That Triathlon Life Podcast - How water temperature affects swim speed, cleat position, and more!

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

This week we’re back with our classic format, answering your triathlon questions and diving into some fun side topics along the way. We discussed:Mixing and matching different levels of SRAM componentsTriathlon agents: what they do and how they do itHow water temperature affects swim speedSetting cleats in the far-back positionWhat gear was used to film Look For Things Where You Can Find ThemPaula’s new coachWahoo radar for bike safetyPrepping for the cold waters of Escape from AlcatrazA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldstein. And we're coming to you in our normal situation. We're all back somehow. Feels like we've had a pretty whirlwind tour of the West Coast lately. Paul and I are both professional athletes. Nick's a professional... How can I back that up? You're a professional musician munching on rice. Hopefully they can't hear that. I'm going to take it out. Yeah. Chomping down right. Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlete,

and our little trio here we'd like to talk about triathlon and multi-sport. And the bulk of the show is made up from questions, sent in from our listeners. So thank you for doing that and keeping this thing rolling. We love talking about it. We love doing it. We live it every day. And somehow it's still not enough.

Exactly. It's been... It's been one. I'm sorry. That was really in tune. He is a professional musician I bet you every single person knows exactly what you were about to sing

Of course Of course we don't want to get a copyright strike here on the podcast That might do it Those two words might do it for that song Wow Nick You were so talented By the way they put out their film these two boys Finally put out their film

It's all that we've all heard about For the last week so we're over it But it's an amazing film What? Just kidding we're never going to be over it But if you watch the whole thing, thank you. If you wrote in, thank you. If you commented on YouTube, thank you.

If you shared it with all your friends, thank you. Really appreciate the response to it. I think you guys were a bit unsure and a bit nervous about how it would be taken to the general public. And I think it was generally successful. Would you guys say? I think Eric was more nervous than I was. But to be fair, Eric is the subject of the film. Eric is in the film. It is his heart that is shown on screen.

Yeah. I, you know, I could have been wrong, but I also could not have been more confident that we, what we achieved the thing that we tried to do. Yeah. The film is what it, what we hoped it would be. For sure. Yeah, my, my, uh, I guess doubts or, you know, I wouldn't say that they were consuming me or anything, but it's impossible to put something like that focused on yourself. with a very personal message out into the world to a bunch of people who don't know you without having a voice in your head that says, man, I think this makes sense. I think, you know, I think I think, but it's a whole bunch of me thinking.

And you never really know for sure until you put it out there. And I certainly didn't want to let however it was received affect how happy I was about what we did, but I feel like that's impossible. It's only human to feel a little bit of that. But it was, I would say, a smashing success so far. So if people on this podcast, first-time listeners don't know what we're talking about, it's called Look for Things Where You Can Find Them. And it's on our That Traathlon Life YouTube channel. It's a 45-minute-long film. So we would highly recommend watching it on a big screen with full audio,

good speakers. Nick made all the music. Big speakers. Yeah. But I mean, we were talking about maybe Eric and Nick doing a little extra podcast this week, diving into some of the questions we got specifically about the film, like the gear that you used, etc., just so that we don't to completely infiltrate this triathlon podcast with the film since we've talked about it a lot. But we do have a couple questions we'll answer on this podcast, and then you guys can feel it out if you want to do a little bonus episode.

specifically for the people that are more interested in that? Does that sound good? Yeah, I think that would be great. And to be clear, it is a film about trathlons. It's not a film about ice hockey or deadly winks or, you know, I mean, there is some love involved, but it is very much a multi-sport film. So, yeah, I think that would be a great idea. We'd love to talk about it, debrief a little bit. We've had a lot of questions. But also, there's, the trathlon world is moving along outside of outside of it so we can do our do our normal thing and take it away nick because i'm so brain i'm so brain dead right now that's understandable i want to say before we move on that paula how do i want to say this paula is not in the film and she has been so supportive

of the film she has constantly brought it up in the the podcast, two people, and it's been very nice to have her support for something that she wasn't even in, even though she was directly involved in it. She's never going to admit it. Rude. But so thank you, Paula. Oh, you're welcome, Nick. You don't need to do this in public.

Well, I do feel like I need to because I think it's a good message for other people to, to other couples and to, you know, like, I feel like a lot of triathletes are, are. married to other triathletes, but I know that a lot of people that listen to this podcast are married to non-triathletes and they probably have some of that feeling as well of like, you know what, my husband shows up to my races and he supports me and I'm thankful for that. And I don't know, you know, this is our, this is our equivalent of that is this film and you were very supportive of it. And so we really appreciate you for that. Oh, no, you're very welcome. And you guys, you guys can pay me back the next weekend in Oceanside

by being there for my race, right? It's just like we're just a little, Totally. Tripod of support here. Totally, totally. Okay, so let's start out with some fun. We did do a bike tech with Eric last week, but there's another bike tech with Eric this week that I really liked. Can we do another segment too so we can use some of your other jingles? Oh my gosh.

Well, I wasn't really necessarily prepared for that. Actually, you know what? I could pull one out here. But let's start with Bike Tech with Eric. So Eric, I know that you're a little exhausted, but I think you can handle this one. I have a question, bike tech, mostly for Eric. I've fallen in love with an S-Works tarmac frame I found on eBay, satin powder, indigo, if you want to check it out,

which is taking up most of my bike budget. Since I'm building the bike myself, I'm wondering if I can mix different SRAM components to save money while still getting good performance. How would you go about combining the parts, thanks David? Let's take the step by step, Eric. So first of all, can you at all combine group set components from SRM from different levels?

