That Triathlon Life Podcast - Is Triathlon training and racing healthy? Plus T100 Lake Las Vegas cancellation, and more!

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

This week, the whole gang is back together recording in the same room in Bend, Oregon. We kick things off with a round of This or That, touch on the latest action from the Tour de France, and then dive into listener-submitted questions. Topics this week include:Managing foot cramps on long ridesWhat we eat for lunchAre bigger goggles better?How often pros actually swap or replace their gearHydration beltsHow well pool fitness translates into open waterThe creative process behind scoring the film Look For Things Where You Can Find ThemHow to grow awareness and support for the future of triathlonSome insight into why the T100 Lake Las Vegas race was cancelledDo you need form cues for slower run paces?Is triathlon actually good for you?A 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

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Nick Goldston. This is a little bit of an interesting lineup for us. Nick and I are sharing a mic looking across at Paula. And Nick is up in town for a couple of reasons. He came up for my birthday party, which took place over last weekend.

Finally 21. And also to pick up a brand new camera that we've been collectively, drooling over since its release. So it's been a fun weekend. We were in the fog. There was a lot of fog involved, which was very conducive to the camera. Yeah, it was super moody vibes. We went out to the coast, which is one of my favorite places for my birthday. And while it's 92 or 95 degrees Fahrenheit here in Bend, it was 55 at the coast, and we were literally in a cloud for the weekend. So it was a nice, right? from the heat and unfortunately we're now back in bend and smoke season has officially begun.

Paul, I don't want to out you here, but you confessed to me earlier that you have a guilty pleasure a little bit with the smoke in the summer because it makes it so it's not as oppressively hot. Yeah, I mean, I would rather know smoke, of course. But the one nice thing about the smoke is it shelters the sun. It's like a cloud so you don't get as hot. But it's still horrible because you can't be outside anyway. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a really bad fire in Madras, and it just happens to be blowing straight into Bend, which is kind of typical of smoke season.

Bend tends to get smoke that just sits here. But we can escape to the coast any time, which is really nice as an option, because it really never gets smoky out there. We can also head to Portland. Basically, the Cascade Mountain Range is kind of the dividing line of where the smoke tends to not blow across. I guess. My folks live in Portland or just outside of Portland on the other side of the mountain range.

So we got a couple of options. But you guys both ran inside today, right? Yeah, Paula ran inside and I kind of hung out and waited for the treadmills be available. And our friend Adele, another professional triathlet here in Ben, came over and rode the trainer. So when I showed up for my turn on the treadmill, it was hot in the garage. It was steamy. I might have gotten a little bit of heat training at the same time. Yeah, a little adaptation.

You never know. Yeah. But anyway, if you're new here, Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician and a great friend, amateur triathlete, and we just like hanging out and chatting about triathlon news, taking questions from people who ride in. I just had a thought. This is, maybe this is silly.

Not to make it about me, but I think sometimes people think that I am offended by amateur triathlete, which is funny because this is what I have asked to be called. Yeah. Like this was my idea. But maybe a more appropriate term is age group triathlete. Okay. Do we think that's like, that's any better? I guess I treat them the same.

Yeah, I don't, amateur to me is not an insulting term. Can we do like a pod poll on Spotify? Like, would you prefer to, not for Nick specifically, but just in general, Right. Would you, as one who is not a professional athlete, prefer to be amateur or age group? And do you take any offense? Well, I think amateur is seen as like a little bit condescending in other contexts. Like, amateur hour over here.

Right. Right. So then you could see. But I think amateur sounds more like eloquent than just like an age group. Exactly. So. It sort of like takes me back to the like Roger Bannister era where one had to be an amateur athlete to compete in the Olympic. and it was more, I don't know, yeah, elegant of a pursuit. We could just call them slow.

Oh, perfect, yeah. Cool, let's just get. That's what we'll do. I think I had a, like, this is kind of inside, but I had a meeting with some T-100 people like a year or two ago talking about this exact thing. They were curious how people felt about the word amateur versus the word age group. And I don't remember what I told them.

But I think I think age group to me is an insulting term and neither is amateur. Anyway, we're getting a little off topic here. But what you are is a professional musician. And Eric and I are amateur musicians. You are amateur musicians. I've heard you. But Paula's voice has made it into several jingles that we have on this podcast. So I guess I do make money from singing.

You do. Indirectly. Does that make you a professional musician? I don't know. Some might say yes. Maybe. And Eric, I don't know if people know this, but Eric can strum the guitar a little bit. tickle those steel strings.

Nobody ever asked me to play the guitar, please. That is not true. He's not bad. I've heard it before. I took like two lessons of 30 minutes each, but I was a pretty good trumpet player in high school. That was my instrument. And I was a trombone player. Because your mom is one of the best tromboners in Canada. Trombonists. We like tromboners. Anyway, to talk about something a little more relevant, we have been frothing at the mouth for the tour.

We mentioned last week, if you're not watching it, watch it. But every night we sit down and our eyes are glued to the screen. And I don't know how much we don't want to spoil anything, but it has been exciting. I'm pretty sure we can spoil stuff. Yeah. Like if you're not into it, you don't care. And if you're into it, you've seen it. Yeah, I would hope that you're not.

I mean, we haven't watched today's stage yet. Today was a rest day. Yeah. By the time people hear this, if you're five days behind. Yeah. So this is right now, if you don't want it to be spoiled, skip like a minute ahead. But we have seen some amazing performances from people who were not expecting to have amazing performances.

And then also the usual suspects like Aremco did have the fastest time trial stage. We knew that he would probably do that. And he really performed well in that stage. But then I was kind of impressed with Tade, too, being only 15 seconds behind that when you had some of the other best time trialists in the world 15 seconds behind Tade. I don't know. I feel like every year the guy who, is the favorite to win, just has some incredible rise to the occasion, otherworldly, you know, time trial performances.

And obviously Tade is an incredible athlete and everything. But I was like if Tade had beaten Remco, that wouldn't. You wouldn't have been like. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I would have been a little bit surprised, but crazier things have happened. Well, can you guys explain this to me as people who are obviously time trialists? How is it? Like, I think of a time trialist and I don't think of like a skinny climber.

I think of a strong, really strong, like, you know, a Sam Long type, someone like that. How is it that Tade can be so good at climbing? And then you put him on the time trial bike, and he is also so good, like, you know, second from the best in the world. He's just the fittest and the fastest in the highest V-O-2 and the most loss per kilo and the arrow. Yeah, it's like so many factors. And I don't think he's like this pure climber, at least in my eyes, you know, just like looking at the TV. He won that spruce stage the other day, too. Yeah, he looks like a strong dude.

He doesn't look like, I'm just thinking back to the times of like Wiggins and, you know, those team Sky era were like, oh my gosh, these guys are one inch away from death. Like this guy looks, he looks like a well-rounded athlete. And I'm almost more impressed that he is so incredible in the mountains relative to some of these like Colombian guys who are like five feet tall, you know, or whatever. Like that's almost more impressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a good point. Yeah, he's not even that short. You're right. He seems like a relatively tall in the Peloton to me.

Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, we're not going to spend too much time on that, but it's been really fun to watch. And some of the breakaways and solo efforts from some guys, specifically we've been loving watching Ben Healy. We're huge Ben Healy fans now. We love him. But please, just get into it.

It's good for all the sports when you follow along like that. Okay, so last week we put a call out to all of you to get some more games in, and specifically I think Paula mentioned this or that. So we did get a few this or that's, and this was our favorites that we picked. And I think there's a really good variety of questions here from Liz. So here's this or this or that. All right, first one, you guys, and then you might realize what this is referring to. You spot an orca next to you in the swim or you spot a mountain lion next to you in the run.

So to give a little context also, we did find out because many people messaged and they felt very strongly about this. There have been no recorded orca deaths. Deaths by orca. Correct. I think it's maybe a little bit more of an indication of where orcas are relative to where people are swimming.

I don't want to be wrong again, but it's true. There have been no reported official deaths from orca, whereas mountain lions plenty. Yeah, I would take the orca for sure. And it's definitely multiple orca is just orca.

Oh. Not orkhas or kai. Orkai is a joke. Orka whales, plural. Yeah, the thing is, in the water, you just feel so helpless. When you're on land, at least you're like, I could reason with this animal.

Yeah, that's not I'm going to say. I could reason with it. Like, maybe I could get a rock and fight. And it's like, in the water, no. I could appeal to its empathy in some ways. A shark in the water or an orca in the water. I can't do that. So you guys would both pick orca, though.

Yeah. terrible. But yeah, I guess statistically we're going to go with that. Okay. Next one here. Someone else cheats badly but doesn't get caught or you get an undeserved penalty. I feel like these are both a little bit referential. I would pick number one. Yeah. Yeah. Because then it's at least like your conscience is clear. I feel like this happens all the time actually. Not cheats badly, but we see people kind of do stuff that fudge in it who don't get. caught for that.

Yeah. Okay. Next one. Feel miserable in T1 but good in T2 or feel energized in T1 but miserable in T2. The second one. I'd rather feel good in T2 for the run. Ah, okay. So the first one, I think.

The first one. Yeah. What about you, Eric? I mean, I guess I'd rather feel good in T1. And then just like, at least live under a false sense of hope. There's a chance I'm going to be riding with some people and get sucked along with that for some time versus if I feel great in T2, it's probably because you didn't do well. It was mad. You're like, oh, maybe I can turn this around.

Well, you already lost too much time. Okay, how about fasting a full day before the race or fasting a full day after the race? After. Wait, I'm going to make a caveat here because that's too easy. How about fasting a full day before the race or fasting for? a full day after the race starting from when you cross the line. So you can't eat the rest of the day. Yeah, I don't want the race to be affected all fast the day.

I'll fast after. Yeah. Often feel somewhat sick after a race anyway. And yeah, that's not going to impact the race, ultimately. Just happiness. How bad do you think you would feel if you actually didn't eat the next day? Really bad. Yeah.

Not good. Okay. Next one here. winning a race with a less competitive field or coming in fourth in a race with a very competitive lineup. Wow. So these are the questions we ask ourselves, actually. Yeah, I mean, a little bit of both, but mostly number one. Because what I found is when you win a race, even if it's small, like no one really gives a shit how small the race was.

It's exciting. It's fun. You get better bonuses. Usually you make just as much money as if you come forth in a T-100. Also, as an age group or amateur, depending on how the poll goes this week, I also love winning races that only 120 people should walk to. Yeah, exactly. Who would, yes. Like, everyone likes to say, oh, I want to race the best.

It's good measuring stick against how good I am. But, yeah, winning, you can't beat that no matter what race it is. I mean, it's nice if it's got, like, some people at it. Yeah. Yeah, ideally there's, like, a couple of people that are meaningful to beat. But, yeah, I would say nine times out of ten, I want to have a number of. number one there and then once in a while yeah go see how the best in the world how you stack up okay last one here and Liz thank you for all these great questions 50 mile bike ride with someone riding next to you

interviewing you or five mile run with someone asking you math questions the bike ride I think hegan Swenson used to have someone doing this to him while he was like doing some kind of workouts he'd have them ask him math questions so he could practice staying sharp while fatigued my first coach tried to play chess with me while I was on the trainer, and I absolutely hated it. But I wouldn't mind being interviewed for an hour. I mean, I generally go into bike rides just to talk to people. That's like half of the fun of the bike ride for me. This reminds me of, like, I think a lot of people have tried this, but Jerry Seinfeld's show comedians and cars getting coffee. Yeah. Like, can we do a triathlon version of this?

There was, there was writing fixed up hills with pros. I'm not sure if that still exists or not, But I think Gus Morton actually was either on that or did it often. And like, yeah, have an interview with a random pro like Justin Williams, but you have to pick one gear and you're going to go right up. Right. Like beyond category climb. I think it would be fun if it was some, it had an element of like the hot ones YouTube show. Have you seen that?

Where they eat hotter and hotter wings and they interview. Like, could we ramp up the power more and more each time? So this person's out of breath, but you're asking them all these personal questions and they can't even think straight. It could be a fun little format. There could be some sort of form of that with like working on a bike. Okay, okay, now we're going to change a tubeless tire. Now we're going to change a chain.

Now we're going to replace a bottom bracket. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, thank you, Liz. That was fun. More of those. Anyone who wants to send in games, we're always open to that. I saved a few of these for use at a later date. And we do have a podcast winner this week,

but we also want to talk about something else. coming up next week. So for those who don't know, and we talk about this every week, so I hope you do know, but being a podcast supporter is a way to show your appreciation for the podcast. And we also try to throw in a little bit of fun in there. If you're a podcast supporter, we will send out little video segments of things that happen on the podcast, sometimes things that are only for supporters. And next week, we are going to have an outrageously awesome giveaway. High value giveaway. Do we want to say what it is? Yeah, I'll say what it is.

Yeah, go ahead. It's the Zwift H2O Audio headphones that are the over-ears and they're waterproof. You can wear them on the trainer. And they have the Zwift logo on them and they say, ride on. When you turn them on, they say, what do they say? H-2-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-E-Swift, right on. Pairing. So we actually have two pairs to give away.

So the next week we're going to pick a supporter to randomly be selected to win a pair. And then we're trying to think of another fun way to give away the other pair. So if you want to put your name in the hat and you're not a supporter yet, could be an incentive to do that or wait for our next fun way. How do you become a podcast supporter, Paula? You go to the TTL website, atrathamll.com slash podcast. And you just sign up. And you could even just sign up for one month and then cancel your subscription if you want to try to win the headphones.

Wow, that's committing. And we'll do the thing where we hope that people just forget. Of course. Just so you know, we're the only ones benefiting from that. So you're, that's all you need to know. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. You have any corporate overlords here. We are the overlords.

