That Triathlon Life Podcast - IM Oceanside 70.3 race recap, film screening recap, and more!

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Monday episode because we just couldn't wait until Thursday. This week, Paula shares her Ironman 70.3 Oceanside race experience, Eric and Nick recap their film screening, and we dig into some great listener-submitted questions. Topics this week include:Will Paula race Oceanside again next year?Is Eric moving on from triathlon?Wetsuit rashesWhat it’s like riding with the lead motos during a raceGPS trackers with sewn-in pockets for pro kitsHow to take that iconic floating bike photoA 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

Everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And this is our Oceanside Race Week recap video. We have a triathlon podcast. It's not a video, though. Video. This is the autopilot brain. Eric ran 40K today and he's a little spent. Yeah, I can't even tell you. But we're psyched. It was an incredible week for the whole team here. Nick and I screened our film to a sold-out theater, and Paula just then went and won the race. absolutely could not have gone any better. It was a perfect number of days. Yeah, I think we're all in a good mood all week.

We were a little stressed. I think the movie was more stressful than the race, potentially. Do you think, okay, hot take, did this help your race at all, do you think? Did it help my race? Yeah. No, but it definitely added to the fun of the week, because for me, the film was not that stressful. But for you two, it was a bit down to the wire. And Eric was venting about the story.

stress to me. So it took my mind off my race. Right. So maybe it helped. You had to be there for him. Yes, in a way. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it was great. It was a lot of people that we knew that came to the premiere and a lot of people that we've never met before. And all really big fans of TTL or just wanted to see this thing you guys have been hyping up for a year. Yeah. We are going to, even though chronologically, the screening happened first. It happened on Thursday. We are going to talk about the race first. So it's a Saturday race, not a Sunday. We're actually recording this on Sunday, and we did miss last week's podcast. But we are going to try to put this out tomorrow and potentially then

put out another podcast by Thursday. That's what we're hoping for. We're shooting for that. We're aiming high. Yeah, we like to, Nick likes to pretend there's a million hours in the day. A million hours in the day when, in fact, there's not a million hours in the day. But we're going to try. So I don't know. I think it's good to get like race recaps and that type of thing out as soon as you can. Well, it's still fresh for people. And although the film came first, like you said, we'll talk about the race first, just to get that out of the way, because this is a triathlon podcast.

At the end of the day, it is a trathlon. So if people are here, tune in in for the first time, we mostly talk about triathlon. Generally, we do questions sourced from the listeners and answer those on this podcast. That's the usual format. But because this was such a big week for TTL, we're just going to recap everything.

It was actually someone's idea. They submitted it on the app. Yeah. They said, can we just do not? do questions this week, but we do have some questions. We just want to make sure we completely prioritize the race and the screening. Yeah. All right.

Let's get into it. So, Saturday morning, we wake up. I drive you to the start. Eric takes the van and the hall. Yeah, Eric insisted on bringing our e-bike, the hall, the specialized hall, down to Oceanside. He thought it would be super fun to ride it around California. And I was not in favor because of such a pain in the ass to load it on the van,

but it turned out being a great thing. Eric was riding it all week, filming with it, getting around the race. So that's how he transported himself. But yeah, you dropped me off, Nick. It was, for some reason I woke up and I was not nervous. I was just annoyed that it was so early. And cold.

And cold. And cold. The water was really cold. I think it was 67. 57? 57. They said 57.4. But through experience, as someone who actually does wear their watch in races,

they will often say it is a temperature that it is not so that they do not have to shorten or cancel the swim. Which I'm happy for. I mean, there was talk a little bit in the pre-race meeting about it being so cold that they would have to make it $750 or just cancel it all together. And that would have been, I mean, as much as I didn't want to get in the cold water, I do benefit from a swim.

Yes, of course. So I was really happy that it was a full triathlon. It just makes it more legit, you know? There were no asterix next to it. it's the swim bike run normal distance. And all other things, like, all other conditions were totally fine. I'm assuming somebody's going to, like, have a flashback tomorrow bay as a result of this conversation. But this was in a harbor, perfectly calm.

All other variables were great. Visibility was great. So cold water was the only real issue. Cold water and cold air. I mean, the air temp was like 10 degrees Celsius. It was chilly. Yeah. So that was a factor.

But I decided not to put anything on after the swim. It heats up really quickier with the sun. And that was the right decision. right? Ultimately, yeah, but I was freezing for the first 20K of the bike. In your core or just your hands and stuff? Like, my hands were cold. Everything was cold. It was all I was thinking about, which is not good. Oh, I see.

That's a really hard thing because if you take the time to pull on arm warmers, if you wear the armormers while you swim, then they're wet. There was a lot of text messaging going around the pro ranks, actually. I'd be like, what are you going to wear? Are you going to put boots on? Are you going to gloves or anything? And, like, for the most part, nobody really put on any extra clothes. on, yeah, because it's so hot by the end of the race. When you were starting on the bike, Eric and I were cold, and there was some wind down by the harbor,

and we were kind of concerned how that might be out for you on the bike. Was that ever an issue? We're just going to skip to the bike. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I guess I was thinking about the cold and the weather. Right, right, right. Yeah, it was windy. This race is always windy in certain points coming off the coast.

