That Triathlon Life Podcast - Improving your triathlon swim, the PTO T100 tour, under fueling during training, and more!

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

This week we are all together in Ventura, California! We start out by talking a bit about the winners of the #TTLKickChallenge,  as well as the newly announced PTO T100 tour. We then do some rapid fire questions and finally move on to your submitted questions. We discussed breaking into the top 20 to race in the T100, how to break up with your coach, improving swimming as a strong cyclist, training while under fueled, dealing with dried sealant in tubeless tires, swim paddle sizing, PTO tour locations, bathroom stops with race kits,  and what swim gear to get for the pool. As always, to become a podcast supporter, as well as to submit your own questions for the podcast, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Erica Loggersome. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. We are coming to you from Ventura, California. We feel like we just didn't have enough of Nick, so we decided to come most of the way to Nick. Not all the way. That would be overwhelming. I disagree. I want you guys sleeping in the bed with me at night. Nick is one hour. An hour and 15 minutes without traffic south. Yeah. So the reason we're in Ventura is. And the podcast yet again has been a godsend because we put a call out maybe a month ago saying we want to get away for a warm weather camp. We're completely happy to pay, but we don't want to pay these exorbitant prices that Airbnb

charges for all the fees and everything. So a super nice guy reached out to us and offered us his rental home slash second home in Ventura for a significantly less amount of money than we'd be paying. otherwise. So thank you so much and we are so happy to be here. So for those of you who don't know where Ventura is, Ventura is in California. It is north of the Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu. North of Malibu. Just north of Malibu. Just north of Malibu. So yeah, basically Nick is like at the south end of Santa Monica Mountains, north end of L.A., and we are, yeah, an hour of mountains and not much going on up north of that. Northwest, kind of, like the coast hooks around.

Yeah, I don't think we entered who we are, though. Oh, yeah, who are we? In case you're new here, Eric and I are professional triathletes. Nick is an amateur triathlet, professional musician, and our best friend, and we've been doing this podcast for 104 episodes now. Yeah, which is wild. And what we do is we talk a little bit about what's going on in triathlon, current events, breaking news. Oh, yeah, we got to do that. Someone told me if they don't hear the breaking news jingle for an announcement that we're going to make, I don't want to call it.

announcement, but for a conversation we're going to have, they'll be pissed. Yeah. So if it's 104 episodes, that's exactly two years. Yes, except that we have missed a few here or there. Yep. So it is exactly two years of recordings every week, but we've missed a couple. I think like literally a couple. Yeah, I think maybe two.

Yeah. And I remember, yeah, it was mid-January at the time. I was in Tucson. And I remember I recorded from the Airbnb in Tucson our very first episode thinking, well, let's see where this thing goes. Might as well. It's been great. We've had a blast with it. Thanks to everybody who's listened and been along for the ride. And I think we're just hitting our stride though. It's just going to keep getting better and better. Speaking of which, I wanted to talk about something that we teased last week. Well, we didn't tease it. We fully like went for it, which was the hashtag TTL kick challenge. It came in from a podcast listener. They wanted to know what a moderate kick was. And we kind of translated that into how about an all-out 100 kick? What could we do? do. Wait a second. Did you guys not do it? Yeah, we didn't do it. Everyone else did it except for the two

of you. Okay, I think you guys should do it at some point. Is it just you're afraid of the pain? Is it you're too weak? No, no. We've fully been intending to do it. We've just had a ridiculous last week since we talked about this and the pod came out and like we obviously record the podcast prior to you actually hearing it. I think the problem is we drove down. I'm to California. That's what I'm trying. That's what I'm getting to. You guys had to pack.

You had people that came, your dad came into town too. We have not done a lot of swimming. Oh, I did a lot of swimming last week, but here's the problem too, is that you go to swimming for a hard workout. It's the last thing you want to do

at the end of a hard workout. You go to this pool for an easy day. It's the last thing you want to do on an easy day. I'm not going to go as far as make that excuse because that's a lame excuse. I'm sure everybody listening did it. I'm just saying everyone else who did it. You're better than Eric and Paula.

Yes. I'm not saying it's a good excuse. I'm saying that is what I felt. Yeah, and I wasn't about to put the gas pedal down and say that we had to do it. I didn't feel like too much. Yeah. So I'll say this. I did it and it was horrendous as I expected.

And I was hoping to just go barely under two minutes and do 158. And I did 149, which I thought was world record speed. Yeah, that's good. And it's not good compared to what. Short course yards. Short course yards. Yeah. And I didn't do a real like flip turn.

I like grabbed the one. wall. Nothing was going to help me. It was just pure suffering. Yeah, as if your flip turns would have gotten you fast. Yeah, definitely not. So I looked at, because I actually recorded it in regular time and then sped it up and post later. So I saw exactly like what it looked like, you know, in a time lapse, it's kind of hard to see. And my first 50 was at like 140-ish pace, a little faster. And then I was like at a 20 seconds per hundred slower pace for my second 50. So the wheels really came off for me. So you went out in a 40 and you came back

into 49. I went out in a 50. And you went out to 50 and you came back into 50. Yes. Yes, exactly. And it was very hard. I remember feeling like, you know, they say don't kick from your knees, like kick from your hips. I could not kick from my hips anymore. It was like the hips stopped working. Isn't that crazy how your body just gives

out? I just could do it. It was not. It wasn't whether I wanted to do it or not. It just was not going to happen. Yeah. It's like doing a V02 max test to failure. You just fail. You just fail. You just fail. You just fail. But I was so impressed with how fast some of the podcast listeners could do this. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who did participate. And an apology, which we did not fully think of, is that a lot of pools don't allow cameras. So we completely understand that rule. And we try to respect it as much as we can. We only film at pools that allow it or that know us and know we're just filming ourselves. So if you couldn't do it because of the filming issue, you can still do it. And it's going to be a podcast poll this week where you can enter in kind of the range that you were in.

Yeah. We'll get some, that'll be some fun data to have. Yeah, but we got a lot of good times. And also, I think we, I hope we didn't miss any because there were so many coming at us with different hashtags and different names and stories that disappear. So hopefully we didn't miss any, but we think we got the two fastest times. And we didn't say this last week, but we were going to do fastest male time and fastest female time. Yeah, we had a couple people write about that, which after we had already thought. about it like we need to be fair and do yeah totally and we're giving an equal amount of bottles to the

man very nice there i love that yeah the women only get two though and the man gets three as this bright and triathlon male dominated sport uh no everyone's getting three bottles of course so i can't even believe these times because both of both the male and the female times are probably faster than i could do a maybe the female time is like close to the fastest i could do with my arms so the fastest woman was Hannah Orbach Mondell with a 111, which I just short, short course yards. Short course yards. 25 yards.

