That Triathlon Life Podcast - IM 70.3 Oceanside debrief from the TTL Van, Triathlon bike position acclimation period, slow running, and more!

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

This week we recorded all together in the TTL van, where Eric and Paula talked about their race experiences at IM 70.3 Oceanside as well as the weekend as a whole. After talking about the race, we got into questions from you! Questions about swimrun, shifting around on the TT bike, adapting to aerobars, and more! To help support the podcast, as well as submit your own questions, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hello everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Nick Goldstein. The little voice crack. I have the power to edit that out, but I might not. Yeah, it's kind of a lot. You don't have the power to edit it out of the video. Oh, shoot. Okay. Okay. We're here in Oceanside Post Race, recording both a little bit of the vlog and the podcast at the same time here in the van before we all split up. And Nick and I go to Hawaii to shoot a film, and Paula goes to Flagstaff.

Wait, we're shooting a... What's happening? We're shooting a film in Hawaii? Yes, we are. Is it for TTL? It's not for TTR. It's for another cool brand, and you'll just have to stay tuned to hear more about that. Whoa.

Some later date. Wow. Yeah, and the consequence of this is that I have to drive the van to Flagstaff, and I hate driving the van because it's so tippy, and it's not the nice storyteller that we borrowed a couple months ago. So wish me luck. By the time this comes out, we'll have already arrived. But thankfully my mom is here, and she's going to help with the drive,

help with Flynn and has been insanely helpful all week in general. So yeah, we're doing this from the van because it's the last time we're kind of all in person together for the next couple of weeks. A little fresh post-race. It's not like the most fun time to talk about race recaps when things didn't go well, but I'm putting on a smile. And we're going to do our best. We're going to do our best to kind of give you a little insight of how it went, how the week went,

and then we'll also get to a couple questions at the end of this whole thing just to keep our regular format. So what day did we show up? I don't even remember now. Was it Wednesday? We showed up Wednesday afternoon. And the nice thing about Oceanside is that Oceanside is just great. Like that the vibe here is great. We love the city. We love like the people and just the atmosphere and everything. The weather is usually good. We did have some rain this time and that impacted a little bit of our of our bike riding. But for the most part, we were able to get in everything we wanted to do, ride our TT bikes on the beautiful bike path here and kind of get into race mindset starting from day one. Yeah. So there's not that much variety in terms of riding here, right? It seems like you guys and

everyone kind of does the same ride. I think if you've got like four plus hours, you can go and get out a little bit and do some cool stuff. If you're just trying to do pre-race tune-ups, the bike path that goes right inland from the pier area where the race starts is just, it's easy, it's simple, you don't have to worry about cars and you just kind of get in the pre-race pickups and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And then the next day, Thursday, the day after, we did the... Thursday was probably the coolest thing that we have ever done as TTR, as a little company

in the community that we've built. And that was, we did a partnership, pop-up concept, pod recording, hangout, run with On. Paula's run-shoe sponsor. And we did it at a coffee shop that we've been to a lot of times down here. communal coffee on was incredible and helped us buy the whole thing out and brought shoes for people to try on we had a run and it was just so cool we just all were kind of like blown away and talking about it was after we got back and just how awesome it was to see how much everybody there felt like they were part of something they were and they were connected to us and connected to each other

and that's exactly what we um set out to do with ttl on on day one years ago yeah it's the maybe the one downside is all this stuff requires an amount of energy that then is potentially taken away from what you can deliver on race. How much both of you feel like that? That kind of impacted that. Yeah, I think in general for me, it's not just the pop-up. I think that was amazing. And all the stuff that we're doing is so great that it's hard to really like target one

thing and say that was the thing that made it too much. But we are doing a lot with TTL right now. And I just feel that a little bit on the race course in a positive way with all the community we built and the cheers we get, but also fatigue-wise, just like, have I really put 100% of my energy into being the best athlete I can be when there's so much stuff happening with TTL? And, yeah, I'm not pointing fingers at anything, but I think it's definitely a factor, especially two days out from a race to kind of be on our feet for three hours of that thing. But it was, I'd say it was worth it. It was like, like you guys said,

great community building opportunity. The having on there with the shoes and everything was so cool. And we also had a guest, Chelsea, Sadar, the World Champion. She came up to record the pod with us. That was really lucky of us to have her. And yeah, I don't know. It's mostly good. Yeah, mostly good. It was nice to also have your mom here to kind of help with cooking

and making sure everyone was happy all the time. Yeah, yeah. Because I feel like that used to be my role. And now I've kind of like shifted a little bit into also being part of the community stuff. So it's nice to have her here as like as our hype woman. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, keeping us all in a good mood. Keeping Flynn entertained. Less other commitments, less cooking grocery shopping.