But it's never different any year. It's cold, it's windy, the roads are rough, it's, it's cold, it's windy, the roads are rough, It's the same. We all know what to expect. You put it out of your mind when you're signing up for it, and then you remember while you're in it how much it's really hard. Okay, no, you're right. Let's talk about the swim, and it's in-water start,

so you guys don't all run in or anything like that. Yeah, actually, this year was great because they did a five-minute gap between the pro-men and the pro-men and the pro-women, and because the men's field have gotten so big, if the gap is only two minutes between the men and the women, we start running into the slower pro-men in the water, and then it gets really messy on the bike. And even with five minutes, we did actually overtake quite a few pro men in the water.

But they were all really respectful on the bike and kind of moved out of the way or just came by me so quickly that they were never interfering. So there was no issues with that, which was really nice. But because of the cold water, I didn't get in the water until the men started. Just like two-minute warm up over to the start. Huge start area between two buoys. but for some reason everyone kind of clumps together, which is really annoying to me. We have the opportunity to spread out because there's so many pro men. Just let's take the space and not fight.

So note to everybody. But I started really smoothly. I had my eye on Steph Clutterbuck, who's a fairly new pro and really good swimmer. So I thought if I could get on her feet, that would be my ticket to like coming out of the water and with her in the least. lead. So I'm just like for anybody who's listening and thinking about their potential open water swimming, like you want to get on Steph Clutterbuck's feet, what's the best way to do that? Like climb on top of her or give it 100 and then try to slot under her feet. Well, I actually had a good start and I was swimming beside her. And I thought, okay, this is good, but I'd rather be on her feet because I think she's a better swimmer than me. So I slowed down a little bit to let her get ahead and then moved over to get on her feet. instead of sitting on her hip or being annoying that way, that can really interfere with just the speed of both of us together. So I thought our best chance of stringing out from everyone else

was to just get directly behind her. And she's actually the kind of summer that kicks a lot. I don't kick barely at all when I'm wearing a wetsuit, but that made it really easy to like kind of sight her bubbles and make sure I stayed on her feet. Because the Oceanside swim, if anyone is interested in doing it in the future, you turn around at the far end and it is blinding sun.

You can't see anything. Even if your goggles are tinted, you're really at the mercy of just maybe catching a sight of the buoy every other stroke, maybe. But it's really, really blinding. So I was really grateful to have someone right in front of me to follow, and she was doing the navigation really well, actually. Like, I would look up, see nothing, and then suddenly we'd be at a buoy. So she was doing a really good job of it and came out of the water with her and slightly behind her. When we started catching the pro men, it got messy because then I were like, didn't know whose bubbles were who's.

Oh, wow. And the men who were swimming five minutes faster then are not moving quickly. So we come up on them and then I get kind of turned around. Like, who's who and where's Steph and all this? So I lost her a little bit, but that was fine and got out of the water actually with one of our Devo athletes, Lydia. I was freaking psyched when you came out of the water. I mean, like, we generally at Oceanside, you come out like maybe 30 seconds down, or is something like kind of what I was expecting, and just boom right in the front out of the water.

Nick and I both look at each other, we're like, let's go. Usually like Taylor Nib is there, someone who's like best swimmer. Yeah, but did you feel like it was a particularly good swim for you? Yeah, I felt, I think the biggest part of it was I just got in a good position right away. And sometimes in a race like an in-water start early in the season, I just kind of mess up where I, end up and then I'm in no man's land or trying to lead the second pack or something which is hard for me but no it was good I guess I just I felt that way just because I felt like if there was one thing that I was less confident or unsure of with your you know race fitness it was it was to swim

and maybe that's just because I haven't been swimming with you as much but um after that you're to come to the pool anymore I was real real stoked and you and we were like a little nervous because we didn't get a chance to swim the day before because the pool that we normally go to yeah that's a good thing to tell everyone. I didn't swim for the two days before the race because of just time crunches and getting to the pool was like an 18-minute drive. And I was totally fine. It worked fine. So don't, don't stress. Don't freak out if you can't swim the day before the race. You actually might feel better. The bike, on the other hand, was a bit of a disaster for me, I would say, maybe that's too strong of a word, but I felt terrible. I was freezing cold. The roads are

rough. I was just, I couldn't focus on anything except how cold I was and how I was going to avoid every crack and pothole and divot and it was still shady in the mornings. You can't really tell what's a pothole and what's just a shadow. So I got really distracted by that to the point where the lead I had out of T1, because I had a good transition and gapped people, was swallowed up by 20K or so. Well, Eric and I were kind of trying to figure out what happened. happened there. Was it purely just the distraction, these things? There wasn't one particular thing that you feel like caused most of that? No, it was just not riding well. It is a crazy hectic