Yeah, short course yards. And then the fastest male also short course yards was, and I promise this is not rigged, but this is a very good friend of mine, Keith Erick's. So Keith is a very close friend of mine in Santa Monica. He's a triathlete, not a swimmer, but he did go to Olympic trials for Canada for swimming. In which stroke? I think he was backstroke. Okay.

Yeah, I think he was backstroke, which is a kick-heavy stroke, of course. But he did it flutter kick. So both of these are done with flutter kick. I think maybe we thought that the breaststroke kick would dominate. No. No, you don't think so. No. I just heard from several people, oh, the breaststroke kick is faster.

Because your breaststroke is, you know, it's so much of that is the kick. I was always a faster. Wow, I would not have thought of you. If you're a breaststrokeer, your breaststroke kick is faster than your free Okay, sure, yeah. But I don't know if like... You think a freestyle or their flutter kick is faster than a breaststroke kick. I don't know.

You get so much power when you do a brush stroke. And there's no... There's no dead spot in a flutter kick, though. Yeah. Yeah, but the power spot is so much faster than flutter. Yeah. I just wonder if I like the breaststroke, like the arms are so good at negating that dead spot that it makes a big difference, but...

We're obviously not experts on breaststroke. Yeah, right. Yeah. Did you already name both of the... Yes, yes. It's Hannah and Keith. Okay, so if you two can please email Nick or message. You don't have to email me, Keith.

Message Nick, your address. And for everyone that's a bottle winner for this or for next bottle winners or previous bottle winners, we did not bring bottles to this place. Yes. So it's going to be a minute before you get your bottles. We'll ship them in March, unfortunately. But you will get them. Before he even met me, he had a TTO hat.

Specialized purest bottles are like gold. They're really good bottles. They're the bottles. If I didn't have some, I would want some. Totally. Okay, well, thank you everyone for participating in the hashtag TTLK Challenge. That was very fun. And once again, if you're listening to this podcast on Spotify, you can put in the poll what you did if you did it.

And I'm going to leave the poll open for a month. So even if you want to do it within the next month, you can go back and put your results in. Awesome. Or you can put them in a, feel free to leave me as a comment as well. Okay, on to, do we want to call this breaking news? No. Okay, I'm still playing the jingle, though. this is a I would say kind of a cool announcement that people have been waiting for which is the PTO schedule has finally been announced yes so we obviously all know that the that Iron Man now has their own tour and the PTO has their own tour and they're calling it what are they calling it Paula the T100 T100 triathlon world tour and that will be how many races is it and is it is it all over the world Paula I know that you have been hearing about this for so many months

because you are on the board, but Eric and I haven't, and neither have the listeners. Yeah, I know. I just think that, like, a lot of the things that we would talk about with this are just revealing the statistics or revealing the truth or revealing the facts, I guess, which you can get easily from other podcasts or on the PTO website. So I don't want to go too much into the detail on this podcast. But, yes, the T100 Triathlon World Tour. there are eight races, 20 men, 20 women.

And because of my ranking last year in seventh, I got a contract. So basically it's a contract that I signed with a guaranteed salary, I guess, to show up at six races in total, out of the eight. Of your choosing? Of my choosing. Including the final? Five plus the grand final, which you have to do. So six total, yeah. Got it.

Okay. So yeah, I'm really excited about it. I think it's going to be a super exciting year for triathlon. It kind of guarantees that you get more head-to-head racing from, like, the best athletes at that distance. And I think last year we got a bit of that, but a lot of people skipped Singapore, a lot of people were skipping Milwaukee. You know, people were fitting it into their own schedules around maybe there are other goals. But I feel like this year, people's goals are this. So they will be there.

And also there's contracts that, you know, require them to be there. And does this prohibit you from doing 70.3s, Ironman branded 70.3s? No, it's not meant to make you an exclusive PTO athlete, or T100 athlete. It'll be interesting to see what people decide to do, whether they decide to just really focus in on this, try to make the maximum amount of money in this, or if they try to kind of double dip. But you can do both if you want. It's just crazy. Okay, but not the royal use. you, the you, what are you feeling like you're going to do? Are you going to be able to do

like one 70.3? Yeah, I might do like a couple 70.3. 70.3 worlds. And 70.3 worlds. Yeah, maybe. But in races that are in North America that don't require a bunch of travel. And I'll see how I feel come December if I want to make the trip to New Zealand. Yeah, why would you do a 70.3 when you could just do only this really big huge series with like 10 times a prize purse of a 70.3? Like, what is the appeal of still doing a 70.3 even? Well, I like 70.3s. This PTO 2100 series is only six races. Usually I'll race 10 or 12 times in a year.

So you can buffer it out with other races that are important to you. And there's bonuses, there's prize money, there's other financial incentive to do 70.3 as well. And then also we just like them. Do you think that sponsors that provide bonuses, podium bonuses, are still a little bit favoring 70.3 races? Yes. For me, yes. It's kind of funny. It seems like some of the newer contracts are catching on of how big the PTO series is and how many eyeballs it gets.

But, yeah, Iron Man is just the way it's been forever. And that's what the age group athletes are racing predominantly. So for most sponsors, it's still rewarding results at Iron Man are 70.3 races with the bonuses. I think if a company is not necessarily a triathlon specific. company. It's a lot to expect it. Like, a bike company is going to understand the impact that the PTO is having on

the triathlon space in the course of one year. But now it's been around for two years. They've heard a lot of athletes talking about it. So it's catching on more and more. But a company that's, like, very bike-focused that is also sponsoring athletes. Like, we've got SRAM and Zip and Specialize. These are not companies that are triathlon

companies to their core. And I think, you know, like, They just, Iron Man's been around so long, it still has that brand equity. But the PTO has done a really good job of sending the athletes like, here's a pitch deck that has all of the info on how many views these races get and how many people are watching this on YouTube versus TV and et cetera, et cetera. So they've done a really good job of equipping the athletes to present the value of this series to their sponsors. And is there an opportunity? I remember the Edmonton race that I raced, that I had a lot of fun of that. is there an opportunity for anyone other than these 20 pros to do these races?

Yes, I think most of them will have an age group component as well. Wow. Like the Singapore race definitely does. I believe Abiza does. Miami has its own, I think, through clash age group race. So yeah, there's opportunities to also race. Wow. And then get to, I think I heard Sam Renouf talking and they've tried to intentionally make it so that

the age group athletes can still observe the pros, watch the pros if you're a fan of the pros. I mean, that's also like in their best interest. Right, exactly. To have crowds. I think it's cool. So like you couldn't make a whole weekend of it and go and like race your race but then also hang out and like watch the best athletes in the world if you happen to be relatively local. Rather, you know, it's like it's cool to be on the race course at the same time.

