That Triathlon Life Podcast - IM 70.3 Oceanside recap, when to train on your TT bike, and more!

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

This week we dove into our experiences at IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside, an epic race that always brings intensity and attention. We then moved on to listener-submitted triathlon questions. This week we discussed:When to train if you're sickChoosing the right chainring for a strong cyclistHow much to train on a TT bike vs a road bike for triathlon vs road racingHow long cycling bibs lastCycling cadence and how to find the sweet spotHow to perform your best in same-day, back-to-back triathlonsA 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—————————Castelli Espresso 2 Bibshort

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Fenley. I'm Nick Goldstone. And this is our, I'm not going to say this is like an Oceanside recap, but this is the week after 70.3 Oceanside. We had a, it was a crazy week. TTR, massive excitement. We had a donut run. We're going to get all into that, the recap and everything. But Paul and I are both home in Bend. Nick is in L.A. and also the thing we're going to get into, Paul and I are both quite sick. If you can't hear it in my voice already. Both of you actually felt like you might have been getting sick days before the race. When were you certain you were sick?

The morning after. Bummer. Although during the race, I was like, I don't know. Well, we're just diving right in. We didn't even say what this podcast was. We talked boatrathlon on this podcast. True, true. No intro.

Eric and I are both performing. professional triathletes. Nick's an amateur athlete who also raised Oceanside. Welcome, if you're new here. There could be some new people who just saw TTL at the Expo. Yeah, I saw these fresh shirts and maybe decided to start listening to the podcast. We get new people every single week. I got the data.

This is episode 216. 211. 211. But yeah, at Oceanside, we had a TTR set up at the Castelli tent. that was beside the tailwind tent. So that was the highlight of the weekend, I think, for all of us. Huge presents, lots of stuff for sale, big run that we did from there. Coffee's being slung.

I didn't have any of those coffees. How's that machine, Eric? You seem to be getting the hang of it by the end. I got the hang of it. It's slightly more automated than our machine. So I had to get some lessons on what buttons do what and the whole thing. But I had it pretty dialed by like my six or seven. making thump coffees. We were selling thumb beans. We were selling an instant.

Yeah. Yeah. We basically, anybody who walked up, we would, I could make, you know, an Americano, cappuccino, ice versions of these, you know, latte. Or we were just like giving people free samples of the instant as well. It was the best expo station. I think so. I think it was badass. Like we, Kestelli, just thank you. because we rocked up with all of our stuff, these t-shirts that people need to come pick up, and the posters that people need to pick up, plus some new tech teas and a new gravel hoodie that we did with Castelli,

which is going to be available on our website in a couple of days. And they just let us completely take over the booth. With all of our stuff, we brought some beanies and this new ice hat that we brought out. And it's just, I mean, to have a sponsor, support that, and then buy donuts for the donut run. A freaking dream sponsor. They are so great to work with.

Thanks to Castelli for that. Funny story about the shirts, actually the shirt that I'm wearing right now. Not that you can tell if you're listening to the podcast, but it's a t-shirt from this weekend. A friend of a friend bought the shirt and did not know, it was new to triathlon. Or I don't know if they were new to TTR was. They did not know who any of us were. They just liked the shirt and they bought the shirt. That's amazing.

I felt like we felt like this was going to be the case with this graphic for this, you know, for Oceanside. thing we want to do moving forward for races. It doesn't say ocean side 70.3. It just says that triathlon life. It has this cool ocean side graphic on the back. So it like commemorates the event without plastering Ironman or you know, whatever all over it. That's the, that's the dream. We hope the more people can become aware. I mean, our biggest mistake was, well, we did do a pre-order people could pick up at the booth. But then we only sold like a very minimal amount because we didn't bring extras. We didn't bring that many extras. I was not. I feel like we'd, could have sold way more. Yeah. It's hard because it wasn't confident that exactly what you just said,

Nick, was going to happen. And, you know, each t-shirt costs us X amount. And if we don't sell them, then we just spent that money and don't ever get it back. So now I feel like that was a proof of concept. It worked. And we will bring some more to the next event and sell it a little bit slower. Okay. So let's rewind. Thursday, first day, we did the donut run, which was kind of a shakeout run. we did three miles at a very comfortable pace starting from the Castelli TTL tent. Yeah. Yeah, it was basically 5K. We ran up and down the strand there in Oceanside,

which is the iconic, most iconic part of the Oceanside course, the run course and finished back at the Expo where 150, super premium, like ultra fancy. So good, though. I can't explain the level of craziness that these donuts are. 150? Yeah. And they were all gone. Yeah, we had about, I think we had like 60 to 70 people show up for the run. I may have had two. Yeah, I was, I was encouraging people to have two, take one to go. You know, people were messaging, can I just come get a donut? Do I have to run? And I said yes to all those people, as long as you come after the run has happened. Right. But yeah, I mean, the pictures are awesome. And people seemed massively stoked. And like the coolest thing for me was seeing like six years of TTL. t-shirts and tech teas and hats and stuff in the wild on these people and just seen like this rainbow of things that we've done and people that we've like that have been a part of of this

you know just like I was smiling ear to ear the whole time I do love this about 70.3s in general is that I get to see someone who I saw in Wisconsin who I saw in Marbea who I saw in New Zealand now I'm seeing them in Oceanside and it's kind of like we all I mean you guys had this as pros especially when you were racing ITU, where you're traveling around the world with like a very similar group of people. And it kind of feels like that, even as an age grouper,

I get to keep seeing similar people again. Yeah, it's a bit like a family reunion. So, I mean, that was the entire express purpose of the donut thing. We didn't sell the donuts. It was just like, here is a time and a date which you can reconnect with all these people. And it was awesome.

I think everybody was stoked. Yeah. And then Friday, other than bike drop-off, that was more of just like a get ready for the race kind of day. Yep, get ready for the race. I hung out in the expo for a bit. Paul had to get all checked in and all that. That's when I was making coffees for people.

I was just, you know, like the business end of getting ready for the race for sure on Friday. And then we managed to sneak in some pictures of Paul's new bike and new kit, which are gorgeous. Gorgeous. And that was it. Then it's go to sleep. then it was go to sleep and I actually slept pretty well Friday night going we got we were in bed quite early and I slept well I mean Paula I don't know if I asked you I think you said you slept kind of well too right I slept right right right but before a race well as well and which is that doesn't always happen

guys you know what this means like we just we have to do a slumber party I every race because I love the slumber parties. I don't know how much the podcast kids know how much we have slumber. Nick was sleeping one foot from my head. But that's what we have always done. I'm either on the floor or I'm a foot from one of the, or I'm sleeping with Flint. Yeah, just making that daybed work.

Yeah, that was a good day bed. Yeah, that was really nice. Also, I mean, we tease this, but that room we were in, we didn't tease it. We fully said it last week was so, so nice. You say how we got it, though? I don't know if we said how we got it. Backstory on this room. Well, I could tell it.

It was a long-time TGL supporter who sadly got injured and couldn't get a reimbursement on his room. So he offered it to us. And it was like looking down onto the finish line practically. It's perfect. It's perfect. It's perfect. It's great, huge, thank you to him. It really elevated our entire weekend to be, A, that close.

be in such a nice place and C just to be like, you know, we could run down to the expo, we could run down to the briefing, get to the start really quickly. It made me realize that as over-the-top expensive as hotel rooms are close to the race site, I think it's worth the investment in a future situation. Certainly, certainly for us.

Yeah. Especially, like I was having to, I was crutching the entire time, taking Flynn for a walk and then going to the expo and taking Flynn to the expo. and it would have been, yeah, it made it look pretty nice. How do you feel like it actually did affect your surgery recovery this weekend? I think it actually was great. I did a bike ride, like a legit bike ride with you on the bike path, pretty chill.

