That Triathlon Life Podcast - IM 70.3 World Championship Taupō race recaps, Triathlon bike hydration solutions, and more!

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

This week, Paula and Nick both raced in Taupō at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. We talked about their experiences racing as both a top professional and an eager amateur. After recapping their races, we dove into some listener questions. This week we discussed:How has pro triathlon gotten so fast lately?Is the Shiv Tri faster with the fin on? Have you tested it?Solutions for long-distance hydration on the bike.How to respond to a TTL shoutout IRL.Thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. And this is our triathlon podcast. We are going to be debriefing, 70.3 worlds a little bit today. Our experience there, Paula's experience there, Nick's experience there. I guess I can chime in a little bit, but I was mostly in a support role. Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick's a professional musician. What do we, what do we say? Upper Middle Packer. did qualify for 70.3 worlds. I like upper middle class, but sure. Yeah, you know, it's just there is,

upper middle class is a thing, and back of the pack is a thing, so I don't know, I'm trying that on for size. Right, right, right, right, got it. You're listening to that Triathlon Life podcast. This is just one part of all the things that we do here at TTL, and we're stoked to have you listening. Wow, we're just did that interp pretending that there's nothing wrong,

nothing going on. Set the stage for you perfectly. There's so much going on. First of all, why do you sound a little bit muffled, Eric and Paula? I have COVID, guys. After four years of not getting COVID, I got COVID. Man. It's insane that we're recording the podcast.

But Eric and I both throwing masks. Well, in the middle of the day, you were like up and around and you took Flynn for a walk and you were cleaning the house, like nothing, there was no big deal. And then it's a big deal. I think you hit the wall in the last 45 minutes to an hour from my perspective. Well, we are jet-legged and sick. That's true. This is rough. But anyway,

Nick's in New Zealand still. So every time we talk to him on this call so far, there's like a 10 second delay. Yeah, it's a bit delayed. But I have a view of a lifetime because you guys came here the night before you were leaving New Zealand. You came to this crazy beachside resort in the middle of nowhere. And you said that we had to come here and do it. So I'm here with my parents as well. And I'm looking out at the Pacific Ocean. and there's nothing but ocean. Somewhere out there is Australia, I suppose, but it's incredible here.

And funny story, you guys are here, and this is way out of the way. You have to drive through 30 minutes of farmland to get out here, and once you're here, this is the only thing that's here. And then you ran into someone while you were here. Yeah, we got in, like, pretty late in the evening because we started the morning off with the run

doing the Tongariro crossing. I am probably saying that wrong. Epic mountain run that you, like, ascend through jungle and then run across a volcano and Paula picked me up on one end. It was a point-to-point definition of epic. But then we had about five hours of driving to get to this Airbnb sort of resort situation that Paula had found just by clicking on everything that there is to see on Google maps and trying to find something that looked cool.

And it was sort of in the direction of the airport. And we get checked in, take this little golf cart buggy down the path to where the dinner thing is, walk through the doors into dinner, and Mark and Kat Matthews are sitting there having a glass of wine. What? Blaley Wild. Of all the places in New Zealand. Of all the places. If I can add to that funniness, today, my parents and I were driving,

oh boy, on this peninsula and the northeast, I forget what, not what it's called, but it's this deserted kind of peninsula that has a total inhabited population of 5,000 people. You drive through these towns and there's no one anywhere. We're driving around the perimeter. of it and we stop at this viewpoint and who do we see but the because cat matthews was the female iron man pro series winner but we bumped into the male iron man pro series winner Gregory barnaby and his partner and so we chatted with them for a while and Gregory is Italian so it's kind of funny that

somehow in our own ways we both bumped into into other people on the opposite sides of the island was that conversation conducted 100% in Italian 100% in Italian yeah well you know my mom's a chatterbox and Gregory obviously is Italian, so that was easy. And they had already met at the race, actually. Well, Gregory, he recognized my mom from my Instagram story. She's like, oh, you're your next mom, right, in Italian. So he already had, he already spotted her. Yeah.

That's funny. Going in, did you have, like, did you have a goal and did you have like a stretch goal and like a, you know, what would be a good to walk away with as a result? Yeah, I guess like in the past I've come second at World Championships. Last year I was fifth. So I wanted to get top five. That would have been a result I was happy with. But there were a lot of people on the start list who are really good who I haven't even really raced before.

And I could count on two hands like how many people there were that could potentially beat me on any day. So I don't know. I wanted to be top five. I knew I'd be disappointed with anything outside of that, but I knew that it'd be really hard to do that. Yeah. So it was like as we were going around on the days before the race, I personally noticed and thought that you were significantly more relaxed

than I've seen you at a race since maybe earlier on in the year, since we did like St. George or something. And we went out and we rode the bike course. We had a little bit of a scary experience. It was pretty busy. But overall, I was looking at that bike course and thinking that this was actually a really great profile for you. I feel like you felt the same way.

And how did like, what was a little bit of where you thought you would be able to make a difference in the race or make a move and relative to how that actually played out swim bike? Okay, yeah. I'll talk a little bit about my race. Eric is also going to put out a video about the race because he was filming all week. So that'll come out Thursday or Friday, Eric? Yep, Thursday, Friday. Probably Friday. And I did get lucky enough to get you before the extreme cloud of COVID hits.

So I think that interview was pretty dialed. Yeah, that's right. I already did the interview for the vlog. Oh, nice. So this dish has to be a short little... For the swim specifically, did you have a specific strategy that you wanted to do for the day?

Or was it... Or were you relying on your instincts and what you've done a million times before? No, Nick, I never have a strategy. Yeah, I really never have a strategy. It's just swim fast. I mean, the swim is like... It's all about getting in with the right people.