But also they're trying to go for a more atmosphere of a festival and have it, you know. That's a good question. Would I rather be on the race course? at the same time or give the pro race my undivided attention. Yeah. What's your gut reaction? I mean, I just, I recall being at races and going by pros and thinking, that's cool. This is cool.

I'm doing the same thing they're doing. But at this point, I think I'm so into pro triathlon that I would want to be able to sit there and watch it and get every second of the drama and soak it in instead of having to worry about my own race at the same time. interesting. Yeah, maybe that should be a poll. Yeah, I was just thinking about that if we didn't have the kick. So, uh, damn, man. Maybe I'll think of some way. Sam can make an Instagram.

Yeah. Oh, we'll do an Instagram poll. Yeah. Would you rather? Half of the shit we come up with is like created while we're talking on the podcast. Like off the, something that we do off the podcast is like, we're just talking about it here and then it happens. Is that like most podcasts probably have like, this is what we're talking about today and we're going to do this poll and we're going to do a kick challenge.

and we're just like deciding mid-question to do a kick challenge and like hundreds of people do it. It's called jazz baby. Improvisation. I love it. It's called this is what influencing is. We're influencing ourselves on the podcast. Okay, well, let's move on to our little segment that we're going to do before questions. This was, I bank these when they come into questions.

So this is from a while ago. But we're going to do a little rapid fire. Okay. Hi, all, a few random rapid fire. questions to all three of you hope they have not been asked before one in which country and city would you go live if you'd have to move and why USA and Canada not allowed as answers for me Udina Italy where I grew up I freaking love it there and I was just named the most the best quality of life in Italy so okay I'm going with you okay Udina yeah Eric you're going to leave your fiance

with me and Udina uh and city is California can't say U S or Canada oh yeah that's right that was the put that's what makes this hard sorry I was already thinking about my answer that stipulation came in. Oh, no U.S. or Canada. Don't say Gerona, please. Nick, Eric, obviously you're coming with us. We're all going to Italy. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Very nice. All right. Number two, what piece of triathlon knowledge do you wish you had when you started the sport? I don't know. I just, I wanted to do it so badly that I don't think there was ever, it came into my mind early on of like, is it worth it? Like, it took a long time for me to have that. Is it worth it?

It's funny. You two are opposites in that way. Like every time I hear Eric talk about his origin story in triathlon, it's like, I did everything to make this happen. I worked in the bike shop. You never stopped thinking about the dream. You just had it so deep in you. And you weren't necessarily that genetically gifted for it. And you still just went for it and broke through and still had success.

Whereas I feel like Paula's over here saying she was a doctor. you know and she's like you know top 10 in the world at it yeah yeah I don't I don't know like I this is hard because if when I sit and think about like okay what would I do differently or like if traveling like my career I couldn't walk tomorrow what would I do differently and I feel like I'm doing everything that I am that like what I'm doing right now fits perfectly into all the things that I like to do anyway and I'm just like I'm when something cool occurs to me I do it and that is part of my job exactly Exactly.

So it's hard. Yeah, I don't know. I feel the same way. Rapid fire. Wow, talking shit. Okay, next one. What sponsor do you wish you'd have? Sorry, Nick, no current sponsors as answers allowed.

Yes, sorry. This question is for you guys. Which sponsor do you wish you have? Yeah. Sunglasses. I'm serious, though. DJI, maybe. That would be a nice.

Yeah, DJI, freaking call me. Call me back. Please. One that, one that, I think would be cool is, is like, visit a place. Yeah, visit Ben, visit Oregon. Visit Canmore, visit Alberta. We'll give you a house that you can stay in for one year, like a one year trial period of Ventura or, you know, etc.

Not even a year, but yeah. Just some, yeah. You don't be nice where you can just like go. Whatever it is. Like, here's a free place to stay. Just like live here, make cool content about the place. That would be pretty sick. I think it would be cooler if it was in a short-term basis.

So, like, you get a place to stay in Santa Monica for a month. And in return, you're just creating content about Santa Monica. It's what we're doing anyway. You wouldn't believe the number of people that stop us and bend, total strangers. And see, we moved here because of you, too. Yeah, I've been there for it. It's outrageous. In our neighborhood, too.

So, I don't know. It's, like, clearly a thing that Eric is really good at selling the beautifulness of places. And that's true, Eric. That'd be a sweet sponsorship. Yeah. That's an outside of the board. Or partnership. It's not even a sponsorship.

It's a partnership, you know. You give us the key to the city. We'll come for a month and a hangout. Yeah. Cost them. Next to nothing. Next to a $20,000 Airbnb. I think a lot less than like, you know, the freaking billboard behind first base at a bunch of different baseball games.

Right. Yeah. That's cool. Okay. Number four. Which exotic race would you like to do right now? Like Patagon Man? Yeah.

Yeah. I do really want to do that whenever I am ready for iron long distance. Not just iron. Yeah. Like wild. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

Like Sebastian Keenla has been doing Iron Man for a long time and he said that was the hardest thing he'd ever done by a significant margin. Paula? I don't have an answer. I just like racing to race. Racing at races I can drive to. That's exotic race. 70.3 Oregon. Yeah.

Salem. The closer it is to how. My home, the more I like it. Last one is, for Nick only, would you rather win your age group at Kona or become a top 10 pro? I have a very clear answer to this, but I'm curious what you guys think I'm going to say. Kona. And no podiums, though, as a pro. Nick, you would not like being a pro.

Correct. Yeah, I'd way rather podium at Kona. Yeah. I don't want to be a pro, and I would love to podium. Yeah, you know too many pros. Yeah, I'm jaded. Yeah, I've seen behind the curtain, and it's difficult. Cheers, Matt.

Thanks for those, Matt. That was fun. Okay, let's move on to questions, and you two can submit your questions for the podcast at Thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. And you can also become a podcast supporter there, and as you've probably heard us say many times before, podcast supporters are the only way that this podcast goes forward.

We really appreciate all the podcast supporters that are already podcast supporters. And there's no... I forget what these radio shows say now, but there's no better time than now to become a podcast supporter. So we'd really appreciate it. First question here from Kaylee, who is a TTL Devo alum,

do you think it will be possible to break into the top 10, maybe even top 20 now, without being assigned athlete in the PTO T100 race series? The strength of field is now swung way more towards the PTO races, and it will be even harder to get high-scoring races in other events. Just curious what your thoughts are for those athletes on the rise, but not good enough to be able to race PTO yet. So first of all, when Kaylee says top 10 or even top 20, what is she even talking about?