And I did like an hour and 25 minutes, like 40 kilometers on the hall. On the hall. Yeah. Chasing Paula up and down the coast. I had it on like one out of five power to just like try to nurse it the entire way up and down the coast. Got a little dicey at the end, but... Oh, did you pretty much exhaust the battery? Well, here's the crazy thing about the haul,

which is unfortunate for trying to get the most out of the battery, is it has three levels of battery. So you've got one bar, two bar, three bar. So you don't have a... There's no 50%, right. There's no turnaround point. You're just like, you go from one bar to... From two bars to one bar left.

And some... You're like, okay, how long have I been with... How this feels like maybe halfway through that bar? I don't know. I better turn around. And pedaling that thing without assist is... very hard. It's possible, but it would have been a long ride home.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then day of the race. Paula, you know, I know you weren't feeling well, but I've been with you now in several race mornings. And I thought your mood was, I thought you were in a good mood. I thought you were kind of rolling with the punches.

Well, here's the problem with the whole thing, was that like pretty much all week I had this like swollen lymph node. I didn't feel like I had a cold or anything, but I was like, something is off with my body. I had a headache all week. You had no appetite either. Yeah, I also wasn't hungry. Maybe I have something serious going on, and I should go to the doctor, but it made the whole week really hard for me because I was like, okay, we're getting the, I'm getting the new bike, I'm getting this new kid, I'm supposed to do this race that I won last year. I'm ranked number one.

There's a really good field here. We're doing all this TTL stuff. So when I was sick kind of early in the week, it was really hard for me to be like, oh, I'm pulling the plug. I'm not even going to go because if it was any other race, I may have done that, just not even gone because I felt like I'm not really setting myself up for success here with how I feel right now. But at the same time, you never really know like what's going to happen on race day. I've done training sessions when I don't feel 100% and they've gone fine. So I gave it a go. but I didn't feel nervous at all before the race

the night of or the morning of and I think that's why you say my mood was good. Yeah, I could tell you. You didn't seem nervous compared to other times. But that was because I felt dread. I was like, I can't see a world where this works out. Yeah. You were waiting to the last minute to see if something did improve and it didn't.

I don't know. I was like, okay, well, I can do the swim and then I can like try as hard as I can on the bike. And you never know. And we're already here. and my bike's in transition. I mean, it's like all of us who do these races know that it's so hard to back pedal and do something drastic, like not start or not trek your bike in the day before or pull out once you've started.

It's so hard to do when you've invested so much time, energy, etc. into it. So yeah, even before the start, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm about to do a race. I don't want to get in from warm up. I don't want to put my wetsuit on. on all things that we feel a little bit, even when we're all fired up and excited and healthy, we're always like tentative and nervous, but this was a different feeling. It was like, my body doesn't feel right. And this is a really hard thing we're about to do.

And it's not like I'm doing this in secret. It's like broadcast it. It's very public. It's, you know, when you're doing something that people are watching and care about. And obviously I cared about it more than other people care about how I do. But yeah, that made it hard. So anyway, I started the race. Nick, you started the race.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't, I had the opposite feeling as you did. I was like, yeah, I mean, I also have dread, as I do for every race in a way. But just because what's going to happen is going to be very uncomfortable for the next four and a half hours. But I thought, I thought. I'm in the best shape of my life. I'm going to have the best race of my life. That's what I thought going into it. Yeah, every time I talked to you for the whole week, dude,

I mean, it was like three weeks out. Yeah. You're having good run workouts, good bike workouts, feeling strong, feeling like everything. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. But Paula, you know, a few people told me that when they were watching the broadcast that they could tell from your like swim intro, like when you guys all come out in your wetsuits and your swim caps. Oh, yeah, I went straight from crying and with Eric to that.

I honest, that was the most insane... They're calling my name. That was the most insane moment ever. Literally, like, crying on my shoulder to like... Paul Fendley. Number one. For a person in Canada. I was like, no fucking, no way.

And it's just like loops right back around from behind the podium and we're like back where we started. Yeah. Yeah. Because they do that like 30 minutes before this before you have to start. So you have time. I'm like, I'm not even like in my wetsuit. Yeah. barely.

Yeah. No, that was like the official moment for me where I was like, oh shit. This is like fully actually. happening. Because I just, based on like the way that she had seemed all week, I just, I was kind of like, there's no way. Right. She's not going to do this race. I can't imagine this actually happening. But I just don't know when we're going to pull the plug. And then I was like, I guess we're not. I guess we're doing it. So Paula, did you warm up at all? Did you get in the water? Yeah, I got in the water like five minutes for the men started. So I had 10 minutes to kind of swim around. And I also had this like shortness of breath feeling. Like I couldn't, anytime I try to do a couple like activations, I would be like, so right I started beside

Solveig and Kristen Casper and from the very first stroke it was like I was in a straight jacket like I

couldn't move my arms I couldn't really breathe I was just like is it too late to pull out now or too early to pull out I could just take the left

and get out oops not do this fucking swim yeah but oh my God I was like I had no idea

where I was I was honestly it felt uncomfortable because I didn't feel good. But my effort level was like a one out of ten because that's all I could do. Like I don't think I kicked a single time. I was just like pulling and whatever. But yeah, I came out of the water super far back with people, I mean, behind Jackie and people

that I'd normally like to be around or in front of. And was like, anything can happen in a 70.3. get on your bike, do your thing where you go hard for 30 minutes and see where that puts you. And I seriously could not ride my normal watts. And I hate telling the story because you hear pros talk about this after bad races. Like, I just couldn't push any power. And my heart rate was high. And I'm just like, okay, try harder, rest more, do things before the race to get yourself ready.

And usually I'm pretty good at doing that myself. Like things aren't necessarily always smooth, but you fucking get your shit together. and go hard in the race, and no matter how hard much it hurts, you do it. But I don't know, I'm clearly sick, so I just couldn't. Up one of the hills, I was like 200 watts, and usually I'd be going like 300 watts. So I looked behind me, there were a bunch of people there, and I was like, I can't. I cannot do this. And then I was, I didn't really think through the logistics of like withdrawing on the bike

with no mechanical. I assumed I could just ride backwards to the start. I was like 17K in. But in Camp Pendleton, that's so locked down, you can't really just ride backwards because they're very strict about who's on base and they're trying to keep tabs on the riders and everything. So I did ride back a little bit

and then got to this junction where there was police cars and they're like, no, you can't ride any further. But they were super nice to me. I was like shivering and they let me sit in their police car and they all wanted selfies with me. when they realized I was bib number one. I'm surprised they know what that is, right? Well, they had to report back to the race director.

Right. So they were like, what's your bib number? And I said, Juan. But yeah, you're right. They'd be like, oh, wow, that's cool. You signed up first. Yeah, not quite, actually. Like, no, I won the race last year.

Yeah. So anyway, it took me like three hours to get back. And in retrospect, I think I would have, like, ridden at least out of Pendleton to that campground where Eric could I come get me was an extra like whatever 10K of riding but just to avoid that whole sitting in the police car for hours and being sad and being cold and hungry and thinking about my life and you know all the things there's a lot of time for thinking I had no phone I had no anything but I did get to watch the age group race go by which in itself was

quite eye-opening and interesting. I enjoyed that. And seriously, anytime I saw a TTL kit go by, I would, like, cry more. Right. Paula, you should have just ridden the rest of the race with me when I came by. I thought it was an easy day for you. I was like, fuck, Nick's probably only like three minutes behind me. I'm so slow. No, no, foreshadowing, but I was definitely not three minutes behind you. Yeah. Well, the lead mail was not that far back. Anyway, um, Um, got back. Our hotel room, obviously, was looking at the race so I could watch it from our balcony and I just like could not stop crying. And I was, I wasn't like symptomly sick yet. Like I felt shitty, but I wasn't like coughing or had, you know. So I was like, maybe I just suck at this now. Maybe I should quit. Maybe I don't want ever race again. But the next morning woke up with this like burning throat, couldn't get out of bed, super fatigued, had to get to specialize for the. the wind tunnel. Eric was sick too.