opening 20K. Specifically the first 5K is just, and if you're fearless, you can barrel through these things and make up a lot of time. And I'm sure that's what everyone behind me did. Or maybe get a flat like Christian Blumentfeld. And ruin your race. It's risky. Yeah, it is risky. And like Steph's bottle when she came past me, launched out of her rear thing, and I almost took me out. You know, when you were with that group for a while, Eric and I thought, okay, there's that steep climb. That's like 11, 12%. And I did, that's where I did break people and then got away again. Right. And then was riding okay. But back in the headwind part, yeah, a few other people bridged up to me at that point. So I was just kind of distracted. I'm not that fit on the bike, I guess,

right now. I don't know. It was just a terrible time for me. And mentally it was terrible too. Yeah, because I was imagining myself in my peak cycling form, getting off the bike with like five or ten minutes and then having some space on the run. But I was getting off the bike with four other people. And that was not how I envisioned it. But it's a good lesson in races rarely go how you envision them, you know. Okay, so when you did get off the bike with other people,

did you think, well, there goes the win. No, not necessarily. But I knew Jackie is really fit and is a good runner and usually outruns me at this race. So I was pretty confident I could outrun everyone else I got off the bike with, but I thought Jackie would be hard to beat. And she took off pretty quick. When she came by me, she actually said, we can have a nice run together because we're friends, right? We're like, she's one of my best friends in the sport. But I said to her, like, I don't feel good, so you go win.

because I didn't. Yeah, you didn't. I felt so bad. And I thought, okay, here we go again, the Oceanside Run that never ends. But she put like 30 seconds on me and I could see her up the road the whole time. And the way that I normally run, if I'm feeling okay, is like build into it a bit. So as I took some gels and just kind of got my rhythm, I actually started to feel pretty good. And I think a lot of this might be because I rode the lowest power ever at this race that I've ever done. but about 10k in I started to gain on her.

And people all over were telling me the gap, so I knew it was closing. And I started to feel pretty good, so I picked it up. Was this before or after Eric talked to you? Oh, Eric said, like, you can win. And I'm like, there's no way I can win. She's running away from me. But it was shortly after that that I actually. He didn't say you could win.

He said, wouldn't it be so cool if you won them? He said, it would be sick if you win. And I was like, Jackie's winning. To me, that was a turning point of your race. No, it wasn't like immediately after that that I felt better. Okay, okay, okay. But it was after that that I actually started putting time back into her. And I think it's a combination of me speeding up a bit and her slowing down a bit.

Yes, yeah, yes. She was dying a little. But that's a good reminder. Like, I had the same thing when you were going. I was like, well, that's it. Jackie's going to run away. And that's it. She's going to get second.

But it's a good reminder. Like, keep trying hard. Jackie slowed down a bit. Yeah. But also Danielle Lewis was like, barely. Me Down too. And we were considering telling you or not telling you. Well, I saw her at the turnaround.

I was like, oh, God, this is, I really, I had actually motivated me more to stay ahead of her than to catch Jackie. That's what we thought. Yeah. Because. That's what Eric was saying. I didn't think Jackie. Once you get passed in a race, it's really hard to make a repass. It really happens.

Right. That you get enough energy magically to close a 30-second gap and then. In a 70-point. I just had a lot of confidence that Jackie had gone out. out a little bit too hard and was like bluffing and that if you like had a mental shift that that was the only difference between like you guys's pace so yeah but once i had this goal of catching her i i started running like 15 seconds per k quicker i was like my running form changed i was i'm like oh wow i should run like this from the very start of every race and then maybe i would have

good run splits. But even when I caught her, I thought I thought I had another gear. Like, I still felt really good. It was really this crazy thing. Maybe I fueled well enough on the bike or whatever it was, but I was, I passed her and kept going and she kind of hung with me for a little bit, but I tried to surge up, I tried to surge up the hills. Like, it was actually racing a 70.3, whereas a lot of the time I get really complacent and the spot I'm in is where I'm going to finish and someone might catch me, but I'm not speeding up. But this race, I actually had some gears and some ability to race. And you don't think you can really attribute that to anything consciously?

Did you eat differently? Yeah, I can distribute it to biking way less power. Yeah, right, right, right. And I took five gels on the bike. You did? Yeah. That's still low, but it's an improvement. Well, five gels and a bottle of high carb.

Oh, okay, okay. We're getting somewhere now. And then what about on the run? What did you eat on the run? And then I took two gels on the run. Okay. So one right away. and then one like 45 minutes in.

Okay. Do you think you could have handled more? Is there a reason why you didn't take more? On the run? Yeah. I mean, I guess you didn't need it. You felt good the whole time, but most people would tell you that that's still not enough.

For the run, you would take more than two gels? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think most people will take more than two gels on that. You should definitely, most people, whatever, the recommendation is that you do like whatever, 60 grams of carbs per hour, two gels. That's what I was doing. Oh.

You have a 60 gram? I took two gels. That's like two 40 gram gels. That's 80. Oh, oh, they're 40. Okay, got it. Anyway. Yeah, who cares?