Okay, so I would love to hear about the race from you guys. And I think as awesome as it is to have great races and everyone wants to have a great race every time. And of course, going into a race, you always envisioned that. But that's not the reality. And everyone loves a good war story, I think. But you guys had different days, which one, just someone you want to talk about, just kind of the emotion more than like, I don't know if we need the blow by blow, but just maybe the mental state throughout is more interesting.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, like, I personally didn't feel, like, I felt pretty good coming into the week. Like, even with all the stuff that we had going on, I still felt like it was like an manageable amount of things and was on helping us out with a pop-up situation. Like, I didn't really feel any stress about that personally. I was more, like, kind of overloaded with just all the stuff that happens with the first race of the seas and where it's like, oh, man, I can't find that bolt that I used to keep my water bottle cage

in that exact position last year, and I've got a new wetsuit, and I've got new handlebars and all these things that I want to double check on and like, wow, shit, what is my flat situation? My flat repair situation,

do I have a flat repair situation? All that kind of stuff was taking up a lot of my time, but I still felt like as I went to bed each night, that I was optimistic about having a good, like, experience during the race. I was, like, not really drawing any conclusions about where I would place,

but I felt like my body and my head was in a good spot to, like, go out and go hard and not be held back by, you know, anything. So, like, for me, I started the swim. I had a really great swim, despite them canceling the ocean entry. There was something to do with the amount of waves that there were and the amount of rain and the temperature of the water that they kind of decided to, instead of do a beach start, they started the way that they historically have in the harbor.

And you just kind of like go towards the end of the harbor and come back. So that harbor part is just the second half of the swim, right? But you just do, instead of doing the second half, you do the out and back within there. Exactly. So it's a deep water start. For age groupers, you just kind of like run into the water and then make a hard left. But for the pros, we all line up in a line, treading water. And I say align very loosely. Because there's freaking 75 of you.

It's so stressful. Like anybody who gets on a fair start advantage with this line in the water that's imaginary, we're going to disqualify it. Right, there was no actual line. And, like, the buoys were not in a line either. So one of them was further forward than the other. So I was looking to the left, like lining up with the left, and it was way in front of the right buoy.

Yeah. And all the girls were like, hey, that's not... Anyway, it was hard. It was not ideal because it was a last-minute change. But anyway, the race went off clean. The thing about in-water starts is, like, five or ten years ago, who cares if you have a one-centimeter head start on someone? But now the racing is so fast and so competitive that even getting, like,

one head in front of the other person, it makes a difference in the outcome. We've come full circle to ITU style. Right, right. It is an ITU race. It's crazy that bike has gotten so fast that it basically does feel like that. Yeah. And that's kind of ultimately how I don't want to say my race unraveled,

but we're like the biggest takeaway for me of the weekend. I was, I really struggled to get off my new wetsuit in transition. I have like practiced it a few times, but the ocean side run for people who haven't done it. You run out of the water for like, you do a full tour of transition in the pier. It's so long. And I was a little bit concerned about this, and it did end up happening.

Like, your wetsuit dries off a little bit. During that run, and it makes it a little bit harder to strip off. And I just kind of struggled to get it over my hips and then to get it over my feet. And that, like, probably eight, nine seconds of that cost me. I was just off the back of the lead group. And Ben Canute's at the front of that lead group going absolutely maximum effort to try to drop Jason West and Matt Mack, fast runners who were with him. and I just never could I could never connect.

It's funny because you, at the pool the day before, you mentioned this exact concern. Yeah. And you practice getting the wetsuit off. I hope this isn't a problem tomorrow. Yep. Came off perfectly at the pool and then... No it did.

Yeah. I flipped it off. No problem. But I think like a little bit of my hands being cold and like dexterous, like a lot of these factors where I don't know, like you can practice them a little bit more

and just like the more you get into races. Like, okay, I'm going to put a little oil on my waist or, you know, you've got a problem to solve it later. So we're kind of trying to try to, troubleshooting that at a race that is unfortunately extremely watched and extremely fast. So anyway, I got onto the bike and I basically dangled behind that lead pack for the first 10 miles, totally solo, but riding really good power. I was honestly, like, I'm excited because, like, I felt really good on my bike for the first time in a long time where I didn't just feel like,

oh, at any moment, my hip's going to go out and I'm not going to be able to ride and I'm going to want to quit, like, the sport entirely. So I'm, like, really excited about that. And then around 10 miles. Jackson Laundry, well, I guess Jackson was on Sam Long's wheel, but the Sam Long train came by. And I actually managed to get on that and stay with them for 10 miles, which, again, I'm pretty excited about that. Yeah, that's great. They were going so hard. And right about the time that I actually got popped off of that, just due to some stupid cornering situation with an athlete in front of me, and I don't want to blame people, but I couldn't reconnect after this, like, weird turn thing that happened. Um, they caught the lead group. So they were ultimately

going faster than the lead group. And I feel pretty confident if I hadn't messed up that wetsuit thing and I had a better T1 that I wouldn't be able to hang in that lead pack for the whole race, maybe done a little bit extra, a little bit less work, had a little bit faster run, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't know. I don't feel as bad about a race that I didn't win. Just for example, like I said, I didn't have an outcome necessarily in mind. But when I look at things like, oh, technically I can fix that.