And lords is a big term. But the headphones like, Nick, you're in your sound. They sound pretty good. They sound pretty good. They do. And I feel like when I put them on my head, my feeling was, these will withstand the wear and tear of a sweaty human on a trainer. Which is like you don't want to wear your nice Apple, Apple, AirPods.

Right. over-ear headphones on the trainer, the $500 headphones. Well, you really do. You do, you do. But then you soon realize it was a bad idea. I used to wear like beats headphones on the trainer and they completely disintegrated. So these have like the foam or whatever it is is really resistant to sweat, salt, all the gross stuff that comes with the trainer. And they don't sound bad, actually.

I was jamming out to some songs that I know well. They do not sound bad. No, they won't be like the best auto quality of your life, but they're pretty good for what they are. I even wonder if someone's not like a huge audiophile music fan. I think they might be some of the best headphones they've ever owned. Yeah, yeah, I agree. You even put them on and said, I have to listen to something that I know. Right.

You didn't just instantly go, oh, no. That's a good point because I have worn headphones before and I'm like, oh, no. This is, I don't know what we're listening to, but this is not what it's supposed to sound like. Right. So, no, these are good. They sound good and they're fully wireless. So, yeah, I think they'd be perfect to just like keep on the trainer. And if you're not the winner, you can also buy them.

You can also buy them. The Zwift ones? Yeah. Oh, wow, did not know? Yeah. I thought we were special. So, Eric. 249 bucks.

Do you have a winner for us this week? Yes, I do. This person's only winning a swim cap, unfortunately. Yes, that's right. So, sadly. After all of that. Well, you know what? It's a congratulations.

The swim cap is awesome, though. The swim cap is awesome. Yeah, yeah, it is. We'll send them a dry bag, too, for Marca. We got a cup. We got two left. Okay. You do.

Yeah, I'll give a tea. I'll give it to you. Okay, great. Okay, if it fits in my bag. Yeah. Do you think people right in are like, please don't be me. I hope I win next week. Yeah.

Well, sorry. Maybe. I don't know. You can decide how you feel about it. Alexa Pinner. Woo! Alexa. You are going to get a swim cap.

And a dry bag. And a dry bag. If it can fit in his luggage. That's actually a pretty sweet. That's a pretty sweet deal. I don't even have one of the dry bags. I mean, this is a premium item from Orca. Yeah.

So did we already say Alexa get in contact with us? Yes. To confirm your address? Yes. We have an address here, but people move and stuff. So we want to make sure we don't send it to some very lucky person who's not a podcast supporter. You wouldn't want your new tenants to like got to be getting a swim cap. You'd be surprised how many emails that we get about address changes.

What do you think a person who doesn't swim thinks a swim cap is? A condom. A huge condom. An elephant condom. A condom for an orca. Yes. Okay, well, let's move on to our questions here. Like Paula said, you can submit them at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast.

And this first one is from Howard. Hey, TTL, just finished 70.3 muscle man this past weekend. A condom for an orca. Wow, a little late. That was good. For my fifth, 70.3. So lots of TTL tri-suits. We love that.

And I just love yelling TTR when I see them on the bike. I love that, too. I love that. Warm's my heart. Here's my question. I've started getting some pretty bad foot cramps in my arch on my longer rides. This didn't happen to me before, but it's happening more frequently now. I've got pretty flat feet, so I was wondering if this happened to you and how you may have dealt with it.

Cheers from Toronto, go leaves, go. We're an oiler's family here. Okay, so has this ever happened to you guys? Feet going numb? Cramping. Go cramping. Generally, the only time I get foot cramps is in the pool after running first. Yes, I have had that happen to.

Toes cramp, brutal, awful. Not on the bike, though. I think the fact that he's getting it. only on long rides, it has to be like a salt nutrition factor. That's my prediction. Do you think there's maybe any percentage of it that's like his arch is collapsing a little bit and an insert, like one of the specialized inserts, you know? Oh, for sure.

That was my first thought was, yeah, get a specialized insert to have a little bit of support there so you're not collapsing your feet. But also just stay up on your electrolytes because I do think cramping is a result of imbalanced sodium and stuff. I have very flat feet and I have had, I don't know if I would quite call it cramping, but severe pain. And I started getting it really badly from snowboarding and skiing because of the boots. And I realize that not only are my feet very flat, but they're also very wide.

And when I switched to wide boots, the pain was still there but much better. And same with running shoes. If I'm wearing shoes that are too narrow, I get pain there. So maybe he needs wider bike shoes. Potentially, something to consider. But the cramp, if it's cramping later on into the ride, I think you guys might be right with the insert being more of the likelihood solution. Because for me, it's the opposite. The more I do the thing, the more my muscles kind of like get used to it or just give up or something.

Just be taking some precision tabs. Just get those electrolytes in there. Yeah. Not just drinking water, you know, getting some salt too. Okay, we have a lot of questions. So I'm just going to rifle through these. Yeah, I like the question that was just like. What do you guys eat for lunch?

I know. That's like one of the shortest questions. I think it's probably the shortest question we've ever gotten. Can we do it? It's on here, but do you want me to skip to it now? Yeah. Sure. Okay.

Here's the question. The shortest question we've ever gotten and I'm not, I'm under no certain uncertain terms. This is why it's in the podcast. This is from Ryan. What do you eat for lunch? It's a good question. A lot of the times we have to skip lunch because we're just riding our bike

straight through lunch. That's what we did today. Yeah. And then you're just completely nutritionally imbalanced and you have to eat a lot on the bike. But I'd say our most popular thing for lunch is either sandwiches or leftovers. Usually at dinner we'll make four times more pasta or rice that we need and then reheated at lunch. Or we'll make sandwiches, which are always easy. And in our van, we always have sandwich meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and bread.

Always. Yeah. Always made us some very good sandwiches in the past. week actually from the from the van that's kind of that's kind of all we never go out for lunch it's more of like a in passing but usually after swimming swimming we have such a big breakfast that that almost feels like a lunch and then we go do our second activity uh right it's tough generally no matter what if i have that realization that we're going to leave at 11 or 11 30 i will still have like a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich otherwise it's shit's going to get real yeah at home i don't train

around lunchtime often, and I will often make pasta, like carb-heavy stuff. I like that. Trader Joe's pasta with the Trader Joe's vodka sauce. You're damn right. A lot of, it seems like a lot of acid. Actually, so if I run, I don't do it. If I'm running later, I won't do it because I'm afraid of that. So that's Mondays and Wednesdays, I won't do pasta for lunch because of that.

That's a very Italian thing, too. When your mom was visiting? I mean, Italian stuff pasta for lunch almost every single day. That's what I mean. Your mom was making this. beautiful pasta dish for lunch when we were there. And I'm like, this is heavy for midday, but it's very, I think that's just like very common in Italy.

It is. And actually pasta for dinner is strange for me. Yeah. Because it's such a lunch food for me. But yeah. So that's our lunches. Next question here is from Will. Hey, tripod.