I took two gels. It's more than I ever take. Yeah. So, yeah. But I ended up beating her by barely any, which was kind of the best case scenario because of course I wanted to win, but I also really like Jackie and would have been happy for her if she won. But she also was trying to get pro series points.

So her being only like 19 seconds back from me basically means she got. the maximum amount of scores. So, yeah, it was kind of, of course, she wanted to win, too. But at least she got a lot of points. Yeah, yeah. It's a win-win. I mean, it's a sort of. For her.

I mean, yeah, she was still up. If one must get second, like, that is absolutely best case scenario. Like, the pro series isn't probably not going to be decided by 19 points. That was virtually a win in points. Yeah. Yeah, that was my race. Great. And now, how do you feel today?

I feel the usual groggy, like, didn't sleep much, pretty sore. I think in these races, the harder you run, the more sore you get. Yeah. So I'm okay with being sore because it means I tried hard. Do you think if you could go back, you would try harder on the bike and compromise the run? Do you think it actually ended up playing out pretty well? Obviously, you won, but... I don't think I could have on the bike.

I just am not fit enough right now on the bike. Yeah. But it's a good... This happens a lot in Oceanside for me. like bad bike in 2022 and I raised Oceanside at a really bad race I came second at 70.3 world. So I think there's, it's not like all hope is lost and I'm a terrible cyclist now. It's just kind of how coming off a winter of a lot of indoor training and not as much riding as I do in the spring and summer when it's nice out.

Yeah. So you can get better from here. Well, it was really fun for Eric and me as well to run around. We had the hall. I was on the back of the hall and we were running around trying to get footage of you and trying to shout out to you. I was actually hiding from you when I was filming you because I didn't want to get yelled at.

Yeah, I didn't want to get yelled at. But yeah, it was a really fun day. And then even after, the Oceanside vibes are just the best. Yeah, even from the start, I mean, that's why we go every year is everyone that's coming out of their winter with snow goes down to Oceanside and the sun. And literally everyone's in a good mood. And you have a good race, you have a bad race. Afterwards, everyone's kind of happy.

and the weather's always nice and the sun is good for people. So that's why we go. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the film. Yes.

Rewind two days. And Thursday, we had the screening of our film. Look for things where you can find them. If you've been falling along, if you've been a day oneer. And emotionally invested in this film along with Nick and I, then you know that we've been working on it since this time last year. It's been truly a year in the making.

And even if we weren't shooting every day, we were thinking about it pretty much every day. And to be able to debut it in Oceanside where there's all this hype and we had an actual theater with big speakers and a big screen and people completely filled in the seats, it was, you know, that's almost as much of a dream or a daydream of mine that I've had as putting out a film like this, you know, on its own. So that was pretty magical in a night that I think I'll certainly remember forever. Yeah, it was very memorable. We even made three different posters, a swim poster, a bike poster, and a run poster. We made them a really giant, like actual movie poster size that they put up outside of a theater. And we sold a lot of them, but we are going to have a few that we're going to put on the website. Yep.

Yeah, we've got a few leftovers. and these are actually screen grabs from the film itself. So if you have one of these in your house, you'll recognize when the film does come out that shot from the film. So they're incredibly beautiful. And the only way you can get one of these gigantic ones is these like 12 of them that we have left.

So we're going to do on top of that a pre-order of some reasonably sized ones. I think they would be a pretty killer pain cave three set. Yes. But we'll do that in an order style. So no one will miss out. on that and just stay tuned for that. That's pretty much our primary way of funding the film outside of the sponsors that helped us out with the travel and all the things that go into it.

Yeah, I think when the film is actually out for the public, we can talk more about the specifics of the film. But for the screening, we really wanted to thank everyone who came out, especially people who showed up early to Oceanside just to see the screening. Yeah, it really hit me. It really hit me. It's like one thing to push, play. on YouTube and cook dinner at the same time or whatever. And it's another thing to take an hour and a half out of your time and fly into a place early to Sydney Theater and watch something. Several people told me, they had no idea.

If you've been watching our YouTube over the years and you're just kind of thinking, oh, I guess this can be like a slightly nicer version of that or something. I don't know. This is really the best work that Nick and I are capable of right now. Nick wrote an incredible score. I think the cinematography is incredible. People remarked that they were extremely shocked at

they're actually being a story. and it being a really good story and one that resonated with them and people got emotional. So these are all the things that we were shooting for, but it's hard to communicate that via an Instagram teaser or any amount of text that I've written in emails talking about it. And I think when we put it out into the world for everyone to watch, it's going to be really special. Yeah, well said Eric. Okay, well, you guys were extremely efficient with the time that we had. And so if you're okay with it, we do have some questions that we could do.

They're actually related to the race anyway. Well, let's do them. Okay, great. Hey, everyone. First off, congrats to Paula on your Oceanside win. Our whole family watched the race and even the kids were cheering for you. Now the big question everyone wants to know, as if this answer is going to hold water. But will you do Oceanside next year or call it quits with the win?