100% yes. Okay. You cannot combine electronic with non-electronic. You cannot combine disk brake with rim break, but outside of that, yeah. And you can't do 12 speed with 11 speed, right? Right, exactly. I mean, I feel like these are fairly obvious things, but just in case, those are the rules. Right.

Okay, so now let's graduate beyond that. Let's say you are mixing and matching. where are you willing to compromise top, top-end stuff, and where are you less willing to compromise? What are the components that you're like, you know what? A rotor, yes, I'm willing to do a lower-end rotor, but let's say the cassette, no, I really want a nice cassette or levers or, you know, cranks, whatever, or the crank set.

Yeah, generally where it's called a mixed group set, and this is the thing that bike companies do as well with, OEM parts to get the price down on a bike to complete out the door. Usually they go with a higher-end shifter and derailer, and then a lower-end brake, crank, rotors. The cassette is usually kind of in line with whatever the shifters and derailers are. So the drive train generally is going to make the biggest difference. And then, yes, like a force chain ring power meter,

crank set is going to be heavier than a red, but you're really not going to feel as much of a difference in shifting performance and stuff. Yeah, I have force on my gravel bike, and it is awesome. I love it. It's an electronic force, and it feels fantastic. Yeah, the one thing that I would say is just as you're looking at the lineup is try to get the new hood shape. Right. They recently did an ergonomic redesign. I'm not sure if it's come out in the rival stuff yet, but if you can get the rival stuff even with the new hood shape, that feels great. I'm really confident it's going to shift great. Is it the same hood shape as the red? Yes.

I don't say this with any behind-the-scene knowledge that I got from SRAM or from Eric or Paula. This is just stuff I've read on the internet, is that that new ergonomic shape from red is coming, trickling down, but it's not out yet. But everyone is very excited about the red ergonomic. coming to force and potentially rival, yeah. Nice. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess it's already been available on gravel group sets for a little while is what I'm thinking of. Oh, okay. Great. But yeah, that would be it. I think you could go rival. You could go a force rival combo. But yeah, rotors, not a big deal. Crank, probably not a big deal.

No, and then does SRAM even have different chains? Oh, yeah. They do have different levels of chains? Yeah, I don't. I honestly haven't looked at the retail price of a red versus a force lately, but I don't think that's huge. Okay. The cassette is extremely, is a big deal.

That's a big one. The thing that was funny, I'll speak about Shimano for a second, is that some like testing or at least the consensus online, which I guess might be wrong, is that the top end chain, so Dura-A's chain from Shimano, is actually more cost-efficient than the next step down because it will last longer, and then it is also lighter. So there are some things that I almost wonder like, well, maybe it's worth getting the next thing up just because it will actually even last longer for you, depending on whatever material it's made from.

That goes from most things in life, doesn't it? Unfortunately. Yes, it's unfair, but it is true. Cool. Okay, well, thank you for the question, David. Good luck with that bike. Make sure you're buying frames on eBay. Make sure it's legit because some very not legit bike component stuff is sold on eBay.

Yep. I know that paint job though. That was a great looking paint job. Congrats. Nice. Okay, so we're going to move on to, as Eric said, questions submitted by the listeners. You can submit your questions to the podcast at ThattriathlonLife.com, where you can also become a podcast supporter.

Podcast supporters are the only way that this podcast makes money, as you can tell. But yes, so if you want to show your support to the podcast, we would really appreciate you becoming a podcast supporter. And we're very, very, very grateful for everyone who already is a podcast supporter. one of the small things we like to do to show our thanks for that is that we'll pick a random podcast supporter to receive a cool gift. And there is a very cool gift. We have another Orca dry bag that is going to go out. And this is to a very special podcast supporter. Kelly Thompson, thank you, Kelly, for being a podcast supporter. You're awesome. Reach out with the address, and we will send that to you right away. Okay. First question here is from Lindsay, all the way

from across the pond. Hi, everyone, no favorites here, spelled favorite with a you, so you know she's legit from the UK. Supporter of this wonderful listen, thank you. Hello from the UK, I was listening to another pod this week, and the subject of agent came up and the kudos behind being an agent to the top triathletes at the moment. This got me thinking, what does an agent actually do in triathlon? Do they approach the athlete or the other way around? Do they get paid if the athlete wins or loses races, assuming,

the more successful athlete, the more they get paid? Do Paula and Eric have one? Thoughts about having one. Thanks so much for the best pot out there. Always a highlight of the week when it drops. Congratulations on the W at Oceanside, Paula, in the incredible film, Eric and Nick. All the love, Lindsay from the UK.

So there was a lot of questions there, and I think instead of answering them individually, we can kind of hear from you guys your general thoughts on agents, how you even get one, if you've ever had one, if you have one now, and what the reality is. we have had a mixed

a very mixed bag of experience with agents or managers or whatever term you want to use triathlon is kind of an interesting space where only the top maybe 10 people in the sport make enough money to pay an agent

to pay an agent what it's worth for them to go and find deals for them. Generally, an agent is going to take a percentage of each deal that they help you get, and for that percentage to be high enough to necessitate all the emails they have to send back and forth, you have to be sending pretty big deals. Usually it's like 15% of your base fee, and then also they'll take 15% of your bonuses that you get for performances.

Yeah. So let's throw some crazy numbers out there and just say, you sign a deal with giant bicycles for $100,000, your agent will take $15,000 of that. That is a very large deal for a professional triathlete. Almost nobody makes that much money. From one sponsor. From one sponsor. But that is going to take a lot of back and forth on the part of that agent slash manager.