I'm recovering, sorry, I'm a recovering college swimmer and two-time All-American rejoining the world of multi-sport for my entire swim career, trained in Swedish goggles, yes, the ones with no rubber gaskets, and then raced in Speedo-Speed sockets, the ones Phelps made famous. I see a lot of triathletes using larger and sometimes single-lens goggles. Those are intense. I don't know if you guys have seen those. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is there a benefit when moving from the pool to open water in using this type of goggles? I've tried them once or twice and can't quite get used to the feeling. Thanks for your time, and I always love hearing your insights on weird niche questions like this.

No, if you can wear Swedish goggles We're the... You'll steal a shit out of everyone. It's serious. The only reason people don't wear them is because they're so hardcore. Like, only real swimmers can wear Swedish goggles. I can never do it.

They were just not comfortable for me. They look like a torture device. They look fucking cool. Yeah. Yeah. If you rock up to the starline with Swedes on, like every guy with unigoggles is going to be like shitting in his wetsuit. Please go to the first.

front. You go right ahead. I'm clearly seated myself in the wrong wave. Sorry. Yeah, I would say maybe the visibility slightly could be better on some of these bigger goggles with, you know, a little bit of a bigger lens on the front. But if you're comfortable with Swedish goggles

on your face and you can see fine, there's no advantage of wearing these like snorkeling goggles. Yeah, we, Paul and I both race in pure pool goggles from Orca that look just like classic Speedo goggles.

And I think as long as your sighting technique is good, you don't have to worry about having a windshield. Which you guys... Unless it's comfortable. Unless it's more comfortable, then go for it. For me, it's both. I see so poorly out of those headphones,

real headphones, goggles. Don't forget to become a podcast supporter because we're giving away headphones. Right. And you will not be able to see through them in the pool as waterproof as they are. You could wear those headphones water running. Wait, who are?

were you talking to about that. Heather. Yeah. That's right. And you look cool. I see people, you guys probably don't have this in Ben, but in L.A., people go running with the over-the-ear. I considered it on the treadmill today. You did. I almost tried wearing the Zwift ones running. I see people wearing the Apple AirPods Maxes while running. I'm going to give it a try next time tomorrow when we're running in the garage in the smoke. Okay, okay, great. But I can see better, and they're just for me, they're so much more comfortable. Like, it's night and day comfortable. Yeah, that's because you didn't grow up swimming.

So if you guys put those on, the ones that I wear, for example, why don't you like them? How much of it is just like, I've never even put them on? I've put them on and they just, they feel like wearing my pants up above my belly butt. It's just like there's so much stuff touching my face. It's almost a little bit claustrophobic. Wow. That's such a great analogy, Eric, pants up above the belly butt. The reason my mom wears the big goggles is because she doesn't like getting the goggle lines around her eyes, which is alleviated a bit by just dispersing the pressure on the bigger goggles.

So there are reasons to wear them, and we don't judge either way, but we're just saying they're no faster. Stick with what you're comfortable with. Maybe I would love to see someone rock up to the front of a triathlon with the one lens goggles and their pants up above their belly button. Next question here is from, we skipped a bunch of questions to get to. the lunch question. Okay. I just want to make sure that we remember

just in case there were good ones in there. You are right. You are right. So this next one here is from Mark, which is technically the second question we had.

Hi, Eric Flynn, Nick Paula, alphabetical order. No favorites here. Love you all. I'm an Aussie living in Miami, Florida and was lucky enough to meet you all at the world champs

at St. George in 2022. I still have the hat from the van meetup, but it has seen better days. I think that was that was like the first van meetup we ever did. one of them yeah

like we were just at the lake there was there's some we didn't want at the lake maybe it was in that parking lot where there yeah it's like a park yeah where the park is there yeah yeah

like in town yeah yeah would be interested to understand as a pro and having access to sponsors how often are you using new items for each race after how many races do you replace other items things that come to mind are goggles swim skins wetsuits

bike tires, running shoes, trisuits, sunglasses, etc. I thought this was a really good question. Yeah. So what is new? Like, like, never use. Yes, out of the box. Tags off on the start line. Right.

Okay, so can you think of some items that you routinely use brand new versions of? Yeah, so for me, I like to have a brand new pair of goggles at the start of every race because they just don't fog. Yeah. That's the only reason, not because they're disintegrating. It's mostly just a fog issue. I'll usually wear a swim skin for a full season because I'm only racing with it

never training in a swim skin because it does have some hydrophobic properties that go away if you use it too much. I have one racing wetsuit and one training wetsuit so I'll keep the fresh one for racing. So it's not new every race but it's only used like 10 times a year.

I'd be curious, how different do those feel? The training wet suit? Well, I don't swim in a wet seat. that often, but the training one is like last year's wetsu, so it's definitely Oh, it's a different, literally different model? Or are you saying like just from the use? Just from the use. Oh, wow, okay.

I usually only do two or three 70.3s in a pair of race shoes before switching. And if it's a really important race, new race shoes. How new, like haven't running them even? I'll do like a 4K run just to make sure that the sizing is right, because sometimes any shoe company can even just get it off by like a little bit. so just to make sure the size is okay and the laces are proper. I think Eric, how often do you replace tires? Um...

I just have race wheels, right? So they're only being used for racing. Yeah, we only race on... We have tires that are on wheels that are completely dedicated to racing. I just keep an eye on them, but, like, at least 370.3s. Mm-hmm. If they start to look at all worn, I'll replace them, especially the rear tire. Yeah, and then chains.

Paula's been going with a new chain at least every other race this year. And that's partially just because she's been changing her gearing each race and they need to be different lengths. And then I just kind of put anything like into the training rotation after it's been used a couple times. Yeah, so they don't go to waste. No. I try not to waste anything if we can. Yeah, it feels a little wasteful to be just like replacing, getting. getting new stuff every time.

And I think the reason we're using new stuff is not just because we have access to it and we get it for free. It's like the level of the racing now is so high. These tiny minor differences in like a new pair of shoes versus a pair of shoes that has 100 kilometers on it could make a difference. And just being able to see in the swim really reliably, like all these little things can add up. So I would say that getting new things is not necessary at all for someone who's doing it

more for fun. But it's kind of, I guess, the luxury of having really good partners that can send us stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And then you know, like goggles is the same thing. Those just go become training goggles for the next few months until the next race or whatever.

Yeah. Cool. But if we said we had a new bike for every race. That is... I think Cyc, Twitter France dudes do. I mean, it sucks. No. Oh, like Twitter Front, not pretty each stage, but for each overall race.

Yeah, maybe. I don't, I think that's too many bikes. Because they already have so many bikes. I think they have a racing only bike. And then. Oh, for sure. And they've got maybe a couple training bikes. I just don't see the advantage of having a new bike.

I definitely, like, Paula has a race-only bike now. And it is very nice to have that. And it always stays clean. You're not stressed about it. I do think that there is like a certain point of, I don't want to say diminishing returns, but a spot where you're like, this bike has worked. Yes, right.