So, yeah, that was what was going on. Not ideal. Happened to everybody. Sob story, but I'm still sick. I mean, it's like gotten worse over three days. Yeah, I feel like leading up to the race, we were both in that, like, are we, do we have allergies? Is there something weird going on down here? I don't know.

And now it's full blown. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, the timing is so bad. unfortunately, but... It could have been worse. It could have been a bigger race later in the year. Yeah, exactly.

We say always on this podcast that Oceanside is kind of this strange outlier race, which is really cool and gets a lot of hype. And as far as being there is maybe second to none, but is also not the best indicator of how the rest of an athlete's season is going to go. Yeah, some of the years where I've done the best later in the year, I've done the worst at Oceanside. Perfect. But the level of the racing is just insane.

I mean, Taylor Nib's performance was... And Solveig. Totally insane. Solveig ran so fast, bikeed so fast. Like, when you pull out of a race, you think, okay, if I was fit, where would I have finished? I like to think I would have been, like, third or fourth. But, man, everyone ran really fast. And there was, like, I think it was a really fast day, conditions-wise, which is why

records were broken on the bike and yes, of course, the athletes are faster. Why is that? Because yes, I mean, for those who don't know, the water temperature was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it usually is, and the air temperature was definitely warmer, so no one was cold in the morning. But the run was hot.

I think that's a big part of it. You think the cold is actually enough to slow people down enough on the... It was not hot for the pro run. Maybe a bit, but it was... It was like... The men started running at like 9.15 in the morning. Like, it's not hot. There was a nice breeze, but it was not windy, is what I'm hearing from most people.

On the bike. And I do think that not being cold out of the water and being able to ride hard right away, it makes a big difference. So regardless, like really fast day, but yeah, people weren't really fast. And that's all I have to say about it. I think the top eight men all broke the course record. Eight. See, that just shows you have. Another thing they did was they fixed some of the roads, like that speedway was repaved.

and there was no speed zone. So little things like that add up to just make it a faster race. Usually you're sitting up and breaking for a minute. So was the speed zone? I don't know what it was because I've never done this race until this year. Was it that very long descent that's on the road, like a nice road? That like goes down. Nick, I don't know. I didn't do it.

It's not a long descent. It hooks left. Hooks left. So that's not what I was thinking. The speed zone in its entirety in years past has been like 35 seconds. And at the bottom of it, there's a hard left. And apparently they've just like straightened out that left. So it's not so abrupt.

But I think you would have, you would never, you would have no idea where it was. Got it. Yeah, because I could not figure out where it would have been by doing the course this year. No, it's, it's so short. It's just a short steep hill with a left turn at the bottom. But if there's no left turn at the bottom, it's completely unnumbered. Just like anything else, innocuous, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I was stuck. Well, Paula, I was thinking, oh, that's beautiful. Oh, my God. Eric, did you know she could do that? Paula, don't embrace that. That's the next level. I think that photo should go to podcast supporters. So I think from now on, whenever Paula feels like it,

she's going to doodle on the whiteboard during the podcast. And I think podcast supporters should get a photo of it. All right. That's really good. Paula, that is really, really good, like almost we should make a t-shirt out of it. Okay. I mean, it basically almost is a t-shirt. Yeah, looks like what I'm wearing.

You got skills, girl. I did that well doing my race recap. Enough people ask for it. Paula will draw a t-shirt that we will sell. Paul, please don't, like, take a photo of that before you erase that. Okay. Well, I have another board to do my next dude on. Okay, okay, great.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we didn't really talk about how crazy bumpy that bike course is, which it is. Well, Nick, why don't you tell the story about your bike? Oh, yeah. So, so I'll just kind of quickly. go through it because it's not that noteworthy. But after, well, something that I think is noteworthy is that I hurt myself in December. I hurt my hamstring and wasn't able to run for December, January, basically all of February.

And only in March was able to actually run again. So I was fully expecting, also I kind of like, not that it's a problem, but put on some weight. And so I was fully expecting my swim in my bike. I don't want people in my DMs getting mad at me. I was expecting, I'm in like the best swim shape and I would say the best bike shape I have been in ever. So I was expecting to have a good swim and a good bike, not as affected by the weight. And I'd been doing it more and then have a hopefully a mediocre run. And my day was the exact opposite.

So it's interesting, like Paula said, you show up and you hope for the best, but the day gives you what it gives you sometimes, I guess, at the very least. but I did not have a great swim. It wasn't even close to my best swim. And this is just more proof for me that my pool swimming is not translating well to my open water swimming. So if I want to do better in races, I need to do more open water swimming and try to address that. It's pretty frustrating to think about, talk about. But yeah, I don't know what's going on with that. I thought I swam fine and then got out of the water and saw my time.

And I was like, what is the deal? I mean, even just getting into a long-course pool once in a blue moon. I would love to do that. I agree. I agree. I would love to do that. My pool used to do it. They stopped doing it during COVID.

I mean, it's super inefficient in terms of the amount of space people can swim. But it's quite eye-opening the difference between fitness. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, then got on the bike and thought I would have it to make. I got out of the swim and I thought, okay, well, I'm going to crush the spike. And just did was not immediately could not get my legs to, I guess, warm up. Eric, you've talked about this in the past, but you know, my legs just felt lactic. And I'm not comparing myself to Eric, but my legs felt lactic.

And they're just like burning. Like the, where my quads insert into my knees just felt like I could, I also could not get my heart rate up. And I feel like I didn't do a warm up of any sort. No. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've never had that feeling when I do a race where I have the opportunity to ride my bike in the morning to the start. So I just draw a conclusion generally with that like instantly lactic feeling.

There's a strong potential that if you had been able to warm up in any way, I think that would have been less. I am now starting to think that that might be the case. Do you think a run warmup would check the same box? Some, but like when I do a run warm up, like I also do like deep lunges and like, you know, like RDL. and a bunch of things that I'm like very specifically trying to get bike ready. Bike, yeah. Like the running around just kind of like gets your blood flowing at least. Yeah, yeah.

Because I have this, I have a theory that a little bit of that lactic thing is just like your muscles have not like stretched even at all in the morning. And you're like trying to fire them while also stretching them just limber up, you know? It did feel like that. I felt like the feeling I get sometimes. I'm like, oh, they're not warmed up. But it just didn't come around until two hours into the bike. And then it finally did. but there was one

I mean to add to the to the misfortune about five miles into the bike I'm starting I'm like okay I should start taking my nutrition so I had two bottles behind me with Morton and them and I

see my shadow to my left you know that the sun is still low so I see my shadow and what I see in the shadow behind me is two dangling elastics and that was not good news because I had two elastics that were like stretched over the top of my bottles to keep them in there. And we all know that that's pretty bumpy at the first part of the

course. So I see these elastics and I'm like, oh no. So I reach behind me to grab the bottles hoping I just saw an illusion. It was opposite of a mirage. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I'm grabbing and there's just nothing there. I'm like, oh no, what's going on? And then I hear this voice from behind me just go double ejection. Thanks, dude. I think I figured that out. Did you laugh? I did laugh. I laughed. I turned around and laughed. He did not think it was funny. He was just letting me know what I obviously had already figured out is that there were no bottles there anymore. I was just wishfully grabbing for these bottles.