And that relationship will take a lot of nurturing throughout the year. So when it comes down to it, getting paid $15,000. for the amount of time that's going to take, it's not like a fantastic, amazing salary. But what happens is agents work with several different athletes. And then that all adds up. And then it makes it a viable thing. From an athlete's perspective,

it takes the stress of having to reach out to different companies and figure out who's the contact at Wahoo, who's the contact at Kiseli, you know, and sell yourself to them, propose your value, hear what they have to say. Like that back and forth can be really uncomfortable between an athlete and a brand. So a manager or an agent generally as an idea

of the value of an athlete based on their results and their following and their social media presence and they can sort of do a pitch to a brand for a certain athlete. We've had experience with a couple, I would say no experience has been wonderful and it's been very short-lived, and we just have realized that Eric and I in particular work better when we're communicating directly with the brands that we work with.

Most of our partners are long-term. We've worked with them for a long time, and we ideally work with them until we retire. So having a middleman to talk about, I don't know, can you get this picture for them? It's just a waste of time to have a middleman. and we don't need an agent to negotiate salaries because we're already kind of set. So it's less helpful for us. But I can understand why someone that's maybe like high profile but doesn't really want to deal with the emails or the, you know, taking social media stuff themselves, which Eric and I, we do it ourselves. So it's a lot easier would have a manager.

Yeah. Yeah. I think there are some managers out there that are like a pretty full service situation, which Paul and I kind of are already. They will talk to the brand. They will find out exactly what the brand needs from the athlete. They will like find a photographer to go meet with the athlete, work that into the athlete's schedule and deliver assets of the athlete doing their thing to the brand.

Instead of, you know, Ian from Wahoo text me is like, hey man, new computers on the way. If it's cool with you, if you could get some pictures with it. That would help us out a ton. You know, versus he goes to the manager. The manager calls it a photographer and three or four weeks later, maybe some images show up. Yeah, I will say that most brands don't want to work through a manager. They much prefer to chat to Eric and I directly. It's a way cleaner process.

From an athlete perspective, it simplifies things because you just have one touch point. And that's your manager. And they talk to everybody else. So there's, you're not getting overrun with requests or, you know, the manager kind of filters out what is reasonable for you to do as an athlete when you're trying to train. and win big races. But from our perspective, we would way rather get six emails a day directly from the people

that we have good relationships with and deliver to them efficiently, quickly, keep everyone, you know, we're good, we become friends with them at this point. And for that reason, I think we continue to get re-signed when our contracts are up.

Yeah, there's a feeling of comfort on both sides and connection that... And trust. Yeah, that this person, you got each other's back and you're in it together and there's not just a middle person that's trying to... I don't know.

That's too... Well, the last thing I'll say. This could... We could talk about this forever. Yeah, it's interesting. I just, as much as you want to talk about it, I think it's really interesting. Yeah, that we had a bit of a struggle with one

manager brand company who they were working for me as an athlete, but they didn't really understand TTL and what we have going on from that side of things. So obviously, Eric and I were little bit different from someone who's just trying to go and win races and stay off social media as much as possible. Like we have this, we have our own brand. So having a manager who completely

understands the ins and outs of like what we have going on, it's very complicated. And I think we just do a better job on our own of managing that side of things as well. How TTL intertwines with what we're doing athletically and in all of the different, you know, tentacles that we have. Is that the right word? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do think that there's a small chance that we could make slightly more money if we had an agent campaigning for us and whatever.

I do, yeah, I do agree that maybe from a couple different companies. From large companies. Maybe we could. Yeah, or maybe they could find, you could have gotten us hooked up with Coca-Cola or something huge that we can't connect with. I doubt it, but that's- That was the bait that got us to start working with that manager a couple years ago. We're like, we're set on the endemic sponsors. What about non-indemic sponsors?

And they were completely useless in that division. They just wanted to have- And very confident. Yes, of course they're trying to be like, yeah, we have contacts. We have contacts at Coca-Cola or whatever. And so we're like, okay, well. Well, we don't know who to go to for that type of thing. So we're all in.

But really, their contacts are in the industry. And we were completely set with our industry sponsors, you know? So that is, you've got to be like Michael Phelps to do that kind of stuff or yawn or I don't know. Yeah, or just have like, you know, we ended up with Mercedes. And that is just because our story aligned really, really, really well. like that person that worked there or listened to the podcast and that was kind of like a dream come true

non-indemic sponsor but that's super rare. That's not just because we had a manager or we were cold calling Mercedes and Dodge and Ford and trying to find a car company. I don't think it's necessary to have

to be the direct contact with your sponsors to achieve what you have achieved but I don't think it's a total coincidence that the people who listen to this podcast and who are, who feel a part of the T-THAL community, I think are, they're so more willing to trust when you guys endorse something than almost any other pro-tra athlete because of the intention that you do these partnerships with. Like, you believe in all these products. You love these products that you use.