There's nothing new here that maybe this is that one time the mechanic didn't plug the cable in quite all the way or the quick link. I personally take a little bit of comfort in like this thing has worked. It has been working. Yeah, but I think having perfectly clean bearings and gears and all the things is a huge difference in watts personally. It feels different. Nick, you wrote my new tarmac the other day.

I'm just about to say that. And you're like, this tarmac feels so different. I'm like, it's because everything has never been used. And there's no grease. There's no creeks. Yeah. So I do think that if you're going to use the same bike year after year, getting like, a full overhaul of cleaning and greasing it is probably a good idea.

Of course, yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay, next one here is from Lucy. It's been recommended that I use a hydration belt during my races because it's so hot, but I feel like it slows me down. I don't see any of the pros using them during their races. Would you recommend racing in one, Lucy?

I've seen some pros using for Iron Man's, the nerd belts. I mean, yeah, I feel like Lionel used one, and I feel like in St. George when he did really well for the pole. And Sam uses one. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why this hasn't caught on at all from ultra running. Is it just good, you get an A-Station every mile? Yeah, see, there's so many stations. But so many triathletes seem to be very locked in and want to use their own nutrition.

Yeah, but the pros have special needs stations. But I don't think they're a bad idea, but if they're uncomfortable, I also don't think they're necessary because of how much aid on course there is. I've never felt like, oh, I wish I had something with me right now because I know it's coming up in seven minutes or whatever. Yeah, it's like a fun buffet to look forward to. Yeah, a fun buffet. Unless you're so particular about having like two flasks.

in your belt with like your specific stuff in it. But if you could just train with like Morton or whatever's on course at Ironman, that's for free at every aid station. Yeah, take some for the road too. Also pockets and tricits are generally pretty good, in my opinion, to put gels in and stuff. Like you don't need a belt. Yeah.

But if you want to experiment with a belt, I think nerd belts was started by a pro triathlete. Yeah, wait. Steve McKenna. Oh, that's right. I think, yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, so you should definitely try that brand. Yeah. Cool people are using it. As uncool as they are, I think that's making new roads. It's probably the coolest one. Next question here is from Jackson. Hey, TTL Squad. My question is about translating pool fitness to open water swimming. I would love to have an answer to this question myself. Oh, I don't have an answer. It's so confusing to me.

I was going to ask you guys, because I think we hear this from less experienced swimmers, but Jackson is, I'll read the rest of the question. I have a competitive swimming background in the pool, but only recently made the transition to triathlon, having a hard time translating my pool fitness to open water. For example, in the pool, I can easily swim 500 yards in under six minutes, but in the open water, I'm closer to seven minutes. Yeah. I think I struggle with the chop, and maybe the flip turns play a big factor. Any advice to help carry over my pool work to open water efficiency?

Thanks for the epic weekly content, y'all. The reason I thought this was interesting is because maybe when we're talking to good swimmers. Maybe there is something that could be done. Like increase your swim cadence or no. No. I mean, I think there is, some people are better at open water than pool, but I think for good swimmers like, like him, his pushoffs and flip turns are probably really good and underwater so efficient. So that could be like 30 seconds difference. But in general, I've never done an open water swim at a similar effort to what I do in the pool and have it be anywhere close in terms of pace. And it doesn't mean that you're not efficient open water. I think it's just how it is. Like, it's just

slower. The GPS signal's not that accurate. There's chop. You're not getting push-offs. There's so many factors. And I think the only way to deal with it is to not stress about it. I don't know. What do you think, Eric, you are a particularly good open water swimmer. So can you think of anything that you do consciously or subconsciously that may have aided that? Yeah, I think Paula saying don't think about it and don't stress about it is a pretty big thing. I've never looked at my time in a race, in my swim time in a race at all, except for to see how far I was from making the lead pack. Yeah, me too. Just how well did I swim next to other people.

I do think, yeah, I swim better in the open water relative to certain people that I swim the same speed in the pool. And I usually chalk that up to just, I just do not care about my flip turns. I've never had good flip turns. I don't have flipper feet. I don't have good push-offs. So, like, I work pretty freaking hard to go the same speed as somebody with good push-offs. But that's all I can think. If you want to, like, just make sure you only do open turns and you miss pushing off the wall and still go to the same speed and build up strength.

Honestly, the pushing off the wall is such a big thing. Imagine, like, how much velocity you get when you push off the wall is crazy. And that's why swimming long course meters is so much slower than swimming short course meters. And swimming short course yards is like even faster. It's just you get so much speed from that. And if you just completely take that away, that could be eight seconds of 100. Yeah. Yeah.

They extrapolate that out. The conversion from short course yards to long course meters. To no push-offs. 1,500 instead of. Well, you're not necessarily going straight and you're relying on a satellite in space. It doesn't mean that you're going up and watching. and getting a less good workout because your times are slower.

I guess it's a good way to say it too. Yeah, yeah. I do think that GPS watch times are getting incredibly accurate. I guess another thing, if there are things you can actually work on, it's your siding and how good you are

continuing to swim in a straight line even when you're not siding every three strokes. Like, can you get to the point of taking eight strokes and looking up really quickly, not interrupting your stroke rhythm at all, and just checking in where the buoy is, the less you sight,

the faster you're going to be. It's unbelievable how bad one can be at that. Yeah, just like try swimming, you know, a really fast hundred taking a breath, looking up at the other wall every three strokes. Yeah, it's quite slow.

Good luck. Yeah. But also if this person's breaking six minutes for a 500, he's going to be at the front of any travel. Right, of course. Even slowing down. Yeah, so it's just,

I like your thing of, don't worry about it. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Okay. next question here is from kate hey tripod love your work had a large giggle this morning as not one but two people turned up late to transition to the fabulous mountain man Olympic distance in flagstaff arizona and attempted to squeeze in at the end of our rack after last week's question on the subject

we let them we are weak okay my question nick i absolutely love the music from the look for things where you can find them film i had to rewatch the movie to see what you're where the songs appear. Did you watch the scenes, then create the music? What was a creative process? Kate? I put this in here because obviously this whole process was very fun. But there was a usually what will happen is a film director will have a cut of the film.

And if someone is writing music specifically for the film, that's usually the film score. They will have a cut of the film that they can work with. And they'll know if it's the final cut or not. In a situation where you have songs in a film, usually, The songs are, they don't get to see the film, really. The songs are written based on the script or the story. What was really unique about the film that Eric and I made is that I had access to all the footage and even was able to change it to better fit the music to these songs, which is a very uncommon thing to happen in filmmaking. So it allowed us to create the most specific thing that we wanted for the scene.