And I was ranked forth. So I was starting beside Ashley and Imogen, and they're both really good swimmers. If I come out of the water with them, I'm in a good spot. So just stay with the people I was around. But I was a little slow off the mark, getting off the carpet. And I just like, from the moment I warmed up even running around, I felt tired again. Like this happened to me in Vegas. It happened to me in Dubai. I just was sluggish and didn't want to be doing exercise, let alone getting hyped for a race. So the start of my swim reflected that a bit, and I was slow to start, got to the first buoy, and it looked like there were a billion people in front of me, but sort of got into

a bit more of a groove as I warmed up. It was swimming better, but by that point I was gapped from so many people. So came out further back than I wanted to and got on the bike and just started passing people. That's what I do. in rides where I have bad swims. It's kind of my only option. And to be fair, even if I'm having a good swim, I go out hard on the bike anyway.

So it does feel good to pass people and make forward progress and be able to see a little bit up the road. But the first kind of major and only steep climb of the race is like 20K in New York. I don't know how far in. I'd say something like that. But at the very crest of that, climb, I had gotten myself to the front of the race, aside from Taylor Nip, who was way up the road.

But I was with Imogen. I was with Kat. I had gone over 330 watts up this climb, like trying to get to the front, passing everybody. And just was like burning matches, I guess, that by the time I got to the crest, Imogen and Kat put a surgeon and going down the hill. And I was so blown that I couldn't respond to that move. and that was basically my race going away from me.

Yeah, I'm not sure. Unfortunately. From that point forward, my race was bad, unfortunately. Yeah, I actually chatted with Mark Matthews a bit at the after party that we went to at their house. And I mean, he told me exactly like kind of what you and I talked about as we pre-road the course, but that Kat and Imogen, their strategy was essentially to ride that hill hard. They both had one bys with big front rings. then to really make the move after that hill.

Like the hill had to be ridden hard, but that was the warm up for like the real move, which had to be like continuing to hold that hard power for the next 15 minutes after that. And unfortunately, you caught up just as they were like... Starting their downhill surge. On their like spot where they knew

they needed to make an effort to like get away from Julie and Ashley, etc. Yeah. And once they went, I started riding then alone at the front. And we'd gaped a bunch of people. so it was like me and maybe two other people at that point. But I was leading the charge there,

and I could see Imogen and Kat 20 seconds up the road forever. And then the person behind me came around me. And then this is where the messiness started because then Race Ranger is at play. I'm trying to stay out of the lights. I'm unsure if we're moving the same speed as we were when I was at the front, but also I'd been riding so hard that I'm like, okay, I'll just take a rest back here for a minute.

and that's a bad mindset to get into because it was so much easier as soon as she came around me and I was sitting second wheel. And then, I don't know, at the tip of the course kind of like halfway through it, more people started to come around me. And at this point, I'm just starting to get super frustrated

because the refs are beside us and there's red lights flashing everywhere. And in order to avoid going into the orange or the blue zone, I had to stop pedaling and sit up probably 50 times throughout this bike ride. And it's easy to say, well, don't wind, just go to the front of the group and break away. But 12 meters is not enough distance. It is so impossible, maybe unless you're Taylor Nib or unless there's some kind of technical nature or a hill to break a group up when we're spaced 12 meters apart. And what Race Ranger does is allows

people to sit right exactly at 12 meters. And I think in the pre-race Ranger days, people would leave even more space out of just extra caution because 12 meters looks so small. That's certainly my situation. I was perpetually getting slotted in when I raced, slotted in in front of when I race 70.3 because I was just playing it extra safe, didn't want to get a penalty, didn't want to be that person who posts on Instagram. Yeah, I got a penalty. It was my fault.

You know, et cetera. And like if I had Race Ranger, yeah, ride those lights. And I would have ridden a lot closer than I didn't. Yeah. Anyway, so I was in this messy pack and we were just bleeding time to the front. And at this point, like Ashley was with us and Julie, all like extremely fast runners. And so, yeah, I was like fairly demoralized, but I rode hard for the last 15K at the front of the group, knowing the string of people were behind me and just got off the bike and tried to run the best I could.

And doing math, I was like, the best I'll probably come here is sixth. And that's what I ended up finishing. Do you feel like there is anything tactically that you could have done different or coming out where you did with the swim? Like you did what you could. You caught Kat and Imogen when you did. But then there was just nothing left and that was it. No. Yeah.

I think if I was aware that that was where the move was going to happen, I would have tried that much harder to stay with it as they were attacking down the hill. Like I look back now and I thought at the time that was like too much. And I think also I thought, oh, I'll catch them soon. Because the way that I race is like, yeah, people drop me on downhills, but I always catch back up on the flats or on the uphills. And I thought that as soon as the descent was over, I'd kind of ride my way back up to them. But that, of course, did not happen.

Maybe that was a little bit too, like, arrogant of me to think that that was possible. So that was. And honestly, I don't know if it would have changed my race that much. I think if I'd come off the bike with them, Ashley and Julie may have still ran up to me, but I did run fast. Anyway, this is a stupid game to play. I don't need to think about if it would have changed the outcome, but it would have changed my attitude and feeling about being a good cyclist,

being able to ride with them. And then you actually had quite a good run. Did you not really feel the heat negatively? It was hot, but there was an aid station every kilometer mile or whatever with water and ice, and I just kind of cooled myself properly. And we were done before the heat, heat of the day. So I was okay with the heat. And it was breezy too.

That helped a lot. Did you hold on to any ice cubes in your hands or anything? Did you do anything funny like that or like put ice down your kid or in your hat or anything like that? I know it's like part of just having thousands of people on course. It's the nature of it versus a T-100 where it's like 20 of us on course is they can't just hand out full water bottles to us in an Iron Man event. but the cups are like half full and by the time you grab them like momentum they're empty so yeah yeah that is a challenge you know i don't know what the solution has but i every time i went for a cup

it was like a tablespoon of water yeah so if you want to i think if i did an iron man i'd have to really like you got to kind of slow down and intentionally grab it carefully so that you can yeah i feel like that the maximum amount i feel like that's why you see people fully walking and aid stations at Kona. Well, one of. Yeah. I can't miss a drop of this water right now. No matter what happens.

