these sponsors? You know, like a long time, it was like, oh, I'll have one person to talk to. Very simple. Don't need a manager for that. I was just going to quickly say that it helps that Eric and I are aligning a lot of our sponsors now and having the same brands that we work with before when we had separate companies for a lot of categories. it just doubled the amount of emails, photos, stuff like that. So it's really nice to be aligned.

Yeah. I also think that you could have, for example, with all the clothing stuff, yes, you could have hired other people to do it. But it would have turned into some, I don't want to say generic thing, but it would not have had this like through line of DNA that the clothing has with the YouTube show, with you guys. It all works together symbiotically so well. So is it like the most fancy design stuff ever?

No. And good thing it's not. It's exactly perfect the way it is and it's like minimal design. And that's what people responded to. So yes, you sacrifice the time, but then this control you have over the thing means that you can shape it and mold it to exactly what you want it to be. Yeah, totally. And I don't think we're quite ready.

Like we do have a lot of help from you, Nick and our friend Danny and people that we really trust and our friends with, Ralph Dunning from Foreign Rider, but we're not at the point where we have an employee necessarily. And I think if we were going to get help for any of the domains in our lives, it might be TTR, just with some of the logistical stuff that gets stressful, and to maximize the potential it has. Yeah. It would be nice to have like a super kick-ass secretary because we don't have enough time for like a graphic designer and a vlog editor and a photo editor and all these things. You need like one person who can spend like two hours a week on like 17 different tasks. So it's, it's pretty much impossible to hire for that. You need a,

you need an Eric clone and a Paula clone. That's what you need. Nick, actually what we need is you. I'm a bit of an Eric clone and a bit of Apollo clone. Yeah. I'm more of an Eric, I'm more of an Eric than I am a Paula, I think. You can still do all the, you can still do all your music stuff, but we'll pay you to make a podcast. Be our... Oh, yeah, you already do work for us. Shoot. This is great. I love it.

I think it's super fun. Send those tips to Nick, please. Yeah, please. I will accept your pity. Pity tips. Well, thank you for that question. Those questions, actually. Next question is from Megan.

Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn. I know this may be a word question, but I have to ask, how many times a day do you shower? I remember when I was in high school doing track, volleyball, and gymnastics, which meant three practices a day. Taking showers began to feel like an annoying

waste of time once I got passed once per day. You guys seem to do three workouts in a day pretty often and I just feel like the shower would be a continuous inescapable nightmare. So we'll stop there. That's a good question. That is. I would say like if you're going to back up a workout pretty soon after a workout, depending on how sweaty you are, you can kind of ride it out till the next one. Yeah. That's what Eric does. Yeah. If it's like if we have a bike ride and then a run, that's not supposed to be necessarily like off the bike if it's like within an hour and a half later and I haven't like ridden the trainer

so I'm not crazy sweaty then I'll just put on the running shorts then and kind of just wait while I have foam roll or whatever but I also I do not shower after the pool like I might rinse off but that just feels like annoying to me and then we almost always like

don't have that much time before we do the next workout where you're going to get sweaty again yeah that's what I did today I 100% shower after the pool 100% of the time for me. With soap? Yeah. Yeah, that's a thing. For me, it's using soap multiple times a day.

That's, to me, it's a no-no. That's a lot. It's just, I feel like it's just not very good for you to, like, remove all the oils from your skin that often. Yeah, maybe not. I just find pools, like, kind of gross. I don't know why. Yeah, I mean, because there's a band-aid at the bottom of every lane. That's why I find it gross.

I washed my hair after swimming, but then I don't wash it after any other workout in the day. Wash your hair every single day? After swimming, yeah? Wow. I do not. I wash my hair like every like two days and then. Eric changes chains on his bike more than he washes his hair. I was just going to say that.

Well, I actually, I actually had a, I had a woman, like, counsel me one time to only wash my hair like every three days, but whenever you wash, condition afterwards. was like don't. Yeah, duh. Because it's just like what you were saying. You're just like strip oils out of your. Nick, how often do you condition your hair? What hair?

Let's be real. I mean, I didn't want to be what you wanted to say. Let's be real. My three hairs, no, I probably shampoo once a week. They're so short. Oh, wow.