Yeah, but from my perspective, what happened was you guys, made the film and plugged in very famous songs. Temp tracks. This is called temp music that she's referring to. M83 music and songs that most of us would know that really convey an emotion and are really amazing songs. And when I watched the film through for the first time with all of these temporary tracks, and Nick hadn't even started creating any of the actual music yet,

I was like, how is this film going to be good without these songs? But Nick, you were able to take it. those songs and create songs that were very similar in feel. In some situations, yes. And you shocked Eric and I with how well you did that. Oh, thank you. In some situations, they were very different, though. In some situations, they were very similar. But in some situations, they were different. Okay, but they were used as inspiration. For sure. Oh, for sure. And this is how real films are made as well. There's temp music, it's called that's put in. And the composer then gets that and tries to get a similar emotion out of it than what we had. And to clear up a confusion here,

none of the songs that were used in the film existed beforehand. They were written specifically for the film. And so some of them only had a verse and a chorus. And then, by the way, there's an album out on Spotify with all these songs. It's just the name of the film. It's the soundtrack from the film.

And I had to write additional sections for some of these songs because I only what was using the film was all I had at the time. But yeah, that was it. And Eric also contributed greatly to the music part of this. And when we were picking songs for the film. Eric had a big input on that. And also even when I was composing the songs for the film, Eric was constantly giving feedback on those

as well. And I was too. And Apollo was as well. Yeah. Remember Eric? We were listening to it in the van. Yeah. We would listen to it in the van and we would watch the video with the temp track and then like maybe Nick would send us a new little cut with the new song in there and some songs started in one scene and ended up in a different scene. That's right. And some songs got thrown out completely. One thing I really appreciate it about Nick, who's sitting right here, is that I felt like sometimes we were quite harsh in our feedback. And you are so receptive to that. And you're just like, okay, no problem. I'll change it.

Well, if I agreed, which I think I almost always did. But yes, I... Yeah, but I don't think you ever disagreed. I can remember one time you saying, I disagree, but I will try to... But I will try it. Exactly. You were open to trying the suggestion. even if you didn't necessarily think it was needed,

but never in like an angry or annoyed way. So I think that's why you two both work really well together. It's like you never get insulted by the other person's critical feedback. Yeah. I think this is key to being a creative professional that I notice a lot of younger creative people are not good at. They do get offended and they do not take criticism well. Yeah, it's not even like we were criticizing you. We were just like...

Yeah, and we're all trying to make the best thing that we can make here. Yeah. I think that was almost that's almost it. It's like we, Nick, this was Nick and my passion project of that we set out on to make it as good as it could possibly be. And any feedback I gave wasn't, I don't like your thing. It was, I think we can do better. Right. And here's how I think.

And I could be wrong since I'm not the musician. And sometimes you'd send a thing back. I'm like, I'm sorry, I recommended that. It sounded good in my mind. Right, right, right. But we'd be like, add in some like tambourine. Right. Like, no, never mind.

That's awful. Well, I've been in this position a lot where it's surprising where a non-musician makes a recommendation. I'm like, that's not going to sound good. And then either I do it and it sounds good or I do it and it brings me to something else that I wouldn't have gotten to. And so I try to stay open to all that. And at the end, we're not trying to make music for musicians. We're trying to make music for people who are excited about watching this film. So that was the whole point there.

Thanks for the question, Kate. Next one here is from Steve. Hey, team. Firstly, thank you for all you do regarding increasing. awareness of triathlon and multi-sport. My question is along the same theme. In the UK, triathlon and general multi-sport are still minority sports. There's a lot more exposure than there used to be. However, there's still a lot more to do. How can we all increase exposure of the sport to younger generations in schools and clubs and get more kids into multi-sport? TTL does so much for the sport and community,

but I do wonder what more the rest of us could do and support the future generations. Keep smashing it. All the best. Steve. Usually what I come back to with this is there's a financial barrier for a lot of kids and families. I did my first triathlon with my dad's mountain bike. Took the car seat, took the baby seat off of the back that I actually rode around in as a baby. Nice. So it was relatively old. And I used shoes that I duct taped clothes that were definitely not running shoes.

And when I was a running, a woman noticed my... flippy floppy shoes and said, I have a running store. You should come by and I will give you a pair of shoes. And I had so many similar instances, you know, situations like that, somebody that sold me, quote, sold me a TT frame for $250, you know, as a kid. And I worked trimming the hedge in my parent's yard for like three days straight to make $250 to buy this TT bike. They obviously just gave it to me. Right. Right. Right. Some value. So I guess like, really small acts of kindness like that can go a long way just to like decreasing that financial barrier

for a lot of kids. Eric, if you ever come out, if there's ever a signature Eric Lagerstrom shoe, I think the design should have like printed duct tape on it. You know? Like not necessarily real duct tape, but just as an homage. Yeah, I guess if we could start some sort of charity that I thought would, you know, like get as many kids

into multi-sport as possible. It would be some sort of way to get, you know, a thousand, three hundred dollar road bikes. Yeah. To like loan or give away or whatever and then start offering free entries to triathons. You know, if we if we had a trathlon race series that was hashtag raise local, I just like, if you are under the age of 20,

it would be awesome to find a way to like assess need, but we like would love to give away. 100 scholarships or something. Things like that, I think, could help. I never thought of this question from the financial side, because I think that so many kids' sports are so expensive. That it's like if you put your kid in dancing, it is outrageous. You're paying for, like, costumes and all these different classes.

So I think it does also come down to just awareness of the sport in general and the fact that it exists. And it's not about like, oh, I can't. I can't afford to do it necessarily for everybody. But I think that, like, for example, the T-100 is trying to get triathlons on TV more. It's like that is actually the way to get kids into it is having a sport where there's a broadcast and there's, it's on television and it's in the Olympics. I don't know if you guys saw this. Speaking of Olympics, is that triathlon is going to be the first medal in the L.A. Olympics.

Stuff like that. I honestly think little things like that could get kids excited about it. the only reason I ever really got into triathlon is because Simon Whitfield won a gold medal. So it's almost like having mentors that are accessible and, I don't know, like I want to be like him and I'm going to do the sport. That's how most kids start, any sport. I saw the Iron Kids broadcast on TV. What? They broadcast it?

Yeah. I saw a special on, I don't know, a wide world of sports or something, Iron Kids. I think I got to do that. Oh, that's how you got started. That's how I became aware of a travel. Which is like the one mile race, right? Yeah, and then I was like a little bit curious and interested. And then a guy came to, who was a triathlon coach,

to help us do some dry land at swim club and told us, oh, the Blue Lake trathons in two weeks. If any of you were interested. Yeah. I'm like, I am interested. Yeah. I mean, for me, was watching the counter broadcast. So similar, I was older, obviously.

Yeah, it's also like having local events that are, that are for kids as well. Or if you take your kids to an Ironman event, there is an Ironman event, like the day before. Like Jackie Herring was out with her two kids the night before her race. And I went down to watch them too. It's super cute. And it seems like extremely well attended by parents who bring their kids to the event.

Because it's just like a run. You're not doing a swim bike and run, but it's just getting your kids involved in the activity that you're there for and hopefully like hooked later on. The triathlon I did in Hawaii a few weeks ago, they had a kids division, and they talked about how much they do for the kids and educating them and getting them. Yeah, that's cool. And they like race, I think they race for free or something similar. So there are race directors out there who are answering this question for us.