That's how I would be. I'm jumping in the kitty pool, whatever it takes. Yeah. Anyway, I finished six. I was fine. I didn't cross the finish line and cry or anything like I didn't do by. But I think that I am a better athlete than that. I think I can do better than that.

It's obviously the last half of the year has gone, a little bit rough for me. And I, not that bad. I mean, I've had some okay races. I wouldn't say obviously at all. Okay, well, not obviously. The last half of the year has been challenging for me. And I think part of it is we went to, I went to China.

And then I went to Spain and got sick. I got food poisoning or whatever I got in China. And that kind of put me on the back foot. I had a good race in Ibiza, but I came back and I just could never really get my feet under me training for the next thing. and it was like got home and two weeks later it's Vegas and then I get my feet under me from that and then two weeks later it's Dubai

and then I could see so I never really had a proper training block and meanwhile the weather's getting colder it's harder to do long rides so I don't know it just kind of felt like a rushed back half of the season where I never could get a good amount of training in and before the next race was underway yeah I would I would I would concur

with that assessment. Maybe that's why I went into New Zealand. I think I did as good as I could have done. I think that there's more in me had my prep and everything gone better. Do you think that's going to affect how you schedule your races next year? Like this thought that you're having now? Yeah, definitely learned some things, yes. But it's just also having it in December was hard.

I think next year having it be early November will be a lot easier for me to get into it and try you know schedule that appropriately. Yeah, I mean, there was just, there really wasn't any way to get around this,

unfortunately, just given the nature of having to race, you know, via the contract, the only way to get around it would have been to like go backwards in time and race London so that she wouldn't have to race

whatever, a visa or... But then we had our wedding. Yeah, we had a way. I mean, like, it just was what it was. And I agree with your statement and that like, he did the best,

you could with what you had to work off of and like just getting sick in China and then like trying you forgot to mention that you did UCI world champs between China yeah by the way that was an insane trip staying in someone else's house like having to figure out multiple different locations and train and like it wasn't that was nuts yeah I was doing the math because I've I read some comments somewhere because I'm I'm really bad and I go and read comments sometimes on our videos or whatever it is someone was like oh I keep complaining about the travel but I didn't even travel that much I traveled a normal amount for a professional athlete. And I'm like, yeah, they're right.

Why am I whining so much about this? But the first half of the year was not very travel heavy. I never left North America. The second half was like China to Spain, no, China to Switzerland to Spain, to the U.S., to Dubai, to the U.S., to New Zealand, and back. So three long-haul trips in three months. That was the difficulty. And yeah, I could probably do three long-haul trips in the year.

But I crammed them into the last three months. So I think that's what really made this hard. It made me feel like, oh, my God, I've been traveling all year. In reality, it's just I've been traveling the last three months. And now you're finally home and you get to relax and you have COVID. Yeah, that's what's not fair. It's like, oh, yeah, that's perfect timing to get sick. But now I want to, like, do things that are fun and that I've been putting off.

And now I feel like awful. So whatever. It's bound to happen. Eric, is there anything that kind of sticks out to you from your experience as being there and watching Paula race? Is there anything that sticks out as far as something you noticed? Yeah, I don't know. I think Paula has pretty much covered all the thoughts that I have. Obviously, we've talked about it a whole bunch since the race.

So some of my thoughts have kind of merged with her thoughts a little bit and stuff. But from my perspective, yeah, the swim was a little bit rough. I didn't know exactly why. but I just I remember texting Lindsay Corbin and being like hopefully on this little climb out of town she can bridge the group back up to Cat and Imogen and like hopefully but you know they're not rolling so hard by the time that she gets there

and she'll get into that group and then that group breaks from the main group but I don't know that's like a tall ask because I think she was 40 seconds behind Ashley out of the water and 30 seconds behind Cat and I know they were going to try to make a statement there but she did it she made it across

and then I kind of assumed that she just got dropped on like the fastest downhill on the course and I was like shit like how we've been working on this like how this is annoying that this happened again

but I didn't realize you know after having talking to her talked to her that was like that's where they made the move she was just so gassed by the time she got there the timing was unfortunate and I think ultimately like

I'm impressed with how she raced with what she had to work with. And I really think it's a thing that we just back up and we go like if you really, really want to do well at 70.3 world and try to win or get a podium or like whatever it is,

but have your best race there. Like build some crap around that. Even if that means you have to go to X race that you really don't want to in February or something to make sure that you have clear space around 70.3 worlds. Or if it's winning the, you know,

the T100 grand final. Like what do we do to like kind of do with that like all in kind of mindset? that you see people take on to say, like, here's where you want to perform. Even though every T-100 race feels like it's a world championship, how do you pick out the one or the two or the three that you're really going to put maximum focus on and, like, build some stuff around that, if at all possible? Speaking of T-100, they did release the people who've signed today, which is interesting.