Basically like, I just, it's like, I get a lot of water in there. It's getting trapped up there. No. No. Yeah. Yeah, there's no dirt hanging out up there.

It's like, have you ever been in the door in the, have you ever been in the desert where there's like a few trees? that's like the top of my head I feel like how many people are going to know that because you're always wearing a hat. I am always wearing a hat. Yeah, I have not much hair

so I don't need to shampoo. It's great. And I save a lot of money on haircuts too. Hey, that's me. So maybe that makes you feel better about taking less showers. Yeah. That's right.

And less weird questions. How do you stop your goggles from fogging in the pool? I've used anti-fogged spray, but it only seems to last for a few swims until I'm back to my old foggy ways. Any goggle recommendations? Eric taught me a really cool tip for this. I was going to say you don't.

Oh, yeah? It's not possible. It is possible. Mitigate it a little bit. No, I, my life was changed in my most recent race. Because for me, the problem isn't in the pool because you're stopping every whatever maximum, like you're swimming 400 without stopping. Then you stop and you just, to me, I rinse the goggles in the water. And they last for another like 100 or 200, which is fine.

and it's like a nice little break I take. Okay. But what you told me was to have a little tiny drop of water in each goggle. Oh, yeah. So that when you're swimming, they kind of like rolls around and takes the fog away. And it completely worked for me in my last race. And I never had problems with sighting, which I always do. I always like halfway through the 70.3, I have to like, you know, unless there are brand new pair of goggles,

I have to like stop and dip them in the water for a second. so I can see where the hell I'm swimming. Yeah. So it really, really works. If you just get a tiny little drop of water in each gogg, the motion of you flinging your head around, it, like, keeps me clear. You know, it's totally true.

Like, option one, always get new goggles. Option two, like, do it, do it Nick's saying. Like, the biggest no-no is you don't want to take your thumbs and rub the inside of the goggles because they have some natural anti-fogging in there, and that's just like the beginning of the end when you do that. Just like lick them if you're going to do anything. Oh, I hate when Eric licks his goggles. Yeah, but honestly, it's like the same thing that surf photographers do this on their bubble lenses.

They lick the thing because that, like, for whatever reason, your saliva is really good at keeping water from bubbling, from pooling on a thing. So that combined with the little drops of water and the goggles will get you through your 400 in the pool, not just a 50. Yeah, that's great. I'm loving the podcast. Thank you so much for taking time to share this with us. We know you lead busy lives and your efforts do not go unappreciated. I'm currently training to do my second Olympic distance triathlon and your voices keep me company on longer runs.

Thank you for all your inspiration. Hoping for a healthy try season for all. That was so nice. That's so nice. Okay, next question is from Megan. Hi, Paula, Eric and Nick. Love the pod. Love the vlog.

Tried to rhyme something with vlog, but came up empty. It's okay. We can't all be songwriters. Met you guys at the pop-up in St. George last fall, as well as the pop-up at Oceanside. It's super nice of you all to take the time to chat with us, and I couldn't think of a cooler brand to spend all the monies on. Love it. My question, tube or tubeless? I recently switched to a tubeless setup mainly for the protection against punctures

and to smooth the ride due to lower PSI. I know there are pros and cons, but I hear stories of catastrophic mechanicals with tubeless, blowouts or other issues that will end the race real fast. And in the event, the sealant won't seal the puncture. They say you can just put a tube in, but how easy slash hard is that with a tubeless setup? I got the same questions. Eric, go for it. I don't know. I say tubeless, but I have the same fears. Generally speaking, if you have such a catastrophic flat that the sealant isn't going to fill it, putting in a tube is like 50-50 chance whether or not that tube is going to bubble out of that big gash that you have and you're screwed either way, whether or not you can get the tubeless tire on or off the rim.

So, like, your best solution, like, the tubeless technology has gotten really good. Specialized actually has this, like, pretty cool sealant that has a little bit of glitter in it that gives you, like, even better protection because that'll help your, basically what's happening is coagulation of that sealant when it hits the air. So that'll help a little bit and then carry a CO2 with you so you can put some extra air in there as that sealant is leaking out. And if that doesn't, if that doesn't do it, if you have like literally a razor blade, just sliced your tire in half.