But yeah, so double ejection guy will always stay with me. He meant well, for sure, but it was a little bit like kicking me while I was down. witnessed it. Informative. Yeah. He saw them launch. He had the information that you needed. Yeah. I feel like we should do a quick PSA. The first couple miles of the Oceanside course are full on asphalt, Armageddon, holy shit, bottles everywhere. It's like a bouncy castle with balls. Yeah, when I went through, which is like pretty much just after the male pros, it was already a graveyard of bottles. So I can't imagine after the age groupers go through. Yeah. If this is your first time doing this course, do whatever it takes, like the most extreme measures to hold your bottles on for that first few miles.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And then, I mean, fast forward to the rest of the bike, I just, I felt like a kind of shame and major imposter syndrome. I'm like, I'm not even good at this sport. I'm supposed to be a cyclist first and foremost, and I'm just not performing the way I want to. and you have ups and downs or whatever. But surprising how steep some of those hills are, by the way. And even for riding here in the mountains, those were a couple of those climbs are legit climbs,

legit steep. They're not very long, but it's like easiest gear grinding. Yeah. A couple of years I had the wrong gear, and I thought I might not make it up. Yes, I'm not surprised to hear that a lot of people towards the back walk those hills for sure. And then in the end of the bike,

I actually did come around and felt okay and was holding the watts I was supposed to hold at the end there and felt good and then was passing people again and that felt nice. And then for me, the run actually went perfect. I felt great the whole time. I was able to work hard. My heart rate was where it was supposed to be. It was hot, but I felt okay.

It was feeling well. And I was hoping to run 128 and I ran 128. So that's good and it's a PR for me. I'm happy with that. So if we're thinking, how do we avoid this? for Nick in the future. What's our plan? Like, do more workouts earlier in the morning to just, like, get your body used to going hard

at seven in the morning because you normally don't wake up until 10? Is it, like, don't come do all the TTL activities, don't, you know, like, just be on your feet less or, like, warm up, bring a trainer? That's a good question. I think it's pretty simple, I think, I hope. It is, the TTL activities to me,

to me, do not feel like they, take away anything, I feel like they add to it. I feel invigorated and excited and I do not feel like that tires me out at all. I mean, all I was asking is to hold the same kind of power I hold on a regular Saturday, which I normally do and I'm not even tapered for. So I think I need to ride the TT bike more. And because of- You average 240 watts on your Saturday rides? No, but like if I look at my, I know we don't like to quote normalize power, but if I quote my normalized power on a Saturday ride versus my normalized power on Oceanside. And a two and a half hour ride on Saturday I'll do like 255.

And in Oceanside it was 220. And I'm having fun on a Saturday ride. You know, I'm not. And with big descents. That's the cost of the same. Big descents versus roly things. Not the same. Your normalized power is high because you're going hard uphill and coasting down the hills.

Yeah. But. In Oceanside, the second that you coast, you're not coasting ever. So you're just like pushing lower power. Yeah, but I know what I can do for like 40 minutes on up a hill. And I'll hold two, whatever, 70 talking to the person next to me. And I couldn't even hold 240 on Saturday. And it was a different physical sensation.

Anyway, because of bike problems that I had with my TT bike, it took me weeks to figure out my TT bike when I should have been riding it. And so when it was finally functional, I only had a week and a half. basically of riding on it before the race. So I think I just need to do that more often. That's a big factor for sure. That's what my brain went. Are you riding arrow up this 40-minute climb talking to somebody?

Exactly, exactly. And for Iron Man, Wisconsin and for other races where I have done well on the TG bike, I was riding the TG bike a lot leading up to it. So I do think that's a part of it. And I just don't like to accept that because it's so much more fun to ride road bikes with my friends. But riding T.T. flat and continuously pedaling the whole time, definitely.

And doing four by 20. Yeah, ugh. Exactly. Maybe that's just the juice is not worth the squeeze. That's, I might, I might kind of be there. I know that's maybe sacrilege to say in a triathlon podcast, but I love cycling. No, I do not love what it takes to be a good cyclist in a triathlon, maybe. That's a fair statement.

People do this because it's hard. It's a big challenge to get the most out of yourself. Yeah. And I probably should do more open water swims, although that also feels like is the juice worth the squeeze? You need to come up here to do open water swims with us. That juice is great. Well, I think that this is why Oceanside is a hard race for everybody that does it, is because we're all coming out of a winter of barely any TT riding outside, barely any open water swimming. And if you think about what our life looks like in April, May, June, we're driving up to Oak Lake all the time. or doing the big bachelor loops on our TT bikes.

You don't have to think about the weather. It's just good. And you're just naturally training more because the weather is good. So it is really hard for us all to come out of hibernation. Yeah, we're doing workouts on our town trial bikes in the garage. Well, this is not for people that live in California like Nick. But it's the same concept. But it's a shock once you get.

It's a shock once you get to the race. So I don't think you're the only one that felt like that, Nick. No. No. I guess my overall. overall kind of thing, and I guess it's just for myself, but I wonder if there's other podcast listeners who also share this, is I wanted to be a good swimmer in my own right, a good cyclist in my own right, and a good runner in my own right. And I think I've slowly become more and more

of that, and I am grateful for that. And at the end of the day, I'm racing a few days a year, but I am swimming, biking, and running 360 days a year. And I'd rather feel progress and feel proud of those days consistently than the inverse where I'm just getting faster at racing but at the cost of just grinding it out so the perspective is the pro-life is not for you

yeah the pro-life is not for me good because it wasn't an option but I think it's also not for me I think that is a good takeaway for plenty of people that are out there if you're especially in this disposition of considering this doodle what Flynn looks like a

Ant eater though. Flynn doesn't like an anteater, but Paula, those are so good. I think we need to start making like Nicholas like, you know we should make like coasters or something. Kevin from the night shift. I love Kevin from the night shift. Okay, we need to move on from Oceanside. Yeah, I guess last Oceanside thing.

We had some fantastic results at Oceanside from people who went to TTL Base Camp. So we're officially claiming those and claiming that TTL Base Camp is a guaranteed PR at Oceanside. Wow. Oh, your money back? I mean, you can file the report with our customer service

department, which is Flynn, so I don't know how far you're going to get. But no, Julia won the entire race. Yes, Julia Day, yes. Said she had a fantastic race. I don't know exactly on times, but congrats to those two ladies. They crushed it. We're stoked.

Yeah. Yeah, wonderful. Oceanside. Also, the most TTR kits we've ever seen in a race. Oh, yeah. That's fantastic. So good. And we took pictures. We had three different people, myself included out there, taking pictures of everyone in TTL kits, gave them away for free. Dude, that was so cool.

I'm freaking stoked on that, and I want to do that as much as we can. Yeah, so if you want to be on Team TTR next year, you're just witnessing some of the perks. Yeah. I almost feel like it would be cool to get photographers to go to as many races as we can to do that. Oh, for sure. I'm going to, we're going to be, we'll, I don't know. We'll see what we need to work on it. Yeah, yeah.

How feasible it is, but we'll call some people. Yeah, I love it. Okay. We're going to move on here. We just spent a lot of time on that. But it took a big portion of our emotional and mental attention this race this week. And there was a lot of growth. Also, I want to say on the way back from the race, we went to the specialized wind tunnel,

which initially I was like, we should cancel this. I suck a triathlon. I don't even deserve to go to the wind tunnel. But then I was like, no, I still deserve to go. There's lots of racing to come. And it's your job to get faster. So we took my beautiful new bike to the wind tunnel. I have these new bars from Spieco,

which we talked about on one of the vlogs recently, where they did a bunch of measurements and made this custom pair of bars. Nick cannot use them, I cannot use them. They do not fit us. They are for Paula. Yeah, just one piece of metal. And they are so clean.