Technically, I can fix that instead of like, man, I just need to redo all of my training because I am a bad athlete. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. Like, I'm thinking about world championships where you had, you felt exactly the opposite on the bike. Like, you just totally weren't feeling it. Yeah. Do you think, is it just luck of the draw or did something, did you do something in between

that you think is actually making a meaningful difference? I do think I'm much fresher now. We started, I mean, we've been doing, like, race-specific workouts for, like, three weeks or something. You know, like, eight weeks ago, we were backcountry skiing. We took a very nice off-season. I just, I feel totally, like, mentally sharp and not overtrained or anything right now. And that combined with when we went to specialize in the wind tunnel testing and got those

great bike fits, I just feel like for the first time in a while, I get on my bike and I'm not just, like, wanting to get off of it because I just feel like so uncomfortable and weird and, so, yeah, I'm just, I'm very encouraged by that. And I feel like with just another month or two, even of, like, riding that TT position and putting in some good workouts there, the race fitness is going to come. Like the base is kind of there already, but the sharpness that you need for a race of this speed where two seconds makes a difference, that comes a later in the season. Yeah. And then running, you ran pretty well. Yeah, I felt okay. Based on kind of how hard I was riding and my legs just felt like jelly by the end of the bike, you know, rather than being numb from a thing, you know, they were just like worn out.

I'm okay with how I ran and I know I can run a little bit better and same thing. Just more time deeper into the season. And yeah, I'm just, I'm, I'm okay with how it went. Yeah, I'd say more than okay. I was, I'm always afraid you're going to see me after the race and just be like, I don't know if I can ever do that again. And that was not at all how you felt. No, I mean, there's always times in a race where, where I think that.

And I think most people think that. And those are like the things that make getting to the finish line feel special. Yeah. And I just, I tried to remind myself of that, you know, as I'm getting towards the end of the bike and things don't feel good. I'm wondering if I can run or if I'm starting. they run and like, man, another lap sounds so long. Like, you can get through this.

It's, it sucks, but like, it is also going to build some fitness for the next race that you do. And if you stop, if you, every time you quit a race, it's like, I do think it actually makes it a little bit easier to not do the next one. And that's, instead, I've noticed that in my past when I DNF something. I either am so pissed that I think I'm never going to ever DNF again or it's like, I go to the next race going rather than thinking about how, well, it's just like, no, it's more like, rather than thinking about how.

how am I going to win this race? You're like, the DNF and that extreme pain and discomfort that you went through is so in your brain, you're like almost trying to avoid that rather than being focused on like executing properly. At least that's what I've had. I'm like, God, you know, it's like the goal becomes to finish and like not just suffer rather than like to go fast and like check all the boxes for a good performance. So anyway, deep psychological dive, but I'm, we love that. I'm okay with it.

It's exactly what I wanted, like got some takeaways, got some things to work on. And I think overall the week was just really cool with all the stuff that we did, even if it was a little bit of energy. Well, speaking of energy output and deep psychological dives, Paula, you know, the actual way you placed was not bad at all. But it was more about the way you felt on the day. And I know that you didn't really have expectations about this race and you were trying to keep it really low key. But then you're out there. And it's hard to separate yourself from who you know you are. what you know you can do. But did you feel good at first? Did you feel zero? Like you right off the bat.

No, it's like really extremely difficult for me to debrief this less than 24 hours after we finished the race. Super sucks. But yeah, I came fifth overall, which means nothing. I mean, yeah, I would have loved to win. I would have loved to podium. But really, I just am mad about the feelings I had and how I raced and how the race unfolded. And yeah, obviously, like, finishing the race with a win in it or finishing last year winning in dean well's second at at world championships i felt like okay i'm like an athlete who's constantly going to be up there but i was not up there in this race i was so far back i was feeling so terrible and like the mental struggle just to get through the run and get to the finish line like was more than anything i've done

i think in in the sport um in terms of racing so yeah i don't know my body felt really bad right from the start and I rode pretty well and pretty hard, but I basically like lost Holly's feet right at the start and towed along Chelsea and Kat and tomorrow. And as soon as I saw them out of the water with me, I was like, okay, this is not going to be great. But I still had belief that I could potentially like put a gap on them or at least a couple of them. To be honest, the pro men that were a bit slower for sure interfered with our race in an annoying way. And they didn't want to be passed and when they were passed they slotted right into our group and definitely created you know just like more bodies creates drafting or drag opportunities even if it's within the legal distance for

athletes that are behind and getting kind of strung out of it so i think that remove the males pros from our group and it may have actually broken a bit and not come in altogether to transition because i led 90% of the bike ride caught up to holly who had a 90 second lead and then continued on at the front. So I was just like drilling it the whole time and towing everybody pretty much. That's how it felt. Which is racing.

I mean, it's fair. But I just felt like with the power I was putting out and how I was riding last year, I should have been able to like snap the elastic band a bit. That never happened. Like from what I observed from the brief amount of time that I spent in the pack with Sam, the motorcycles also had a massive impact on this race.

And you had, you had pro male. slotting into your group, like we had the motorcycle slotting into our group at times. A motorcycle would be sitting back from me to the side. As you're attacking. So then me in the front, plus a motorcycle

five meters back from me, but to the side and then a pro male behind me, that's like a V, a perfect V. Like how Canada geese fly to get south. Yes. For people just to slot like literally 50 watts less if you're in that position.