And it's clear. That comes across. genuine thing. And so the fact that you also then have that person to person in communication with the sponsor, it all lives inside of that same ecosystem. I think that's why it flourishes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we often don't even use the word sponsorship. I know. I don't really like that word. We refer to it as partnerships because if it is going to succeed and it's going to be long term and it's going to feel right and everybody's happy, it's a partnership. It goes both ways. We are helping the company. They are helping us.

the common goal is to raise each other's profiles, move product, like us tell our stories, them help us. It feels very much like we're a team and we're working towards a common goal and we're not a billboard. Yeah, yeah. Well, awesome. That's a great question. Thank you for the question and really interesting to hear about, we love the behind-the-scenes stuff, of course. Okay, next question here is from Dominic. I have a swimming-related question. I regularly swim in two different pools.

both 25 meters and have noticed that there is always a one to two second per 100 meter difference. The slower pool also feels a bit colder. Does the water temperature have a significant influence on the swim time? Really love the podcast and listen to it every week. Best wishes for the upcoming season, Dominic. And then I'm going to have a follow-up question. But first I want to hear what you guys have to say about that. Something slower in a colder pool.

Yeah, I would have said the opposite of that. For me, I cannot do really hard sets in a warmer pool. So that's a little bit confusing. Yeah, I think it's way easier to swim hard in a cold pool. But, I mean, the temperature could definitely impact this. And the thing about swimming is that if you're doing a set in a cold pool, you have to warm up so well. You have to do hard 50s to warm up. Sometimes it takes me like 25% of the set to feel like I'm not noticing the cold anymore.

So it requires you to swim quite hard if the pool is actually that cold. Like competition temperature for swim meets is pretty freaking cold. And a lot of competition pools keep their pool at that temperature. So I could see if you're used to swimming in kind of like an 82, 83 degree pool. And that's your comfort. And then you go into a competition pool. You could just be too cold to swim. Like that is very possible.

Yeah. Right, Eric? Yeah. Yeah, that's possible. If you feel like ball said cold through the whole workout, then that could be impacting it. Yeah, the pool in Victoria, B.C., where I used to live, was so cold we would wear like swimskins because we'd just be shivering.

Right. But there's a fine line between that. I would also say the depth of the pool could make a difference. Yes. Let's go into things that can make a difference here. Okay. Lane ropes. Depth of the pool.

How many people are in the pool with you? Air quality of the pool, that could make a difference. Some pools have currents. So if you're swimming in all different lanes in the pool versus always swimming in the same lane. Some lanes just have a current that's backwards and terrible. Or the jets from the side are like pushing you all over. Exactly. Creating a current. Yeah, I would say one to two seconds, pool to pool is not that outrageous. So when you say, because I've heard this so many times and I always roll my eyes at it, but like,

oh, that's a fast pool or that's a slow pool. That's a thing. So of course. So what is the, is a shallower water faster or is a deeper water faster? Deepest water you can get. I think the actual perfect depth is like 12 feet or something. It's what the Indianapolis pool is. And then you want wash up gutters. So a gutter that is like almost perfectly flat with the top of the water and the water can just roll into it instead of bouncing off of it. Right. Yeah. That makes a huge difference. You know pools that have a big ledge all around them. You're just creating a riptide. Yeah, the pool in Santa Monica Nick. That's like the good kind. I love it. And also I was talking to my friend about this that I ran into at the pool yesterday. I love that my pool has that ledge for your feet

on the side too. Love that. Can't live without it. So when you're done, when you're pausing it aside down like five feet or whatever. Yeah, it's like it's just perfectly placed and I just feel I just actually get a good rest out of it. When I don't have that, I feel like I'm just like holding on to the side of the pool between reps. Yeah, it's kind of insane if a deep pool doesn't have that ledge. I mean, Juniper does. Okay, I do have the next little game for us, Paul, if you're ready. I think we could do some rapid fire. Oh, wow. I love rapid fire. Okay, let's do it. And these are, these are a little bit wild, and I really do expect you to be at the top of your game. So, Eric, you need to just like, I don't know, it's like when you're nine miles into your

70.3 run and you got no energy left and you got to find it, this is where you're finding it right now. Channel that kind of desire. Okay. All right. If animals could talk, which one would be the rudest? Getting big. Cat. Oh, yeah, both. Both. Okay, next, what's your go-to excuse when you're late, but you're really just lazy? Eric, took forever. That's good.

That's good. Actually, it's usually true. Blame Eric. Eric, what about you? I don't know. Traffic. Bend traffic, of course, yes. You guys don't even know.

You don't know how good you have it. Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses? Oh my God. I think ducks are vicious. So if you make a horse-sized one, oh, no way, dude. This is a dumb question. Okay, they're all dumb questions. I don't know. I'm losing both things. I'm losing both battles. Maybe I would fight one duck-sized horse-sized duck because I would try to make friends with it. Totally. I could reason with it. I could appeal to its humanity.

I'm getting trampled by a hundred duck-sized horses. I'm going to make that my pet. Mob mentality comes into play and you are at their mercy. Yes. And I feel like if you didn't weren't able to reason with it, it would be a much quicker death

than a hundred. God. Yes. 100 horse duck-sized horses. Okay, if your life had a theme song that played every time you entered a room, what would it be? For friends?

They never told you that was gonna be this way. Nice. Whenever that song plays, I just get so happy. It reminds me of childhood and happiness. And yeah, that would be my choice. That's an insanely difficult question. But the first song that popped into my mind was the final countdown.

Everyone just turned off the podcast. This is like picking the T100 walkout song. They ask us to pick our own T100 walkout song. Some people really nail it. But I think you nail it, Paul. You know why I think that? Because I picked one of your song. Yeah, swerking it.

Yeah, that's great. Okay, and the last one here. What's the weirdest thing you've believed as a kid that you're still kind of unsure about? Oh. Oh. I was literally just talking about this today. Mine, I know this isn't for me, but mine is that for good things to happen, bad things have to happen. And I feel like there is some law of the universe that actually lives by that.