Do we want to get into that? I don't know. On the last podcast, I said I was on the fence. I still want to do an Ironman. I don't know if I want to do the pro series, but the schedule that I've sort of built out does include an Iron Man and 70.3 racing, which is my favorite. So the requirements for the T-100 racing has been changed at the last second,

by the way. I won't say the details, but I think that pushed a lot of people over the edge to signing it. Yeah. because there were a lot of people on the fence yeah yeah we were that was the only thing we were talking about post race with the Matthews

and you would ask Taylor Nib about it and transition after the race and stuff was like oh are you going to do it what do you think like that sounds I don't know it doesn't seem like everybody had that A lot of people were thinking a ton about it

yeah it didn't seem like in like the year before where it was just like obviously of course yes there was some pause for cause I do want to take this opportunity to address something. Somebody messaged me and was like a little bit turned off thinking that I had gone from like being all excited about the

T100 going into Vegas and the stuff that we did in Vegas to like bashing on them in our last podcast like with Paula's race in Dubai and how she felt about that. And I just want to be like super straight up about this that I have no qualms with the T100

and I don't think anybody on this podcast does. I think the position that we've been at and what we've been trying to express is that like this is a certain type of racing it suits a certain type of person there's a certain type of person who wants to do it and that person is not everybody it's like comparing it to track running or something you've got athletes who do really well at the marathon you've got some athletes that do really well at 10k on the track like those are not necessarily the same athletes even though it seems like one should probably be able to jump up and do the other and like make some money

in major marathons there's just like people who love the track and there's people who don't want to do the track. And I feel like that's kind of where we're at with like T100, Ironman. Yeah, it's not as bashing either. No. It's like, where are you at in your career? Each individual person needs to make that call and like what motivates them, what type of racing, what type of atmosphere, how much money, et cetera, and make that decision.

And I just want to make sure that everybody understands that. It's not, you know, T100, Iron Man. Each one is not just like for everyone. Yeah. And I will say it's definitely going to get. become like a short course series in a way. It already looks like that from the list that I've seen of who's signing a contract. So it's just going to get faster and faster and faster swims and more technical bikes

with people that are used to doing that and younger athletes. It's going to push the people who are more Iron Man focused out of this series eventually, I think. So we'll see. But it's exciting to watch and they're getting some really good athletes signing up. Yeah, it really does feel like on the continuum of like age and spunkiness, it's a really perfect continuum right now. You have Super League and short course like true ITU draft legal WTCS racing. And then there's a notch now for T100.

There's a notch for 70.3 and there's a notch for Iron Man in terms of like how much you want to travel, how much of an entrepreneurial sort of situation you want to take on and your age and where you feel you're at, like emotionally, spiritually, physically. So you could conceivably sign the T-100 contract and then do really well at both this year as well. You could. Periodically.

There's nothing. I mean, with the requirements they've put on the T-100 this year, it should be easier to them. But I don't know. that both series are going to be more competitive this year too. But you could definitely do both series, yes, for sure, especially if you're the kind of athlete who does multiple Iron Man's a year and is used to it. Harder for someone like me to jump in and say, yeah, I'm going to do three Iron Man's

and X number of T100 and 270.3s. That's tough. Yeah, and like that comes down to the emotional and where you're at psychologically of, are you okay living out of a suitcase? But also the other thing about the pro series is you don't have to do three Iron Man's. If you do like one Iron Man and 470.3s, they'll count all those scores. You can only count a maximum of three Iron Man's. So yeah, the Iron Man's are worth double and they're going to score you way more points.

But you can still do really well in the series, I think, with two Iron Man's and 370.3s, for example. Yeah, I think it's like, if you really nail all the 70.3s. Yeah, I think it's more of a matter of like if we're talking about this, it's, you know, like, what is the potential to win? What does it take to win the pro series? What does it take to win T100? And then you just kind of like back it up from there. Yes, you could win the pro series and maybe get eighth in the T100 or maybe you could win T100 and get fifth or sixth in the pro series.

It seems fairly inconceivable that one could win both unless one is a, you know, once in a life, once in a generation talent. The other, yeah, when I also looked at the breakdown, like winning the, the pro series and winning the 2-100 is the same payout, but the drop-off in the pro series is much more. Right. So what she's saying basically, if you get eighth in the Ironman Pro series, you make $1,000 versus you get eighth and $2.100 versus you get eighth and $2.100.

You can't say the number because it's not public. You get more than that. Can we say that? Yeah, sure. It drops off significantly less from their top prize of $200,000 or whatever. But on the other hand, Paula, you as someone who, you weren't even trying to be at all. competitive in the Iron Man Pro Series.

You were just doing 70.3s as you liked. And then you ended up being in the top 50s. So you did get some money from the Iron Man Pro Series, which it wasn't a ton. But any money is welcome. Yeah, I mean, this is the interesting thing there that we were talking about is like Paula was, I think we brought that up, right?

Paula wasn't trying to get top anything in the pro series and she got $5,000. The person who got 11th also got $5,000. It's just like the top 10 is where it actually drops down. So it's like, also kind of did the math a little bit like if paula had gone in one one iron man then she would have potentially been like sixth or seventh or something in the pro series and so then your gear start turning like okay so you add that together with whatever um sponsor bonus you might get for doing

an iron man versus like we don't have many sponsor bonuses for a t-100 and you're just like starting to do all this math of like if i do this and this and then that and the thing and then and ultimately i think I don't know where I've arrived at and is like each athlete just kind of needs to figure out what do they want to do and what start lines that they step on are going to get them fired up

and have them doing their best performances versus where do I sort of like put my chips knowing that I'll get a certain guaranteed amount of money and then like that's just that you can only burn that fuel for so long I think versus the positive I'm psyched to be here fuel

do you guys feel like that the pro athletes are doing more racing than they were like pre-COVID or is this kind of where it was at before too? I think it's pretty similar. I mean, we talked to Heather Jackson and Heather and Trevor Wirtel and the athletes of that like Trek K-Swiss sort of generation and they were just getting in their minivans and driving all around the country and doing 70.3s like every other weekend, every weekend in the summer. I think the volume of high stress, high consequence racing is significantly higher now. You can race eight times with the T-100 and like four continental championships with