Thank you for everything that you do. Jacqueline. Mike drop on Oceanside for the career. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'll probably do it. I don't know. Yeah. Paula is working on a.

petition right now for repaving the roads inside of Camp Pendleton and pending that petition. Yeah, I truly think that if they're going to keep having this race, they need to fix the roads. It's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. And I think a lot of it is just unfortunately, well, it is very nice that Pendleton allows us to have the race there. Iron Man does everything that they ask in order to continue to. host the race. Everyone must wear their bib well on the base. There's a speed limit on one of the downhills. So I think they work really collaboratively to ensure that the race can continue to happen. But I don't know where the funds come from or who does the paving, but some of it should be

fixed. And it's not even necessarily for the professionals, although Christian got a flat and it's hazardous for anyone. I'm thinking about when there's age groupers out on the course and there's so many people that you can't see ahead of you that far and hitting something and crashing her. I don't know. I'm also extremely on the side of safety and caution. So maybe it's not as bad as I'm imagining, but that, I don't know. Can you compare to another?

I'll say that I like it and, like, treat it like a thing that I can do better at. But I've all- If you're super skillful on the bike, it could be fun. It's like a game. But I also crashed two years ago and was unable to complete the race. I was in lead pack and had a great chance of winning. So I'm not going to stick to that hard at all. Anyway, I'll probably do the race again just because I do think it's a fun way to start the year.

And this year, I think leading in I had a pretty good attitude. Like I was pretty happy all week. I wasn't that stress or nervous for it or anything. So overall, I look back and think, yeah, there were really challenging parts of the race. but I did enjoy the whole experience. And not just because I won. Like I do really like being there. I think it's really good for us as a brand, as TTL,

to be there and have presence in Oceanside. We had a sick Kestelli booth, TTR crossover pop-up. We have a huge thanks to Kestelli for everything they did this weekend with us. Basically their expo booth was co-branded with TTL, so everything there was Kestelli TTL, They sold some shirts for us. Our hats were there. They had a coffee set up.

It was really, really cool. And Kestelli was a major reason that we were able to host the premiere at a theater. They organized that as well. So huge thank you to Kesteli. And yeah, stuff like that just makes Soshenside feel that much more special. And it'd be hard to watch it from afar, I think, just because I've never skipped one since I started doing 70.3. Really? Well, this is I did my seventh one.

Oh my gosh, you've done it every year. Yeah, I kind of feel like no matter what, I want to go to it every year. Well, you guys were going to go even if I wasn't racing. Yes. Yeah, oh yeah. So, yeah, I guess we should acknowledge that Singapore also happened this weekend, which I was not able to go to because of green card stuff that I'm doing. Timeline.

Timeline of getting a green card is long and you cannot leave the country while you're in the application process. Yeah, but I will say I was not sad to miss it. Yeah, it was hot and hot. I watched some of the highlights and just a really, really brutal way to start the season and having to prep for that kind of heat. So Oceanside is a gentler start to the season. It's just funny to say because I feel like it's a hard race. It's a hard race, but not from a conditions perspective. It's like optimal run temperature and all the fun vibes.

You know, it's very comfortable and barely any travel for us. So for a lot of reasons, it's an easier race. Yeah. Great. Next question is from Brendan. Hey, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn. Congrats Paula on the awesome win at Oceanside and the launch of the film Eric and Nick.

We heard about Paula training for triathlon and Eric training for ultra races, filming expeditions, etc., which are all awesome. Is it fair to say that Eric is officially moving on from pro triathlon racing in 2025? Would love to hear more about Eric's plans for the season ahead. Thanks for all the great content. Brendan.

I would say, for me it's like I'm not committing to a pro triathlon racing calendar in the traditional sense. There are still a couple of on-road triathons that I really love or that I haven't done yet that I would be interested to do. Top of the list would be Padigan Man, which is inside of that whole X-Try series that we talked about a couple of pods ago or the last podcast. But I'm really going to be picking events and I don't really have a prejudice towards swim bike run or just run or just bike. It's more like what is a really cool potential course and location and experience that I can have. So I'm staying fit across. I wouldn't say I'm as fit on the swim as I've ever been, but I'm going to be riding with Paula,

doing a lot of her bike stuff with her and then doing a little bit more running specificity so I can do some of these 50Ks. But it would be really cool to like maybe go do a 70.3 that I would have really good emotional ties to or do this Patagon Man thing. Like 71 through Santa Cruz. For example. I mean, who knows? But that's kind of always how I've done my career a bit,

and I'm just leaning into it slightly more. So I'm kind of considering myself like a professional, multi-sport endurance athlete now. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah. So let's dispel that rumor, though, that you could totally do triathlon. I'm not over triathlon. I want to make sure before, you know, like body breaks down

or anything like that that I experience. experience, a couple other things that I've always kind of been curious about. Wait, can we take this opportunity to talk about your workout today? Because it was a wild one. It was a wild one. Yeah, on my schedule, I had 40 kilometers building to 50K pace, which I, which I don't know. I definitely thought it was ambitious based on what I've been able to do this week, how much sleep I've gotten this week, had stress levels of the week. But I wanted to give it a shot, and we went to a place where I could do a 20K loop,

and then I could go out and do another 20K loop and after the first 20K loop I felt like it was it was a little bit challenging I'd already kind of got into the 50K pace and I just need to do another loop at 50K pace so I got some more stuff