But not even, like, growing the sport doesn't even necessarily always start from the kid level. It's also like bringing people into the sport from other sports. Well, this is why my thing was going to be how many of us were all cyclists first and then got in or runners first or swimmers first. So is the better or the easier thing to just get more people? to do swimming, biking, running, and then if they find their way to triathlon at some point, great. Yeah. Yeah.

If you know a swimmer and Biden on a bike ride and things like that. And just gently suggest. Tell all your friends. I know you're pretty good at this. Okay. Next one here. I don't know how much we're allowed to talk about this. So I'll trust that you guys know where the line is.

But this is from Stephen. I just moved to Vegas and was super excited to watch. race T-100 Lake Las Vegas. Not sure if that was on your calendar this year, but do you have the T-1-1-1-L-Fegas was a race last year? So yes, the T-100 Lake Las Vegas was a race last year.

It was supposed to happen this year. Very recently, they canceled it. It was definitely on the schedule. Yeah, I was going to go to it and canceling it is a bit of a nightmare for me because it then requires me to do one more huge international travel this year. So it was like part of the big plan

was to do it. But anyway, here's what it is. And I've heard, I don't know that this is like completely true, but I've heard that it's because that community was really strained by the road closures last year. They were not happy about it. And therefore, it was really hard to get like the city and the T-100 race organizers to agree on certain like timings and much roads to close. And I also heard they were trying to do the bike course and make it a bit more interesting and go into like a National Park area. And maybe that permitting didn't go through. I don't know.

But it's, it was a challenge. If this was just like a swim run, I think it could have happened. But I think at the bike part, it was a big problem. This is a struggle with many, many races.

The road closures to close down 56 miles for, you know, Half Ironman or for a T-100, it's similar. It's just insane. Like there are no events out there. that have that sort of a drain or, you know, an impact on a community. Yeah, the T-100 is confusing, though, because the loop is...

So small. 10K maximum. Right. Or, like, 12K. And I personally don't remember going on any roads that seemed like a critical artery for transportation of humans. Like, it's in a very resorty hotel area, right? Were people, like, completely trapped in there?

Because you guys did ride out of the main road that we drove in. No, no, no. When you have a race on a road, you have to be able to get out of the hotel. hotel. Like 100% they could still get out, but it was more like, you know, we went by a school and I don't know. We were far away from downtown, like the strip. This was not Vegas.

Remember we had this joke last year? This was Lake Las Vegas. It's like 35 minutes away. I mean, I don't want to just throw everybody in the bus, but I think a lot of the times people in these in communities just, they just want to be upset about it. And it's, and it was for half of a morning one day a year and they're going to complain about it. Yeah.

Yeah. It's really sad because Patrick, who does all of the race directing for the T-100 is amazing and works so hard. Like, it's crazy how much he's traveling trying to push these races through, especially since the T-100 is coming up with brand-new races every year. Like, that is insane for one organization to do that versus Iron Man who's like has these established races and these established race directors and courses and everything. It'd be hard for the T-100 to put on one brand-new race, let alone. six. So I don't blame them. It's really sad, but it's also like they're really trying their best. Yeah. And they're also biting off huge, huge bites. These are not like a community that you've never heard of. These are in major city centers. Vancouver. Shanghai. Yeah. Exactly. Dubai.

Like, like biggest cities in the world. Iron Man definitely tends to go after, I think communities that are a little bit smaller, welcome a race are excited about the financial boosts that it brings. and Lake Las Vegas, these are people who moved to this private community to be aloneish. Yeah, definitely. But we were just talking at dinner about the decreased number of bike races in the U.S. And you were saying it was just because the cost of putting on these races. Yeah, and becoming more challenging for permitting, like paying enough police officers to shut down intersections. It's, yeah, it's hard. They told me once what the cost was of putting on San Francisco, and it's so,

insane. Like the T-100 just, I think, lose money on U.S. races because shutting down roads is so bonkers here. It's not the same in Europe and it's not the same in the Middle East. Eric, do you have that story about the Alcatraz, that one corner that's like three different districts or something? Yeah, they don't do it in the T-100 race, but in the whatever, classic escape from Alcatraz course, the corner where you turn to go into the Golden Gate Park, there's actually like

three different police jurisdictions that all meet there and they all need to be paid off. So it's like they call it the $150,000 corner because just to have that corner shut down is that amount of money. And this is kind of how you get a $900 race. Yeah, brutal. I think it's even more now, by the way. Well, I mean, there's a little bit of supply and demand in there as well. That's true. People are dying to get into that race. I know for a fact when they, when they raised the price back from $450 to $900, they were losing money at $450. Yeah. Because they hadn't raised it in 20 years. Right. Wow. Cool. Okay. Well, Well, next question here.

Hi, Eric, Paul, Nick, and Flynn. As someone who gave up playing sports such as baseball and football, we did a lot of running, but there was never any focus on proper running form. Fast forward to now, I've done a few sprint distance triathlons, as well as some running races, 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, and running has been a struggle for me. I find it hard to get into a groove with my form and tend to get nagging pains here and there. I'm also a very slow runner, 10 to 12 minute per mile pace. and I'm focusing on improving my form before I increase my mileage to help with injury prevention.

I was curious what form tips you would give someone who is trying to improve their stride. I have heard conflicting information and honestly don't know what to focus on. You'll hear some people say, drive your knees, lift your heels to your butt, push off hard, etc. And then you'll see others who say do the opposite. Any insight on what I should focus on when I'm running would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and I wish you guys the best. So I think this was interesting because 10 to 12 minute mile pace is you're running, but you're not gliding across the land.

So maybe that would, would you give that person different tips than someone who's running a 125 half marathon, you know, like six minute mile pace or 630 mile pace. What would you tell someone like that? I mean, my brain kind of first went to drills. I think there are very few cues that you can have in mind while running that don't kind of cause a little bit like overthinking. You guys, I was just imagining someone running a 12 minute mile kicking their butts. Driving their knees. It's like, no, that's not your cue.

I've run a 12 minute mile in pain and there was no part of me that was ready to. Going to kick your butt? No, no. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. No, it's okay. but I sort of agree. A lot of the run drills that Paul and I did in cross-country

and high school and college are designed around increasing your top velocity when you're looking to run whatever, 32 minutes or less 10K. So it's like does doing a hurdle mobility drill versus like if we're at 12 minutes per mile, maybe just like skipping rope to increase some like elastic return. the legs and just focus on like a little bit less ground time. And then the cues that I like the most currently anyway have to do with like a efficient relaxed upper body. Like not leaning back like keeping your chin down, just things that keep your body lean nice and relaxed so you're not super tense in the shoulders. Yeah, Paula, what do you think? I think that Eric's answers are amazing.

I have nothing to add. I think he's right. It's like you just have to have. You just have to to do different drills based on different speeds, and then eventually you're going to get hopefully faster and then do even more different drills. But I will say I never do drills. Like drills in running are not super common, I guess. I think track runners will do them more often, but the distance runners not as much.