So whatever, that is racing these days. I'm not going to I complain about motorcycles because we all know it's a problem. Well, one thing we could complain about, though, is do you think that a two-minute gap between pro-men and pro-women is enough when there's such a... Oh, it's three minutes. That's still not enough. But, I mean, even if it was five minutes, we caught...

So many of the back of that. It's just a nature of, like, there's a lot of pro-men that are kind of at the level of the top pro-women, which is fine, but it definitely impacts the women's race at the front. And, yeah, I try to, like, communicate with some of them that were, like, we're coming by, can you like not necessarily i mean they're trying to race as well i'm respectful of that but um some of them are just completely not willing to kind of i don't know let us go and then carry on with their which is fine personally i don't know i might catch some shit for this but i think if they can get it to five minutes and then make some sort of a rule where it's like in bike in bike racing where like

the cat one field catches the cat two field it's complete neutral stand down yeah and like if you can't be five minutes ahead of the lead pro women you just need to completely neutralize when one comes by. And then alongside of that, they would, I think, ideally bring back to the race like Galveston that was the same weekend that used to also be a pro race and have like, Oceanside's a huge freaking deal. If you don't think

you can be ahead of the top women in the world at that race, as your first male pro race, go to Galveston, get your experience there. Like, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Because it's such a tricky thing. I think there's enough, there's a lot of logistics with like closing Pendleton for a certain amount of time

and getting all the age groupers stories. So they cannot space everyone out really that much more than they did. Yeah. Totally understand that. But yeah, just with such an enormous field. And Oceanside's arguably one of like the most popular races of the year where everyone kind of shows up. It's early season.

It's easy to get to. It's a lot of hype around this race. It's why we are here. So understandable that it would be so popular. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I, my back started to get really sore like three quarters the way into the bike, not having a fun time. Couldn't even imagine running a half marathon.

on and just like my negative emotions just like took over me and I was hating it and I wanted to stop and it's happened to me a few times in races but usually I'm not feeling that terrible so I can kind of like find positives and get out of my funk if I'm not having a great time but couldn't really yesterday and got off the bike and everything hurt like my feet hurt my legs hurt I felt like I was not cramping but tight everywhere and it I just was not flowing I was running like jogging pace for a lot of it and walking up the hills, it was just like such a death march. And honestly, the only reason I couldn't stop is because there were people cheering for me in the entire course. Oh, of course.

So, like, TPL signs and everything. So there was not even like a good opportunity where I could sneak out, you know? So I just like kept, kept going. And this course is particularly challenging when you're not having a good day. It just feels so long, like those big, big out and backs that never seemed to end. And then on the out and backs, you also see the people. people that are winning the race who are 3K ahead of you. So yeah, really not fun. Got to the finish line. Insanely fast racing at the front of the women's race. Like even on a good day, I may not have been on the podium, but that's not what this was. That's not the reason I'm sad about it. It's more like you start questioning, am I doing everything wrong? Am I not training properly? It's my

bike fit not good. Like it just creates doubt and erases all confidence that I may have had from last year. So yeah, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't have raced, and I still would have loved to come to Oceanside to do the cool activations we did. And I think overall it was a really good networking and community building weekend for us. But from a racing standpoint, it was, for me, unproductive, potentially detrimental. Well, I was going to ask you, and maybe it's, maybe you just answered this question. I was more thinking of it from a racing perspective, but is there something that you learned, like, that maybe even during the rest of like next time I'm doing X, Y, and Z?

Or, like, is there anything like, even as simple as, like, did you try to change your nutrition this time? Like, did anything? Not really, no. Yeah, I was freaking cold again. Like, I can't even remember the last time I did a race where I wasn't freezing for the first 40K of the bike and shivering and trying to warm my hands up. So, honestly, maybe I would have put clothes on on the bike.

And no other pro did that, but it did affect me. And even when you're in a mentally fragile state like that, like, things aren't going well, the cold bugs you even more. Yeah. So I was just thinking about that and how much that sucked and how much this sucked. And yeah, it's not a good way to be in your brain. But it's just like what I was stuck in and then every little thing bugged me. So it was cold.

I know it's hard to talk about races like this, but I'm hoping that, I mean, you're just, you're just not the only person that's listening to this that has gone through that terrible feeling. And the consequences are much greater for you. but we still have those emotions as age groupers when things are going badly and you're just, you know, and maybe it's not our job, but it's like, yeah, but I trained six months for this race. And every time I've gone out for a hard run, I'm visualizing this moment. And it is so far away from what I have been visualizing, you know?

Yeah, yeah. That hurts. It feels like you're, you're like experience loss a little bit. It's like this idea of what I thought this was going to be like is gone and it's never getting that. Yeah. And it's hard to really replicate a race condition in training. So I've done all these amazing runs this year so far where my average pace for the whole run, including a jog warm up and a jog cool down, was faster than my pace yesterday overall.

And I'm like, this is not what I train for. But race day is so different. And I think that's also part of it is coming to a race like this and treating it like a rust buster, a season opener. But unfortunately, every single person you know in the sport is also here, like watching. So it's really hard to run past like Luke McKenzie and like all these people that you know forever. of companies you're sponsored by. Yeah, yeah. Simon Whitfield was here.