I got stuff from Paula. Paula did like a full on crude aid station for me and there was like Red Bull and coconut water and more high carb fuel and I set out and it got hot very quickly and it got more windy so it was like blow dryer in your face heat and that's the most cracked

I've been doing something with, I mean, even a little bit more cracked than when I did that broken top, FKT up the mountain. Oh, you were like dead. And I had like 200 calories for like four hours. Right. Because I forgot a gel in a piggy bar. Yeah. But yeah.

Anyway, I'm pretty wrecked, but it was still, I think, a good workout. Great. Great. Well, we're happy you're alive, even though when I first saw you were clearly just limping, moving so slow. Yeah, I'm getting back to like 60% brain function now. Good. Okay, great. Next question is from Danica.

So happy to have witness, Paul, went at Oceanside this weekend, I noticed that Paula had a rash on her neck as she finished, and I'm assuming it's from her wetsuit. Just wondering if that bothers you during the rest of the race and what you do to treat it. This also happens to me during open water swims and water polo games, so I'd love to know. How does it happen during water polo? Just rashes in general, like rubbing of suits. Yeah, like sometimes it happens under my arms for swimsuits if the seam is rubbing. I have that under my arm too with a wetsuit. Yeah.

Yeah, you still have it now. It's really tough in salt water. I think that's the main problem. And I actually forgot to do a really good job of like vassalining my neck in this race. Okay, apparently you're not supposed to use Vaseline, but I think it's the best thing to use. So I use Vaseline. And you can really lather it on. Yeah.

But I also get new wetsuits often. So you can use body glad if you want or something like that. But that is the best way to avoid it. I think you can like be really careful about basically that it rubs exactly. where the Velcro is, so like kind of the thicker part. And I think a little bit of it is because of my swim stroke and the direction that I breathe and it being saltwater. That was the three main things. I don't notice it in the race at all. It doesn't bother me. I just get really concerned about it afterwards because there's like sun shining on it and it's basically like a wound.

Yeah, it's cut into my neck. It looks like a wound. Crazy story. I don't remember what race it was after. It might have been after that couples try. years ago and we were checking in for our flight and the woman who was checking us in saw the mark on Paula's neck and was like, who did that to your neck, honey? Oh my God. And like looked her in the eye, would not acknowledge me. And I was standing there just like all the blood rushes into my face. No, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I can really appreciate that this lady said that, but it's that gnarly looking. Yeah, it looks really gnarly. Yeah. But it feels quickly right. That was a swimskin one. Oh, yeah. I mean, it happens with a wetsuit or a swim skin.

It's really crazy. Maybe we wore wad suits at that race. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But it heals sort of quickly, but not really. I feel like it's going to be a scar eventually. Yeah. You don't have a scar there already, though. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. But, yeah, just be really careful with putting all the body glad you can. I actually have considered putting like a second skin type of thing. Oh, yeah. I was wondering about that. Or like KT tape or something, you know? Yeah, just for the sim and then ripping it off after because it does look so bad now. Like someone strangled me.

Does it hurt? Yeah, it's a little uncomfortable. I mean, if you turn your head and your hair gets stuck in it, it's truly like a cut. It's like road rash. Yeah. It's like road rash, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, any wetsuit brand does it, though.

It's not just mine. Yeah. Okay. Next question is from Christy. Congratulations to the pod. To Paula on your epic race and to Eric and Nick on the epic movie. It was amazing to meet you all and super stoked to hang my signed poster when I returned to Colorado.

Question for Paula, is it nerve-wracking having the motorcycles all around you when you are first placed on the bike? Have there been any close calls with racers, or do you not even think about them while racing? Thank you, and congrats again. Christy. It's hectic with the motorcycles, and it's just part of racing now. It always has been, but I think the number of motorcycles has increased. The media motors, anyway. But generally they're really well trained, stay out of the way, and I've never felt unsafe having them around. Maybe that's because I'm a little bit in race brain and I'm not even thinking about the fact that the motorcycles are riding around me.

But what scares me way more, what scares me way more normally is cars on the road. So at least these motorbikes are out there knowing we're there and they're there for. a reason, so I don't have any fear necessarily that they're going to interfere with our safety. But there are a lot of them, and I guess it could be nerve-wracking and maybe look nerve-wracking on TV or whatever. On the out and backs, maybe, it gets a little scary. Well, generally there is a wide enough road for the motorcycles to either ride on the other side of the road, or they're really good about when the road gets really narrow, they drop back. so they're never right in front of you or too close beside you. So they do a good job and it's not like they're just picking guys off the street to ride their motor bikes like they're.