You believe that as a child? What kind of a child? I was a strange kid. I'm a strange adult. Okay. I was not having deep thoughts like that. My parents, we had a golden retriever named Jake who was a growler and a bit of a bit of a biter. So my parents told us that they took him to a farm.

Oh, boy. So he could live a nice life on a farm. Yep. And I know they probably took him. In a way, he is living a nice life on a farm. I'm still kind of unsure if he took him to the farm or if they took him to the vet. Don't ask you. don't want to know.

So this is, you're not a big George Orwell person then, eh? Yes. No, I think I went to what my dad said he has a patient who has a farm and took him to one of the patient's farms to live a happy life. Well, it's very, I mean, it could have. Can we go visit him? Definitely not ever. Definitely not.

I got nothing. I'm sorry, guys. Wow. Okay. He was just so wise as a kid. He didn't believe anything that wasn't actually true. No. No.

That's not what I'm saying, but I just... It's a hard question. I don't know if my parents told me, you know, things like that or... I feel like I was quite a pensive... I've always been a pretty pensive person, so pretty logical. Did you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? Sure. I mean, those are, those are like obvious games.

What do you believe in? Kids is getting weird. Next. Next thing. That's it. Those are five. I mean, next segment. Well, okay, my question for you is,

this is really getting out of hand, but do you tell, if you have kids, do you tell them about Santa Claus? Yes. I mean, every other kid is doing the whole Santa thing. So, you know, do you want the kids pop in the kids bubble like super early on and just, you know, let them go with the flow and enjoy that?

No, 100% you tell them Santa Claus exists. It's the most fun thing you'll ever believe. The sad time when I realized he doesn't exist is I was, we used to go to Jasper to the ski place and all the presents were in the bathtub in one of the bathrooms and I opened the curtain to Paula from Santa. Life ruined. Wow. I don't remember that exact moment. And do you not feel betrayed that you were lied to by your caregivers and putting into this earthers? I feel like the progression though is, okay, tooth fairy.

really okay that's obviously not but but also that's fun Easter bunny like probably goes pretty quick after that but then you're like Santa you know

I feel like you hold on to Santa for a little bit longer because you want to believe but wait who came up with the tooth what kind of idiot came up with a tooth fairy you have to put money under their pillow like literally anywhere else

would be easier you have to sneak into their room and not wake them up in the middle of the night seems crazy wonderful idea I think it's so fun. It's the riskiest of the... It's so risky. It's so risky.

Okay. Of the little mini lives. Kids are like out when they're out. They're sleeping. That's true. I could definitely, I could slip a f***ing brick underneath Paula's pillow while she's sleeping. And like if you wake up and they see you,

you just say, oh hi, I'm just checking on you. You don't say, oh, shoot, you caught me being the tooth fairy. Oh, that's smart. I think I'd probably dress up as a tooth fairy just. in case they woke up. Don't mind me, little one. All right, we should move on to some triathlon content here. Here we didn't talk about the film because this is a triathlon podcast and here we go.

Exactly, exactly. Okay, well, next question here is from Asia. Hello, friends. My wife has been listening to you since the early days and jokingly refers to you all as her friends when telling me about something she has learned from the show. She doesn't think I listen to TTR, but hopefully this will make. her smile on her next training ride. Oh, that's really sweet.

I love it. Yes. And I do feel like, I mean, I don't know, when someone who listens to the podcast, you know, introduces themselves, I always feel like we are already kind of friends. My question relates to the cleat position on your foot. Have you all experimented with slamming the cleat back to the midfoot for the proposed benefits of efficiency and offloading the calves to save them for the run? Interested to hear your thoughts and I will take my answer off the air. So that's really nice. Well, we're answering your question on the air.

I remember hearing this when I was first setting up my tri-shoes, like you've got to slam that cleat all the way back. It's the only way to do it for triathlon. But have you guys ever experimented with this? Have you even heard of this? I've heard of it. Yeah, it came and went, in my opinion, from my perspective, probably about right when you got into triathlon, Nick.

I never tried it. It just seemed a little bit too crazy to me and something not worth the risk. What's the risk? just you're I mean you have to change your saddle position because all of a sudden the cleats in a different spot and it's just a whole bunch of things and no I felt pretty happy with my bike position so yeah messing around with cleat position is really tricky because I notice even like a one millimeter difference it's I have a brand new pair of S work shoes that I want to try but what's stopping me is switching the cleats around because it just needs to be so precise for it to feel the same and if Eric gets them like one of millimeter forward or back, I can really tell. Yeah. So the idea of slamming the back to the midfoot, it just would completely change the way

you ride. Maybe it would have, I understand the idea of this. But yeah, like Eric said, to me, maybe just a little too risky, a little too much change. Yeah, it's like, oh, I've ridden 170 cranks my whole life. And I'm just going to go 150 because smaller is better. Right, right, right. And, you know, okay, that's different.

That's different. That's extremely different. Yeah, maybe if you want to try this like, incremental changes over time might be a better idea, like move it a little bit and then a little bit more and see how that feels. And if you hate it instantly just with a small change, put it back. And a lot of cleat position, it is about comfort, right? Yeah. And not forcing yourself to get used to it and liking something that feels so unnatural and not good.