Like so many people that you just have known forever in the sport and they're watching you, like, have this embarrassing race. It makes it even worse versus if I was just like in the middle of nowhere racing and no one was there. It would be a little easier to like hide from it all. So anyway, that is my recap. Yeah, that's fine. Thank you, Paul.

I know it's not your favorite thing to do to talk about it. But I think it's great to talk about it. this sport is not all flowers and sunshine as we know that's why we love it it's because it's got major ups and major downs yeah totally so anyway we'll move on to questions now if that's that's cool unless eric you want to have some final thoughts on us not that that works for me yeah i know they're like very different experiences we can have some in behind you know not on the podcast talks talks about this i think is is what great well what else do you have to say we all need a little bit of what I mean we just haven't personally as a family yeah talked about it not in front of

anyone else yet you know that's true because I was crying all day we don't want to like sit here and like actually vent the actual things you know I also was thinking yesterday like as I was freaking crying in my bed after the race that nothing else really in the world has made me cry in the last three years or so that's pretty good I never cry except for when I have a bad triathlon so like things are all right yeah yeah yeah as my mom says I had right life that our worst problems are this bad in life. Right. Like, okay, I guess I really came about this. Yeah. And life's not bad. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Okay, well, before we move on to questions, I want to thank so much our podcast supporters, which some of you are here this weekend and we're hanging out.

Amazing. We really appreciate that. You can also support the podcast and submit your questions at ThattriathlonLife.com slash podcast. And also, as of the recording of, as of the release of this podcast, we will have, the hats are still online. So we sold a bunch in person, but we saved some for online. So those are available now. First question, hey Paul, Nick, Eric and Flynn. Elise here from Guelph, Ontario, I'm hoping I'm saying that right. Love the pod. I started listening last summer after my first 70.3. You've all helped me stay so motivated and keep me excited about the sport. My next 70.3 is coming up this May, Victoria, 17.3 in Canada. My question is about using clip-on arrow bars in Victoria. I've heard you talk so much about

how much of a difference arrow bars make. I've never used them. I did my last race on my trusty road bike. I'm nine weeks away from the race now. Looking at the bike course, it looks like there are a lot of turns. Do you think it would be worth it to use the clip-ons for about six to eight weeks and then use them in Victoria? Or am I going to waste training time trying to get comfortable in arrow? Is the course too technical for me to get confident enough in a short amount of time? I'll definitely get them at some point in the future races, but just wondering about it being worth it for my races coming up shortly. Thanks so much and best of luck at Oceanside, at least. So is there any race that it's not worth it?

Like a Criterium-style ITU race on a 2K loop with six turns per loop. It is always way faster. It is. Even if you're in the bars for 40 seconds at a time, you're saving yourself a significant amount of power or getting yourself more speed at the same power. But is she asking about is it worth getting used to them before the race? Six, eight weeks I think is a reasonable amount of time.

Yeah, like, for example, I put this question in because I could a little bit relate to it in terms of just being able to ride the aerobars outside here on our TT bikes. Outside versus inside. Yeah. How many, we did it for only a week before the race. And I do feel like I was pretty comfortable, technical-wise, in my aerobars. So six to eight weeks should be definitely enough time. But I would also say that it's necessary to get used to them because it's a totally different feeling than having control of your bike when you're in your drops, when your brakes are right there. It can be a bit scary.

You're like going head first without the ability to break. right quickly. So getting used to it is super important and also choosing the right place to practice, not doing it on a busy road necessarily or whether people might open their car door, go somewhere a little more control for the first bit. And then as you're more comfortable, you can ride on busier streets, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think people, you don't feel that much faster, but you are going much faster in those bars. Yeah, for sure. There's a feeling, too. You feel like a little bit like a shooting arrow. I think, yeah. It's just like, you're like, oh, one and a half miles an hour is not that fast.

But if you look at what that means in terms of time, that is a huge amount of time. Totally. Huge amount of time. Yeah. Okay, there you go, Elise. Easy answer. Next question is from Carter. During the Oceanside broadcast, there was a segment early on in the bike where the camera was

bouncing back and forth between Eric and Paula. They made mention a few times that Paula was rock solid on her seat, and Eric appeared to be shifting around a little bit. Can you share your thoughts on their analysis and shed some light into what was actually going on. Taylor Nib mentioned that movement could be beneficial to keeping the body loose. However, Paula wasn't moving at all. So just curious as to y'all's thoughts, and if you are making any changes to your positions after the race. Carter. Great question, Carter. Absolutely not making any changes to our positions based on the commentator's analysis. No. No, I think it's Eric's piss because he thinks,

I don't even know why, but I feel like I agree with Taylor Nib, movement can be kind of good. And Eric is a much more flowy athlete that likes to get out of his saddle and move his bike and really feel the flow, whereas I am much more like of a swift athlete where I can sit on my kicker. I'm locked in and I can push power without moving my hips at all. And I've always been that kind of a rider. Like from behind, you can't even really tell if I'm trying hard because I'm just putting power directly down. But it also makes me not as good technically at handling a bicycle because I'm very robotic, not as good at like leaning my bike over for cornering or for descending and things like that. So I wouldn't say that any way is right or wrong, but it is a very individual.