These are professionally trained, medium motos, like they go around the world doing this. They're very expensive for Iron Man to hire, I think. Yeah. Because of the training required of the drivers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Question from Stephen.

Paula, congratulations on your victory at Oceanside. At the finish line, it looked like you had a disc under your trisuit on your back. is that right and what was it? Yeah. It was more of a hockey puck. Dude, I had to put in a few of those to people. Same. And they were very challenging to get in there.

They're very sticky. Yeah, they're sticky. They have a bit of a rubber outside. Yeah. And different pros have like different suits and like some of them already had it on. You didn't put yours in by yourself, did you? I did, yeah. You did?

Well, before I started. Okay. Before I put the kid on. Anyway, these little discs are basically GPS trackers because they're experimenting with having live tracking in this way where you can literally see on a map like where the person is and the broadcast team can... Instead of timing mats. Pinpoint where people are.

Definitely not instead of timing mats. Well, just more accurate. More accurate, I suppose. It's still a little bit, I think, in the testing phase. Like last year they wanted us to wear them, but it was optional. This year, mandatory. And several months back, they said, we'll send you out pockets that you can sew into your tri-kit, or they would do it for us at the race.

but they kind of give us the opportunity to give a pocket to our suit manufacturer and have them sew it in. So the ones that the T-100 make us wear are much bigger and more uncomfortable, I think. They're thicker, they're longer, and they sewed the pockets up at the top of the kit, which made it extremely restricting during a wetsuit swim because it essentially would, it's like half an inch thick, and it would make the wetsuit that much tighter through your, like where you breathe. So I asked Castelli to sew my pocket in like on my lower back Because I thought that might interfere less with my wetsuit And I think it was fine I didn't notice it in the race

I fixed a couple of people who were like can you fix this like it's pushing on my back so hard Because it was right on top of the zipper Yeah if it's on the zipper went right on top of it in the wetsuit Or if it's on top of your spine Like I asked them to put it on the side Kind of where my muscles are versus like on my bones because it could dig into you. Jason Paul had his like on his spine

and then the zipper was on top of that. So it's just like this thing digging straight into his vertebrae. Everyone I did was on their spine as well. That's how Iron Man tells you you have to sew it is in the top middle. And I just said to Castelli like, if we get in trouble, I'll take the blame. But I want it lower because I know what happens

when that thing is right up at the top. It's extremely uncomfortable in the water. and so I think it looks kind of dumb where I put mine. Like you can see it popping out of the side of my back, but I didn't notice it at all for the entire race. Well, that's, I can't believe that because as I was putting this in, I thought, this is going to rattle around on a run. It's going to be so annoying.

I think that's the point of the grippy edges on it, and you've got a tight suit. Yeah, it's a fairly light thing, and like I said, they're smaller than the T-100 ones. It's still real, like, it's not that different from a hockey puck. Oh, it's much smaller than that. It's more like a tobacco can. Yeah, so tobacco can.

Yes, but thick, like an inch and a half thick, I feel like. Yeah, maybe. But yeah, it didn't bother you. Pretty fat. I didn't hear anyone talk about it. Yeah, but that's what they are. Because you do see, and now that I say it, if you didn't notice, you'll notice now. Like, every pro has these bulges on the back of their kit, which looks so dumb.

But I wish there was a way where we could just put them on our bike somehow. And do you really need the GPS tracker in the swim and on the run? Are they really that accurate? I don't know. But it is cool that they're trying to, in a... innovate and do cool things for the broadcast, and that's ultimately the goal. I think it would be awesome if you actually have a map pulled up, and you can see literally your dot approaching Jackie, and if it was that accurate, all in. Yeah, that would be cool.

Yeah, but I don't know if there even was any kind of interactive outcome of wearing them. I mean, I think that's what we're hoping for, what we're moving towards theoretically. So maybe it's kind of like Race Ranger in the early days where it was kind of just used as we're trying it out, and then next year it'll be fully used to its full capacity. Did you have any comments about Race Ranger? I mean, you were mostly at the front, so it was a little bit not relevant to you. Yeah. No, Race Ranger has never been a flaw to me at all. The only problem is the 12-meter draft zone in Iron Man.

It's too small, but that's not Race Ranger's fault. It was kind of crazy, though. Usually they install Race Ranger for us and we drop our bike off because it is a little picky how you put it on the back and that has to be stuck in a certain way. but they just gave us a race changer in our race packets for us to install ourselves. Wow. I feel like there's a lot of aerosy posts on these T-T bikes that would make that kind of challenging to do. Do they give you like a specific mount or rubber bands or?

Oh yeah. All the stuff is in the packet to install it. But they're putting trust in the pros to install it themselves. I went to the transition and asked James to install it because I didn't trust myself to do it properly. But they were there to help, but it was just interesting that they're like, here's your race ranger, put it on your bike. Wow, yeah. Do it right.