Ironman plus Kona plus 70.3 worlds and there's a whole bunch more races that feel as though they're like a plus races versus I'm just going to go mop up a bunch of these. I don't want to call them like low level, but just less. There's not 15 people who could all be in the top three. Yeah, I see. I see. I see. Got it. All right, man. So how was your race? Friking first ever 70.3 world. championships. Well, I'll start by saying that what I wasn't expecting was how the vibe of a world championship as an age grouper is not the same as just a 70.3 as an age grouper. No bias at all. I'm not trying to gas up Iron Man, but it is a next level experience as an age group. They go all out. Yes, it costs more, but oh my God, do they put on such a big show? The whole thing feels like

this huge to do that you are at the center of somehow and still a part of this big triathlon family and something that I've said before that I liked about T100 races where everyone there is not just a one-timer, you know, they're big fans of the sport. Everyone there is a big fan of the sport. You already did a 70.3. You did well enough to qualify for world championship. And you paid a lot of money and traveled really far for almost everybody, unless you're Hayden Wild, to do this race. So there was that. You had the feeling that everyone kind of understood your pain

and understood the struggle of racing. So that was, to me, one of the best things about the whole weekend was just the entire aura and vibe. I can't imagine what it's like to be at Kona, but I feel like this was a mini version of that. And it also has a lot of the same, you know, it's like tropical and sunny and, beautiful, sunny. It was very sunny. It was extremely sunny, actually. That was part of the problem.

But, but yeah, the vibes were great. I mean, could you guys feel that too? Was this different than a regular, or did it feel like any other 70.30. It felt like how most 70, like the world championships feel. A lot of people, a lot of people from different countries. Iron Man goes at extra level to make everything look extra good. And there's just more athletes in general, right? Like five or six times more. Yeah. It's some races. It's not just an extra large 70.3 event by any means. They build up the finish line into a full like ramp that you walk over and down just like you see in Kona. Everything just feels slightly more grandiose. Yeah.

Yeah, the town, I mean, this is like how St. George is, but like on an extra super level where it's a kind of a relatively small town. They were saying that in Topa, that the city is like 20,000 people and 25,000. thousand people came in for the race were expected with, you know, the athletes that were racing plus families and everything. So literally doubled the town in size. And that obviously just has a crazy impact on the energy level in the city. Yeah, you could feel it. And I think Iron Man did a really good job at, I mean, as much as maybe the, the only real problem was the problems of accommodations and getting everyone a place to stay. Because for example, my family and I had to stay an hour away on the other side of the lake, which was beautiful. And I,

if we would have gotten our act together sooner, maybe we would have been able to stay closer to the race, but there's just not that much out there. You know what's crazy, actually, is that if you had gotten your act together as late as possible, you would have also been fine. Because all the people who got their act together 18 months in advance that ended up getting injured

or not even doing travel on anymore by the time that they needed their hotel room, there was like some surprisingly last minute hotel rooms and Airbnb's available. Cance and stuff. Yeah, right, right, right. If you're willing to roll the dice, you might luck out. Yeah. Well, anyway, for the race itself, the lake was incredibly beautiful.

Everyone loved the lake. The temperature was fantastic. I think on race day it was like, I didn't check, but something like 65, 66 degrees, so like 19 degrees, I think, Celsius. You're saying the air or the lake was that temperature? The lake temperature. The lake, yeah, the lake. It was really, really nice. And when we swim in it, the day of Paula's race, I thought, man, you could only only do this without a wetsuit. Race morning, I was very happy to have a wetsuit, but still it was really nice temperature. And the whole swim you could see the bottom.

And it was this kind of beautiful sandy bottom with these cool patterns on it. So that to me made the whole thing so much more enjoyable. Something I don't love about open water swimming is that just dark abyss that you're usually swimming in. It's not that it scares me, but it just feels like sensory deprivation or something. So I was nice to be able to see my hands, the feet of the people in front of me. even people that were kind of far away. I had heard from Paula from your race that the siting was a problem for our race,

I think just because there's so many people, it's not as much of an issue. So I had no problem siding. And I have a lap that goes off every 500 meters. And halfway through the swim, I knew that I was doing pretty well. So I got excited and that motivated me for the rest of the swim. And ended up swimming 31 minutes and 50-something seconds, which was my best ever, a 70.3 swim. So hold on a second. When you say you had a lap that goes off every 500 meters, so this is on your watch. Correct. How do you, like, how do you know if that's like a positive

or, you know, because on one, right, right, how would I know? Because I did take about a second there underwater and looked at my watch and saw what the split was. So I saw that it was like 1538 or 1547 or something like that. And I thought, oh, that's really good. That means I'll be around 32 minutes, which is what I was hoping to go. Okay. I wasn't sure if it was like triple beeping

to let you know that you're fast or one beep to let you know that you're slow or something. You actually had feedback or something. You physically looked at it. Gotcha. Yep. And so then got out of the water and there was this kind of very steep ramp to run out of,

got into transition. It was a long way to run, but I was not upset about that. Got onto the bike. There starts with that steep hill. And then I obviously just was like, you know what? Today's a day. I'm going to set all, break all my bike records.

And the first hour, I probably overdid it a bit, even though it felt great. I felt really great. And I just thought, today I'm willing to suffer. I'm willing to work really hard. And I think, I thought I had the fitness to do it. Then at around mile 32, I started getting this little cramp in my hipflank. and my heart kind of sank when I had that because I've had that before and I know that I have to be really careful about it. Otherwise it becomes like a real problem for the rest of the bike. So I

went from hammering the bike to, okay, now let's be as smart as possible and ride with the right groups of people. Because as much as I think they tried to stagger those swim age groups to not have bike packs, there were absolutely bike packs out there. And I don't think there was too much, there wasn't any intentional drafting or anything like that, but it's just kind of, when there's that many people out there, it just gets a little tight. So when you say select the right bike pack, you're actually like looking for a pack to ride with. Yeah, it's like the right people because there'll be a line of like 30 riders, but then if you're not careful, that can split apart. And so you might think you're still with that group,

but it's actually become two groups of 15 and that gap is getting wider and wider. So it's about being smart and trying to pass a bunch of people when it's appropriate to and when it's smart to so I can go with a faster group. And everyone in that group of 30 would be 12 meters apart? That seems unlikely. I would say, okay, let me say, was it 12? I would say it was probably more like eight, if I were to guess. But I don't really know what the solution is because if you were anything more than like

eight meters apart, people were sliding it right in front of you all the time. So it's just the pro race. It's the same as the pro race, but like a thousand times as many people per drafting official. Yes. Sounds like it. Yeah. And I didn't see anyone get a penalty, although when I finished the race, there was a penalty box before the bike finished. And there were many age troopers in there.