Riding style and Eric and I are like pretty much opposites. Yeah. I will also say the time that the camera was on me, I was going harder than I have ever gone into 70.3 for a consistent period of time. And I do definitely tend to move around more when I'm going extremely hard versus comfortably in my own 70.3 space. Yeah. How much of that moving around is due to you sliding off the front of the saddle versus

trying to find comfort? Dude, honestly, I had no idea I was doing it. When my dad brought this up when I talked to him on the phone last night, and I was like, I honestly would have told you that I was completely rock solid and everything felt fantastic. I would not have known. And I'm the same way.

When people tell me that I'm like a statue and I don't move, I feel like I'm moving. I feel like my hips are like swinging back and forth and I'm like having a little bit of like flow to my riding. But yeah, I see it on camera. I'm like, wow. There's a lot of stuff that the commentators are trying to do their best job, but they don't always know what's going on.

I'm reminded of someone texting me, asked me like, do you know what Cat said to Holly? And like, people thought there was drama because I think the commentators were kind of pulling that up. But it's like, no, you guys are just like being nice and chatting. Yeah. And they were like thinking that Holly and Kat were giving each other shit for something. Yeah.

But we were really just all truly being friendly. But I do also think that Taylor Nib, I heard some feedback that she was actually a great commentator and people obviously know she's the world champion, highly respected athlete and cyclists. So some of her feedback, I think, is a really interesting take on what's going on in the race from like an athlete's perspective and the commentators or athletes is like dd and michael or also but from someone who's frequently at the front of the race always at the front of the race it's cool to hear her feedback as well so i think she did a really good job and obviously she's

knowledgeable um bringing that kind of thing up some people might have not even ever thought about it but it's for sure yeah an interesting observation yeah yeah and i just i guess i would just say that's there are like five different reasons somebody could be moving around on their saddle that is that totally is one of them i don't think that was that was that was was it for me. Yeah. I think it might have been that my shammie was wet and the road was bumpy and I'm going as hard as I can. Yeah. And yeah, it is a new bike fit for me. So yeah, just getting, still getting comfortable on the bike fit. Yeah, this is like the fourth time I've ridden this bike fit outside. Yeah, but it's a good. Yeah, like I said, I'm stoked because I felt good. So yeah,

I'm going to stick with it for a while at least. Great. Awesome. Okay, next question. Speaking of-Tilin, I was standing up for you, by the way. She was saying, moving is good. Oh, I haven't seen the, I haven't seen the clip. I don't know. I'm barely watching the podcast. I was running around so much yesterday, so I don't know. But the way it came up is like, I'm talking my dad on the phone. He's like, so I hear you need to change your bike fit. And I'm like, what? It was just, it was just an awkward thing and we were still debriefing the race. Yes, that's right. Anyway. Okay, so next question here is from Bo. And it's actually regarding something you just said. Hi, TTL fam. Appreciate all the work

you guys do. Love watching the vlog and listening to the pod while suffering on the trainer. Keep it up. Yes. My question is about shami cream. I've heard a few times on the pot about shammie cream, reducing the likelihood of saddle sores, making long rides more pleasant, etc. It's not just long rides. It's the next five rides after the long rides, but yes. But what about on race day? Do you apply shammy cream to your race kit before the swim? I would think the swim would wash it all the way, making the shammy cream irrelevant.

Any thoughts on this trying to get a plan for Ironman, California, so any helpful tips would be much appreciated. Thank you. Bo. Yeah, I think you nailed it, Beau. It does wash away. It's not really designed for that. What has worked for me is I use body glide in place of shaming cream. And you kind of cake it on pretty thick, not just there, but like kind of in my armpits

and anywhere where the kit might rub sometimes. And that is like kind of specifically designed to help you not chafe with a wetsuit. So it's not going to wash away. And I would smear that around down there. And I'd also go a step further and say, if you're doing an Ironman as an age group or even as a competitive one, it might be worth your time to apply that between the swim and the bike. Oh yeah. I mean, you could even go so far as to have one of those little, they have like packets. It looks like a little gel packet of shami butter. You could put that like in your

top tube and if at some point in the ride you have to like stop for the bathroom or you just like second eight station, you're stopping to get a water bottle and a lubrication. Yeah. It could be worth it. For sure. Think about an extra 30 seconds to be comfortable for three more hours. That's totally. I would, yeah. I would be into that. Yeah, totally. Okay. Is shami queen just for bacteria though? It's not for like shaving. Chammy queen? Sean McQueen? I actually don't know.

I know it's very, it's an effective antibacteria. I think that's both a little bit. Yeah, but for a race, like, who cares if you have antibacterial? That's what I'm thinking. Like, it's not forced,

like, when I put chamois cream on, it's not to be comfortable on the ride. It's so that I don't get a saddle sore for the next couple days. Yeah, exactly. Okay. It's also to be, keep it libed.