Yeah. And I will just say we're not bi-fitters. we 100% endorse using a professionally trained bike fitter for things like this, but these are our opinions. Yeah, and our experience. How often do you think your calf is real? I mean, of course it all works together but it's one thing to save your hamstring or your quads,

but like the slight difference you would get from sliding that back in your calf, I don't know. I mean, I guess the consensus is that I don't hear anyone talk about this anymore, so it's probably the consensus, but I can't imagine it's that beneficial, even if it does work. I'm just going to guess it's another one of those things that somebody said, you know what, that makes sense. But there's no data. It's also one of those things that zero percent of like pure cyclists are ever going to do

because they don't have to run off the bike. So they're just going to be laughing at yet another thing that we're doing. Let's just wear long socks and keep your cleats where they are. We want to be good cyclists. We want to be good runners. And then the fact that we can put them all together is just a cool bonus. Yeah, we're not janking around. with our equipment.

Yeah, very nice. Very nice. Okay, okay. Next question here is from Nate. Hey, TTL, loved. Okay, this is a question about the film, by the way. And we are going to do just two of these, but we would love it if anyone had specific questions about the film and we'll gauge this depending on how many questions we get.

Send them in and we'll do our own little thing about that. And by own little thing, you mean you and Eric will record a podcast as bros about your film. Yes, that's right. Okay, just to be clear. ATTL loved watching the film cinematography was incredible for all the film nerds and gurus like myself

I got to know what cameras and equipment you were using to shoot the film saw a lot of FPV some anamorphic some long focal shots would love to know more about what was in the camera bag

thanks Nate Eric do you think you could quickly rattle through the gear that was used the camera bag was the Ronan 4D which we're selling which may or may not be in pieces

It's with DJI right now. They are working on it. Oh, you did send it in. Okay. Oh, yeah. When Eric was filming my bike reveal, he crashed on the e-bike and snapped the Ronan 4D. Just so everyone knows.

I will say it's nice. And then the first thing he said was, we're fucking selling it. I'm like, all right, I'm in. I'm down at this plan. I hate this camera.

It is. Eric, I'm sure it's really, really nice to have that camera. But if we ever need it, We can also just rent it. And it's like, you know. Dude, it's, it's so stupidly expensive to rent.

But you guys don't have to sell it. Because when I said, when I told Nick that we're selling it, he was like, that thing belongs in a museum. Don't sell people that. I think is the reason the film is what it is. No, I mean, that was my initial reaction. I knew that's what you wanted to hear. What went wrong with, that was not the camera's fault.

That was my fault. That was my fault. Well, the camera is gigantic too, though. I can get into it. It's very, very hard to operate with one hand. The camera's fault that it's gigantic and it has a goose neck. In this situation, I would have crashed and broken any camera that I was holding. You don't think the unwieldliness and weight of it was a determining factor?

Definitely was. My A7 would have gone flying across the street the same exact way. Yeah, but then replacing it would have cost one-eighth of the price. I'm actually not so sure. They might, the DJI is pretty great about their repair. Yeah, this thing does seem to, it's like a car with crumple zones. It seems to break in like just weak little plastic parts. And the last time that I broke it, I sent it and it costs like $200, which just, I was expecting $2,000.

Yeah. Anyway, that was the camera. We bought specifically for the film using money gotten from sponsors for the film. It was like, we need to make this film with this camera. And it pains me to say that DGA is not paying us to say this. We just decided and freaking went out on the limb and did it. Our mission was to film the entire film, Anamorphic. The first scene in Ventura, we didn't film with the 4D, we didn't have it yet.

We got anamorphic lenses, but then they turned out to be a little bit too heavy to have on the 4D. So we shot the rest of the film with an actually incredibly cheap set of cinema. lenses that do fit on the 40. So good. So good. They just have like, you know, you might say, oh, they're not very sharp or something, but they have a really nice organic feel to them. And we just like really lucked out.

I watched a lot of lens review videos. Were they secondhand? No. But I did get a deal on them. I told them that we were shooting their broken ons. And I told that company that we were shooting a film. We wanted to shoot them on these lenses. And they gave me like a 15% discount.

Dude, we should send it. We should send the film to them. Yeah, I will. for sure. Yeah. For sure. But yeah. Yeah, so the Rokanons we had a 2445 and 100, right?

Yeah. And 100 stuff looks so good. Do you remember what the T stop is? Is it 1.8, 1.8, 2.8? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, and we shot, definitely shot a lot, like, close to wide open for anyone who cares. We'll talk about this more later.

But then for the drone stuff, Eric has a Mavik. Pro 3. So for the kind of more cinematic static stuff, we use that. And then for the FPV stuff, we used my DJI Avata 2. For the really fast stuff. Yeah, for the fast stuff. And I think that's, those are all the cameras we used. There was no, no GoPro, no action cams, no iPhone. The anamorphics we shot on my A7S3. Yeah.

For the Ventura scene. Hilariously, I guess both of the cameras are like from 2020. Right. Well, yeah, cameras like, do you really need like super, I don't know, the cameras are all really, have been good for a couple of years now. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's what we use, but we are happy to go into more detail about the technical stuff,

if that's interesting, or about how we shot stuff and how it all came together. If you have any questions about that, send those in. Next question here, Paul, this is for you. And I don't know if you even want to say this, but since you put it, you did put it in the questions, I am going to ask. talking about, we're not talking about my new coach yet. Okay. So why did you put this in?