She's talking about the PTO world ranking system. So if you, there's like a gold level and bronze level and whatever, different levels of races that have different amounts of points. The PTO races are generally have pretty high amounts of points relative to going and winning 70.3, a small 70.3. So the core issue here is, will someone like Kaylee or even me be able to accumulate enough points racing low-level 70.3s because we don't have the opportunity to race the T-100 series? Will we be able to get enough points to get high enough ranked to even get into the T-100 series? Or is it kind of like this closed loop where once you're in it, it's very hard to fall out of it. It's very hard for anybody new to get into it. But you can accrue these points racing non-PTO races.

Yes, you can. I think the issue is that just... You don't get as many points for this. An extreme example would be you could win 70.3. Tasmania. Tasmania by 10 minutes and get 80 points, but you could get 12th place at PTO, the T100 race, and get 100 points,

just because it's weighted more heavily. There's higher competition. So, now that we know this, what do you think? I think that the way into the series, Paula knows a little bit more about it, but just I feel like the way of the series is going to be getting a wild card invite. You need to do something impressive enough in a 70.3 event that you can race to get a wildcard invite. And then you go to, you get into one of

these T-100 series races and you do something impressive enough that maybe gets you a second invite as a, as a wild card. And then the following year, those two performances will get you a hot shot invite, which is, so the top 16 athletes get an automatic invitation. And there's, four athletes in addition to that to get something called a hot shot invite, which they're invited to do the whole series. Oh, I see. So I actually didn't know the hot shot part for myself. I just saw there are some big names on there.

Yeah. So I thought, oh, it's just like triathlon celebrities, basically. Right. Yeah. So this year, the hot shots that they've picked have historically had pretty good results or are a very big name or a combination of the two. But I think next year, my guess is that if you get a wildcard thing into Singapore or whatever, and you get like fifth place, they're going to give you a wild card to the next one.

And if you go to that one and you get seventh, then I think there's a really good chance you'll get one of those hot shot invites, even if you at the end of the year are only ranked 28th. Right, got it. That's my feeling. Is that like, that's your best way in. But the moral of the story is, it's very difficult to get into it. Yes. But I would argue it was very difficult to get into the top 20 this year.

Yes. So I think that the people... I mean, it's the top 20 in the world. Of course it's difficult. people that are in the series this year did earn their spot there and did work hard and get good enough races to be there. So I don't think it's necessarily a closed series and they're being pretty vocal about the fact that it isn't. And I think the goal down the line is to have development races or have some kind of like B League where it can feed in to the T-100 series. But you know how triathlon is people retire every year.

People get injured. I think that as the series goes on and later in the year, there may become more wild cards up for grabs as people get hurt or whatever it is, you know? The thing that excites me. It's very dynamic. I'm excited about, like you said, more head-to-head racing. It's not just one very strong athlete showing up to a 70.3 that we know they're going to win and then it's just fighting for second and third place. At any one of these races, there's like eight people that could win. And I think, I don't know if we will see the same person winning each race the way that we may have seen before.

Yeah. It'll be, as a spectator, it'll be really fun to watch, not just watch these individual heroic efforts, but people actually racing each other. Yeah. But it's a totally fair concern. Kaley was on our Devo team last year. Yes, I mentioned that. Yeah. Yeah, it's a fair concern. Yeah, but at the end of the day, this is the premium level racing in the sport. You can still do 70.3s. You can still. still do Iron Man's, you can still do challenge races, you can still do Xtera. Which I would say will be a little less competitive now. Yes, theoretically it should be less competitive because the top 20 athletes in the world are focusing on the T100 series races.

So it's like Formula One. There's Formula One. There's Formula Two. There's Formula Three. And if you manage to make it into Formula One, yes, it's a lot easier to stay there and that it was to get into it is my perception. But it's, it is the elite. So tippy, tippy, tipy top.

So, like, I wish I could be in it. Eric, are you racing the T-100? I'm not. Maybe he'll get a wild-d-old. I got T-99 problems. The T-100 A-1. That's not one of them. Very nice.

Well-set. Okay, well, Kaley, good luck. We would obviously love to selfishly and selflessly see you race in the PTO. T-100 World Tour. Yeah, totally. Next question here. Hi, Flynn and Company. Oh, boy.

Rough start for Eric already. I have two questions for all of you and I'm reading both because I feel they're actually very related. You know honestly I'm just going to interject here. It's been a little bit sad for me not hearing Paul Eric Nick and Flynn. Oh, really? I'm okay with it. At first I was a little bit

annoyed but now I miss it a little bit. Okay, careful what you asked for. You know the listeners love to kind of rag on you a little bit? I'm not asking for anything. I'm just saying. I like our boy. Okay, so here we go. And he's right here like half a sleep but he obviously was just running in his dream a couple minutes ago because his legs were going. Okay.

I have worked with a coach the past three years while getting into triathlon. I'm at a place where I no longer feel like I need my coach and want to take some of the stress off training by doing it on my own. I don't pay him during the off season, so I am at a good spot to transition. Do I let my coach know I won't be using him again? Do I just unlink him from my training peaks account? Jesus. That's brutal. Yeah.

How do I handle this transition? Now, I'm now going to read the second question. My second question is about swimming. My swim is significantly weaker than my bike and run. I have one of the strongest bike times in my age group, and my run is middle of the pack, but my swim in open water ends up being almost two minutes per 100 yards. I only swim twice a week swimming about 25 to 3,000 yards. Do I add another swim day in?

Do I pay for a swim lesson to try and work on my form? what's the best way for me to shave time off my swim. Thank you guys for all your help and all you do for the sport. So I kind of thought it was a funny pairing of questions to say I no longer need my coach, but I also am having serious struggle swimming and I'm one of the fastest spikers. So it's like you have all this fitness that you're not expressing well in the pool. Presumably a coach would help you with exactly this. But I guess if you're saying you want to.

take the stress off like the coach is stressing you out. I mean, is that a conversation you'd have the coach? I definitely wouldn't just take him off the training piece account. That seems so, so intense. But what do you guys think? What would you do here? I think that we're thinking about us doing that to our coach, who we have a really strong relationship with. I don't think everyone has a really strong personal relationship with their coach. Yeah, you should definitely let the coach know. And I don't think that coaches should take it personally. If you explain your reasoning, you're too stressed out, you need a break from it. Maybe I'll come back to it.

It's not because I think I'm better than you. It's just what I need. But do you think that it's worth having that conversation with a coach? Yes. This is kind of adding more stress than it's taking away. Don't just ghost them. Yeah. I think that's just like a human respect thing.