Yeah, keep it libed. Because that feeling of like, I don't know if you ever had this. I only have it on long rides if I stop for like 20 minutes for coffee. And then when I get back on, I'm like, I feel like the skin on my butt is like dry.

Yeah. It does not feel good. Like sandpaper on sandpaper. Yeah, exactly. You're stopping too long, Nick. I mean, these cookies ain't going to eat themselves. Yeah, I got to eat those cookies. Okay, next question here is from Zach.

Hi, Eric Flynn, Nick and Paul in alphabetical order. So I'm training for my first triathlon 70.3 at Chattanooga. My question is, what percentage of my FTP should I look at holding for the entire bike portion so I don't blow on the run. Is this an individual thing? Is it something I should discuss with my coach? I just hired a coach and I am not sure what all I can ask him about. I would assume anything, but I don't want to overstep my bounds with him or annoy him. Zach? I think you can ask your coach that for sure. That's like the most coach question you could possibly ask. That's what the coach is for. Yeah, that's not overstepping boundaries. I also discovered

yesterday that like targeting a race power in quotations here is so challenging in a race because Because, like, when you're pushing power, that's fine. But then you're like going around corners, going down hills. If you're looking at like an average power number, it's going to be probably lower than you think it should be or that you're targeting. So, yeah, my watts at Oceanside are always wildly underwhelming and way lower than what I train out for a 70.3. But if you look at the points where I'm like actually in arrow pedaling effectively by myself, no distractions around me, then I'm going my target watts. at the end of the day, that could be 15 or 20 watts lower because of the descending. And it kind of depends, too, like, how good you are at pushing power on downhills

and how quickly you get back to raise power after a corner. And are you drafting a motorcycle in another pro-men or, wait, whatever it is? Yeah. So, I mean, like, if you were trying to look at an average power sort of situation, normalized would be potentially more helpful. But I think we can maybe just think of this as like anytime I am, the arrow position or that I'm not like going downhill or turning, I'm trying to hit some sort of wattage. Yeah, and I think 80% of your FTP might be. 80 to 85 is what people say. The only thing is

for you guys, I have a bunch of thought in this. So you guys just stop me if any of this sounds wrong. But if you're doing the bike portion in three and a half hours versus two hours and 20, these are like, that's different. That's different. That's different. That's different. It's really different. So you can't hold the same percentage of FTP, even though even if it's much lower or higher, as someone who's doing an hour less on the bike. That's true. So that's one side of it. The other side is this like average or normalized thing.

Like I think what I do, the best way to do this is do not have that on your bike computer. Do not let that influence your power because it's exactly right. Every time you go down a hill, every time you come around a corner, just like, it's just dropping. It's just dropping. Don't think, just look at your, if you want something, have like a 30 second power. Yeah. So you're like, okay, I'm looking at that. I'm trying to generally keep it there.

But I don't know about having that temptation to like, I told me. self I was going to keep 220 watts and I'm going to do 300 up this hill to make up for it. Now you're going to have a bad breast of your bike, a bad run. And for what? Like the point is to have fun and to go fast overall not to just hit this arbitrary number that you... Yeah, oftentimes I'll like lap my screen. So it erases the average power from that last lap and that kind of resets my mind. And if I've gone through like a slower section or something, my average power is dropped significantly. I'll lap it. And I totally agree with you about the time that you're riding. I also even think between pro men riding two hours. And I also even think between pro men riding

two hours and pro women riding 220. That's different. 20 minutes extra at race power is like a lot. And then you're going to run 10 minutes more than the men are going to run too. It's like, yeah, the women have to race for 30, 40 minutes longer than the men. So yeah, that difference does impact maybe what you might target to hold for the race, depending on it's slower or faster going. Speaking of targeting, my final thought on this is I think a lot of pros, you guys are really good about practicing a lot of your intervals in arrows.

like really getting that feeling. But I speak for myself and I know a lot of other age groupers. Like it's really tempting to do all your intervals and all your work and maybe even your FTP testing on a slide incline sitting up on a road bike. And for you, Paula, your road bike power and your TT power, it seems to be pretty similar. But for a lot of people, there's a pretty big delta between those two. So basing what you, your ideal day, what you're going to hold on the bike, on a TT bike and your TT position after having swam, like it's, if you're going to base those numbers, make sure you get, like, good data. Like, do it on your T-Bike.

Get your FTP in your T-T position. Yeah. Then you can base it off of percentages of that. Yeah. I still feel like talking to your coach is going to be the best possible option, though. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

We're not coaches, we're just podcasters. Yeah, that's right. Well, you guys are pretty fast, so. Also, we don't function off of that. I don't know what our FTPs are, so we don't really go based on percentages. But it is a fairly accurate target, if that's the way that you train and the way that you are prescribed training.