You wouldn't believe how light they are. And basically we were taking them to the tunnel not to test the fit because they're not very adjustable, but we could test the stack of them. So we could put like a one centimeter spacer below them, a two centimeter spacer. Turns out just as is is the fastest. Going up is slower.

Oh, wow. So if you wanted to go lower, you couldn't. No, but I don't want to. You wouldn't want to. Okay, perfect. The bottle mount is super clean. We tested different helmets. and a couple of bottle positions behind the saddle.

So it was a really efficient wind tunnel trip. We've been there now like five or six times. We know Leo really well who runs the tunnel. And we are just like all business in and out, got the info we needed. And the setup is super comfy. We left the bars behind there for a specialized to paint, but we'll have them probably by next week. We already did a bunch of pictures of the bike,

but there is going to be like another reveal with all. all the painted bits that were missing. Yeah, we got a painted seat post as well, painted white. But we were really sad to not get the B-Co bars in time for Oceanside. I would erase with them, even though I'd never ridden outside of them, because I know they're comfy. I'm riding the prototypes on the trainer. I know they're great.

So thanks to those guys for getting them to me. They are 1.5 pounds lighter. That is crazy. Than my previous front end set up. Lighter. And the thing is, it's not like you're removing. the bars. No, you're replacing them and they're 1.5 pounds lighter. Yes. That's crazy. It's like that's the extension.

It's 10% of the weight of the bike lighter. Yeah. The thing that made the previous setup a little heavier was it wasn't like a custom one piece thing. There were a lot of bolts. There was a lot of plates and stackers and risers to get the bottle in the right position. There was just more going on. So this is just like, because it's designed for me specifically, simplified as much as it possibly can be. There's no extra metal in any part, no extra bolts, no bolts, no bolts actually, right? Except for the two you attach it to the bike with. Yeah, I mean, this is the price of custom versus adjustable. They are expensive.

And one-fifth of the price, but also heavier. But I'm kicking myself for not doing this earlier. Who could have known? I was so shocked. When lifting these things up, you know, you're like, your hand goes high because you were expecting to be three times as heavy or whatever. Like it's, it was a little bit of a comical moment. But you lift the gallon of milk that's, you think there's milk in there, but there's nothing in there.

Yeah. And I think this is going to be great for Nice, obviously, but for Kona doesn't matter at all. Like weight is not a thing. Most importantly, like when she got on them in the tunnel and like row them around the parking lot for the first time,

like so comfy. And she's just like, her face lit up. She's like, I am so comfy. This is great. And like, that's,

For me anyway, after hearing complaints about just being on comfortable on the bike, that's music. Yeah, Spiego is like sponsoring me this year, so they made them for me for no cost. But I would have spent all this money on them if I would have known five years ago. Because the amount you can just like sink into them when they fit you properly. Anyway, you got to try for yourself. I love it. I love it. I can't wait to race with them. So good trip to the tunnel.

thank you specialized and now we just have to get healthy and train again. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, I'm going to move us on here to questions since we do have so many that now, unfortunately, we're for sure not going to get to, but I thought it was worth it. Was that too much of a tangent?

No, not at all. I thought it was great. And those bars are, they look great too. Like, we haven't really mentioned that. They just look so sleek. I guess we did mention it. And especially when they're painted the color of the black. They're getting the shit mentioned out of them,

and they're going to be on the gram over and over again. Okay, so you can submit a question to the podcast. If you're new here at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. You can also become a podcast supporter there. Podcast supporters next week, we're going to do a supporter segment. So you'll get a little video in your inbox. So if you're not a podcast supporter yet,

sign up before next week and you'll get this. It's only $5 a month or $10 if you're a super supporter. But $5 a month, you know what costs $5 a month these a Sharpie to write to like a what's it called an eraser

what's the word dry erase marker? Dry erase marker yeah dry erase marker that Paul is using for the cost of one of those a month you can become a podcast supporter I mean that's you know

we put our lives on the line here do you want to see Paula's doodles or not do you want to see the doodles you got to be a supporter. If you want to see the doodles, you got to be a supporter. That's the only way. This is also a hilarious doodle that I did.

Wait, Paul, yeah, turn it sideways. This just looks like designs. Mm-hmm. And then when you turn it sideways. That's that mug. Yeah, the mug. From Instagram. Oh, that's great.

I really like my doodle, by the way. I do think it bears a striking resemblance. That is a dupe of Mario. And also, we're going to pick a random podcast supporter this week to receive a TTL swim cap, which are super premium swim caps, and we'll send you that in the mail. The winner this week is Joseph Tarona. Joseph, thank you so much for being a podcast supporter. We really appreciate you for that. And reach out to me on Instagram and let us confirm your address. So I'll send it to you. I think you might be close by, actually, if your address that we

have on the site is still correct. Okay. First question here is from Page, from Connecticut. I wanted to write in and ask how you guys approach training when you have a cold or an allergy flare-up. I've had a minor cold for over a week that just won't go away, and I'm trying to balance staying consistent with my 70.3 training, my race is about two months out, while also recovering as quickly as possible. How would you modify your training in this situation to maintain fitness without dragging out the illness? And are there any strategies outside of training you prioritize to speed up recovery? I really appreciate everything you guys do for the triathlon community and wishing Eric a speedy of recovery.

At best, page from Connecticut. If it's in your chest, let it rest. That's my rule for the most part. If it's like, I just have this head cold and like sniffily and shit, then I'll like kind of try to push through stuff. But as soon as it feels like my lungs are burning, for me historically, those things have just dragged on so long versus if I just stay patient and chill on the couch.

I don't know if you ever heard this, but I remember reading something that when you try to exercise with stuff in your chest below your neck, you can cause some damage. You're not supposed to do that. So it's not just a... Eric has a good rule, but it's kind of like a health thing too. Yeah, I didn't just completely make that.

Right. Yeah, it also... You always feel like you're losing more fitness than you are. I think, if anything, a week of rest is actually probably... A bit of a gift. Although your body's fighting an infection, you're also like... practically resting your muscles. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the other component of this, is if you... push through the training while your body's super underwater, like, it's so much stress on your body. And even if you like recover from that theoretically, you get better, like, what did that take out of you? Yeah. Long term. Messo-cycle, et cetera. Right. Okay. Well, there you go, Paige. Easy. Next one's from James. And this starts out with Eric. I'll see if you can spell this. It looks like it says dig duit, gach duen, which means, hey, everyone in Gaelic. greeting from Ireland. I put it into Google and asked how to pronounce it.

It's apparently Gia Gwich Gok Dene. I'm not even to ask you to spell it, Eric, but shortened to the point looking to put a 56 or 58 cassette on from of TT

bike. So I think he probably means chain ring. Any recommendations? Two very flat 70.3 watts this year and power circa, 4 watts per kilo, 300 watts. can the same cassette work for both Shimano and SRAMP. So I think it's a funny, not a funny,

but an interesting combination of someone who can do four watts per kilo, but also is confusing cassette and chain ring. So they do mean chain ring. Yes. Right. So what do you think, Eric? So we're trying to go for a one buy, and are we trying to choose between 54 and 56?

I think our 56 or 56 or 58? and are either of these even feasible at that power? Yeah, for sure. I think we said flat course, correct? Yeah. So I think that, you know, you see a lot of guys running massive chain rings. I actually held a 68-tooth chain ring in my hand at specialized.