But yeah, it continues to be, I think, a good tool, but also a complete guide of how close you should sit to someone, and everyone just rides the line of being in the blue. Whereas in the past, when there was no race ranger, I think people left more space to be overly cautious. Yeah. So it's changed the sport. Yeah.

Interesting. And our last question here is a little bit of teaser of what we'll talk about in the future week as well. which is Paula's new bike. Hi, gang, rushing over here from Strava after I saw the picture of Paula's new bike. My question is about the photo on Strava. How did you get a photo of the bike standing on its own?

I've seen tricks using your helmet to prop it up, but I don't see any shadows of the helmet. How did you do it? Best of luck racing this weekend, Paula, and cheers to Eric and Nick on their film premiere. Julia. Should we tell her? I mean, I've got a pretty funny set of photos that...

You've hosted one. Yeah, I posted one on my Instagram. So go check that out. It's the super secret method. It's the last photo in a carousel of photos if you want to go look. But basically what you do is you put the bike in the middle of the road and one person holds the handlebars. And for a split second, while the photographer is lined up perfectly with the camera and frame of the bike, you let go of the bike. they snap the picture for literally one second

and then you grab it before it falls over. It's kind of fun. That is fun. It's a bit of a game. A bit of a game. Yeah, just for a little photography nerdy thing, the shutter takes the picture for one 4,000th of a second. So you can take your hands off the bars

is faster than you can blink and put it back on and you can get the picture without the hands in the shot. And then we just crop Paul out. Yeah, even with an eye. phone, you could do this. You used your fancy camera. Yeah, I use my, yeah. But basically if you're the person holding it, I kind of like lean back as far as I can.

So just my arms are like sticking into the bike. And then you just take your arms out, put them in the air really quick. It looks like you're doing the wave. Yeah. Yeah. When I saw the photo, I assumed that since you had a disc in the back, that whatever was propping it up was behind the disc. Really? You didn't even know

this trick. No, and it's not how I would do it. It's funny because you can achieve this effect to several different ways. How would you do it? I would do it the cheating way with AI. I'd have you there, just like with a finger on there, and then remove you with... TCL doesn't do AI. Yeah, exactly. I'm not kidding.

I know, I'm saying exactly. You guys did it. That's what I would do. No, but you're proud of TCL. You can't do AI. Wow. I didn't realize that was assigned a contract with blood. But yeah, I thought you had like a stick behind the disc wheel or something like that.

That's much more sketchy to me because that could like fail and the bike falls over. We've had a bike fall over. doing such things. Yeah. It does make for a cool pickback. Then sometimes there just aren't sticks, you know, all that. Flynn knows. Sometimes there's no sticks.

Yeah. He's asleep behind us right now, by the way. He hasn't made a peep. He has farted, but he hasn't made a peep. He's as smashed as I am. He did some fetching while I did that hot run. No, we went for a walk. Long walk in the heat.

Yeah. Yeah. But Flynn did, he was a good dog this week. Thank you to Jordan Briden for walking him during my race. I saw him several times on the course, which was fun. and yeah we like having him at races even though he's a pain in the ass he's as big as I do at least I do yeah I'm gonna disagree if it makes Paula happy though then that is happy

happy Paula good race that's what's important and it did work yeah I guess we only done 47 minutes I know it feels like we've done longer hasn't it is that really all that's it yeah but I think that's okay we're gonna this was a race recap and film screening recap episode and as I said we're gonna try to still put one out on Thursday, but we thought we would give this one to you a little early since we didn't do it last weekend. We're all here right now. Yeah. Also, can me just acknowledge that Lionel won? Yeah, congratulations, Lionel. That feels so good. No one I like to see win more than Lionel. Good for the sport. And also having Gustav on the podium. Back racing, healthy. I'm sorry for Christian

for his flat, but he also had a 107 run split, which is ridiculous. Yeah, we didn't do the news. Very ridiculous. This is the name. news. This is the news. The news is Lionel 1. Gustav on the podium again. Love to see that. This is just a very unorthodox episode.

This is a race recap. Paula's actual video about her race isn't going to come out for another week and a half on the Iron Man YouTube channel. So we're just getting straight into the goods here. And then a Thursday, we'll have some more news. Yeah. And then on the women's side, Paula, you won. Jackie got second.

Danielle Lewis, Tamara Jewett. Oh, right. Right. Heidi, who we used to train with. Yeah. Yeah. Katie's coached by Paulo. Writing my neon disc.

Yeah. She was riding Eric's disc. That's right. Yeah, she had a really good race. That's right. Okay. It was a fun Oceanside. I mean, just all around.

Top, top experience. That's Oceanside we've ever done. I'd say so. I cannot. I spent some time. I spent a significant amount of time thinking about how we could do better and I haven't come up with anything yet. No. And it's probably the best we'll ever have.

And that's fine. I'm okay with that being the bar. Yeah. Sweet. Okay. You guys are definitely not doing another film next year. We will see. We will see.

We will see about that. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. We'll catch you soon. Bye, guys.