It's not even a triathlon thing. Yeah, yeah. But, okay, and what do you think about the second question, which I was very much pairing with the first question, but I guess we could treat it as its own question. if you're swimming two minutes per hundred yards and you're at the front of your bike group, that's a gigantic discrepancy. So what do you think they should do?

Swim another time in a week. If they're swimming $2,500 to 3,000 yards. They're swimming $2,500 to 3,000 yards? Per swim twice a week. Do I add another swim day in? Do I pay for a swim lesson to try and work on my form? I mean, I think if you're that fit on the bike, there's some serious form issues there.

Yeah. Swim a lot more and get a swim coach. That's what she's asking. What's my best use of resources here? Is going to the pool three extra times going to make me faster? Or is it better to keep doing the two swims but get a swim coach? And really the answer is maybe like all of those things. That's what I said.

Yeah, get a swim coach and swim more. I think there's no world where you don't at least get a video of yourself just to see what you look like at least. And then next step, have a real swim coach look at you because I'm just afraid that they're going to swim five times a week and reinforce bad habits. Yeah. That's true. Like there is this thought of like swimming more kind of just makes you more efficient naturally

because your body wants to be efficient in its movements. You know what I'll say though? I swim three times a week at the pool at the same time and I see the same people swimming three times a week with the same horrible crossover. Yeah, but I'm talking like six times a week for six K. You think that would kind of, in some way

it'll fix itself a little bit. I think when you get that much load, maybe, it's kind of our coach's philosophy. He tries to fix things through using paddles or doing pole boy with band or ankles, drills, stuff like that. But I've never

been told by Paulo to like fix something very specific about my form. I have. Oh, is it your breathing thing? Yeah. And the thing is like, yes, Paul and I grew up swimming, and we were swimming 6K a day, six days a week, forever and ever. But that wasn't it.

Like, the things that I sometimes forget is that, yes, that coach was giving us cues. That coach was giving us very specific drills to do. We were doing workouts designed around these drills and reinforcing things and then doing strength. We were doing all of these things. it was an all-encompassing approach. It wasn't like we would go one day with the coach and then the next four days there was no coach. They were always there watching for things.

Yeah. It's easy to rewrite the memory in your head. Maybe that's why triathletes have a really hard time learning to swim as adults. Because there's no coach on deck. Like we grew up, like Eric just said. It's probably part of it. For 12 years with a coach on deck seven times a week

giving us feedback. And you're young and your absorb. all these things and like, you know, it's easier to make changes. But maybe that's the root of all of this. Everyone needs to be coached more. Yeah. I mean, the only people have ever told me about my swim form are the two of you. And I guess like Ellie and Holly when they saw me swim.

It's just like a few times when pros have seen me swim. Yeah. Maybe if I had a coach all the time, I'd be fast. Yeah. Like, if we were your coach, we'd be standing like, Nick, remember high elbow. remember that left arm's going to, you know, just like at the beginning of every workout and then we give you one extra thing in the middle of the workout and just like constantly reinforce it. That looks good.

That looked, what you just did there on that last hundred, that looked good. And like, okay, whatever, however that felt reinforced, try to keep that going. Okay, so the consensus here is be nice to your coach if you're going to break up with them. Explain what you're doing, but first at least see if you can reconcile something. and then for your swimming, you're going to have to probably have someone look at your swim, and swimming more is always better. Good luck. Next question here. Hi, TTR crew, listening to your podcast, is my savior whenever I need to drive an hour into Boise, Idaho for groceries, group rise, and such. I have a question regarding

nutrition and recovery. I've started ramping up training for the Tour de Bloom stage race in May, and I've also been strength training swimming and running this time of year. I mainly do triathlons, but I'm dabbling in road racing to get faster. and it's cheaper. Could waking up in the morning with intense hunger be a sign of under-fueling? If it's really bad, I'll have a headache too and feel a little nauseous or just crappy. It's usually the morning after a hard and or long session. I call it my workout hangover, but no alcohol involved.

Does anyone else ever experience this? I'm guessing it could be a combination of dehydration and under-fueling, but I was wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this and what their triggers and solutions are. So I just like to start by saying that I reached out to a dietitian and they said 1,000% this is under fueling. If you're waking up feeling like that, it's very likely to be that. But the three of us, Eric, do you have this feeling ever if you feel like you didn't do a good job fueling during an exercise the next day? Generally speaking, the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is being hungry.

And I feel like I do a pretty good job of fueling, but unless I go to bed feeling full, like borderline stuff. I'm going to either wake up and get a midnight snack or be hungry enough in the morning that I want to get up. But I don't ever have like a headache or feel super terrible about it. I think I'm kind of like right on the edge. How many nights a week would you say you wake up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack? It goes in phases when we're training really heavily. Almost every night. And it's like pretty cyclical.

It's like 2.1 a.m. Wow. You know, it's like my body just gets into a routine with it. It's like, oh, this is like the fourth meal that we have. and I'm ready for it. So I try to like keep that from happening. But I do think to a certain degree, if you're training a lot or you did like a six hour bike ride with a run off the bike and all these things, like there's just only so much

time left in that day to eat. And that like suppresses your hunger a little bit. And so it's really hard to play catch up in the evening if you did not fuel like crazy in the middle of the workout. Yeah. I think this is part of why protein shakes are so good because like it exercise does suppress suppress hunger and you it's like I can get this down I can I can get this in yeah Paula what about you do you ever wake up in the morning if you feel like you didn't do such a good job at refueling after

workouts or fueling during the workouts do you wake up in the morning feeling a little hungover hungover yeah like crappy nauseous headache I don't know if I always I think I'm I'm I my problem is more hydrating well so I'll get headaches or not feel well if I didn't drink enough the day before and I get really thirsty in the middle of the night like I'll wake up with this intense thirst of I need a bubbly water. Right, right. I think I, you know, I think your issue is like water's not interesting enough for you and you go for the bubbly water.

I get that. In the summers, that's what happens to me. I think this is for a lot of people. Water's not interesting enough so I do like lemonade with water or a bubbly water or something that's, I feel like it's like my brain doesn't want just water. Like bubbly water like tricks you into thinking there's calories in it. Yeah, but you can't drink as much of it. Exactly.