And the goal here is to keep a straight chain line. So you're never touching the smallest gears in the back, like the 10, 11, 12, 13. You're just like living in the 14, 15, 16, and your gigantic front chain ring, and that saves Watts by the chain line. line being straighter. So if you're like, when Paula and I, when we look at a course that we're going to, we're looking at what is the biggest hill, how steep is it, how sustained in it is it? And then

we say like, okay, what's the biggest chain ring that you can handle using your biggest cog, easiest cog in the back? So that when she's on the flat sections, that chain can be in the middle of the cassette. As much as possible. Right. Because if you're in the big ring in the front and the smallest cog in the back, the 10, that's a lot of cross-chain. It is actually, you know, creates a little bit of friction. Yeah, yeah.

So that's the gist. I think based on that power, you can definitely run a 56. You just got to hope that you don't have a big hill at all. Right, right. But they say if they're using

SRAM or not? Well, they said, can it work on SRAM and Shimano for the same chain ring? No, because this is where it gets confusing. the cassettes on Shimano are so different than SRAM.

So people that ride Shimano have way bigger chain rings in the front because their backs are different, right, Eric? Well, first of all, Shimano won't. Now it might go to 10, but it used to only go to 11. And a lot of people have 11 to 28, and a lot of the SRAM stuff has bigger ranges than that. It seems. That's what I mean.

Schram has bigger range in the back, so you don't need as massive of a front one. Yeah, SRAM has started to work with a, Shimano started to work with a third party company, I think it's Wolftooth components, to do some single chain ring options, but then you kind of have to run like a mountain bike cassette in the rear to get the range that you want. So best case scenario,

you run like what Paula did in Ocean Size. She ran a 54 in the front, and then she had a 1036 in the back. Now if you're doing a flat course, you can go with the 1033. Right. Right. And then the thing about the chain rings is it really depends on the,

the bolt pattern more so than Shimano or SRAM. And there's other aspects that go into a chain ring. Like, just hoping that it works for two different bikes is a kind of...

You need to get a single speed. It's not a single speed, but you know, a one-by specific chain ring so that it is designed to keep the chain on it and not allow shifts. Because the two-by chain rings are designed to like,

they're carved out in a way so that the chain can get on and off smoothly, right? They have ramp points. that they can shift. And you don't want that. You just want that front, that chain locked on there. Yeah, yeah. By the way, talking about all these things reminded me that today I spent a bit of time

updating our TTL garage sale. Right. It's been a while. I kind of left it dormant for a while, but I went through our attic and added a bunch of helmets, sunglasses, some bikes, some wetsuits. So if you are in the market for any stuff

from our attic, you have to go check it out. But here's the rules of the garage sale real quick, if you don't mind, Nick. Of course not, especially since I've heard that you might be putting my my beloved Venge on that garage show as well. Yeah, you can put your Venge on there. Okay, thank you. It's a Google Doc sheet. I put what it is, the price, and then a column where you can put your email address if you want the thing.

And basically, I don't want to answer that many questions slash no questions. I'll send you Eric's Venmo. as soon as you've Venmo me, I'll ship the thing. Wow, yeah. It's true. And we've had a 100% customer satisfaction

with this garage sale. Yes. I've had no returns. I have had no lost packages. Right, right. I've had no disappointed customers. Right. And I don't want to email you more than one time.

Tell them out the grab bag. Tell them out to grab bags. Oh, yeah. Unless you're buying a bike. If you're buying a bike, we'll do some follow-up pictures, etc. Yes.

But for like helmets and shit, I'm not sending you pictures. Just take my word for it. It's in good shape. Yeah. I'm also doing this fun thing, which was kind of a trial if it's the TTL grab bag

where if you were a women's small or a men's medium, for 25 bucks, we'll do a piece of apparel. It might be like a gently used TTL thing from like years ago that we just, Eric and I don't use anymore,

or it might be like a brand new piece of our custom kit from last year the year before. I'm looking forward to grab bags. That's going to be fun. Something we're not using anymore. And we'll throw in like maybe a bottle, maybe a swim cap, maybe some stickers, maybe just like some fun accessories

that we have extras of. So definitely no returns on those and definitely no questions for those. Heavily discounted though, heavily discounted. I mean it's 25 bucks no matter what. Yeah, but if it's a nice like something, it could be like a $70. If it was a tech tea.

Yeah, exactly. The techies are like 120 bucks. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that would be great. $25 plus shipping, I assume, because. Right. Yeah, well, I'll explain all that in the email if you actually want to get something. But we'll put the link to the Google Docs in the podcast description. Yeah.

The podcast description and on Instagram for TTL. And I ask that you just, if you want something, don't delete someone else's email. If there's already an email there, it means it's claimed. Yeah. If you want something really badly and there's already an email there, you can put your email beside it. will be the default if the first person changes their mind. Waiting list style. But it's a little bit like the honor system and that's it.

Yeah. Send it. Next question. Next question here is from Talon, Tallin, Tolan, Tolan. Fun seeing y'all in Oceanside, Talon, T-A-L-E-N. That's interesting. Yeah. Fun seeing y'all in Oceanside.

I felt like y'all were the most popular people there. Oh, wow. So I apologize if I added to the mayhem. Tell your friends. Yep. I'm new to the podcast and sure this has been asked before, but how do you all balance riding the TT road gravel bikes? TT slash, I just don't like saying the word slash if OG podcast listeners will know what I'm talking about. That is good. That does go back to like season one. Yeah, it does. I'm currently trying to qualify for 70.3 worlds, but also doing a long cycling race in early September called Lotoia. No TT bikes allowed. I did Oceanside 70.3 and barely missed qualifying. Oh, bummer. Swim was bad. Bike was good. 234. Run was not as fast as Nick. But I'm doing Cordo Lane 70.3 at the end of June and hoping I can get it done.

My question is, while preparing for Iron Man, do you spend a certain amount of time on the TT bike outside, or do you normally leave it on the trainer? I live next to some awesome canyons, but find myself reaching for the road bike or gravel bike when I go outside. And this is very appropriate based on our earlier conversation after your race. Yes, right. We like riding all of our bikes. And like Nick said, that may be slightly to the detriment of our performances on the TT bike. But Paula and I have been doing this sport since 2001. And we've been professionals for a very, very long time.

And this is how we like to do it. And we're still here. And plenty of our friends have burned out. And I think exclusively riding the TT bike and exclusively riding the trainer is just like, that's a little bit of a recipe. You're gambling with still love. in the sport anymore. Right. Right. Like a lot of our

questions, this is a little bit of like, how important is this particular race for you and you should slant your TT bike time a little bit more. I do wonder though with my new bars, if I'm going to think it's so comfortable that I'll pick that every time over my road bike. I mean, also it kind of depends like what roads you have to ride. Around here, I want to ride the

TT bike more than the road bike because you can go so far and there's not like some really twisty, windy, fun descends. But if you're climbing, mountains in Europe. Yeah. Road bikes are more fun. Yeah. Wait, I have a question, though.

What about, so, okay, my issue was that I was riding road and gravel a lot, and it didn't translate so well for me on the TT bike. Do we think the opposite of that might not be true, though? If you ride a lot of TT and then you have to do a road race, which is this road race was big, it's 220 miles. Do we think that riding the TT bike a lot might be to the detriment of the road position? because I kind of think not. Probably not, because when you're riding a TT bike,

you are doing a lot of sitting up riding. I mean, it is slightly different muscles. You know what? We talked to the lead fitter at specialized while we were there. He was hanging out and given some thoughts. And he was talking specifically about crank length and saying, like, it is actually important to have the same crank length across all bikes.