So they had given some penalties. I can't imagine what you would have had to do to get a penalty because everyone that was riding around me was. I would say not writing legally, not that it was their fault. There's like, there's nowhere to go. You just need a smaller amount of people in the race to solve that problem, which is, you know, it becomes a business issue. Right. It's either that or you have, I mean, that's the only way, because you can't have an even later start time. People were starting at 9.30 in the morning apparently. And then they were out in the heat of day later. So I don't see a solution other than less people.

Oh, yeah, the leaders, like, Yella and Hayden had like 5K to go when the last guy got out of the water. That's crazy. Completely nuts. That's crazy. But anyway, as far as my actual, like, what was going on in my body, after a while, I felt like I could kind of push a little more again. So I didn't get back to what I was originally doing, but I felt okay. And I knew that I was conserving some energy for a run, which I wanted to have a good run. the end of the course is pretty downhill and coasted back into town, got my run stuff on,

I chatted with the guy in transition for a second while we were getting our run stuff on, and then started running and then, you know, like a ego-driven man that I claim not to be, first 20 minutes, I'm like, yep, this is it. I'm taking five minutes off my 70.3 run PR today. This is it. It's happening. Hip flexor be damned. There was so much energy on that course. Paula, did you feel like this was also a similar amount of on course energy? Did I think there was like when I was racing?

Yeah. Like did it seem like a regular world championship kind of on course energy? I don't know. I feel like this course because it spanned across like you didn't just go out into nowhere and turn and come back. You were like a long, a busy promenade kind of thing. So it was pretty evenly distributed. Obviously like more concentrated people. near the finish line, but the entire 10K loop had people cheering, which was crazy. Yeah. Like even in St.

George, you'd go through the golf course and there was no one there. And in Lottie, there were some places like up in a neighborhood that were quiet. So this place just was easy to access the entire straight. Yeah, that's that big straight on the like the actual road part. Wow. So many, so many, so many people and such hyped energy. I loved it. The problem is, I don't know if I don't know if I necessarily, it's nice, but I don't know if I need it because then I overdo it even more than I'm already going to overdo it and I pay for it in the back half, which is definitely what happened on Sunday. But it kind of loops around at first and then I came back and I saw you guys and of course I see you guys and I get psyched out of my mind. So I'm like,

oh yeah, this is it. It's happening. And I've got all the adrenaline and all the positive hormones flowing. And then about 20 minutes in, I started now cramping in a completely different spot. and my left leg and my quad. And so I decided, okay, just cool it down a bit. But the cramping actually in the run was not the limiting factor. What ended up happening is I just, my energy levels just lower and lower and lower.

And it's such a bad feeling when you're like, I'm going to slow it down a bit so I can recover. And you slow it down and you're like, no, I feel just as bad. This is not, I'm not getting better because I'm going a little slower. So I just felt like I was kind of always on the limit a little bit on the run. But if you look at my mile splits on Strava, it just looks like a staircase going the wrong direction. Just each mile split just slower and slower and slower and slower.

And, you know, I had to kiss the dream of sub 1.30 goodbye. But I just got hot, I think, is what happened. It was just hot out there for me. and a lot of other athletes I spoke to had a similar experience where their first 20 minutes felt great. And then it just kind of hit them slowly and but surely. Yeah. Assuming that your nutrition was all dialed and everything, then that just sounds like a heat thing to me. Yeah, yeah. I think my nutrition was great. I did precision gels on the bike. Thank you, Brad. And I had done a ton of sodium the day before and during the race.

And I did, yeah, I did 90 grams an hour. On the bike, plus some Morton in my bottle, Morton 320 mix in my bottle and had all of that. And then on the run, I was doing 60 grams an hour of gels. And so I don't think it was a nutrition or hydration basis. And I was drinking electrolytes at every single aid station. And I had no GI issues at all, which is great because I don't know if you guys remember the day before, I was not, my tummy was feeling a little funny. So yeah, it wasn't that.

So I don't think it was, I don't think it was nutrition. think it was fitness. I think it was fitness and heat. Pacing. That eventually took the toll. Yeah, and pacing. I wonder how differently it would have gone if I, on the bike, if I wouldn't have gone out so hard in the beginning, and then on the run if I wouldn't have gone out so hard in the beginning. But it's also a world championship and I wanted to go for it. Well, coming into it, you said that you were like in the shape of your life coming into it. So to me, it sounds like you were in the shape of your life and you still overexerted above whatever, you know, potentially, the shape of your life even meant. Yeah, if I'm being honest with myself, I think if I wasn't hot,

I think I was running at the right pace at first. But the fact of the matter is, it was hot, and I knew that, and I still chose to be like, no, I'm still going to do it. And that was the mistake. That takes a few hard races to arrive at that, like, total ego check when it's hot. I'm going to go out of the pace that feels stupidly slow and accept that that's probably intelligent. And you can always like wind it up later. But the hype man, hype is real. Kind of top down big picture thing is that it felt really special to do that race. And you probably, you know, it's easy to just say that, but there was something about being there with other people who have suffered in a way that you are very familiar with suffering. Swimbike run training. It's great,

but it's really hard. And to know that everyone out there has worked really hard at that, when you were suffering, it just made it kind of feel a little more like we were all in it together. And crossing the line on that kind of special stage, your life flashes before your eyes a little bit of like all the training you've done and the little races you've done. And for me, the podcast and meeting you guys, it felt like, oh yeah, this is this is a part, at least a part of what I love about this sport is this moment of finally after four hours and whatever, 41 minutes for me, crossing that line and thinking, okay, I did this really hard thing for a lot of that. I was in a lot of pain and didn't want to be doing it. I can do other hard things too.