I've always found that the power meter is such an effective training tool, but then in a race, if you're familiar on the bike, you know what works and what doesn't, where that limit is and how to just ride that line. Yeah, I think it's better used as a speed limit in a race. Yes. Unless you've got to Iron Man, Texas, like, completely flat. I mean, if you're really... If you're really tired and you're like, oh, but I got to hold 10 more watts here, just it's like, no, that's not a good side.

crippling. Do not do that. Okay. Next question here and our last question. Eric Paul and Nick and Flynn, OG podcast listener here. I don't think this question has come up before, but it's a question for Eric. Have you ever done or thought about doing a swim run? I'm not aware of them having a pro field and prize money, but given your interest in Xtera events and trail stuff in general, I think it would be up your alley, and there's some races at the West Coast. And Eric Lagasher and Ben Canute swim run team would be absolutely killed, which Ben, we were just chatting with him like 20 minutes ago. He was right outside the van. As unlikely as that would be given triathlon priorities.

Thanks, Nick. Ben and I have actually talked about doing this. No way. Yeah, I hit him up about it because, well, we actually, like six, seven years ago or something, shared a manager, Lars Finanger, who brought swim run to North America. And every year he asked me if I want to do swim run. And every year I tell him yes, and I just can't figure out how to fit it in. Because if you don't know swim run, like most of them are like,

iron length. Really? They're like eight hours long. It's like 50K of running and like seven miles of swimming or something. It alternates, right? A lot though. It's not just, you don't just swim, run, run, run, swim, win. You know, like, it's back and forth and it's super cool and kind of like orientering

vibe and I'm really intrigued by it, but also trying to figure out how to fit in that much running on very uneven terrain into the season is challenging. I think swim run world champs are like three weeks after, 70, 23 world champs this year. So I kind of floated this idea by Ben, like, hey, what if we went and tried to win this thing for America? That would be so cool. That would be so cool.

It's quite the shot in the dark. You guys would be a great, just such a great, well-matched team. Because it's important that you have similar paces, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, whenever we swim, we pretty much swim together, and we run very similarly. So I think we could do well with it. It would just be how to fit it into the season.

You guys would be the world champion. Yeah, I think you would be. I think you'd be world champions. I even hit up DeBoer about it, like kind of softly floated out there. Like, would you guys make a swim run wetsuit? You should do it with Ben. It's fully. I would love that.

Imagine it birthed here. And then like, you know, months from now, we're like, yeah, Eric, world champion. Like, what would you guys take? Being like fifth and tenth at Oceanside or go be the swim on run real champions, miss one 70.3, who cares? Ben was second at World Championships last year. No, I mean, swim on a real champion. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, for sure hit up the important triathlons, but, like, miss a race like Oceanside and then go win a really cool thing. This is more in line with the character with you anyway. Like, that feels like a cool thing. It's a little bit less in line with Ben. Ben is like super high performance. That's like his thing. I'd have to talk to it. Yeah.

He was kind of like, yeah, that sounds really cool. I don't know, like maybe in. Does it fit it with my training? So I think. Which is fair. He is one of the rest of the world. I'm not acting like I have done swim run yet. Right.

We're talking about World Championship. I'm not throwing Ben under the bus here. I have not done it yet either. But anyway, all that is to say, I think it would be very cool. I'm very into it. I wish they had prize money, but I think I would still do it, even though they don't, just for a cool experience. Yeah, that's cool.

It's not something I see myself doing. I start my two weakest disciplines, but I would definitely come true for you. My two weakest disciplines. At what point have I just... Those are my two out of three weeks. I'm really good at the other one. Yeah, yeah. Nutrition and transitions.

I don't even have those. Cycling and luck. I don't even have those. I could just go downhill fast on a bike. That's pretty much it. Well, those are all our questions, but now we're going to, what's the plan now? You guys, we part ways.

When's the last time that you guys were apart for this long? Never. Do you want to go to the Marshall Swim Center? Do you a little swim first? Oh, God. Is that we're going to do? I mean, I might do that. You guys don't have to come.

Just do a swim before a little road trip? Do we have time? You have a lot to do. I mean, we don't have time. What's time? time to pick. I have to pack up a bike to go to Hawaii. Okay. That's my biggest thing. You guys only have a 90-minute drive, though. Is this going in the podcast or logistics? I kind of like it, yeah. This has been like our whole week. It's like,

how are we going to squeeze every last ounce of daylight out of this day to do things that we need to do? Yeah, I apologize for everyone that has tried to contact us. Yeah, because like 70 million. 96 the text messages on red. By the way, Kathleen, congratulations on finishing your first 70.3. She's good job. Good job, Kathleen. Just, just, good job, Kathleen. Just, just, came up on my phone. Yeah. Okay. Wow. What a hectic week. All finished full circle. You guys, we did our first ever van podcast last year after Oceanside. You're right. So this is like a little bit symbolic. You're right. Yeah. That was crazy. And I had just come back in the Grammys. It was a big.

Yeah. In that amazing, beautiful spot. I want to do that instead of the... Me too. Everyone can watch The Long Way Home. The Long Way Home. That's a long life. That was a good one. Yeah. All right. Cool. Well, thank you guys so much. We will definitely be back with you next Thursday with a more normal format of being apart from Nick.

Nick, thank you for everything. Nick did so much this week for us. Couldn't have these shitty races without him. That's right. I love being part of the shittiness. For better or worse, Nick is there for us. I'm ride or die. Ride or die.

Cool. Thank you, everybody. Maybe we should take that out. No. Okay. I love that. Bye, guys. Later.