Yeah, that's true. Figure out the track, it just feels right to do drills, you know. I also think, like, their margins are so razor thin with how much they win or lose by, that they're, like, trying to optimize every little bit. I think a degree of warming up those tissues when you're doing super explosive movements. I really like the suggestion of jumping rope.

Yeah, that's cool. I'm like pliometric. Doing a little bit of pliometrics and like the ladder, you know, where you're doing fast feet. Because I do think that if you're running in that pace range, a good cue is to increase your cadence. That's what I was thinking. Because I think that'll change your foot strike.

It'll change your foot strike. Yeah, yeah, totally. And you'll just naturally, I think, improve your form by increasing cadence. This is like we talk about this all the time. Like when you're running fast or when you're swimming fast, everything just kind of like looks better, feels a little bit better. Yeah.

And I think running a 10 to 12 minute mile pace is, it's easy to not feel great. Yeah. So I guess this is something that I'm just throwing out there for both of you guys, because I think about it when I'm thinking about increasing cadence is where is that originating from? Is it best? Or do you guys think of like your leg turning?

or your arm carriage or, you know. For me, I noticed that the best way for me to increase my cadence is to really focus on my footstrike to be directly underneath me. Then I kind of like, that just accelerates my turnover a little bit. I don't really think about it. I'll just do it. I mean, that's a great answer. That's a problem with trying to coach when you're naturally, something just came to you naturally. Right.

Right. Great question. That was a really great question. The thing I do like for cadence, one more thing, is sometimes Spotify playlist have like... Uh-huh. 90 beats per minute. Yeah. So then 90 beats per minute is like 180 steps per minute. And it really, I personally think maybe I just like rhythm and just getting into rhythm like that, but it does really help to get your cadence up. And on the bike, too. When I got injured the first time, this tenant thing, I went to a running guy and he said, you have to run at 180 for the next two months.

That's insane. And so I listened to the Spotify playlist. I did that exact thing years and years ago. Increasing your cadence to 180 doesn't necessarily mean running faster. You can still run very slow at 180 cadence. You're just putting less force back. It feels so funny when you're running slow to do a cadence that high. But I think it's just like teaching your brain to like, hey, keep the high cadence.

Okay. Moving on to our last question. Also, we're a little harsh on the fact that he runs 10 to 12 minute miles. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. that. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, I don't really, I don't want to back pedal. But you are slow. It's not, it's, it depends on what you're doing. If you're doing an Iron Man, then it's not that slow. You know, but if you're doing a 5K. If you're doing a 50K, it's not that slow. But even the 5K, what's

slow? It's all relative. We're talking about, is it slow for a high school cross country kid? Yeah, it's slow for a high school cross country kid. But we're all at different places in our fitness here. For sure. Last question here. This is from Dawn. from Maryland. Hello, in a recent episode, I remember Paula making a statement that, in effect, triathlon is net not good for your health. I think what she was getting at was essentially that seriously pursuing the sport, especially at her level, it's very hard on the human body. I bring this up not to be a podcast troll, but because I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. As a family physician with 27 years of experience and someone who starting at age 50

made the transition from couch to completing my first Ironman four and a half years later, I believe sensible triathlon participation generally has tremendously positive health effects, especially from a metabolic perspective. I practiced for 15 years and arguably the U.S. zip code with the worst diabetes stats in the nation for context. Obviously, my perspective on the sport as an enthusiastic but casual Ironman triathlete is very different from Paulus. I'm sure the musculoskeletal effects of a professional triathlete career are a whole other. ball of wax. But on the whole, given that two-thirds of the sport is low-impact swimming and biking, I would be surprised if there was data showing that triathlon participation does not correlate

with improved health outcomes. I love the podcast. I want to clarify something first of all. I 100% agree with him. Yes. Paula was... And I really like that submission. Yeah, you flagged it, actually. You were talking, the context was that you were talking about the gels that people consume while racing. That's what I was talking about. That is what you were talking about. But I think we've all had this thought of is an Ironman, is racing an Ironman at your capable, at your maximum capacity, is that healthy? And I don't know, I think that I go back to you is that that's like, how many are you doing a year? Is it healthy? Neither is going out and getting wasted, drunk, you know, even a single time. And the flip side of that is that

you're training so much. And I do think the training, even the long training, training days. I have found them to be healthy for me as someone who didn't always do this. Yeah. Eric, what do you, what do you, does your heart go anywhere? I think usually when we make that statement of this isn't healthy, we're kind of, yeah, like when we're talking about cramming as many gels as you possibly can into your body for hours at a time, day after day, we're talking about. Right, bike riding in the sun for five hours, roasting your skin. Yeah, like running on an injury that you probably shouldn't because you have a race in two weeks. Yeah, that type of thing.

Just stuff like that. But I think we all completely, hopefully agree that net overall, it's hugely positive. That's what we're trying to get people into the sport. Relative to being sedentary or, I don't know, some sports that involves no aerobic activity. See, that's what's funny is what you just said there is the alternative often is being sedentary. And that, for sure. We'll kill you. And without getting into details, I had a few moments this week where I just realized how lucky

we are that we are in great physical shape and that we can do this. And we work really hard for it. And not to put myself in your guys category as professionals, but we all of us listening to this podcast work really hard on our fitness. And we are so focused on the racing that we don't realize that when we're 60, we're going to our bodies will thank us for this still going on rides i hope together even yeah yeah i completely agree i i said that in the context more of like i don't always feel personally like i'm doing the healthiest thing for my body but yeah when you say that nick i'm

like my brain goes to man i hope my knees yeah are still functional yeah it's more of a muscular Schuylidelito thing. But I really liked what this... Dawn. Don brought up about two of the sports being non-impact. I think that's a really nice also bridge way to like maybe when you don't do

triathlon anymore, you're a cyclist because you're competent in that or you go swimming now because you're competent in that. So getting into the sport gives you three different sport options to do more recreationally later. And the knee thing, like if you do a good job of taking care of your body,

the knees in a marathon or even aren't any worse than someone who, actually they're better than someone who does no training at all. And I know some people in my family who've had hip replacements and stuff, and they certainly weren't athletes. You know, it can kind of happen to anyone at that level. Yeah. Yeah, but I guess I think we're all in a grants. Motion carried.

Wonderful. Motion carried. Travel to his health. You're welcome. Just don't take so many Fing gels and it's healthy Well, those are the questions we had today It is so late here, by the way

This is probably the latest we've ever finished They're recording a podcast And it's pitch black in here now Paul, I can't even see you anymore Go ahead I'm just staring into the void Yeah All right

We did it I wish we could watch a recap of the tour But we don't have one today Oh man, that's true We could rewatch yesterday's time We could watch the preview for tomorrow probably Yes, okay I need my next

It's like when the playoffs for hockey are going on, the tour is going on, it's like, it gives you something to look forward to. And it's gone and you wonder, are we even going to do it when it's over? What is the point of all this? Thanks for listening, everybody. We will talk at you next week. Bye. Bye.