I think that's what we're all what we all love about it, man, is that feeling. Like you put up with all the training, you go to the swimming pool when you don't want to in the morning. You freaking don't sleep at all the night before the race and are stressed out of your mind and like, I inevitably have some really dark patches during the race, but

crossing the finish line, like all of that played into that special feeling that you get went across the line. If it was easy, you wouldn't have had that same emotional release. That's so good. Exactly. At the finish, I thought that thing that only women who've just given birth and insane triathletes say, I want another one.

I want to do it again. Give me another one. What's wrong with me? This is crazy because you told me pretty shortly after that you had definite moments in the race where you were like, I don't ever need to do. another one of these. This can be the end. That's exactly. That's exactly the wording is, I don't ever need to do another one of these again. Yeah. I'd love, yeah, it was a special, it was a special experience. And the fact that you guys were there and then my parents were there

and that the amount of TTL love on the course was just amazing. So, so much, so much TTR love. And there was even someone else out there with a TTL kit racing this. And I saw someone in a TTL hat, at least a couple people in TTL hats, actually. too. So that was nice. It felt like real family. Yeah, we saw tons of gear as we were walking out of the expo and going to restaurants and everything the week before the race. But we only got photo evidence of you and one other guy in kits.

So we're hoping to bump that up in the future. And I guess I'll just go out and say, if you have pictures of yourself racing in TTL gear, we can share that with us because we love sharing that stuff. Doesn't have to be at World Championships. No, it can be at the backyard triathlon. That's fine. Yeah. And the volunteers were amazing.

I mean, I just love New Zealand people. I think they're the nicest people on the planet that I have met as a community. So great. The organization by Iron Man was great. I have no notes for Iron Man. The whole week was put on so, so, so well. Yeah, that was impressive. I think we should move to questions, though, guys.

Okay, so we do have a couple questions that we did spend most of the time, of course, talking about the race, but I love that we did. It was an epic experience. Our questions, as always, are submitted by our beloved listeners. You can submit your questions at Thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast, where you can also become a podcast supporter. I actually ran with a guy for a bit on the run course as I was at my lowest low. And he started the conversation with, hey, Nick, I'm a podcast supporter. And immediately I was like, oh, my God, thank you so much for being a podcast supporter. But you can become a podcast supporter there.

The podcast supporters are the only way that this podcast makes any money. So we really appreciate that. keeps us going. Every week or most weeks, we try to pick a random podcast supporter to receive some kind of cool TTL gear item. And this week, congratulations, Barbara Thompson. Thank you so much for being a podcast supporter. You are a winner this week.

Just reach out to me and we will get you a cool bit of TTL gear. So I thought it would be fun. This week, we did have a bunch of questions. We won't have a time to get to all of them. But this one is about, is something. similar to what I was just talking about, which is do you think that our athletes are racing more? But this one is, hi TCL fam. Congratulations to Paula and Nick for fantastic races at 70.3 world champs. As an age grouper, it just blows my mind how fast triathlon has gotten and would love your guys take on

what do you think has led to this. Better gear, better training, better drugs, all of the above. It just seems like people are so fast now in all three disciplines, not just one or the other. Happy holidays and hope you can finally enjoy some downtime. Cheers, Ben. Everything's better. The training is better. The nutrition is better. The shoes are better. The bikes are faster. Everyone's more arrow. Everyone has more access to things to information. The internet is more accessible. There's more money in the sport. There's all my answers. Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. Almost anybody can figure out some sort of way to get in an altitude tent. Get a sponsor to pay for that. Go to an altitude camp. People are getting into the at least the 70.3 zone earlier than before. Now it's like people start off their careers like, I want to be a 70.3 athlete or they leave short course draft legal racing sooner to be a 70.3 athlete rather than, I don't know, it felt like it was a bit amateurish, like in the grand scheme of things 10 years ago relative to the level of professionalism, people are taking it too now. Like Heather Jackson was pretty

revolutionary, I would say, in that Wadi went around with her and was like riding his bike with her and like being her manager and like helping cook and like handling her logistics and she had a little mini team versus now that's just that's just the way it is like if you want to win cona or a 70.3 world championship you've got a manager you've got a video guy you've got a coach you've got a cycling coach you've got a this like myriad of a team built around you and there are the financial abilities at that point in for people to to operate that way and then like paula said you mix in bikes or more aerodynamic. You can run crazy volume very fast with the new super shoes.

If you just wear them in training for tempo runs and not beat up your legs, you can run three days after you do an Ironman wearing those super shoes. And I think it's just like kind of inevitable as the sport matures. Great answers. Good answer. Next question here. I know you've done a bunch of wind tunnel testing. Curious if you had any data on the Shivtri being faster with or without the hydration fin on.

I'm a very heavy sweater, so I'm considering swapping the built-in hydration for something between the arms that I could refill on the fly with aid station bottles. Not sure if the fin in that case would be better to leave on for arrow gains or better to shed to save the weight. Yeah, it's for sure way faster with it. Yeah, that's, we don't need to test that. The Shiv try is undeniably faster with the fin attached to it. The only reason that the fin comes off, I think, is for training.