It doesn't matter if you had a tube or not. You had a tubed tire. You're waiting for the support car. What can happen, I 100% agree with you, Eric, if you have a well-set-up tubeless tire with fresh sealing in there and you get such a bad gash in there that the sealant can't seal it,

it's a good chance that a tube isn't going to work either, right? Isn't that what I said? Yeah, it is, it is. However, there is a possibility that you neglected the maintenance of your tubeless tire and you forgot to put more sealing in and there just isn't enough sealant in there

to seal up, maybe it dried up or something like that. And then in that case, you would definitely want to be able to put a tube in there. And in my experience, at least on my bike, the tubeless tires I have on there are borderline impossible to get on and off of there.

They are, it's insane I took it to two bike shops and neither of them could do it They literally gave me the wheels And the tires back Because they couldn't put them on there So I'm like when I'm done with them I'm cutting them off

Because I can't get them off When was this? This was well they're the GP 5,000s TLs Really? But like how long ago? Two years I feel like things have gotten better

I feel like that happens less and less But that was a very big issue With like early first generation Two was tires they just made them like so extra tight because they were like afraid of them flying off or something and I've had that

I have not had that problem lately at all. I agree with Megan though. It does scare me a little bit because I have had a lot of success obviously changing a tube while I'm riding by myself. I wouldn't know what to do if I had a gash and the seal and didn't seal and I didn't have a tube with me. I mean I wouldn't be able to do anything

but I would be worried about trying to take that tire off by myself because we did have that experience. on the road. It was like really hard to get the tire off of a tubeless, especially if you're in a race. Yeah, if you're in a race, it's really tough.

But they are faster, right? And more comfortable? Yeah. They're not any slower than like a super high end tubed tire with a latex tube in them, which is by the way, a $30 tube.

And they are definitely more comfortable because you can run them. This is actually the coolest thing we've been learning a little bit more about zip wheels lately, but they're new, wheels, they're 303s and they're 454s, you can run them at like 50 PSI.

They're hookless. These hookless, it's not quite the same as tubeless. It's a little bit different and you might want to read about it, but they have crazy low rolling resistance. You can run them at like 55 PSI and it's so comfy. Yeah, it makes a huge difference. I just think the pros like so far outweigh the cons and people are like, well, what if lightning hits my tire?

You know, it's like, okay. Yeah, it's possible. but also like when was the last time you got a flat on any of your bikes? Yeah, you can't even remember. You probably got little pinholes a lot of times in the last two years since you've been running tubular. Yeah, I haven't had a flat since I got a tubeless. Knock on wood. Knock on all the wood. No, that was just me to.

Flynn's going to the door. Flynn, come. You knocked on the table and he thought it was the door. Knock on wood, he thought it was the door. I'll tell you, when I raced Santa Cruz and I got off the bike and I saw sealant everywhere, and I was like, well, good thing I had a tubeless setup, because that would have been the end of my race. I mean, I would have to get off and change a flat, which obviously is like so much time lost. Yeah.

Yeah. So there you go. Hopefully that convinces you to... Hopefully that confused you even more. I do think it's the way to go. I think it's got a lot of pros. The only thing is you have to be a little careful about keeping the sealant fresh in there, like every six months to add some sealant potentially. depending on what ceiling you use,

and keep the tires inflated. Oh, yeah, that's true. Don't let them deflate. Yeah, don't let them deflate. Well, that's it. That's the last question. Thank you guys for sending in your questions. Once again, you can, not once again,

this is the first time we're saying it this time, but you can send them to That Triathlon Life brand at gmail.com. We didn't even get to all the questions this week because you guys have been sending in so many, which we love, so keep sending them in. Eventually we'll try to get to all of them. We're going to have to start doing two a week if we want to get through all of them.

Yeah, and I don't know if it was on air or not, but we would rather like make sure that we give really good answers and kind of take a little bit more time than whip through all of them. Yeah. I feel like this week's questions were awesome. I loved them. So good. It's like our, the TTL nation is so much smarter than we are.

It doesn't take much, but still. They're sending us these questions and we're like, um, shoot. We don't know. Let me Google that. What's a compact crank? That's right. That's right.

Yeah, no, I think it's awesome. It fires our brains up in a little bit different way than they normally would and gives us stuff to think about and talk about. So thank you. Cool. Thanks guys. Have a good week of training and we will talk to you after we race St. Anthony's. Woo!