How often, like the amount of. times that I walk around the house and like I see a can of bubbly water and it's had like five sips out of it. And I know Paul is super thirsty because it's like 107 degrees outside. But you can't, you can't have that much more. Yeah. Versus if you could drink like two bubbly, like two cans of regular water. You could chug them straight when you're thirsty. No problem. Okay. This is kind of a side thing. But Paul, you know what I love doing? I may have mentioned this on the podcast. We're 104 episodes in. So I think it's okay if we start repeating ourselves. But in the summer, I'll take lemonade and I'll make ice pops out of it. And after a hard run or a hard ride to come home and know there's a

frozen lemonade pot for me is one of the best. Oh, that's a good idea. Okay, but my question for you is because I have something like this. It happens to me. I don't wake up with a headache or feeling nauseous or anything, but just Saturday I did a long ride. I was six hours of moving time. And the next day, I did a trail run with David. And the first like 30 minutes I felt shaky and lightheaded. And I know that I just couldn't keep up with the nutrition on the ride before. And I'm certain that it was because of like there were not enough calories in my system. Like I had not given myself, even though I tried to eat a lot that night, I just could not keep up with it. You guys don't have this. You never feel. And then once I like got into the

run and ate a little bit out of gel, I did feel totally better by the end of the run. At a low intensity, do you guys ever have that where at the beginning of an exercise you feel? little lightheaded, a little loopy, a little shaky. I do if it's a run at the end of the day. Yep. After a hard rider. Evening runs. Okay.

Yeah. So it does. So I think it is a calorie thing. I've only ever had it in runs too, not on rides. Yeah. He's running as hard no matter how slow you go. As we have said many times. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. And how do you reconcile that? Just have a gel or just suffer it out and dream about French fries. Yeah. Dream about French fries. That's what I crave. If I get really dizzy in a run,

because I'm gonging. All I want is McDonald's French fries. I remember this. We were in a... So that's... Plag staff. Yeah. A hydration and a fueling thing.

Yeah. Because I assume it's the salt of the French rice. Yeah, for sure. Actually, I remember my coach telling me, like, pay attention to what you're craving at the end of a workout. Yeah.

If it's sugary or if it's salty. That's interesting. Okay, so the solutions for this, what would you say? I mean, I think a big part of it is... I think we've exhausted it. Well, we haven't given a solution. And I just, I would just like to say that, keep in mind.

We don't give solutions on this podcast. I'm going to try to help with this one because I have, I have a little bit of, I also have a good answer if next is insufficient. Okay, I'm just going to sit back. Eric, do you want to start with yours since it's probably more accurate than what I'm going to say? Well, it's just fueling properly in the first thing. Yeah. Yeah, every time that I commit to having like 60 to 90 grams of carbs on a long ride that leads into a run, I feel so good in the last hour of a four hour, five hour,

bike ride, and the run goes great. I'm so excited and I tell myself I will never under fuel on a thing ever again. This is, I think a lot of age group triathletes are still kind of, maybe they're 80% worried about performance, but they're 20% worried about their body weight. I think that's, unfortunately, it makes its way into our psyche because of a million reasons. But you are never, even at a very low intensity exercise,

you are never going to keep up with your calorie expenditure by what you eat. You're always going to end up lower than you started. Do not try to diet while you are riding a bike or running. It's not the time to do it. That's when you should be getting in as much, as many carbohydrates as you can to fuel the exercise as well as you can. Do not try, that's not a good game to play and it's always going to end badly. Yep.

And it's not good for your metabolism either. I've said this both independently before. The better that we fuel in and out of training, typically your metabolism just ramps up. And it's like, awesome. We're throwing as much fuel on the fire as possible. But I do think that different people need different amounts. And I can definitely survive off of not feeling that much. Yes, but all three of us, all three of us, how often are you getting 90 grams of carbs per hour in a workout?

And how often at the end of bike rides you're like, I'm so hungry. we need to get home, I cannot ride another foot. Yes. It's every time. It does not ever happen to me. It's every single time. We're never eating as much as we could be eating on the bike because it's a ton of work. It's a lot of stuff that you have to eat.

Oh, it's just a two-hour ride. It's not a big deal. I'll bring like a bar. It's like 30 grams of carbohydrates for two hours. I did that today. Exactly. The old me would have done absolutely nothing, just water. Yeah.

So the fact that I had a picky bar and bottles of lemonade, I'm growing up. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good for your health. It's good for your performance. It's good for your mood. It's good for your sleep.

Totally. Eat more. So that's the answer to your question. Very long-winded. Next one here is from Nate, one of many Nates in our life right now. Do we know this, Nate? I don't think so. Okay.

Hey, guys, longtime listener and supporter here. Question mostly for Eric. As I sit here cleaning out all the old. old dried tubeless sealant from my tires. I was wondering, how often do you need to remove old sealant from your tubeless setup? Once a year, every couple of years, never. How often should you check the sealant and add more? Thanks for all you do, Nate.

Eric, does it make you sick to your stomach to know that I never do this? No, I say you're more normal. But for me, when I check sealant in tires and if I find it's pretty dried up, I will go and try to clean out anything that's not wildly challenged. challenging to get out. And is this, do you feel like part of the reason that you don't just like take the valve core out and put in the ceiling that way is because you like to look inside and see how much is left and see what the condition of the inside of the tire is?

Yeah. I like to know. And it's just not that hard for me 90% of the time to get to reseal it. I think I just have some PTSD from that, the road wheels, the TT bike tires. Yeah. I mean, sometimes, sometimes it is not easy and I get very mad. Paula gets mad at me for being mad about it and being unreasonable. But I do like to know, especially when this is our job.

And if the tires don't seal properly in the middle of a workout, that ruins the workout. Or if they, you know, heaven forbid, had a problem in a race, that would ruin the race. So when I usually think to check the tires is just when it feels like it's been a while. And I would say that's probably kicks in for me around like two months without having checked. or if I just notice the tire is losing a lot more air. Between workouts. Between workouts than normal, which just makes me think, okay, the sealant in there is probably dried up or whatever.

So then I'll just crack one side of the, you know, one side of the tire, one bead off, look inside and usually, yeah, it's like pretty dried up or coagulated or whatever. And then I'll just clean out as much as I can unless I see like a super lumpy section. And then I'll try to scrape that out just so. Isn't it pretty hard to clean out? like once it kind of... It's really annoying, yeah, but I don't know why I just, I feel like trying to get it cleanish. And do you take the tire completely off the wheel, or do you leave one side of the tire on the room?

I like to leave one side on because that just makes it 10 times easier to, you know, get it receded later. So maybe check every couple months. Yeah. And as annoying as it is, actually take a look inside. I like to. I know it's not like totally necessary, but I like to. And the thing is like I kind of sometimes in mountain bike tires, when you're running inserts, you get the sealant will clump up into like about half the size of a golf ball.

And it'll just be a hard rock that's bouncing around in there. Obviously that's not doing anything. It's just getting in the way. I feel like it could potentially cause problems. And so that just kind of got me into the habit of like opening up the tire and looking at it. Does it not, does the seem to, because I've never run inserts, Does it not like absorb into the insert? Not really.