I don't know, because they asked like five different questions in there. Okay, yeah, they did. It's funny because I crossed out all the rest of them. Oh, funny. You know what? I'm a little overwhelmed because I feel like I'm being attacked by so many different, not media outlets, because it's literally just us and Iron Man. I feel like I've been asked about like my.

race in Oceanside. And I feel almost embarrassed that Oceanside win is getting like hype and attention. Yeah, it's cool, but okay. Like, it's one race. And I don't know. I've mentioned my coach now a couple times. But obviously, my thought was I would keep this like under the radar and a little bit low key and I don't want to make a big deal about it. But then when you say it, people hear it and they want to hear all about it. So I'm just in this impossible thing where I feel like I'm, I don't know. I'm putting myself out there for criticism, and I hate that. I mean, we've kind of no choice. It's kind of part of the gig. But, so I'm curious, if you can explain in words other than keep me under the radar, well, maybe you don't have to answer this if you don't want, but why are you trying to keep it private?

Why is it a thing to keep private in general? Because it's so fresh to me, and I think it's a little bit, I didn't switch coaches because I disliked my previous coach. I really like him still and had a lot of success with him. And I don't want it to come across like I left with any bad blood or anything. And I was also in limbo for a long time with nobody and didn't know what to do and thought maybe I'll just coach myself with Eric's help. And that was a phase. And then I really randomly, or just like by coincidence, got connected with the coach.

that I ultimately ended up working with, and it's very unconventional, and it's very different from when I'm used to. The workouts are so different, so much more riding. So I'm just feeling it out and learning it myself, and I don't think I necessarily need to just, like, tell the world who it is or all the details about it, because we share a lot on here. Wow. So we're tuning back in after some TTL after dark, which will never make the air, but that was a lot of swearing, a lot of... Definitely. A lot of making fun of things. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, we will be the only ones privy to that. Okay, well, there's a couple other things here, I guess, from Dean that we could answer. We could answer. Have you had a chance to get the new Wahoo radar? And can you give a review on it? Have you guys heard of this, by the way? Yeah, I'm so excited about it. We haven't seen it yet or had it.

We have a package on the way from Wahoo. I'm not sure if it's the radar or the new computers. I think the radar is a little bit further down the line, but I'm so excited the Wahoo finally has one because I've been used. using the... Only important people like DC Rainmaker have them right now. What is the one that we ordered on Amazon?

Majin! It's worked fine, but it'll be cool to have a Wahoo one. You know, just telling me about it in Patagonia. I think it's like

got a lot more customization and some smart things that it does. I think it actually brightens up if you break so like it does.

Yeah, it does. We're making a video about that. We are 100% making an at-night bike skills video with like the Formula 1 like

Burm-mo-WWR. You're going to put the sounds I can't ride without my radar light anymore. I'm so in love with it. It's great, but that's also not great. No, I do still check my shoulder. But when I'm in my TT bars and I'm riding on a very quiet road,

I like to know if there's a car coming up on me. So I can hug the side or whatever. It's very safe. The only time that we've encountered some issues with it is when I drop back to take a picture of Paula while she's TT biking and then I like kill myself to catch back up and she thinks that I'm a car. And then, you know, now the integrity of the light is called into question. Is it just me back there making a fool of myself or an actual car?

Well, you're always making a fool of yourself back there. Yeah, I don't. But, you know, it's for good reason. I do have some slightly bad news is that I believe that the mount it uses is not the mount that you currently have. Wahoo, for whatever reason, decided to use the different mount than what everyone else has been using. Completely proprietary one. Isn't it like a gummy wrap? It is.

So you can just, you know, it'll come with. But you, like, for example, on Eric's bike that's here, he has that, like, one that's, like, actually screwed into the seatpost, you know. Neat components. You can find it on TTL.com. There you go. Yeah, but I am so into the gummy wrap because the annoying thing about the lock mechanism is you do have to have a gripper that perfectly fits your seatpost. And, yes, neat components makes that and you can order it.

But to be able to switch the light between different bikes, which all had different seatpost, having that gummy thing with different sizes, and then it actually stays there sturdy. I am all about that. I think maybe it doesn't look quite as clean, but it's completely more usable. And when we use our janky little, like, elastic things, and the light, like, slides to the side.

Yeah. And then it's not functional anymore. We only do that in an extreme situations while we're waiting for the official clamps to arrive. Right. Okay, you know what I'm saying now. Okay. That's it.

That's it from Dean, at least. Next question here. Hey, loving the pod and the vibes you all bring across all the sports and art and music and photography and film. So awesome. Thank you, Teresa. I appreciate that. No answers. Just vibes. That's our podcast. Nice. You know, it's kind of true, actually. I'm a very middle of the pack amateur just doing this for myself and I'm in it for the experienced triathlete. Wow. I like the grind and satisfaction of training and love doing races with friends, especially ones where we can travel and do cool hikes. after or see unique parts of the country we've never been. Of course, Teresa. That's awesome. I'm doing escape from Alcatraz this June, and I'm getting nervous about the cold water temperatures because I haven't been able to do any cold

swim water training yet. This will be my coldest swim ever, so feel very unprepared. If I can't find some cold open water swim training to do, do you have any other tips on how to acclimatize or otherwise prepare? I'm guessing there are other triathlons with cold swim, so hopefully this question has

relevance to many listeners, not just me. you, Teresa. Yeah, I might as well be asking this question, so please fix us. Yeah, we've both done Escape from Alcatraz several times. Last year, it was a T-100 race. It also is T-100 this year. And because of the world triathlon rules, we actually all had to wear booties, gloves, and hoodies on our bodies in addition to our wetsuits. And I found that to be overkill, but when we did some practice swims in our river, which is extremely cold. I found the booties and the gloves really helpful. So you could wear that and escape from Alcatraz is completely allowed. It is a little slower to wear gloves and booties, but if you're in it for the experience and