So that's like, I think that's one thing that you would look at. And then I would also try to get your TT bike position as close to your road bike position and vice versa. So like try to get into a slightly more aggressive road bike position maybe than you would normally and try to maybe be in a slightly more relaxed TT bike position. Just like get these two things like closer together. If you're actually going to interchange them all the time. I don't know.

Fortunately it is very trendy right now to have a more upright TT bike position. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good luck. That sounds fun. I think that's what's cool about triathlon is it lets us do. Oh, I had a trail race. and then a triathlon,

and then a bike race and then a point-to-point swim or something. I think our big thing is, for sure, do the workouts, you know, like the last three weeks, last month before the big event on the bike that you're racing.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay, next one here. Oh, wait, we got another doodle from Paula. That's a good Flynn. Wow. That's a good Flynn. Half off out of frame?

This is so, this is so fucking annoying to me. Some people just can draw. I could never draw. I was a kid and I was like, how does everyone else have this skill? I cannot draw. It's like,

you can make music. Yeah, I guess. We all are good at things, you know, we all have things. Yeah, I guess you're right.

Can't be good at everything. Yeah, I just feel like drawing is so much more practical application in everyday life. But, um, okay, uh, next question here is from Ashley.

Short and sweet. How long do cycling bibs last? Do you go by hours or miles? Then you just throw them away. Love you guys, Ashley. I go by when the person behind me in the group ride is like, I can see.

See your ass crack, dude. And then you wait another year? Yeah. And then I know that the timer is a year. That plus a year. Yeah. It's definitely like a number of miles and a number of wash cycles. And like, do you wash them as gently as freaking possible with cold water?

Yeah, I never put it in the dryer. Yeah, I don't either. I've got some, I've got some Castelli bibs. They're premium. They're like top of the line thing. No, that I've had for like four years. and I do have like five pairs of them so they get rotated

but they're probably getting used like twice a week for three years. No, I disagree, Eric. You don't even realize because you don't do the laundry but I think because we have so many bibs because we have so many pairs of bibs we're not using them as often

whereas bibs are so expensive that most people I would assume only own one or two pairs of really nice bibs and then they're wearing them twice a week or once a week or so they get worn a lot more often. I do have a pair that I prioritized prior to getting quite a few of them

and I've had them for like three years. The biggest thing with bibs I think is that yes they kind of get see-through and the spandex wears down but also where you're putting your private parts gets bacteria and dirty

and at a certain point you can't clean that so it could lead to like infections or I don't know itchiness it's kind of gross to talk about but I do think think that if you start to feel like you're getting saddle sores more often or you're getting

itchy in places, then it's time to cycle them through. And a year or two is great. And it's, you know, it's hard to, I'm not going to sell like use bibs on the garage sale, for example. Those are things that you should probably throw away if they've reached the end of their life with you. It's unlikely someone else is going to find extra life in them. Maybe goodwill or something. But yeah, sadly, I'd say that they're kind of like helmets. They're a thing you don't even think about switching up. But if you do switch it up to a new pair, they're going to be so much more comfortable, so much better for saddle sore prevention and other potential infections.

And you'll look cooler because you won't have saggy see through bibs. I don't know how we're going to quantify this at all for anyone with a rule. It's not a rule. It's a feeling. Yeah, exactly. Is that helpful? Eric and Paula, obviously we have an association with Castelli, but I have bought Panormal bibs.

I have Rafa bibs. I have La Pascone Bibbs. And my Castelli espresso bibs have absolutely been the most resilient. They're also the most comfortable, by the way. But they are, they might not be blingy. Like they're very plain, but I mean, I don't know. I don't know if I want my bibs to be that blingy. I want them to be comfortable and effective.

And mine still feel like they're brand new, basically. Yeah, the new espresso line is even better than last years. And they're not the most expensive bib that Castelli sells. So they're very affordable. Yeah. I would honestly, maybe just like right now go buy two pairs of those and then buy another pair each year. Like so one a year.

And I think on that cycle, like you're going to get a long time out of each pair of bibs because you just are using them less. That's like, yes, that's like buying trail shoes instead of running in your road shoes. Yeah. So maybe just buy a new pair of bibs once a year, whether you need it or not, and every two years, or, you know, after the first two years, throw one pair away. Can we put the-the-upon-rotation going? Can we put the espresso bibs in the description of the podcast, Eric?

Yeah, we got an affiliate link for those. Okay, great. I don't know if we have an affiliate link active at the moment, but we will put them there for sure. Okay, great. The other thing is, if anyone's asking you what you want for Christmas, what you want for your birthday. Right. Say cycling bibs.

That's a great present. Yeah. Oh, just in case you want a pocket, the Kistelli has a pocket bib that is like the same construction in every way as the espresso bid. Really? Because that's what I want. I only want pocket bibs from now on. I figured some people might want that.

It's like called the Adventure 2 or something like that. Yeah. Sweet. Oh, that's great news. If you want me to throw in a pair of our four-year-old bibs in your grab bag, just put like a little note. You know what? It's like you put that in a frame on the wall.

You don't wear it. Exactly. I would want it to know like these were the bibs you wore to victory. You're like, that's the other time. Right. You know. That's like I didn't realize that the disc that I ride on my CT bike that I got from Paula was the disc that she won Daytona on.

Mm-hmm. That's a special disc. Yeah. Love that. Okay, we were pretty, we're pretty, we're over at our time here, but I just figured we could do one more question. Yeah. even though we have many more.

And we'll crush it with the questions next week. We'll just do two more. Race recaps always kind of take a while. Oh, Paula wants to do two more. Okay, so, hey, TTR trifect. I'm an adult onset swimmer and cyclist with a biking cadence question. I'm told that optimal cadence for triathlon

is 80 to 85, however, whether I'm inside doing various workouts or longer rides outdoors, I seem to naturally have an average cadence of 72 to 76. I'd like to maximize my power and performance at mostly Olympic distance events. Should I force myself to train with a higher cadence?

If so, for what portions of the workouts? Thanks for the humorous banter and informative advice. Tim from the eastern Washington state. I feel like Paula should answer this because last year her coach was kind of intentional about raising her cadence a little bit. And there is like a point where you're, yes, you're removing some torque and like muscular strain,

but at the cost of like an increased metabolic strain. So if you go from like 80 to 100, yes, there's less strain on the muscle theoretically, but there's a lot more strain on your system. You have to take on more carbs, your heart rates higher, et cetera. So it's not like a one size fits all for everyone. Yeah, that's the thing about cadence is like for a triathlon, if you have a low cadence in the 80s or even the 70s, muscularly you're getting fatigued and then it makes it really hard to run off the bike after. Versus if you're increasing your cadence to more like 90, you're using more. your aerobic system and keeping your legs fresher. So in the context of running off the bike,

you would think that taxing the aerobic system more and less the muscular system would allow you to run off the bike quicker. So I try to train it like, I mean, naturally if I do intervals, it goes up to 90 and between 90 and 100. That's kind of high to hold for a whole 70.3 or a whole Ironman, but if you want, so many different athletes have so many different philosophies. Like Daniela Reef always had a really low cadence, and I think that's more of Brett Sutton style. So obviously she's one of the fastest to ever race, so you can't say one way is better than the other. But it makes more sense to me to keep your cadence on the higher side and use your heart muscle more than your quads in your glutes. Yeah, I feel like if we had to just throw out a fast

number, like start shooting to get up closer to 85 and see how that feels. Yeah, or do some intervals at around 90. See how it feels. I think that's a good, yeah, do your easy ride at 90. See how that feels and it becomes more unnatural because at first it might feel like you're really spinning, but. For me, it's more efficient. Like neuromuscularly technique wise to do a little bit of quote, high cadence riding. Even if you don't necessarily use that in the race, it's good for you. Yeah. It's like a drill. But 70, if your average Cadence is 72 to 76 during a training ride, like riding outside, that's fine. There's so much variability to what you're doing there.