The way that the rocks form, I think, is there's like little holes sometimes in the inserts. Or just like moving around the inserts. It creates the same sort of effect as like the sealant moving through a hole in the tire. So it, I don't know, it's a crazy phenomenon. But that's, I think, what got me in the habit of checking more often. Got it. Okay. Next question here is from JF.

Hello to all of you. I'm living in Montreal and have been practicing and racing the beautiful sport of triathlon for the last 12 years. Mostly Ironman 70.3. My questions are about swim paddles. Are you using different size of paddles during your training? When I train with paddles and pull buoy for a distance of 400 meters, I find it difficult. I'm not a bad swimmer and typically finish the 70.3 swim section within 34 minutes. Is there any muscular exercise to do to make this easier? Thanks for an amazing drone shot. Thanks for amazing drone shots. My 15-year-old son bought his first FPV drone and loves it. I hope to see you in Montrein Blanc. that's awesome that's awesome

Eric and I obviously love FPV drones you hear that DJI that's right that's right so what do you think yeah Paulo our coach will often write big paddles small paddles

or if we're if you're a special case learn to swim person like you came from a running background sometimes he will custom make paddles or like pick out a certain paddle that's designed to do a certain thing with your stroke like force you have a high elbow

yeah he'll actually carbon print paddles. 3D print. 3D print panels. Paulo will 3D print paddles? Yeah. That are certain shapes for different people. What can't you do? Well, I mean, this is very much

inside of his area of expertise, having worked with fluid dynamics. So he's pretty interested in paddle technology and developments. But for us, for the most part, I stick with the same size paddle. Paula has, so I have the one of those things, the finis that your thumb goes in.

I have the three dot ones. Paula has the two dots. So I think that's large and medium. occasionally Paul and I will switch. I will say we just tried out the paddles, the carbon fiber, paddles from Ark, Ark swimming. It's a Swedish wetsuit and swim company, swim run company. We both really liked those.

Wow. Because they have like a little bit of flex to them so you can curve your hand just a little bit and you feel like you have a little bit more. Natural feel of the water. We both really like those. That's the first thing I've tried in paddles lately that I thought, oh, that's cool. I would say that it is good to have different size of paddles, though, because occasionally when Eric and I do switch, and I'm used to wearing the two dot ones, which are like a medium, and then I go to the large, I really notice a difference in the effort it takes to pull through the water. My stroke rate slows down a lot. I do usually actually go faster, too, at the same effort. And maybe it kind of like you get used to a certain paddle size, and now a different one is like, oh, right, my elbow's here, my lads pulling from this thing.

I think it's good to have a few different ones for that reason, Nick, you get so used to the feel of the ones you always use. So changing it smaller or bigger is a good thing. And generally bigger paddles are more of a strength workout. So if this person, I would say they're really struggling to even get through a 400 pull, maybe try one size down to paddles and, like, get some strength with that size, and then size back up to your other ones. Yep. And see how much easier it feels once you have a little bit of strength from. This is perfect timing for me because I was just, I just visited Zoot headquarters in Southern California. And Sean Nizut very generously gave me a new set of their paddles.

And they're like a third of the size of the paddles I normally use. Oh, they have battles. Oh. They're, in my opinion, the coolest paddles I've ever seen. And the pool boo is also the coolest pool booboo I've ever seen. Oh, so they have Hawaii floral patterns on them? I think it's like, it looks like plasticy dip, black and white. Oh, really?

Is what it looks like. Oh, I have a kickboard from them, yeah. He said they're still kind of like optimizing the kickboard, but I'm excited to use them. A kickboard is a kickboard, right? That's kind of how I feel. Well, I don't know. I feel like... I don't know.

If you're on 101 for a hundred-yard kick? What kind of kickboard is this? Maybe you need an optimized kickboard. That last half second gets up one minute. We need Keith's opinion on the Zootkept. I don't think it's on there. I think this is like not made yet. Oh, shit.

I think I got a prototype product, I think. Oh, there's no... I hope I'm. I hope I won't get in trouble by saying this, but it was in the shop there, and he just said I could have it. That's free advertising. Leaking Zoot swim equipment. Sorry, Sean. Things he never thought you would do.

I know, right? I know. Okay. Next question here's from Stephen. Paula, congratulations, and best of luck on the PTO's new T100 tour. Question, were any Canadian locations considered by the PTO and might we see Canadian locations in future years like we have previously in Edmonton? Yeah. I just know a little bit about this because my mom.

mom was the competition manager for the PTO race in Edmonton for two years and, or maybe just one year. Was it only in Emmington one year? She did the bike race and it was only in Edmonton once. Yeah, she ran all the WTSs. Anyway, and I'm on the athlete board. So I think the mission of the PTO here with the T100 World Triathlon series is to showcase really spectacular cities on camera. So somewhere like Abiza, where you see it from a helicopter and you see us racing around it. and you want to go there.

It's like these desirable, it's kind of the same as F1, racing around Monaco. If they were racing around the middle of nowhere, Idaho, it wouldn't have the same effect. So I think that they're being really selective with that. That said,

Edmonton was not in the position to host the race because Horlack Park where the venue, where it was hosted last time was closed for a few years. But I think they want, like, I hate saying this because I'm from Emondon, but they want somewhere like Vancouver or Montreal or somewhere that's globally known.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's very possible that there'll be a Canadian location. I unfortunately don't think it will be Edmonton, but I think it will be one of the kind of more globally known cities that have these like the wow factor. And it'll get people from all around tuning in to watch a race in this place they've always wanted to visit, you know?

Yeah. Anyway, that's all I can say. Oh, that's a great answer. Okay, next question here's from Amanda. This may be more for Paula, but I'm not sure bathroom stops are even an issue for pros. As a female in a one-piece trisuit, going pee during a try or any time, to be honest, in the suit, is such a pain. It's hard pulling that thing back when all sweaty and salty. Curious if there is a tri-suit designed with women in mind that has some sort of easy pull open access, and I've just never seen it.

Or if you guys design that in your next release. Wow. That's asking a lot. be first up to buy. Love the pot. I always get excited for new episodes. Amanda. I think this is really the point of two piece kits. I personally never have to go to the bathroom when I'm racing. And I'd say if I had to pee, I might just go in my kit, which is gross. I miss what everyone does. Yeah. But I've never, fortunately, I've never had to pull over to like a porta potty and pull my kit down and do the whole thing. But it is possible. I do think the

easiest solution here is to get the two-piece kits. And a lot of them fit really nice. They have a drawstring on the waist. They have comfortable top. Marinda Carfrey-Il was raced in a two-piece. So she obviously found it very comfortable. It's just a little bit more out of style now, I guess, now that everyone's coming out with one pieces, but I don't know of a one that's easier to get on and off than others. I have had to stop in races, and it would have been awesome to have a two-piece. But, yeah, I think companies typically dump their highest end technology into the one pieces currently because that's what most pros want to wear is probably aerodynamically 1% faster. But, yeah, I mean, if all things considered speed was the same, yeah, why not do a two-piece?