Yeah. You don't have to be, you know, dragging that thing around. not really a great solution for putting in hydration mix frequently just with mold and how hard it is to clean. But like that's the entire purpose. If you look at Canyon bikes now, and they have like a freaking crazy tail fin with like two bottles and all this junk back there and like questionable whether it's being used as storage in any way, anything that's like hanging off there in the back is from what I am gathering and have seen is going to be faster if it's like a faring. If it's a faring shape. And it's just conveniently water as well.

Yeah, I've been kind of trying to talk Paula into going back to riding the Shiv Try because it's a freaking straw with water that's in your face. And yeah, it's an old bike, but it's more aerodynamic in a crosswind than the Shiv TT. The Shiv TT feels fantastic. It climbs hills so well, it turns, it accelerates out of quarters incredibly well. But if you're trying to carry water with you and be as aerodynamic in every situation as possible, that bike is still really solid. So use the ferrying for sure.

Okay, that's funny because. is it reminds me of another question that is here, which is, my question is about hydration systems on the bike. This summer, I'm moving up from sprint and Olympic distances to give 70.3 ago and want to add front hydration between my aerobars. I see the pros tend to stick to removable bottles versus a stay-in-place bottle with a straw. Is this for the convenience of being able to swap bottles quickly at aid stations, a weight issue, or just personal preference? I'll admit, I'm partial to being able to drink from a straw without having to fumble with a bottle, but hoping to get your take on what works best over the 70.3 distance.

Thanks for all you do and keep up the great work. Hugs Chris. This is a great question. Got lots of answers. Lots of knowledge. I think a lot of the reason people use those bottles is so they can replace them easily. Yep. Yeah, if you're writing with a behind-the-seat amount where you've got one or two bottles back there,

as soon as that bottle in the front is empty, you just chuck it to the next aid station, or you can put in your mouth and grab one of the ones from behind you and do a little switcheroo. rather than if you got one in the front that has the straw coming out of it, most of the time those have like a little bit of a, I don't know what you want to call it, like a valve bladder little thing where you can squirt water in from your back bottle. But like at some time when you got some time, go to your kitchen sink and try to squirt out an entire 24 ounce bottle

into the sink as fast as you can. Very slow. It's very slow versus just doing the swap. We have yet to find one of those front straw unit things that doesn't leak and spray a significant amount of water around. If you're on chip steel rows or hit a speed bump or anything like that, if anybody does have a recommendation for one that has never leaked at all, feel free to start a little threat about that in the TTL app

because we would also like to know about it. Well, first of all, mine leaks, mine from the Canyon SpeedMax, SLX has leaked since day one. But even more crucially, yes, there is this little like inlet where you can presumably turn a bottle upside down and squirt water in there. And yes, there's the issue that it doesn't come out very fast. But the additional issue for me is that there's enough resistance to put the nozzle in there that it shuts the nozzle.

So you can't get any water out. So you try to put it in there and it closes the nozzle. And then you pull it out and you try to open it up with your teeth again. You put it back in and it just nothing comes out. As they say on Pro Try News, we were having. lunch with someone who is quite good in the sport. Let us know that this is an issue that has not

been fixed on the latest model bike and cost somebody they felt some performance advantage from water. So that is, I think that's just like an issue with any sort of a thing like that. In order to make it so that it doesn't leak, it has to be tight enough that it then

closes your bottle. Here is your potential solution, Nick. You get one of the latest TTL bottles which has the fixy 2.0 top on it, the new white ones that we got, those are like a fully squirtable bottle. So like I could squirt you in the face with it

at any given time. Oh, and you don't need to like open or close it up with your mouth. That is the solution. Slightly more resistance to squirting. Again, like it's going to take you a while to squirt it out, but not an unclosable, closeable top situation.

Okay, so we got one more question here, which I love. This is from Matt. Hey, TTL crew. With 70.3 worlds coming up. I've got a question that's been haunting me like an overcooked FTP test. A number of times this year while rocking TTL gear at races or venues, someone spots the logo and yells TTRL or TTL Nash. Every single time I respond to awkwardly with something like, yep, or TTR for life, or in one regrettable moment.

And also with you, which is definitely my favorite. I might actually incorporate that. My question is this. What is the official TTR handshake? metaphorically speaking. What's the appropriate response to let my fellow TTLers know I'm equally about that triathlon life without looking like I just flatted at T2. Help me. TTR, this is my personal worlds from that. Also, everyone, this is how you format a question, okay? This is what we expect. This is the level of comedy and writing we expect from your questions input. Yeah, it's really good.

Okay, so if someone in transition yells, yeah, TTL, what do we say? What's the response? What do we expect? You! Y'all dude! Y'all dude! I don't think there's any wrong answer here. Just whatever you're feeling, whatever your level of stoke is at that given point in time. I agree.

Go for it. There are no rules. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe this can be our new thing. You know, the most interesting, right in with the most interesting way that someone has responded to T.T.L. Nesh to you and you can win a prize. That's that. Choose your own adventure and tell us about it.

Okay. Well, I will say this is probably. probably our roughest pod of all time. So hopefully it's listenable. I can barely talk. I can barely think. I would agree this delay is the worst that's ever been. Nick has at least a 30 second delay.

He's talking over me right now. Nick, I'm just doing the outro. You're going to hear it later. He's behind the international date line, both literally and on his call. Yeah. Oh my gosh. What a disaster. But anyway.

Thanks for Baron. If Nick has the ability to edit this tonight, you'll hear this tomorrow. It'll be a miracle. But thank you for listening. And hopefully next week, well, next week it's going to be Christmas. Wow. We're not going to make Nick edit on Christmas. We might need to pre-plan and record it. Yes, we are. I think so. Okay. We're not recording on, or editing. We're not recording on Christmas Eve. My parents will pitch a fit. So we've got to do at least two days out. I don't know. Paula knows her. shit with this. She's the scheduler of the family. I just show up and try to be happy. No, next Wednesday is Christmas.

All right. You can count on us, everybody. We don't take days off at TTL. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.