It doesn't mean that you need to hold that for a race. It doesn't include, it takes out the zeros. It does, it does. But if you're like soft peddling around a corner or going through. Yeah, I don't. It's so low. That's pretty low. Yeah.

It's different than power where, yeah, you might have a lot of zeros in your things. Your average power is low. Cadence is not factoring in when you're not pedaling. No, but if... It's a true representation. I could see that if you're riding in a place that's very hilly, though, and you're basically only either climbing or descending, and you're not riding flat a lot,

then your cadence will be lower, and it might be that low. For sure. I would be so shocked if they didn't, if cadence wasn't normalized, and they just took out zeros. They do take out zeros, for sure. But what I mean is, like, if I'm pedaling on flat, my cadence is like 90. If I'm climbing here, my cadence is like 75. So if I'm only climbing...

Why? You got to get to... gears? No, most people's cadence is lower when they climb. Really? Mine certainly is, but yeah, most people's cadence is lower when they climb. Is yours not? No, I make an effort to keep it in the optimal range.

Really? Yeah, shift so that it's optimal. Do you ever watch a video of He Who Shall Not Be Named? Today's Ficcacha? I was thinking of Livestrown. Live strong, got it, got it. There's a clip of me climbing in Marbea

and my cadence is so fucking high. But I'm climbing. The same fact, the same thing, the same principle applies. You're just overloading your legs unnecessarily when you can have a lower torque with a higher kid. Yeah. The only difference is a climbing you have more of the pedal range to push against than when you're flat. But maybe it's not that enough of a difference.

That's like minimal, minimal bro. Interesting. I think we just solved your problem. Well, it's not just me though. This is most people. It's, I mean, maybe we're, most of us are wrong, but most people have a lower cadence climbing. Well, I'm just saying if you're doing all your actual like power that you're putting out on your bike rides at like 75 RPM and then you're going and trying to ride your TT bike at 85 RPM. Well, no.

Specificity. When I'm, to your point, when I'm doing the intervals, my cadence is high. It's just when I'm cruising my cadence is higher on the flats and lower on the climbs. Anyway, we have, I think just do a couple months of high, high cadence on the climbs. I think this is just a roasting Nick opportunity. No, no. It's like very, it's appropriate for the conversation that we have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, we have one more question here. This is, I love this idea and I just want more of these kind of things. Oh, hi, Flynn. More of these kind of things in general.

Hi, Team TCL. This summer, I'm doing an enduro triathlon format, a sprint that starts at 8 a.m., followed by an Olympic at 10 a.m. There are separate rankings for each race plus a combined cumulative time ranking. What would you suggest doing between races? 30 to 40 minutes. But I don't really understand how that's an option. It seems like the race start when they start to keep my body prime for Olympic race. Also, any practical tips for getting a soaking wetsuit back onto a sweaty body for round two? I really like this question.

That would be challenging. Me too, of course. It reminded me of watching schemo at the Olympics when they were doing Eats, semis, finals, all like an hour apart. And the commentators couldn't stop saying, now they're going to get on the bikes to flush out lactic acid before their next ski. Which who knows if they were or not, but it makes sense. I have something to talk about. To not sit there and let all of the, you know, bad feelings and the soreness accumulate

in your legs. If there's any way you can like bring a trainer and set up your bike and spin at like 120 watts for 20 minutes in between, I think you'll feel a lot better on the second race. Yeah. And if not that walk around super slow. like Kenyan jog around where you're going 10 minutes per mile, but just something to, if you can get back in the water, actually, that might be one of the best ways to kind of flush out. Which leads me into my tip for getting your wetsuit back on, do it in the water.

Oh, damn. You got to like get in the water and like sort of like vibrate it in a way that you get like water in between your legs and a wetsuit. You did this in the pool when you were trying out all the wetsuits, right? This is your only chance. Yeah. Right. Actually, try to get your wetsuit back on might be your way of flushing yourself. Keeping yourself warm, exhausting yourself. I'm going to also suggest something that Eric rolls his eyes at whenever I suggest because he thinks everyone knows this, but I know that everyone does not.

If you put a plastic bag around each limb when you're putting it through the wetsuit, the plastic slides through the wetsuit. Iconic. Yes. That's a good tip. It's a surfer trick. So, yeah, Eric's rolling his eyes at that. That's the, that's the, Good tip. I don't know why Nick said I rolled my eyes, but now I'm leaning into it. But that's really, even if you're not wet, it's a very, very easy way to get your a wet suit on. But certainly if you're wet, it'll just slide right through.

Then you still have to deal with the shoulders and the quads. Yeah, the bigger problem here is that everything is wet and wet on wet. Yeah. No, boino. Do we think baby powder? Like, it's not going to do anything because it's just going to immediately. Yeah, exactly. No, I really think getting in the water is to move.

Paul, do you have a story? I don't just feel like freaking, you know, like when you get flour wet. No, I just cleaned my bike shoes off from the race. I put baby powder inside just because I've done it since I was 16 and I'm like, it's probably not doing anything, but it's what I do. And the baby powder gets all over the place. It's all over the inside of my shoes. Probably destroys the liner.

And it's a mess. Yeah. I really prefer body glide. Stay away from Vaseline and baby powder. Oh, speaking of body glide, this was, I just want for the record, for everyone out there who was curious, I raced in the TTL kit, the fancy speed suit one.

And I... They are speed two. I was a medium. I wore a medium. I'm 5-11, 175 pounds as of this morning. And that thing was tight on me. I wear a medium. Right, Eric, right.

That thing was tight on me, and I was worried that I would get some kind of chafing. Okay. I did put body glide under my armpits where it feels like, It is like glued on to me. And in the back of my neck where it also felt like, dude, this is going to be a problem, I was so comfortable in that thing all day long. No problems.

No chafing at all. Loved it on the bike as much as I was dying and feeling terrible. And then on the run, it also felt perfect. That thing is great. So for anyone out there who has it, who hasn't raced in it yet, if it feels very tight, I think as long as you can get it on, it's going to be great. Just maybe put body glide. did put body glide in those spots, but put body light on. And dude, I loved it. Also,

they look, the best looking kid I've ever, phrase kid I've ever owned. And I'm not just saying that. It looks amazing. We've got so many compliments on them. Yeah, we've talked about this before. Actually, like something being painted on super skin tight is your friend when it comes to chafing. It's something that's, yeah, it's when it's moving back and forth on your skin. That's badness. Bad news. Yeah. Yeah. I agree though. Those kids are fly. Freaking look so good out there. Yeah. Oh. If only I could, if only I could do it justice.

Okay, next time. You're fine. Next time. Stop it. Stop. Wait, let's do the final doodle. Final doodle. Wow.

This is a full-blown scene. Wow. That's really good, Paula. The guitar and a donut. Yeah. That's me. Flynn is smoking a pipe? Yeah.

He would smoke a pipe. Amazing. Oh, wow. All right. All right. All right. Well, thanks everyone. Yeah.

Get them to the people. Yeah. Wow. This is fun. This is a, I love this new tradition. Well, I'll see you guys next week.

Back to our normal selves. Yeah. Tons and tons of questions next week. No race recap. Can't we? All right. Bye-bye. Bye.