I think maybe Amanda, I don't know if you need to hear this from us, but people pee in there during their races in their suits all the time. And was it, I forget who it was, I don't want to put her on blast, but a friend of ours said she aims for once during a 70.3 and twice during a full. Yes. Yes. That is a great indication that you are hydrated enough. Yeah. So that's as it does sound gross. And I actually physically have never been able to do it.

But I did try. That's just what pros do all the time. You just pee. If you have to do something other than pee, probably not the best to do it and try to find a porta potty and then just rip that thing around your ankles. as fast as possible. But it's okay to pee in your race suit during a race. Yeah. And having been on the receiving end of a bikes coming back to a bike shop from tri-bike

transport, a lot of non-pros pee on their bikes, too. It's not just the tippy top, Amanda. Oh, yeah, that is gross. Just make sure you wash your kit after. And your bike. And your bike. And your shoes. Maybe a lot of people don't think to.

Do you put your kit in the washing machine? I don't. I hand-wash them. You hand-wash them? Yeah. They're so delicate. Oh, no, I definitely put it in the washing machine. Cold, but, like, cold water.

Cold and hang dry. No way. Well, especially with the Castelli ones that are, like, super thin and have the ribbing on the sleeves. Wow. I just get really nervous of it. Why risk it? What if it got snagged or, like, anything?

Just, I mean, my bibs cost just as much as my race kits, and I put those in the wash. You know, so, so do my, like, some of my jerseys are, like, 180, 190 bucks. And I put those in the washing, and they hold up fine. Yeah, well, if our... If you're custom, Costelli kits get damaged... Yeah, we can't go buy another one.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Wow. Okay. And last question here. Hi, all. After last week's kick challenge announcement, I realize my pool doesn't have kickboards. I just swim and don't have much space to store extra gear. So I was curious if there's any swimming gear essentials for someone with a swim background. That's a worthwhile

investment. Pull-boosies make sense, but what about kickboards, paddles, snorkewarm? and fins. Most pools should have a kickboard. I agree, but Derek's pool does not. Okay, well, that I would say is try to find a pull boy that will double as a kickboard. It's like the flatter ones. You can use a pool boy as a kickboard. Like, we're not going for time, other than for the hashtag TTL kick challenge, we're not trying to kick for time. You sort of can't, but there's an ergonomical like ease to using one that's a little flatter. If you're going to do a significant amount of kick, yeah. I don't bring fins to the pool. What I bring as a pull boy, three or four pairs of

paddles because my coach is a paddle weirdo and a band. Okay, so the band, yeah, I tried the band for the first time with you guys and it blew my mind. But that's what, that's all you'd get. No snorkel. I don't have a snorkel, but oh my gosh, I was obsessed with my snorkel. There were a lot of years, like, I don't know what age, but I was so much faster with a snorkel and I would like get panicky, swimming without a snorkel because I was so much worse. Oh, you used to be able to breathe a lot. Well, and also my form was so much better.

Like I slipped a lot when I was breathing. I think I'd fix that since then. But with the snorkel, my stroke was like way better. So I would go way faster. And it became an addiction. I had to cut myself off. Oh, my God. I just had this urge to buy a snorkel now.

I had one for a while, but it was way early in my swim. And now I just, I want to try this. I kind of want to get one now that I've, I'm not addicted to it and see if it can just like be a tool versus a crunch. Eric, do you have any desire? not accept you at all. I really struggled to get into the snorkel thing and just never did. Like, Paulo never really went through much of a snorkel phase. Yeah, you didn't.

That's weird. Unless it was like a specific thing for a specific learn-to-swim person who was struggling with, you know. And the couple of times that I've tried snorkels, I just felt like I was suffocating. I couldn't quite figure out the blow the air out for the flip turn. I had that down to a science. And I just, so I just be like, nah, I'm out. We're going to try snorkels again.

I'm calling it right now. It's one of those things that we decide on the pod. I want to try it. I had one that doesn't work anymore because I lost like the piece that doesn't let water into valve. Yeah, the valve. Yeah. Okay, let's all buy snorkels. What's going to be called the TTL Snorkel Challenge?

What's the challenge? You're going to do 100 with and 100 without and see what you're faster. That is a great game. We have to go maximum effort with a snorkel. Yeah. This is my worst nightmare. That's what I always used to do. Actually, Eric had a funny idea.

of me and Keith swimming next to each other, but Keith doing kick as hard as he can and me doing free as hard as I can. You'd still nearly get left. Yeah, he's that much faster. Yeah, it's brutal. It wouldn't even be entertaining because it wouldn't be close. I think it'd be entertaining to see,

like this guy looks like he's barely working and kicking. The other guy looks like he's flailing for his life and still somehow slower. Yeah, it's like that comedian skin of like, can we have a random guy like thrown into the 100 meter dash to see what it's like a scope of reference how impressive this is? Exactly.

Yeah, the problem with creating the snorkel challenge is like, we're just laughing about it like it's funny, but so many people do our challenges. Yeah, you're right. We need to really be careful. We really need to be careful. Well, you guys didn't even do the kick challenge. Careful and committed. Yeah. I did remember exactly why we did not do the kick challenge.

It's because they set up our pool. That's why. You're right. The day that we were going to do it, we showed up and they had to arrange the pool for a swim meet and the 25 yard end was shut down. and the end that we could swim in was 30. Oh, which is a made-up... 30 meters. Yeah.

Got it. Yeah. Okay. So if I'm staying the night here, which it appears I am, maybe tomorrow at the pool, I'll film you guys doing the Kick Challenge. Yeah. Sea level. Paul says we'll see. She does not...

You're not interested. I'm more interested in the snorkel challenge. Oh, very nice. Very nice. Okay, well, that's all we got. Next week, maybe we'll be in person again. We definitely will, Nick. you live here now.

Me and Flynn. We live here now. We live here now. Cool. Well, Nick, thank you for driving down. Thank you to everyone who listened. Thank you to everyone who submitted a time or a video for the Kick Challenge. That was really fun.

Yeah, we really loved it. Even though me, Eric and I have not done it yet, we did participate in approximately 700 text messages with Nick about the Kick Challenge. So it really did take over our week in a funny way. Yeah. Cool. That's all. That's it. Later, everybody.

Bye.