you're scared about the cold, that is, will definitely help. But I will also say that jumping from the boat in Alcatraz, for some reason, the cold doesn't hit me as much as if I'm slowly waiting in the water and like feeling all the water trickle into your wetsuit. And there's so much adrenaline with jumping off the boat that your body almost forgets that the cold is a thing because there's so many other things you're thinking about. That's at least my experience there. But Eric, maybe you have a different experience? Yeah, I've never once thought about the temperature of the water. At that race. After jumping off the boat. But every year that I've done it, you go pre-swim in the bay

like in the little cove situation where people open water swim and yeah it feels... Do you remember? It's right in front of the Giradelli factory. Yeah. It feels real cold. It feels really cold and you get in and you're like I swear it must be colder this year

and then you jump off the boat the next day and you don't even think about it. Yeah, it's really a crazy phenomenon. It's much better than if you're like at Indian Wells when you got to get in the water and do it in water start and you're in there for five minutes. I hate that. That's so much worse than...

just jumping in, going, not thinking about it. Yeah, and for this thing, you like put on your wetsuit and then you get on the boat and you got a 40-minute boat ride. You're just sitting in your wetsuit, preheating. You've got a whole bunch of time to like kind of warm up your core body temperature and I think that stays with you for the whole swim. Aquatic park, that's what it's called. Okay, so my question about the booties and the gloves, Paula, I understand why the booties are slower. and I have worn booties in a race and they like drag, they feel like

they're a parachute. But the gloves, I would expect them to actually make you faster. So can you, do you think you could put your finger on, so to speak, why the gloves actually felt slower to you? They're just heavy and they're not webbed or anything.

So they're just, you actually want them to be fairly tight. Otherwise water might get inside of them and they're just extra dead weight it feels like. And so much of swimming is feel for the water. And your hand position and that's that's why people swim so frequently is feel for the water and it can just completely change that if you have gloves on your hands in a way that's completely different than wearing paddles or a wetsuit or even the booties don't change the way you swim they just might

drag you down a little bit yeah i don't know if we can say for sure that they're slurr but they feel very sloppy yes they feel very sloppy and the only thing that made us all okay with it was that we all had to wear them we're all in the same boat and that made it kind of like, not comical, but just like, oh gosh. All in the same boat? Was that on purpose? I think I said that I used that joke back in the time. When this race was happening last year, we were talking about it a lot.

Okay, okay, yeah. Like, we're all in the same boat wearing these stupid booties, but. I didn't mind it at all when I swam with it. I swam with them in Nemo Bay, actually. I felt like maybe mine were just the right size or something, and I felt like I did get a little bit of a paddle effect. and that water 100% I could not have swam

for more than 20 minutes without them. So cold. Which makes it a lot easier to just embrace the feeling. Yeah, I think I got a pair that was too small actually and they were kind of clawing my hands.

Oh yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is effectively making my hands smaller. Yeah. Actually, you have a fantastic quote, I think, in our YouTube video about that. Like the most hilarious moment from that YouTube video.

I was trying them on in the hotel room and I didn't practice in the pool or anything because I was felt very unprepared. But I did take the bigger pair to the pool the day before and tried them on like 100% no. I have to go with the smaller ones. Yeah. Because we got the bigger ones. They just instantly fill with water.

Right. Teresa, I'm with you. For whatever reason, I can endure some things, but an open, a cold open water swim is not one of them. Such as waking up. The crack of noon to do deep knee rock squats. The thing about cold water. last thing and then we're moving on because this is getting out of hand. But it's not like heat training necessarily where you're like,

I don't think so. I'm going to ride in the bathroom and the heater and the sauna effect. That actually has a physiological effect. But just kind of like dunking yourself in ice water just to get adapted. It's a mental thing. I don't think that works. If so, like the heat thing, you get faster. The cold thing, it's just like, okay, you're just suffering.

Yeah, don't put yourself through that. It's so dumb. Just jump in. and you'll be okay. It's going to be okay. And even if it's not, then it'll be over soon. I think self-belief is more important than practice.

Oh, God. It's such an epic swim, though. You're not just like doing circles in lake and Indian wells. You're swimming from a boat over to the land escaping from a prison. It's come on, it has purpose. Yeah, it's super epic. It's a sweet race. Well, good luck, Teresa.

And we'd love to hear how it goes when you successfully complete the race. would love to hear it. I would love. I love the follow-ups. I love the follow-ups. There is another question about the film, but you know what? We're going to save it for the special film episode. Those are all the questions that we had this week. We did it. Nice. I mean, we had some more, but those are the ones we picked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you guys have any questions that have been brewing, please email me, send them in. We love getting them. Every week, I'm so blown away by how diverse and how good the questions are. So keep doing. that. Don't ever hesitate.

And we'll talk to you guys next week. We don't really have any notable things happening this week, do we? Nope. The film? Buy a poster? Yeah. We'll close the poster orders somewhere at the end of the weekend, maybe. Oh, they're still open. Okay, yeah. Definitely go get posters if you like the film. That's how you can support the film.

That's the best way to financially support us in the film. Although I have seen people donate to the video on YouTube through YouTube comments, which is very generous. It's extremely nice. Unfortunately, YouTube keeps a giant chunk of that. But it's still really nice. It's still so nice. Yeah, worse.

So thank you guys. And we'll talk to you next week. Thanks, everybody. Thanks.